I.

Introduction

Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), conflict in Spain following the failure of a military rebellion to overthrow Spain's democratically elected government. The war divided Spain both geographically and ideologically. It brought to power General Francisco Franco, who ruled Spain from the end of the war until his death almost 40 years later. By the time the war was over, an estimated 500,000 people had been killed in combat or by execution, or had died as a result of hunger or wounds. An additional 250,000 to 500,000 supporters of the losing side left Spain to avoid persecution.

II.

Growing Divisions

Conservative social values and religious beliefs had long characterized Spanish society. In some regions, wealthy classes monopolized the land, while peasants often had difficulty growing enough food to eat. For centuries Roman Catholicism had been the official religion of Spain, and the church had been an important force in Spanish government. The church exercised considerable influence over education and freedom of expression. Some clergy held seats in the senate, a division of Spain’s parliament, the Cortes. Many Spaniards felt the church had too much political power and wealth.

Following the Spanish-American War (1898), Spain lost the remainder of its once-great empire. The United States won control of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, while Cuba gained its independence from Spain. This defeat increased dissatisfaction, and demands for change grew. However, people disagreed on the changes needed, and Spanish politics became dominated by factions. New political parties appeared that favored a republican form of government; labor movements throughout the country advocated more workers’ rights and industrial reforms; and the Basques and Catalans wanted autonomy for the Basque Country and Catalonia. In addition, conflict grew within the traditional Liberal and Conservative parties that had dominated Spain between 1876 and 1923.

A.

Primo de Rivera’s Regime

The growing political turmoil led to a military coup in September 1923. Following the coup, Spain’s king, Alfonso XIII, made General Miquel Primo de Rivera, head of the government. Primo de Rivera’s authoritarian regime suppressed far-left groups and allowed moderate-left parties to operate only under the watchful eye of his administration. In addition, the government stripped the few home-rule privileges that had been given to Catalonia, a region that identified itself ethnically and linguistically as Catalan rather than Spanish.

Opposition to Primo de Rivera grew, especially after the onset of economic hard times of worldwide depression in 1929, when he lost support among the middle and working classes. By early 1930 Primo de Rivera acknowledged his increasing unpopularity with factions across Spain’s political spectrum, and he was soon forced to resign. Support for Spain’s monarch also evaporated because many people felt Alfonso had betrayed them when he approved Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship.

Parties in favor of a republican form of government defeated monarchist parties in the elections of April 1931, and King Alfonso was forced to leave the country. His departure paved the way for the establishment of a republican form of government, which the majority of Spaniards greeted enthusiastically. This was the beginning of the government called the Second Republic.

B.

The Second Republic

During the republic’s first two years, a multiparty coalition of socialists and middle-class republicans dominated the government. The largest parties wanted sweeping changes in Spain’s social, political, and economic institutions. They took special aim at the military and the Catholic Church, two major institutions that had for many years enjoyed privileged positions in Spanish society. Many of the republican reforms centered on restructuring the military and reducing the church’s power. The reforms included legalizing divorce, which had been illegal under Catholic Spain; ending the church’s role in education; and reducing the size of the officer corps.

In addition, the government proposed economic reforms. These included seizing land from elite landowners and redistributing it to peasants in order to address the problems of migrant labor and high unemployment in agricultural areas. These reforms threatened Spain’s wealthy classes who controlled most of the country’s land and industry.

Such sweeping reforms angered conservatives. The Catholic Church was hostile to the government’s attempts to reduce its power, and many Spaniards who saw themselves and their country as fundamentally Catholic supported the church. In addition, the efforts of civilian politicians to reform the military stirred resentment; some officers began plotting to overthrow the Second Republic.

C.

The Spanish Right

By the end of 1932 the changes introduced by the leftist coalition had generated a wave of right-wing opposition. Some, like the collection of Catholic parties known as the Spanish-Confederation of Autonomous Rightist Groups (Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas, CEDA), were willing to challenge the government by legal means, but others were not. Parties on the far right believed that the Second Republic should be overthrown and replaced by an authoritarian form of government.

Members of a group known as the Alfonsine monarchists wanted to set up a military-backed monarchy headed by the deposed king, Alfonso XIII. A group called the Carlists wanted to restore the monarchy under a descendant of Don Carlos Maria Isidro de Borbón, who they felt should have inherited the Spanish throne in the mid-19th century.

Another group fiercely opposed to the Second Republic was the Falange, a political party that supported fascism, the idea that people should give priority to the interests of and service to the state under the leadership of a dictator. During 1933 and 1934 an assortment of profascist groups merged under Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, son of Miguel Primo de Rivera. This political party sought to create a totalitarian Spanish state modeled after Fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini and Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler. None of these groups—the Falangists, Alfonsines, or Carlists—attracted a large following before 1936, but their activities undermined the authority of the republican government, and collectively they helped to polarize political life in Spain.

D.

The Spanish Left

The Spanish left included six major parties that were important during the civil war. These parties advocated a broad range of political philosophies—from anarchism to socialism to Marxism—and often disagreed with each other.

The anarchists opposed all forms of government and advocated individual freedom (Anarchism). Some anarchists formed large associations with syndicalists who advocated the control of all social and economic institutions by trade unions, thereby putting political and economic power in the hands of workers (Syndicalism). The anarcho-syndicalists, as these groups were called, were absolutely opposed to government of all kinds. The most important of these organizations were the National Confederation of Labor (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, CNT) and its militant affiliate, the Iberian Anarchist Federation (Federación Anarquista Ibérica, FAI). These associations enjoyed significant support among the working class.

During the years leading up to the civil war, several different Marxist organizations were established. They were based on the teachings of German political philosopher Karl Marx, who advocated creating a classless society through a working-class revolution. The two main Marxist parties were the Spanish Communist Party (Partido Comunista de España, PCE) formed in 1921, and the Unified Marxist Workers' Party (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista, POUM) established in 1935. The two parties had very different approaches to Marxism. The PCE maintained strong alliances with the Soviet Communist Party and the Comintern (Communist International), and it followed orders from officials of those groups. The POUM was organized as an alternative Marxist party that had no allegiance to the USSR; it generally opposed Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. These differences caused bitter opposition between the two groups.

The most important socialist group was the Spanish Socialist Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español, PSOE) and its trade union affiliate, the General Union of Workers (Unión General de Trabajadores, UGT). Although this group based its philosophy on Marxism, they espoused socialism, advocating state control of natural resources, basic industries, banking and credit facilities, and public utilities. They also believed that a socialist society would be a classless one where workers would not be exploited.

During the years of the Second Republic, the tensions and divisions between these leftist parties prevented the left from presenting a united front against their common enemies on the right.

These parties varied in importance during the prewar period. The most important component of the coalition government under the Second Republic was the combined socialist PSOE-UGT. Smaller pro-republic parties also joined the coalition, but no party had as much influence as the socialists did. The Communist PCE was originally too insignificant to shape government policy, but during the civil war the PCE received the backing of the USSR and gained influence and power. On the far left, the anarcho-syndicalist CNT and FAI were large organizations with considerable influence among the working class, especially in areas such as Catalonia and Andalucía. However, their anarchist beliefs kept them from participating in the government. Although the Marxist, anti-Soviet POUM had only a few thousands members, it had far greater influence than its size would indicate because of charismatic and renowned leaders, such as Andreu Nin.

E.

Turmoil and Conspiracy

After two years of rule, the left coalition that led the Second Republic lost the general elections of 1933. Spain’s government then shifted sharply to the right, at about the same time that Adolf Hitler became Germany’s chancellor. As fascism triumphed in Germany, many feared it would also succeed in Spain. At first the conservative ruling parties moved cautiously in their attempts to roll back the social changes begun under the left coalition. But the left-wing parties, alarmed by the rise of fascism in Europe, interpreted the right’s actions as direct assaults on the foundations of the republic.

Many on the Spanish left came to believe that revolution was the only defense against the right. This was especially true of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT and FAI. These groups were not committed to saving the Second Republic, which they saw as a vehicle for their political enemies within the left.

The hostility between the left and right sharpened between 1932 and 1935. During this time, Spain experienced a series of revolutionary uprisings, military conspiracies, and general strikes. Against this background, the future of the republic became ever more uncertain.

An October 1934 strike was indicative of the level of hostility among the Spanish political factions. In the northern region of Asturias a group of miners revolted against the conservative government’s attempts to dismantle leftist reforms. The miners captured most of Oviedo, the capital of Asturias and occupied its factories. The government crushed the Asturias rebellion and imprisoned at least 30,000 leftists throughout Spain, even in areas where no rebellion had occurred.

The situation spurred the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) to build alliances with the antifascist parties of the middle class. The new PCE strategy was a complete turnaround; the party abandoned its radical revolutionary ideals and embraced a moderate, prodemocratic line. This about-face worsened the ideological divisions between the PCE and the POUM, which still advocated revolution.

Other groups on the Spanish left were also searching to broaden left-wing alliances. Most groups recognized that a divided left could not effectively resist the right. This led to the announcement in January 1936 of a leftist alliance called the Popular Front. This alliance included not only the republicans and the socialists from the coalition government of 1931 to 1933, but also other parties on the Spanish left.

The Spanish Popular Front differed from popular front parties in other European countries. The Spanish Popular Front was not led by the Comintern (Communist International), nor was it created as a vehicle to promote Communism. The PCE, the Spanish Communist party that supported the Comintern, was not significant enough at the time to help define the Spanish Popular Front’s goals and policies. The Popular Front’s main purpose was to counter the growth of the Spanish right, particularly by challenging them in the elections of February 1936.

The Popular Front’s narrow victory at the polls created euphoria on the left, which briefly concealed the great differences among the various antifascist parties. In the following months, however, the fragile bonds holding the Popular Front together dissolved. It was a deeply divided Spanish left that would soon confront a revolution and a civil war.

F.

Eve of Military Rebellion

After the Popular Front won the 1936 elections, it formed a government with Manuel Azaña as prime minister. Azaña was also named president of the Second Republic in May 1936. However, his government lacked the popular support it needed to rule effectively because influential factions within the socialist parties (the PSOE-UGT) were unwilling to participate in his government. They had supported the Popular Front during the elections only because they believed that a Popular Front victory promised greater civil liberties and amnesty for thousands of left-wing political prisoners.

Opposing forces within Spain that had been gaining momentum since 1931 began to spiral out of control. Factional strife within parties and confrontations between opposing political groups occurred with increasing frequency. In addition, rumors of an impending military coup began to spread.

Hoping to diffuse the situation, Azaña transferred several anti-republican generals away from the country’s centers of power. General Francisco Franco was relieved of his post in Madrid as chief of staff and was sent to the Canary Islands; General Manuel Goded was dispatched to the Balearic Islands; and General Emilio Mola was assigned to Pamplona, the heartland of Carlist territory. General José Sanjurjo had already been banished to Portugal after leading a failed coup attempt in 1932.

Despite these efforts, a small group of army generals and right-wing politicians began plotting to overthrow the republic. The main conspirators belonged to the Spanish Military Union (Unión Militar Española, UME), a special military organization that had developed during 1933 and 1934. Historically, the army had seen itself as the defender of the official Spanish government, as long as the government was selected legitimately. However, the UME began to feel that the republic under the Popular Front coalition was no longer able to maintain law and order and that a coup by far-left revolutionaries was inevitable. By early 1936, many within the UME viewed their organization as an instrument to prevent a left-wing revolution by carrying out their own right-wing coup.

In March 1936 the UME had a membership of only about 3500 officers. The military leaders recognized that their plan to set up an authoritarian state would succeed only if they had civilian support. Therefore, they established ties with right-wing groups, including the Alphonsine monarchists, Carlist paramilitary troops, and the Falangist militia squads.

At this point, however, only a few generals were willing to assume an active role in the conspiracy. Chief among them was General Mola, a former national police chief. He assumed responsibility for organizing the national movement and making certain that even the most remote provincial garrisons supported the conspiracy. In May, General Sanjurjo agreed to become the nominal head of the revolt. General Franco, perhaps Spain’s most highly regarded military figure, committed himself to the rebellion only days before the uprising.

The military plot began to unfold as conflict in Spain grew. Throughout the country the dialogue between left and right had broken down, and compromise and restraint seemed hopeless as political violence increased. On April 13 a series of murders began when a judge who had recently sentenced a Falangist to 30 years in prison for killing a socialist newsboy was shot in Madrid. The following day a group of socialists killed a Civil Guard lieutenant in retaliation. Two months later right-wing and left-wing politicians argued bitterly in the Cortes, the Spanish parliament.

The events that triggered the coup began on July 12 when three Falangists murdered Lieutenant José Castillo, a pro-republican officer in the Assault Guards, a government paramilitary group. Later that night, in the early hours of July 13th, Assault Guards in uniform went to the home of José Calvo Sotelo, an anti-republican leader of an Alfonsine monarchist group. They murdered him in a police truck and dumped his body at a nearby cemetery. News of his death moved the conspirators to set their plans in motion. Four days later the military rebellion began.

III.

Civil War, 1936

The generals who rose against the Second Republic on July 17 were confident of an early victory. However, their attempt to seize power and establish a military directory throughout Spain was only partially successful. In cities that supported the Second Republic, such as Zaragoza and Seville, the insurgents quickly gained control by taking over military garrisons and other strategic facilities. This denied working-class organizations the time to mount an effective defense against the rebellion. In areas where most people already opposed the republic, enthusiastic crowds greeted the rebels. The rebels won the support of traditionally conservative towns and villages, such as Burgos, Salamanca, and Ávila.

The military rebellion initially failed in Spain's capital, Madrid, and several other key cities, including Barcelona and Valencia. Leftist trade unions, civilian militias, and military and police forces who remained loyal to the republic successfully defended their cities against the insurgents. The rebels suffered another setback when nearly two-thirds of Spain's naval fleet declared its support for the republic. This development took the rebels by surprise. General Franco had planned to use the navy to transport his highly trained Army of Africa from Morocco to join the rebellion on the Spanish mainland. To get his troops to Spain, Franco urgently appealed for aid from Italy and Germany. At the end of July, German dictator Adolf Hitler and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini sent transport planes that assisted Franco in the first major airlift in modern warfare.

A.

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.

A.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.

A.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.

D.

Republican Centralization

Although the Republicans had control of much of Spain, they struggled to overcome their differences and consolidate their control. Immediately following the July military uprising, pro-republic parties remained in charge of the Popular Front government, although real power had shifted to the working-class organizations and civilian groups who had helped defeat the rebellion in the Republican zone. In recognition of their loss of support, the middle-class republican parties of the Popular Front allowed the socialists and their political allies to take over the government in September. The main objective of the new socialist regime was to curb the social revolution and restore the state’s authority throughout the Republican zone.

Under the guidance of the Soviet Communists, the PCE took the lead in defining the Republicans’ political agenda for the republic. They promoted the idea—both inside Spain and abroad—that the war was being fought not to advance a left-wing social revolution, but to defend the democratic Second Republic against fascism. Their relatively moderate message appealed to a wide audience, particularly to the middle-class Republicans who felt threatened by the social revolution. To challenge the authority of their rivals within the coalition, the PCE set about dominating the haphazard Republican military and centralizing the powers of the Republican government.

Once the rebellion had been subdued in many areas, the Republican government’s major challenge was to assemble an effective army. Many senior army officers and roughly half of the enlisted men had remained loyal to the Second Republic, but the army itself was in a state of disruption. The rebellion had shattered its internal chain of command, and independent civilian militias had diminished its authority.

Although the independent civilian militias had prevented the military uprising from succeeding in many areas, the fact that they operated independently of one another caused problems. Because individual militias paid little attention to the actions or needs of other units, it was nearly impossible to coordinate military actions among groups. This lack of cooperation sometimes resulted in anti-Nationalist groups mistakenly targeting each other in battle. In addition, some civilians initially refused to work under the guidelines of standard military procedure. These factors made conventional warfare difficult for the Republicans.

Among the Republicans, the PCE became the main force in organizing a military force with a unified command based on hierarchy and discipline. They called this force the Popular Army. The PCE also acted as the channel through which the USSR sent the Republicans shipments of supplies and military equipment in October 1936. This support reinforced the PCE’s attempt to dominate Republican military affairs.

That same month the first units of the International Brigades, a volunteer army organized by the Comintern, arrived in Spain. The International Brigades were made up of men and women from countries around the world. Although their backgrounds and political beliefs were diverse, all went to Spain because they believed that they could help stop the spread of fascism. From the time they arrived until the last unit left Spain in November 1938, the International Brigades played an important role in nearly every major military campaign of the war.

E.

Franco’s Rise to Power

The International Brigades and aid from the USSR arrived at a critical point for the Republicans. The Nationalist army, which was much better equipped and trained than the Republican forces, was scoring military victories in nearly every corner of the country. The Republicans were struggling to stop their advances. The Nationalists were also more united than the Republicans. Although various Nationalist civilian parties had different opinions about Spain's political future, they all accepted military leadership throughout the civil war. In late July, shortly after the war began, the National Defense Committee (Junta de Defensa Nacional) was established to coordinate the Nationalists’ war effort.

In September 1936, only two months into the war, the Nationalists were at the point of taking Madrid. Then General Franco, who was leading the campaign, made an unexpected decision. Instead of marching on the capital, Franco decided to rescue about 1300 rebel troops trapped in the fortress of Toledo’s Alcázar, a medieval palace-fortress that served as an infantry training school. Although the building had been partially destroyed by Republican shelling, the rebels refused to surrender. On September 27 Nationalist forces, including some of Franco’s troops, took control of the Alcázar and freed the rebels.

Although the decision likely prevented the Nationalists from seizing Madrid, Franco used the victory at the Alcázar to strengthen his growing leadership of the rebel cause. At the end of September, the junta decided to consolidate authority under one leader, and they chose General Franco, the most highly regarded Nationalist general. On September 29 Franco was named Generalísimo (commander in chief) of the Nationalist troops, as well as el Caudillo (the leader), head of Nationalist Spain.

As the war continued, Franco united the Nationalist groups. In April 1937 he merged all of the separate Nationalist parties into a single party under his control, the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS, or FET/JONS. Franco also began to build what he called the Nuevo Estado (New State). Although he did not formally define the Nuevo Estado as fascist, its main structures incorporated many fascist ideas and principles. For example, the Cortes was abolished, and universal voting rights and the right to strike were eliminated.

F.

First Battle for Madrid

Although the military uprising began July 17, Franco's troops did not reach the outskirts of Madrid until early November because of their role in saving Toledo’s Alcázar. Almost everyone, including the Republican government, believed the city would soon fall to the Nationalists. On November 6 Francisco Largo Caballero, who had become prime minister in September, and his cabinet retreated to the more distant Republican-held city of Valencia, leaving Madrid’s defense in the hands of a provisional body known as the Defense Council (Junta de Defensa).

Although they faced overwhelming odds, the citizens of Madrid prepared for the attack. Civilian groups organized work battalions to dig trenches and fortify the city's defenses. Messages broadcast on the radio and banners emblazoned with slogans such as “They shall not pass!” (¡No Pasaran!) encouraged the defenders. The arrival of Soviet arms on November 8 and the aid of the International Brigades further boosted the morale of Madrid’s Republicans.

Once the battle began some of the fiercest fighting took place in and around the area of University City, where units of the Republican army reinforced by the International Brigades held Madrid against Franco's troops. The fighting continued until mid-January 1937, when Franco realized the Nationalists could not take Madrid and abandoned the offensive. The defense of Madrid became one of the most legendary struggles of the civil war.

IV.

Civil War, 1937

After the Nationalist assault on Madrid reached a standstill in early 1937, Franco decided to mount a series of operations that would allow his troops to encircle the city. However, this new initiative also failed when the Battle of Jarama, which began on February 6, ended in a stalemate. Although the Republican army and the International Brigades suffered great losses, the battle represented a defensive victory for the Republicans. In addition, one month later, Republican troops halted a Nationalist attack led by the Italians at Guadalajara.

A.

Guernica and the North

Frustrated with the progress of the war in and around Madrid, Franco turned his attention to the northern front. During the spring of 1937 the Nationalists launched a massive offensive in the Basque Country and Spain’s other northern provinces. During this campaign one of the most controversial episodes of the war occurred. On April 26 a squadron of German aircraft, sent on orders of the Nationalist high command, bombed the small market town of Guernica, the ancient capital of the Basque homeland. During the raid, about 900 innocent civilians were killed or injured. In a few hours Guernica was reduced to a heap of smoldering rubble.

The international press broadcast news of the event around the world. Franco's government was immediately blamed for the tragedy. In response, Franco's press corps vehemently denied Nationalist involvement in the incident, insisting instead that what they called Republican 'red revolutionaries' were responsible. However, the scandal continued to haunt Franco and the Nationalists, not least because renowned Spanish artist Pablo Picasso immortalized the tragedy in Guernica (1937, Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain), which many critics regard to be his most famous painting.

After the destruction of Guernica, the Nationalists continued their advances in the Basque Country. By June Bilbao, the capital of the province of Vizcaya, was the only key city still holding out. But with the port to the city blockaded and supplies rapidly running out, the citizens of Bilbao were forced to surrender on June 19. Soon, the remaining Republican pockets of Basque territory fell under Nationalist control.

B.

The May Events

Republican setbacks were due not only to Nationalist gains, but also to growing internal conflicts. These reached a breaking point in the key Republican province of Catalonia during May 1937. Political tensions in Catalonia had been building for months, and they reached the boiling point during the so-called May Events. The May Events marked a turning point in Republican politics, signaling the end of the revolutionary period that had begun ten months earlier and the beginning of moderate rule in the Republican camp.

Since July 1936 Catalonia had been ruled by a coalition of Catalan regionalists, revolutionary forces, and middle-class parties. By the spring of 1937, these various groups were openly vying with each other for political and economic control of the region. One of these groups was the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (Partit Socialist Unificat de Catalunya, PSUC), a socialist-Marxist party. The PCE had helped to organize PSUC in an effort to counter the influence of the CNT-FAI and the POUM in Catalonia.

On May 3 government police units under PSUC control attempted to eject the anarcho-syndicalists from Barcelona's main telephone exchange building, Catalonia’s primary communications center. The CNT had occupied the building since initially quelling the military uprising. The CNT responded with machine-gun fire, and for the next few days the Catalan capital of Barcelona and the surrounding areas were the battleground for a mini civil war.

On one side of the conflict were the militant sections of the CNT-FAI and the POUM, which were fighting to keep the power and authority they had gained from the social revolution. Allied against them were an assortment of parties, including the PSUC and the middle-class Catalan left. Although the CNT-FAI were probably powerful enough to overthrow the local Catalan government, they had refused to do so. By May 7 the resistance of the revolutionaries had been broken. The crisis ended with a victory for the moderate, anti-revolutionary Republican parties.

Approximately 500 people were killed during the May Events, and the political consequences were also serious. The coalition of the PCE and PSUC used the crisis to subdue their rivals and gain power within the Popular Front government. In addition, on May 17 the anti-Communist prime minister, Largo Caballero, who had been sympathetic to the revolutionary left, was forced to resign. Replacing him was Juan Negrín, a moderate socialist and former finance minister who fully supported the Communists' Popular Front agenda.

The new leaders of the Republican government immediately set about establishing their complete control over political and economic life in the Republican zone. One of their first steps in this direction was to sharply reduce the powers of the Catalan government, which to that point had operated with a degree of independence from the central government. Encroachments on Catalan autonomy climaxed in late October, when the central government transferred from Valencia to Barcelona.

Taking full advantage of this shift in authority, the PSUC used its considerable leverage in the government to undermine the revolutionaries’ bases of economic and social power. With the backing of the middle-class Catalan parties, the PSUC wasted no time in launching a campaign of persecution against the POUM and those in the CNT-FAI who refused to obey CNT-FAI officials. The most famous victim of these purges was POUM leader Andreu Nin, who was abducted and tortured to death by Communist agents. In the following months, many members of the POUM were either imprisoned or forced underground. The result was that by October 1938, the POUM was silenced as a critic of the Communists and the Popular Front government.

Unlike the POUM, the anarcho-syndicalists were not harshly persecuted for their role in the May Events, but even so, they too rapidly lost ground. On May 17 Negrín excluded CNT-FAI members from his newly formed cabinet, and even in Catalonia, where the anarcho-syndicalists had dominated the government since July 1936, the local government reorganized without the support of the CNT-FAI. A growing number of CNT-FAI members—especially those who believed that unity in the anti-fascist coalition was necessary to defeat fascism—were willing to endorse Negrín’s policies, even if that meant closing their eyes to the anti-revolutionary measures his government was enforcing throughout the Republican zone. In the end, this cost them dearly. For in the last year of the war, they attempted to win over the dissident factions, but could not do so.

C.

Campaigns of 1937

Even during the Republican’s internal struggles, Negrín's Popular Front government was desperately trying to improve the Republicans’ military fortunes. In July 1937 the Republicans attempted to counter Nationalist pressure in the northern zone by mounting a major offensive on the Madrid front. The Battle of Brunete, as this operation came to be known, began on July 6 when Republican troops broke through Nationalist lines around the village of Brunete, west of Madrid. Republican troops continued advancing into Nationalist-held territory until July 18, when the Nationalists launched a counteroffensive that forced the Republicans into a full retreat. By late July, the battle ended without either side winning a decisive victory.

While the Battle of Brunete had demonstrated that the Republicans were capable of waging an active war, the offensive had also proved costly to the their army. They suffered over 25,000 casualties, many of whom were among the army's best-trained soldiers, and they either lost or expended a large amount of their prime supplies and ammunition. The morale of both troops and civilians was falling because the high losses of the Battle of Brunete seemed to have had little effect on the course of the war .

The Republicans then shifted their attention northeast to the Aragón front, which had been relatively quiet. They chose this strategy for two major reasons. First, from a strategic standpoint, it was vital for the Republicans to mount another offensive as soon as possible in order to delay a Nationalist victory in the north. If the Republicans began an attack in Aragón, the Nationalists would have to send troops to respond, lessening their chances of taking the north.

In addition, Negrín's government wanted to destroy the authority of anarcho-syndicalists in Republican-held areas of Aragón. The government moved quickly to dismantle revolutionary organizations such as the Council of Aragón, a provisional ruling body that was dominated by anarchists. On August 11 a government decree officially dissolved the council, and in the following weeks Communist-led government forces ousted anarchist collectives in Aragón that had operated since the beginning of the war. By September 1937 Republican-held Aragón, like Catalonia, was completely under the control of the central government.

In late August, Republican forces launched a series of attacks to capture the Aragonese city of Zaragoza from the Nationalists. The fiercest fighting took place in and around the villages of Belchite and Quinto. In Belchite Republican forces struggled for nearly two weeks to overcome a small contingent of Nationalist troops. Eventually, however, the Republican offensive failed, and Zaragoza remained in the hands of the Nationalists. In the meantime, the Nationalists had captured the city of Santander, in the northern province of Cantabria. Furthermore, despite the determined resistance of Republican troops defending the Asturian cities of Oviedo and Gijón, the Nationalists conquered the remaining Republican-held territory in the north in late October.

V.

Civil War, 1938

With the northern zone now under their control, the Nationalists revived their drive to take Madrid. Much to their surprise, however, in mid-December 1937 the Republicans began another offensive. During a bitter winter storm, Republican troops attacked Teruel, a small town south of Zaragoza. The surprise attack forced Franco to suspend his plans for Madrid. Overcoming the harsh weather and Nationalist resistance, the Republicans managed to capture Teruel on January 7, 1938, but Franco’s counteroffensive renewed the struggle. Exhausted and desperately in need of supplies, the Republicans held out for nearly eight weeks, until massive Nationalist attacks forced them to abandon Teruel on February 22.

A.

Battle of the Ebro

Their victory at Teruel allowed the Nationalists to continue on to the Mediterranean Sea, as Franco’s offensive took advantage of the Republicans’ exhaustion and low morale. Within six weeks, the Nationalists reached the sea, cutting the Republican zone in two. The Republican army grew desperate to stop the Nationalists’ drive to take the remaining two sectors of the Republican zone, which included the areas around Valencia and Barcelona in the northeastern corner of the country and parts of central and southern Spain. The Republican general staff laid plans for a major offensive and decided to mount a surprise operation on the Catalan front. While Franco and his troops began advancing on Valencia, the Republicans gathered along the Ebro River for the last great military contest of the war. By mid-July about 80,000 Republican troops and most of the army's aircraft and artillery outfits were preparing for the Battle of the Ebro.

In the middle of the night on July 24, Republican commandos crossed the river, catching the Nationalists completely off guard. Within a few days they had established a bridgehead across the river, which they used to drive deeper into Nationalist territory. However, the momentum of their drive was short-lived. Not quite a week after the battle began, the Nationalists recovered from their initial setbacks and managed to halt the enemy. The battle grew more intense in the searing summer heat, and the enemies continued fighting until mid-November 1938. Exhausted and critically short of supplies, the Republicans finally collapsed under the Nationalists’ superior firepower.

The defeat was a terrible blow for the Republicans. Apart from approximately 100,000 casualties—soldiers killed, wounded, or taken prisoner—the Battle of the Ebro had depleted the army's supplies, much of which had been left behind by retreating soldiers. Just as devastating was the toll it had taken on Republican morale. The Battle of the Ebro signaled that the Republican army was close to collapsing.

B.

Fading Hope

Following their defeat at the Ebro, Negrín's government renewed their appeals for assistance from the international community. But other events had turned Europe’s interest away from Spain's civil war. In March 1938 Germany annexed Austria, and by September had secured territory in Czechoslovakia when Great Britain, France, Italy, and Germany signed the Munich Pact. As large-scale conflict in Europe grew closer, Spain’s importance to those nations diminished. Even the USSR, the Republicans’ only secure ally to that point, began greatly reducing its material support. Soviet leader Stalin had nearly abandoned hope of a Republican victory and decided to improve relations with Germany, its archrival.

The Republicans' defeat at the Ebro paved the way for the Nationalists' final offensive. Near the end of December, about 300,000 of Franco's troops attacked the Catalonia front. By January 3 the Nationalists were well on their way to victory.

VI.

Civil War, 1939

With the Republican army struggling, the Nationalists quickly reached Barcelona. On January 23 Negrín and his government fled Barcelona for the castle of Figueras, near the French border. Two days later, Nationalists troops occupied Barcelona. The collapse of the Catalan capital sparked a mass exodus of refugees. As the Nationalist army advanced, thousands of Republican refugees slowly made their way to the French border.

The move to Figueras allowed the crumbling Republican leadership a little time, but in February, Negrín, his cabinet, the PCE leadership, and the remaining deputies of the Cortes fled to safety across the Pyrenees Mountains into France. Early that month all of Catalonia fell to the Nationalists. With the fall of Catalonia, Madrid remained the last Republican stronghold, but it was surrounded by Nationalists. In addition, Madrid’s Republicans were short on ammunition, weapons, and food supplies.

A.

The Casado Coup

It was under these deteriorating conditions that Colonel Segismundo Casado led a group of socialists, anarchists, and republican military officers in opposition to the PCE. Just before midnight on March 6, the conspirators took over the chief government ministries and set up a provisional government called the National Council of Defense. The council was eager to put an end to what they saw as the senseless sacrifice of lives, and they believed that Franco would negotiate with them rather than with Negrín’s pro-Communist government.

News of the mutiny reached Negrín and his advisors in the small town of Elda, where the official government had been taking refuge since the fall of Catalonia. Stunned by the recent turn of events, the prime minister decided to leave Spain for good. He and his entourage went to Toulouse, France, later that day. Back in Madrid, PCE members were locked in fierce street battles with Council of Defense forces. The fighting continued until the 12th, when the council’s forces defeated the Communist resistance.

Although securing Republican control moved the council closer to negotiating a settlement with the Nationalists, Franco soon made it clear that he had no interest in accepting their conditions. He wanted nothing less than unconditional surrender and total victory. On March 27 Nationalist troops began to occupy Madrid’s desolate streets. Nationalist supporters and war-weary citizens of Madrid cheered the Nationalists’ entry, relieved the war was coming to an end. A few days later, on April 1, Franco proclaimed that his troops had 'achieved their objectives.' Spain's civil war was finally over.

VII.

Legacy of Civil War

In the aftermath of war, Spaniards on both the winning and losing sides faced an uncertain future. First, they needed to recover from the traumas brought on by a conflict that had claimed the lives of over 500,000 people and had caused the flight of up to one half-million more citizens. In addition, nearly everyone had to endure the many hardships in day-to-day living. Food shortages, inadequate housing (especially in the urban areas that had been subjected to continuous bombings), and widespread unemployment were major obstacles to be overcome.

Spain’s recovery from the destruction of the war was hampered by the outbreak of World War II. Just five months after the civil war ended, Europe was plunged into this large international war that lasted for the next six years. As a result, Spain could not expect any form of material assistance from abroad, since it was the fate of Europe as a whole and not Spain itself that became the overriding concern of most countries.

At home, Spain's recovery was placed in the hands of Generalísimo Franco, who was to rule his country as a dictator for the next 36 years. Franco and his Nationalist allies brought peace and stability to Spain, but those conditions came at a high price. The fighting on the battlefields had ended, but Franco continued to repress those who resisted his rule. Reprisals against his former enemies on the left were exceedingly harsh, particularly in the decade after the war, when thousands of Republicans were imprisoned and between 10,000 and 28,000 were executed.

The authoritarian state that Franco controlled between 1939 and 1975 passed through several stages. In the first, the fascist model of government, like that established in Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy, was greatly admired. While his rule depended to a large extent on the support of nonfascist institutions—for example, the Catholic Church—Franco nonetheless worked to transform the social, political, and economic structures of Spain so that they conformed to a fascist model.

The victory of anti-fascist forces that ended World War II in 1945, however, forced Franco to downplay many of the fascist features of his dictatorship. Even so, Franco steadfastly refused to bring Spain into political alignment with post-war Western Europe. By doing so he effectively consigned Spain to a state of isolation for many years.

By the time Franco died in November 1975, the vast majority of Spaniards no longer wanted a regime that had for nearly 40 years looked more to the past rather than to the future. In the course of the next two years, Spaniards laid the foundations for a democratic government, which was legalized under the Constitution of 1978. Since then Spain has become one of Europe's most dynamic countries, demonstrating, among other things, that the deep wounds inflicted by the Spanish Civil War are finally healing.