Spanish Civil War- Interference/lack thereof from countries

The Spanish Civil War continues to shape people's lives. At the time, too, people recognised the significance of the war. The struggle in Spain came to represent the fight against fascism. Thousands volunteered from around the world to join the International Brigades and to defend the Second Republic, including famous writers such as George Orwell. Picasso produced his famed Guernica painting to highlight the horrific bombing by Franco and his Nazi sponsors of the infamous town(Spanish). The chaotic instability of the nation was brought

Consequently, in the short lifetime of the Republic the opportunity to cooperate in solving Spain's long term problems was lost and instead polarisation occurred and the historic difficulties of Spain became the focus for civil war and set the scene for the brutal Francoist dictatorship with which Spaniards today are continuing to come to terms. The Spanish Civil War is a good and early example of British appeasement policy regarding Hitler’s aggressiveness, American isolationism and France weakness and lack of resolution. Mussolini found a good opportunity to follow his attempt of imposing an Italian hegemony in the Mediterranean sea and Hitler had at his disposal a war to test the German rearmament. Finally, the USSR played its role as world workers’ motherland by giving military aid to the Republican side and making the Comintern organise the International Brigades.

The landowners' refusal to change received strong support from the Catholic Church. For years the Church had been developing its own political organisations. The leader of the Catholic-backed political party, the CEDA, José María Robles, declared his 'unyielding repugnance' to the new Republic(Fraser). Such views were born from long-term conflict over the role of the Church. Many liberal Republican groups identified the Church with intransigent attitudes and believed that its control of education -- and in 1901 there were more Catholic than state schools -- prevented the creation of a truly secular state. Hostility is apparent in a Republican newspaper article which stated that 'cancer requires the treatment of iron and fire ... No monastery must be left standing, no priest left in idleness'.(Fraser) It was the workers, however, who expressed their dislike of the Church through arson. In Barcelona in 1909 a week of worker unrest led to 50 churches, monasteries and Church schools being burnt.(Fraser) Conflict came to a head during the Republic. In May 1931 workers burned churches in response to a denunciation of the Republic by Cardinal at the time(Beevor). The reality was that this measure exposed the financial weakness of the Church, which had long been dependent upon state aid. Nevertheless, broad groups across the right, including landowners and the army, began to see the Church and its political organisations as a means of resisting the Republic. The Catholic CEDA soon became the country's largest political party with 750,000 members(Gallo).

In December 1936 Mussolini began sending troops to aide the Nationalist Front. This included 30,000 men from the Blue Shirts militia and 20,000 soldiers serving with the Italian Army. In March 1937 these men were incorporated into the Italian Corps(Shannon). They took part in the fighting around Madrid and participated in the fall of Málaga in February 1937. During the Spanish Civil War Italy sent 80,000 men, of whom almost 6,000 belonged to the Italian Air Force, 45,000 to the army and 29,000 to the fascist militia. Italy also supplied 1,800 cannon, 1,400 mortars, 3,400 machine-guns, 6,800 motor vehicles, 157 tanks, 213 bombers, 44 assault planes and 414 fighters.

Peasant unrest provoked greater unyieldingness from landowners, many of whom responded by leaving land uncultivated. Meanwhile, in the parliament the agrarian and Catholic groups did all they could to slow the passage of the mild agrarian reform bill(Preston). Consequently, there was an explosion in left-wing union membership in the countryside as the peasants sought to force the Republic to bring about meaningful change. The peasant union, the FNTT, linked to the Socialist Party, underwent a massive expansion. In 1930 there were 27,340 members; by 1932 there were over one million(Preston). As a result, the Socialist Party became committed to defending the peasants and grew increasingly radical.

Some topics in this essay:
Civil War, Spain Landowners, Popular Front, Hitler Mussolini, María Robles, International Brigades, Francisco Franco, Republican Army, Soviet Union, Casas Viejas, civil war, spanish civil, spanish civil war, popular front, popular front government, soviet union, front government, military aid, international brigades, military uprising, britain france, non-intervention agreement, military aid republican, rearmament finally ussr, played role world,