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

More important than the quantity of armaments sent was their quality. This varied enormously. Rifles and field guns were often in a bad state and obsolete. One batch of guns of Tsarist vintage was known as ‘the battery of Catherine the Great’. The ten different sorts of rifles came from eight countries and required rounds of six different calibres. Many of them had been captured during the First World War and some of them were fifty years old.¹⁰ The T-26 and later BT-5 tanks, on the other hand, were entirely modern and better than the opposing German models. The aircraft, although modern by Soviet standards, were soon out-fought and out-flown by the new German aircraft which came into service the following year.

The main barrier to achieving the best use of all this matériel came from the sectarianism of the communists, who jealously kept it for the use of their own forces. Regimental commanders were sometimes forced to become members of the Communist Party to ensure that their men received ammunition and medical care. The advisers, especially the tank commander General Pavlov (‘Pablito’) and the air force adviser Smushkevich, took all the decisions, often without consulting their Spanish colleagues. Prieto, the minister for air, found that the Soviet advisers and the senior Spanish air force officer, Colonel Hidalgo de Cisneros y López de Montenegro, an aristocrat with strong communist leanings, would not even tell him which airfields were being used, or how many aircraft were serviceable. Prieto’s fellow socialist, Luis Araquistáin, said that the real minister of air was the Russian general.

This was no exaggeration. One report back to Moscow clearly demonstrates that Smushkevich, or ‘Duglas’ as he was known, controlled the republican air force completely. ‘The Department is headed by Colonel Cisneros. [He is] a very honest and strong-willed officer who enjoys a great authority both in aviation and in governmental circles, and is a friend of the Soviet Union. There is no doubt that at this moment he lacks both theoretical knowledge and tactical experience to lead the air force on his own. He realizes this and accepts our help with honesty and gratitude. S[mushkevich] as the Chief Adviser has established the best possible relations with him…It can be said quite clearly that while remaining officially in the position of an adviser, Smushkevich is in fact the commander of all of the air force.’¹¹

One of the most important issues of the Spanish Civil War is the payment of Soviet aid with the gold reserves of Banco de España.¹² Spain at the time had the fourth largest gold reserves in the world, due mainly to the commercial boom during the First World War. It would appear that Artur Stashevsky, the Russian economist, was the one who suggested to the minister of finance, Dr Juan Negrín, the idea of keeping ‘a current account in gold’ in Moscow. Madrid was threatened by the advance of the Army of Africa and this arrangement could be used to buy arms and raw materials.¹³ The gold would be converted into foreign exchange through the Banque Commerciale pour l’Europe du Nord, or Eurobank in Paris (both part of the Kremlin’s financial organization in France).

On 24 July Giral had authorized the first despatch of gold, in this case to Paris, to pay for armament purchases in France. When the NonIntervention Committee began its work, gold was still sent until March 1937 in order to buy arms from other sources. Altogether 174 tons of gold (27.4 per cent of the total Spanish reserves) went to France.¹⁴