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

The worst mass killing in Madrid occurred on the night of 22–23 August, just after an air raid and the arrival of reports of the massacre of 1,200 republicans in the bullring at Badajoz. Enraged militiamen and civilians marched on the Model Prison when rumours spread of a riot and a fire started by Falangist prisoners. Thirty of the 2,000 prisoners, including many prominent right-wingers, several of them former ministers, were dragged out of the prison and shot.⁹ A horrified Azaña came very close to resigning as president of the Republic.¹⁰

In Barcelona the top priorities for revenge (after certain police officials like Miguel Badía) were the industrialists who had employed pistoleros against union leaders in the 1920s and, of course, the gunmen themselves. This wave of repression was carried out mainly by ‘investigation groups’ and ‘control patrols’ created by the Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias, but also by unscrupulous and sometimes psychologically disturbed individuals, taking advantage of the chaos.

There was inevitably a wide-ranging settlement of accounts against blacklegs. One or two killings even went back to old inter-union disputes. Desiderio Trillas, the head of the UGT dockers, was shot down by a group of anarchists because he had prevented CNT members from receiving work. This murder was condemned at once by the CNT-FAI leadership and they promised the immediate execution of any of their members who killed out of personal motives. It was a threat which they carried out. Several prominent anarchists, such as their building union leader, Josep Gardenyes, who had been freed from prison on 19 July, and Manuel Fernández, the head of the catering syndicate, were executed by their own comrades in the FAI for taking vengeance on police spies from the time of Primo’s dictatorship.¹¹

The army officers who had supported the rising and then been captured soon became victims. A column of militiamen attacked the prison ship Uruguay and shot the majority of the rebels held there between 29 and 31 August.¹²

It appears that freed convicts were responsible for a considerable part of the violence and much of the looting. The real anarchists burned banknotes because they symbolized the greed of society, but those they had released from prison did not change their habits with the arrival of the social revolution. The excesses of unreformed criminals caused the CNT-FAI to complain bitterly that the ‘underworld is disgracing the revolution’, but they were reluctant to admit that they had allowed almost anybody to join their organization. Falangists sought refuge in their ranks, as well as others who had no interest in libertarianism. Many on the left also alleged that civil guards were often the most flagrant killers, as they sought to protect themselves from suspicions of sympathizing with the right.¹³

The worst of the violence occurred in the first few days throughout the republican zone of Spain, though it varied greatly from region to region. On the whole the depressed areas saw more ferocity, especially in New Castile, where over 2,000 people were killed by the left during the course of the war. In Toledo 400 were killed between 20 and 31 July, in Ciudad Real some 600 were killed in August and September. There was great savagery also in parts of Andalucia, such as Ronda where the victims were thrown over the cliffs. (Hemingway used this incident in For Whom the Bell Tolls.) But in Ronda, as in many towns and villages, the executions were carried out by groups from other parts. It was a phenomenon which bore a remarkable resemblance to the way in which peasants during the nineteenth century had burned the church of a neighbouring village, but not their own.

There was relatively little violence in Málaga before 27 July, but on that day nationalist aircraft bombed the market, killing women and children. Coming just after Queipo de Llano’s boasts over Seville Radio that he knew from spies everything that happened in the town, the air raid had a traumatic effect. Suspects were hauled out of prison and shot against the nearest wall and there was a further round-up in the wealthy areas of the town. Altogether some 1,100 people, including General Paxtot, were killed in Málaga between late July and the end of September. During the same period Valencia and Alicante also experienced terrible violence, which killed 4,715 people throughout the region.