Spanish Civil War

I was watching an old British documentary about it and learned a lot of surprising new things I didnt know before. The previous stuff I knew basically painted the Republic as the good guys who were fighting fascism, but the reality was more complex.

Like the new Republic after the monarchy's downfall was filled with radicals like communists, anarchists, and socialists who could barely form a government. Anarchists refused to participate and tried to fend off for themselves. Land owners were being forced out without compensation and sometimes even being killed. Churches looted and closed while nuns were attacked and killed. Jails being emptied and criminals taking revenge against cops and judges. The whole country had basically become lawless.

The reactionaries only began to rebel when they felt threatened to lose their estates and the Church sided with them after being banned. Franco was eventually chosen as the leader of the coalition even though he wasnt fascist and had the fascist leadership killed and he took over the party- he was a monarchist and dictator but never applied fascist principles when he came to power.

The Republic was never unified and their army never had a central command- their soldiers would hold debates before they followed orders from officers. Although Germany and Italy did lend a hand to the rebellion, the overriding factor why the Republic lost in the battlefield was because they were never united and constantly fighting each other.

All in all, quite interesting.

There are still ghosts from the past in Spanish politics today.

PoS said:

I was watching an old British documentary about it and learned a lot of surprising new things I didnt know before. The previous stuff I knew basically painted the Republic as the good guys who were fighting fascism, but the reality was more complex.

Like the new Republic after the monarchy's downfall was filled with radicals like communists, anarchists, and socialists who could barely form a government. Anarchists refused to participate and tried to fend off for themselves. Land owners were being forced out without compensation and sometimes even being killed. Churches looted and closed while nuns were attacked and killed. Jails being emptied and criminals taking revenge against cops and judges. The whole country had basically become lawless.

The reactionaries only began to rebel when they felt threatened to lose their estates and the Church sided with them after being banned. Franco was eventually chosen as the leader of the coalition even though he wasnt fascist and had the fascist leadership killed and he took over the party- he was a monarchist and dictator but never applied fascist principles when he came to power.

The Republic was never unified and their army never had a central command- their soldiers would hold debates before they followed orders from officers. Although Germany and Italy did lend a hand to the rebellion, the overriding factor why the Republic lost in the battlefield was because they were never united and constantly fighting each other.

All in all, quite interesting.

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If you're interested in reading more, I can recommend "The Battle for Spain" by Antony Beevor.
Has some nice details, including how the Anarchists got screwed over.

HK.227 said:

If you're interested in reading more, I can recommend "The Battle for Spain" by Antony Beevor.
Has some nice details, including how the Anarchists got screwed over.

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Right now it seems to me that the anarchists screwed themselves since they outright refused to have anything to do with the Republican government when it was fighting for its life.

Not enough is said about the importance of the Spanish Civil War in terms of history lessons, and that is remarkably sad.

PoS said:

Right now it seems to me that the anarchists screwed themselves since they outright refused to have anything to do with the Republican government when it was fighting for its life.

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Libertarians are just anarchists with money.

Anyway, George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia is a great book from a fighter's perspective.

Makes Hemingway's war stories and correspondence about the Spanish Civil War worth re-reading.

For Hitler and Mussolini, Spain became a battlefield to test their tactics, strategies and technologies. Europe should have woken to the threat posed by Stuka dive bombers, Italian troops, and Guernica. Yet appeasement allowed for the horrors of world war to become reality.

Aristaeus said:

Libertarians are just anarchists with money.

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Bzzt. Wrong.

Anyway, George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia is a great book from a fighter's perspective.

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Orwell's faction the POUM was basically betrayed by other socialists- just shows how unworkable that system is.

PoS said:

Bzzt. Wrong.


Orwell's faction the POUM was basically betrayed by other socialists- just shows how unworkable that system is.

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**** happens in a civil war. Matters not if it's socialism or capitalism.

Aristaeus said:

**** happens in a civil war. Matters not if it's socialism or capitalism.

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In this case the capitalist system proved superior by winning in the end. The republic initially outnumbered the rebels by almost 8-1.

PoS said:

In this case the capitalist system proved superior by winning in the end. The republic initially outnumbered the rebels by almost 8-1.

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Franco and his cohorts weren't capitalists by any stretch of the imagination. Nationalized almost all Spanish industry and land. Basically stripped the nobility of its wealth. The republic favored democracy and individual capitalism, the end of the Monarchy's powers. Franco wanted Mussolini's fascism with himself replacing the nobility as dictator. Franco won, not Spain.

PoS said:

In this case the capitalist system proved superior by winning in the end. The republic initially outnumbered the rebels by almost 8-1.

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Lol Franco was not a capitalist. The reason that he won despite the numerical inferiority was simple. Franco's soldiers were battle harden veterans with superior weapons vs a Republican peoples army with limited training and weapons. And the German Air superiority made a huge difference. He also did not get rid of the nobility, just the ones that did not support him. Franco was a royalist and the military was filled with nobility....like Franco.. You do know his family had a coat of arms right?

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OldFatGuy said:

Franco and his cohorts weren't capitalists by any stretch of the imagination. Nationalized almost all Spanish industry and land. Basically stripped the nobility of its wealth. The republic favored democracy and individual capitalism, the end of the Monarchy's powers. Franco wanted Mussolini's fascism with himself replacing the nobility as dictator. Franco won, not Spain.

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Franco was a dictator, but he wasnt fascist. Spain's economy remained isolated during the war, but began to pick up during the 1950's when it entered into an alliance with the US. The Spanish nobility remained entrenched during much of his time in power.

PoS said:

Franco was a dictator, but he wasnt fascist. Spain's economy remained isolated during the war, but began to pick up during the 1950's when it entered into an alliance with the US. The Spanish nobility remained entrenched during much of his time in power.

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Uh.....yes, Franco absolutely was fascist. The only reason why he didn't enter the war on the side of the Axis was that he was mildly too cautious to do so. Spain provided large amounts of intelligence and material support to the Nazis throughout the conflict.

Tigerace117 said:

Uh.....yes, Franco absolutely was fascist. The only reason why he didn't enter the war on the side of the Axis was that he was mildly too cautious to do so. Spain provided large amounts of intelligence and material support to the Nazis throughout the conflict.

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Nope, he wasnt.

International School History - Western Europe 1939-2000 - Spain - Was Franco a Fascist?
Franco, Fascism and the Falange - Not One and the Same Thing > Norman Berdichevsky
Franco was not a Fascist | Spain zone at abelard.org

PoS said:

Nope, he wasnt.

International School History - Western Europe 1939-2000 - Spain - Was Franco a Fascist?
Franco, Fascism and the Falange - Not One and the Same Thing > Norman Berdichevsky
Franco was not a Fascist | Spain zone at abelard.org

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Your third link claims Hitler was a revolutionary and that fascism is born from socialism. Both claims are utter bull****.

Another one of your links is a right wing screed shrieking about "islamo-fascism".

Your last link desperately tries to handwave the fascism of Franco by linking people claiming he is "only" "semi-fascist".

PoS said:

Franco was a dictator, but he wasnt fascist. Spain's economy remained isolated during the war, but began to pick up during the 1950's when it entered into an alliance with the US. The Spanish nobility remained entrenched during much of his time in power.

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Read his speeches, his commentaries and letters. As an opportunist, he took what he saw as advantageous from Mussolini's views on rule and economic controls. He claimed a neutral position during WWII, with the excuse Spain was exhausted from the Civil War, while remaining a crucial port of call for essential war materials for the axis powers, inclusive of wolfram, tungsten from Portugal, essential for modern tank armor. He gave safe harbor to fascists like Ezra Pound who broadcast anti-ally and antisemitic sermons from Spanish radio. He kept a backdoor open to the Allies, hedging his bets, but held a particular dislike for the British. After the war, he kept Spain open as an escape route for surviving Nazis and Italian Fascists head toward Africa and the Americas. He proclaimed himself as the last Fascist Dictator. He was rabidly anti communist and socialist, a holdover from one of the long time aristocratic families of northern Spain, with support from an anti-monarchist enormous extended family. Very few of the nobility not related to Franco survived in Spain, they either were executed during his reign or forced into exile. He was never a capitalist, but he recognized realities and the need for private capitalization. He recognized the loss of the Spanish colonial empire, but kept as many spheres of influence as possible sources of external capitalization from the upper classes of former colonies. Promising Spain as a safe haven for those suffering the advent of communist revolutions like Cuba. His own ASN, secret service, forces worked against communist insurrectionists in all former Spanish or Portuguese colonies, with brutality that overwhelmed communist forces especially in South and Central America.

When we delve into the history of Spain's regional noble conflicts, we see the reasons for Franco's anti monarch positions. El Cid, the almost mythical savior of Spain, was a mercenary who fought as often for muslims as he did for Christians, and he happened to land behind the winning royal family that seized the crown. Franco's family was among the losers in that conflict for the throne. His family accused of harboring Cathars during the Inquisition. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

PoS said:

Nope, he wasnt.

International School History - Western Europe 1939-2000 - Spain - Was Franco a Fascist?
Franco, Fascism and the Falange - Not One and the Same Thing > Norman Berdichevsky
Franco was not a Fascist | Spain zone at abelard.org

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Good lord.

How embarrassing.

This thread took a turn for the worse... :roll:

In some regards we are splitting hairs on what ideology Franco subscribed to, but by the check marks of what these things are Franco leaned heavy towards military dictatorships. At that time in history (reference to my earlier comments) that generally associated to Fascism and Authoritarianism. That has shifted slightly between the 1930's and today's understanding of these terms and *that* is the express reason why looking at historical events through the confines of today's definitions tends to rewrite history.

The facts of the matter is back in 1936 to 1937 when the overthrow was being organized by military officers, including Franco, the whole thing was aligned under Falange (Spain's Fascist Party) for the purposes of being a direct adversary to who was in control at the time, a liberal leaning Republican governance model. Franco and like minded officers in the military assumed that the liberal government at the time would end up Marxist (or Communist.)

Ironically once all of this started to play out the historical significance of this civil war became realized, it was arguably the first time in the modern era that we saw an armed conflict between liberal democratic thinking and authoritarian fascism play out. The anarchists, by how this played out, were insignificant. Wanting really nothing to do with either side as ultimately both sides looked to authoritarianism to advance an ideology.

That is the real history lesson.

The liberal democratic thinking at the time was a formation of very early ideological concepts that did not entirely agree. They may have called themselves Republicans but they were mainly unions, workers, farmers, literally peasants appealing to the power of governance to better their position (using government power as a means to an ends, sound familiar?)

Anarchists were always on the outside looking in, across the political spectrum of Spain.

On the other side was Franco and like minded military officers who looked at government power a slightly different way, a means to other ends. And it was a dictatorship rooted in Fascism thinking as a means to control and oppress opposition (again, sound familiar?) Nationalism started to align more with Roman Catholicism, liberalism started to blame Catholics for the ills of the nation, they aligned behind Fascism realizing what life would be like under a military dictatorship.

The other reason that the Spanish Civil War was historically significant is it exposed the competing ideologies that were spread across Europe with roots to how WWI played out, and it all ensured there would be a WWII as military controls, nationalism, fascism, and authoritarianism became the *exact same means* for Hitler and the Nazi Party to rise to into such power. Some nations aligned behind what Franco was doing, some entered into agreements to an embargo Spain (that was monumentally ignored,) and everyone watched an ideological fight with ties to the very ideological fight they had in their own backyards within just a year (or so depending on nation) of seeing Republicans surrender in Madrid.

Not today's definitions, but at the time the Spanish Civil War boiled down to a fear of Marxism so they turned to Fascism, Authoritarianism, and even hints of Theocracy to fight against it.

Let that sink in... really, let that sink in.

OldFatGuy said:

Read his speeches, his commentaries and letters. As an opportunist, he took what he saw as advantageous from Mussolini's views on rule and economic controls. He claimed a neutral position during WWII, with the excuse Spain was exhausted from the Civil War, while remaining a crucial port of call for essential war materials for the axis powers, inclusive of wolfram, tungsten from Portugal, essential for modern tank armor. He gave safe harbor to fascists like Ezra Pound who broadcast anti-ally and antisemitic sermons from Spanish radio. He kept a backdoor open to the Allies, hedging his bets, but held a particular dislike for the British. After the war, he kept Spain open as an escape route for surviving Nazis and Italian Fascists head toward Africa and the Americas. He proclaimed himself as the last Fascist Dictator. He was rabidly anti communist and socialist, a holdover from one of the long time aristocratic families of northern Spain, with support from an anti-monarchist enormous extended family. Very few of the nobility not related to Franco survived in Spain, they either were executed during his reign or forced into exile. He was never a capitalist, but he recognized realities and the need for private capitalization. He recognized the loss of the Spanish colonial empire, but kept as many spheres of influence as possible sources of external capitalization from the upper classes of former colonies. Promising Spain as a safe haven for those suffering the advent of communist revolutions like Cuba. His own ASN, secret service, forces worked against communist insurrectionists in all former Spanish or Portuguese colonies, with brutality that overwhelmed communist forces especially in South and Central America.

When we delve into the history of Spain's regional noble conflicts, we see the reasons for Franco's anti monarch positions. El Cid, the almost mythical savior of Spain, was a mercenary who fought as often for muslims as he did for Christians, and he happened to land behind the winning royal family that seized the crown. Franco's family was among the losers in that conflict for the throne. His family accused of harboring Cathars during the Inquisition. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

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If Franco was so anti-monarch, why did he make King Juan Carlos as his successor? A fascist is also anti-church because it undermines their authority, but Franco was not. The Spanish economy was insular during the war years because nobody except the Germans and Italians wanted to trade with him, but when the 50's rolled around, he embraced Western trade and capitalist business practices. In the end, he was against the left radicalism of the Republic, and wanted to keep the status quo by making himself dictator.

Yes, I agree with you he was an opportunist, but there is nothing in what he did that could be labeled as fascist. He may have aided fascists and sought their help, but so did Stalin at one point.

In a way, history was repeating itself. The Spanish Civil War was a dress rehearsal for World War II like Bleeding Kansas (aka the Border War, 1854-1861) was a dress rehearsal for the U.S. Civil War.

PoS said:

If Franco was so anti-monarch, why did he make King Juan Carlos as his successor? A fascist is also anti-church because it undermines their authority, but Franco was not. The Spanish economy was insular during the war years because nobody except the Germans and Italians wanted to trade with him, but when the 50's rolled around, he embraced Western trade and capitalist business practices. In the end, he was against the left radicalism of the Republic, and wanted to keep the status quo by making himself dictator.

Yes, I agree with you he was an opportunist, but there is nothing in what he did that could be labeled as fascist. He may have aided fascists and sought their help, but so did Stalin at one point.

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Juan Carlos Borbón, whom many called the pretender, was not of the previous Hapsburg line of monarchs. He was not Franco's heir, a claim he made when he returned to Spain 2 years after Franco's death. In 1947, Franco declared Spain a Representative Monarchy, and started moving family members into more powerful positions. But he never declared an heir to the throne. The Borbón family ruled most of northern Spain, Trastámara family most of southern Spain until conquered by the Moors, but when the Moorish empire collapsed from within, both families re-established themselves and went to war with each other and remaining muslims with their allies. The Trastámara family ascended to the throne for all Spain by force of arms. During the early 15th century the Hapsburgs married into the family, which had no male heirs, with Phillip I ascending the throne.

Mussolini created fascism as a political theory. He objected to the Vatican claims of authority over Italian daily life, but understood the intrinsic position of the church for many Italians. He viewed the various organized crime groups as allies of the church with an antigovernment stance, after centuries of government corruption. For Mussolini, secular fascism was the path to ending the chaos caused by corruption, the church and organized crime. His brown shirts relentlessly removed corrupt government officials, and went to war with organized crime, never attacking the church, with Mussolini using more subtle methods of removing priests and bishops of their powers of influence. The earlier wars of unification in Italy had destroyed the once powerful Italian principalities long before Mussolini rose to power.

Franco used secular fascism to remove the church's influence of government in Spain, but he never openly attacked the church. He purposefully removed all Hapsburgs from power, raising the Borbón family. He understood the Spanish religiosity and position of divine nobility in the eyes of his people. He used both as he saw fit. He kept the nobility of the Borbón's as figure heads, and celebrated the religious holidays, not interfering with Catholic rule over the spiritual needs of his people, but removing the church from all political influence.

Throughout WWII, neutral Spain sought German and Italian trade, however, kept as far more important, its South and Central American trade routes open and flourishing. A pragmatist, he had no objections to trade with the western countries who were the victors of the war. This wasn't a question of politics, it was an issue of money and pragmatism. German u-boats never attacked the Spanish flag on the high seas, leaving Franco free to maintain his South and Central American trade routes.

Franco ruled with the iron fist of fascism throughout his tenure in Spain. The political semantics were just that, semantics, and labels are not important beyond propaganda, actions spoke volumes. To say Franco was not a fascist is like saying Stalin was not a communist because he wasn't a Leninist. Each had their own visions of the political and economic systems they used to gain and maintain power. Each established their own aristocracies replacing aged and failing dynasties.