The Spanish Civil War

by Hugh Thomas

  4,654,116 (34.3 per cent) for the Popular Front;

  4,503,505 (33.2 per cent) for the National Front; and

  526,615 (5.4 per cent) for the Centre, including 125,714 Basque nationalists.5

  The Popular Front had elected 263 deputies, the National Front 133 and the Centre 77. Twenty of these seats (where no one had gained more than 40 per cent of votes cast) remained to be voted for again in a second round of elections, two weeks later. But clearly the Left had a majority of seats, reflecting a definite if slender majority of votes cast.

  Since electors voted for alliances and not for individual parties, votes cast for the latter cannot be given. But the main parties gained seats thus: Socialists, 88; Republican Left (that is, Azaña’s party), 79; Republican Union (Martínez Barrio), 34; Communists, 14; Esquerra, 22; CEDA, 101; Agrarians, 11; Monarchists (including Calvo Sotelo), 13; Carlists, 15; Portela Valladares’s new Centre party, 21; Lliga, 12; Radicals, 9; and Basques, 5. The Falange gained no seats at all.1 Most of the old leaders were returned, but neither Lerroux nor José Antonio found seats.

  Much juggling was done with these figures afterwards to prove this and that. Such discussions often ignored the fact that the electoral system (giving a party which won over 50 per cent of votes 80 per cent of the seats, in a particular province) was purposely arranged to encourage coalitions. Both Right and Left had increased their votes, partly because a few more voted for them in 1936 than in 1933, partly because the centre did badly. Caciquismo played a part in country districts, so perhaps the Popular Front’s victory was greater there than the figures show; but there was substance to the accusation that the socialists had their own caciquismo in some cities. At all events, the Left had won an unexpected victory; and the Right, particularly the CEDA, an unexpected defeat. The eclipse of the Centre was a true reflection of the lack of support for such an artificial neutrality in the country.

  There were substantial abstentions: perhaps 28 per cent (in comparison with 32.5 per cent in 1933). Some 9,870,000 voted out of a total electorate of about 13,500,000. Abstentions were mostly in Aragon, Galicia and Andalusia.2

  It can be argued that the figures suggest that the electorate was moving towards a two-party system;3 Azaña and Gil Robles were the champions of two well-defined moods, a fact obscured later with the reluctance of several minorities, militarists, anarchists, socialist farm-workers, socialist youth, and fascists, to accept a parliamentary system fairly well established, as can be seen from the realization that 70 per cent voted. This truth, like so many others, was obscured by innumerable propaganda slogans scarcely differentiated from lies: for Lerroux was not ‘a Mussolini’; Azaña was not Kerensky, nor was Largo Caballero Lenin (even if he wanted to be). Neither the parliamentary Right nor the socialists (nor, of course, the army) were exactly constitutional but nor were they firmly unconstitutional: in fact, both, CEDA and socialists, were ‘accidentalists’, and the socialists’ love affair with democracy lasted only from about 1930 until 1933. Both these parties were bad losers, while the socialists were almost as bad victors. Even in 1933, Largo Caballero had told his followers: ‘Today I am convinced that to carry out socialist work within a bourgeois democracy is impossible’.1 But, as so often, ‘bourgeois democracy’ often seemed a wonderful, if lost, friend to almost everyone, from the standpoint of a few months on, when two headstrong, totalitarian philosophies, the one deriving from the socialist youth, the Left of the socialist party, the communists and perhaps a section too of the anarchists, and the other deriving from an alliance of fascism, absolute monarchism and Catholic youth, clashed in arms.

  11

  While the results of the elections were coming in, attempts were made to thwart their consequence. José Antonio offered Portela the services of the Falange and asked for weapons. The monarchists asked Gil Robles to carry out a coup d’état. He refused but then himself went to Portela, at four in the morning, requested that ‘a state of war’1 be declared immediately and that he be seconded to the government, as ‘a minister, secretary, or typist, or whatever you like,’ so as to allay the worries of the Right.2 Portela said that he would think about it, but all that happened was that he telephoned the President to ask him to declare a ‘state of alarm’. He did so. Then Franco, chief of staff, urged Portela to declare a ‘state of war’, having urged his own minister, General Molero, and the director-general of the civil guard, General Pozas, to recommend the same.3 The ‘state of war’ would, of course, have brought the country under martial law and have been in effect a coup d’état. Portela, according to Franco, asked why the army did not act on its own initiative. Franco said that, without government support, he would be without the essential help of the civil guard. On the morning of 18 February, Portela tried to hand over power to Azaña, who, however, thought that he should wait until the Cortes met. Portela, anxious to abandon his responsibility, cast around for an alternative course. Franco again tried to dissuade him from handing over power, and Calvo Sotelo also saw the Prime Minister with the same end. In the meantime, the socialists were beginning to talk of a general strike. Portela, exhausted, almost mad, deaf to advice, insisted on resigning.1 Calvo Sotelo declared that all was lost. The President then asked Azaña to form a government. This was irregular but, in the circumstances of Portela’s desire to escape from responsibility, he could scarcely have done otherwise.2 Portela’s civil governors fled with him, so as to create a vacuum needing speedily to be filled.

  General Franco, with Generals Fanjul (lately under-secretary at the war office under Gil Robles), Varela (the ex-trainer of the Carlists), and Mola, to whom Gil Robles had given the command in Morocco, Orgaz, and Ponte, decided to take no immediate counter-revolutionary step, though both Fanjul and Goded would have liked to have done so.

  The enthusiasm, meantime, of supporters of the Popular Front knew no bounds. Crowds massed before the ministry of the interior in Madrid and cried ‘¡Amnistía!’ (amnesty). In Oviedo, the Popular Front militants anticipated the consequences of the election and opened the prisons, where most of the captives taken after the Asturias revolution were held. Certain common criminals were also released. The first act of Azaña as Prime Minister was to sign an amnesty decree covering political prisoners. The socialist and Catalan leaders of 1934 were freed. Companys and his counsellors left prison, to be hailed again as leaders of their beloved city, amid scenes of enthusiasm such as even Barcelona’s leafy avenues had rarely seen. The Tribunal of Constitutional Guarantees then declared illegal the suspension of the Catalan statute: Companys reconstituted his government as it had been in 1934, except for Dr Dencás, who wisely remained abroad. Azaña too formed his government. It was composed of representatives from his own party, the Republican Left, Martínez Barrio’s party, the Republican Union (Martínez Barrio became Speaker of the Cortes), and from Companys’s Esquerra. Amos Salvador, an old friend of Azaña’s who had financed the literary journal La Pluma which Azaña had edited in 1920, became minister of the interior. Familiar faces from 1931–3 included Casares Quiroga at the ministry of public works, Marcelino Domingo at education, and José Giral at the admiralty. General Masquelet, who had been sacked as chief of staff in 1934, became minister of war. If asked, Prieto would have entered the government; but Largo Caballero forbade any such further collaboration.

  Azaña approached the prospect of a new period of power in a depressed mood: ‘Always I had been afraid that we would come back to power in bad conditions. They could not be worse. Once more we must harvest the wheat when it is still green.’1 The government had to depend, in order to survive, on the socialists, their allies in the election. Azaña and his ministers began their new administration with an appeal for calm. They maintained the ‘state of alarm’, with press censorship. New civil governors were appointed throughout the country—mainly members of Azaña’s own party. Left-wing, or anyway republican, officers were appointed to the critical positions in the national police forces. The dangerous Generals Franco and Goded were dispatched t
o minor commands in the Canaries and the Balearics, respectively. The Institute of Agrarian Reform set to work once more. Other measures attendant on the amnesty decrees were introduced. That meant, however, that employers had to take back men whom they had sacked after the strikes of 1934, and also to indemnify them for lost wages. At the same time, they had either to retain those engaged in their place, or to compensate them. So new resentments were created. The minister of education returned to the old plans of 1931–2 to substitute state education for that of the religious orders. As a result, the peseta fell, and leading financiers began to remove their wealth—and even themselves1—from the country. In Asturias and some other places, owners ceased to run coal mines; the government took them over, by a kind of provisional nationalization, intending to hand them over to workers’ cooperatives in a few months.2 Meantime, the second round of the elections were duly held, the National Front were in disarray, and the Popular Front were left with a pronounced final victory. The Tribunal for Constitutional Guarantees also found in favour of the Popular Front in numerous disputed election results. The CEDA challenged these judgements, some amendments were made, and four elections were left to be held in May. These constitutional disputes further embittered relations between the victors and the defeated.3

  But these difficulties were small compared with other threats to law and order in Spain. From the moment of the elections onwards, a trail of murder and arson spread across the face of the country. This was partly caused by the euphoria of the socialists and anarchists at being released from prison, or at least from the rule of the CEDA and the radicals. It was also the conscious work of the Falange, determined to justify the establishment of a régime of ‘order’. Both Calvo Sotelo and Goicoechea blamed their defeat on the CEDA and on the ‘foolish appeasement’ of 1935. José Antonio Primo de Rivera was himself still ambiguous on the subject of violence. On 21 February, he had circulated a note to local jefes (chiefs) throughout Spain: ‘The jefes will ensure that no one adopts an attitude of hostility towards the new government or of solidarity with the defeated Right … Our militants will utterly ignore all blandishments to take part in conspiracies, prospects of coups d’état or alliances with forces of order.’4 For a time after the election, he seems to have coveted an agreement with Prieto. Perhaps Prieto might become leader of a united ‘socialist Falange’? But Prieto, though isolated in his own party, refused to negotiate5—even if he found, as many did, José Antonio personally sympathetic. Thereafter, José Antonio was unable to restrain his followers, since they believed that their chance was coming: gunmen were hired, including some ex-legionaries from Morocco,1 and, after more physical attacks by the Left, José Antonio began to conclude, reluctantly no doubt, that only a military rising could save Spain. The Falange probably did not possess 25,000 members at the end of February 1936, but this made no difference to their provocatory power.2 Riding round in motor-cars, armed with machine-guns, the señoritos of the Falange did much to increase disorder. ‘Paradise’, José Antonio had rashly told them, ‘is not rest. Paradise is against rest … we must hold up our heads in Paradise, as the angels do.’ Very well, then, they thought, let us try. Soon, JAPistas and other young rightists began to move over to the Falange in such large numbers that José Antonio began to worry lest his movement lose its identity.3

  On the Left, the militias and other para-military organizations founded in 1933 or 1934 and banned, with their members gaoled, in 1934, returned also to the streets, against a background of intimidation of employers, strikes in the country, and the growth of une grande peur of revolution. The FAI and CNT largely held aloof from these squabbles. They continued to believe that with an encyclopedia and a pistol they would soon be free from every political encumbrance. The decline of the republic filled them with much the same ebullient satisfaction as it did the Falange. Some of the pistoleros of the two groups are believed to have worked in common—especially against the socialists, who were heard to refer to the Falange with disgust as the ‘FAI-lange’.4 Meantime, day in, day out, as it seemed, prominent politicians addressed huge meetings in bull rings or public squares, the political preoccupation of the country being expressed by the astonishing number who attended such gatherings. The activities of Largo Caballero were particularly inflammatory.

  During the weeks after the election of February, Largo Caballero, indeed, had become more intoxicated than ever by the prospect of revolution. Partly he was stimulated by what seemed to him real prospects of power. Partly he was in a hurry. Finally, also, he surrendered to the flattery of his friends in the youth movement. They spoke of him as the ‘Spanish Lenin’.1 This experienced trade union negotiator was entranced by the inappropriate name. While the votes of his party kept the government of Azaña in power, Largo Caballero moved about Spain making declamatory prophecies to wildly cheering crowds that the hour of revolution was near. The real policy of Largo Caballero was perhaps more moderate than he suggested in these apocalyptic orations. When power eventually came to him, in very different circumstances, it is true, Largo showed himself shrewd, practical, humane and unimaginative. But no one could have predicted that. In consequence, from March 1936 onwards, the old quarrel between Largo’s wing of the socialist party and those who still looked to Prieto was an open one. Prieto at this time controlled the socialist party’s executive, and the party paper, El Socialista. But Largo directed the UGT, the new paper Claridad, and led the youth movement and the socialists in Madrid; and despite many good speeches by their leader, the Prietistas were on the defensive. The Caballeristas scented victory and expected it to come from the streets. Young socialists used communist phraseology, despised Prieto for his reformism and his discreet flight to France at the time of Asturias, and believed that the future was theirs. The tide of revolutionary ‘Caballerismo’ ran strongly in early 1936, moving young urban socialists to see in ‘the Revolution’ the only way to help agrarian workers.2

  If the Left were thus both confident and disunited, the Right and what remained of the Centre began, during the spring of 1936, to make common cause. Impelled by a common fear that the rising tide of leftism would overwhelm Spanish society, members of the CEDA, army officers, Carlists, monarchists, the small and the grand bourgeoisie, and even followers of Lerroux, identified the government of Azaña with that of Kerensky before the appearance of the bolsheviks, in the Russia of 1917. Shadows from outside Spain seemed long. Opposition maintained an alliance that victory in the elections would have made impossible. After the Popular Front had taken power, most of those who had been, or voted, Radical in 1931 or 1933 gave tactical support to the right. The CEDA was still the largest single party in the Cortes. But its failure to secure an outright victory suggested to many of its erstwhile voters the failure of that experiment in christian democracy. Gil Robles’s place as Jefe of the Spanish middle class was seized by the more unscrupulous Calvo Sotelo, who made himself the chief spokesman of the opposition when the Cortes met again. Gil Robles was cautious. ‘I do not believe that the government will allow itself to be overrun, and we are all ready to help it from being so’, he told his national council in March. The CEDA’s terms for ‘cooperation’ with the government were announced as: dissolution of all militia forces; a programme of economic reconstruction which the Right could support; and no more campaigns against the Catholic schools. Naturally, he and his followers would continue in the Cortes.1 But then the Cortes did not seem to offer great hope. At least one major constituent group of the CEDA, the Valencian Right (DRV, Derecho Regional Valenciano), openly supported the idea of armed insurrection, under the unstable Luis Lucia, a vice-president of the party.

  The anti-republican plot, half-monarchist, half-military, which had its roots so long ago, was once more taking shape. Generals such as Fanjul, Ponte, Orgaz, Barrera and González Carrasco had been meeting regularly since Gil Robles had left the ministry of war. These officers were, from January 1936, in contact with a right-wing military organization known as the Unión Militar Espa�
�ola, a junta of junior officers founded in 1933 to ‘maintain a proper patriotism’ within the army. The leaders of this group were probably better conspirators than they were soldiers. Their activities had inspired a counter group, Unión Militar Republicana Antifascista, set up in 1934.2 The ‘exile’ of General Franco to the Canaries and of Goded to the Balearics had been intended to banish to harmless places those suspected of treason to the republic: but at the same time, General Mola, previously in command in Morocco, had been transferred to Pamplona, the capital of Navarre, and of Carlism.

  Before these generals reached their new posts, they held a final meeting on 8 March at the house of José Delgado, a Catholic businessman.1 They agreed that they would support a military rising, probably under Sanjurjo, if the President were to give power to Largo Caballero, if the civil guard were to be disbanded, or if anarchy were to overwhelm the country. Generals Varela and Orgaz were apparently anxious for an immediate rising. Mola was more cautious.2 The generals left behind in Madrid formed themselves into an organizing committee.

  Franco called on Azaña before he set out for the Canaries, and warned the Prime Minister against the dangers of communism. Azaña pooh-poohed the idea.3 On 13 March, Franco met José Antonio in the house of Ramón Serrano Súñer, his brother-in-law, the CEDA deputy for Saragossa, but nothing was decided.4 Franco suggested that José Antonio should keep in touch with Colonel Yagüe, of the Foreign Legion. But this meeting seems to have been part of José Antonio’s search for a central figure around whom to unite Spain, rather than part of a plot. Meanwhile, the Carlists were busy capturing the mind of General Sanjurjo, who had visited Germany in February—ostensibly to attend the winter Olympic Games. He wanted to assure himself of a source of arms, but the Germans were reluctant to commit themselves; they were still hoping to make a major sale of arms to the Spanish government.1 After this temporary setback, Sanjurjo became more and more of a Carlist: he was reminded that his father, a captain in the army of ‘Carlos VII’, had died heroically in battle—his remains lying in Navarre. He recalled his grandfather, General Sacanell, also a warrior in the Carlist War. Sanjurjo was all sentiment, and the continuous visits made to him in these months by Carlist chiefs softened his heart. One day, the Carlist leader Fal Conde himself arrived, with his son Pepito dressed as a requeté. How the old general wept! He felt himself Carlist through and through.2