Spanish Civil War

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The Opponents

Because the insurgent generals’ plans for gaining complete military control of Spain had failed, they found themselves at war against the elected Republican government. The Spanish Civil War had begun.

The war divided Spain into two hostile camps: the Nationalists and the Republicans. The Nationalists included rebellious military forces and civilian groups allied against the Second Republic. The Republicans included an assortment of leftist groups ranging from loyal defenders of the republic to far-left parties that supported revolution.

The war also divided Spain geographically. Some areas were dominated by Nationalist supporters and were considered part of the Nationalist zone. At first, the Nationalist zone included vast stretches of sparsely populated territory and farmland in much of the northern half of Spain, as well as a few isolated areas, such as Seville, Córdoba, and the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula.

The areas where the rebellion had failed were considered part of the Republican zone. The Republican zone included most of the southern half of Spain, Catalonia in the east, and areas along the northern coast. The Republicans controlled the major urban and industrial zones, as well as Spain's considerable gold reserves. These zones shifted as the war continued and the Nationalists gained territory.

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1

The Nationalists

The Nationalists included other groups besides the military insurgents: the Alfonsine monarchists, the Carlists, the Falangists, and other right-wing groups. Despite their differences, the Nationalist groups supported the uprising against the Second Republic and wanted to impose a strong authoritarian form of government. They argued that the Second Republic threatened traditional Spanish society, particularly the monarchy and the Catholic Church.

Indeed, many officials of the Catholic Church portrayed the Nationalist uprising as a crusade against the godless enemies of spiritual Spain. The church also played a major role in defining the social and intellectual life of Spain in the Nationalist zone. Religious instruction returned to the classrooms, and in public people, especially women, were expected to follow a strict moral code of behavior. Women were discouraged from wearing makeup and were strictly forbidden to wear pants. Some Nationalist manifestos encouraged women to stop frequenting theaters or cafés and insisted it was their moral duty to stay home and care for their children.

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2

The Republicans

The Nationalists were opposed by the Republicans, some of whom were loyal defenders of the republic while others were left-wing revolutionaries. The Republicans who were loyal to the republic included middle-class republican parties, moderate socialists of the PSOE and UGT, Basques and Catalans who wanted autonomy for their regions, and the PCE Communists. But while this assortment of left-wing parties was attempting to defend the liberal democratic republic from the rebelling forces on the right, other Republican groups were seeking to use the military insurrection as a springboard for revolution. These included the anarcho-syndicalists of the CNT and FAI; the Marxist POUM; and left-wing socialists of the PSOE and UGT. Although the revolutionaries were in many respects at odds with the other Republican groups, they supported them in the struggle against the rebellion.

B

Social Revolution

The July military uprising not only started a civil war but also unleashed a massive popular revolution. This revolution began almost immediately following the uprising and lasted until May 1937, when the Communists gained the upper hand in Republican politics. The rebellion had caused the partial, or in some cases complete, breakdown of formal government institutions, and Spain's revolutionary forces took the opportunity to radically transform Spanish society. Cities and towns throughout the Republican zone were engulfed in a social revolution led by the CNT and FAI (anarcho-syndicalists), the PSOE and UGT (left socialists), and the POUM (revolutionary Marxists). The degree of change varied from place to place.

In regions dominated by the anarcho-syndicalists, the revolution encompassed nearly all aspects of society. They collectivized agriculture and industry—that is, they gave ownership collectively to the people who did the work and used the crops and products. They also began building the so-called comunismo libertario (free-communist) world, which they envisioned as one in which individuals no longer would be governed by state, religious, and capitalist structures. In some areas, revolutionaries abolished money, put church buildings to use for secular purposes, and declared everything—from cigarettes to luxury hotels—to be public property. As a result of these changes, large sections of the Republican zone fell under the rule of worker committees and collectivist institutions.

Change was particularly dramatic in Andalucía and Catalonia. In Catalonia, the CNT-FAI, UGT, and POUM held most of the power until the spring of 1937; the official government had little control. During much of that time, Catalonia enjoyed significant autonomy from the central government.

Not all Republicans, however, welcomed these revolutionary changes. In the Basque Country, for example, no social revolution occurred. There, conservative and predominantly Catholic Basque separatist organizations took political and economic control of the region. Nor did the Popular Front government in Madrid give much support to the social revolution. The social revolution fragmented control and made coordinating opposition to the military rebellion difficult. Such radical change also alienated many moderate Republican supporters.

C

Early Terrors

The military rebellion and the social revolution set in motion a period of violence and repression in both the Republican and Nationalist zones. In the Republican areas, the breakdown of formal authority led to a kind of working-class vigilantism, known as the Red Terror. In many cities and towns labor groups rounded up people suspected of being rebels or Nationalist sympathizers. The primary targets were those people known to be members of right-wing organizations, but many innocent bystanders were also victims of spontaneous outbreaks of so-called street justice. This usually meant an accused person would be tried in an unofficial 'people's court' without attorneys or due process. Those found guilty were condemned to death. In many places this simply meant they were dragged to a cemetery late at night, where they were executed alongside others who had been found guilty of holding the wrong political beliefs.

The Red Terror also targeted the Catholic Church. When the civil war broke out, long-standing resentment against the church boiled over into violence. Some revolutionaries sacked and burned churches and convents and destroyed religious monuments. Revolutionaries also killed approximately 7000 clergymen and clergywomen.

The violence in most of the Republican zone subsided once central and local government authority was reestablished. In late August 1936 Madrid’s government organized popular tribunals, which attempted to conduct fairer trials of people suspected of being pro-Nationalist. The CNT, FAI, and other trade union groups began calling for a halt to arbitrary killings, particularly those which were motivated by personal vendettas and carried out by renegade groups or street gangs. Altogether, estimates suggest that between 70,000 and 80,000 people were killed during the Red Terror.

Terrorism on the Republican side was equaled by the violence in the Nationalist zone. This so-called White Terror lasted throughout the war. In August 1936 Nationalist troops invaded Badajoz and allegedly slaughtered nearly 2000 people trapped in the city’s bullring. Nationalist repression in other cities, such as Sevilla and Granada, was especially brutal. Both the ordinary and the famous were victims of these purges. In Granada, for example, outspoken Republican supporter Federico García Lorca, one of modern Spain's greatest literary talents, was killed by Nationalist forces. Although the exact number is not known, estimates suggest that the Nationalists executed as many as 80,000 Republicans.