The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939

The real effects of the conquest of the north were not to become apparent until the new year, when the nationalists started to deploy the Carlist formations, the Italian corps and Aranda’s Galician troops in the southern zone. Nationalist warships in the Bay of Biscay were transferred to the Mediterranean, increasing its control of the coastline there. A new naval and air command under Admiral Francisco Moreno was set up in Palma de Mallorca.⁶ But for Franco, one of the most important gains lay in the coal and other mines, much of whose produce would go to paying his debt to Nazi Germany.

The considerable growth in nationalist manpower at this time was assisted by drafting more than 100,000 prisoners from the northern campaign into their infantry units as well as labour battalions. This manner of increasing their forces was not always successful, because a large proportion deserted as soon as they reached the front line. There were at least two cases of rebellion caused by left-wingers in their ranks. At Saragossa anarchists drafted into the Foreign Legion started a revolt and attempted to release their comrades from prison. And 200 sailors in El Ferrol, chiefly on the España, had been discovered preparing a mutiny during the previous winter. In both cases all those involved were executed.

Meanwhile in republican Spain the autumn of 1937 witnessed the continued decline of anarchist power, the isolation of the Catalan nationalists, discord in socialist ranks and the development of the secret police. Negrín’s government presided over these developments and as a result of communist power the repression of dissenters was far greater than it had been during Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship. The prime minister’s pretended ignorance of secret police activities was unconvincing while, as Hugh Thomas has pointed out, his attempt to restrict political activity through censorship, banning and arrests was parallel to Franco’s establishment of a state machine where ideological divergence was also contained.⁷ Nevertheless, most of the Republic’s supporters abroad who had defended the left-wing cause on the grounds of liberty and democracy made no protest at these developments.

The need to collaborate with the Soviet Union, together with the seriousness of the military situation, was later used by Negrín’s supporters to justify the actions of his administration. But it was Negrín who had persuaded Largo Caballero to send the gold reserves to Moscow, so he bore a major responsibility for the Republic’s subservience to Stalin in the first place. Yet during his administration the flow of Soviet military aid decreased dramatically. This was partly the result of the nationalists’ naval blockade, but it was also a consequence of Stalin’s increasing desire to extricate himself from Spain when he realized that the British and French governments were not going to challenge the Axis. And now the Soviet Union was helping China against Japanese aggression. Paradoxically, Stalin’s unease was probably increased by Negrín’s obvious hope that the Republic would be saved by a European war.

President Azaña had encouraged the prime minister’s firm rule in the early days of his administration, but his attitude was to change when he came to understand Negrín’s character better. Both men disliked Companys and Azaña supported Negrín’s plans to bring Catalonia under central government control. The president still resented Companys’s initial success in increasing the Generalitat’s independence during the turmoil of the rising. The reduction of Catalonia’s identity was both symbolized and effected by moving the Republic’s government from Valencia to Barcelona, and Negrín took every opportunity to emphasize the Generalitat’s reduced status.⁸ ‘Negrín avoided almost any direct contact with Companys,’ wrote the communist Antonio Cordón, then under-secretary for the army. ‘I don’t remember any event or ceremony in which they took part together.’⁹

Largo Caballero realized after his fall from power that the Socialist Party and the UGT were in an even worse state than he imagined. He still had his loyal supporters, especially the inner circle of Luis Araquistáin, Carlos de Baráibar and Wenceslao Carrillo (the father of Santiago Carrillo). But many right socialists, a powerful faction within the UGT, and the majority of the Joint Socialist Youth were collaborating closely with the communists.¹⁰ Some groups responded to their call for unification. A joint newspaper, Verdad (meaning ‘truth’ and intended as a Spanish Pravda), had been founded in Valencia. It was the first to praise the socialists in Jaén, who had established their own party of socialist-communist unification called the PSU (United Socialist Party).