In July 1936 a military coup attempted to end the young Spanish Republic, which had given rise to a huge array of hopes, fears, crises and conflicts. In the face of a weak and divided government, sectors of the army conspired to impose martial law. What followed instead was a protracted and bitter civil conflict that claimed over half a million lives, left the country devastated and resulted in a dictatorship that lasted well into the 1970s.
What made Spain different to failing democracies in other parts of Europe was that the civilian population successfully resisted the attempt to take away their democratic rights in most major cities, in industrial areas and in the historically autonomous regions, forming militias to confront the rebels. The challenges faced by the Republican war effort were immense. Some factions saw successful resistance to military rebellion as a signal that the time had come for revolution. This seriously undermined Republican unity. The government reacted by imposing centralised control in order to defend democracy from what looked increasingly like an incipient fascist regime. A rapid increase in both the size and influence of the Communist Party and the suppression of revolutionary militias was one of the consequences. We will be exploring the perennial debates among historians on this still divisive issue.
The self-styled “Nationals” also relied on a range of conflicting interest groups, including Catholics, fascists and monarchists but they were able to unify command under General Franco from an early stage. Substantial military aid was provided by the fascist regimes in Italy and Germany in terms of troops, materiel and expertise. The Republic for its part could count on limited Soviet aid and the enthusiastic volunteers of the International Brigades, who signed up in their thousands from all over the world to what they perceived as the front line in a global struggle against fascism. In view of the relative importance of international factors in deciding the outcome of the conflict, and the impressive range of competing ideologies on both sides, we will also be discussing whether the conflict was an essentially Spanish phenomenon, or part of the wider European conflict.
Finally, we will take a look at the extraordinarily long dictatorship that continues to cast its shadow over Spanish society and politics today. We will examine its changing face over time, in an attempt to explain how Franco managed to retain absolute power until his death.
