The Spanish Civil War (Spanish: guerra civil española) was fought in Spain from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalist rebels. Republicans loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic included socialists, anarchists, communists, and separatists, supported by the Soviet Union. The opposing Nationalists were an alliance of Falangists, monarchists, conservatives, and traditionalists, who established the military-led Spanish State and were directly aided by an intervention from Fascist Italy and participation of Nazi Germany. Due to the international political climate at the time, the war was variously viewed as class struggle, religious struggle, or struggle between republican democracy and dictatorship, revolution and counterrevolution, or communism and fascism. The Nationalists won the war in early 1939, and ruled Spain until Franco's death in November 1975. The war began after the partial failure of the coup d'état of July 1936 against the Popular Front government by a group of generals of the Spanish Republican Armed Forces. They were supported by right-wing groups including the Christian traditionalist party CEDA; monarchists, including both the opposing Alfonsists and the religious conservative Carlists; and the Falange Española de las JONS, a fascist political party. However, rebelling units in almost all important cities did not gain control, leaving Spain militarily and politically divided. The Nationalists were initially led by a military junta, until General Francisco Franco was appointed supreme leader on 1 October 1936 of what he called the Spanish State. The rebellion was countered by the arming of left-wing social movements and parties, and the formation of militias. This led to rapid socioeconomic and political transformation in the Republican zone, referred to as the Spanish Revolution. The Nationalist forces received munitions, soldiers, and air support from Fascist Italy which conducted a large-scale intervention and Nazi Germany which sent its Condor Legion, while the Republican government received support from the Soviet Union and Mexico. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom, France, and the United States, continued to recognise the Republican government, but followed official policies of non-intervention. Despite this, tens of thousands of citizens from non-interventionist countries directly participated in the conflict, mostly in the pro-Republican International Brigades. Franco gradually emerged as the primary leader of the Nationalists, becoming the dictator of the Spanish State by 1937 and co-opting Falangism, gaining recognition as a fascist leader. The Nationalists advanced from their strongholds in the south and west, capturing most of Spain's northern coastline in 1937 and besieging Madrid. After much of Catalonia was captured in 1938 and 1939 and Madrid was cut off from Barcelona, the Republican military position became hopeless. On 5 March 1939, in response to allegedly increasing communist dominance of the Republican government and the deteriorating military situation, Colonel Segismundo Casado led a military coup against the Republican government, intending to seek peace with the Nationalists. These peace overtures, however, were rejected by Franco. Following internal conflict between Republican factions in Madrid in the same month, Franco entered the capital and declared victory on 1 April 1939. Hundreds of thousands of those associated with the Republicans fled Spain, mostly to refugee camps in southern France; many of those who stayed were persecuted by the victorious Nationalists. The war became notable for the passion and political division it inspired worldwide, and for the many atrocities that occurred. Organised purges occurred in territory captured by Franco's forces to consolidate power. Mass executions took place in areas controlled by the Republicans, with the participation of local authorities varying by location.
Background
First Republic and restoration
In 1868, popular uprisings led to the overthrow of Queen Isabella II. In 1873, Isabella's replacement, King Amadeo I of the House of Savoy abdicated, and the short-lived First Spanish Republic was proclaimed. The First Republic was marred with political instability and conflicts, and was quickly overthrown by General Arsenio Martínez Campos in December 1874, after which the monarchy was restored in the figure of Alfonso XII, Isabella's son. After the restoration, Carlists and anarchists emerged in opposition to the monarchy. Alejandro Lerroux, Spanish politician and leader of the Radical Republican Party, helped to bring republicanism to the fore in Catalonia. Conscription was a controversial policy that was eventually implemented by the government of Spain. As evidenced by the Tragic Week in 1909, resentment and resistance continued well into the 20th century.
Spain was neutral in World War I. Following the war, wide swathes of Spanish society, including the armed forces, united in hopes of removing the corrupt central government in Madrid, but these efforts were ultimately unsuccessful. Popular perception of communism as a major threat significantly increased during this period.
Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera
In 1923, another military coup brought Miguel Primo de Rivera to power, transitioning Spain to government by military dictatorship. Support for the Rivera regime gradually faded, and he resigned in January 1930. He was replaced by General Dámaso Berenguer, who was in turn himself replaced by Admiral Juan Bautista Aznar-Cabañas; both men continued a policy of rule by decree. There was little support for the monarchy in the major cities. Consequently, King Alfonso XIII of Spain, relenting to popular pressure for a greater voice, called municipal elections for 12 April 1931. Left-wing entities such as the Socialists and Liberal Republicans won almost all the provincial capitals and, following the resignation of the government of Aznar-Cabañas, Alfonso XIII fled the country. The Second Spanish Republic was formed and remained in place for five years until the Spanish Civil War commenced.
Second Republic
The revolutionary committee headed by Niceto Alcalá-Zamora became the provisional government, with Alcalá-Zamora himself as president and head of state. The republic had broad support from all segments of society. However, according to José Ángel Sánchez Asiaín, the first plans of a counter-revolution against the Republic were discussed on the day when it was proclaimed, when representatives of monarchist circles, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the future leader of the Falange, and José Calvo Sotelo, one of the future leaders of the monarchist party Spanish Renovation, "met to lay down the financial foundations for subverting the Republic." An immediate action did not follow, but by March 1934 the conspirators would convince Benito Mussolini, the leader of Fascist Italy, to agree to aid a future coup. In May 1931, an incident in which a taxi driver was attacked outside a monarchist club sparked anti-clerical violence throughout Madrid and the south-west regions of the country. The slow response on the part of the government disillusioned the right. In June and July, the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) called several strikes, leading to a violent incident between CNT members and the Civil Guard, and a brutal crackdown by the Civil Guard and the Spanish Army against the CNT in Seville. This led many workers to believe the Second Spanish Republic was just as oppressive as the monarchy, and the CNT announced its intention of overthrowing it by starting a revolution.
==== Constituent Cortes and left-wing government (1931–1933) ==== Elections in June 1931 returned to office a large majority of Republicans and Socialists. With the onset of the Great Depression, the government tried to assist rural areas of Spain by instituting an eight-hour day and redistributing land tenure to farm workers. Newly established labour arbitration boards regulated salaries, contracts, and working hours, but were more favourable to workers than employers. Class struggle intensified as landowners turned to counterrevolutionary organisations and local oligarchs to maintain control. Strikes, workplace theft, arson, robbery and assaults on shops, strikebreakers, employers, and machines became increasingly common.
Republican Manuel Azaña became prime minister of a minority government in October 1931. In December, a new reformist, liberal and democratic constitution was declared. It included strong provisions enforcing a broad secularisation of the Catholic country, which included the abolition of Catholic schools and charities, a move which was met with opposition. The first military coup against the Republic was planned by groups of monarchist generals with the support of exiled monarchist ministers, including Calvo Sotelo. The attempted coup which became known as Sanjurjada ended in failure. Several hundred generals were dismissed, prominent monarchists were imprisoned or had to flee abroad, and the aristocracy was 'punished' with radicalization of the agrarian reform. The coup contributed to the radicalization of the left. The extreme right did not abandon their plans for overthrowing the Republic, as manifested in the foundation of the Spanish Renovation and a small fascist party Falange Española, the rise of the militant Carlist movement (Traditionalist Communion, Requeté militias), and propaganda of legitimacy of a military uprising spread by such organizations as Acción Española. Fascism lacked broad popular support, but historians Julián Casanova describe the culture of the Spanish anti-Republican right as proto-fascist, similar to Italian "pre-Fascism" and the German Völkisch movement. The anti-Republican right was supported within the Church, especially by its Integrist groups, and the army. At the same time, the authority of the Republic was also undermined by an anarchist insurrection which culminated in the Casas Viejas massacre of the anarchists and was followed by state repression.
==== Right-wing government (1933–1935) ==== In November 1933, right-wing parties won the general election. The causal factors included increased resentment of the incumbent government due to its inability to counter pressure from the employers' associations, economic instability, including the failure of the agrarian reform to significantly improve the living conditions of rural labourers; the recent enfranchisement of women in Spain, most of whom voted for centre-right parties, the breakup of the coalition between the Radical Republican Party and the Socialists, the failure of the left to form an electoral coalition similar to the one of the Radicals and the right, and the opposition of the anarchists to the Socialists following the Casas Viejas incident. Earlier the anarchists had voted for left-wing parties, yet during the 1933 elections they either voted for the Radicals or abstained. Among the members of the victorious coalition was a new party, the Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups (CEDA). The left viewed the CEDA not only as a threat to their progressive reforms, but to the Republic in general, and specifically as a fascist party. The CEDA and its leader Gil Robles proclaimed their goals to dissolve workers' movements and parliamentary democracy, purge "Marxists, Freemasons, Separatists and Jews", and establish an authoritarian corporate state, praising Benito Mussolini of Fascist Italy, Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany and Engelbert Dollfuss of the Austrian Ständestaat. While Gil Robles rejected such aspects of fascism as reliance on violence, his criticism of fascism was poorly received by his own followers. The left rejected the validity of the election results on the grounds that the Socialists gained more votes than any party of the Radical-right coalition, and that the elections in southern areas were subject to alleged malpractice, and such possible violations as harassment of the voters by employers and right-wing groups. They unsuccessfully attempted to have President Niceto Alcalá-Zamora cancel the electoral results. Concerned about CEDA's monarchist leanings and its plans to alter the constitution, he asked the Radical Party leader Alejandro Lerroux to form a government instead of Gil Robles of CEDA, the largest party in parliament. Although CEDA did not formally join Lerroux's cabinet, it exerted indirect influence because the coalition government depended on its parliamentary support. CEDA reinforced this leverage by threatening to withdraw cooperation. Later, Gil Robles claimed that the Radicals were “carrying out CEDA's programme.”
Events in the period after November 1933, called the "black biennium", seemed to make a civil war more likely. Alejandro Lerroux of the Radical Republican Party (RRP) formed a government, reversing changes made by the previous administration and granting amnesty to Sanjurjo and his collaborators. The Civil Guard adopted "preventive brutality" against workers' movements. Some monarchists joined with the newly formed Falange Española y de las JONS ("Falange") to help achieve their aims. Through Antonio Goicoechea, who would later play a role in the Italian intervention in the Civil War, in 1934 a group of monarchist conspirators within the army reached an agreement with Benito Mussolini, who had supported contacts with anti-Republican circles since 1932 and promised to supply weapons to the plotters and subsidized the Falange. The defeat in the elections and its consequences led to disenchantment with parliamentarism and radicalization of the Socialists. The increasing militancy within the Socialist workers was followed by Francisco Largo Caballero's adopting revolutionary Marxist rhetoric which justified revolutionism as a way to combat rising fascism, uncharacteristic of European social democratic mainstream and the reformist traditions of the PSOE. The CNT adopted a similar rhetoric in the wake of the elections, threatening with a revolution if "Fascist tendencies" would win the elections. Open violence occurred in the streets of Spanish cities, and militancy continued to increase, reflecting a movement towards radical upheaval, rather than peaceful means to achieve solutions. A small insurrection by anarchists occurred in December 1933 in response to CEDA's victory, in which around 100 people died.Socialists led by Largo Caballero decided to launch a 'revolution' if the CEDA entered the government, something, according to Paul Preston, Largo Caballero believed would never happen; this decision was known within the government. The Socialists continued calling local economic strikes, admitting their lack of preparation for actual revolutionary actions, while Gil Robles and his supporter Rafael Salazar Alonso, the Minister of the Interior, stressed the need to provoke the "revolution" "before it is well prepared." The government increased repression against Socialists, deporting their supporters, and entered censorship, justifying its measures with an alleged threat of a revolutionary strike. The preparations of the Socialists for a possible insurrection had been no secret and was easily suppressed by the police. General Francisco Franco was called to conduct military exercises coinciding with a coming uprising. On 1 October, Largo Caballero resigned as the President of the PSOE and its revolutionary committee. On 4 October, Lerroux formed a government with three members of the CEDA. The insurrection launched in response became known as the Revolution of 1934. In most of Spain, it was suppressed with little resistance, with the Socialist leadership demonstrating its lack of preparation and will to fulfill their revolutionary threats. However, major action took place in the province of Asturias in what became known as the Asturian Revolution of 1934.
Fairly well armed revolutionaries managed to take the whole province of Asturias, killing numerous policemen, clergymen and civilians, destroying religious buildings including churches, convents and part of the university at Oviedo. Rebels in the occupied areas proclaimed revolution for the workers and abolished the existing currency. The uprising was crushed in two weeks by the Spanish Navy and the Spanish Republican Army, the latter using mainly Moorish colonial troops from Spanish Morocco. Although Azaña was in Barcelona that day, and the Lerroux-CEDA government tried to implicate him. He was arrested and charged with complicity. In fact, Azaña had no connection with the uprising and was released from prison in January 1935. Reversals of land reform resulted in expulsions, firings and arbitrary changes to working conditions in the central and southern countryside in 1935, with landowners' behaviour at times reaching "genuine cruelty", which included violence against farmworkers and socialists, causing several deaths. One historian argued that the behaviour of the right in the southern countryside was one of the main causes of hatred during the Civil War and possibly even the Civil War itself. Landowners taunted workers by saying that if they went hungry, they should "Go eat the Republic!" Bosses fired leftist workers and imprisoned trade union and socialist militants; wages were reduced to "salaries of hunger". In 1935, the government, led by the Radical Republican Party, had now endured a series of crises. After a number of corruption scandals, President Niceto Alcalá-Zamora, himself hostile to this government, called another election.
==== Popular Front's victory and escalation 1936 ==== The left-wing Popular Front narrowly won the 1936 general election. The revolutionary left-wing masses took to the streets and freed prisoners. In the thirty-six hours following the election, sixteen people were killed and thirty-nine were seriously injured. Additionally, fifty churches and seventy conservative political centres were attacked or set ablaze. Manuel Azaña was called to form a government before the electoral process had ended. He shortly replaced Alcala-Zamora as president, taking advantage of a constitutional loophole. Convinced that the left was no longer willing to follow the rule of law and that its vision of Spain was under threat, the right abandoned the parliamentary option and began enacting plans to overthrow rather than to control the republic. Disenchantment with Azaña's rule was also voiced by Miguel de Unamuno, a Republican and one of Spain's most respected intellectuals who, in June 1936, told a reporter that President Manuel Azaña should commit suicide "as a patriotic act". Laia Balcells observes that polarisation in Spain just before the coup was so intense that physical confrontations between leftists and rightists were a routine occurrence in most localities; six days before the coup occurred, there was a riot between the two in Teruel. Balcells notes that Spanish society was so divided along Left-Right lines that the monk Hilari Raguer stated that in his parish, instead of playing "cops and robbers", children would sometimes play "leftists and rightists". Within the first month of the Popular Front's government, nearly a quarter of the provincial governors had been removed due to their failure to prevent or control strikes, illegal land occupation, political violence and arson. The Popular Front government was more likely to prosecute rightists for violence than leftists who committed similar acts. Between February and July, approximately 300 to 400 deaths occurred from political violence, while hundreds of churches, religious buildings and monuments were destroyed, damaged, or vandalised. Azaña was hesitant to use the army to shoot or stop rioters or protestors, and he was reluctant to disarm the military as he believed he needed them to stop insurrections from the extreme left. Illegal land occupation became widespread as poor tenant farmers knew the government was disinclined to stop them. By April 1936, nearly 100,000 peasants had appropriated 400,000 hectares of land and perhaps as many as 1 million hectares by the start of the civil war; for comparison, the 1931–33 land reform had granted only 6,000 peasants 45,000 hectares. As many strikes occurred between April and July as had occurred in the entirety of 1931. Workers increasingly demanded less work and more pay. "Social crimes"—refusing to pay for goods and rent—became increasingly common. In some cases, this was done in the company of armed militants. Conservatives, the middle classes, businessmen and landowners became convinced that revolution had already begun. Prime Minister Santiago Casares Quiroga ignored warnings of a military conspiracy involving several generals who had decided that the government had to be replaced to prevent the dissolution of Spain. Both sides were convinced that the other would discriminate against their members and attempt to suppress their political organisations.
Military coup
Background
Shortly after the Popular Front's victory in the 1936 election, groups of officers, both active and retired, got together to discuss a coup. By the end of April General Emilio Mola emerged as the leader of a national conspiracy network. The Republican government reacted by reshuffling suspect generals from influential posts, Azaña however acutely aware that as he did so, the Army still served as a possible buffer to leftist power brokers threatening his government. Franco was sacked as chief of staff and transferred to command of the Canary Islands. Manuel Goded Llopis was removed as inspector general and made general of the Balearic Islands. Mola was moved from head of the Army of Africa to commander of Pamplona. This latter reassignment, however, allowed Mola to direct the mainland uprising; General José Sanjurjo became the figurehead of the operation and helped reach an agreement with the Carlists, Mola was chief planner and second in command. José Antonio Primo de Rivera was put in prison in mid-March to restrict the Falange. However, government actions were not as thorough as they might have been, and warnings by the Director of Security and other figures were not acted upon. Mola's plan for the new regime was a "republican dictatorship", modelled after Salazar's Portugal and along the lines of being semi-pluralist authoritarian, rather than fascist totalitarian. The initial government would be an all-military "Directory", which would create a "strong and disciplined state". Sanjurjo would be the head of this new regime, due to being liked and respected within the military, though his position would be symbolic due to his lack of political talent. The 1931 Constitution would be suspended, replaced by a new "constituent parliament" which would be chosen by a new politically purged electorate, who would vote on the issue of republic versus monarchy. Liberal elements would remain, such as separation of church and state as well as freedom of religion. Agrarian issues would be solved by regional commissioners on the basis of smallholdings, but collective cultivation would be permitted in some circumstances. Legislation prior to February 1936 would be respected. Violence would be required to destroy opposition to the coup, though it seems Mola did not envision the mass atrocities and repression that would manifest during the civil war. Of particular importance to Mola was ensuring the revolt was an Army affair, not subject to special interests, ensuring the position of the armed forces as the basis for the new state. However, the separation of church and state was forgotten once the conflict assumed the dimension of a war of religion, and military authorities increasingly deferred to the Church and to the expression of Catholic sentiment. Mola's program was vague and only a rough sketch, and there were disagreements among coupists about their vision.
On 12 June, Prime Minister Casares Quiroga met General Juan Yagüe, who falsely convinced Casares of his loyalty to the republic. Mola began planning in the spring. Franco was a key player because of his prestige as a former director of the military academy and as the man who suppressed the Asturian miners' strike of 1934. He was respected in the Army of Africa, the Army's toughest troops. He wrote a cryptic letter to Casares on 23 June, suggesting the military was disloyal, but could be restrained if he were put in charge. Casares did nothing, failing to arrest or buy off Franco. With the help of British intelligence agents, the rebels chartered a Dragon Rapide aircraft to transport Franco from the Canary Islands to Spanish Morocco. Franco arrived in Morocco on 19 July.
On 12 July 1936, Falangists in Madrid killed police officer Lieutenant José Castillo of the Guardia de Asalto (Assault Guard). Castillo was a Socialist party member who was giving military training to the UGT youth. Castillo had led the Assault Guards that violently suppressed the riots after the funeral of Guardia Civil lieutenant Anastasio de los Reyes. Assault Guard Captain Fernando Condés was a friend of Castillo. The next day, after getting the approval of the minister of interior to illegally arrest members of parliament, he led his squad to arrest José María Gil-Robles y Quiñones, founder of CEDA, as a reprisal for Castillo's murder, but he was not at home, so they went to the house of José Calvo Sotelo, a Spanish fascist-leaning ("filofascist") monarchist and prominent parliamentary conservative. Luis Cuenca, a member of the arresting group and a Socialist who was known as the bodyguard of PSOE leader Indalecio Prieto, summarily executed Sotelo. Reprisals followed. The killing of Calvo Sotelo with police involvement aroused suspicions and reactions among the government's opponents on the right. Although the nationalist generals were planning an uprising, the event was a catalyst and a public justification for a coup. The kidnapping and murder of Sotelo transformed the "limping conspiracy" into a revolt that could trigger a civil war. The arbitrary use of lethal force by the state and lack of action against the attackers led to public disapproval of the government. No effective punitive, judicial or even investigative action was taken; Payne points to a possible veto by socialists within the government who shielded the killers drawn from their ranks. The murder of a parliamentary leader by state police was unprecedented, and the belief the state had ceased to be neutral and effective encouraged important sectors of the right to join the rebellion. Franco changed his mind on rebellion and dispatched a message to Mola to display his firm commitment. The Socialists and Communists, led by Indalecio Prieto, demanded that arms be distributed to the people before the military took over. The prime minister was hesitant.
Beginning of the coup
The uprising's timing was fixed at 17 July, at 17:01, agreed to by the leader of the Carlists, Manuel Fal Conde. However, the timing was changed—the men in the Morocco protectorate were to rise up at 05:00 on 18 July and those in Spain proper a day later so that control of Spanish Morocco could be achieved and forces sent back to the Iberian Peninsula to coincide with the risings there. The rising was intended to be a swift coup d'état, but the government retained control of most of the country. Control over Spanish Morocco was all but certain. The plan was discovered in Morocco on 17 July, which prompted the conspirators to enact it immediately. Little resistance was encountered. The rebels shot 189 people. Goded and Franco immediately took control of the islands to which they were assigned. On 18 July, Casares Quiroga refused an offer of help from the CNT and Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT), leading the groups to proclaim a general strike—in effect, mobilising. They opened weapons caches, some buried since the 1934 risings, and formed militias. The paramilitary security forces often waited for the outcome of militia action before either joining or suppressing the rebellion. Quick action by either the rebels or anarchist militias was often enough to decide the fate of a town. General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano secured Seville for the rebels, arresting a number of other officers.
=== Outcome === The rebels failed to take any major cities with the critical exception of the July 1936 military uprising in Seville, which provided a landing point for Franco's African troops, and the primarily conservative and Catholic areas of Old Castile, León and Galicia, which fell quickly. They took Cádiz with help from the first troops from Africa. The "air bridge" between Tetouan and Seville with German planes allowed the Army of Africa to advance towards Extremadura and Madrid. The government retained control of Málaga, Jaén, and Almería. In Madrid, the rebels were hemmed into the Cuartel de la Montaña siege, which fell with considerable bloodshed. Republican prime minister Casares Quiroga was replaced by José Giral, who ordered the distribution of weapons among the civilian population. This facilitated the defeat of the army insurrection in the main industrial centres, including Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia, but it allowed anarchists to take control of Barcelona along with large swathes of Aragón and Catalonia. General Goded surrendered in Barcelona and was later condemned to death. The Republican government ended up controlling almost all the east coast and central area around Madrid, as well as most of Asturias, Cantabria and part of the Basque Country in the north. Hugh Thomas suggested that the civil war could have ended in the favour of either side almost immediately if certain decisions had been taken during the initial coup. Thomas argues that if the government had taken steps to arm the workers, they could probably have crushed the coup very quickly. Conversely, if the coup had risen everywhere in Spain on the 18th rather than be delayed, it could have triumphed by the 22nd. While the militias that rose to meet the rebels were often untrained and poorly armed (possessing only a small number of pistols, shotguns and dynamite), this was offset by the fact that the rebellion was not universal. In addition, the Falangists and Carlists were themselves often not particularly powerful fighters either. However, enough officers and soldiers had joined the coup to prevent it from being crushed swiftly. The rebels termed themselves Nacionales, normally translated "Nationalists", although the former implies "true Spaniards" rather than a nationalistic cause. The result of the coup was a nationalist area of control containing 11 million of Spain's population of 25 million. The Nationalists had secured the support of around half of Spain's territorial army, some 60,000 men, joined by the Army of Africa, made up of 35,000 men, and just under half of Spain's militaristic police forces, the Assault Guards, the Civil Guards, and the Carabineers. Republicans controlled under half of the rifles and about a third of both machine guns and artillery pieces. The Spanish Republican Army had just 18 tanks of a sufficiently modern design, and the Nationalists took control of 10. Naval capacity was uneven, with the Republicans retaining a numerical advantage, but with the Navy's top commanders and two of the most modern ships, heavy cruisers Canarias—captured at the Ferrol shipyard—and Baleares, in Nationalist control. The Spanish Republican Navy suffered from the same problems as the army—many officers had defected or been killed after trying to do so. Two-thirds of air capability was retained by the government—however, the whole of the Republican Air Force was very outdated.
Spanish Revolution
Arming the workers' movements and formation of militias, especially in Aragon and Catalonia which were anarchist strongholds, led to a vast social revolution in which the workers and peasants implemented socialist organizational principles, such as collective farming and collective democratic management of the industry and seized economic affairs and political power at local levels. The revolutionary management principles continued to evolve as long as the Republican zone existed, until the end of the civil war with the victory of the Nationalists. While the revolution did not overthrow the Republican parliamentary state, initially the revolutionaries regarded it as a means of maintaining foreign relations and propaganda rather than an actual authority, and it was paralyzed, while the power was held by local committees and councils parallel to the Republican government. This socioeconomic and political transformation is referred to as the Spanish Revolution or the July Revolution. The revolution was pluralist in its nature, and the political factions participating in it were competitive or even hostile to each other. The main efforts of social and political reorganization were carried out by the anarcho-syndicalists of the National Confederation of Labour and the Iberian Anarchist Federation (CNT-FAI), the revolutionary Marxist socialists of the General Union of Workers (UGT) and the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), and the anti-Stalinist communists of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM). Stalinist communists of the Communist Party of Spain campaigned against the radical social reorganization and the loss of civil property rights, but also participated in the collectivization of agriculture in some areas along with the Republican Left; the revolutionaries were opposed by the moderates within the PSOE and the Republican Left along with the Communist Party, who sought to restore the authority of the Republican government; revolutionaries within the PSOE sought an authority of a transitional state.
Collectivization of resources was pursued mainly by the CNT and the UGT. It took place rather in agriculture than in industry. The collectives could be organized wholly by one of the two trade unions, or by both of them as joint organizations, with other parties also participating. Along with collectivization, the revolution produced a variety of other changes, including socialization of industry, which meant workers' control over enterprises or, more broadly, over an entire branch of production; in order to achieve the latter, small production and trade plants were disestablished, and their personnel was concentrated in bigger plants, or grouped together and coordinated into cartels. As the war progressed, the government and the communists were able to exploit their access to Soviet arms to restore government control over the war effort, through diplomacy and force. Anarchists and the POUM were integrated into the regular army, albeit with resistance. The anti-Stalinists of POUM were outlawed and denounced by the Soviet-aligned Communists as an instrument of the fascists. In the May Days of 1937, many thousands of anarchist and communist Republican soldiers fought for control of strategic points in Barcelona.
Combatants
The war was cast by Republican sympathisers as a struggle between tyranny and freedom, and by Nationalist supporters as communist and anarchist red hordes versus Christian civilisation. Nationalists also claimed they were bringing security and direction to an ungoverned and lawless country. Spanish politics, especially on the left, was quite fragmented: on the one hand socialists and communists supported the republic but on the other, during the republic, anarchists had mixed opinions, though both major groups opposed the Nationalists during the Civil War; the latter, in contrast, were united by their fervent opposition to the Republican government and presented a more unified front. The coup divided regular forces fairly evenly. Out of some 66,000 military actually under arms in July 1936 (including the Army of Africa and the navy, excluding soldiers in service but on leave during the coup) some 52% (34,000) were in the Republican zone and 48% (32,000) in the Nationalist one. Out of some 66,000 men in other armed services (Guardia Civil, Guardia de Asalto, Carabineros) some 59% (39,000) joined the loyalists and some 41% (27,000) joined the rebels. In total, out of some 132,000 armed and uniformed men actually in service, some 55% (73,000) seemed available to the loyalists and some 45% (59,000) to the rebels. However, one popular work claims that the loyalists controlled 90,000 men and the rebels controlled some 130,000. During the first few months, both armies were joined in high numbers by volunteers, Nationalists by some 100,000 men and Republicans by some 120,000. From August, both sides launched their own, similarly scaled conscription schemes, resulting in further massive growth of their armies. Finally, the final months of 1936 saw the arrival of foreign troops, International Brigades joining the Republicans and Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie (CTV), German Legion Condor and Portuguese Viriatos joining the Nationalists. The result was that in April 1937 there were some 360,000 soldiers in the Republican ranks and some 290,000 in the Nationalist ones.
The armies kept growing. The principal source of manpower was conscription; both sides continued and expanded their schemes, the Nationalists drafting more aggressively, and there was little room left for volunteering. Foreigners contributed little to further growth; on the Nationalist side the Italians scaled down their engagement, while on the Republican side the influx of new interbrigadistas did not cover losses on the front. At the turn of 1937–1938, each army numbered about 700,000. Throughout 1938, the principal if not exclusive source of new men was a draft; at this stage it was the Republicans who conscripted more aggressively, and only 47% of their combatants were in age corresponding to the Nationalist conscription age limits. Just prior to the Battle of Ebro, Republicans achieved their all-time high, slightly above 800,000; yet Nationalists numbered 880,000. The Battle of Ebro, fall of Catalonia and collapsing discipline caused a great shrinking of Republican troops. In late February 1939, their army was 400,000 compared to more than double that number of Nationalists. In the moment of their final victory, Nationalists commanded over 900,000 troops. During the war, Nationalists also "recycled" former Republican soldiers as an additional source of manpower. As both sides employed conscription, this meant that not all soldiers were willing, committed partisans of either side and could shift their loyalties out of self-interest. Therefore, captured Republicans deemed apolitical or sufficiently sympathetic to the Nationalist cause were released from their concentration camps and then usually conscripted into the Nationalist army. By the end of 1937, out of around 107,000 Republicans taken prisoner, approximately 59,000 were classified as politically reliable enough for release and conscription into the Nationalist army. The Republicans were also known to "recycle" Nationalist defectors as well. The total number of Spaniards serving in the Republican forces was officially stated as 917,000; later scholarly work estimated the number as "well over 1 million men", though other studies claim the Republican total of 1.75 million (including non-Spaniards) or even 1.82m, and "27 age groups, ranging from 18 to 44 years old". The total number of Spaniards serving in the Nationalist units is estimated between "nearly 1 million men", and 1.26 million (including non-Spaniards), which comprised "15 age groups, ranging from 18 to 32 years old".
Republicans
Only two countries openly and fully supported the Republic: the Mexican government and the USSR. From them, especially the USSR, the Republic received diplomatic support, volunteers, weapons and vehicles. Other countries remained neutral; this neutrality faced serious opposition from sympathizers in the United States and United Kingdom, and to a lesser extent in other European countries and from Marxists worldwide. This led to formation of the International Brigades, thousands of foreigners of all nationalities who voluntarily went to Spain to aid the Republic in the fight; they meant a great deal to morale but militarily were not very significant.
The Republic's supporters within Spain ranged from centrists who supported a moderately capitalist liberal democracy to revolutionary anarchists who opposed the Republic but sided with it against the coup forces. Their base was primarily secular and urban but also included landless peasants and was particularly strong in industrial regions like Asturias, the Basque country, and Catalonia. This faction was called variously leales "Loyalists" by supporters, "Republicans", the "Popular Front", or "the government" by all parties; or los rojos "the Reds" by their opponents. Republicans were supported by urban workers, agricultural labourers, and parts of the middle class.
The conservative, strongly Catholic Basque country, along with Catholic Galicia and the more left-leaning Catalonia, sought autonomy or independence from the central government of Madrid. The Republican government allowed for the possibility of self-government for the two regions, whose forces were gathered under the People's Republican Army (Ejército Popular Republicano, or EPR), which was reorganised into mixed brigades after October 1936. Historian Stanley Payne argues that the Republicans' diverse combination of movements produced an unusual regime that lacked any exact counterpart elsewhere as it combined libertarian collectivism and regional autonomy with centralisation, state control and economic nationalisation. Payne argues that Republican Spain was not a democracy but also not a strict dictatorship, with the four different major left-wing factions remaining relatively autonomous from one another and operating within a semi-pluralist political framework and limited rule of law. A few well-known people fought on the Republican side, such as English writer George Orwell (who wrote Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences in the war) and Canadian thoracic surgeon Norman Bethune, who developed a mobile blood-transfusion service for front-line operations. Simone Weil briefly fought with the anarchist columns of Buenaventura Durruti. At the beginning of the war, the Republicans outnumbered the Nationalists ten to one on the front in Aragon, but by January 1937, that advantage had dropped to four to one.
Nationalists
The Nacionales or Nationalists, also called "insurgents", "rebels" or, by opponents, Franquistas or "fascists" —feared national fragmentation and opposed the separatist movements. They were chiefly defined by their anti-communism, which galvanised diverse or opposed movements like Falangists and monarchists. Their leaders had a generally wealthier, more conservative, monarchist, landowning background. The Nationalist side included the Carlists and Alfonsists, Spanish nationalists, the fascist Falange, and most conservatives and monarchist liberals. Virtually all Nationalist groups had strong Catholic convictions and supported the native Spanish clergy. The Nationals included the majority of the Catholic clergy and practitioners (outside of the Basque region), important elements of the army, most large landowners, and many businessmen. The Nationalist base largely consisted of the middle classes, conservative peasant smallholders in the North and Catholics in general. Catholic support became particularly pronounced as a consequence of the burning of churches and killing of priests in most leftists zones during the first six months of the war. By mid-1937, the Catholic Church gave its official blessing to the Franco regime; religious fervor was a major source of emotional support for the Nationalists during the civil war. Michael Seidmann reports that devout Catholics, such as seminary students, often volunteered to fight and would die in disproportionate numbers in the war. Catholic confession cleared the soldiers of moral doubt and increased fighting ability; Republican newspapers described Nationalist priests as ferocious in battle and Indalecio Prieto remarked that the enemy he feared most was "the requeté who has just received communion".
The pre-war Falange was a small party of some 30,000–40,000 members, and it called for a National Syndicalist social revolution. Following the execution of its leader, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, by the Republicans, the party swelled in size to several hundred thousand members. The leadership of the Falange suffered 60 percent casualties in the early days of the civil war, and the party was transformed by new members and rising new leaders, called camisas nuevas ("new shirts"), who were less interested in the revolutionary aspects of National Syndicalism. In the course of the war, Franco coopted the Falange and its ideology and unified all the right-wing parties and groups which supported the coup into the Traditionalist Spanish Falange and the National Syndicalist Offensive Juntas (Spanish: Falange Española Tradicionalista de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista, FET y de las JONS) as the ruling party of his regime and appointed himself as the party's chief. While the Carlists gained the worst positions in the new party, Franco presented himself as the direct successor to Primo de Rivera and presented 26 out of his 27 points as the party's programme, thus gaining the image of a fascist leader, while at the same time bringing the Falangists under his control with dismissals and political repression. One of the rightists' principal motives was to confront the anti-clericalism of the Republican regime and to defend the Catholic Church, which had been targeted by opponents, including Republicans, who blamed the institution for the country's ills. The Church opposed many of the Republicans' reforms, which were fortified by the Spanish Constitution of 1931. Articles 24 and 26 of the 1931 constitution had banned the Society of Jesus. This proscription deeply offended many within the conservative fold. The revolution in the Republican zone at the outset of the war, in which 7,000 clergy and thousands of lay people were killed, deepened Catholic support for the Nationalists. Prior to the war, during the Asturian miners' strike of 1934, religious buildings were burnt and at least 100 clergy, religious civilians, and pro-Catholic police were killed by revolutionaries. Franco had brought in Spain's colonial Army of Africa (Spanish: Ejército de África or Cuerpo de Ejército Marroquí) and reduced the miners to submission by heavy artillery attacks and bombing raids. The Spanish Legion committed atrocities and the army carried out summary executions of leftists. The repression in the aftermath was brutal and prisoners were tortured. The Moroccan Fuerzas Regulares Indígenas joined the rebellion and played a significant role in the civil war. While the Nationalists are often assumed to have drawn in the majority of military officers, this is a somewhat simplistic analysis. The Spanish army had its own internal divisions and long-standing rifts. Officers supporting the coup tended to be africanistas (men who fought in North Africa between 1909 and 1923) while those who stayed loyal tended to be peninsulares (men who stayed back in Spain during this period). This was because during Spain's North African campaigns, the traditional promotion by seniority was suspended in favour of promotion by merit through battlefield heroism. This tended to benefit younger officers starting their careers as they could, while older officers had familial commitments that made it harder for them to be deployed in North Africa. Officers in front line combat corps (primarily infantry and cavalry) benefited over those in technical corps (those in artillery, engineering etc.) because they had more chances to demonstrate the requisite battlefield heroism and had also traditionally enjoyed promotion by seniority. The peninsulares resented seeing the africanistas rapidly leapfrog through the ranks, while the africanistas themselves were seen as swaggering and arrogant, further fueling resentment. Thus, when the coup occurred, officers who joined the rebellion, particularly from Franco's rank downwards, were often africanistas, while senior officers and those in non-front line positions tended to oppose it (though a small number of senior africanistas opposed the coup as well). It has also been argued that officers who stayed loyal to the Republic were more likely to have been promoted and to have been favoured by the Republican regime (such as those in the Aviation and Assault Guard units). Thus, while often thought of as a "rebellion of the generals", this is not correct. Of the eighteen division generals, only four rebelled (of the four division generals without postings, two rebelled and two remained loyal). Fourteen of the fifty-six brigade generals rebelled. The rebels tended to draw from less senior officers. Of the approximately 15,301 officers, just over half rebelled.
=== Other factions === Catalan and Basque nationalists were divided. Left-wing Catalan nationalists sided with the Republicans, while Conservative Catalan nationalists were far less vocal in supporting the government, due to anti-clericalism and confiscations occurring in areas within its control. Basque nationalists, heralded by the conservative Basque Nationalist Party, were mildly supportive of the Republican government, although some in Navarre sided with the uprising for the same reasons influencing conservative Catalans. Notwithstanding religious matters, Basque nationalists, who were for the most part Catholic, generally sided with the Republicans, although the PNV, Basque nationalist party, was reported passing the plans of Bilbao defences to the Nationalists, in an attempt to reduce the duration and casualties of siege.
Foreign involvement
The Spanish Civil War exposed political divisions across Europe. The right and the Catholics supported the Nationalists to stop the spread of Bolshevism. On the left, including labour unions, students and intellectuals, the war represented a necessary battle to stop the spread of fascism. Anti-war and pacifist sentiment was strong in many countries, leading to warnings that the Civil War could escalate into a second world war. In this respect, the war was an indicator of the growing instability across Europe. The 1930s saw Spain become a focus for pacifist organisations, including the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the War Resisters League, and the War Resisters' International. Many people including, as they are now called, the insumisos ("defiant ones", conscientious objectors) argued and worked for non-violent strategies. The Spanish Civil War involved large numbers of non-Spanish citizens who participated in combat and advisory positions. Britain and France led a political alliance of 27 nations that pledged non-intervention, including an embargo on all arms exports to Spain. The United States unofficially adopted a position of non-intervention as well, despite abstaining from joining the alliance (due in part to its policy of political isolation). The group from the United States called themselves the "Abraham Lincoln Brigade". Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union signed on officially, but ignored the embargo. The attempted suppression of imported material was largely ineffective, and France was especially accused of allowing large shipments to Republican troops. The clandestine actions of the various European powers were, at the time, considered to be risking another world war, alarming antiwar elements across the world. The League of Nations' reaction to the war was influenced by a fear of communism, and was insufficient to contain the massive importation of arms and other war resources by the fighting factions. Although a Non-Intervention Committee was formed, its policies accomplished very little and its directives were ineffective.