Spanish Civil War

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Spanish Civil War
A Spanish Republican soldier falls in battle (Photographer – Robert Capa)
Date July 17, 1936 – April 1, 1939 Location Continental Spain, Spanish Morocco, Spanish Sahara, Canary Islands, Balearic Islands, Spanish Guinea, Mediterranean Sea Result Nationalist victory
Combatants
Spanish Republic With the support of:  Soviet Union[1] International Brigades	Nationalist Spain With the support of: Italy Germany
Commanders
Manuel Azaña Julián Besteiro Lluís Companys Francisco Largo Caballero Juan Negrín Indalecio Prieto	Francisco Franco Gonzalo Queipo de Llano Emilio Mola José Antonio Primo de Rivera José Sanjurjo Juan Yagüe
Casualties
~500,000[2]

The Spanish Civil War was a major conflict in Spain that started after an attempted coup d'état committed by parts of the army against the government of the Second Spanish Republic. The Civil War devastated Spain from July 17, 1936 to April 1, 1939, ending with the victory of the rebels and the founding of a dictatorship led by the Nationalist General Francisco Franco. The supporters of the Republic, or Republicans (republicanos), gained the support of the Soviet Union and Mexico, while the followers of the Rebellion, also called Nationals (nacionales), received the support of the major European Axis powers of Germany and Italy. The United States remained officially neutral, but sold airplanes to the Republic and gasoline to the Francisco Franco regime.

[edit] Prelude to the war

Foreshadowing the conflict: Salvador Dalí's Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War)

[edit] Historical context

Spain had undergone several civil wars and revolts, carried out by both the reformists and the conservatives, who tried to displace each other from power. While the reformists tried to abolish the absolutist monarchy in the country to end the old regime and found a new model of state, the most traditionalist sectors of the political sphere systematically tried to avert these reforms and to sustain the monarchy. The Infante Carlos and his descendants rallied to the cry of "God, Country and King" and fought for the cause of Spanish tradition (absolutism and Catholicism) against the liberalism and later the republicanism of the Spanish governments of the day, and initiatives like the founding of the First Spanish Republic by the republicans in 1873, began to establish tendencies in the Spanish concept of the state, which, along with other causes, would later culminate in the Civil War of 1936.

There were several reasons for the war, many of them long-term tensions that had escalated over the years. Spain had undergone a number of different systems of rule during the early 19th Century. A monarchy under Alfonso XIII lasted from 1887 to 1924, but was replaced with the military dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. In 1928, this was succeeded by another two years of monarchy until the Second Republic was declared in 1931. This Republic was led by a coalition of the left and center. A number of controversial reforms were passed, such as the Agrarian Law of 1932, distributing land among poor peasants. Millions of Spaniards had been living in more or less absolute poverty under the firm control of the aristocratic landowners in a feudal-like system. These reforms, along with anticlericalist acts and the expulsion of Muslims, as well as military cut-downs and reforms, created strong opposition from the former elite.

[edit] 1933 Election and Aftermath

The political situation had been violent for several years before the beginning of the Civil War. In the 1933 Spanish elections, the Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas) (CEDA) won the most seats in the Cortes, but not enough to form a majority. President Niceto Alcalá Zamora refused to ask its leader, José María Gil-Robles, to form a government, and instead invited Alejandro Lerroux of the Radical Republican Party, a centrist party despite its name, to do so. CEDA supported the Lerroux government; it later demanded and, on October 1, 1934, received three ministerial positions. The Lerroux/CEDA government attempted to annul the social legislation that had been passed by the previous Manuel Azaña government, provoking general strikes in Valencia and Zaragoza, street conflicts in Madrid and Barcelona, and, on October 6, an armed miners' rebellion in Asturias and an autonomist rebellion in Catalonia. Both rebellions were suppressed, and were followed by mass political arrests and trials.

Lerroux's alliance with the right, his harsh repression of the revolt in 1934, and the Stra-Perlo scandal combined to leave him and his party with little support going into the 1936 election. (Lerroux himself lost his seat in parliament.)

[edit] 1936 Popular Front Victory and Aftermath

As internal disagreements mounted in the coalition, strikes were frequent, and there were pistol attacks on unionists and clergy ^[3]. In the elections of February 1936, the Popular Front won a majority of the seats in parliament. The coalition, which included the Socialist Party (PSOE), two liberal parties (the Republican Left Party of Manuel Azaña and the Republican Union Party), and Communist Party of Spain, as well as Galician and Catalan nationalists, received 34.3 percent of the popular vote, compared to 33.2 percent for the National Front parties led by CEDA.^[4] The Basque nationalists were not officially part of the Front, but were sympathetic to it. The anarchist trade union Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), which had sat out previous elections, urged its members to vote for the Popular Front in response to a campaign promise of amnesty for jailed leftists. The Socialist Party refused to participate in the new government. Its leader, Largo Caballero, hailed as "the Spanish Lenin" by Pravda, told crowds that revolution was now inevitable. Privately, however, he aimed merely at ousting the liberals and other non-socialists from the cabinet. Moderate Socialists like Indalecio Prieto condemned the left's May Day marches, clenched fists, and talk of revolution as insanely provocative.^[5]

From the Comintern's point of view the increasingly powerful, if fragmented left, and the weak right were an optimum situation. Their goal was to use a veil of legitimate democratic institutions to outlaw the right and to convert the state into the Soviet vision of a "people's republic" with total leftist domination, a goal which was repeatedly voiced not only in Comintern instructions but also in the public statements of the PCE (Communist Party of Spain). ^[6]

[edit] Azaña becomes President — Reaction

Without the Socialists, Prime Minister Manuel Azaña, a liberal who favored gradual reform while respecting the democratic process, led a minority government. In April, parliament replaced President Niceto Alcalá-Zamora, a moderate who had alienated virtually all the parties, with Azaña. Although the right also voted for Zamora's removal, this was a watershed event which inspired many conservatives to give up on parliamentary politics. Azaña was the object of intense hate by Spanish rightists, who remembered how he had pushed a reform agenda through a recalcitrant parliament in 1931–33. Joaquín Arrarás, a friend of Francisco Franco's, called him "a repulsive caterpillar of red Spain."^[7] The Spanish generals particularly disliked Azaña because he had cut the army's budget and closed the military academy when he was war minister (1931). CEDA turned its campaign chest over to army plotter Emilio Mola. Monarchist José Calvo Sotelo replaced CEDA's Gil Robles as the right's leading spokesman in parliament.^[7]

[edit] Rising Tensions — Political Violence

This was a period of rising tensions. Radicals became more aggressive, while conservatives turned to paramilitary and vigilante actions. According to official sources, 330 people were assassinated and 1,511 were wounded in politically-related violence; records show 213 failed assassination attempts, 113 general strikes, and the destruction of 160 religious buildings.^[8]

[edit] Deaths of Castillo & Calvo Sotelo

On July 12, 1936, José Castillo, a member of the Socialist Party and lieutenant in the Assault Guards, a special police corps created to deal with urban violence, was murdered by a far right group in Madrid. The following day José Calvo Sotelo, the leader of the conservative opposition in the Cortes (Spanish parliament), was killed in revenge by Luis Cuenca who was operating in a commando unit of the Civil Guard led by Captain Fernando Condés Romero. Condés was close to the Socialist leader Indalecio Prieto, and although there is no indication that Prieto was complicit in Cuenca's decision to shoot Calvo Sotelo, the assassination of a member of parliament aroused suspicions and strong reactions amongst the Center and the Right.^[9] Calvo Sotelo was the most prominent Spanish monarchist and had protested against what he viewed as an escalating anti-religious terror, expropriations, and hasty agricultural reforms, which he considered Bolshevist and Anarchist. He instead advocated the creation of a corporative state and declared that if such a state was fascist, he was also a fascist.^[10]

He also declared that Spanish soldiers would be mad to not rise for Spain against Anarchy. In turn, the leader of the communists, Dolores Ibarruri, known as La Pasionaria, allegedly had vowed that Calvo Sotelo's speech would be his last speech in the Cortes.^[11][12] Although the Nationalist generals were already at advanced stages of planning an uprising, the event is seen by some as a catalyst for what followed.

[edit] Outbreak of the War

[edit] National Military Revolt

On July 17, 1936, the nationalist-traditionalist rebellion long feared by some in the Popular Front government began. Its start was signaled by the phrase "Over all of Spain, the sky is clear" that was broadcast on the radio. Casares Quiroga, who had succeeded Azaña as prime minister, had in the previous weeks exiled the military officers suspected of conspiracy against the Republic, including General Manuel Goded y Llopis and General Francisco Franco, sent to the Balearic Islands and to the Canary Islands, respectively. Both generals immediately took control of these islands. Franco then flew to Spanish Morocco to see Juan March Ordinas, where the Nationalist Army of Africa were almost unopposed in assuming control.

[edit] Government Reaction

The rising was intended to be a swift coup d'état, but was botched; conversely, the government was able to retain control of only part of the country. In this first stage, the rebels failed to take any major cities — in Madrid they were hemmed into the Montaña barracks. The barracks fell the next day with much bloodshed. In Barcelona, anarchists armed themselves and defeated the rebels. General Goded, who arrived from the Balearic islands, was captured and later executed. The anarchists would control Barcelona and much of the surrounding Aragonese and Catalan countryside for months. The Republicans held on to Valencia and controlled almost all of the Eastern Spanish coast and central area around Madrid. Except for Asturias, Cantabria and part of the Basque Country, the Nationalists took most of northern and northwestern Spain and also a southern area in central and western Andalusia including Seville.

[edit] The combatants

[edit] The Republicans

The American volunteers fought united in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

Polish volunteers of the International Brigades.

Republicans received weapons and volunteers from the Soviet Union, Mexico, the international Socialist movement, the International Brigades, and even American volunteers while the Nationalists received weapons and soldiers from Italy and Germany, and logistical support from Portugal. The republicans ranged from centrists who supported a moderately capitalist liberal democracy to revolutionary anarchists and communists; their power base was primarily secular and urban, but also included landless peasants, and it was particularly strong in industrial regions like Asturias and Catalonia ^[13].

The conservative, strongly Catholic Basque Country, along with Catalonia and Galicia, sought autonomy or even independence from the central government of Madrid. This option was left open by the Republican government.^[14]

[edit] The Nationalists

The Nationalists on the contrary opposed these separatist movements. The Nationalists had a generally wealthier, more conservative base of Catholic, monarchist, centralist, landowning and fascist interests, and they favoured the centralization of state power. Most Roman Catholic clergy supported the Nationalists.

[edit] Other Factions in the War

The active participants in the war covered the entire gamut of the political positions and ideologies of the time. The Nationals (nacionales) side included the Carlists and Legitimist monarchists, Spanish nationalists, fascists of the Falange, Catholics, and most conservatives and monarchist liberals. On the Republican side were Basque and Catalan nationalists, socialists, communists, liberals and anarchists.

To view the political alignments from another perspective, the Nationals included the majority of the Catholic clergy and of practicing Catholics (outside of the Basque region), important elements of the army, most of the large landowners, and many businessmen. The Republicans included most urban workers, most peasants, and much of the educated middle class, especially those who were not entrepreneurs. The genial monarchist General José Sanjurjo was figurehead of the rebellion, while Emilio Mola was chief planner and second in command. Mola began serious planning in the spring, but General Francisco Franco hesitated until early July, inspiring other plotters to refer to him as "Miss Canary Islands 1936." Franco was a key player because of his prestige as a former director of the military academy and the man who suppressed the Socialist uprising of 1934. Warned that a military coup was imminent, leftists put barricades up on the roads on July 17. Franco avoided capture by taking a tugboat to the airport. From there he flew to Morocco, where he took command of the battle-hardened colonial army.^[15] Sanjurjo was killed in a plane crash on July 20, leaving effective command split between Mola in the north and Franco in the South. Franco was chosen overall commander at a meeting of ranking generals at Salamanca on September 21. He outranked Mola and by this point his Army of Africa had demonstrated its military superiority.

One of the Nationalists' principal claimed motives was to confront the anti-clericalism of the Republican regime and to defend the Roman Catholic Church, which had been the target of attacks, and which many on the Republican side blamed for the ills of the country. In the opening days of the war religious buildings were burnt without action on the part of the Republican authorities to prevent it. As part of the social revolution taking place, others were turned into Houses of the People.^[16] Similarly, many of the massacres perpetrated by the Republican side targeted the Catholic clergy. Franco's religious Moroccan Muslim troops found this repulsive and for the most part fought loyally and often ferociously for the Nationalists. Articles 24 and 26 of the Constitution of the Republic had banned the Jesuits, which deeply offended many of the Nationalists. After the beginning of the Nationalist coup, anger flared anew at the Church and its role in Spanish politics. Notwithstanding these religious matters, the Basque nationalists, who nearly all sided with the Republic, were, for the most part, practicing Catholics. Pope John Paul II later canonised several people murdered for being priests or nuns. ^[17] More than 6000 clergy and religious were killed.

Republican sympathizers proclaimed it as a struggle between "tyranny and democracy", or "fascism and liberty", and many non-Spanish young, committed reformers and revolutionaries joined the International Brigades, believing the Spanish Republic was the front line of the war against fascism. Franco's supporters, however, portrayed it as a battle between the "red hordes" of communism and anarchism on the one hand and "Christian civilization" on the other. They also stated that they were protecting the Establishment and bringing security and direction to what they felt was an ungoverned and lawless society.^[18]

[edit] Foreign Involvement

Main article: Spanish Civil War and Foreign Involvement

The Spanish Civil War had large numbers of non-Spanish citizens participating in combat and advisory positions. Foreign governments contributed large amounts of financial assistance and military aid to forces led by Generalísimo Francisco Franco and to those fighting on behalf of the Second Spanish Republic.

[edit] Evacuation of Children

As war proceeded in the Northern front, the Republican authorities arranged the evacuation of children. These Spanish War children were shipped to Britain, Belgium, the Soviet Union and other European countries. Those in Western European countries returned to their families after the war, but many of those in the Soviet Union, from Communist families, remained and experienced the Second World War and its effects on the Soviet Union.

Like the Republican side, the Nationalist side of Franco also arranged evacuations of children, women and elderly from war zones. Refugee camps for those civilians evacuated by the Nationalists were set up in Portugal, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium.

[edit] Pacifism in Spain

In the 1930s Spain also became a focus for pacifist organizations including the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the War Resisters League and the War Resisters' International (whose president was the British MP and Labour Party leader George Lansbury). With their focus on government action and military reaction, and against the background of the terrible violence that took place, academic historians, authors, journalists and film-makers have all paid attention to the great political machines that were at work, and have largely overlooked many non-governmental international and grass roots movements, including the 'insumisos' ('defiant ones') who argued and worked for non-violent strategies.

Prominent Spanish pacifists such as Amparo Poch y Gascón and José Brocca supported the Republicans. As American author Scott H. Bennett has demonstrated, 'pacifism' in Spain certainly did not equate with 'passivism', and the dangerous work undertaken and sacrifices made by pacifist leaders and activists such as Poch and Brocca show that 'pacifist courage is no less heroic than the military kind' (Bennett, 2003: 67-68). Brocca argued that Spanish pacifists had no alternative but to make a stand against fascism. He put this stand into practice by various means including organising agricultural workers to maintain food supplies and through humanitarian work with war refugees. ^[19]

[edit] Atrocities during the war

Nationalist aircraft bomb Madrid in late November 1936.

Picasso's Guernica was painted as a representation of the bombing of Guernica.

Spanish Leftists Shoot at a statue of Christ

Atrocities were committed on both sides during the war. The use of terror against civilians foreshadowed World War II. Atrocities on the Republican side were committed by groups of radical leftists (mainly anarchists and communists) against the rebel supporters, including the nobility, former landowners, rich farmers, industrialists and the Church. Other repressive actions in the Republican side were committed by specific factions such as the Stalinist NKVD (the Soviet secret police)^[20]. Note that these crimes committed by the NKVD were carried out not only against the Nationalists but also against all those who did not share their ideology, even if they were fighting on the Republican side. In addition, many Republican leaders, such as Lluís Companys, president of the Generalitat de Catalunya, the autonomous government of Catalonia, that remained loyal to the Republic, carried out numerous actions to mediate in cases of deliberate executions of the clergy^[21].

Unlike the Republican side, where the atrocities were not typically carried out by the government but by radical leftists or specific factions such as the Stalinist NKVD, in the case of the Nationalist side these atrocities were ordered by fascist authorities in order to eradicate any trace of leftism in Spain. This included the aerial bombing of cities in the Republican territory, carried out mainly by the Luftwaffe volunteers of the Condor Legion and the Italian air force volunteers of the Corpo Truppe Volontarie (Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Guernica, and other cities, counted tens of thousands of deaths due to these bombardments), the execution of school teachers (because the efforts of the Republic to promote laicism and to displace the Church from the education system, and the closing of religious schools, were considered by the Nationalist side as an attack on the Church), the execution of individuals because of accusations of anti-clericalism, the massive killings of civilians in the liberated cities, the execution of unwanted individuals (including non-combatants such as trade-unionists and known Republican sympathisers) and their entire families, etc^[22].

Atrocities by the Left during what has been termed Spain's red terror took a great toll on the Catholic faithful, especially clerics, as churches, convents and monasteries were desecrated, pillaged and burned, 13 bishops, 4184 diocesan priests, 2365 male religious (among them 114 Jesuits) and 283 nuns were murdered, and there are accounts of Catholic faithful being forced to swallow rosary beads, thrown down mine shafts and priests being forced to dig their own graves before being buried alive. ^[23].

[edit] The war: 1936

Situation of the fronts in August 1936.

Main article: Spanish Civil War chronology 1936

In the early days of the war, over 50,000 people who were caught on the "wrong" side of the lines were assassinated or summarily executed. The numbers were probably comparable on both sides. In these paseos ("promenades"), as the executions were called, the victims were taken from their refuges or jails by armed people to be shot outside of town. The corpses were abandoned or interred in digs made by the victims themselves. Local police just noted the apparition of the corpses. Probably the most famous such victim was the poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca. The outbreak of the war provided an excuse for settling accounts and resolving long-standing feuds. Thus, this practice became widespread during the war in areas conquered. In most areas, even within a single given village, both sides committed assassinations.

Any hope of a quick ending to the war was dashed on July 21, the fifth day of the rebellion, when the Nationalists captured the main Spanish naval base at Ferrol in northwestern Spain. This encouraged the Fascist nations of Europe to help Franco, who had already contacted the governments of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy the day before. On July 26, the future Axis Powers cast their lot with the Nationalists. Nationalist forces under Franco won another great victory on September 27 when they relieved the Alcázar at Toledo.

A Nationalist garrison under Colonel Moscardo had held the Alcázar in the center of the city since the beginning of the rebellion, resisting for months against thousands of Republican troops who completely surrounded the isolated building. The inability to take the Alcázar was a serious blow to the prestige of the Republic, as it was considered inexplicable in view of their numerical superiority in the area. Two days after relieving the siege, Franco proclaimed himself Generalísimo and Caudillo ("chieftain") while forcibly unifying the various Falangist and Royalist elements of the Nationalist cause. In October, the Nationalists launched a major offensive toward Madrid, reaching it in early November and launching a major assault on the city on November 8. The Republican government was forced to shift from Madrid to Valencia, out of the combat zone, on November 6. However, the Nationalists' attack on the capital was repulsed in fierce fighting between November 8 and 23. A contributory factor in the successful Republican defense was the arrival of the International Brigades, though only around 3000 of them participated in the battle. Having failed to take the capital, Franco bombarded it from the air and, in the following two years, mounted several offensives to try to encircle Madrid. (See also Siege of Madrid (1936-39))

On November 18, Germany and Italy officially recognized the Franco regime, and on December 23, Italy sent "volunteers" of its own to fight for the Nationalists.

[edit] The war: 1937

Situation of the fronts in October 1937.

Main article: Spanish Civil War chronology 1937

With his ranks being swelled by Italian troops and Spanish colonial soldiers from Morocco, Franco made another attempt to capture Madrid in January and February of 1937, but failed again.

On February 21 the League of Nations Non-Intervention Committee ban on foreign national "volunteers" went into effect. The large city of Málaga was taken on February 8. On March 7 German Condor Legion equipped with Heinkel He 51 biplanes arrived in Spain; on April 26 they bombed the town of Guernica in the Basque Country; two days later, Franco's men entered the town.

After the fall of Guernica, the Republican government began to fight back with increasing effectiveness. In July, they made a move to recapture Segovia, forcing Franco to pull troops away from the Madrid front to halt their advance. Mola, Franco's second-in-command, was killed on June 3, and in early July, despite the fall of Bilbao in June, the government actually launched a strong counter-offensive in the Madrid area, which the Nationalists repulsed with some difficulty. The clash was called "Battle of Brunete" (Brunete is a town in the province of Madrid).

After that, Franco regained the initiative, invading Aragon in August and then taking the city of Santander (now in Cantabria). Two months of bitter fighting followed and, despite determined Asturian resistance, Gijón (in Asturias) fell in late October, which effectively ended the war in the North.

Meanwhile, on August 28, the Vatican recognized Franco, and at the end of November, with the Nationalists closing in on Valencia, the government moved again, to Barcelona.

[edit] The war: 1938

Situation of the fronts in November 1938.

Main article: Spanish Civil War chronology 1938-1939

The Battle of Teruel was an important confrontation between Nationalists and Republicans. The city belonged to the Nationalists at the beginning of the battle, but the Republicans conquered it in January. The Nationalists launched an offensive and recovered the city by February 22. On April 14, the Nationalists broke through to the Mediterranean Sea, cutting the government-held portion of Spain in two. The government tried to sue for peace in May, but Franco demanded unconditional surrender, and the war raged on.

The Republicans were also split among themselves. The left and the conservatives had many conflicting ideas. The Cortes (Spanish Parliament) consisted of 16 parties in 1931. When autonomy was granted to Catalonia and the Basque Provinces in 1932, a nationalist coup was attempted but failed. An anarchist uprising resulted in the massacre of hundreds of rebels. In addition to this opposition, Spanish export decreased with 75% between 1931 and 1942. Thus, the rural reforms were of little help to the starving lower class. Economic difficulties on the whole prevented the Republic from doing anything constructive during its time in government.

The government now launched an all-out campaign to reconnect their territory in the Battle of the Ebro, beginning on July 24 and lasting until November 26. The campaign was militarily unsuccessful, and was undermined by the Franco-British appeasement of Hitler in Munich. The concession of Czechoslovakia destroyed the last vestiges of Republican morale by ending all hope of an anti-fascist alliance with the great powers. The retreat from the Ebro all but determined the final outcome of the war. Eight days before the new year, Franco struck back by throwing massive forces into an invasion of Catalonia.

[edit] The war: 1939

Main article: Spanish Civil War chronology 1938-1939

Franco declares the end of the war. However, small pockets of insurgents still fought.

The Nationalists conquered Catalonia in a whirlwind campaign during the first two months of 1939. Tarragona fell on January 14, followed by Barcelona on January 26 and Girona on February 5. Five days after the fall of Girona, the last resistance in Catalonia was broken.

On February 27, the governments of the United Kingdom and France recognized the Franco regime.

Only Madrid and a few other strongholds remained for the government forces. On March 28, with the help of pro-Franco forces inside the city (the "fifth column" General Mola had mentioned in propaganda broadcasts in 1936), Madrid fell to the Nationalists. The next day, Valencia, which had held out under the guns of the Nationalists for close to two years, also surrendered. Victory was proclaimed on April 1, when the last of the Republican forces surrendered.

After the end of the War, there were harsh reprisals against Franco's former enemies on the left, when thousands of Republicans were imprisoned and between 10,000 and 28,000 executed, according to the most conservative estimates. But death tolls from 50,000 to 200,000 have been proposed for this period, known in Spanish as la Feroz Matanza (the Fierce Slaughter). Hundreds of thousands of other Republicans fled abroad, especially to France and Mexico; many would later return out of desperation, usually to a life as losers in their own country. After the official end of the war, guerrilla war waged on an irregular basis, well into the Fifties, being gradually annihilated by the state's repression, a cruel mirroring of what happened beyond the Iron Curtain, in the meantime, to the anti-Communist resistance movements.

[edit] Social revolution

Main article: Spanish Revolution

In the anarchist-controlled areas, Aragon and Catalonia, in addition to the temporary military success, there was a vast social revolution in which the workers and the peasants collectivised land and industry, and set up councils parallel to the paralyzed Republican government. This revolution was opposed by both the Soviet-supported communists, who ultimately took their orders from Stalin's politburo (which feared a loss of control), and the Social Democratic Republicans (who worried about the loss of civil property rights). The agrarian collectives had considerable success despite opposition and lack of resources, as Franco had already captured lands with some of the richest natural resources.

As the war progressed, the government and the communists were able to leverage their access to Soviet arms to restore government control over the war effort, both through diplomacy and force. Anarchists and the POUM were integrated with the regular army, albeit with resistance; the POUM was outlawed and falsely denounced as an instrument of the fascists. In the May Days of 1937, many hundreds or thousands of anti-fascist soldiers fought one another for control of strategic points in Barcelona, recounted by George Orwell in Homage to Catalonia.

[edit] People

[edit] Political parties and organizations

Military architecture of the Spanish civil war. Archaeological studies in Oviedo, Asturias. Republican bunker constructed in 1937 during the siege to the city.

Puente Nuevo, the bridge that links together the two parts of Ronda in Spain. Behind the window near the center of the bridge is a prison cell. There have been allegations that during the Civil War the nationalists threw people who supported the Republicans from the bridge to their deaths many meters down at the bottom of the El Tajo canyon. On the other hand, authorities confirm the atrocities committed by the Republicans against the Nationalists at Ronda. "Thus the description in Ernest Hemingway's novel For Whom the Bell Tolls of how the inhabitants of a small pueblo first beat all male members of the middle class with heavy flails and then flung them over a cliff is near to the reality of what happened in the superb Andalusian town of Ronda. There 512 were murdered in the first month of the war." ^[24]

[edit] Conclusion

The impact of the war was massive: the Spanish economy took decades to recover. The political and emotional repercussions of the war reverberated far beyond the boundaries of Spain and sparked passion among international intellectual and political communities, passions that still are present in Spanish politics today.

[edit] Notes

[edit] Bibliography

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• Bennett, Scott (2003). Radical Pacifism: The War Resisters League and Gandhian Nonviolence in America, 1915-1963. Syracuse NY: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0-8156-3028-X. 

• Brenan, Gerald (1990, reissued). The Spanish labyrinth: an account of the social and political background of the Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-39827-4. 
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• Greening, Edwin (2006). From Aberdare to Albacete: A Welsh International Brigader's Memoir of His Life. Pontypool, Wales (NP4 7AG): Warren and Pell. 
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• Payne, Stanley (2004). The Spanish Civil War, the Soviet Union, and Communism. New Haven; London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-10068-X. 
• Prasad, Devi (2005). War is a Crime Against Humanity: The Story of War Resisters' International. London: War Resisters' International, wri-irg.org. ISBN 0-903517-20-5. 
• Preston, Paul (1978). The Coming of the Spanish Civil War. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-23724-2. 
• Preston, Paul (1996). A Concise history of the Spanish Civil War. London: Fontana. ISBN 978-0006863731. 
• Puzzo, Dante Anthony (1962). Spain and the Great Powers, 1936–1941. Freeport, N.Y: Books for Libraries Press (originally Columbia University Press, N.Y.). ISBN 0-8369-6868-9. 
• Radosh, Ronald; Mary Habeck, Grigory Sevostianov (2001). Spain betrayed: the Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-08981-3. 
• Rust, William (2003 Reprint of 1939 edition). Britons in Spain: A History of the British Battalion of the XV International Brigade. Pontypool, Wales (NP4 7AG): Warren and Pell. 
• Stradling, Rob (1996). Cardiff and The Spanish Civil War. Cardiff (CF1 6AG): Butetown History and Arts Centre. ISBN 1-898317-06-2. 
• Taafle, Peter reviews Battle for Spain – The Spanish Civil War of 1936–39 by Anthony Beevor (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £25).
• Thomas, Hugh (2003 reissued). The Spanish Civil War. London: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-101161-0. 
• Walters, Guy (2006). Berlin Games – How Hitler Stole the Olympic Dream (Chapter Six contains an account of how the outbreak of fighting in Barcelona affected those visiting the abortive People's Olympiad). London, New York: John Murray (UK), HarperCollins (US). ISBN 0-7195-6783-1, 0-0608-7412-0. 
• Wheeler, George (2003). To Make the People Smile Again: a Memoir of the Spanish Civil War (foreword by Jack Jones, edited by David Leach). Newcastle upon Tyne: Zymurgy Publishing. ISBN 1-903506-07-7. 
• Williams, Alun Menai (2004). From the Rhondda to the Ebro: The Story of a Young Life. Pontypool, Wales (NP4 7AG): Warren & Pell. 

[edit] See also

• Second Spanish Republic
• Anarchism in Spain
• Spanish Revolution
• International Brigades
• Ireland and the Spanish Civil War
• Bombing of Guernica
• Proxy war
• European Civil War
• Spanish Maquis

[edit] Related films

• España 1936, pro-Republican documentary by Luis Buñuel.
• The Spanish Earth (Joris Ivens, 1937; pro-Republican documentary, narrated by Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos.
• Defenders of the Faith, 1938; pro-Nationalist documentary by Russell Palmer
• Raza (Jose Luis Saenz de Heredia, 1942)
• For Whom the Bell Tolls (Sam Wood, 1943, from the Ernest Hemingway novel)
• The Fallen Sparrow, (Richard Wallace, 1943, from the Dorothy B. Hughes novel; John Garfield played a Spanish Civil War veteran who has returned to New York City to find out the truth about his friend's death).
• Behold a Pale Horse, (Fred Zinnemann), 1964, loosely based on the life of Catalan anarchist Francisco Sabaté Llopart.
• The Heifer (La vaquilla) (Luis García Berlanga, 1985)
• The Spanish Civil War (BBC-Granada, 1987)
• ¡Ay, Carmela! (Carlos Saura, Spain/Italy 1990) Comedy/drama about two actors who find themselves on the wrong side of the front line.
• Belle Époque (Fernando Trueba, 1992)
• Land and Freedom (Ken Loach, 1995) The war seen through the eyes of a British volunteer.
• Libertarias (Vicente Aranda, 1996)
• Vivir la Utopia (Living Utopia) by Juan Gamero, Arte-TVE, Catalunya 1997
• La Lengua de las Mariposas (Butterflies), José Luis Cuerda, 1999)
• The Devil's Backbone (El espinazo del diablo) (Guillermo del Toro, 2001)
• Soldados de Salamina (David Trueba, 2002)

On the immediate post-Civil War:

• The Spirit of the Beehive (El espíritu de la colmena) (Víctor Erice, 1973)
• La Colmena (Mario Camus), (1982)
• Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno) (Guillermo del Toro, 2006)

[edit] Related literature

• Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell(1938)
• For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (1940)
• 40 Preguntas Fundamentales sobre la Guerra Civil by Stanley G. Payne (2006)
• The Living and the Dead by Patrick White (1941)
• As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee (1969)
• A Moment of War by Laurie Lee (1991)
• The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (2001)
• L'espoir by Andre Malraux
• Diamond square by Mercè Rodoreda (1962)
• Les Grands cimetieres sous la Lune by Georges Bernanos
• Spain in my hearth (España en el corazón) by Pablo Neruda
• Labyrinth of Struggle by Mauricio Escobar (2006)

On the immediate Post-Civil War:

• La Colmena by Camilo Jose Cela

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Spanish Civil War

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Relations of Members of the United Nations with Spain

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Condecoraciones otorgadas por Francisco Franco a Benito Mussolini y a Adolf Hitler

• Imperial War Museum Collection of Spanish Civil War Posters hosted by AHDS Visual Arts
• Documents on Irish involvement in the SCW 1936–39
• The Spanish Civil War, by George Orwell
• Constitución de la República Española (1931)
• Professor Marek Jan Chodakiewicz on The Spanish Civil War
• A collection of essays by Albert and Vera Weisbord with about a dozen essays written during and about the Spanish Civil War.
• Anarchism in the Spanish Revolution
• The Anarcho-Statists of Spain, a different view of the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War
• A reply to the above by an anarchist
• A description, according to the Vatican, of the religious persecution suffered by Catholics during the Spanish Civil War (in Spanish).
• A History of the Spanish Civil War, excerpted from a U.S. government country study.
• Spanish Civil War Info From Spartacus Educational
• La Cucaracha, The Spanish Civil War Diary, an excellent and detailed chronicle of the events of the war
• American Jews in Spanish Civil War
• Ronald Hilton, Spain, 1931–36, From Monarchy to Civil War, An Eyewitness Account,
• Columbia Historical Review Dutch Involvement in the Spanish Civil War
• Noam Chomsky's Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship
• Civil War Documentaries made by the CNT
• Spanish Civil War and Revolution text archive in the libcom.org library
• Spanish Civil War and Revolution image gallery – photographs and posters from the conflict
• The Spanish Civil War and Revolution 1936–1939 Web sites, articles, books & pamphlets online, and films (on Tidsskriftcentret.dk)
• Causa General, conclusions of the process started by Franco's government after the war to judge their enemies' actions during the conflict
• With the Reds in Andalusia, By Joe Monks, 1985. An Irish member of the Int Brigade.
• Irish and Jewish Volunteers in the Spanish Anti-Fascist War Pamphlet by Manus O'Riordan
• O'Duffy's Bandera in Spain
• The Spanish Revolution, 1936–39 articles & links, from Anarchy Now!
• Juan García Oliver, The Revolutionary Institutions: The Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias
• Asociacion Frente de Aragonphotos of the uniforms and insignia of Spanish Civil War units.
• Aircraft of the Spanish Civil War