[1] In February 1932, Cazorla was elected a member of the Federación de Juventudes Socialistas (FJSE, Federation of Socialist Youth).

[7] On the eve of Francisco Franco's rebellion, in July 1936, Cazorla and Carrillo; José Díaz and Vicente Uribe of the Communist Party; Manuel Lois of the UGT; and representatives of the PSOE met and agreed on joint action to defend the republic.

The government of the Second Spanish Republic, under Francisco Largo Caballero, had done nothing to prepare the capital's defenses for fear of alarming the population.

[9] José Cazorla was made alternate for Public Order under Santiago Carrillo in the Madrid Defense Council established on 7 November 1936.

[10] Hugh Thomas wrote that Segundo Serrano Poncela, the delegate of public order, was probably responsible, not Carillo, but Koltsov may have been involved.

Suspects were placed in preventative detention, and after police inquiries could be punished by assignment to work brigades or expelled from Madrid.

[13] Cazorla was genuinely concerned with ensuring the security of the Republic, and the CNT Popular Courts were often known to acquit people without investigation who turned out to be working for the rebels, but there were police abuses.

[14] On 29 January 1937, Isidoro Diéguez Dueñas proposed that the POUM radio station in Madrid and its newspaper El Combatiente Rojo should be seized, since he claimed they had been devoted "solely and exclusively to combating the government and the Popular Front."

[20] The prime minister, Francisco Largo Caballero, used the incident as a pretext to dissolve the Madrid Defense Council on 23 April 1937.

[23] A few days before leaving Madrid for Albacete, he married his partner, Aurora Arnáiz Amigo (15 May 1913 – 21 January 2009), another member of the JSU executive committee.

[24] The arrest was by troops led by the anarchist Cipriano Mera Sanz during the anti-communist offensive launched by Segismundo Casado.

[28] Cazorla and his wife were released on 28 March 1939, the day before the troops of the rebel army of Francisco Franco entered the city.