Talk:Spanish Civil War

An event in this article is a March 28 selected anniversary (may be in HTML comment)

---

From Wikipedia:Village pump:

How many images are too many? I've only ever seen one image. I wanted to add the famous picture of the soldier shot in the head to the Spanish Civil War page, as well as a typical propaganda poster of the times. wji 0000 EDT 23 May 2002

IMO, a couple more legal images would be fine. The article only has 1 image after all. MB 04:17 23 May 2003 (UTC)

I've recently brought over a lot of new content from the Spanish-language wikipedia. I've done my best to integrate it, but someone may want to take an editorial pass. Also, it seems to me that we ought to have several "sidebar" articles dealing with things like the internal situations in Madrid and Barcelona during the war and there should probably be a lot on Spanish anarchism and the various plitical parties of the time that either exists and should be linked to, or doesn't and should be written. -- Jmabel 09:02, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)

---

Could someone please explain the communism vs civilization comment in the intro? Thanks. - Jeandré, 2004-03-14t09:29z

An atttribution would certainly be nice, and I didn't put it there, but it's certainly on the mark as to how some viewed it. I've seen Hearst Movietone newsreels from the period, and that is pretty much the picture they present. It's also the rhetoric to be found in Franco's speeches during the war. It had very little basis in reality, in my opinion, but leaned heavily on communist atheism and anitclericalism, and the destruction of churches (and -- in some cases -- torture, murder, etc. of clergy and members of monastic orders) that occurred in the opening weeks of the war. I think the article is accurate in saying that the atrocities in those opening weeks were roughly equal, but the fact that many on the Republican side targeted the Church was endlessly exploited in the Nationalists' rhetoric, and struck a note with conservatives elsewhere who otherwise might have kept more distance from fascism. -- Jmabel 17:55, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Pro-Nationalist link

I for one am inclined to keep, for the moment, the recently added Professor Marek Jan Chodakiewicz on The Spanish Civil War. There ought to be at least one external link to a site more sympathetic to the Nationalists than to the Republic. However, I don't think it is a particularly good site: there must be a far more comprehensive presentation of this case (maybe even with some decent footnotes and/or external references itself?) elsewhere on the web. If someone could find a better one and substitute it, I think that would be an improvement. -- Jmabel 17:04, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Not Neutral

I added the note "The neutrality of this article is disputed." because of the insistence in that General Franco or his forces were fascist. This is just communist propaganda. We know better now. Communists wanted to overthrow the legal system of liberties in Spain to create a system similar to that of the Soviet Union. General Franco and his coup prevented that. Of course, the Republican legality was not restored, but that was because it had not proven safe from revolutionary risks. And Monarchy was not restored probably because King Alfonso XIII fled the country only because his partisans lost a municipal ballot, so it appeared to the victors in the war that that king was not reliable to grant individual rights. Of course, Franco's Dictatorship is more than objectionable, but it does not prove that it was a fascist regime.

(this was unsigned, but it's User:Makjavelo

Frankly, I think this one characterization does not make a non-neutral article. I disagree with much of what Makjavelo has just written, but I do agree with him that the article (or maybe an associated article) might gain from a more extensive explanation of the somewhat complicated relationship of Franco's politics (and Falangism in general) to fascism as such. -- Jmabel 17:44, Jun 8, 2004 (UTC)

This seems like petty apology for Franco, in my opinion. Not only the communists, but the anarchists, socialists and most Republicans refered to the Francoist forces as "fascist;" as well as many historians and authors, e.g. Hemingway. I forget the exact quote, but a Christian clergyman (who were notoriously right-wing at the time, in popular belief) stated that Franco's regime was totalitarian, because he "controls all aspects of one's life," which can be argued because of the high degree of censorship and repression under his rule. Okay, so: he brutally repressed opposition (through violence, censorship, etc.), he was a dictator, was highly militaristic and nationalistic. Not to mention the heavy influence from Nazi Germany and Italy. So you can call him whatever you like, but that which we call a fascist by any other word would smell as rotten. --Tothebarricades.tk 01:28, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

In my private life, I'd have no problem calling Franco and his forces fascist. However, an encyclopedia article should probably be more meticulous. I see no problem calling his opponents "anti-fascist", I see no problem characterizing his aid from Italy and Germany as aid from "fascist" countries, I don't even see a problem with our characterizing Franco as "pro-fascist". I also think it is appropriate to refer to refer to the Falange under the leadership of José Antonio Primo de Rivera as a fascist party. However, referring to "the rebels, also known as the Nationalists or the fascists" is probably a bit too POV. Again, we would do well to add a discussion of how, after the death of Primo de Rivera, Franco co-opted the term "falange" and turned it into something that was not quite what it had meant before. I would suggest that we take up the uses of the word "fascist", "fascism", etc. in the article one by one and see exactly which User:Makjavelo objects to, then discuss those one by one and see if we reach consensus. I wouldn't be surprised if there are only two or three of them at issue, or if we can find mutually agreeable language. -- Jmabel 17:17, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)

I've placed a note on User talk:Makjavelo asking Makjavelo to clarify exactly which uses of the term "fascist" he finds objectionable. Assuming he responds within a few days, we should see if we can get consesnsus. If he does not respond (he is not a long-time wikipedian, so he may not), I think we should just unilaterally remove his dispute notice, since it's now been 5 days and he hasn't engaged in the conversation he started. -- Jmabel 23:45, Jun 13, 2004 (UTC)

Given that the person who added the NPOV note will not even engage in discussion, I am removing it. If someone wants to re-add it and actually engage the topic, I have no problem with that. -- Jmabel 18:50, Jun 16, 2004 (UTC)

Franco assigning dangerous missions to political rivals

After the phrase "Franco was effective commander of all the Nationalists," the following was recently removed, "... and he unassumingly arranged events (including assigning missions to political rivals that would likely get them killed) so that at the end of the war there would be no opposition to his rule." I happen to believe this is true, but I have no citation for it, so I am not restoring it. If someone has a decent citation, I would love to see it restored to the article. -- Jmabel 15:28, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

It was I who erased this portion of the sentence, mainly because it is historically inaccurate and there is no sound basis for the affirmation. Perhaps it could be restored if it were affirmed: "Historian X affirms that Franco assigned missions to political rivals that would likely get them killed". User: McCorrection. 15:32, Aug 9, 2004 (EDT)

"official sources"

The same anonymous contributor (whose contributions look generally good), also added a passage beginning, "according to official sources, 330 people were assassinated..." I have no reason to doubt this, but can anyone give a citation? "Official sources" is a rather vague attribution. -- Jmabel 17:18, Aug 8, 2004 (UTC)

I thank you for the comments regarding what I added to the article. I thought it lacked some information, since it described the coup of July right after the February elections, not showing the considerable rise in tensions, from all sides, which led to the military confrontation. As for the "official numbers", they are mentioned by Warren Carroll, in "The Last Crusade: Spain: 1936", published by Christendom Press (1998). He collected the numbers from what is probably the most famous book on the religious persecution in Spain, "Historia de la Persecución Religiosa en España (1936-1939)", by Antonio Montero Moreno, published by the renowned Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos (3rd edition, 1999). I did not know exactly how to mention the authors in the text without lengthening it unnecessarily. User: McCorrection. 15:34, Aug 9, 2004 (EDT)

Great! I've placed it in the article as a "note" (with a footnote-style link). If someone sees a way to do it better, go for it, but I've seen a few other pages do it this way. -- Jmabel 01:46, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)

Posters

I added two posters, one for each side of the conflict. I tried to be concise and neutral in the captions and I hope the images are appreciated.--McCorrection 16:14, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Cela

Recent anon addition to "Further Reading" section:

Camilo José Cela, The Hive. Dalkey Archive, 1953 Novel about post-Civil War Spain

I know Cela is a very major writer, so no question about notability. I haven't read the book, but was under the impression that it was set in the 1940s. Is there really enough in the book that relates to the war itself to make it relevant for this article? I could name a lot of fine novels about Franco-era Spain that I would not consider appropriate to mention in this article. -- Jmabel 04:12, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)

Featured?

You have a nice article here. If there is any user/group working on this, I think you should consider putting in on Wikipedia:Featured article candidates. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 11:43, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Communist support

I agree with TDC that it is appropriate to that the first mention of the International Brigades indicate Comintern support in recruitment. However, I'm uncomfortable with his change from a mention of "limited support from the Soviet Union" to:

The Republicans received extensive support from the Soviet Union. This included 1,000 aircraft, 900 tanks, 1,500 artillery pieces, 300 armored cars, hundreds of thousands of small arms and 30,000 tons of ammunition. To pay for these armaments the Republicans used $500 million dollars in gold reserves captured from the Nationalist stronghold.

While I can't say anything for or against the numbers (and, as seems to be a pattern, TDC has added a contentious statement without citing a single source: TDC, you must get this stuff somewhere, and you know it will be disputed, why don't you ever just cite your sources?), everything I've ever read on the subject says (1) Soviet aid to the Republic was dwarfed by German and Italian aid to the Nationalists. (2) During most of the war the Italian Navy prevented Soviet materiel from reaching the Republic. Hence, even if these numbers are accurate, I suspect that without comparable numbers for the Nationalists they may be misleading.

1. Is there a source for these numbers?
2. Do we have comparable numbers describing German and Italian support for the Nationalists?
3. "captured from the Nationalist stronghold" is vague and confusing. Captured from what stronghold? Given especially that they were the legitimate government, this phrase is particularly suspicious.

I'm not going to remove this right now, because I've seen that TDC's stuff usually (though not always) has some basis, but given both the specificity of the numbers and, conversely, the vagueness of "stronghold", I'd really like to see a citation.

Also, reference to a $500 million dollar payment raises interesting questions. Were the Nationalists paying Germany and Italy for their armaments? There is an important distinction between selling arms to a belligerent and giving them without payment.

If we answer all of this, we will have made a useful addition to the article, but I think that this change as it stands is not yet very useful. -- Jmabel 19:04, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)