Abstract
Eighty years on since the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), historians still publish hundreds of books and articles about the conflict each year. The premise of Spain 1936: Year Zero is that one must look back to 1936 as the year ‘when it all began’. Through this lens, the editors and contributors seek to offer fresh perspectives and ‘challenge various accepted ideas about the beginning of the Spanish Civil War’ (p. 5) by focusing predominantly on the period July-December 1936.
Michael Seidman and Joan Maria Thomàs provide useful overviews of the internal struggles in the Republican and rebel zones. Seidman, the only author to adhere strictly to the ‘year zero’ lens, suggests one ought to consider 1936 in Spain as something equivalent to 1917 in Russia, for it was in July 1936 that ‘the most intense and spontaneous revolution that any European country would ever experience’ unfolded (p. 16). Although Seidman takes into account the impact the Non-Intervention Agreement had on the Republic’s war effort, he places a large portion of the blame for the Republic’s defeat on participants in this revolution, who demanded higher wages, hoarded food, and pillaged property for selfish gain. In contrast, Maria Thomàs shows how the rebel leaders did not face such problems, and provides a detailed overview of the political problems they faced when constructing their new state and political apparatus that laid the foundations of what ultimately became the enduring Franco regime.
Inbal Ofer compares women on both sides in the conflict and argues that there were many similarities in the experiences and roles assigned to women. Most women, for instance, mobilized within all-women’s organizations, and eventually both governments stressed that the home front was where women had most to offer. In this sense, 1936 was not ‘year zero’ for Spanish women. Indeed, with few exceptions, women mobilized along the ideological lines that had divided Spain before the civil war, and they did so within pre-existing organizations. The main difference between women’s roles on each side, Ofer suggests, was labour. While the Republic considered women’s work an individual right and collective duty, the rebels viewed it as a threat to the stability of the family and the existing gender order.
The volume focuses in particular on the international dimensions of the civil war. Xosé Núñez Seixas and Luciano Casali offer some fresh perspectives on Spain’s relationship with Germany and Italy. Núñez Seixas examines the relationship between the Spanish Right and Nazi Germany between 1930 and 1941. For much of the 1920s, Spaniards fascinated with fascism directed their attention towards Italy. After 1933, however, Nazi influence began rapidly to supplant this. Spaniards considered Hitler’s paganism and racism as unattractive traits, but his virulent anti-communism ensured many willingly overlooked these dimensions of the Nazi regime. Casali, meanwhile, establishes links between Italian involvement in Spain and the gradual deterioration of political consensus in Italy from 1936. A lack of motivation among Italians in general and ‘volunteers’ in particular, Casali argues, fostered the expansion of a ‘genuine anti-Fascism’ (p. 146) which undermined Mussolini’s support base during World War II.
Raanan Rein looks at a lesser known case of international volunteers in Spain. In July 1936, the Popular Olympiad, an athletics tournament organized to rival Berlin’s hosting of the Olympics, was set to take place but the outbreak of civil war led to its cancellation. However, as Rein shows, of the 6,000 athletes in Barcelona preparing to compete, some 200 from various countries remained in Spain and were among the first international volunteers for the Republic.
Daniel Kowalsky, David Messenger, and Emilio Sáenz-Francés concentrate on the responses of the Soviet Union, France, and Britain, respectively. Kowalsky provides a synthesis of his previous research, detailing the development of diplomatic, political, and cultural relations between the Soviet Union and Spain. Messenger analyses French social and political responses to the civil war and shows how French society largely accepted the Non-Intervention Agreement – on the Left due to fear of fascist aggression, and on the Right due to a preference for a Francoist victory and the knowledge that non-intervention was benefitting the rebels. Sáenz-Francés examines the evolution of Winston Churchill’s views on the civil war largely through secondary literature and newspaper articles he wrote between 1936 and 1939. There has been little written specifically on Churchill and the civil war, but the chapter admittedly offers only a ‘speculative’ analysis which could have been better informed by Churchill’s personal and political papers.
Individual protagonists take the focus of two further chapters in the volume. Silvina Schammah Gesser and Alexandra Cheveleva Dergacheva examine the role of the Andalusian poet and communist agitator, Rafael Alberti, in Spain’s relations with the Soviet Union during a visit he made to Russia in March 1937, when he sat down with Stalin personally. They argue Alberti’s praise for the Soviet Union after visiting the country during the Great Purges raises questions about his commitment to the Republic and his ability or willingness to transmit accurately the Soviet experiment. Manuela Cosonni’s chapter centres on Renzo Giua, an Italian communist who enrolled in the Durruti Column and died at Extremadura in February 1938. In lieu of analysis, Cosonni attempts to reconstruct Giua’s life through letters he sent back to his family in Italy, and what people who knew him in Spain said of him in their own personal writing.
The highlights of Spain 1936 are the chapters that focus on Portuguese, Japanese, and Argentine responses to the civil war, which have received little attention in the English literature. Pedro Aires Oliveira examines Portugal’s relations with Spain and the reasons for Salazar considering the Popular Front an existential threat to Portuguese integrity. While Portugal openly supported the rebels during the civil war lest a communist state establish itself on the peninsula, the importance Salazar placed on Portugal’s alliance with Britain and the continued aggression of the fascist powers in Spain ensured he acquired ‘a more sober view of international politics’ by 1939 (p. 128).
Whereas the continued aggression of the fascist powers awakened Salazar to the dangers of a fascist-dominated Europe, Haruo Tohmatsu sheds light on how foreign intervention in Spain helped Japan to prepare itself for future military conflicts. Indeed, although Japan adhered to a policy of neutrality, Tohmatsu shows how the civil war provided a unique opportunity to gather intelligence on German, Italian, and Soviet military capabilities. Captain Nishiura Susumu, an officer in the Imperial Japanese Army and an artillery expert, observed military operations in Spain and submitted detailed reports to the Japanese General Staff. These reports were particularly useful for Japan’s preparations to combat a potential Sino-Soviet attempt to take over Manchukuo.
Leonardo Senkman examines Argentina’s diplomatic and naval asylum policy in Spain, which officially sought to favour neither side but generally benefitted more supporters of the anti-government forces than those of the Republic. It also facilitated the rescue of prominent individuals who would play pivotal roles within the Franco regime. Ramón Serrano Suñer, Franco’s brother-in-law and future Foreign Minister and Minister of the Interior, for instance, took refuge in the Argentine consulate at Alicante, from where he escaped to Marseilles on an Argentine ship.
Spain 1936 is perhaps most useful in its bringing together research undertaken by historians of the Spanish Civil War in recent years and providing succinct accounts of the domestic and international contexts of the conflict within a single volume. Indeed, the chapters are, for the most part, syntheses of the contributors’ previous outputs, and some of this research has not been available in English until now. However, many of the chapters focus heavily on providing sufficient context at the expense of analysis, and the premise of ‘year zero’ leaves later developments in the conflict side-lined. The most interesting aspect of Rein’s chapter, for instance, is those athletes who stayed and volunteered in Spain, but the issue is discussed only briefly towards the end of the chapter. Senkman’s chapter, meanwhile, states in its conclusion that the late repatriation of Argentine nationals held in concentration camps during World War II ‘has remained an un-researched’ topic in contrast to Argentina’s diplomatic and humanitarian initiatives in 1936, yet the chapter focuses almost entirely on the latter. Nevertheless, the volume will prove an interesting read to those already interested in the Spanish Civil War, as well as those new to the subject.