On 15th January 1936, Manuel
Azaña helped
to establish a coalition
of parties on the political left to fight the national elections
due to take place the following month. This included the Socialist
Party (PSOE), Communist Party (
PCE), Esquerra Party and the Republican
Union Party.
The Popular Front, as the
coalition became known, advocated the restoration of Catalan autonomy,
amnesty for political prisoners, agrarian reform, an end to political
blacklists and the payment of damages for property owners who suffered
during the revolt of 1934. The Anarchists
refused to support the coalition and instead urged people not to vote.
Right-wing groups in Spain
formed the National Front. This included the CEDA
and the Carlists. The Falange
Española did not officially join but most of its members
supported the aims of the National Front.
The Spanish people voted
on Sunday, 16th February, 1936. Out of a possible 13.5 million voters,
over 9,870,000 participated in the 1936
General Election. 4,654,116 people (34.3) voted for the Popular
Front, whereas the National Front obtained 4,503,505 (33.2) and the
centre parties got 526,615 (5.4). The Popular Front, with 263 seats
out of the 473 in the Cortes
formed the new government.
The Popular Front government
immediately upset the conservatives by releasing all left-wing political
prisoners. The government also introduced agrarian reforms that penalized
the landed aristocracy. Other measures included transferring right-wing
military leaders such as Francisco
Franco to posts
outside Spain, outlawing the Falange Española
and granting Catalonia political and administrative autonomy.
As a result of these measures
the wealthy took vast sums of capital out of the country. This created
an economic crisis and the value of the peseta declined which damaged
trade and tourism. With prices rising workers demanded higher wages.
This led to a series of strikes in Spain.
On
the 10th May 1936 the conservative Niceto
Alcala Zamora was
ousted as president and replaced by the left-wing Manuel
Azaña.
Soon afterwards Spanish Army officers
began plotting to overthrow the Popular Front
government.
President Manuel
Azaña appointed
Diego Martinez Barrio as prime minister
on 18th July 1936 and asked him to negotiate with the rebels. He contacted
Emilio
Mola and
offered him the post of Minister of War in his government. He refused
and when Azaña
realized that the Nationalists
were unwilling to compromise, he sacked Martinez Barrio and replaced
him with José Giral. To protect the
Popular Front government, Giral gave orders for arms to be distributed
to left-wing organizations that opposed the military uprising.
General Emilio
Mola issued
his proclamation of revolt in Navarre on 19th July, 1936. The coup
got off to a bad start with José
Sanjurjo being
killed in an air crash on 20th July. The uprising was a failure in
most parts of Spain but Mola's forces were
successful in the Canary Islands, Morocco, Seville and Aragon. Francisco
Franco, now commander
of the Army of Africa, joined the revolt
and began to conquer southern Spain.
Manuel
Azaña
had no desire to be head of a government that was trying to militarily
defeat another group of Spaniards. He attempted to resign but was
persuaded to stay on by the Socialist Party
and Communist Party who hoped that
he was the best person to persuade foreign governments not to support
the military uprising.
In September 1936, President
Azaña appointed
the left-wing socialist, Francisco
Largo Caballero
as prime minister. Largo Caballero also took over the important role
of war minister. Largo Caballero brought into his government two left-wing
radicals, Angel Galarza (minister of the
interior) and Alvarez del Vayo (minister
of foreign affairs). He also included four anarchists, Juan
Garcia Oliver (Justice), Juan
López Sánchez (Commerce), Federica
Montseny (Health) and Juan Peiró
(Industry) and two right-wing socialists, Juan
Negrin (Finance) and Indalecio Prieto
(Navy and Air) in his government. Largo Caballero also gave two ministries
to the Communist Party (PCE): Jesus
Hernández (Education) and Vicente
Uribe (Agriculture).
After taking power Francisco
Largo Caballero concentrated
on winning the war and did not pursue his policy of social revolution.
In an effort to gain the support of foreign governments, he announced
that his administration was "not fighting for socialism but for
democracy and constitutional rule."
Largo Caballero introduced
changes that upset the left in Spain. This
included conscription, the reintroduction of ranks and insignia into
the militia, and the abolition of workers' and soldiers' councils.
He also established a new police force, the National Republican Guard.
He also agreed for Juan Negrin to be given
control of the Carabineros.
Largo Caballero came under
increasing pressure
from the Communist Party to promote
its members to senior posts in the government. He also refused their
demands to suppress the Worker's Party (POUM).
By the end of September
1936, the generals involved in the military uprising came to the conclusion
that Francisco
Franco should
become commander of the Nationalist
Army. He was
also appointed chief of state. General
Emilio
Mola agreed
to serve under him and was placed in charge of the Army of the North.
Franco now began
to remove all his main rivals for the leadership of the Nationalist
forces. Some were forced into exile and nothing was done to help rescue
José
Antonio Primo de Rivera from
captivity. However, when José
Antonio was
shot by the Republicans in November 1936, Franco exploited his death
by making him a mythological saint of the fascist movement.
On 19th April 1937, Franco
forced the unification of the Falange Española
and the Carlists with other small right-wing
parties to form the Falange Española Tradicionalista. Franco
then had himself appointed as leader of the new organisation. Imitating
the tactics of Adolf Hitler in Nazi
Germany, giant posters of Franco and the dead José Antonio
were displayed along with the slogan, "One State! One Country!
One Chief! Franco! Franco! Franco!" all over Spain.
During
the Spanish Civil War the National
Confederation of Trabajo (CNT), the Federación
Anarquista Ibérica (FAI) and the Worker's
Party (POUM) played an important role in running Barcelona.
This brought them into conflict with other left-wing groups in the
city including the Union General de Trabajadores
(UGT), the Catalan Socialist Party (PSUC)
and the Communist Party (PCE).
On the 3rd May 1937, Rodriguez
Salas, the Chief of Police, ordered the Civil
Guard and the Assault Guard to take
over the Telephone Exchange, which had been operated by the CNT since
the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.
Members of the CNT in the Telephone Exchange were armed and refused
to give up the building. Members of the CNT,
FAI and POUM became
convinced that this was the start of an attack on them by the UGT,
PSUC and the PCE
and that night barricades were built all over the city.
Fighting broke out on the
4th May. Later that day the anarchist
ministers, Federica Montseny and Juan
Garcia Oliver, arrived in Barcelona and attempted to negotiate
a ceasefire. When this proved to be unsuccessful, Juan
Negrin, Vicente
Uribe and Jesus Hernández
called on Francisco
Largo Caballero to
use government troops to takeover the city. Largo Caballero also came
under pressure from Luis Companys not
to take this action, fearing that this would breach Catalan autonomy.
On 6th May death squads
assassinated a number of prominent anarchists in their homes. The
following day over 6,000 Assault Guards
arrived from Valencia and gradually took
control of Barcelona. It is estimated
that about 400 people were killed during what became known as the
May Riots.
These events in Barcelona
severely damaged the Popular Front government.
Communist members of the Cabinet were highly critical of the way Francisco
Largo Caballero handled
the May Riots. President Manuel
Azaña agreed
and on 17th May he asked Juan Negrin to
form a new government. Negrin was a communist sympathizer and from
this date Joseph Stalin obtained more
control over the policies of the Republican government
Negrin's government
now attempted to bring the Anarchist
Brigades under
the control of the Republican Army. At first
the Anarcho-Syndicalists
resisted and attempted
to retain hegemony over their units. This proved impossible when the
government made the decision to only pay and supply militias that
subjected themselves to unified command and structure.
Negrin also
began appointing members of the Communist
Party (PCE) to important military and civilian
posts. This included Marcelino Fernandez, a communist, to head the
Carabineros. Communists were also given control of propaganda, finance
and foreign affairs. The socialist, Luis
Araquistain, described Negrin's government as the "most cynical
and despotic in Spanish history."
Negrin now attempted
to gain the support of western governments by announcing his plan
to decollectivize industries. On 1st May 1938 Negrin published a thirteen-point
program that included the promise of full civil and political rights
and freedom of religion.
In August 1938 President
Manuel
Azaña
attempted to oust Juan
Negrin.
However, he no longer had the power he once had and with the support
of the communists in the government and armed forces, Negrin was able
to survive.
On 26th January,
1939, Barcelona fell to the Nationalist
Army. Azaña and his government now moved to Perelada, close
to the French border. With the nationalist forces still advancing,
Azaña and his colleagues crossed into France.
On 27th February,
1939, the British prime minister, Neville
Chamberlain
recognized the Nationalist government headed by General Francisco
Franco. Later that day Manuel
Azaña
resigned from office, declaring that the war was lost and that he
did not want Spaniards to make anymore useless sacrifices.
Juan
Negrin
now promoted communist leaders such as Antonio
Cordon, Juan
Modesto and
Enrique Lister to senior posts in the army.
Segismundo
Casado,
commander of the Republican Army
of the Centre,
now became convinced that Negrin was planning a communist coup. On
4th March, Casedo, with the support of the socialist leader, Julián
Besteiro and disillusioned anarchist leaders, established an anti-Negrin
National Defence Junta.
On 6th March
José
Miaja in Madrid joined the rebellion by ordering the arrests of
Communists in the city. Negrin, about
to leave for France, ordered Luis Barceló,
commander of the First Corps of the Army of the Centre, to try and
regain control of the capital. His troops entered Madrid and there
was fierce fighting for several days in the city. Anarchists troops
led by Cipriano Mera, managed to defeat the
First Corps and Barceló was captured and executed.
Segismundo
Casado
now tried to negotiate a peace settlement with General Francisco
Franco.
However, he refused demanding an unconditional surrender. Members
of the Republican Army still left alive,
were no longer willing to fight and the Nationalist
Army entered Madrid
virtually unopposed
on 27th March. Four days later Francisco
Franco
announced the end of the Spanish Civil War.
The narrative text on this website
is copyright. This means that any school which copies the site for
local use onto a school cache is in breach of copyright. If your school
wishes to copy the site in this way, there is a tariff of charges.
Please contact Spartacus Educational spartacus@pavilion.co.uk
for details.
Last updated; 10th April, 2002
(1)
Charlotte
Haldane
visited Spain
with John
Haldane
in 1933. Charlotte later wrote
about their experiences in her autobiography,
Truth Will Out (1949)
The
poverty was tragic. It was bad in Cordoba, worse in Granada, almost
universal in Seville. Everywhere was economic, mental and physical
depression. There was a lot of local opposition to the Republic, led
and organized by the Church. The Government's natural idealistic incompetence
was encouraged by systematic sabotage of every project attempted.
The male working population was almost unanimously anarchist. The
CNT and particularly the FAI were the strongest revolutionary parties.
Socialism and Communism, or rather the Trotskyist deviation from that
political creed, were in the minority. But almost the entire female
population was firmly attached to Church politics, under the spiritual
and political domination of the priesthood. Underneath all the beauty
and glamour of the landscape, the architecture, the tradition, the
romance, were rumblings of the political earthquake to come.
(2)
Luis
Bolin, Spain, the Vital Years (1967)
On 16 November 1935, as a prelude to Communist rule, the Comintern
instructed Spanish party members to join hands with Socialist and
Left-wing Republicans. Without antagonizing the middle classes, they
were to intensify their campaign of violence against the Church and
the Right and maintain peasants and other workers in constant turmoil
and unrest. These instructions were scrupulously executed during the
months that followed.
The tactics thus propounded
were not new. Lenin had already prophesied that Spain would be the
first country after Russia to adopt Communism. Trotsky shared this
opinion.
(3)
Edward
Knoblaugh,
Correspondent in Spain (1937)
Zamora felt he had no alternative except to
dissolve the Cortes and call for new elections. He issued the decree
on January 7, 1936. The elections were set for February 16. That act
was his political death warrant. Three months later to the day he
was ousted from office.
Azana, meanwhile, had
been in eclipse. Out of the political limelight, his name had been
heard only for a brief moment since the fall of 1933. That was when
he appeared in the Cortes chamber and, by a masterful defense, saved
himself from going to prison as an alleged accomplice of Company's
in the Barcelona revolt of October, 1934. He had
been in Barcelona before and during the uprising, and had
held numerous conferences with Companys. His defense
was one of the finest bits of oratory I have ever heard.
It had its effect, and
Azana was exonerated. Now he blossomed
out in a new role—one that was to carry him to the Presidency.
He organized the Left Popular Front. Socialists,
Anarchists, Communists and Left Republicans were summoned
to his banner. The Rightists vowed that it could not
be done, but Azana welded the groups. The feat earned him
the admiration of even his bitterest enemies. The Socialists
and Communists had reached an entente, but the Left
Republicans and the Anarchists were as far apart as the
stars, and they in turn had nothing in common with the Socialist-Communists.
In getting these discordant elements together
Azana lived up to his reputation as the shrewdest and
cleverest politician in Spain.
(4)
Francisco
Largo Caballero, speech in
Madrid (March 1936)
The illusion that the proletarian socialist revolution can be achieved
by reforming the existing state must be eliminated. There is no course
but to destroy its roots. Imperceptibly, the dictatorship of the proletariat
or workers' democracy will be converted into a full democracy, without
classes from which the coercive state will gradually disappear. The
instrument of the dictatorship will be the Socialist party, which
will exercise this dictatorship during the period of transition from
one society to another and as long as the surrounding capitalist states
make a strong proletarian state necessary.
(5)
Roy Campbell, Light on a Dark Horse
(1951)
One noticed, during the restless period that
preceded the 1936 elections, that the working class was divided in
two.
The bootblacks, an enormous class to themselves in Spain, the waiters,
and most of the mechanics, along with the miners and factory workers,
were either anarchists or Reds. It was expected that the anarchists
would abstain from voting: or might even vote for the Right, with
whom, in their liking for liberty, they have more in common than with
the Communists. Amongst the anarchists were to be found some of the
most generous idealistic people, at the same time as the real "phonys"
- like the ones that dug up the cemetery in Huesca,
held parades of naked nuns, and out-babooned in atrocity anything
I had ever read of before. But they were warm-blooded - unlike their
ice-cold compéres, the "commies", who were less human.
You could beg your life from an anarchist. It was not long before
most of the anarchists wished they had gone Right for they were unmercifully
massacred by their Red Comrades.
Hostilities broke out between Anarchists and
other Republicans simultaneously with their persecution of Christians,
Royalists, and Nationalists. That was one of the typical paradoxes
of Spanish history during the last twenty years. It was because I
saw this fission, so often, at first-hand, on the spot, that I knew
and said, repeatedly, and without ever hypocritically turning in my
tracks, that the mutual loathing of the various factions of "republicans"
would eventually preponderate over their hostility to the common adversary,
and the so called "loyalists" would collapse on account
of mutual disloyalty.
(6)
Salvador de Madariaga, a member of the
Republican Union Party, commented on the clash between Largo Caballero
and Indalecio
Prieto.
What made the Spanish Civil War inevitable was the civil war within
the Socialist party. No wonder Fascism grew. Let no one argue that
it was fascist violence that developed socialist violence. It was
not at the Fascists that Largo Caballero's gunmen shot but at their
brother socialists. It was (Largo Caballero's) avowed, nay, his proclaimed
policy to rush Spain on to the dictatorship of the proletariat. Thus
pushed on the road
to violence, the nation, always prone to it,
became more violent than ever. This suited the fascists admirably,
for they are nothing if not lovers and adepts of violence.
(7)
Luis
Bolin, Spain, the Vital Years (1967)
Alcala Zamora was kicked out for dismissing the Cortes unconstitutionally,
though he had acted thus - not unwillingly - at the behest of those
who ejected him. Azana was elected his successor. No worthier candidate
for the Presidency of such a Republic could have been found. His most
unprincipled adherent, Casares Quiroga, was appointed Premier and
Minister of War. Other posts in the Cabinet were allotted to Republican
Left, Republican Union and Catalan Left, willing pawns of the Red
extremists, who, for the time being, directed operations from the
wings. Revolt broke out in a dozen towns, and outrages were committed
daily in Barcelona, Malaga, Saragossa, Granada, Bilbao and Seville.
In Madrid, a riot was caused by a preposterous rumour to the effect
that ladies who worked for social welfare had distributed poisoned
sweets to children. As a reprisal several churches were burnt and
three nuns and two other women, one of them of French nationality,
were assaulted and almost lynched by an infuriated mob.
(8)
A member of the Labour Party, Emanuel
Shinwell initially
argued that the British government should give support to the Republicans
in the Spanish
Civil War. He wrote about his views in his autobiography, Conflict
Without Malice (1955)
When
the Spanish Republican Government was formed in 1936 the news was
received enthusiastically by Socialists in Britain. Many of the new
Government members were well known in the international Socialist
movement. The emergence of a democratic regime in Spain was a bright
light in a gloomy period when war had raped Abyssinia, and Germany
had repudiated the Locarno Treaty. On the sudden outbreak of civil
war in July, 1936, Socialist movements in all those European countries
where they were allowed to exist immediately took steps to consider
whether intervention should be demanded.
The Fascist attack was
regarded as aggression by the majority of thinking people. Leon Blum,
at the time Prime Minister of France, was greatly concerned in this
matter. As political head of a nation which was bordered by Spain
he had to consider the danger of some of the belligerents being forced
over the border; as a Socialist he had a duty to go to the help of
his comrades, members of a legally elected Government, who had been
attacked by men organized and financed from outside Spanish home territory.
In Britain, although the
Government was against intervention, the Labour Party had to face
the strong demands from the rank-and-file for concrete action. The
three executives met at Transport House to consider the next move,
and I was present as a member of the Parliamentary Executive. We were
largely influenced by Blum's policy. He had decided that he could
not risk committing his country to intervention. Germany and Italy
were supplying arms, aircraft, and men to the Spanish Fascists, and
Blum considered that any action on the Franco-Spanish border on behalf
of the Republican Government would bring imminent danger of retaliatory
moves by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany on France's eastern flank.
As a result of this French attitude Herbert Morrison's appeal in favour
of intervention received little support. Although, like him, I was
inclined towards action I pointed out that if France failed to intervene
it would be a futile gesture to advise that Britain should do so.
We had the recent farce of sanctions against Italy as a warning.
(9)
Claude
Cockburn, The
Daily Worker (25th November, 1936)
It
is difficult to convey briefly and accurately the feeling for the
Communist Party -
so young, and until recently so small - which exists
in Spain today.
It is not on the other
hand, difficult to understand it.
As the situation grew
tougher and tougher and more people who had previously been suspicious
of, and even hostile to the Communist Party, began - sometimes rather
grudgingly and sometimes "with full acknowledgments" - to
accept the fact that a great many things the Communists had said,
which seemed sensational or alarmist at the time, were, as a matter
of fact, true: that when the Communists talked about the "need
for unity" they really were talking about a matter of life and
death, as obvious and urgent as the provision of machine-gun ammunition
and sandbags: that when the Communists declared that every other political
consideration must be secondary to the question of how to win the
war, they meant just that: that when they called upon others to subordinate
sectional aims to the need for supporting the democratic government
of Spain against the Fascists they were the first to put their propositions
into practice: and above all, that, as a result of their highly disciplined
yet highly democratic form of organisation, they were able more easily
than any other single organisation
to translate intentions into action.
Of course it would be
possible to put all this in a more formal way, and a full analysis
of the work of the Communist Party in the united defence of Spain
by all the parties of the People's Front would be a very valuable
thing.
Here, since the part being
played by the Communist Party in the defence of Madrid is now in the
centre of the world stage, I only want to draw attention to one or
two of the points which have brought the Communist Party to this immensely
responsible and honourable position in the democratic alliance, where
it shares with Socialists, Republicans, anarchists and Catholics,
the task of holding the front line of the world's democracy against
the world Fascist threat.
It is, for instance, no
secret that the very first move for the creation of the People's Army
of Spain came from the Communist Party. Nor did it come simply in
the form of a "suggestion" or a manifesto or a report.
(10)
Manuel
Azaña,
speech (21st January, 1937)
I
believe in the creations that will emerge from this tremendous upheaval
in Spain. The regime that I desire is one where all the rights of
conscience and of the human person are defended and secured by all
the political machinery of the State, where the moral and political
liberty of man is guaranteed, where work shall be, as the Republic
intended it to be in Spain, the one qualification of Spanish citizenship,
and where the free disposal of their
country's destiny by the people in their entirety and in their total
representation is assured. No regime will be possible in Spain unless
its based on what I have just said. Peace will come, and the victory
will come; but it will be an impersonal victory: the victory of the
law, of the people, the victory of the Republic. It will not be a
triumph of a leader, for the Republic has no chiefs, and because we
are not going to substitute for the old oligarchic and authoritarian
militarism a demagogic and tumultuous militarism, more fatal still
and even more ineffective in the professional sphere. Victory will
be impersonal, for it will not be the triumph of any one of us, or
of our parties, or of our organizations. It will be the triumph of
Republican liberty, the triumph of the rights of the people, of the
moral entities before which we bow.
(11)
Manuel
Azaña,
speech (18th July, 1937)
It
is therefore an evident truth that if the war in Spain has now lasted
a year, it is no longer a movement of repression against an internal
rebellion, but an act of war from without, an invasion. The war is
entirely and exclusively maintained, not by the military rebels, but
by the Foreign Powers that are making a clandestine invasion of the
Spanish Republic.
Spain has been invaded
by three Powers: Portugal, Italy and Germany. What, then, are the
motives of this three-fold invasion? The internal political regime
of Spain does not matter greatly to them, and even if it mattered,
would not justify the invasion. No. They have come for our mines,
they have come for our raw materials, they have come for harbours,
for the Straits, for naval bases in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.
What is the purpose of all this? To check the Western Powers who are
interested in maintaining this balance and in whose international
political orbit. Spain has moved for many decades. To check both the
British Power and
the French. That is the reason for the invasion of Spain.
(12)
Bill
Bailey wrote to his mother explaining
why he was fighting in the Spanish
Civil War (1937)
You
see Mom, there are things that one must do in this life that are a
little more than just living. In Spain there are thousands of mothers
like yourself who never had a fair shake in life. They got together
and elected a government that really gave meaning to their life. But
a bunch of bullies decided to crush this wonderful thing. That's why
I went to Spain, Mom, to help these poor people win this battle, then
one day it would be easier for you and the mothers of the future.
Don't let anyone mislead you by telling you that all this had something
to do with Communism. The Hitlers and Mussolinis of this world are
killing Spanish people who don't know the difference between Communism
and rheumatism. And it's not to set up some Communist government either.
The only thing the Communists did here was show the people how to
fight and try to win what is rightfully theirs.
(13)
George
Orwell,
Homage to Catalonia (1938)
The Government was headed
by Caballero, a Left-wing Socialist, and contained ministers representing
the U.G.T. (Socialist trade unions) and the C.N.T. (Syndicalist unions
controlled by the Anarchists). The Catalan Generalite was for a while
virtually superseded by an anti-Fascist Defence Committee' consisting
mainly of delegates from the trade unions. Later the Defence Committee
was dissolved and the Generalite was reconstituted so as to represent
the unions and the various Left-wing parties. But every subsequent
reshuffling of the Government was a move towards the Right. First
the P.O.U.M. was expelled from the Generalite; six months later Caballero
was replaced by the Right-wing Socialist Negrin; shortly afterwards
the C.N.T. Was eliminated from the Government; then the U.G.T.; then
the C.N.T. Was turned out of the Generalite; finally, a year after
the outbreak of war and revolution, there remained a Government composed
entirely of Right-wing
Socialists, Liberals, and Communists.
(14)
Franz
Borkenau, Spanish Cockpit: An Eyewitness Account of the Political
and Social Conflicts of the Political and Social Conflicts of the
Spanish Civil War (1937)
In the afternoon I attended, in Valencia, a mass meeting
of the Popular Front (to which neither the anarchists nor POUM
belong). There were about 50,000 enthusiastic people there. When La
Pasionaria appeared on the platform enthusiasm
reached its climax. She is the one communist leader who is known and
loved by the masses, but in compensation there is no other personality
in the Government camp loved and admired so much. And she deserves
her fame. It is not that she is politically minded. On the contrary,
what is touching about her is precisely her aloofness from the atmosphere
of political intrigue: the simple, self-sacrificing faith which emanates
from every word she speaks. And more touching even is her lack of
conceit, and even her self-effacement. Dressed in simple black, cleanly
and carefully but without the slightest attempt to make herself look
pleasant, she speaks simply, directly, without rhetoric, without caring
for theatrical
effects, without bringing political sous-entendus into her
speech, as did all the other speakers of the day. At the end of her
speech came a pathetic moment. Her voice, tired from endless addresses
to enormous meetings since the beginning of the civil war, failed
her. And she sat down with a sad waving gesture of her hands, wanting
to express: 'It's no use, I can't help it, I can't say any more; I
am sorry.' There was not the slightest touch of ostentation in it,
only regret at being unable to tell the meeting those things she had
wanted to tell it. This gesture, in its profound simplicity, sincerity,
and its convincing lack of any personal interest in success or failure
as an orator, was more touching than her whole speech. This woman,
looking fifty with her forty years, reflecting, in every word and
every gesture, a profound motherliness (she has five children herself,
and one of her daughters accompanied her to the meeting), has something
of a medieval ascetic, of a religious personality about her. The masses
worship her, not for her intellect, but as a
sort of saint who is to lead them in the days of trial and temptation.
(15)
Manuel
Azaña,
speech (13th November, 1937)
We
are fighting in self-defense, defending the life of our people and
its highest moral values, all the moral values of Spain, absolutely
all - the past, the present, and those that you will know how to create
in time to come.
We, the innovators of
Spanish policy, we, the restorers of the Republic, the workmen of
the Republic, who labored to make it an instrument to bring civilization
and progress to our community, we have denied nothing of all that
is noble and great in the history of Spain - absolutely nothing.
(16)
Clement
Attlee,
statement in the House of Commons on
the British government's decision to recognize General Franco's government
(27th February, 1939)
We see in the action a gross betrayal
of democracy, the consummation of two and a half years of the hypocritical
pretence of nonintervention and a connivance all the time at aggression.
And this is only one step further in the downward march of His Majesty's
government in which at every stage they do not sell, but give away,
the permanent interest of this country. They do not do anything to
build up peace or stop war, but merely announce to the whole world
that anyone who is out to use force can always be sure that he will
have a friend in the British Prime Minister.
(17)
Statement
by the Anti-Negrin
National Defence Junta (5th March, 1939)
Spanish
workers, people of anti-fascist Spain! The time has come when we must
proclaim to the four winds the truth of our present situation. As
revolutionaries, as proletarians, as Spaniards, as anti-fascists,
we cannot endure any longer the imprudence and the absence of forethought
of Dr. Negrin's government. We cannot permit that, while the people
struggle, a few privileged persons should continue their life abroad.
We address all workers, antifascists and Spaniards! Constitutionally,
the government of Dr Negrin is without lawful basis. In practice also,
it lacks both confidence
and good sense. We have come to show the way which may avoid disaster:
we who oppose the policy of resistance give our assurance that not
one of those who ought to remain in Spain shall leave till all who
wish to leave have done so.
(18)
Manuel
Portela Valladares, the Spanish prime minister between 30th December
1935 and 19th February 1936, was interviewed in Barcelona
on 8th January 1938.
My opinion is that the Republican
army is stronger than the
rebel army. I said this three months ago, and now the capture of Teruel
has proved it to the world. The northern front collapsed because it
was technically impossible to defend, because it lacked unity of command,
and because it was geographically inaccessible. In spite of his 80,000
Italians and 10,000 Germans, in spite of all the supplies provided
by these two great
nations, Franco is now being defeated because he has aroused the spirit
of independence in the Spanish people.
Ten thousand officers
are graduating from the Republican academies each year. War production
has been organised. The Republican command, which contains 6,000 officers
belonging to the former Spanish army, has growing intelligence and
technical services. But nothing is more tremendous than the spirit
of resistance which has withstood all defeats. The war of the Republic
is only now beginning. The Negrin Government has restored order in
Republican Spain to such a degree that the percentage of crimes is
lower than ever before. It has instituted full and normal constitutional
law and respect for this law.
Expression of opinion
in the press is even allowed a scope that I consider excessive in
time of war. The leaders of Spanish public opinion surely ought all
to realise the necessity of giving Spain a Westphalian peace as far
as religion is concerned, a political peace based on the existing
Constitution, and a social peace which consolidates the genuine
advances made up to the
present time.
On the rebel side a national
syndicalism has been built up
which, according to its official programme, is much more damaging
to property and a greater menace to capitalism. And
cruelty and barbarism have reached limits hitherto unknown.
On February 17, 1936,
in view of the victory of the People's Front, the Right wing leaders
came to me and begged me to become Dictator, and that very day General
Franco offered me the Dictatorship for myself personally. Again, on
the 19th Franco and the others insisted on this. I refused and agreed
to resign, so as to hand over the government to the People's Front.
The Right wing leaders had remained in Parliament until the civil
war: they collaborated in the working of that Parliament, and thus
acknowledged the validity of its power.
(19)
Edward
Heath, The Course of
My Life (1988)
In the summer of 1938,
together with three other Oxford undergraduates, I received an invitation
from the Republican government of Spain, which had then been involved
for nearly two years in its civil war, to spend two or three weeks
in Catalonia, the last great province remaining under its control.
I was invited in my capacity as chairman of the Federation of University
Conservative Associations. My colleagues were Richard Symonds, a socialist
from Corpus Christi who joined the United Nations secretariat after
the Second World War; Derek Tasker, a Liberal from Exeter College
who was later ordained and became the Canon Treasurer of Southwark
Cathedral; and George Stent, a South African from Magdalen, who was
probably the furthest to the left of us all in his political views.
For all of us, it was to be our first taste of war.
We were to witness a conflict
which aroused, in our generation, passions every bit as fierce as
those stirred up by the war in Vietnam thirty years later. The struggle
between the Republicans and General Franco's fascists had gained particular
international significance because of the intervention of Germany
and Italy on Franco's side, and the refusal of the Chamberlain government
to do more than isolate Spain. Moreover, many of our contemporaries
had gone off to Spain to fight, the majority on the Republican
side, and many had lost
their lives. My sympathies were firmly with the elected government
of the Spanish Republic simply because it was not a dictatorship,
although it was somewhat to the left and was supported by the Soviet
Union.
The base for our visit
was Barcelona, and we travelled there via Calais, Paris and Perpignan.
At one point, our night train came to a juddering halt. Opening the
window, we discovered that a wheel had come off, but not from our
carriage. We arrived late at Perpignan, our destination in France.
After a superb lunch in a restaurant overlooking the main square of
the town, we were then driven at breakneck speed along the coast,
a lot of it at quite a height, on the winding mountain roads down
to Barcelona. We found the capital city of Catalonia in darkness -
it was never lit up for fear of air-raids - and settled in to a comfortable
hotel. Instructions in our rooms told us to go down to the basement
in the event of an air-raid alarm. It was just as well that we did
not heed those instructions, opting instead for the excitement of
watching the bombers flying past. During one raid, a bomb went straight
down the hotel lift shaft, skittling to the bottom and killing all
those who had rushed down to the basement shelter.
(20)
Jane Patrick, CNT-FAI radio broadcast (29th March, 1937)
What
do you think of the situation in Spain now? Do you think that the
revolution is progressing? For my part I see it slipping, slipping,
and that has been the position for some time. However, perhaps it
will be possible for it to be saved. Let us hope so, but it seems
to me that reaction is gaining a stronger hold each day. What do you
expect Britain and France to do about Italy, now that she has so openly
declared her intentions? Do you think they will rush an armistice
or
will they just let things slide? In my opinion they cannot afford
to let things slide as there is no limit to what the Duce will do,
and I don't think they will be prepared to declare war, so the only
alternative, so as as I can see, is an armistice. I think an armistice
would be a disgraceful thing, and the Anarchists of Spain would not
stand for it. But I am afraid the government cannot be trusted. The
government and its Communist Party allies are capable of anything.
What will follow? Of course, I do not know what will take place. It
is all speculation on my part but things seem to me to be in a very
bad way.
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
