The Battle for Spain

Since the 1990s. Anthony Beevor has made a living as an expert at uncovering new information from the Soviet archives. His recent book ‘The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939’ is a rewrite of his 25-year-old history of the Spanish Civil War, filled in with new information from the now opened archives.

This is a topic I have long had a peripheral interest in, but this is the first full book I have read on the Spanish Civil War. One particularly sad part of the war is that it’s really hard to root for anyone. So, you’re just on the side of the victims. The fascists, communists, as well as most of the other factions are deeply flawed. Both sides had their share of pretty awful atrocities. Beevor estimates the Nationalists killed about 200,000 people, while the Republicans killed about 40,000. So the Nationalists killed more, but he argues with two warring vicious groups, the victors will just have more opportunities to commit atrocities.

Franco’s ‘Nationalist’ group (which he was not the top leader of at the start of the revolt) consisted of fascist Falangists, Carlists, Alphonsists, Catholic fundamentalists, and Anti-Masonists (not of the 1840s American variety). Their uniting cause was hatred of communism, although from a traditional rather than liberal perspective. They viewed the war as a crusade – a Second Reconquista. Franco, one of the few somewhat competent generals in the war, was fortunate to receive German support and also in that his major rivals for power died early in the conflict.

To most Westerners, the ‘Republicans’ were a more appealing group. That label contained trade-unionists, Anarchists, Stalinists, ‘Trotskyites’, some Liberals and Social Democrats. They wanted to overhaul Spanish society. To what is unclear, but a form of communism would be likely (The term ‘liquidating the bourgeoisie as in Russia’ occurs a few times). Certainly neither side promoted liberal democracy. Although the Republicans attempted to portray themselves internationally as the legitimate government and relatively moderate democrats, they became increasingly undemocratic and dominated by Stalinists. The Republicans did have leftist intellectuals on their side and they also better understood how to communicate with Western audiences. However, the Nationalists benefited from some well placed allies and lobbying. Nationalist aristocrats did an excellent job of appealing to the English elite, while German pressure kept the French from heavy involvement, and the Kennedy-led Catholic lobby in the United States prevented American aid to the Republicans.

The interesting counter-factual question is how things would have ended up if the Republicans had won. Franco’s group had some terrible qualities and Franco initial policies weren’t so different from the controlled economy communists wanted. But, besides his traditionalism, Franco didn’t have that strongly of held beliefs about organizing the country. And pressure from Western economics forces caused some moderation and liberalism in the country starting in the 1950s. As Beevor points out, by the late 1960s, Spain was a changed country – a tourist destination for the British rather than the bizarre Falangist utopia Franco envisioned in the post-war years. Eventually, after Franco died the country turned out alright, and today is definitely a prosperous Western European nation. Franco probably headed off a communist takeover, and Beevor points out Spain is much better off than any of the former Warsaw Pact nations of Eastern Europe. I attribute that to Spain’s proximately to wealth and access to trading lanes as much as Franco. It’s uncertain what the Republicans would have done if they had won the war and carried out their revolution. It probably wouldn’t have been good. It probably would have been better than the tyranny of the early Nationalist years, but a Spain closely linked to the Soviet Union would be destabilizing for Europe. After WWII, if would have been a beechhead in Western Europe for the Soviets and likely would have isolated the Spanish people from largely benevolent Western influences. So, like all good counterfactuals is unanswerable.

I don’t want to sound like I’m demonizing the actors in this conflict. Most were not evil, they were human extremists… Driven to their views by the extreme circumstances and with their worldviews much seemingly terrible behavior becomes permissible to ensure victory. For me, it’s a highly-regrettable toss-up. Franco was terrible, most of the communists were terrible. Weirdly everything turned out okay in the long-run for those who lived… But we would have been better off if Hemingway and Orwell had won the war.

As for the book, rather than the war, generally Beevor is informative and quite readable (although some of the sentences are worded like strained translations) But my biggest criticism of the book is the maps. For battles it very much helps to understand what’s going on when you have a map. All the maps of battles were in the front of the book which made fore a lot of flipping. Also, many of the important battles were not shown in maps. In addition, Beevor expects the reader to bring a knowledge of Spanish geography to the book, which I do not posses. Many of the towns and river he mentions are no where on any of the maps, which makes it a little more difficult to see what is going on. Nonetheless, overall I enjoyed. It was a good read on the plane ride to Spain. Of course, no one there wanted to speak about it.

7/10