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

17 During the course of 1937 another $256 million were transferred to the account of Eurobank in Paris. Another $131,500,000 served to pay the Soviet Union for the mate´riel which it had supplied. The balance of the gold from the Banco de España ran out early in 1938, according to the Soviet version, and in March of that year the Republic had to request from the USSR a credit of $70 million and in December another $85 million (Kowalsky, pp. 232–3).

18 Seidman, A ras de suelo, p. 112; Comín et al., Historia económica de España, p. 335.

19 RGASPI 17/120/263, pp. 2–3.

20 Ibid., pp. 16–1.

21 Antonov-Ovseyenko’s diary, RGASPI 17/120/84, pp. 58–79.

22 Antonov-Ovseyenko’s confession was published in Izvestia, 24 August 1936.

23 RGASPI 17/120/259, pp. 73–4.

24 RGASPI 17/120/84, pp. 75–6.

25 RGASPI 17/120/263, pp. 32.

26 Ibid., pp. 16–17.

CHAPTER 16: The International Brigades and the Soviet Advisers

1 Claims arising from French Communist Party sources that Maurice Thorez, their secretary-general had somehow put forward the idea at a Comintern meeting of 26 July appear to have been completely discredited. See Rémi Skoutelsky, L’Espoir guidait leurs pas. Les voluntaires franc¸aises dans les Brigades Internationales, 1936–1939, Paris, 1998, pp. 50–1.

2 Quoted in Elorza and Bizcarrondo, p. 303.

3 Andreu Castells, Las Brigadas Internacionales, Barcelona, 1974, p. 449.

4 The most accurate figures by country, but still uncertain are as follows:

France: 8,962

Poland: 3,113

Italy: 3,002

United States: 2,341

Germany: 2,217

Balkan countries: 2,095

Great Britain: 1,843

Belgium: 1,722

Czechoslovakia: 1,066

Baltic states: 892

Austria: 872

Scandinavian countries: 799

Netherlands: 628

Hungary: 528

Canada: 512

Switzerland: 408

Portugal: 134

Others: 1,122

Michel Lefebvre and Re ´mi Skoutelsky, Las Brigadas Internacionales, Barcelona, 2003, p. 16.

5 Kowalsky, p. 267.

6 Esmond Romilly, Boadilla, London, 1971.

7 Castells, Las Brigadas Internacionales, p. 80.

8 Jason Gurney, Crusade in Spain, London, 1974.

9 George Orwell, Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters, London, 1968.

10 Abad de Santillán, Por qué perdimos la guerra, p. 175.

11 Bennassar believes that Marty was responsible for the death of the French commander Gaston Delassale and a dozen International Brigaders, ‘but not, however, of systematic executions’ (La guerre d’Espagne et les lendemains, p. 146). Soviet documents, on the other hand, indicate that Marty’s obsession with ‘fifth column’ infiltration and the executions of deserters and ‘cowards’ may well have contributed to the very high rate of executions.

12 Castells, p. 73n.

13 Commissariat XV International Brigade, Book of XV International Brigade, Madrid, 1938.

14 TsAMO 132/2642/77, p. 47.

15 RGASPI 545/3/309, p. 2.

16 RGVA 33987/3/870, p. 346.

17 The figures in Soviet files do not entirely agree, mainly because of differences in category definition. One of the clearest breakdowns states that in addition to the Red Army advisers attached to various headquarters, a total of 772 Soviet pilots, 351 tankists, 100 artillerists, 77 sailors, 166 signals experts, 141 military engineers and technicians, and 204 interpreters served in Spain (RGVA 33987/3/1143, p. 127). There were about 150 advisers in 1937 and about 250 in 1938. In January 1939 their number was reduced to 84 (RGVA 35082/1/15, pp. 47–9). For casualty figures, see G. F. Krivosheev (ed.), Rossiya i SSSR v voihakh 20 veka. Poteri vooruzhennykh sil (Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century. Losses of the armed forces), Moscow, 2001.

18 TsAMO 132/2642/192, p. 1.

19 Rybalkin, p. 56.

20 TsAMO 132/2642/192, p. 15.

21 Ibid., p. 32.

22 RGVA 35082/1/40, p. 78.

23 RGVA 9/29/315, p. 70; 33987/3/1149, p. 172.

24 RGVA 33987/3/960, pp. 180–9, quoted in Radosh and Habeck, p. 127.

25 RGVA 35082/1/185, pp. 356 and 408.

26 See Rybalkin, pp. 38–42 and RGVA 33987/3/870, pp. 341–2; RGVA 33987/3/961 p. 166; RGVA 35082/1/18, pp. 49, 64–6; RGVA 33987/3/961, pp. 155–6; TsAMO 16/3148/5, pp. 23–5. According to Rybalkin, p. 42, the experience gained in this operation was later used in the Soviet planning and organization of transport during the Second World War and then later in 1962 when Soviet weapons and troops were transported to Cuba as part of Operation ‘Anadyr’, an enterprise directed by the then minister of defence, Marshal Rodion Malinovsky, who had himself served in Spain.

27 RGASPI 545/3/302, p. 118.

CHAPTER 17: The Battle for Madrid