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

Soon after the ceremony began, Professor Francisco Maldonado launched a violent attack against Catalan and Basque nationalism, which he described as ‘the cancer of the nation’, which must be cured with the scalpel of fascism. At the back of the hall, somebody yelled the Legion battlecry of ‘¡Viva la muerte!’ (Long live death!). General Millán Astray, who looked the very spectre of war with only one arm and one eye, stood up to shout the same cry.¹³ Falangists chanted their ‘¡Vivas!’, arms raised in the fascist salute towards the portrait of General Franco hanging above where his wife sat.

The noise died as Unamuno stood up slowly. His quiet voice was an impressive contrast. ‘All of you await my words. You know me and are aware that I am unable to remain silent. At times to be silent is to lie. For silence can be interpreted as acquiescence. I want to comment on the speech, to give it that name, of Professor Maldonado. Let us waive the personal affront implied in the sudden outburst of vituperation against the Basques and Catalans. I was myself, of course, born in Bilbao. The bishop, whether he likes it or not, is a Catalan from Barcelona. Just now I heard a necrophilous and senseless cry: “Long live Death!” And I, who have spent my life shaping paradoxes, must tell you as an expert authority that this outlandish paradox is repellent to me. General Millán Astray is a cripple. Let it be said without any undertone. He is a war invalid. So was Cervantes.¹⁴

‘Unfortunately there are all too many cripples in Spain now. And soon there will be even more of them if God does not come to our aid. It pains me to think that General Millán Astray should dictate the pattern of mass psychology. A cripple who lacks the greatness of Cervantes is wont to seek ominous relief in causing mutilation around him. General Millán Astray would like to create Spain anew, a negative creation in his own image and likeness; for that reason he wishes to see Spain crippled as he unwittingly made clear.’

The general was unable to contain his almost inarticulate fury any longer. He could only scream ‘Muera la inteligencia! Viva la Muerte! (Death to the intelligentsia! Long live Death!)’. The Falangists took up his cry and army officers took out their pistols. Apparently, the general’s bodyguard even levelled his submachine-gun at Unamuno’s head, but this did not deter Unamuno from crying defiance.

‘This is the temple of the intellect and I am its high priest. It is you who profane its sacred precincts. You will win, because you have more than enough brute force. But you will not convince. For to persuade you would need what you lack: reason and right in your struggle. I consider it futile to exhort you to think of Spain.’

He paused and his arms fell to his sides. He finished in a quiet resigned tone: ‘I have done.’ It would seem that the presence of Franco’s wife saved him from being lynched on the spot, though when her husband was informed of what had happened he apparently wanted Unamuno to be shot. This course was not followed because of the philosopher’s international reputation and the reaction caused abroad by Lorca’s murder. But Unamuno died some ten weeks later, broken-hearted and cursed as a ‘red’ and a traitor by those he had thought were his friends.¹⁵

The Republican Zone

From the start, the rising of the generals had fragmented the country into a mass of localized civil wars. But this was not the main reason for the collapse of the republican state. The central government’s disastrous response to the crisis was one major factor: perhaps the inescapable paralysis of a centre-left government facing a right-wing revolt on one side and left-wing revolution on the other. Another was the disintegration of the mechanism of state, when so many of its functionaries, from the diplomatic corps to the police, to say nothing of the armed forces, supported the nationalists.

The CNT and the UGT, which had borne the brunt of the fighting, rapidly filled the vacuum, creating revolutionary organizations in republican territory. The only real exception was the Basque country. ‘There, the situation is not revolutionary,’ it was observed. ‘Private property is not questioned.’¹ The membership of the two unions increased enormously, partly out of admiration for what they had done, but mostly for opportunistic reasons as they were now the power in the land. They soon had around two million members each, a striking total when the lost territories are taken into account. The POUM and above all the Communist Party were also to increase rapidly. The communists’ vast gains, increasing their strength to 250,000 members in eight months, came from the middle class attracted by the Party’s disciplined approach, from the ambitious and from right-wingers afraid of arrest, just as left-wingers joined the Falange to survive in the nationalist zone.²