by Paul Gottfried

July 18, 1986, was the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, which came after the five troubled years of the Spanish Second Republic. In April 1931, Alfonso XIII, grandfather of the current king of Spain, abdicated his throne after a stormy election that his republican opponents appeared to have won. The republic, declared by the parties of the anticlerical and antimonarchist Left, passed through three distinctive phases -leftist control from June 28, 1931, to December 3, 1933; conservative domination from December 1933 until February 11, 1936; and a return to leftist rule starting of February 16, 1936. Rotation of power occurred as a result of general elections held for the Cortes, or national assembly, in which two massive, generally irreconcilable, blocs opposed each other. The Left favored the disestablishment of the Catholic Church and the inculcation of secular, democratic values in Spanish schools. The socialists and others on the Left advocated the redistribution of wealth and the breaking up of large landholdings. Allied to the Left were also Catalan and Basque regionalists who sought to win independence from the Spanish government. On the other side stood the defenders of the Catholic Spain, including Christian Democrats, monarchists of various types, landowners, and, finally, members of the Falange, a movement of Spanish national regeneration. There were, to be sure, some implausible alliances on both sides of what became after July 18, 1936, a shooting war. Deeply Catholic Basques fought alongside militantly secularist anarchists and communists in order to gain independence for their region. And despite their call for radical social reform, the Falangists sided with the landed class. The murder of their charismatic leader, Jose Antonia Primo de Rivera, during the opening days of the civil war by the Spanish Left and their commitment to a "unitary, Christian Spain" led the unruly falangistas into cooperating with the forces of order.

Ironically, the civil war is the traditionalist side, whose members called themselves "nationalists," assumed the role of insurgents, staging an uprising against the Spanish Republic on July 18. Spanish leftists who rallied to the republic described themselves, with at least some plausibility, as "loyalists." In fact, both sides had been arming themselves in preparation for a struggle since the creation of the republic. The hotly contested national election of February 1936--in which the leftist Popular Front won 4.5 million votes and the rightist National bloc only 200,000 fewer--worsened even more the rift in Spanish society. Under the republic's last two presidents, Alcala Zamora and Manuel Azana, a wave of violence, which the government did little to prevent, overwhelmed Spain. Violent strikes erupted, which were made even more savage by the release of revolutionary anarchists from the prisons of Bilbao and other industrial cities. Within a three-month period after the February 16 election, 269 Spaniards had died as victims of political assassination; 160 churches had been leveled; and 146 bomb explosions had occurred throughout Spain. Though most of these crimes were committed by those associated with the Spanish Left, the Right, particularly the military, was active in the spring of 1936, planning an end to the republic. When the uprising took place, it soon became obvious that the Nationalist side would not sweep easily to victory. Most of the large industrial centers, together with many Catalans and Basques, resisted the Nationalist takeover. The war dragged on for almost three years and aroused strong emotions in Spain and throughout the Western world.

Alain Imatz notes that the ideological rift that produced the Spanish Civil War later became evident in the historiography written to explain it. The supporters of the victorious General Franco and the Nationalist cause, who remained in Spain, celebrated the outcome of the "Catholic crusade against Marxist barbarism." The leftists, by contrast, who went into exile produced hagiography about the Spanish Republic. They also blamed the Western democracies (which stayed out of the civil war) for the victory of Franco, whom they considered the Spanish Hitler.

Despite decades of partisan interpretation, Imatz shows that the progress toward a more balanced treatment of the Spanish Civil War and its causes were at least partly due to changes within Spain itself. In the 1960s, a liberalized Franco regime removed the rigorous political censorship of the preceding twenty-five years and began to support serious scholarship on twentieth-century Spanish history. Professors Manuel Fraga Iribarre and Ricardo de la Cierva founded a library to house archives on the civil war which scholars from Spain and elsewhere were encouraged to use. Spanish historians, starting with Cierva, published synthetic studies that combined the findings of foreign scholars and original Spanish archival research.

The efforts of Spanish historians to write on the war with critical detachment correspond to a similar approach taken by some non-Spanish scholars, particularly Stanley Payne, Hugh Thomas, and Brian Crozier. Nonetheless, according to Imatz, foreign scholars have generally succeeded less fully than Spanish ones in breaking out of the old mold. Because of this difference, Imatz devotes much of his essay to the historiographical accomplishments of Spaniards writing on their national trauma.



The Spanish Civil War in Light of Recent Historiography

BY ALAIN IMATZ

Alain Imatz, formerly of the University of Bordeaux, has written many books on French and Spanish history, among them a study of the Spanish Falange Since the 1960s, British, French, German, and Italian Scholars have written the histories of the Spanish Civil War. Now, in greater numbers, Spaniards have been attempting rigorous and serious histories of the Second Spanish Republic and of the civil war. Yet, many remain prisoners of the impassioned past and ignore troublesome evidence for the sake of the political cause they defend, using their knowledge the skill to produce propaganda or party histories. Others, however, have transcended prejudice and offered a more accurate description of the war. Of these, few Spanish historians match the intellectual integrity of the social democrat Hugh Thomas. Brian Crozier, Raymond Carr, and Hellmuth G. Dahms follow an empirical approach in criticizing both camps. Finally, Claude Martin represents a handful of historians who interpret the "Nationalist camp" fairly and impartially.

When the "law concerning the press and publications" ended in Spain in 1966, Spanish scholars began reviewing the histories of the Second Spanish Republic and the Spanish Civil War. The absence of the rigid censorship practiced since the war allowed Manuel Fraga Iribane and Ricardo de la Cierva to establish the Library of the Section of Studies on the Spanish War. Besides Salamanca's Center for Documents and Madrid's Foundation for the Service of Military History, the library is one of the best places to conduct research. At first, the Spanish scholars were concerned primarily with the groups that supported the revolt of July 18, 1936: agrarians, moderate Republicans, Christian Democrats of the Popular Action Movement, monarchists of the National Revival, Spanish Actionists, and Carlists of the Traditionalist Commune, and falangistas. Since the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, interest has broadened. New scholarly concerns, hypotheses, and documentation have surfaced. Almost all substantial contributions to the bibliography and important studies of this subject are now available in Spain.

Paradoxically, the trend toward reinterpretation of the Spanish Civil War coincides with doctrinal intransigence and retrenchment abroad. Attempts to preserve the mythology of the civil war continue to take the place of critical judgments.

The Myth Of The People Against The Army

The unexamined legend persists that the Spanish Civil War was a fight between the people and their rebellious army. Both camps, however, benefited from extensive popular support. On the whole, the results of various electoral contests under the Republic show that 33 percent of the electors voted Left, and an equal percentage supported the Right; 4 percent sided with the center party; and 30 percent did not vote either because of apathy or deliberate choice. Among those who abstained, a small libertarian faction did so because of its declared antielectoralism. The majority of those who did not vote were without any ideological conviction. The inexorable realities of the war, however, later forced them to choose a side.

The Popular Front drew support -especially in the cities--from groups organized by the Communist and Socialist parties, or their respective unions, UGT and CNT. Besides the support of the two established factions of the bourgeois Left, the Popular Front profited from the support of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), which, in spite of its conservative Catholic doctrine, chose an alliance with the Popular Front because of the antiseparatist character of the Nationalist uprising. That the Popular Front incontestably ruled the streets in the large cities does not describe the situation accurately. First, it was not as easy to mobilize a thousand trained armies, as it was to organize demonstrations. Further, the capitals of the provinces accounted for only 20 percent of the population. Eighty percent lived in rural areas, the "rotten villages" of which Azana speaks, where, with the exception of Andalusia, the Extramadura Catalonia, and the Levant, the parties and organizations on the Right were quite powerful. Finally, with the exclusion of the Republican Left and the Republican Union, Republican parties backed the Nationalist uprising. Despite Republican opposition to the Catholic Church, Republican leaders, like Alejandro Lerroux, thought the Nationalist uprising was justified.

The propaganda slogans of the Popular Front appealed to those outside Spain: "All the popular support, all the enthusiasm, all the spirit of sacrifice are on the side of the Republicans," the slogans claimed. La Pasionaria, Dolores Ibarruri--a willing instrument of Moscow, according to Hugh Thomas--tirelessly repeated in front of excited audiences and foreign correspondents "the Spanish government is a government rising from the electoral triumph of February 16 that we support and defend because it is the legal representative of the people in the struggle for democracy and liberty." Actually, considerable segments of the population--the majority of the middle class, landowning peasants, and a significant sector of labor, especially in Castille and Navarre--supported the insurgents enthusiastically. The large, traditional population were slowly mobilized to join the ranks of the rightist paramilitary groups, the Requethe and the Falange. Alejandro Lerroux, president of the council and leader of the Radical Party, testified:

It is not according to the pronunciamiento, but the nationalist uprising is just as sacred and legitimate as the one for national independence of 1808, even more sacred, because then only political independence was defended, whereas today moral, social, and economic independence is defended; property, culture, and conscience, a whole civilization and a whole history.

How could the myth of the people against the army explain the conquest of entire provinces by half a dozen worn-out companies or the submission of villages of 30,000 inhabitants, like Torrijos, by two or three legions left in a garrison?

A Divided Military

Like Spanish society, the army was extremely divided. After the elections of February 1936, the army was the object of frenzied and numerous solicitations from both camps, each wishing its support or neutrality. Without coordination, plots and conspiracies multiplied within its ranks. The falange, the Carlist Requethe, and Marxist organizations were the most dynamic civil groups in contact with the military. Marxist groups attempted to create revolutionary cells in the army corps. Though the majority of the military was "apolitically conservative," the important cells favored one or the other of the adversaries. Officers on the Left grouped themselves into the Republican Antifascist Military Union. On the Right, nearly 10 percent stayed in the Spanish Military Union, which supported the Monarchists. The Carlists were passionate clericalists, who opposed any effort to secularize the Spanish state. They also supported a collateral branch of the Bourbon dynasty, descended from their own candidate for the Spanish throne in the 1830s, Carlos VI. Despite two Carlist wars in the nineteenth century, which had gained support particularly among the Basques and others in the north of Spain, the Carlist cause had not prevailed. In the 1930s the Carlists were not well represented in the army, and a substantial number of young officers sympathized with the revolutionary ideas of the Falange, a nationalist movement that was anticapitalist as well as anticommunist.

By the end of 1935, two groups of conspirators assumed command: the junta of the generals, inspired by General Goded, and a group of officers from the clandestine organization Union Militar Espanola. At the end of April, after much reflection, Franco joined the conspiracy after the Left dismissed the moderate Alcala Zamora, president of the Republic, and replaced him with Manuel Azana. The dismissal was the Left's greatest mistake. With the tacit assent of all the conspirators, General Mola took command and organized the uprising.

At first the military planned a coup d'etat, after which they hoped to reestablish law and order and then return to constitutional normalcy. Ramon Serrano Suner, the government minister and brother-in-law of Franco, was in contact with the main officers who organized the plot. He confided recently "the military was convinced that they would quickly win. They thought that the fight would occur between them and the part of the military loyal to the Popular Front. None of them ever considered the idea of a civil war. In all, the struggle would last only a few days." One plan proposed that joint planning and action be vested in the command. Divided by two irreconcilable factions, the army could not play the role of arbiter that the conspirators had envisioned. Each member would have to choose one of the two factions for himself. Officer who stayed neutral paid with their lives.

General Mola, who hoped to come to terms with the parties without compromising them, installed a temporary Republican military dictatorship. But his relations with the political leaders became particularly difficult. The high-ranking military conspirators wished to rise too, not against the Republic, but against the Popular Front and the Marxist organizations. They needed the collaboration of the civil forces, but could not jeopardize the future action of the junta. The political groups felt they could not yield their fighting forces without asking for the creation of counterparties. The Carlists wanted to reestablish the traditional bicolored flag and abolish antireligious legislation. The Alphonsin Monarchists required the abrogation of social measures. The Falangists, who finally agreed the last week of June, were intent on a workers' national revolution supported by the army. Before July, the meeting increased. On July 5, Gil Robles, the Marquis Luca de Tena, Francisco Herrera Oria, and Fal Conde met near Saint Jean de Luz. On the twelfth, Fal Conde ordered the suspension of talks with Mola. Calvo Sotelo died on the thirteenth. His death stopped the dissension. On the fifteenth, Xavier de Parma, the Carlist pretender, ordered the Traditionalist Communion to join the "Movement," which was set for the eighteenth in Navarre and for the seventeenth in Morocco.

Questions about doctrine were of secondary interest. The goal was to vanquish the enemy. The combatants and sympathizers from the Center, the Right, the CEDA (Catholic bloc), and the conservative Republican groups wanted a military overthrow. They watched the hesitation of their leaders impatiently. The traditional populace actively desired the success of the military conspirators without compromising themselves in the venture. They attended first as spectators; then, when the failure of the uprising forced on the war, they threw themselves into the battle with determination and courage. As a result, the uprising took on the fervor of a crusade, something the army never intended. Civilian volunteers joined the uprising in Navarre, Alava, Guipuzcoa, Castille, Aragon, Andalusia, and Galicia. They went to the front with their crosses, scapulars, medals, and sacred hearts. The military could not hold out against this surprising popular pressure.

Ramon Sales has noted the crusading atmosphere, the return of the old flag, and the ancient anthem among the rebellious army. Two irreconcilable factions moved toward a supreme confrontation. Their only point of agreement was to repudiate en bloc the existing regime, to refuse intermediate solutions or surrender, and to insist on the enemy's total submission.

In hi work Espana en llamas, the historian Bernardo Gil Mugaraza writhes:

The two parties that were, from the first, the smallest and the most elite, the Falange and the Communist Party, practically guided the political development of the fight. Nevertheless, because of the foreigners, the Republicans skillfully transformed this fight into one between democracy and fascism, a notoriously inaccurate view that obtained great success outside the borders of Spain.

The moderate socialists were outflanked by the partisans of revolutionary action, the dictatorship, the proletariat, or libertarian communism, but the populist inclination was strictly isolated to the advantage of the nationalist and authoritarian movements. For each camp, a return to the past or the Second Republic was impossible from the outset.

The War Begins

On July 17, 1936, at five o'clock in the evening, the military uprising commenced at Melilla. Two hours lather, at Ceuta, Colonol Yague, leader of the insurrection in all the protectorate, declared war. On the morning of the nineteenth, General Franco assumed command of the Africa army. Simultaneously, in the north of Spain, General Mola declared war at Pamplona and with the support of the recruited militia grabbed control of Navarre. In Andalusia, on the morning of the eighteenth, the Republican general Queipo de Llano ordered the garrison of Seville to rise up at the cry of "Long live the Republic." At Baleares, another Republican officer, General Goded, triumphed in the archipelago. Nearly everywhere, the military either fled their stations or took up arms. The republican politicians, at first too sure of themselves, panicked. Azana, Martinez Barrio, and Sanchez Roman considered making a treaty with the insurgents and forming a government of public safety that would include the "Right," in order to take away the revolution's political base. The genuine Republicans, however, could do nothing to counter the assault. Their chief allies did not fight for the parliamentary Republic.

After the first days of the insurrection, the National zone was clearly circumscribed: first, by the Canary Islands, the Protectorate of Morocco, Rio de Oro, and Equatorial Guinea; second, in northern Spain, by the vast territory including Castille, Leon, Galicia, North Extremadura, West Aragon, and the two Basque provinces, Navarre and Alava; third, to the south, a narrow portion limited by the Algeciras-Cadia-Seville; finally, the Baleares--except Minorca--and some critical areas like Cordoba and Grenada, which unified quickly with Seville when the retreat failed. The Popular Front controlled the rest of the metropolitan territory, which was then relatively equally divided between the two camps: 266,-811 square kilometers for the governmental zone, 240,000 for the National zone, 53 percent against 47 percent (including the colonies, the National zone still comprised 350,000 quare kilometers).

Of fifty provinces, twenty stayed loyal to the government, sixteen seesawed in the insurrection and fourteen divided themselves between the two camp. At the end of July, the zone dominated by the government included 13,827 inhabitants, representing 59 percent of the population. The manpower of each camp stood at a ratio of eight to six in favor of the government--a condition that affected the advance of the Nationalist forces.

The weapons' industry and most of the military industry stayed in the hands of the government. The metallurgy, textile, and chemical industries, most of the transportation industry and 70 percent of the merchant fleet were also held by the government. The exportable agricultural surplus remained under the control of the Republicans, which enabled them to acquire currency. Agricultural, forest, and livestock production was divided equally enough, but 75 percent of the fishing industry escaped the government's hold. Nevertheless, the government held on to the gold and silver reserves in the Bank of Spain, which gave it a major advantage. Indalecio Prieto, the socialist minister, said on August 8: "As broad as the military uprising is that we now fight, their disposable means are inferior to those of the government of the Spanish State. If war, as Napoleon said, is won principally with money, with silver and still more silver, the financial superiority of the Republican government is evident." Even if Spanish capitalists had wished to support the uprising, they would have been unable to compete financially with the government.

If on July 17 the major part of the army had rebelled, the heroism of the militia and the paramilitary organizations of the revolutionary communist, socialist, anarchist, and Trotskyite parties could not have countered. Victory would have been attained in a few hours. This did not happen. The total manpower of armed regional forces stationed in the Peninsula was 209,978 men. At the beginning of the war the government controlled 116,501 men, representing 55 percent of the total. The Nationalist troops numbered 93,477, which represented only45 percent of Spaniards in arms. The following remained loyal to the government: 47 percent of the infantry, 40 percent of the cavalry, 47 percent of the artillery,67 percent of engineers, 43 percent of supply services, 56 percent of health services, 60 percent of the air force, 65 percent of the navy, 51 percent of the civil guard, 65 percent of carabineers, and 70 percent of the defensive guard.

The relative equality of the factions broke up only because of the superior quality of the African Army (47,127 men). They all eventually joined the Nationalist camp. The government initially retained 45 percent of the African Army, which included 257,105. The Nationalist forces ended up with 140,604 men, 55 percent of the total. The government kept practically all the fleet and 350 of 450 military airplanes.

Most of the high-ranking officers remained loyal to the government, but the majority of young subordinate officers, more inclined to revolutionary ventures, chose insurrection. Of 15,343 officers, the Republican camp was able to keep 7,600. The government shot or assassinated 1,500 officers suspected of disloyalty; another 1,500 were condemned and imprisoned; and nearly 1,000 hid in embassies or joined the National camp. In all, some 5,500 officers--3,500 who were active and 2,000 retired by the Azana law--served in the Army of the Republic. The nationalist troops executed eleven generals and admirals, and the Republicans, thirty-two of the same rank. Seventeen generals remained active in the Nationalist zone, and twenty-two served in the Republican zone. "Finally," writhes Ramon Sales, "on July 21, the forces favorable to the government in the city could only be broken by the intervention of the African Army in the Peninsula. The government camp countered the advantages of the African Army in the Peninsula. The government camp countered the advantages of the African Army with air and naval superiority. This left the African forces immobilized and powerless on its bases outside of the Peninsula."

Spain Divided

The split in Spanish society was clearly reflected in the armed forces. With the aid of propaganda, the failure of the military rebellion in the most populated villages created the false impression of the invincibility of the people in arms, but in all the large towns, the armed forces loyal to the government won the day. Badly armed, badly organized, and badly trained, the anarchist-socialist-Marxist militia contributed significantly to morale, but they were never more than auxiliaries of limited military value. At the beginning of September 1936, their strength hardly reached 60,000 men. Many civil and defense guards, soldiers, officers, and noncommissioned officers were found in the militias. Since the recruitment of militia was not as intensive as it might have been the government was obliged to grant the militia a salary more than double that paid professional troops.

When the communists were excluded, leftist militants of the organized army and of the established special command of political and union organizations, which supported the Popular Front, began to mistrust the military and considered it a potential enemy. On July 19, the government dissolved the rebellious regiments militia to be armed. Reality shortly imposed itself. The necessity for a genuine army was urgent. On the twenty-seventh, the government reversed its policy. A decree ordered the reorganization of the First Division and renewed the life of the dissolved units. In October, the militarization of the militia and the depoliticization of the army became one of the Nationalist government's primary objectives.

The day after the uprising, the Nationalist militia comprised only 30,000 men. In October, a third of the Nationalist Army was constituted by militia. Their strength was divided between the Falangists (38,809 men), the recruits (22,107 men), the monarchists or moderate Republicans (6,192 men). In December 1936 and January 1937, General Franco reorganized the militia. He ordered their military unification, which was the direct antecedent of the "Political Unification Decree" of April 1937. By means of the decree, Franco created the "Spanish Traditionalist Falange" by fusing the Spanish Falange, the Traditionalist Communion, and all the parties of the Right. In 1938, the total manpower of the Nationalist militia attained 120,000 men. Nearly 20,000 men fought at one time or another in the Nationalist militia, often before rejoining regular army units.

During the first months of the conflict, the columns and units of the Nationalist and Republican armies were various, disparate, and heterogeneous. Volunteers, militiamen, civil guards, carabineers, and soldiers reunited so quickly that the groups were of dubious value. During the first week of October, the arrival of Moroccan troops opened the Strait of Gibraltar to the African Army. While dominated by the Republican navy, the strait had constituted an insuperable obstacle. On November 8, due to the intervention of the first unit of international Madrid brigades, the Republicans regained control of the strait.

Foreign Intervention

Contrary to legend, foreign intervention of men and materiel hardened and prolonged the fight. The adversaries quickly recognized that they were insufficiently equipped to fight one another. The decision to appeal abroad was simultaneous and necessary. The government was the first to do so. On July 17, Minister of State Barcia solicited aid from the French government. On the nineteenth, the First Spanish Minister Giral sent a telegrams to his counterpart Leon Blum requesting airplanes, rifles, cartridges, machine guns, and cannons. Three days after Giral's initiative, Franco appealed to Italy through his consul in Tangiers for the delivery of twelve bombers or transport planes. On the twenty-fifth, his emissaries were received in Rome and Beirut. The aid was available the next day. In Prague the next day, during a joint meeting, the Kominthern approved aid to the Spanish government. At the beginning of August, the Popular Front attempted in vain to buy some airplanes and bombs from Germany and to pay in gold. The major powers, particularly the United Kingdom, made sure that the aid was granted in a relatively balance manner. The delivery of materiel and the number of authorized volunteers in both of the two camps kept the balance of the aid during the war.

Garate, Garcia Escudero, and Sales Larrazabal, the most reliable sources, confirm that deliveries of materiel to the factions in Spain were similar, although the popular Army of the Republic received slightly more materiel, even if one excludes the supplies that never reached their destination. This slight advantage can be explained. The government had the funds required for immediate payment, which allowed it to grant contracts more freely. The Republican zone imported a total of 1,475 chase and bomber planes (over a thousand came from the Soviet Union and 364 came from other countries, most notably France). The Nationalist zone imported 1,253 planes (656 from Italy, 593 from Germany and four from other countries.

According to legend, more foreigners were fighting in the International Brigades attached to the Republican camp. The notion is only remotely related to the truth. Repeated with insistence, the received assumption is still believed in spite of the scrupulous and rigorous research of Castell and Salas, who placed the strength of the International Brigade at a minimum of 60,000 and a maximum of 80,000 men. It is even probable, according to these authors, that the figure of 80,000 is closer to the truth. The number of deaths in the International Brigade is known: 13,500 men. No unit, not even the most decimated in the Spanish Civil War knew such a death rate among its fighters.

The number of Italian recruits participating in the Nationalist army rose to 60,000 men (10,000 others arrived in Spain in November 1938 but did not have the opportunity to participate in the war), of which 4,500 perished on the battlefield. The total strength of German combatants was 15,000 men. If one takes into account three relief forces, the real strength was approximately the same as that of the permanent Soviet forces. Two hundred and seventy-one Germans died in action. Fewer than 1,000 Portuguese and a few hundred Belgians, French, Irish, Romanians, Russians, and Spanish Americans registered themselves in the Nationalist army. It must not be forgotten that 62,271 Moors--of which a maximum of 34,759 at any one time were in the Peninsula--fought for the Nationalist army, and 7,000 fell in combat.

Finally, if one takes account of the total manpower of the mobilized men in each camp (1,75,000 men for the Republican zone and 1,26,000 in the Nationalist zone), one observes that never at any stage of the war did foreigners reach 10 percent of the total strength of the combat forces.

A Fight in The Fog

The Popular Front squandered a materiel superiority that should have secured their victory. Republican military experts have never attributed the debacle to the aid or intervention of the Axis powers. Gen. Vicente Rojo, the chief staff officer of the popular Army from 1937 to the end of the civil war, referred to nonmilitary, political causes. "Concerning the military plan," he wrote in his book, Alerta a los pueblos!

Franco triumphed because military science and the art of war demanded it …. During two and a half years of war, our political men had been more preoccupied with petty personal and partisan problems than with large national ones. They lacked the political integrity to submit themselves to a common ideal superior to that of parties and to purge a corrupt political atmosphere.

Azana, the president of the Republic, is even more candid. He notes in his Memoirs:

Each party, each province, each union wanted to have its own army. In the columns, the battalions squabbled and argued, and stole food and ammunition from one another. Each thought of his own condition without considering the common goal. Where is national solidarity? I have not seen it anywhere. One of the worst consequences of these events was the general dissociation, the assault on the State, and the quarrel for its spoils. Class against class, party against party, regions against the State. The civil war multiplied a hundredfold the ambitions, the divergences, the rivalries, the conflicts, and the confusions that bogged down the Popular Front. Revolutionary hysteria passed from words to actions, to robbery, and to assassination.

The defeat of the Popular Front was primarily due to political causes, the disastrous effects of which cannot be overemphasized. After the uprising commenced, the communists modified their strategy; they rejected the revolution by the "proletariat"--the prime objective of the other Popular Front groups--in order to gain control of the state machinery and the army in particular. The communist danger was immediately recognized by many foreign political personalities. Winston Churchill declared to a Buenos Aires magazine, La Nacion: "Franco defends Europe from the communist peril if one wants to pose the problem in these terms. But I, who am English, I prefer the victory of the bad cause. I prefer the triumph of others, because Franco may be an upset or a menace for the British interests whereas the others are not." Former communist leaders such as Enrique Castro Delgado, creator and hero of the Fifth Regiment, the elite corps of the Spanish Communist Party, Jesus Hernandez, of "El Campesino," Valentin Gonzalez, the Trotskyist Julian Gorkin, the anarchist Kiego Abad de Santillan, or the socialist Marxist Luis Araquistain have all treated the theme of the communist and soviet enterprise in the Republican zone. Claudio Sanchez Albornoz, who was a member of the Republican government in exile from 1962 to 1971, confirmed categorically in 1975, "If we had won the war, Spain would have become communist. One would be astonished to read that neither Azana nor I desired to win the civil war."

In the spring of 1937, in Catalonia, there were bloody confrontations between the anarchist, Trotskyist, and communist troops. These were the signal for a ferocious persecution against the nonorthodox Marxists. One of the principal victims, the Trotskyist leader Joaquin Maurinz--who spent fifteen years in French prisons--wrote, "From that moment in June 1937, when the choice was between the Communist Party, which took orders from Moscow, and the military regime of the enemy camp, reactionary but Spanish, the end of the civil war had already been decided." In Madrid two years later, March 4, 1939, when the popular army was at its smallest, the war lost, and the resistance useless, terrible reprisals took place involving the anarchists, socialist reformists, and the communists. This time the "Nationalist Council of Defense," directed by General Miaja, Colonel Casado, and the moderate socialist Besteiro, took the advantage. The battle took place in front of Nationalist troops and resulted in a thousand deaths. The communist political and military directors escaped to Moscow by sea and plane. They abandoned the men who fought loyally. When they had gone, Besteiro gave the order to capitulate. On April 1, 1939, the general headquarters of the Nationalist Army sent a last communiqué from Burgos: "Today the Red Army is being disarmed and captured, our victorious troops have achieved their last objectives. The war has ended. Franco."

Julian Besteiro, the former president of the Cortes and the most important enemy of the communists, declared during his trail, and before dying in prison, "The truth is that we have been beaten by our own mistakes…. We have been beaten because we let ourselves become 'bolshevized,' which is the worst political aberration that has ever been known." Arthur Koestler, a member of the International Brigade, wrote fifteen years later, in The Invisible Writing:

The same ambiguity confuses the memories of the Spanish Civil War. Today we know its disastrous consequences: the Russian refusal to concede shelter to the survivors of the International Brigade and the liquidation of each Russian and each Spaniard who took a direct part in the conflict and who knew a little too much of what had gone on…. At the start of the war, the communists constituted an insignificant party…. But while the fighting went on, they succeeded in converting the country into a satellite obedient to the Kremlin, by blackmail, terror, and intrigue. All of this, well known today, we ignored then. There is no doubt that our truth was only a half-truth and that our combat was a fight in the fog.

Madrid, earlier proclaimed the "tomb of fascism," became the tomb of communism.

The Intellectuals Face-To-Face With The War

The attitude of Spanish intellectuals toward the civil war is particularly misunderstood. The channels of information centered public opinion on Spanish intellectuals later and emphasized how many world intellectuals were favorable to the Popular Front. The reality is far more complex. Abroad, a majority of intellectuals pronounced themselves for the Popular Front, and a negligible minority for the Nationalist camp. In Spain, contrary to what is believed, the inverse was true for the most famous intellectuals.

Outside Spain, the tragic execution of Federico Garcia Lorca produced a heated response comparable only to that following the announcement of Guernica's destruction. A refugee in the house of the parents of the Falangist poet Luis Rosales, Garcia Lorca was the victim of the rival CEDA Falange. "His arrest," Luis Rosales said, "was a political maneuver of the deputy of the CEDA in Gernada, Ramon Luis Alonso, designed to provoke a public scandal, capable of ruining the rival party by proving that some of the most important Falange leaders hid 'red' friends in their houses."

During the first months of the war, another Andalusian dramatist unknown today but then very popular in Spain, Pedro Munoz Seca, was assassinated in Madrid by the popular militia. Political philosophers and theoreticians Ramiro de Maeztu, Ramiro Ledesma Ramos, and Victor Pradera met the same end. No less noteworthy was the death of the young Madrid lawyer, founder of the Spanish Falange, Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera. Incarcerated by the Popular Front four months before the uprising, he was shot by firing squad on November 20, 1936, after just a pretense of a trial, in spite of the pressures of several governments and foreign diplomats. The disappearance of Jose Antonio and of Frederico Garcia Lorca served as a symbol for many years to the Right as well as to the Left.

Rare were the intellectuals who transformed themselves into propaganda agents for one or the other of the two camps. Those who served the propaganda goals of the Popular Front were Rafael Alberti, Miguel Hernandez, and Antonio Machado; for the Nationalists, Peman and Dionisio Ridruejo. The most famous intellectuals, frightened by so much violence, fled the Popular Front zone and sought exile abroad. "At the start of the war," wrote the liberal historian Salvador de Madariaga, "Spanish intellectuals were obliged to sign a document, which circulated abroad under a Republican guise, in favor of the Republic and the revolution. The three writers who founded the Association for the Service of the Republic in 1931, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Gregorio Maranon, and Perez de Ayala disavowed this document as soon as they were free in exile." These three "spiritual fathers" of the republic suggest what important Spanish intellectuals of the period thought.

At the beginning of the civil war, when Albert Einstein uttered his favorable opinion of the "Republicans," an indignant Ortega y Gasset temporarily abandoned his reticence:

While in Madrid, the communists and their sympathizers forced writers and professors to sign documents, broadcast on the radio, and so forth. British writers, comfortably installed in their offices or their clubs, signed another document that guaranteed that the communists and their sympathizers were the defenders of liberty. For a few days, Albert Einstein took the "right" to express his opinion on the civil war and to take a position. Albert Einstein is totally ignorant of what happened in Spain today, yesterday, and centuries past. The attitude that drove him to this insolent intervention has for a long time led to the loss of the universal prestige of the intellectual and is responsible for a world that is adrift because of the absence of spiritual power.

Gregorio Maranon, an eminent figure of Spanish liberalism gave several lectures in favor of the Spanish Nationalists. Here are a few excerpts taken from his article published on December 15, 1937, in the Paris Review:

If we ask 100 people today the motives for their attitude to one or the other of the two parties that are fighting in Spain, some assert their democratic credo, others their traditionalism, others their militarism or their atimilitarism, their Catholicism or their antireligion--unless there is a neo-Catholic and red literature, which is a curious present-day grotesque ideology--or even their horror for the executions and the aerial bombardings or, finally, their sympathy or their personal antipathy for the leaders of the respective parties. Fewer in number are those who based their position on the actual reason for the fight: "I defend the reds because I am communist" or "I sympathize with the nationalist because I am an enemy of communism." This is the crux of the problem. The important thing is not then the momentous aid supplied by foreigners in men and materiel … but that the foreigners tended to seize the national spirit. If there had been on the "red" side neither a single soldier nor a Soviet rifle, it still would have gone the same way: Red Spain is in spirit Russian communist. On the Nationalist side, although there were thousands of Italians and Germans who were there, the spirit of the people, with all their virtues and faults, was nevertheless infinitely Spanish…. It is useless to attack with sophisms this absolute truth, on which the strength of one of the parties and the weakness of the other depended before the fight. If the slogan "Arriba Espana!" still passionately cried today by nonfascists of the Spanish nation had been adopted by the other side, their victories would have been multiplied… These are the exact terms of the problem: a struggle between an antidemocratic regime, that was communist and Eastern, and another antidemocratic regime, anticommunist and European. Only the Spanish reality modeled the exact pattern.

In July 1936, Perez de Ayala, still ambassador of the republic in London, declared unequivocally where his sympathies lay. In a letter to the London Times, he wrote:

My respect and my love for moral truth compels me to recognize that the Spanish Republic has tragically failed. Its children are guilty of matricide, and it is true that no more Republicans exist, neither on one side nor the other… Since the beginning of the Nationalist movement, I explicitly approved of it, and I sent to General Franco my expression of solidarity as unvarying as it is resolute. I am proud and honored to have two sons on the front as simple soldiers in the advance guard of the Nationalist army. By its faith, its sense of duty, and its spirit of sacrifice, the nationalist youth today have the qualities that give Spain a choice for survival in the future.

Another alleged supporter of the republic, Miguel de Unamuno, expressed a similar opinion in September 1936. In a letter from him as rector of the University of Salamanca he spoke to all the universities of the world: "The government of Madrid has become mad, literally lunatic." In August 1936, he told a correspondent of the North American International News, "This fight is not a fight against the liberal republic, it is a fight for civilization." On October 12, he was the protagonist in a noisy incident in which he opposed Gen. Millan Astray. During an official demonstration, he criticized severely what he considered the excesses of the government zone. Then, in front of a hostile room, he departed on the arm of Mrs. Franco. In December, shortly before his death, he confided more to Nikos Kazantzakis: "In this critical moment of Spain's suffering, I know that I must follow the soldier. Only they will give us back order. They know the significance of discipline and how to impose it. No, no, I am not converted to the Right. Do not listen to what is said. I have not betrayed the cause of liberty. But now, it is essential that order be reestablished."

The only famous writer that remained loyal to the popular Republic until its failure was Antonio Machado. Other artists, teachers, painters, poets, and novelists--Max Aub, Francisco Ayala, Arturo Barea, Agusti Bartra, Pau Casals, Duperier, Leon Felipe, Miguel Hernandez, Jimenez de Asua, Angel Maria de Lera or Picasso--made the same choice. Conversely, Nationalist Spain benefited from the support of Azorin, Pio Baroja, Jacinto Benavent (after the liberation of Valencia), Manuel de Falls, Manuel Machado (brother of Antonio), Garcia Morente, Eugenio d'Ors, Guiterrez Solana, Menendez Pidal, Andres Segovia, Joes Maria Sert, Ignacio Zuloaga, and numerous other personalities. Salvador de Madariaga distanced himself by criticizing both camps. Juan Ramon Jimenez preferred to take refuge in silence.

Just before the rout, Republican emigration rose qualitatively and quantitatively. More than a half million Spaniards fled abroad, but the exodus was followed by a rapid return of a large number. Nearly 370,000 Spaniards passed and repassed the border in a few weeks. Some 160,000 were permanent refugees or actual exiles. Among those were 13,000 bureaucrats, police, military officers, doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, and university professors. They constituted a significant part of the elite in Spanish society. Their flight was an irreplaceable loss for Spain. Alberti, Miguel Hernandez, and other famous intellectuals became the figures at the head of the diaspora. Picasso and Juan Gris had more or less effectively left Spain even before there was a war, yet it cannot be said, as it so often is, that all the Spanish intelligentsia were self-exiled. Other intellectuals with international reputations--Azorin, Baroja, Dali, Maranon, Mendez Pidal, Ortega y Gasset, Vincens Vives--stayed or returned to their country.

The Atrocities Of The Rear Guard

All civil wars are atrocious, but the one in Spain was characterized by particular ferocity. In the rear guard of both camps, the assassinations were motivated by hate and fear. Nationalists and Republicans reacted the same way. Personal vengeance, settling of accounts, purges, summary executions, massacres, and other excesses occurred. In each of the camps, the "cleanup" of the rear guards was systematic. It happened on a wider scale in the government zone because a number of parallel groups--communists, anarchists, socialists, and even leftist Republicans -looked for power in what was left of the state. In the Nationalist zone, after the first months of the war, the purge was directed by a central and unified command.

Aragon, Castille, Toledo, Ciudad Real, Guadalajara, and Cuenca were the theaters of extensive massacres; the victims were accused of harboring sympathies for the Nationalists. In the province of Madrid, the purges were even more terrible. On August 23, an unruly mob invaded the Modelo prison and slaughtered the majority of the political detainees: The Catholic populist Delgado Barreto, the Falangists Fernando Primo de Rivera, Julio Ruiz de Alda, the Nationalist Albinana, General Villegas, exministers and parliament members of the Republic, Martinez de Velasco, Alvarez Valdez, and Rico Avello were among the victims.

The government itself took the lead in the repression and made the popular court judge the ex-ministers of the Radical Party: Salazar Alonso, Abad Conde, and Raphael Guerra del Rio. Accused without proof of having "favored the uprising," they were all condemned to death. In November 1936, the majority of political detainees in Madrid were executed. Miguel Martinez, pseudonym of Soviet General Goriev, ordered the evacuation of prisons in the capital. Santiago Carrillo, former secretary of United Young Socialists and future general of the Spanish Communist Party had just assumed his duty as Delegate for Public Order of the "Junta de Defensa de Madrid," then presided over by General Miaja. In those few days, from November 7 to December 4, during theoretical "transfers," more than 8,000 people were executed in the common pits hollowed out in the villages of Paracuellos in Jarma, San Fernando in Henares, and Torrejon in Ardoz.

Zones dominated by anarchist unions knew no more atrocities than those under socialist or communist control, though popular opinion has it otherwise. In Madrid, where 23 percent of all the assassinations of members of the territorial government were committed, the anarchist influence was not only limited, but also a factor in moderating Marxist violence. Without the presence in the capital of the liberator, Mechor Rodriguez, the massacres would have been even more dreadful.

After the uprising, secret police activity in the government zone multiplied. In Madrid, nearly 200 secret police agents were counted and were absorbed by the SIM (Servicio de Informacion Militar), whose methods imitated those of the Soviet NKVD. Certainly, mobs acting with general impunity were responsible for some of the violence. Much of it, however, was caused by the coherent action of communist, socialist, and anarchist organizations who had their own police, courts, and prisons, and who put into practice the most recent security measures inspired by Soviet agents.

The clergy was a favorite target. Throughout the duration of the hostilities in the government zone, "the simple fact of being a priest," writes Salvador de Madriaga, "was enough to merit the death penalty." Some 6,845 nuns, bishops, monks, and other ecclesiastics were martyred for their faith. The result was that the Nationalist cause fervently depended upon the inclusion of the huge majority of Spanish and other Catholics. No doubt, some laymen--Maritain, Mauriac, Bernanos, and the rare foreign priests who favored the Republican government or neutrality--remained largely loyal to the autonomous Republican authorities in the Basque country, including the clergy of Vizcaya and of Guipuzcoa in spite of the murder of thirty-two of their members. This led to the execution of forty priests by the Nationalists. It remains certain, however, that the position of so many of the Spanish clergy as well as the Vatican produced a crusading spirit within the Nationalist camp.

On July 1, 1937, the high Spanish clergy, eight archbishops, and thirty-five bishops, published a collective letter from the Spanish episcopate. It read: "Killing for killing, destruction for destruction, remove the nonbelligerent adversary as a principle of civic and military action: This is how one confirms some with reason and one cannot charge others without injustice." Only the archbishop of Tarragone and the bishop of Vitoria--in order to avoid the risk of reprisals -refused to sign the "Letter." In response, 1,200 bishops of the world demonstrated their solidarity. Cardinal Verdier, archbishop of Paris, claimed that "in reality it is a fight between the Christian civilization and the so-called Soviet atheist civilization." The English bishops "recognized that the conflagration in the Spanish peninsula had been destined to turn into universal fire in which Christian civilization would be consumed." The archbishop of Westminster spoke "of a furious battle between Christian civilization and the most formidable paganism to have ever darkened the world." The bishops in the United States proclaimed their approval without reserve: "We want you to know that we are on your side, as are all the Catholic bishops of the world."

On August 28, two and a half months before Germany and Italy did so, the Vatican formally recognized the "authorities of Burgos" as the official government of Spain. Pius XI, known for his encyclical letters "Non abbiamo bisogno" and "Mit Brennender Sorge" and for his condemnation of the right-wing but pagan nationalist movement Action francais, declared on September 14, 1936, in a radio broadcast delivered from Castel Gandolfo before Spanish refugees, "On top of all the political and worldly consideration, our benediction is addressed especially to those who were burdened with the difficult and perilous task of defending and restoring the rights and honor of religion, that is to say the rights and dignity of consciences, most assuredly the first man and civil well-being." He also accused "the truly satanic hatred of God professed by the Republicans." He asserted in his encyclical, "Divini Redemptoris," of March 19, 1937, about the situation in Spain under the Republican government that it not only demolishes some churches and some convents, but destroys each time that it is possible, all the churches and all the convents, including any trace of Christian religion, even the most notable monuments of art and science. The communist furor is not restricted to only killing bishops, thousands of priests, monks, and nuns… but it has taken a still higher number of victims among the secular of all the classes, who are still murdered in mass everyday because they are good Christians or opposed to Marxist atheism. This hideous destruction is carried forth with hatred, a barbarism, and ferocity that one could not have believed possible in our century.

Thereafter, all Catholics who took a position in favor of the government of the Popular Front were virtually in a state of rebellion against the church and the pope.

All who had participated in the revolutionary horrors were tried before the special courts, summarily judged, and rapidly turned over to the military for execution. On August 14 and 15, 1936, the legionnaires of Colonel Yague took hold of Badajoz. After a bloody attack in which all of a bandera were annihilated, the battle ended in the streets. Those who carried arms and those who had been disarmed after having fought were mercilessly shot on the "Plaza de Toros." The historian Hugh Thomas estimates there were 200 victims of the carnage. In February 1937, the repression that followed the conquest of Malaga claimed an equivalent number of victims. At Toledo, after the liberation of Alcazar, the Moroccan units invaded the San Juan hospital and continued to fire, not sparing any militia, wounded or hospitalized. The vast "clean-up" operation carried out by the Nationalist rear guard never attained the intensity of persecutions and reprisals that occurred in the adversary's territory. While the Nationalist authorities ordered or allowed the death of 35,021 people, the Republican authorities were responsible, directly or indirectly, for the execution or the massacre of 73,344 people. This wide disparity in the number of atrocities damaged the government's image incalculably. During the course of the war, their image became increasingly tarnished in spite of insistent denials by the authorities in Madrid.

The Bombardment Of Guernica

The massacre in Guernica is without question the most famous one of the war. On April 26, 1937, the airplanes of the Condor Legion, a German force in the service of Franco, bombed, in successive waves, a holy village in the Basque country. The international outcry that the bombing provoked still has not ended. The destruction of the small village did more for the cause of the Popular Front than any other even in the conflict. Thanks to the fame or Picasso and powerful forms of propaganda, Guernica was converted into a living symbol of human barbarism.

Numerous historians on the Right, and hagiographers of Franco, have attempted to deny the responsibility for using the pilots from the Condor Legion for the destruction of the village. They claim that the Republican troops deliberately dynamited and burned the village at the time of their retreat, as they had done in Irun or Amorabieta. Indefensible as it seemed, this argument was nevertheless maintained by some until the 1960s. For their part, the writers sympathetic to the Popular front indulged in all sorts of exaggerations and extravagances. Guernica became one of the greatest successes of political propaganda in the twentieth century.

The legend of Guernica contains various well-established features that one can summarize in several lines: On April 26, 1937, an unprotected village, without military interest or presence was bombarded; Monday was the regular market day, and the usual population of 7,000 inhabitants had increased to around 10,000 civilians because of the influx of refugees. The front was far away, and the village represented no tactical objective. The bombing was carried out exclusively by German flyers who piloted Heinkel 111s, Junker 52s, and Heinkel 51s, seventy planes in all. The attack lasted three hours and fifteen minutes without interruption; the population was systematically machine-gunned from low altitude. The destruction of the village was deliberate, the special bombs experimental, and between 1,600 and 3,000 died. The decision to bomb Guernica was made the night before at Burgos during the course of a secret meeting of high-level German and Spanish officers.

Such is the myth of Guernica with which the historian contends. Recently, a detailed and rigorous work has been completed by Gen. Jesus Salas. His conclusions are surprising: None of the stories about the bombing of Guernica corresponds to reality. At the time of the bombing, the municipality of Guernica consisted of three population groups: Guernica, Luno, and another small center containing an isolated population. The number of inhabitants was respectively 3,700, 461, and 1,608. Of the 3,700 inhabitants of Guernica, 10 percent had been mobilized by the Republican army. A maximum of 3,300 civilians stayed in the village, some of whom had been evacuated the morning of the bombing. The weekly Monday market had been suspended due to the recently announced decision of Francisco Lazcano, then a delegate of the government. Since April 25, the village had become tactically important. For a few weeks, as the study of operations and the deployment of forces in the sector indicate, Guernica had become the key point on the Basque front.

Situated at the crossroads of four axes of communication, Guernica sheltered arms factories, three battalions, three military hospitals, and 2,000 men whose numbers were increased by forces in retreat (Brigades 1, 2, and 4). The action was carried out by two Heinkel 111s and eighteen Junker 52s. The Heinkel 51s did not participate in the attack, but Italian airplanes were present: a Dornier 17, three Savoia 79s, and two formations of CF5-Fiats each. The total load of bombs, twenty-five tons, effectively equaled the one dropped on Alcala near the Henares river on the rights of March 15 and 16, 1937. The Junker 52s used regular, standard loads, the only one compatible with their trench mortars: explosive bombs of 250kg, of 50 kg, and incendiaries of 1 kg. Due to their limited maneuverability and the narrowness of the streets, the Junker 52s did not have the capability of shelling the population at low altitudes. Only the second Italian patrol of CF5-Fiats could have shelled the Paseo of the Tilos, a wide avenue accessible to the village.

At the end of the bombing, nearly 25 percent of the structures burned. The fire spread rapidly toward the center, damaging 70 percent of the buildings. The "historic tree" and the city hall, situated at the other end of the bombed zone, were undamaged. Therefore, the distance of the airports and the small number of available planes that had fuel for a limited range render unrealistic the claim of three hours and fifteen minutes of uninterrupted bombing. If the hypothesis that all the airplanes followed one another were true, it would have taken the bombers only ten minutes to fly over the village. Therefore, the bombardment could not have lasted longer than a few minutes.

At the time, the government press did not publish a list of the names of the dead. However, Castor de Iriarte, a Republican sympathizer in charge of the fire fighting, acknowledged in his book Bombs y mentiras sobre Guernica (Bombs and Lies about Guernica) that the number of dead was fewer than 250. Meanwhile, in consulting the archives and the registers of the civil state of the village, Jesus Salas Larrazabal discovered fewer than a hundred victims. Finally, the famous conference of Burgos, said to have ordered "the destruction of Guernica" turns out to be a fabrication, weakened ironically by the journal of von Richtofen. The Italian patrol "Savoia 79"--which received its instructions from the staff of the Condor Legion for the operations on the Vizcaya--had been warned expressly by the Nationalist authorities about the symbolic and sentimental value of Guernica, the "heart of the Basque country."

The most pitiful and cruel aspect of the bombing was that it proved totally useless. The primary objective -the destruction of the bridge over the river Oca at Renteria--was not achieved, and Guernica was occupied on April 29, three days after the disaster.

The first aerial bombardments in the Spanish war were ordered by the government of the Popular Front and began as early as July 18, 1936. Tetuan, Ceuta, Melilla, Algeciras, Cadiz, Oviedo, Zaragoza, Huesca, Cordou, Grenade, and later Seville, Salamanca, and Valladolid were systematically bombed by Republican airplanes. Nevertheless, no destruction or massacre perpetrated by one or the other camp--not even the one at Paracuellos--echoed like the tragedy at Guernica.

The Account Of The Human Loss

The Spanish Civil War cost a million lives; its aftermath a million more. After the war, all the members of the popular army appeared before a war council. Genocide was mentioned; some even testified that all the partisans of the vanquished were totally exterminated, excluding only those who managed to flee.

Today, historians possess sufficiently precise data to present a definitive account of the events of the civil war and the repression during the aftermath. Today, no one accepts the communist propaganda about the immediate aftermath of the war -400,000 to 500,000 executions. Many authors do accept the figure of 192,684 executions suggested in 1948 by Charles Folz in Massacre in Spain. The difference in the figures will very by about a dozen, according to their sources. Regularly, the authors use either the 192,684 figure for executions or 192,584.

All repeat after Folz that "according to the statistics of the Ministry of Justice, it is recognized that the number of persons condemned to death and executed rose to as many as 192,684." All confirm that this is an official figure released in 1944 by a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Justice. This figure circulated even as widely as the meetings of the United Nations and no one questioned its source. What was its origin? When, where, and how did the Ministry of Justice officially recognize this figure? Who was the bureaucrat that made this revelation?

No proof for the claim exists. It is even strongly probable that Charles Folz's unknown source counted the number of all deceased--natural and accidental deaths as well as those by execution--legally registered between January 1, 1939, and December 31, 1942. The figure for all the deceased during that period, 192,706, happens to be close to the one employed by Folz, 192,684. "Such a small difference," writes Ramon Larrazabal, who first offered this interesting comparison, "makes it probable that we have identified the source of the information."

Concerning the figure of 192,684 executions, Santiago Carrillo prefers the one of "more than 250,000." After much hesitation, Gabriel Jackson finally reduced his estimate to 140,000, and Ramon Tamames stuck to 100,000. Prudently, Hugh Thomas speaks of "several dozens of thousands." On this point, the authors have advanced their estimates quite freely. Until now, only Larrazabal has completed a serious study of repression in the provinces. He followed the tracks of all the executions in the statistics of the INE (Instituto Nacional de Estadistica) and in the civil Registers of State. The results of the research are impressive. The number of legal executions from January 1, 1939, to December 31, 1959, is exactly 22,716. In 1939, the number of executions registered were 8,318. Then, the figures decrease slowly. In 1951, only seven were executed and remained at that level until 1960 when the executions ended permanently.

With 22,716 executions no exaggeration is needed to account for the extensive repression that followed the victory of the Nationalist camp. More fortunate combatants, militant or Republican sympathizers, were imprisoned. In 1939, the imprisoned population reached a maximum of 270,719 persons. It was 74,095 in 1943 and did not return to its December 1935 level of 34,500 until 1947.

A more likely account of the deaths is the following: For the Nationalists, 71,500 soldiers died in the line of duty of whom 12,000 were foreigners; 4,000 civilians were killed as a consequence of the fighting, and 72,500 murders and executions brought the total to 148,000 deaths. For the Republicans, 74,000 soldiers died in the line of duty of which 13,500 were foreigners; 11,000 civilian deaths came as a result of the fighting; 35,500 murders and executions and nearly 23,000 executions during the repression brought the total to 143,500 deaths.

The human cost of the war is distributed evenly between the two camps. By including the deaths during World War II (4,500 for the nationalists and 6,500 for the Republicans) and the deaths of the Maquis and guerrillas in 1944 and 1945 (1,500 for the Nationalists and 2,500 for the Republicans), the final figure for the Nationalists is 154,000 deaths and for the Republicans 152,500--a total of 306,500 deaths.

The relative similarity in the number of deaths between the two camps breaks down only if one takes into account the death rate from sickness and malnutrition (for the Republicans, 385,500 deaths; and for the Nationalists, 245,000 deaths). The exiles and the fall in the birthrate need to be included. In sum, the conflict was responsible for a theoretical decrease in the population of more than a million people. Since one does not usually calculate the occasional losses due to sickness or indeterminable ones like the lowness of the birthrate, it is accurate to say that 306,500 died. The figure reflects fully the terrible reality of three years of civil war.

Rare were those leaders, the most involved and the most important who attempted from the beginning to avoid or stop the massacre. Until his execution, Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, the leader of the Falange, tried to negotiate a compromise through the president of the "Junta de Gobierno," Martinez Barrio, and the under-secretary of agriculture, Martin Echevarria. Shortly before his execution, he observed: "All wars are, in principle, barbaric, and a civil war is in additions to everything else a profane error. The people who stat it show that they do not know how to use one of the most profound virtues that humanity received from the Almighty: intelligence and a common language to understand one another."

Indalecio Prieto, the socialist reformer, collected the papers left by Jose Antonio in his jail cell and testified about Antonio's agonizing preoccupations. Hoping to stop the massacre, Antonio asked: "Could it be in Spain that we have not confronted our respective ideologies dispassionately enough to judge if they are worth settling on the battlefield. Their similarities are doubtless fundamental, and their differences are probably secondary."

President Azana, the disappointed hop of the Republic, whose undeniable talent as a writer often cast a sorrowful light on the epoch, concludes:

If someone could restore in Spain, not the Republic, but a form of government more or less liberal, and I have an idea of what that would be, he must first overthrow the numerous myths created around the Republic and destroy its idols. If our Republic had simply died on July 18, 1936, the idea of it would have stayed in the minds of the people in a very different way. We other Republicans degraded ourselves until there was nothing in which we could place our hopes. Anyone who sees all this in any other way is mistaken.

Understanding the Second Republic of Spain and its failure requires studying the past in its proper context, it sheds light on the Bolshevism of the Socialist Party; the progression of Marxist communism and libertarianism; the development of the paramilitary socialist and communist machines; the inconsistency of the liberal Republicans; the political stupidity and egoism of the Right; the economic and cultural crisis of the country; the hostility of the Republican leaders toward the church; the failure of the agricultural reform; the purges by the army; the social agitation, the violence and public disorder; the sectarianism and the revolutionary fanaticism; the breakdown of the central power and the eruption of separatist passions. Understanding the civil war is to know that it was all, according to the enlightened formula of Arthur Koestler, "a mixture of vanity and of sacrifice, of buffoonery and heroism, perhaps in greater proportions than in other cases because 'ideological' wars are more confused and more absurd than the old-fashioned wars between nations."

Such is the history of the Spanish Civil War. Because of narrow-minded ideologues steeped in fantasies, we have continued to misunderstand it.