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Francisco Largo Caballero was a Spanish politician and trade unionist, who served as the Prime Minister of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. He was one of the historic leaders of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and of the Workers' General Union (UGT). Although he entered into politics as a moderate leftist, after the 1933 general election in which the conservative CEDA party won the majority, he took a more radical turn and began to advocate for a socialist revolution.
Andreu Nin i Pérez was a Spanish politician, trade unionist and translator. He is mainly known for his role in various Spanish left-wing movements of the early 20th century and, later, for his role in the Spanish Civil War. He is also known for his work translating Russian classics such as Ana Karenina, Crime and Punishment and some works by Anton Chekhov, from Russian into Catalan.
Juan Negrín López was a Spanish physician and politician who served as prime minister of the Second Spanish Republic. He was a leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and of the left-leaning Popular Front government during the Spanish Civil War. He also served as finance minister. He was the last Loyalist premier of Spain (1937–1939), leading the Republican forces defeated by the Nationalists under General Francisco Franco. He was President of the Council of Ministers of the Second Spanish Republic and the Spanish Republican government in exile between 1937 and 1945. He died in exile in Paris, France.
The Spanish Republic, commonly known as the Second Spanish Republic, was the form of democratic government in Spain from 1931 to 1939. The Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931 after the deposition of King Alfonso XIII. It was dissolved on 1 April 1939 after surrendering in the Spanish Civil War to the Nationalists led by General Francisco Franco.
Legislative elections were held in Spain on 16 February 1936. At stake were all 473 seats in the unicameral Cortes Generales. The winners of the 1936 elections were the Popular Front, a left-wing coalition of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), Republican Left (Spain) (IR), Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), Republican Union (UR), Communist Party of Spain (PCE), Acció Catalana (AC), and other parties. Their coalition commanded a narrow lead over the divided opposition in terms of the popular vote, but a significant lead over the main opposition party, Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (CEDA), in terms of seats. The election had been prompted by a collapse of a government led by Alejandro Lerroux, and his Radical Republican Party. Manuel Azaña would replace Manuel Portela Valladares, caretaker, as prime minister.
Red Terror is the name given by historians to various acts of violence committed from 1936 until the end of the Spanish Civil War by sections of nearly all the leftist groups involved. The May 1931 arson attacks against Church property throughout Spain and the determination of the Republican Government to never compromise upon and strictly enforce it's ban against Classical Christian education was the beginning a politicidal campaign of religious persecution against the Catholic Church in Spain. No Republican controlled region escaped systematic and anticlerical violence, although it was minimal in the Basque Country. The violence consisted of the killing of tens of thousands of people (including 6,832 Roman Catholic priests, the vast majority in the wake of the rightist military coup in July 1936, the Spanish nobility, small business owners, industrialists, politicians and suspected supporters of the Right Wing political parties or the anti-Stalinist Left, and the desecration and arson attacks against monasteries, convents, Catholic schools, and churches.
Elections to Spain's legislature, the Cortes Generales, were held on 19 November 1933 for all 473 seats in the unicameral Cortes of the Second Spanish Republic. Since the previous elections of 1931, a new constitution had been ratified, and the franchise extended to more than six million women. The governing Republican-Socialist coalition had fallen apart, with the Radical Republican Party beginning to support a newly united political right.
The Spanish Civil War was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic, and consisted of various socialist, communist, separatist, anarchist, and republican parties, some of which had opposed the government in the pre-war period. The opposing Nationalists were an alliance of Falangists, monarchists, conservatives, and traditionalists led by a military junta among whom General Francisco Franco quickly achieved a preponderant role. Due to the international political climate at the time, the war had many facets and was variously viewed as class struggle, a religious struggle, a struggle between dictatorship and republican democracy, between revolution and counterrevolution, and between fascism and communism. According to Claude Bowers, U.S. ambassador to Spain during the war, it was the "dress rehearsal" for World War II. The Nationalists won the war, which ended in early 1939, and ruled Spain until Franco's death in November 1975.
The background of the Spanish Civil War dates back to the end of the 19th century, when the owners of large estates, called latifundios, held most of the power in a land-based oligarchy. The landowners' power was unsuccessfully challenged by the industrial and merchant sectors. In 1868 popular uprisings led to the overthrow of Queen Isabella II of the House of Bourbon. In 1873 Isabella's replacement, King Amadeo I of the House of Savoy, abdicated due to increasing political pressure, and the short-lived First Spanish Republic was proclaimed. After the restoration of the Bourbons in December 1874, Carlists and anarchists emerged in opposition to the monarchy. Alejandro Lerroux helped bring republicanism to the fore in Catalonia, where poverty was particularly acute. Growing resentment of conscription and of the military culminated in the Tragic Week in Barcelona in 1909. After the First World War, the working class, the industrial class, and the military united in hopes of removing the corrupt central government, but were unsuccessful. Fears of communism grew. A military coup brought Miguel Primo de Rivera to power in 1923, and he ran Spain as a military dictatorship. Support for his regime gradually faded, and he resigned in January 1930. There was little support for the monarchy in the major cities, and King Alfonso XIII abdicated; the Second Spanish Republic was formed, whose power would remain until the culmination of the Spanish Civil War. Monarchists would continue to oppose the Republic.
The Paracuellos massacres were a series of mass killings of civilians and prisoners of war by the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War that took place before and during the Siege of Madrid during the early stages of the war. The death toll remains a subject of debate and controversy.
The Battle of Almendralejo was a battle and massacre in Almendralejo, Spain, in August 1936, during the first stages of the Spanish Civil War.
The Convoy de la Victoria was a Spanish naval battle on 5 August 1936 in the Strait of Gibraltar during the Spanish Civil War, between the escort of a Nationalist convoy and the Republican Navy destroyer Alcalá Galiano.
The Servicio de Información Militar or SIM was the political police of the Spanish Republican Armed Forces from August 1937 to the end of the Spanish Civil War.
The Revolution of 1934, also known as the Revolution of October 1934 or the Revolutionary General Strike of 1934, was a revolutionary strike movement that took place between 5 and 19 October 1934, during the black biennium of the Second Spanish Republic. The revolts were triggered by the entry of the conservative Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (CEDA) into the Spanish government. Most of the events occurred in Catalonia and Asturias and were supported by many Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and General Union of Workers (UGT) members, notably Largo Caballero, as well as members of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT). Historians have argued that the incident sharpened antagonism between the political Right and Left in Spain and was part of the reason for the later Spanish Civil War. Around 2,000 people were killed during the uprising, which was repressed by Spanish government forces.
Pedro Fernández Checa, usually known as Pedro Checa was a Spanish Communist who played a leading role in the party during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). After the defeat of the Republic he was forced into exile in the Soviet Union and then Mexico, where he died.
The republican repression in Madrid (1936–1939) was a series of measures applied against presumed enemies of the Second Spanish Republic. Repressive actions were organised by state services, party militias and hybrid structures. Some activities were carried out as part of legal procedures and might have involved various judiciary, but others remained on the verge of legal framework or clearly beyond it. Legally-sanctioned repressive actions included execution, expropriations, fines, dismissal, jail, relocation, forced labour or loss of civil rights. Extrajudicial violence included execution, rape, mutilation, torture, humiliation, incarceration, destruction or takeover of property. The climax of repressions took place in 1936, but they continued during the following years. Their total scale remains unclear; fragmentary figures indicate that one institution detained at least 18,000 people in 1936. The number of the executed is disputed; two personal lists produced contain around 9,000 and around 11,500 names. Historians do not agree on most issues related to the Spanish Civil War repressions, including the ones of Madrid in 1936-1939.
Josep Rovira i Canals (1902–1968) was a Catalan politician, a leader of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification. During the Spanish Civil War he managed to send several militia units to the Aragon front, and was arrested by the republican authorities in the context of the repression against the POUM.
The Andalusian Army was a unit of the Spanish Republican Army that operated during the Spanish Civil War. Under its jurisdiction were the republican forces deployed in Eastern Andalusia.
Felipe Emilio Sandoval Cabrerizo was a Spanish bricklayer, career robber, a killer and spy who associated with anarchist activities in France and very prominently in Spain during the Spanish Civil War.
The visit of Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler to Spain in October 1940 had a major propaganda component for the Francoist regime, which at that time was invested in a diplomatic rapprochement with Nazi Germany with the anticipation of Spain's entry into World War II in support of the Axis powers. Himmler's stay in Spain took place between 19 and 24 October. It was one of the very few trips that the Nazi leader made to neutral countries.
References
- ↑ Thomas 1976.
- ↑ Preston 2011.
- ↑ Alcalá 2007.
- ↑ Wyden, Peter (1984). The Passionate War, The Narrative History of the Spanish Civil War 1936-39. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780671253318.
