"The Spanish Civil War: An Overview" Topic

"In a longer historical perspective the Spanish Civil War amounts to the opening battle of World War II, perhaps the only time in living memory when the world confronted—in fascism and Nazism—something like unqualified evil. The men and women who understood this early on and who chose of their own free will to stand against fascism have thus earned a special status in history. Viewed internally, on the other hand, the Spanish Civil War was the culmination of a prolonged period of national political unrest—unrest in a country that was increasingly polarized and repeatedly unable to ameliorate the conditions of terrible poverty in which millions of its citizens lived. Spain was a country in which landless peasants cobbled together a bare subsistence living by following the harvests on vast, wealthy agricultural estates. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church, identifying more with wealthy landowners than with the Spanish people, was in full control of secondary education; education for women seemed to them unnecessary and universal literacy a danger rather than a goal. Divorce was illegal. The military, meanwhile, had come to see itself, rather melodramatically, as the only bulwark against civil disorder and as the ultimate guarantor of the core values of Spanish society.

When a progressive Popular Front government was elected in February 1936, with the promise of realistic land reform one of its key planks, conservative forces immediately gathered to plan resistance. The Spanish Left, meanwhile, celebrated the elections in a way that made conservative capitalists, military officers, and churchmen worried that much broader reform might begin. Rumors of plotting for a military coup led leaders of the Republic to transfer several high-ranking military officers to remote postings, the aim being to make communication and coordination between them more difficult. But it was not enough. The planning for a military rising continued.

The military rebellion took place on July 18, with the officers who organized it expecting a quick victory and a rapid takeover of the entire country. What the military did not anticipate was the determination of the Spanish people, who broke into barracks, took up arms, and crushed the rebellion in key areas like the cities of Madrid and Barcelona. It was at that point that the character of the struggle changed, for the military realized they were not going to win by fiat. Instead they faced a prolonged struggle against their own people and an uncertain outcome. They appealed to fascist dictatorships in Italy, Germany, and Portugal for assistance, and they soon began receiving both men and supplies from Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, and Antonio Salazar…."
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Amicalement
Armand

Not exactly an unbiased view – check out the reading list. Completely ignores the excesses of the left which were as bad in many cases as those of the right. An over simplification of a very complex period in western history.

this article seem a soviet/ comintern propaganda of the period…just rude disinformation …

Vigilant, in what way were the "excesses of the left as bad in many cases as the right"?

Italwars, in what way is the article disinformation? Please point out the errors or the points that you regard as disinformation. If you can.

simply because..as everybody knows, the supposdly to be, "legal Government" BEFORE and during the War , after coming in power trough a military coup staged a carefully planned campaign of terror typical of the marxist strategy (Calvo Sotelo ecc..assassinations) to liquidate, again illegaly, every possible opposition…in vue of that, Franco's levantamiento, certainly expected and asked by the majority of the population..despite some excesses ..was a sad necessity to stop the mass murders by Republicans that had reached probably 50.000 victims…furthemore foreign aid to nationalist cause which is the boring mantra of every article including the one to which this post refers was a consequence of this very aid asked and given by the illegal Republican Gvt..before by French populaire and then by Comintern in an atmosphere of true European Civil War ..if you read , for exampe, the neutral and acclaimed John F. Coverdale "Italian Intervention in the Spanish Civil War" you'll find that Mussolini intervention was extremely unwilling at the beginning..
this book in English from J. Ruiz could also help you to see something different from the appalling , politically correct, propaganda that we continue nowdays to be submerged:

Chouan..i really like your nick name..probably you have some simpathy, like me, for the anti Republican Britanny rebels that fought for their freedom VS Paris 's Colonnes Infernales..that's why i'm puzzled about your reasons why, in cases lik SCW, you sided, despite every evience, with the repressive, conservative, officially accepted as good, Republican's side…just a tought …just my curiosity ..without any polemics..thanks

Because of the evidence.
I would like to think that I can put my own political views to one side and look objectively at the evidence. The government of Spain was legally elected in a legal election, despite the attempts at intimidation by the thugs employed by the right, the fascist militias and the Civil Guard, who were effectively the factory and landowners' uniformed militia. The rebellion was an attempt at an illegal coup to overthrow the legal democratically elected government. The murderous coup failed, so the rebellion became a murderous civil war. However, although murders were committed by both sides, the right had planned a campaign of murder from the start, and began the murders on the day that the coup began. They also carried out many times more murders than did the left. The murders by the right were official policy, whereas the murders on the left weren't, but were carried out largely by uncontrolled far left militias, not by the government, and the government tried to stop them, whereas Franco's "government" organised and encouraged murders.
My sympathies tend towards the opponents of repressive and totalitarian regimes. The Chouans and the Vendeans weren't, to my mind, anti-Republican, but they were certainly anti-repression. They didn't revolt against the Republic, but they did revolt against the imposition of conscription, the expulsion of their local parish priests and the imposition of Republican ones, and the corruption of the Republican officials and functionaries. They weren't against the Republic per se, which was, in any case, more of a repressive proto-fascist movement, vide the "Cult of Reason" than a left wing one.

sorry but the evidences and the logic said the opposite of what you wrote..
so you're in short saying that "comite revolucionario" followed by a "gobierno de plenos poderes" who give birth to what the article call a "legal Govt" was'nt a coup?..with the use of purplosly created paramilitary terror police , the Asaltos, trained and recruited to spread terror and maintain power ?..and how the many documented murders and agression to churches ..lead by uniformed paramilitary police and well known politics leaders could be called "uncontrolled left wing mobs"?..i'm sure that we are all , from studying and, in a certain way, from personal experience well aware ..that with a piramidal, well organised and severe terrorist doctrine which is the left/marxist organisation there is no place for spontaneous non organised actions..let's think at the bloody repression of few idealists and anarchists among the very ranks of Republican forces…
what i cannot also stand in the article is the fact that the internationalisation of the conflict is explained as the call for help from Franco to Fascist Italy and Germany..the truth is again the opposite..Republican Spain was, in a certain way, from the beginning of the war..a puppet, as concern Foreign and Economical Policy, in the hands of Front Populaire and equipped and paid by Moscow…Italy was unwilling to send his troops in Spain…and Germany was even very annoied to side with Italy..remenber the covered help given even to Ethiopia in therms of weapons by germany Vs Mussolini and the almost touched clash with Italy at the Brennero border….also the 2 countries perfectly know that they would'nt have expected nothing in exchange for their supply of troops after the advent of Franco..(at the end neither Balearic Islands to italy and neither free pass and dove for German ships )…so it was the Republic that at first, as ordered by their Comintern boss, sold of his national identity by let in massive Soviet help, let his gold reserve being stolen by Moscow and allow to participate in the fight bands of people (International Brigades) who, with few exceptions, were wanted by the police all over Europe

You haven't, ITALWARS, presented any evidence to support your challenges to chouan's statements. I am also curious to see the evidence to support your claims that the International Brigadeers were wanted by the police forces of Europe. This was probably true of the Thaelmanns who were wanted by the Gestapo. I fail to see that as a bad thing.

See "Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War", by Radosh, Habeck, and Sevostianov for an excellent and up to date account of the involvement of the USSR in the SCW.

B

Excerpted from an essay written by Russell Shaw, a Catholic journalist, regarding the experience of the Catholic Church in Spain in the period preceding and through the Spanish Civil War.

Quote –

Largely as a result, many important facts about the war remain unsettled. But the general outlines are clear. To understand what happened in those three awful years, it's necessary to begin much earlier.

By the 20th century, Spain's golden age in the 16th century was a distant memory. The Spanish colonial empire had long since disappeared.

For at least a century and a half the nation had been increasingly torn by social tensions marked by occasional outbreaks of violence. A crisis of immense proportions was taking shape, and no one seemed to be able to prevent it.

Along with the rest of Spain, the Church suffered. During the 18th century, the anti-religious propaganda of the Enlightenment had worked to undermine its influence. In 1837, its extensive landholdings were seized at the insistence of liberals and were sold to middle-class speculators.

In reaction, the Church grew increasingly conservative and identified more and more closely with the established social order. Yet even so, Hugh Thomas, author of "The Spanish Civil War" (Modern Library, $24.95 USD), concluded that the Church was "charitable, evangelical [and] educational" — a benign, though old-fashioned, player in an increasingly troubled social scene.

All the same, he wrote, by the early 20th century, bringing the Church down had become "a matter of obsession" for the Church's enemies. Among these were liberal politicians, Freemasons (often, the same people as the liberal politicians), workers who blamed the clergy for their woes and secularized intellectuals with a chip on their shoulders against religion.

A major aim of the Church's opponents was to drive religious orders out of the field of education — a somewhat odd objective in a country that already had too few schools (in 1930, some 80,000 children weren't in school in Madrid alone).

Not uncommonly, however, hostility went beyond obsession and took a violent turn. In 1923, for instance, anarchists shot to death the archbishop of Saragossa. In spring 1931, a wave of violence broke out in Madrid, Seville and other cities, with mobs attacking churches, monasteries and convents.

At this time, of course, the Church in Spain undoubtedly appeared to be overwhelmingly powerful — on paper. By the 1930s, women religious numbered some 60,000, diocesan priests, 35,000 and male religious, 20,000. There were about 1,000 monasteries and 4,000 convents.

But the numbers are deceptive. Though nearly every Spaniard was baptized, two-thirds of them didn't practice their religion, except possibly for baptisms, weddings and funerals. Only 5 percent of the rural inhabitants of New Castile made their Easter duty in 1931; in Andalusia, only 1 percent of the men in some villages went to Mass, and in a well-off Madrid suburb, 90 percent of Catholic school graduates didn't go to church.

Pivotal year

The year 1931 was a turning point. Supporters of a republic won a majority of votes in local elections in April. King Alfonso XIII, a stabilizing presence in the country up to now, left Spain, and it was proclaimed a republic. The new provisional government almost at once declared separation of church and state and religious freedom.

In the spring, a campaign of anti-monarchist, anti-religious violence began in Madrid, Seville and other cities. On April 20, Father Josemaría Escrivá, founder of the new Catholic group Opus Dei, recorded in his journal that for 24 hours the capital city was "one huge madhouse."

May 10 brought fresh attacks on churches and other religious establishments. Fearing for the safety of Blessed Sacrament in one chapel, Father Escrivá — who was canonized in 2002 — wrapped a ciborium of hosts in a cassock and newspaper and carried it to the home of a friend.

The government was slow to respond to the outbreak, and that slowness left many of its opponents even more angry and suspicious than before. The situation was not improved when the cardinal-archbishop of Toledo and the bishop of Vitoria were expelled from the country for anti-Republican statements (which, in fact, they had made).

In the fall, the government introduced a draft constitution with religious clauses that Thomas called "ambitious but foolish."

They included ending government payments to priests begun in last century as compensation for seizure of Church lands; requiring religious orders to register with the justice ministry under threat of dissolution if found to be threats to the state; dissolving orders whose members take more than the usual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience (in other words, the Jesuits, some of whose senior members make a vow of loyalty to the pope); ending all religious education; requiring government approval for any "public manifestation of religion"; and recognizing only civil marriage as legal.
Spanish reformers had long sought to bring the country into the 20th century. Now it was clear that for the people running the country, that meant suppressing the Catholic Church.

Pope Pius XI protested these developments in an encyclical published in June 1933 titled, Dilectissima Nobis ("Extremely Dear to Us" — i.e., the Spanish nation). Denouncing the "anti-religious whims of the present legislators," the pope declared: "We cannot fail to raise our voice against the laws lately approved … which constitute a new and graver offense not only to religion and the Church but also to those declared principles of civil liberty on which the new Spanish regime declares it bases itself."
Pope Pius likened what was happening in Spain to the persecution of the Church then under way at the hands of the anticlerical government in Mexico and the atheist rulers of the Soviet Union. The attack on the Church in Spain, he said, was "not so much due to misunderstanding of the Catholic faith and its beneficial institutions, as of a hatred against the Lord and his Christ."

Random acts of an anti-religious nature were, by now, common. In Andalusia, after lightning destroyed a church roof and the priest celebrated Mass under the open sky, he was fined for an unauthorized public display of religion. Another priest, preaching on the feast of Christ the King, was fined for expressing monarchist sentiments by referring to the kingship of God. The ringing of church bells drew a fine in one place, while elsewhere churches were robbed and burned, with the authorities doing little to identify perpetrators.

Meanwhile, a reaction against the radical policies of the new regime was setting in among monarchists, aristocrats, wealthy people and the middle class, elements of the army and some in the Church. The conservative political parties pulled themselves together and began winning elections, while their opponents on the left grew ever more hostile and determined to fight if it came to that.

Pope Pius XI had commended "the great majority of the Spanish people" for their restraint in the face of provocations from enemies of religion. No doubt many did. But a British journalist called Spain in these years "a country at war with itself."

Spanish society as a whole descended increasingly into a state of constant tension and revenge-seeking among a mix of groups that included anarchists, socialists, communists, monarchists, Freemasons, Catholics, the fascist Falange, the army, the civil guards and others. The only thing they had in common, it sometimes seemed, was a desire to gain the upper hand and then settle scores.

War erupts

New general elections in February 1936 produced a victory for a left-wing Popular Front coalition. Almost at once, this outcome brought a fresh wave of violence by groups even further to the left than the coalition members who were convinced the time was now at hand for all-out revolution.

For a long time people had been asking when the Spanish army would step in. The answer came July 17 — a day earlier than planned — with an uprising among army units across the Strait of Gibraltar in Spanish Morocco under the command of Gen. Francisco Franco. The war had started.

Fifty churches in Madrid were burned during the night of July 19-20. The Republican government appeared to lose control of the situation as leftist militias roamed the streets. "A bad night, hot," Father Escrivá wrote in his journal. "All three parts of the rosary. — Don't have my breviary. — Militia on the roof."

Persecution of the Church continued in Madrid and other places where the Republican forces or the militias of the anarchists, communists and socialists were in control. Although the persecution eventually slacked off, never in the next three years did it end.

Extreme brutality was a notable feature of the Spanish Civil War. The numbers remain in dispute, but by one credible estimate there were 70,000 executions in the zone controlled by the Republic and 40,000 in the zone of the rebel Nationalists, with another 30,000 postwar executions under the victorious Franco regime. (Johnson said Franco was "in no sense a clericalist and never took the slightest notice of ecclesiastical advice on nonspiritual matters.")

Among Church personnel, those executed during the war — almost all of them by the leftists — included 12 bishops (the bishops of Jaen, Lerida, Segorbe, Cuenca, Barcelona, Almeria, Guadix, Ciudad Real, Tarragona, and Teruel along with the apostolic administrators of Barbastro and Orihuela); 283 religious sisters and nuns; 4,184 priests; 2,365 religious priests; and an unknown number of laypeople killed for their faith.

- Unquote

Blutarski notes –

I find it difficult to square claims that the Catholic Church in Spain during the 30s was a dominant reactionary political force with what has been cited above ….. unless of course, Mr Shaw can be shown to be a comprehensive liar.

It is also worthwhile to ponder another less discussed facet to the tension between socialism and religion. Socialism demands the sole allegiance of the citizen and the exclusive right to educate and indoctrinate him. The existence of a separate belief and educational system is theoretically intolerable within a true socialist state.

For important perspective, review the period in Mexico from the end of the Mexican Revolution to the assumption of power by the socialists under Plutarco Elias Calles and the comprehensive campaign to erase the Mexican Catholic Church, which led to the bloody Cristero War.
B

"I find it difficult to square claims that the Catholic Church in Spain during the 30s was a dominant reactionary political force with what has been cited above ….. unless of course, Mr Shaw can be shown to be a comprehensive liar."

I would suggest that you consult Hugh Thomas's "The Spanish Civil War" on the condition of Spain in the early twentieth century. On the other hand, the church and the popular attitude to the church wasn't uniform. In rural areas where the peasantry were relatively prosperous, like Navarre and Galicia and the Basque country, the church was both popular and powerful. In other rural areas, where the majority of the population were downtrodden day labourers, like Andalucia, the church was one of the props of the landowners, and was largely seen by the rural poor, as merely another means of control over their lives. Similarly, in urban areas, like in Barcelona, the church was seen pretty much as a racket. Consequently, when the rebels launched their murderous rebellion, with the open support of the church, the church was seen as a part of the nationalist movement in many areas that were loyal to the Republic, with the consequent results. In Euskadi, however, the church was seen as sympathetic to the Republic, so anti-clericalism was virtually absent. This led, of course, to the Nationalists viewing the Basque clergy as traitors, leading to significant numbers of priests being executed by Nationalist forces, with the open support of the rest of the Church in Spain. I note that your Mr.Shaw doesn't say much about the murderous repression of Basque priests after the Nationalist conquest of Euskadi!
His estimates for the death toll of the repression is more than suspect, with all sources, apart from Francoist apologists and other right wing and clerical writers, acknowledging that Francoist murders outweighed those in the Republic by at least a factor of ten. Furthermore, your Mr.Shaw seems to disregard the fact that the rebels began their campaign of murder immediately their rebellion against the democratically elected legally recognised government of Spain began.

In any case, your Mr.Shaw, who is a catholic propagandist rather than a historian, and who seemed to think in 2011 when this article was written that "Spain has a democratic system of government, a left-leaning secularist regime that has frequently clashed with the Church and a shaky economy." when the government of Spain in 2011 was by no means left of centre!

I would suggest that you should perhaps seek to balance the grossly biased article that you've quoted from with other views, like this one link

This is an interesting extract:
"In the second year of the war the Archbishop of Grenada gave his imprimatur to the catechism of the Jesuit priest Angel Maria de Arcos. This catechism was so unbelievable, so obscurantist, incredible, outrageous, that when John Langdon-Davies wrote about it in a London liberal magazine he was attacked by numerous Catholic editors, accused of making the whole thing up. He sued for libel, established the veracity of the catechism, and won his case. Here is what the children in many eastern cities, including Granada, were taught:

Q. Is every Liberal government hostile to the Church?

A. Evidently, since whoever is not with Christ is against Him.

Q. Then there is no grade of Liberalism that can be good?

A. None: because Liberalism is mortal sin and anti-Christian.

Q. What of Communism, Socialism, Modern Democracy, An­archism, and the like sects?

A. They are contrary to Catholic faith, to justice, and to virtue, and as such condemned by the Church.

(In reply to another question:)

A. The Liberal system is the weapon with which the accursed Jewish race makes war on our Lord Jesus Christ, and his Church, and on the Christian people.

In 1944 the new classic catechism, known as the Nuevo Repaldi, and used nationally, was published and introduced into every secondary school in Spain. It consists of 112 pages, and was fully described by the U.S. press attaché‚ in Madrid during the Spanish War, Emmet John Hughes, in his Report from Spain. Of the ten pages which concern themselves with the essential doctrines of Catholic faith and morals, here are a few samples:

Q. What does freedom of the press mean?

A. The right to print and publish without previous censorship all kinds of opinions, however absurd and corrupting they may be.

Q. Must the government suppress this freedom by means of censorship?

A. Obviously, yes.

Q. Why?

A. Because it must prevent the deception, calumny and corrup­tion of its subjects, which harm the general good.

Q. Does one sin gravely who subscribes to a liberal newspaper?

A. Yes … Because he contributes his money to evil, places his faith in jeopardy, and gives a bad example.

Q. What rules can be given to know liberal papers?

A. The following:
1. If they call themselves liberal.
2. If they defend freedom of conscience, freedom of worship, freedom of the press, or any of the other liberal errors.
3. If they attack the Roman Pontiff, the clergy, or the religious orders.
4. If they belong to liberal parties.
5. If they comment on news or judge personalities with a liberal criterion.
6. If they unreservedly praise the good moral and intellectual qualities of liberal personalities and parties.
7. If, in reporting events concerned with the battle waged by Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Church against their enemies today, they remain neutral.

Q. What is the rule to avoid error in these cases?

A. Do not read any newspaper without the previous consult­ation and approval of your confessor."

"Socialism demands the sole allegiance of the citizen and the exclusive right to educate and indoctrinate him. The existence of a separate belief and educational system is theoretically intolerable within a true socialist state."

You seem to be confused as to what socialism actually is, as is evidenced by these grossly inaccurate assertions. Socialism is an economic model, not a political one. The majority of the population of Euskadi voted for the Popular Front, so could be described as socialist, yet remained loyal to the Church.

What is the relevance of Mexico, a subject that you keep raising, when the context is entirely different?

"This was probably true of the Thaelmanns who were wanted by the Gestapo. I fail to see that as a bad thing."

Quite!

Is every Liberal government hostile to the Church?

A. Evidently, since whoever is not with Christ is against Him.

"Q. Then there is no grade of Liberalism that can be good?

A. None: because Liberalism is mortal sin and anti-Christian.

Q. What of Communism, Socialism, Modern Democracy, An­archism, and the like sects?

A. They are contrary to Catholic faith, to justice, and to virtue, and as such condemned by the Church."

what 's wrong with that…is still up today the basis of Church Doctrine..even with the current Pope despite being recogniced , as you perfectly know, as the very fashionable and universally acclaimed leader of left thinking…..

if Thaelmanns where wanted by Gestapo..the other so called "volunteers" methods could have well have been a source of inspiration for Gestapo:
link

Chouan,

You appear to so enjoy playing a great numerical game when it comes to executions, as if the faction responsible for the most such deaths must perforce bear the entire moral blame while the other faction earns absolution upon the grounds that it failed to enjoy an equal degree of opportunity to pursue its own campaign of death. Or perhaps you have convinced yourself that every dead Spanish Catholic or Nationalist was in fact a blessing to Spain. In either case, how sad. To put it into a more realistic perspective, see recent scholarship by Ronald Radosh et al in their book "Spain Betrayed" (Yale University Press, 2001) -

quote -
The other revelation in this document has to do with the nature of the killings that took place behind the front lines in Republican Spain. The controversy over this point is of long standing. On the one side are scholars such as Gabriel Jackson, Paul Preston and Antony Beevor, who emphasize the spontaneous and disorganized nature of the terror in the Republican zone as compared with the more institutionalized executions carried out by Franco and his men. Jackson also gives a figure of about twenty thousand total killed by the Republicans – approximately six thousand in Madrid and six thousand in Barcelona and Valencia together. On the other side are men like Hugh Thomas and Stanley Payne who blame both sides impartially for the killings. Payne specifically argues that the old distinction between terrors (one spontaneous and popular, the other organized and institutional) is invalid. The "Red Terror" was also carried out by officially sanctioned groups. In his conversation with Antonov-Ovseenko, Miravitlles supports the latter view of the terror. Not only are Jackson's figures far too low – the Catalans had after all killed eight thousand in Barcelona only nine weeks into the war – but the executions were obviously viewed as part of the war effort and supported by the government of Catalonia. Other documents reprinted in this chapter allude to many instances of unplanned and undesirable executions within the Republican zone. AS in Nationalist Spain, however, under the Republican government tens of thousands of civilians were killed as part of the official war on Fascism.
- unquote

Your double standards, demagoguery and dissimulations are simply breathtaking. Your compulsion to portray the left as utterly pure, pristine and blameless in the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War reflect very badly upon your intellectual integrity.

As for your arrogant posturing on the broader issues of socialist dogma relating to religion and education, please see below. I rid myself of my socialist library many years ago. You can easily find a great deal more of such material via web search.

V I Lenin essay, 1909 – "The Attitude of the Workers' Party to Religion"
link

V I Lenin oration, 1918 – "Speech At The First All-Russia Congress On Education"
<http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/aug/28.htm>

In closing, it may be apropos to repeat a quotation by British journalist Paul Johnson which was included by the authors in their introduction to "Spain Betrayed" -

quote -
" … no episode in the 1930s has been more lied about than this one (i.e. – the SCW), and only in recent years have historians begun to dig it out from the mountain of mendacity beneath which it was buried for a generation."

B

Sorry, but in what way was the article that the link was to relevant? How is a rant by a journalist in any way valid evidence for a viewpoint?

If you can't see whats wrong with that catechism, ITALWARS, then we have no common ground for discussion.

" … no episode in the 1930s has been more lied about than this one (i.e. – the SCW), and only in recent years have historians begun to dig it out from the mountain of mendacity beneath which it was buried for a generation."

Indeed. The Francoists and their descendants kept the truth covered up for years. Even now their descendants continue in their attempts to obfuscate, to hide documents and records of murders, and frustrate attempts to find out how many people were murdered under Franco's regime.

"As for your arrogant posturing on the broader issues of socialist dogma relating to religion and education, please see below. I rid myself of my socialist library many years ago. You can easily find a great deal more of such material via web search."

Indeed, the documents that you include here evidences your lack of understanding of political concepts. You appear to be conflating Lenin's view of communism with socialism, which is an entirely different concept. I'm not surprised though. "Arrogant posturing"? Really? By pointing out your ignorance?

"Your double standards, demagoguery and dissimulations are simply breathtaking."

Indeed? Any evidence for anything in this assertion? Or are you just annoyed?

"Your compulsion to portray the left as utterly pure, pristine and blameless in the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War reflect very badly upon your intellectual integrity."

What compulsion? Where have I sought to portray the left as "utterly pure pristine and blameless"? On the contrary, I have never denied that atrocities and murders were carried out by the left, which compels me to suggest that your making that assertion reflects very badly on your intellectual integrity.

His estimates for the death toll of the repression is more than suspect, with all sources, apart from Francoist apologists and other right wing and clerical writers, acknowledging that Francoist murders outweighed those in the Republic by at least a factor of ten.

That 1 to 10 thing seems wrong. Julian Casanova, a left leaning Spanish historian, gives figures of 50-55 thousand killed by the Republicans, 100 thousand killed by the Nationalists during the war. He notes that these figures are based on estimates produced by Paul Preston, another left leaning historian. 'A Short History of the Spanish Civil War', I.B. Tauris, 2013, p.38

The debate on another thread got me to start reading a paperback copy of the Spanish translation of Julius Ruiz's study on the Republican 'Red terror' in Madrid (El Terror Rojo, Espasa, Barcelona, 2012) which I've had for ages but never got around to looking. This is the same title Italwars highlighted above.

It's the only detailed look at the Republican killings I've come across and it contentrates only on what happened in Madrid, but a short summary of some of what I've read so far:

The murders on the left were carried out by militants and activists of the left wing parties which made up the government and upon which it depended for its support.

Following the rising there was an increasing blending/melding of the organisations of Popular Front political parties and the organs and organisation of the government; even where it remained in existence the authority of the pre-war government apparatus collapsed after the distribution of arms to the party militias so became dependent on the latter. This is one of the reasons the Republic's own security forces became involved in the killings in Madrid.

There were various rationales for the executions; predominantly eliminating the power of 'Fascist' elements in society and rooting out spies, saboteurs and 'Fifth columnists'. The terror period lasted for about six months so wasn't just a spontaneous outbreak.

Responses to it from within the Popular Front parties varied. Sometimes it was justified/supported, sometimes it was discouraged or condemned (though, again, sometimes this was just the fact that they weren't properly organised or targeted, not the fact of killing Fascists and class enemies in itself.). Outward generalized condemnation of violence could also go along with private support for and promotion of those who carried out killings.

i remenber that, during the Eighties..under Gonzales Marxism inspired Gvt..i had a long talk with a couple who worked in the Emmbassy here in Rome..they were bot aged people and from Madrid..i had expected some political corret thougts on the period of SCW that they remenbered very well..some usual considerations like the one of the articl..the Republica armed population that resisted heroically vs Franco Moros troops fr te sake of freedom and democracy..they told me exactly the opposite …before the liberation from Franco they had experimented a mood of terror…in every building and association you had to whatch your back from whistle-blowers in Gvt service…in a typical Marxist way to behave and control people .and, more interesting, during the failed attemp from Franco troops to enter Madrid at the Ciudad Universitaria …the quasi totality of people were waiting with hope to be liberated from their unfit Gvt and the terror with which the ruled..so the opposite of the false image they try to impose us from years of people asking weapons to the Army to defend their Republic…SCW a case study of criminal/leftist propaganda at his best…

Blutarski

"The existence of a separate belief and educational system is theoretically intolerable within a true socialist state."

The Girodins were market liberals and initiated the policies that broke the Catholic Church in France as a socio-political institution. Pretty much the civil war in France is their fault imho (As is the War of the 1st Coalition). The religious schism was as much, or even more their policy than that of the Jacobins (who only dominated the revolution for 3 of its 10 years). The rest of those 7 years were dominated by market liberals like the Girodins of the Thermidor. Guess what, they all prosecuted non-juring clergy, and Thermidor went even further than the Jacobins in the separation of Church and state.

And most of the Liberal-Authoritarian governments of Spain were market liberals and anti-Church.

I am sorry but your ascription to anti-religious policies only to the socialist left, kinda does not bear empirical scrutiny. Market Liberals are quite happy to prosecute the church just fine.

Also, Lenin is neither the primary nor the more exemplary of the socialist thinkers (indeed most socialists would not give any credence to Lenin). It might satisfy your political prejudices to treat Lenin as the example, but that is simply your choosing what you want.He is not indicative of the movement in the 1st International. He is not indicative of the movements in the 2nd International. He is only indicative of the 3rd International, and 2/3rds of the socialist movement (anarchists and social-democrats) rejected the 3rd International. So bandying Lenin around is meaningless. Why not Lassale? Or Kautsky? Or Tosltoy? Or Krokoptin? Or SPD? Rhetorical question just to make my point.

ITALWARS makes this claim
"certainly expected and asked by the majority of the population"

On what do you base this assertion? Do you have polling data or are you making stuff up?

BTW can we stop mixing the Brittany and Vendee risings ? Historical foolishness could be forgiven before 2016, but with McPhee's monumental 2016 "Liberty or Death: A History of the French Revolution" the nuanced view of the history of the French Revolution is not that hard to get. He did the work for all of use bringing together 150 years of historiogrpahy. Suffice to say that both the Left and Right wing narratives are crap. Different reasons for the two revolutions, and Chouan is correct in that they were not clearly anti-republican.

Brittany had more to do with opposition to some of the loss of feudal property rights, the issue of Church reform, but also federalism, while Vendee is more strongly driven by the religious issue, but still not anti-republican until very late. In both case classical rural opposition to conscription is the case.

Finally Blutarski. On the Cristero War. Your argument has a big issue. The policies of the Mexican governments applied to the whole of Mexico. But the Cristero War was very localized, pretty much central Mexico. To use the Cristero Revolt as a hammer against Chouan, you have to explain why only 1/3rd of Mexico rebelled in earnest against the national policy.

Anyway this discussion is irrelevant. You are all being partisans.

Chouan is pretty much Left

Italwars. Maybe I am unfair but it is pretty clear hard core reactionary (Opus Dei, potentially Petainism or Maurrasianism).

BLutarksi is classical anti-communist (which communism defined as broadly as possible) and american conservatism, which is the most ahistorical of all Conservative movements.

So you are not having a conversation, you are just self-validating your political biases. This is the exact same exchanged of self-declarations you had in the last huge thread on the SCW. So boring.

Italwars

Are you seriously basing

"certainly expected and asked by the majority of the population"

on

"i remenber that, during the Eighties..under Gonzales Marxism inspired Gvt..i had a long talk with a couple who worked in the Emmbassy here in Rome.."

Seriously? Two people = "the majority of the population" ?

Shame on you.

K Travlos,

Also, Lenin is neither the primary nor the more exemplary of the socialist thinkers (indeed most socialists would not give any credence to Lenin).

I think in the context of the 20th century he was pretty influential though. There is a statue of Lenin in our town square; there is a big statue of Lenin in every town square in Belarus, though I think there a lot fewer statues of him in place now than there used to be before 1992. My wife was telling me a while ago that the teachings of grandfather Lenin even cropped up in kindergarten in the 1980s.

"I am sorry but your ascription to anti-religious policies only to the socialist left, kinda does not bear empirical scrutiny. Market Liberals are quite happy to prosecute the church just fine."
>>>>> If you take a moment to re-read my post in question, KTravlos, I said no such thing. My remarks confined themselves solely to the outlook of classical Marxist-Leninist socialism toward religion institutions. In no way did I claim or imply that such a position was unique to socialist thinking.
- – -
Also, Lenin is neither the primary nor the more exemplary of the socialist thinkers (indeed most socialists would not give any credence to Lenin).
>>>>> You may choose to portray Lenin, and by implication, Marx and Engels, whom Lenin cites for precedent, as mere undistinguished socialist theoreticians of no significance. I would disagree.
- – -
BTW can we stop mixing the Brittany and Vendee risings ? Historical foolishness could be forgiven before 2016, but with McPhee's monumental 2016 "Liberty or Death: A History of the French Revolution" the nuanced view of the history of the French Revolution is not that hard to get. He did the work for all of use bringing together 150 years of historiogrpahy. Suffice to say that both the Left and Right wing narratives are crap. Different reasons for the two revolutions, and Chouan is correct in that they were not clearly anti-republican.
Brittany had more to do with opposition to some of the loss of feudal property rights, the issue of Church reform, but also federalism, while Vendee is more strongly driven by the religious issue, but still not anti-republican until very late. In both case classical rural opposition to conscription is the case.
- – -
>>>>> Never having raised the subject of the French Revolution of the Enlightenment, or for that matter the great European social upheaval of 1848/1849. I'm not certain why you directed the above commentary to me. That having been said, I would suggest that you once again re-read my posts. Never did I once claim that virtue and blame were by any means cleanly or clearly divided between the right and the left. I simply grew tired of the interminable Chouan chant implying that the right exclusively bore the guilt for the outbreak of the war and that the left's "spontaneous excesses" were excusable as natural reactions to intolerable provocations by the right; the only way that position holds any water is by erasing the assaults by various elements of the left upon civil property rights, the church and other traditional civil and social institutions in the years leading up to 1936. In fact, let me make this easy for you:
> Was there suffering among the peasant classes? ….. Yes.
> Was there suffering among the urban working classes? ….. Yes, although it remains unclear to what degree anarcho-socialist political radicalization efforts among workers and unions in Spain may have magnified that sense.
> How much of the above-mentioned suffering was institutional in nature? ….. Probably a great deal (although to what degree that suffering which came to a head in 1936 was a function of the global depression remains an interesting question so far unaddressed here).
> Were there political assaults and murderous physical attacks by the left upon the church? ….. Yes.
> Were there repeated violations of civil property rights by leftist union organizations in Spain? ….. Yes.
> Were there physical assaults and campaigns of intimidation by the left upon rightist supporters of the status quo? ….. Yes.
> Were there violent reprisals by the government in response to the above? Yes.
> Did the right finally reach a point where it reacted to a perceived dismantlement of the existing Spanish civil, social and religious order? ….. Yes, and why would anyone be at all surprised by that.
> Did the struggle escalate into a organized no quarter death struggle authorized and prosecuted by BOTH sides? ….. Yes.
> Did both sides cover up their worst excesses and atrocities? ….. Yes.
To distil my PoV down to essentials: BOTH sides were responsible for the tragedy, each in its own way; neither side had clean hands. But Chouan is so committed to his romantic embrace of the Republican "lost cause", adorned as ity has been with eighty years of leftist dissimulation and demagogery, that he refuses to acknowledge its contributory responsibility for the war.
- – -
Finally Blutarski. On the Cristero War. Your argument has a big issue. The policies of the Mexican governments applied to the whole of Mexico. But the Cristero War was very localized, pretty much central Mexico. To use the Cristero Revolt as a hammer against Chouan, you have to explain why only 1/3rd of Mexico rebelled in earnest against the national policy.
>>>>> Really? You might want to check on that 1/3 figure; the various campaigns spanned large areas of Mexico. Did I employ the Cristero War as "a hammer"? Please. I mentioned it as a contemporary event similar in nature to what was occurring in Spain – a struggle between a socialist government and the Catholic church that grew into an armed struggle between government and Catholic believers. It makes absolutely not one whit of difference what portion of Mexico went into revolt; in fact, given the guerilla nature of the struggle, it is probably impossible to gain an accurate picture of how widespread the rebellion actually was. What can be said with confidence is that Calles succeeded in neutering the Catholic church in Mexico – and that the progress of his campaign in Mexico was almost certainly watched with very great concern by the Spanish right in the decade leading up to 1936 – which is precisely why I raised the example.
- – -
BLutarksi is classical anti-communist (which communism defined as broadly as possible) and american conservatism, which is the most ahistorical of all Conservative movements.
>>>>> Admit it. You have absolutely no idea whatsoever of my fifty year adult political journey, KTravlos; you choose to see what you expect to see. It may amuse you to learn that I had a grand uncle who was a communist mayor of Larissa in the post-Colonels era. Suffice it to say that, after having the privilege of watching the unfolding wondrous virtues of New Left American socialism from the inside in the 60s, 70s and 80s, my opinions changed.
Have a nice day.
B

"Italwars. Maybe I am unfair but it is pretty clear hard core reactionary (Opus Dei, potentially Petainism or Maurrasianism)."
please KTravlos you'are nt unfair..just boring …
what's wrong with Opus Dei?..Mons Ecr. de Balaguer had the mission to care about poorest classes in the Madrid Banlieu after the war..and his writings about SCW offered by the other TMP are quite enlightening…do we have to use only your political generic slogans to support our views or can we offer some alternative new sources as we did?
and what have Pétain Vichy to do with the current interesting conversation?
About Vendée and Bretagne …maybe if you read something more..Gabory for example. and possibly French sources of which i'm sure you haven't access (Archives de Vendée) you could avoid your naif stance of school teacher without any specific knowledge on the subject…la'"Grande Armée Catholique et Royale" sporting the flag "Dieu et le Roi"..is certainly a great evidence for your subtile theory of the attachment to the Republic by the Vendeans peasants …

Blutarski

The Vendee/Brittanny remark was pointed to Italwars, who seems to consider Peter McPhee a school teacher.

On the other points I will hold me silence.

Italwars

Read "Liberty or Death: the French Revolution" McPhee synthesises all that pevious literture and points out its issues. Yes including yourt precious Gabory. The revolution took a more monarchist bent after it strated. It did not start with your little royalist slogans. Perhaps you should read something else than Opus Dei and Reactionary Catholic literature.

As for waht is wrong with Opus Dei? Ask the mothers who lost their chidlren through the machinations of "charitable" chruch organisations such as these. In Francoist Spain, and Pinochet's Chile (and even "Republican" Ireland).

And that is all I am going to say.

the remark about school teacher was adressed to you..i'm sure that if we spoke about spaghetti alla carbonara, about best techniques to pick up girls, Risorgimento (i remenber your clumsy remarks), Futurist Art ecc….you will have something to teach us with same stance…about Consecatorism..again and again..what's wrong with that…despite the fact that, from your words and ideas, you seem to be the most conservative here…

As i'm always open to reading suggestions..i was pondering if this strongly suggested secondary sources book to understand, at least, what happened during French revolution in Vendèe was the last very specific source for the Vendée topic..then i read at random one qualified review:

`With an easy style and a clear purpose, Professor Peter McPhee pilots students past key questions of the origin and course, meaning and significance of the French Revolution. Touching most debates in the historiography, McPhee's history still offers a sound narrative of revolutionary events, egos and enactments, always in chapters of manageable length, always with an eye to evidence that's first-hand, fascinating and fresh. Scores of students and teachers will owe him a debt of thanks.'
Adrian Jones, La Trobe University"

well at least, and with growing simpathy, i was able to detetect which are the historical i should have to suggest to KTravlos and sorry for not having done it before:

"I think in the context of the 20th century he was pretty influential though. There is a statue of Lenin in our town square; there is a big statue of Lenin in every town square in Belarus, though I think there a lot fewer statues of him in place now than there used to be before 1992. My wife was telling me a while ago that the teachings of grandfather Lenin even cropped up in kindergarten in the 1980s."

Lenin may have been very influential in the USSR but that doesn't make him any kind of authority or spokesperson for socialism. I doubt if Keir Hardy, Aneurin Bevan or Clement Attlee were followers of Lenin, in the way that Blutarski seems to imagine!

"interminable Chouan chant implying that the right exclusively bore the guilt for the outbreak of the war and that the left's "spontaneous excesses" were excusable as natural reactions to intolerable provocations by the right;"

It is, however interminable, true. You have, however, argued elsewhere that the rising of the rebels, with it's concomitant policy of pre-planned mass murder was somehow justified by the Popular Front's introduction of social reforms. You've sought to mask it, of course, by claiming that it was the aim of the popular front to erase the existing Spanish society, which it never was, and by pointing to the violence from the left. As has been repeatedly pointed out, the violence from the right, pre-rebellion was far more widespread, far more serious, and involved far higher numbers of victims. If the murderous rebellion against the legitimate government was justified by the democratically government's carrying out it's election manifesto, then how much more justified were the militia's of the far left in attacking the enemy within in the Republic?

I'll address the rest of your post later, but suffice it to say, your repeated misuse and misunderstanding of the concept of socialism constantly undermines your arguments. Is it willful misuse? Or are you really so ill-informed that you really can't tell the difference between Leninist views and socialist views?

Just for your education and information, these are expressions of socialism and socialist policy:

"In a civilised community, although it may be composed of self-reliant individuals, there will be some persons who will be unable at some period of their lives to look after themselves, and the question of what is to happen to them may be solved in three ways – they may be neglected, they may be cared for by the organised community as of right, or they may be left to the goodwill of individuals in the community."

and another:

"A right established by law, such as that to an old age pension, is less galling than an allowance made by a rich man to a poor one, dependent on his view of the recipient's character, and terminable at his caprice."

Both true socialist expressions of policy and ideas. Neither fit in much with Leninism…..

Lenin may have been very influential in the USSR but that doesn't make him any kind of authority or spokesperson for socialism. I doubt if Keir Hardy, Aneurin Bevan or Clement Attlee were followers of Lenin, in the way that Blutarski seems to imagine!

It's hard to imagine that any single figure could be identified as the authority or spokesman for socialism in the 20th century. I would argue that Lenin and his ideas had a lot more influence than the three British figures you mention though; Marxism-Leninism didn't just have a monopolistic dominance in the USSR itself but spread throughout Eastern Europe and exerted a strong influence on Communist thinkers in the Far East (China, Vietnam, North Korea) as well. Then following WW2 some of the sizeable Western European Communist parties were also attached to a pro-Moscow stance.

When socialism is understood in terms of complete, or very high levels of nationalization of economic activity, a planned economy model dominating and left wing parties (or a single left wing party) enjoying a monopoly of political and social power, Lenin's name may be likely to come up.

You are confusing socialism with Marxism-Leninism.
That you imagine that:
"socialism is understood in terms of complete, or very high levels of nationalization of economic activity, a planned economy model dominating and left wing parties (or a single left wing party) enjoying a monopoly of political and social power,"
is of itself evidence that you are conflating and confusing the differing ideologies. What you describe is emphatically not socialism.

That "Lenin's name may be likely to come up." in the context that you describe is likely, but not in the context of socialism.

That you imagine that:
"socialism is understood in terms of complete, or very high levels of nationalization of economic activity, a planned economy model dominating and left wing parties (or a single left wing party) enjoying a monopoly of political and social power,"
is of itself evidence that you are conflating and confusing the differing ideologies. What you describe is emphatically not socialism.

What is your authority for this claim that Marxist-Leninism cannot be considered a version of socialism? Marxist Leninists talked about it in these terms (USSR- Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, for example). I even find that it is fully treated as part of the history of socialism over on Wikipedia.

Also, back in a Spanish Civil War context this:

complete, or very high levels of nationalization of economic activity, a planned economy model dominating and left wing parties (or a single left wing party) enjoying a monopoly of political and social power.

is the kind of politics Largo Caballero, one of the two leading figures in the PSOE at that time, was advocating loudly for in the period before the military rising. One of the reasons for the ambiguous relationship the PSOE ended up having with the Popular Front government it kept in power.

As I said 2/3rds of the socialist movement rejected Lenin. You may choose to call him whatever you want. Marxists-Leninists may choose to call themselves whatever they want. But for two thirds of the socialist movements (anarchists and social-democrats + democratic socialists) they were not socialists. I do not question that marxism-leninism springed from the same sources as anarchism, anarcho-syndicalsim, social-democracy, social radicalism, socialism, democratic-socialists. I just refuse to let you use him as the poster boy for a massive movement that long predated him and survived him. Same thing with Caballerro. One person, representing one among many factions. No reason for anybody, including the people who would make the coup to decide he was the decision makers.

This is always a strategy of people wishing to excuse mass murder and civil war (whetehr Right Wing or Left Wing). Choose a couple of extremists. Declare to be the true nature of the opposition. Give them as much exposure as possible.

Largo Caballero was a communist. Like many other communists, he used the name socialist to disguise his true ideology, as socialism is a far more acceptable term to most people than communist, especially after the establishment of the USSR. Communists are emphatically not socialists. That Lenin called the various soviet republics socialist isn't really relevant, as he was just using a word.
Try this for an explanation:
link
If you've looked at Wiki, you'll have seen that the international socialist movement was a rival to the international communist movement. Their aims policies and ideologies were different.
link
link

"Choose a couple of extremists. Declare to be the true nature of the opposition. Give them as much exposure as possible."

Exactly! Very well put.

the only problem with this laughable theory that left wing extremists or comunists are something different from the official well accepted and self appointed "democratic" left..is that in quasi totality of today "democratic/socialist/socialist" parties..including some that unfortunatly rule their country you can count plenty of former terrorist, extremist. simpathizers of Red Brigade, Bader Meinhof, Sendero Luminoso, SACP ecc…so it's just a game of disguises carefully planned by the left to control the people in their best terrorist/marxist way

"In fact, let me make this easy for you:
> Was there suffering among the peasant classes? ….. Yes.
> Was there suffering among the urban working classes? ….. Yes, although it remains unclear to what degree anarcho-socialist political radicalization efforts among workers and unions in Spain may have magnified that sense."

Really? You imagine that working for minimal pay in poor conditions needed to be magnified by socialist organisations for it to be seen as a problem?

"> How much of the above-mentioned suffering was institutional in nature? ….. Probably a great deal (although to what degree that suffering which came to a head in 1936 was a function of the global depression remains an interesting question so far unaddressed here)."

Spain wasn't much affected by the global depression. In any case, the terrible working conditions pre-dated the depression, and the conditions experienced by the agricultural labourers in Andalucia were entirely imposed by the landowners, at least partly to maintain their economic and social dominance.

"> Were there political assaults and murderous physical attacks by the left upon the church? ….. Yes."

Were there even more numerous murderous assaults by the right on workers and their families? Yes.

"> Were there repeated violations of civil property rights by leftist union organizations in Spain? ….. Yes."

Were there even more numerous assaults on the living and working conditions of the rural and urban poor by the right, including lock outs, deliberate non-cultivation of farmland in order to control the rural poor by imposed poverty? Yes.

"> Were there physical assaults and campaigns of intimidation by the left upon rightist supporters of the status quo? ….. Yes."

Were there even more numerous and far more murderous and violent campaigns of intimidation by the right through the use of hired armed thugs and the Civil Guard on those perceived as supporting the left? Yes.

"> Were there violent reprisals by the government in response to the above? Yes."

Indeed. The Army of Africa, whose record of atrocities and war crimes in Spanish Morocco were second to none, even worse than the atrocities carried out by such exemplars of war crimes and atrocities carried out on civilians as the 3rd Colorado Volunteer Cavalry, were used to rape and murder people in Galicia in the mining districts, along with the Civil Guard under their commanders, Franco and Duval.

"> Did the right finally reach a point where it reacted to a perceived dismantlement of the existing Spanish civil, social and religious order? ….. Yes"

Yes, of course they would, given their record. To the right in Spain any social or economic reform threatened their dominance. Consequently, having lost in the legitimate democratic election they reacted to the proposed reforms with plans for a murderous coup, drawing up lists of those to be murdered, even before any of the moderate reforms had been enacted.

"and why would anyone be at all surprised by that."

Why indeed would one be surprised at their planning revolt and mass murder?

"> Did the struggle escalate into a organized no quarter death struggle authorized and prosecuted by BOTH sides? ….. Yes."

Of course it would, given the massacres of innocent civilians in a campaign of terror by the right that began as soon as the rising occurred. The massacres had been pre-planned by the right with a list of those proscribed already drawn up. That the militia's of the left responded in like manner is hardly surprising!

"> Did both sides cover up their worst excesses and atrocities? ….. Yes."

It was difficult for the left to cover theirs up, even if they had wanted to, especially with the international news media being given pretty much free access to the Republic. However, the state sponsored and organised mass murders of the right were covered up relatively easily, afterwards, by killing or intimidating those who might report or oppose them, and by ensuring in the subsequent 30-40 years that their excesses were officially hidden. Of course, they made no attempt to cover up their murders and massacres at the time, as they thought themselves fully justified in carrying them out. Once the war was over and the Franco regime tried to bring Spain back to normality, they tried to underplay their own murders, whilst seeking to publicise and exagerrate those of the left. Given the bias of the international news media towards the Francoists it was quite an easy thing to do.

For example, an American journalist (John Thompson Whitaker link ) was told by an officer of Regulares:
"Me encontraba con este militar moro en el cruce de carreteras cerca de Navalcarnero en el otoño de 1936, cuando dos muchachas españolas, que parecían aún no haber cumplido los veinte años, fueron conducidas ante él. A una se le encontró un carné sindical; la otra, de Valencia, afirmó no tener convicciones políticas. Mezzian las llevó a un pequeño edificio que había sido la escuela del pueblo donde descansaban unos cuarenta moros. (…) Se escuchó un ululante grito salido de las gargantas de la tropa. Asistí a la escena horrorizado e inútilmente indignado. Mezzian sonrió afectadamente cuando le protesté, diciéndome: ‘Oh, no vivirán más de cuatro horas ‘

Translated as:
"I was with this Moorish soldier at the crossroads near Navalcarnero in the autumn of 1936, when two Spanish girls, who appeared to have not yet reached the age of twenty, were brought before him. One was found a union card; The other, from Valencia, claimed to have no political convictions. Mezzian took them to a small building that had been the village school where some forty Moors rested. (…) There was a howling out of the throats of the troop. I attended the horrified and uselessly indignant scene. Mezzian smirked when I protested, saying, 'Oh, they will not live more than four hours'"

Or as Yague publicly stated after the massacres in Badajoz:
"Claro que los fusilamos. ¿Qué esperaba? ¿Suponía que iba a llevar 4.000 rojos conmigo mientras mi columna avanzaba contrarreloj? ¿Suponía que iba a dejarles sueltos a mi espalda y dejar que volvieran a edificar una Badajoz roja?"

"Of course we shot them. What did he expect? Was I supposed to take 4000 reds with me while my column was advancing against the clock? Did I suppose I was going to let them loose on my back and let them rebuild a red Badajoz?"

I just refuse to let you use him as the poster boy for a massive movement that long predated him and survived him.

You seem to refuse to allow that he was representative of any form of socialist thinking on religious matters or that the religious policies of Marxist-Leninist regimes could be considered in anyway historically significant.

I've made the point that socialism was too diverse a movement to have a single representative figure or authority at least twice myself anyway.

Same thing with Caballerro. One person, representing one among many factions. No reason for anybody, including the people who would make the coup to decide he was the decision makers.

So what? I haven't been making the argument that Caballero justified the army coup; in fact I stated the opposite.

I did argue that Caballero and other left wing factions like the anarchists contributed to creating the situation of political crisis in Spain in the years before the outbreak of the Civil War though, it was not exclusively the work of 'The Right'.

I also said I doubted that Caballero and people who shared ideas like his can, in hindsight, be considered morally superior to much of the right, which you seemed to have a problem with.

The existence of Christian Socialist parties, or Christian parties that promoted socialist policies (welfare states for example) would undermine you argument socialism always= prosecution of church dogma.

No I have no problem on whether they had moral superiority or not. Though only one of those two sides tried to give an answer to the needs and demands of the rural poor and the urban poor.

I consider the decision to go after the Church as a religious institution stupid. I consider that the case whether it is done by market liberals like the Girodins in France in 1789, or socialists in , or Marxists, or hell, full blooded conservatives like Bismark. But I do not consider the temporal power of the church exempt. Its lands, it social and political power (divorce laws, child legitimacy laws, legal restrictions on non-Catholics, land ownership and exploitation, illegality of abortion) are power and thus subject to change, by force if needed.

Also at the very start when I brought the Greek Civil War, I did note how it takes two to tango. But I am not persuaded by any of the arguments made on this thread that the Madrid Goverment in itself sought to massacre "The Right".

As for whether Lenin was a socialist, perhaps some reading is needed. If you have not read Kautsky's criticism of Lenin, you should. Here you go

link

Pointing out the milder forms of theoretical Socialism that evolved over the preceding century as an implied argument that, because such moderate forms existed elsewhere, the mainstream of Spanish socialist viewpoint in 1936 must also have been one of non-Leninist moderation is a false exercise unless a clear link can be established between the dogmas of the then-predominant Spanish socialist organizations and such moderate socialist views. The PSOE was the dominant socialist organization of the Spanish Left. It controlled a 99 seat plurality of the seats won by the Popular Front in the 1936 election and was led (since 1925) by the self-avowed radical Leninist Francisco Largo Caballero. In 1934, after the Spanish Right had regained control of the government, Caballero led the PSOE in alliance with the Communists in an abortive attempt to seize power by general armed rebellion.
After the removal of the radical anti-clericalist Azana from the Republican government, he was replaced as Prime Minister by Francisco Caballero, who also took on the role of Minister of War in the Republican government. The large majority of ministers appointed by Caballero were Anarchists and Communists. The Spanish Communist Party under Diaz and Ibarruri was a faithful subsidiary of the Stalinist model of communism as practiced in the USSR.
In Caballero's own words …..
- – -
(1) Francisco Largo Caballero interviewed by Edward Knoblaugh in prison in 1935:
We will win at least 265 seats. The whole existing order will be overturned. Azana will play Kerensky to my Lenin. Within five years the republic will be so organized that it will be easy for my party to use it as a stepping stone to our objective. A union of Iberian Soviet republics – that is our aim. The Iberian peninsula will again be one country. Portugal will come in, peaceably we hope, but by force if necessary. You see here behind bars the future master of Spain! Lenin declared Spain would be the second Soviet Republic in Europe. Lenin's prophecy will come true. I shall be the second Lenin who shall make it come true.

(2) 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.

It is clear that Spanish Socialism was heavily influenced by aggressive Soviet-style Marxist-Leninist dogma.

B

The existence of Christian Socialist parties, or Christian parties that promoted socialist policies (welfare states for example) would undermine you argument socialism always= prosecution of church dogma.

Blutarski made that point though, not me. I think then he specified that he had in mind Marxist Leninism rather than socialism in general. I was surprised that the example of Lenin appeared to be completely dismissed, as if he didn't represent any kind of significant strand of socialist thought on religious matters in the 20th C.

Though only one of those two sides tried to give an answer to the needs and demands of the rural poor and the urban poor.

I think you have to speculate to assess how the creation of the kind of left wing dictatorship promoted by Largo Caballero might have helped the poor because it was never established.

Looking at regimes with similar ideologies, they definitely help some of the poor a great deal, but the cost appears high and I don't think other parts of the poor and newly poor in these systems are really helped more than they would be under a capitalist one. With the 'people's democracies' and socialist dictatorships which were established in the 20th century after a couple of generations the collectivist/Marxist elite seemingly lost interest in running that kind of system and initiated a process to turn themselves into oligarchical capitalists anyway.

Even the regime Franco established after the Civil War managed to help some of the poor, if they had been in the right place at the right time and joined in the Nationalist war effort.

But I am not persuaded by any of the arguments made on this thread that the Madrid Goverment in itself sought to massacre "The Right".

Madrid government seems an ambiguous term. If it refers to the pre-rising government apparatus, various contemporary historians make the argument that outside the capital it ceased to exist (Casanova p. 32) and that even within Madrid itself, while it still existed, its authority collapsed and it became dependent on the political parties and their militias (Ruiz p.22).

I don't think either side attempted to eliminate all of its political opponents, they focused on militants, the politically active or other significant/leading figures. The Nationalists were probably more systematic (but contrary to what Chouan has stated, the Republicans kept up almost as high a level of killings in the first six months). After this period the need to try and win the good will of Britain and France seems to have empowered moderates in the Republican side, there were no such inhibiting factors for the Nationalists. The Nationalists were also usually on the offensive and kept occupying areas held by the Popular Front following the July rising, including ultimately all the areas where support for the Popular Front had been deepest. Conversely, the Republicans never managed to reoccupy any of the main Nationalist supporting areas from July 1936.

I don't see the ideological aspects of the Republican terror as something that is all that historically controversial. For example, from Julius Ruiz's study mentioned in my post above:

'In the Spanish case the myth of the murderous fifth column had its origin in the particular exclusionary culture of the left. Since April 1931, when the socialists and the centre left bourgeois republicans refounded the Republic…, the future of Republican democracy lay in the permanent exclusion of the right from power. The victory of the centre-right in the elections of November 1933, the failure of the insurrection led by the socialists in October 1934 and the subsequent repression facilitated a common anti-fascist discourse based on the dichotomy of the noble, productive 'people' -that is to say, the left- and a parasitic and inhuman 'fascist' enemy, that is to say, the right. The narrow electoral margin of victory was interpreted as the definitive triumph of the antifascist 'people'. However, this didn't mean that the defeated enemy did not remain dangerous. In fact, there was a generalized perception that the antifascist 'people' were threatened by a big fascist conspiracy. Obviously there was in fact a military plot, however in the antifascist imagination this constitued a small part of a more exensive monolithic conspiracy in which capitalists, the clergy and fascists were all involved. (See chapter 1).

… This study maintains that there wasn't a clear relationship between the rebel barbarities and the Republican killings. The former did not 'provoke' the latter. Instead, the rebel massacres reinforced the idea of the malevolence and mercilessness of the enemy. 'Fascists' were capable of committing any act if it worked to bring about the defeat of the 'people'…

In this way, in the summer of 1936, the identification and elimination of fascist 'spies' in Madrid was considered a military necessity; the Republican press, especially the Communist papers, emphasised that the struggle against fascism in the rear areas was an important as at the front. However the shooting of the enemies of 'the people' – priests, businessmen, soldiers, Falangists – was also a step on the way to the creation of the new antifascist society. This discourse of extermination spread across Madrid, including among the bourgeois republicans. Given that capitalism, the church and the soldiers were considered collectively responsible for the military uprising, the total destruction of their power was fundamental. If this didn't happen, a military victory would be in vain.' p.26-28

The book by Julian Casanova I have been quoting covers largely the same ground when it considers the Republican terror pp. 28-38.

"Pointing out the milder forms of theoretical Socialism that evolved over the preceding century as an implied argument that, because such moderate forms existed elsewhere, the mainstream of Spanish socialist viewpoint in 1936 must also have been one of non-Leninist moderation is a false exercise unless a clear link can be established between the dogmas of the then-predominant Spanish socialist organizations and such moderate socialist views."

We haven't been pointing out "milder forms of theoretical socialism" we've been pointing out that socialism is not synonymous with Leninism or communism, as you repeatedly seem to be claiming. Now that it has been established that communism and socialism are not the same, you're claiming that Spanish socialists weren't moderate. All you need to do is look at the policies introduced by the Popular Front government to see that these policies were socialist, not Leninist or communist.

"The PSOE was the dominant socialist organization of the Spanish Left. It controlled a 99 seat plurality of the seats won by the Popular Front in the 1936 election and was led (since 1925) by the self-avowed radical Leninist Francisco Largo Caballero."

So? What policies did the democratically elected government carry out? Were they communist? It really doesn't matter what political ideology Caballero followed, the only thing that is relevant is what policies the government carried out.

"In 1934, after the Spanish Right had regained control of the government, Caballero led the PSOE in alliance with the Communists in an abortive attempt to seize power by general armed rebellion."

Was it? Or was it a general strike that became violent? As an American you should be familiar with the violence that accompanied strikes in mining areas. Look at the West Virginia strikes; were they attempts at overthrowing a government? Where is your evidence that the attempted general strike was an attempt at a "general armed rebellion"? Or is this merely your perception of a violent strike?

"After the removal of the radical anti-clericalist Azana from the Republican government, he was replaced as Prime Minister by Francisco Caballero, who also took on the role of Minister of War in the Republican government. The large majority of ministers appointed by Caballero were Anarchists and Communists."

So? What does this prove?

"The Spanish Communist Party under Diaz and Ibarruri was a faithful subsidiary of the Stalinist model of communism as practiced in the USSR."

So? Does this prove that the moderate socialist policies carried out by the democratically elected government were in some way radical revolutionary policies because communists were in the government? How?

Your comments on Caballero are exactly the kind of thing that Ktravlos pointed out earlier, viz:
"Choose a couple of extremists. Declare to be the true nature of the opposition. Give them as much exposure as possible."

"It is clear that Spanish Socialism was heavily influenced by aggressive Soviet-style Marxist-Leninist dogma."

In your mind, perhaps, but you have offered no actual evidence for this whatsoever. You've offered your interpretation of events, but that, of itself, isn't evidence or proof. What the government did, what it's actual policies were is what was important, not what Caballero said that he intended to do. The moderate policies that were carried out were enough to provoke the intransigent right into a murderous uprising, because the right could not bear any reform that threatened their absolute domination of society and the economy. Despite this, you seem to be determined to prove that their murderous campaign was fully justified, because of the potential intentions of a few extremists.

"I was surprised that the example of Lenin appeared to be completely dismissed, as if he didn't represent any kind of significant strand of socialist thought on religious matters in the 20th C."

As has been established, Lenin didn't represent any kind of socialist thought in the 20th century. Socialist thought was already well established before Lenin's particular brand of communism, for want of a better word, appeared. Lenin's ideology was rejected by socialists, so can't be argued as being influential.

"With the 'people's democracies' and socialist dictatorships which were established in the 20th century after a couple of generations the collectivist/Marxist elite seemingly lost interest in running that kind of system and initiated a process to turn themselves into oligarchical capitalists anyway."

I'd be interested to know which dictatorships established in the twentieth century you think were socialist! I can think of several that were communist/Leninist, and some that called themselves socialist, but I can't think of even one that was actually a socialist dictatorship. I could name you several socialist governments that were genuinely socialist, all of which were democracies….

"I don't think either side attempted to eliminate all of its political opponents, they focused on militants, the politically active or other significant/leading figures. "

Indeed? Do you imagine that the 4000+ killed in Badajoz, or the thousands killed in Sevilla on the first days of the rising were "militants, the politically active or other significant/leading figures"?

"On 20 July, the rebels bombed the working-class districts of Seville, and after the rebel troops supported by the troops of the Spanish Legion arrived from Africa, 50 civil guards, 50 requetes and 50 falangists entered in the Triana and Macarena districts, using women and children as human shields, and started a bloody repression. The legionaries killed with knives all the men whom they found. On 21 July, the Castejon's V Bandera of the Spanish Legion assaulted the districts of La Macarena, San Julián, San Bernardo and El Pumarejo. By 25 July the Nationalists occupied all Seville. According to the Queipo's press assistant: "In the working-class districts, the Foreign Legion and Moroccan regulares went up and down the streets of very modest one-story houses, throwing grenades in the windows, blowing up and killing women and children. The Moors took the opportunity to loot and rape at will. General Queipo de Llano, in his night-time talks at the Radio Seville microphone urged on his troops to rape women and recounted with crude sarcasm brutal scenes of this sort."."