The Spanish Civil War

[anselmo1]

I guess I am very tired of the fact the Communism always gets a free pass even though it has repressed and killed more people than any other ideology. One only has to look at Stalin and Mao and how they virtually wiped tens of millions off the face of the earth in their own respective countries.

The Comintern was organized to create world revolution through Communism at the expense of the church, capitalists and anyone that opposed them during the Spanish Civil War. All this was financed by the Soviet Union while their own people were starved to death in the Ukraine.

In any war, the losers will always be weeded out, tried, convicted and in most cases hung. When you lose, you suffer the consequences and one only has to look at history to see the results.

General Franco was a brillant military leader in battle and was shrewd enough politically not to become a part of WW II. His close relationship with Admiral Wilhelm Canaris of the Abwehr who provided classified information to him was probably the main reason Spain didn't enter WW II as an Axis partner. He rewarded Canaris with a Spanish villa. Unfortunately, Canaris was executed by the Nazi's for being a double agent after the Hitler assassination attempt in 1944. Canaris was an anti-Nazi as well as being against Communism. To me, he saved millions of Spanish lives.

 

[Salv]

anselmo1 - why do you keep insisting that Franco and his cronies were rebelling against a Communist regime? You saw my post with the results of the February 1936 elections. The Communists were a small minority in the Popular Front government, and I've yet to see any evidence that they exerted any real influence or control before the war started. If you have such evidence please provide it.

The only reason that the Soviets were able to increase their influence over the Republic during the war was that they controlled the supply of arms. The only reason they were able to do this was that nobody else, apart from Mexico, was prepared to sell arms to the Republic. The Republic tried to buy arms from the US, Great Britain and France but all refused, so where else could they turn? And of course Stalin was more than happy to extend his influence; to turn a nice profit; and to be seen to be supporting the fight against fascism - Hitler and Mussolini had assisted the rebellion almost from the first day of the war, and were already supplying weapons and personnel by the time Soviet arms started to arrive in Spain.

The Spanish Civil War was not started to protect Spain from communism, but rather to return power to the landowners, the wealthy and the church, all of whom had lost their power in a fair and free democratic election. If Franco was anti- anything then he was clearly anti-democracy.

 

[Sierra Charriba]

Something not funny about the spanish catholic church during the civil war.

Look the images below and tell what you see:

- A nazi birthday party surprise dedicated to Franco
- A fascist Halloween dedicated to Franco
- A Klu-Klux-Klan reunion in honour of Franco
- A group of spanish catholic bishops during the civil war preaching the christian doctrine of love and mercy but, casually, saluting as Hitler.

 

[anselmo1]

You are well aware that the Catholic Church in Spain as well as around the world is Anti-Communist. The Catholic Church in Spain supported the winners of the Spanish Civil War, The Nationalists. If the Republicans would have won, the Catholic Church in Spain would have been pillaged and the priests and bishops slaughtered. Stalin did the same thing in the USSR in the mid to late 1920's.

As far as General Franco, here is a picture of Dwight D Eisenhower who happened to be Commander and Chief of all allied forces in WW II that fought the Nazi's. This photo is of President Eisenhower greeting General Franco in Spain.

 

[jake431]

If the Republicans would have won, the Catholic Church in Spain would have been pillaged and the priests and bishops slaughtered. Stalin did the same thing in the USSR in the mid to late 1920's.

Republican does not equal Communist. Had the Republicans won, the government that had been voted into power in the first place would have resisted being deposed by Franco.
-Jake

 

[Salv]

You are well aware that the Catholic Church in Spain as well as around the world is Anti-Communist. The Catholic Church in Spain supported the winners of the Spanish Civil War, The Nationalists. If the Republicans would have won, the Catholic Church in Spain would have been pillaged and the priests and bishops slaughtered. Stalin did the same thing in the USSR in the mid to late 1920's.

As far as General Franco, here is a picture of Dwight D Eisenhower who happened to be Commander and Chief of all allied forces in WW II that fought the Nazi's. This photo is of President Eisenhower greeting General Franco in Spain.

...

Is the (possible) slaughter of priests and bishops more, or less, horrific than the (actual) slaughter of Republicans that took place after the end of the war? If more horrific, why so?

And the rebels were quite happy to kill Catholics, including priests, when it suited them - thousands of Catholic Basque nationalists were murdered by Francos forces. Here's another question for you: if the Catholic church is anti-Communist why did the Catholics of the Basque country support the Republic? Could it be that the Republic wasn't a Communist regime?

Here's another nice picture for our collection: Franco greets Hitler at Hendaye

 

[Sierra Charriba]

Certainly, during the cold war, the governments of the United States supported dictatorships only because these were anti-communist, without mattering that they were, mainly, undemocratic. History has demonstrated that was an error and there is many examples of it . In Spain, many people of my generation do not get along with the United States by the support of their Presidents to the dictatorship of Franco. I believe that the United States is a land of freedom and must defends the freedom in front of any tyrant, since it did in World War II.

 

[Salv]

...The Republicans were first to start the atrocities in 1936 by murdering Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, the head of the Falange Espa?±ola...

I missed this earlier, and it is so far from truth as to be ridiculous. Primo de Rivera was executed on 20 November 1936 and atrocities, on both sides, prior to this date are well documented - you may want to reread your "multitude of papers on the Spanish Civil War".

The most infamous occurred in Badajoz, which had fallen to the rebels on 14th August 1936. Anti-Republican reprisals began immediately with some 1500 Republicans massacred in the towns bullring. Also, according to Beevor's book, the Bishop of Vitoria noted "...with astonishment and terror we learned from the lips of a chief of requetes of Navarre that in the month of September 1936 the Franco adherents had killed some 7,000 people of the left in Navarre alone. And this in an area which the Nationalists had taken without a fight."

 

[PADDY]

Buenas tardes hombres.

Just to say, although we know this thread has sailed 'close' to the wind, I'm glad that you've kept the substance of it in the 'Golden Era' years where it may continue to inform, illuminate and interest our members on the Lounge.

Thanks again for your civility, involvement and cooperation with this highly enjoyable thread.

Hasta pronto. Paddy.

 

[Sierra Charriba]

Moe Fisman, brigadista
(1915-2007)
by Peter N. Carroll

The seemingly indestructible Moe Fishman, who represented the public face of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (VALB) for more than half a century, died of pancreatic cancer on August 6, 2007 in New York. He was 92
During the past year, Moe attended public events around the United States and Spain to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, a war that pitted rebellious generals, led by General Francisco Franco, backed by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, against the legally elected Spanish Republic.
Born in New York on September 28, 1915, Fishman left school during the Depression and became a laundry worker and truck driver. He participated in unionizing his fellow workers and found a commitment to social justice issues as a member of the Young Communist League.
When the war in Spain began, Moe volunteered to fight, but was rejected for lack of military experience. However, his skill as a truck driver was needed and a second application for service was accepted - with the proviso that he recruit ten other volunteers. Fishman quickly found the men, though none actually showed up. The recruiters took him anyway.
He arrived in Spain in April 1937 and trained as a foot soldier in the George Washington battalion. In his first action, he was wounded during the battle of
Brunete, near Villanueva de la Canada in July 1937. He spent a year in convalescence in Spain before returning to his home in New York. He then spent another two years in hospitals as doctors fused bones in his injured leg, leaving him with a lifelong limp.
During his lengthy recuperation from war injuries, Fishman stayed in touch with New York humanitarian aid organizations providing assistance for the civilian refugees of the Spanish Civil War. He worked in the warehouse of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, while studying to become a licensed radio operator. His skills enabled him to serve in the Merchant Marines
during World War II.
After that war, Fishman worked again for the refugee aid committee, even after it was targeted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) for alleged subversive activities in 1946. Indeed, it was Fishman’s
proximity to that case that changed his life when HUAC set its sights on the VALB and President Harry Truman’s Attorney General listed the group as a subversive organization in 1947 as part of the postwar anti- Communist crusade.
When Congress passed the McCarran Act in 1950, obliging all designated subversive organizations to register with the federal government and creating heavy penalties for leaders who refused to cooperate, the entire executive committee of the VALB resigned. In its place, two Lincoln veterans stepped forward: Milton Wolff became the National Commander; Moe Fishman became
the Executive Secretary/Treasurer and served the organization in an executive capacity for the rest of his life, more than a half century of dedicated service.
Fishman and Wolff led the VALB defense before the Subversive Activities Control Board in 1954. After their efforts failed, they pursued the appeals process that concluded with a favorable court ruling in the 1970s, declaring the Attorney General’s list and the SACB’s rulings unconstitutional. Through it all, Fishman reminded the vets, “we have not forgotten that
our main purpose in life is our anti-Franco activity.” “The long fight is over,” he wrote soon afterward to vet Herman “Gabby” Rosenstein, “and we are in (so to speak) [as] a legitimate non-subversive organization.
I’m not sure that is good. Maybe we better do something subversive and get back on it otherwise the public we are trying to reach, especially the youth constituency, will look askance at these ‘revisionists’ who have stopped being subversive and have a U.S. Court of Appeals that agrees we are not. How about that?”
During the dark years of the black lists, Fishman kept the VALB organization running. He helped produce dozens of four-page issues of The Volunteer to keep the vets apprised of various Cold War political cases; rallied support for individual defense trials; and participated in protest demonstrations against Spanish government policies and cultural activities in the United States.
By 1957, however, the two VALB leaders, Moe and Milt, faced an empty treasury and considered disbanding the organization. They decided to poll some of the vets, who resoundingly opposed the idea. Meanwhile, Moe had
received a letter from a Spaniard who had worked with the VALB in New York in the 1940s and was now in a Franco prison. He responded by summoning a campaign to aid all political prisoners of Spain. An aid and amnesty project became VALB’s major focus until the dictator died in his bed in 1975.
To raise funds for the prisoners and their families, the reconstituted VALB held its first reunion in a decade in 1957, an annual ceremonial gathering that
continues now under the auspices of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives.
There were times when Moe felt like a one-man band.
“I’m the organization,” he said with little exaggeration for a 1962 article that appeared in Esquire. “If there’s something to decide, I talk it over with the guys and then decide what I’m going to do. Cockeyed, but that’s the way it is.”
As more veterans reached retirement age and returned to the VALB in the 1970s, Moe remained a constant in the organization’s activities. He participated in innumerable panels and conferences, spoke to students
in high schools and colleges around the country, and traveled to international meetings about the Spanish Civil War. In his public talks, as well as in
interviews, he revealed an incredible memory for names and historical details, linking past and present effortlessly.
He had the patience to listen to the most asked, often hostile questions and yet typically offered clearly recited answers. He seldom allowed a speaker to escape a comment with which he disagreed. Sometimes he seemed a relentless questioner, assuring that the role of the Lincoln volunteers received its proper due. He was direct, articulate, and unselfconscious.
In just one month this spring, he appeared on Pacifica’s Democracy Now program, greeted guests at the opening night of the exhibition “Facing Fascism,” spoke to a high school class on New York’s west side, and
shared a podium with Harry Belafonte, while handling a multitude of office details and giving interviews to visiting journalists.
He was also an active member of Veterans for Peace, proudly carrying the VALB banner to parades. He is survived by his partner, Georgia Wever.
For years, seemingly forever, Moe Fishman stood at the center of a halo that surrounded the Americans who fought in the Spanish Civil War. He relished the
spotlight and used it well. Lean, well-dressed in suit and tie, dark eyebrows and brown mustache offset by a full gray head of hair, he carried the vitality of a young man’s cause into his old age. Each year at the
annual reunion, it was his voice that announced recent deaths and called the roll of the surviving veterans in attendance.
His silence brings the end of an era.

[Peter Carroll is the Chair of the Board of Governors
of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archive (ALBA). This
obituary is to appear in the September issue of The
Volunteer, a publication of ALBA.

¬°Viva la XV Brigada! ¬°Viva el Batall??n Lincoln!

 

[anselmo1]

The Abraham Lincoln Brigade

In the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time
by Marcus Epstein

Since John Walker Lindh was captured by American forces, most conservatives have (unsurprisingly) been on the forefront of the lynch mob. The few exceptions, such as Paul Craig Roberts, Sam Francis, and Charlie Reese, have all gone after Jane Fonda in their defense of Lindh. While what Jane Fonda did in Vietnam was stupid and in bad judgment, it was hardly treason. All she did was misrepresent (either out of stupidity or ideological blindness) the mistreatment of American P.O.W.s and take some silly pictures with Vietcong soldiers. She did not provide any military or strategic assistance to the North Vietnamese and the truly horrendous acts that many say Fonda committed are nothing but Internet myths. Perhaps a more analogous situation to Lindh’s would be that of the legions of Americans who fought alongside the Stalinist Thugs during the Spanish Civil War in the aptly named Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

The U.S. did not get involved in the Spanish Civil War and placed an arms embargo against the Republicans. (According to Murray Rothbard this was the only thing FDR didn’t do wrong.) In addition to agitating for intervention, many on the Left decided to put their money where their mouth was and went off to Spain. To coordinate the effort, the Soviet controlled Communist International organized the International Brigade, which consisted of volunteers from 7 countries to fight with the Republicans. The American division of the group was the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Over 60% of the members belonged to either the Communist Party USA or the Young Communist League. While much has been made about the very nominal amount of aid that Franco received from Hitler, Mussolini, and a few US companies, until recently little has been said of the huge amount of support the Republicans received from Stalin and the atrocities they committed.

In his book, Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century, Robert Royal states that The Republicans killed at least 6,832 priests and nuns including 13 Bishops. The priests were often burned alive and mutilated while the nuns were raped. Bishops were tortured and executed in front of entire towns. They destroyed every single church they could. In Modern Times, Paul Johnson estimates that the Republicans slaughtered 50,000 civilians. In spite of these facts, the Catholic Church is still criticized for supporting the Nationalists.

What happened to the surviving members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade when they came home? Were they tried for treason, murder, or war crimes? No. Instead they were and still are trumpeted by Hollywood, academia, and the media as anti-fascist heroes. Most textbooks portray them in sympathetic, if not a heroic light – either ignoring the communist element or excusing it because it was during the Great Depression. All members of the Brigade are now honorary citizens of Spain. Some have even received the Presidential Medal of Honor. There are several organizations designed to generate more attention for the brigade by putting Museum exhibits and courses together.

Last year New Hampshire passed a bill that would put a tax-funded plaque in the State Capital that said "You Are History, You Are Legend. 40,000 international volunteers came to the defense of the Spanish Republic when Franco, Hitler and Mussolini attacked. Among them were some 3,000 young Americans, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, and nearly half of them lie buried in Spanish soil. Their dedication to freedom and democracy is an inspiration to future generations." Fortunately, a last minute effort by local citizens took down the plaque, but this is a usual occurrence with similar plaques in Washington and Wisconsin already existing and others being pushed through other state assemblies.

Despite all this acclaim, many on the Left contend that the Veterans don’t get enough attention, and complain that they were victims of McCarthyism because some were forced out of government jobs.

Some will no doubt protest that I am blaming the Brigade for things they may not have been responsible for. It is true, they say, that Spanish Republicans were involved in atrocities, but the Abraham Lincoln Brigade consisted of idealistic youths that genuinely wanted to fight fascism. They did not participate in the Stalinist massacres, and were in fact the victim of the communists just as the priests and nuns were. Maybe they were pawns, but they were by no means villains. Neocon Ron Radosh, who to his credit has done much to expose Stalin’s involvement in the war, takes this line. There are a few grains of truth in this argument, but all of these points could be used in John Walker’s defense. He was not involved in any acts of terrorism. Nor did he oppress women, gays, or Buddhists. He simply went there because of his Islamic faith, and ended up in a situation that nearly had him killed by other Muslims.

I am in no way suggesting that any members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade should have been prosecuted in the US. Conservatives and libertarians should have no problem with Americans fighting in other countries’ wars. Just as those on the Right tell people complaining about poverty to give to charity instead of having the government steal other people’s money, whenever someone argues for military intervention in the name of human rights and democracy, we should tell them to go join a foreign army instead of push for U.S. intervention and sanctions.

Conservatives do not actually have a problem with American citizens joining other countries’ military. A particularly interesting story was told to me at a conference for editors of conservative college newspapers last November, shortly before the Lindh story came out. In the 80s, a few writers for a Yale conservative paper went to Afghanistan for a summer to fight with the anticommunist "freedom fighters" who of course are now our archenemies. They dressed themselves in Arab garb, got all swarthied up, and carried rifles just like John Walker. All of the conservative students thought they were heroes, yet I guarantee the same people would be happy to have Lindh executed. No one really cares if someone joins a foreign army, even if it belongs to a particularly nasty regime. Lindh’s only sin was that after joining up with the Taliban, they became what Gore Vidal calls our "enemy of the month."

 

[anselmo1]

Is the (possible) slaughter of priests and bishops more, or less, horrific than the (actual) slaughter of Republicans that took place after the end of the war? If more horrific, why so?

And the rebels were quite happy to kill Catholics, including priests, when it suited them - thousands of Catholic Basque nationalists were murdered by Francos forces. Here's another question for you: if the Catholic church is anti-Communist why did the Catholics of the Basque country support the Republic? Could it be that the Republic wasn't a Communist regime?

Here's another nice picture for our collection: Franco greets Hitler at Hendaye

So Franco greeted Hitler as well as Eisenhower. Well, that picture has as much merit as this one:

 

[jake431]

Anselmo1,

For brevity's sake, could I summarize your position thusly? - Communists, present in any amount, constitute a worse threat than anything else. Hence, Franco taking power illegally constituted a good.

Is that accurate? Cause that seems to be what you are saying, that the Nationalists overthrowing an elected government was a good.

If I'm wrong, or mis-interpreting your position, let me know.

-Jake

 

[anselmo1]

Red Terror during Spanish Civil War

Salv, that’s an excellent overview, though I think you let the Republican government off too lightly.

There were several kinds of killings in the Republican zone. There was the spontaneous outburst of popular fury concentrated in the first few weeks, where the victims were largely supporters of the rebellion, or those individuals that workers and peasants regarded as their immediate oppressors. These killings were not as indiscriminate as Nationalist propaganda claimed: you could be a major landowner or industrialist and be absolutely safe if your workforce regarded you as a decent guy. And as you say, the leadership of the various parties and the two major Unions (CNT and UGT) generally opposed the bloodletting and quickly bought it under control. There were occasional similar outbursts later, usually as a response to Nationalist atrocities, or in moments of panic (like the Madrid shootings you mention), but in general this kind of violence was well controlled in the Republican zone after the first few weeks.

However, some of the worst atrocities in the Republican zone occurred after this period and were committed by the forces of the Republican state under Communist influence. The most notorious was the massacre of 2,000 Nationalist Officers at Paracuelos de Jarama and Torrejon de Ardoz during the siege of Madrid. It was seen as a military necessity, to prevent them stiffening the Nationalist war effort when Madrid fell. Such incidents weren’t common, but its interesting that they haven’t attracted the same degree of opprobrium as the Jaquerie of the first weeks. As the Anarchists say, it seems crimes by states are always seen differently to crimes by individuals and mobs. I doubt the victims see any difference.

There is also the issue of killings committed by different Republican factions against each other. It’s not often realized that figures for killings in the Republican zone include a large number of Republicans killed by other Republicans. I’ve never been able to find a serious breakdown of the figures on this (does Beevor do it?), but there is a general agreement among historians that (to quote Paul Preston) “after the autumn of 1936 terror in the republican zone was to be directed not against rightists but against revolutionaries”. In practice this was largely terror by the growing Communist Party against Anarchists, dissident Marxists, and ordinary people involved in the social revolution that accompanied the working class counter-insurgency of July 1936.

But yes, killings in the Republican zone were never on the scale of the killings in the Nationalist zone. There was a major qualitative difference too. Killings in the Republican zone were in general just that – killings, usually by shooting. But in the Nationalist zone torture, mutilation and rape were virtually acts of policy.

Incidentally, as regards the Church, I see that tomorrow (26 July) is the anniversary of the last auto-da-fe by the Spanish Inquisition. The victim was a schoolteacher who had said that you only needed to obey the Ten Commandments. This was in 1826, so almost within living memory in 1936.

Before and during the Spanish Civil War many of the Republicans and their armed forces were violently anti-clerical - Anarchists and Communists, whose assaults during what has been termed Spain's Red Terror included sacking and burning monasteries and churches and killing nearly 7,000 Catholic clergy.

For some time since the general elections of February 16, 1936, there had been growing political bitterness in Spain. The government and its supporters, the Popular Front, whose leadership was clearly moving towards the left, had launched a violent campaign against the opposition. whom they accused of plotting against the Republic. The opposition parties, on the other hand, had reacted with increasing vigour. The latter claimed that the Popular Front had not obtained legally more than just over two hundred seats in a Parliament of 473 members, that the government represented therefore only a minority, and added that the Popular Front's parliamentary majority was the result of large-scale electoral fraud, of Government-sponsored mob terror and intimidation, of the arbitrary annulment of all election certificates in many right-wing constituencies, and of the expulsion, the arrest, or even the assassination, of many legally elected deputies of the right. According to the opposition, the real enemies of the republic were not on the right but on the left; Spain was in imminent danger of falling under a Communist dicatorship, and therefore by fighting the Popular Front they, the Opposition, were merely doing their duty in defence of law and order and of the freedom and the fundamental rights of the Spanish people.

One scholar notes that despite the fact that "the Church suffered appalling persecution" behind Republican lines, these events have been met "with the embarrassed silence or attempts at justification of a large number of historians and memoirists."

 

[Baron Kurtz]

We're all red on the inside.

bk

 

[anselmo1]

Like I said before, the Communists in the Spanish Civil War have been given a free pass historically. They were murderers non the less and there outright animosity toward the Catholic Church in Spain has been well documented.

It is estimated that in the course of the red terror, 6,832 members of the Catholic clergy were killed. Another source breaks down the figures as follows: 282 nuns, 13 bishops, 4172 diocesan priests, 2364 monks and friars, among them 259 Claretians, 226 Franciscans, 204 Piarists, 176 Brothers of Mary, 165 Christian Brothers, 155 Augustinians, 132 Dominicans, and 114 Jesuits were killed. In some dioceses, the numbers are overwhelming: "in Barbastro 88 percent of the secular clergy were murdered, 66 percent in Lerida, 62 percent in Tortosa, 44 per cent in Segorbe, about half of the priests in Malaga, Minorca and Toledo." There are accounts of Catholic faithful being forced to swallow rosary beads, thrown down mine shafts and priests being forced to dig their own graves before being buried alive.

The Catholic Church in 2001 saw fit to beatify hundreds of martyrs of the Spanish Civil War and will beatify almost 500 more in October of 2007.

Communists were wrong in the slaughter of the clergy but what do you expect from the Popular Front when it was financed by the Comintern? Just imagine what would have happened if the Republicans had won the Spanish Civil War. The Catholic Church in Spain as well as any other churches would have been annihilated.

Religion under Stalin in 1936 was what Karl Marx had clearly identified organized religion as a threat to the worker because the loyalty of individual workers should be to each other, not to a supreme being. As a result, Stalin took steps to limit the power of religion in the USSR. Churches and mosques were closed and converted into schools or movie theaters. Religious icons were melted down, and meetings were banned throughout the country. Religion was forced to go underground, in order to hide from the prying eyes of Stalin's police. The same thing would have happened in a Republican controlled Spain.

Communism as well as Fascism are no different in their long term goals--"Complete subjugation of the people within the State. Your only loyalty is to the State."

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Like I said before, the Communists in the Spanish Civil War have been given a free pass historically.

But not here. Have you even read this thread? The atrocities of both sides are well documented. (Not that there were only communists on the Republican side.)

Communism as well as Fascism are no different in their long term goals--"Complete subjugation of the people within the State. Your only loyalty is to the State."

Which is why it is so difficult to understand your consistent defense of the Fascists. Unless one fully accepts your notion that the Republic was an entirely Soviet-dominated pawn, (which it's quite clear that not many here do. And let me tell you, the people around here are not "reds") your argument falls apart. If you accept that the election results posted by Salv are accurate your stance implies that it is OK to over throw a democratically elected Government/Parliament just because it contains a small number of Communists and Socialists. Is this what you think?

I think we'd all like to see or hear the titles of your mysterious sources. All the important posts in this thread are fully referenced.

bk

 

[Salv]

..which consisted of volunteers from 7 countries...

..very nominal amount of aid that Franco received from Hitler, Mussolini, and a few US companies...

I think a little more research on the part of Marcus Epstein is needed here. There were volunteers from over 50 countries in Spain; and the German Condor Legion and Italian CTV, along with their hundreds of tanks and planes, and the 3,500,000 tons of US oil, 12,000 US-made trucks and 40,000 US-made bombs was hardly "nominal". Epstein is more than welcome to his opinion regarding the International Brigades, but he needs to check his facts a little more closely.

So Franco greeted Hitler as well as Eisenhower. Well, that picture has as much merit as this one

None of the pictures of politicians greeting one another has any merit, not do they prove anything - politics makes for strange bedfellows.

It is estimated that in the course of the red terror, 6,832 members of the Catholic clergy were killed

So that's fewer than the number of Republicans killed by the rebels in the Navarre region alone within a month of the start of the rebellion. Which is more horrific, 6832 murders in three years throughout an entire country, or 7000 murders in one month in just one region of that same country?

what do you expect from the Popular Front when it was financed by the Comintern?

I have to ask - again - for your sources for this claim. None of the books I have read support this. The Comintern sold the Republic arms (taking 70% of Spains gold reserves in payment - they'd have taken more, but some had already been moved to France) and provided military advisers, and troops in the shape of the International Brigade volunteers. The Comintern did not "finance" the Republic.

Just imagine what would have happened if the Republicans had won the Spanish Civil War.

I imagine the slaughter would have been far less than the slaughter that actually occurred when the rebels won the war, but like you I have no proof that this would have happened.

 

[anselmo1]

But not here. Have you even read this thread? The atrocities of both sides are well documented. (Not that there were only communists on the Republican side.)



Which is why it is so difficult to understand your consistent defense of the Fascists. Unless one fully accepts your notion that the Republic was an entirely Soviet-dominated pawn, (which it's quite clear that not many here do. And let me tell you, the people around here are not "reds") your argument falls apart. If you accept that the election results posted by Salv are accurate your stance implies that it is OK to over throw a democratically elected Government/Parliament just because it contains a small number of Communists and Socialists. Is this what you think?

The Communists through the Comintern which was fully financed by the USSR provided funds, weapons, and even print materials.Do you think Joe Stalin supplied it for the freedom of all Spaniards? The Comintern went out and recruited foreign volunteers such as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the United States. The majority of those volunteers were Communists that following the teachings of the American Communist Party lead by Earl Browder. Do you think Stalin would ever fund the Comintern to promote democracy?

It was mentioned before that the Communists in 1936 held around 12% of the seats in the government. Over time, the Communist influence increased dramatically especially on the battlefield.

I think we'd all like to see or hear the titles of your mysterious sources. All the important posts in this thread are fully referenced.

The Communist sources that is? Come on now, I could post until I was blue in the face and be criticized even though I am objective! What is it where people support a ruthless system whether it be Communism or Fascism? Just as the Fascists didn't get a free pass, neither should the Communists. If Communism was so fantastic, why isn't Spain a Communist state today like N. Korea, Vietnam, Cuba and Venezuela?

 

[jake431]

But not here. Have you even read this thread? The atrocities of both sides are well documented. (Not that there were only communists on the Republican side.)



Which is why it is so difficult to understand your consistent defense of the Fascists. Unless one fully accepts your notion that the Republic was an entirely Soviet-dominated pawn, (which it's quite clear that not many here do. And let me tell you, the people around here are not "reds") your argument falls apart. If you accept that the election results posted by Salv are accurate your stance implies that it is OK to over throw a democratically elected Government/Parliament just because it contains a small number of Communists and Socialists. Is this what you think?

The Communists through the Comintern which was fully financed by the USSR provided funds, weapons, and even print materials.Do you think Joe Stalin supplied it for the freedom of all Spaniards? The Comintern went out and recruited foreign volunteers such as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the United States. The majority of those volunteers were Communists that following the teachings of the American Communist Party lead by Earl Browder. Do you think Stalin would ever fund the Comintern to promote democracy?

It was mentioned before that the Communists in 1936 held around 12% of the seats in the government. Over time, the Communist influence increased dramatically especially on the battlefield.

I think we'd all like to see or hear the titles of your mysterious sources. All the important posts in this thread are fully referenced.

The Communist sources that is? Come on now, I could post until I was blue in the face and be criticized even though I am objective! What is it where people support a ruthless system whether it be Communism or Fascism? Just as the Fascists didn't get a free pass, neither should the Communists. If Communism was so fantastic, why isn't Spain a Communist state today like N. Korea, Vietnam, Cuba and Venezuela?

References would demonstrate you have more than an opinion, you have evidence to support it, that we can all verify. I for one, would be interested in seeing it.

-Jake