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

Stalinists, by the very nature of their own ideology, were not prepared to share power with anybody else in the longer term. Only one factor was likely to mitigate this in Spain, and that was the question of the Soviet Union’s interests elsewhere on the international stage. Stalin had already demonstrated his readiness to sacrifice a foreign communist party if it happened to be in the interests of the ‘Socialist Motherland’. In the case of Spain, it was mainly events in central Europe which determined Soviet policy. The British appeasement of Hitler in 1938 over his demands on Czechoslovakia prompted Stalin to prepare a new course, even if that eventually meant an alliance with Hitler himself. The post-war years would have been desperate, whatever government was in power. But everything afterwards would have depended on the form of regime which emerged. A fully democratic government would presumably have received Marshall Plan aid from the United States in 1948. Then, with a reasonably unfettered economy, recovery would almost certainly have begun by 1950, like elsewhere in Western Europe. But with an authoritarian leftist, perhaps overtly communist, government, Spain would probably have been left in a similar state to those Central European or Balkan people’s republics until after 1989.

The Spanish Civil War is, however, best remembered in entirely human terms: the clash of beliefs, the ferocity, the generosity and selfishness, the hypocrisy of diplomats and ministers, the betrayal of ideals and political manoeuvres and, above all, the bravery and self-sacrifice of those who fought on both sides. But history, which is never tidy, must always end with questions. Conclusions are much too convenient.

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