S8 Ep652: 9. The Revolutionary Background of the Mercader Family Guest: Josh Ireland Summary: Ireland details the radicalization of the Mercader family, led by the charismatic Caridad. He explains how her son Ramon was recruited by the NKVD during the Spanish Civil
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 28 March 2026
⏱️ 11 minutes
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Summary
9. The Revolutionary Background of the Mercader Family Guest: Josh Ireland Summary: Ireland details the radicalization of the Mercader family, led by the charismatic Caridad. He explains how her son Ramon was recruited by the NKVD during the Spanish Civil War for future espionage. (9)
1921 MOSCOW RED GUARD
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Bachelor. |
| 0:17.1 | Continuing with Josh Ireland, the book is The Death of Trotsky, the true story of the plot |
| 0:22.8 | to kill Stalin's greatest denoum. Trotsky in 1937 is in Mexico, being hosted by two very famous artists |
| 0:32.6 | in the Mexican pantheon under the protection of the Mexican president and government. He's got available police |
| 0:41.0 | and guards, and he's in a small suburb outside of Mexico City, living in what it's called |
| 0:47.1 | the Blue House, and everything is available to him. His correspondence is kept up. He can access to books. |
| 0:55.2 | He reads several languages. His wife, Natalia, is with him. His correspondence is kept up. He can access to books. He reads several languages. |
| 1:00.5 | His wife, Natalia, is with him. He receives bad news all the time about his family being a murdered or disappeared or starved. But he's fine. And at the same time, he's aware that Stalin wants him |
| 1:08.9 | dead and that out there somewhere is the murderer himself or herself. |
| 1:13.6 | We begin now to reorganize our thinking, not from the heights of the revolution, but from those who served the revolution, who were recruited. |
| 1:25.0 | That takes us to the Mercotter family. And the Mercotters are notable in that the |
| 1:32.7 | mother is the engine that carries this family along. Her name is Karadad. And she raises nothing but |
| 1:40.6 | revolutionaries. Her son Ramon will become the man we're going to spend time with, |
| 1:45.7 | but all of her children in some fashion are caught up with the new day. In the Spanish revolution |
| 1:52.3 | or in the theoretical French Revolution, the French Communist Party, all of them speak that language |
| 1:58.1 | all the time. Josh, what do we need to know about Karadad Makotar? |
| 2:04.1 | Who was she? |
| 2:05.1 | Where did she come from? |
| 2:06.1 | Where did she get that firepower? |
| 2:08.7 | So I think, so she's, she is a Cuban aristocrat who comes from Havana and moves to Barcelona at the beginning of the 20th century where she marries a sort of another minor aristocrat is from a prosperous Catalan family. |
| 2:30.8 | And her life on the face of it looks set to become a very conventional one, one of, you know, attending balls and riding horses and birthing children. |
| 2:42.0 | But even then, there's something different about Caridad. |
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