80 years ago in Spain, the civil war began between the Falangists and Republicans, between rich and poor, owners and the poor, the Church and the population that the Church was robbed, the privileged and the lower army ranks. It was a war for a just peace. Won brute force of fascism. Pwhy did Stalin did not help?
The second Republic of Spain occurred on April 2, 1931, after the defeat of the monarchists in the municipal elections. King Alfonso XIII abdicated, leaving the country with eight millions of the poor (33 percent of the population), with two million landless peasants, with latifundista land use system in which the whole region belonged to one person. The average wage of the employee ranged from 1 to 3 pesetas per day, a kilo of bread cost 1 peseta.
The country was dominated by confusion: the Cavaliers were against the Republic, the Catalans fought for autonomy, anarchists did not want the power of the state, the peasants were against the tyranny of the civil guard and the extortion of the Church. At this time josé Antonio Primo de Rivera founded the Falange, a far – right political party, which later Francisco Franco will make the only legal party in the country. He October 1934, brutally suppressed the strike of miners in Oviedo and gijón. Then, it was called “the Savior of Republic”, but he was looking the other way.
In 1936, in the General election competed two “front”: the left people’s front and right front national. The popular front won with an advantage of half a million people and won an absolute majority in the Spanish Parliament.
For the first time in Spain, the left came to power. The peasants were given vacant land, announced a 15 percent increase in wages. Simultaneously, plundered the Church, religion was removed from schools, dissolved the monasteries and confiscated their property. Priests forbidden to teach. Protests monarchists, Falangists, landowners ended with the reference of the leaders of the National front. Franco was exiled to a small garrison in the Canary Islands.
16 Jun 1936 in Parliament, right-wing leader Calvo Sotelo threatened the government: “Many will call me a fascist, but if a fascist state will bring an end to the strikes, end the confusion, end the abuses against property, I declare proudly that I am a fascist”. 12 Jul Falangists murdered Lieutenant josé Castillo, an instructor of the socialist militia, in retaliation, on July 13, the anarchists killed Calvo Sotelo.
17 July 1936 Franco uprising in the military garrison in Melilla (Morocco). “The army decided to restore order in Spain,” said the future dictator on the radio. On 18 July 1936 by the Falangists seized power in Seville, Cordoba, Granada, Navarra, Oviedo and Zaragoza. The Republicans left the Basque Country, Bilbao, Barcelona and Madrid. The civil war began.
She was quickly internationalized.The Falangists supported Hitler and Mussolini, the Republicans – the Soviet Union. England, and under her pressure and France stopped supplying arms to the legitimate government. August 24 on “non-interference” in the conflict announced all European countries. On the other side and came to fight in the international brigade. To support visits by authors Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell, the photographer Robert Capa.
Spain became a testing ground for punitive Hitler, Guernica was repeated later in thousands of European and Soviet villages. Had all the horrors of civil conflict. “Red” Spain killed the leaders of the nationalists and religious figures, and the Nazis were killing leftists and Union activists. In August 1936 he was executed the poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca.
The Republic resisted for a long time in Madrid and Catalonia. First, the fall of Catalonia, January 26, 1939. And March 28, Franco’s troops entered the capital and quickly took almost all the Central and southern parts of the country. On 1 April 1939, Franco announced the end of the war: “We have captured and disarmed the troops of the red of Spain and achieved their final national military purposes.”
The victory of the Falangists cost Spain a million dead: half the battle, the other half died from the effects of war. 300 thousand refugees left the country. After the Second world war Spain ten years was in a state of depression. Any protest was brutally suppressed. Until 1963 worked in the courts for the suppression of Freemasonry and communism.”
The death of Franco, strikes and protests have forced the state to move from a military dictatorship to a constitutional monarchy. This step has reconciled society, leftists have been “re-educated” Franco and the right created normal to the West a two-party system.
The accession to the European Union in 1986, brought Spain’s tourist boom, speculation in real estate, looting banks European credits and return to Latin America on the basis of economy of neoliberalism. Then came the economic crisis, which has lasted until today.
Now, “to die in Madrid” wanting a little, but Catalan separatism will not go away. They say that Barcelona became the first winner of fascism in Europe in 1936. The exit of the monarchy and the return of the Republican form of government are the agenda for many parties and United left and Republican Left party of Catalonia openly talking about it. 80 years later for the grandchildren of those who participated in the civil war, the fate of Spain is still in question. And not the fact that there will come new Franco.
One question is in Russia. Why Stalin is almost gone from Spain in late 1938? Why not support Republicans? For comparison, on the side of the Falangists fought a 30-strong volunteer Italian corps, and the total number of Soviet military personnel, mainly technicians, was during the war, about 2.5 thousand people.
Spain was far away, much closer was Japan, which already in 1937, invaded China and went to the border of the USSR. Hitler in 1938 has divided Poland and Czechoslovakia. Stalin knew that war with the Nazis is inevitable.
The Soviet leader intervened in the war in Spain in the hope that you will be able to help the Spanish Republic to build a bridge from Moscow to London and Paris. But the latter eventually indicated their friendly attitude toward Franco. The desire to isolate the Soviet Union they have outweighed the desire to stop fascism. As it is similar to the current situation. Islamic terrorism is eating up the West, but a desire to “stop Putin” outweighs common sense, which says that we need an Alliance with Russia in the fight against Jihad.
