To many contemporaries outside Spain the
Spanish Civil War represented a great struggle
between the totalitarian forces of the fascist right
against the resistance of the Republic, whose
legitimate government was composed of the
Popular Front parties defending democracy. As it
dragged on the war, indeed, came to resemble
such an ideological contest. This was because,
unlike earlier internal Spanish conflicts, the Civil
War occurred at a time of deep European divi-
sion, when fascism, democracy and communism
were seen to be moving towards a showdown,
which would decide the fate of Europe. Fascism
had spread from Italy to Germany and Eastern
Europe. Fascism, so its fervent opponents be-
lieved, should be finally stopped in Spain. The
battle in Spain was seen as marking the turning
point of victory or defeat for the fascists. This was
a popular illusion. Governments, communist,
democratic or fascist, understood better that
events in Spain were a secondary problem. The
real question mark hanging over the future of the
rest of Europe was how Hitler’s Germany and
Mussolini’s Italy would act in Europe and in
Africa. Would they be satisfied with a negotiated
revision of the Versailles settlement, or was
Europe facing a new struggle for supremacy as in
1914–18?
For the major governments of Europe, Spain
was a sideshow and policy towards Spain was sub-
ordinated to other more important policy objec-
tives. In France and Britain in particular (even inthe Soviet Union), there consequently developed
a schism between passionate popular feeling,
especially among intellectual adherents of the
broad left, and governments which appeared inca-
pable of acting against the fascist menace. In
Spain, the simple line of ideological division, as
seen from abroad, was exploited by both sides
since foreign volunteers, and even more so
foreign supplies, played a critical part in military
success. The warring factions in Spain became
known simply as the insurgent Nationalists (the
right) and the Loyalists defending the Republic
(the left). The battle lines between the parties
were not so simple, and the defenders of the
Republic, particularly, were deeply divided. On
the right the analogy with fascism was not a
simple one either.
The rise of contemporary fascism and com-
munism in the 1920s influenced the political
struggle in Spain itself. Mussolini’s movement
had served as a model to some Spaniards,
although the dictator of the 1920s, Primo de
Rivera, owed only a slight ideological debt to
Mussolini. Socialism and Marxism and anarchism,
rather than Communism of the Stalinist variety,
won adherents in Spain also. But Spanish tradi-
tions were strong too. Although political contest
assumed some of the forms of the great European
ideological schisms of the twentieth century, its
roots lay also in the conditions of Spain and in
the evolution of past social and political tensions.
In searching for the origins of the civil war the(^1) Chapter 20
THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR AND EUROPE,
1936–9