I greatly regret the desecration of a Spanish memorial to those Britons who fought for the Spanish Republic. But we need to face the fact that we had no dog in that fight, a war between those who entirely predictably went on to back the Axis while officially neutral, and those who wanted to turn Spain into a satellite of, initially, a de facto member of the Axis, as Spain would also have been if the Republicans had won.
Indeed, she would have been so even more than she was under Franco, since the Soviet Army actually fought alongside that of Nazi Germany, notably staging a joint victory parade through the streets of Brest-Litovsk. If Hitler had also had such a relationship with a Soviet-dominated Spain, then he would probably never have reneged on the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and therefore might very well have won the War.
The Spanish Civil War has always split Old Labour into its constituent subcultures. It did at the time. The Hard Left is as ardently pro-Republican as ever, because of its myopia (even now) about Stalinism, because of its anti-Catholicism, and because of the overrating of George Orwell, to which I know that I keep promising to return in a future post. Meanwhile, Catholics, at least if pushed or if they know anything at all about it (as almost no younger Spaniards do, either), will still back the Falangists, at least on balance. No one else will have much, if any, view on the matter.
But we need to get real. Even if Franco was no Hitler, neither side deserves our historical sympathy.
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one problem with this analysis is that the Republicans were not dominated by the Communists, pushing a Soviet policy, until later in the civil war. The failure of the liberal democracies to assist the Republicans, while turning a blind eye to the intervention of Nazi Germany and Italy, drove the Republicans into relying on the Soviets who provided the only material help to the Republicans. Once the war effort was reliant on the Soviets the communists were able to seize control of the Republican cause, even though they were a minority in the Republican ranks. For instance Soviet weapons and equipment went only to "reliable" fighting formations (i.e. communist led) and so on. Your linking of the Republicans to the Soviets and Stalinism is historically incorrect, and may never have occurred had the liberal democracies not stood by.
ReplyDeleteDavid - why did you delete the sensible comment left here earlier by someone who proved you were incorrect? Are you afraid of criticism?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous is simply ignoring (or does not know about) the information that has come to light since Soviet archives were opened up. The entire Republican cause was Comintern-directed, and the Soviet intervention was in no sense parasitic as has traditionally been supposed or asserted.
ReplyDeleteFor example, far from being commanded by a Canadian volunteer, the International Brigade was in fact commanded by Manfred Stern, a Soviet Commissar.
But then, there never was an anti-Soviet Left in Spain in the Thirties; that myth has been astonishingly long-lasting considering its compete and utter baselessness. Take, for example, Francisco Largo Cabellero, Socialist Party Leader and Popular Front Prime Minister.
Entirely typically of his party, he defined it as a revolutionary force wholly distinct from British Labour or the French Socialists, and differing "only in words" from the Communists.
The Socialist Party's 10-point programme of 1934 was wholly Leninist in form and substance, calling, among other things, for the replacement of the Army and the Civil Guard with a workers' militia, and for the dissolution of the religious orders and the expropriation of their property.
And so one could go on, and on, and on.
Stalin only loosened his grip once the Civil War was clearly lost, long after the Republicans themselves had given up what little commitment to democracy that they might ever have had.
So the best that can be said about the Spanish Civil War is that the not-quite-so-bad bad guys won.
Had the even-worse bad guys (the Republicans) won, then Spain would actually have fought with the Axis just as the Soviet Union did, the Nazi-Soviet Pact would probably never have collapsed, and Hitler might therefore very well have won the War.
What about the other commenter. What was he/she ignoring? Why are you ignoring them?
ReplyDeleteOh, it was just rather hysterical abuse from some usual suspect or other.
ReplyDeleteIt said you were wrong, and explained why. Does that count as abuse these days?
ReplyDeleteIt did no such thing. And I've already corrected in a subsequent post such points as it did make.
ReplyDelete