Blood of Spain_An Oral History of the Spanish Civil War

by Ronald Fraser

  Pero cuando la victoria

  Lleguemos a conseguir

  A todos los emboscados

  Les haremos que trabajen

  Para que puedan vivir …

  Youth of the twentieth century

  Who are eagerly preparing

  A new world freed of fetters

  A world of the working man …

  Youth of the twentieth century

  Madrid is full

  of undercover fascists

  Of cowards and string-pullers …

  But when the victory comes

  Which we are going to ensure

  We’ll make these draft-dodgers

  Work to earn their living …

  Words put to the tango tune, Siglo XX (Madrid)

  * * *

  Somos los hijos de Lenín

  Y nuestro padre es un cabrón

  Porque nos manda resistir

  Con las lentejas y el arroz

  We are the sons of Lenin

  And our father is a bastard

  Because he’s ordered us to hold out

  On lentils and rice alone

  Words covertly sung by right-wingers when

  La Joven Guardia, the communist youth song,

  was played

  * * *

  1. See pp. 189–95. Certainly, Euzkadi’s President Aguirre affirmed (December 1936) that the war was being fought between the old capitalist order, which the privileged classes had risen to defend, and ‘the profound sense of social justice which many workers felt’. This must be read in the context of his government’s declared programme proposing that the worker be given access to capital, to profits and the co-management of enterprises (see Ortzi, Historia de Euskadi, pp. 222 and 224); Aguirre, moreover, saw the war in its widest implications.

  2. A few weeks later, Caballero, the Spanish premier, assured President Aguirre that no such thing as an army of the north existed. The general whom Caballero had appointed to command it was, not surprisingly, dismayed and moved his HQ to Santander. Neither the Basque nor Catalan autonomy statutes gave the right to maintain an army; in the circumstances it was almost inevitable that both should do so. But whereas the Catalan forces, the bulk of them under CNT dominance, covered a continuous line in Aragon, the same was not true in the north where three distinct but adjoining regions were fighting more or less separately.

  3. The communist party of Euzkadi was an ‘autonomous’ branch of the PCE. It defended the right of self-determination and independence for Euzkadi, and its leaders were Basque-speakers. After the fall of Bilbao, the PCE’s charges were taken to their conclusion: Juan Astigarrabía, the Euzkadi party’s secretary-general, and a minister in the Basque government, was expelled from the party.

  4. With the exception of the central government’s proposal to send non-Basque political commissars. ‘Only the communists were prepared to accept; Astigarrabía even threatened to resign, but when he saw that the rest of us were united, he remained in the government.’ (Gonzalo NARDIZ.)

  5. Seven battalions – volunteers as far as the Basque nationalists were concerned, for the party leadership would oblige no one to fight outside the borders of Euzkadi – had participated in the February offensive on Oviedo, See p. 254, n. 2).

  6. The international protest and the slow but steady erosion over the following decades of the Franquista propaganda story that Guernica had been set fire to by the Basque militia can be followed in H. Southworth’s La Destruction de Guernica (Paris, 1975). It was a story which some right-wing local people subscribed to, if only by their silence. Juana SANGRONIZ (Carlist): ‘Our consciences were uneasy about it. After living through the raid, we knew only too well that the destruction had come from the air. The reds had hardly any planes, we knew that too. Amongst our own we’d admit the truth: our side had bombed the town and it was a bad thing. “But what can we do about it now?” we’d say; it was better simply to keep quiet. The propaganda was so patently untrue.’ The exact number of dead has never been satisfactorily established (see Southworth for an examination of the conflicting evidence). The Basque government at the time put the figure at 1,654 dead and 889 wounded – but the government could not establish an accurate count since three days after the raid, the front having broken at Marquina, Guernica fell to the Franco forces.

  7. J. Zugazagoitia, Guerra y vicisitudes de los españoles (Paris, 1968), vol. 1, p. 276.

  8. Gen. Mola, who had been in command of the offensive, was killed in an air accident at the beginning of June, a week before the final attack on Bilbao.

  9. The central government believed that the Basque government was suing for a separate peace. In May, an uncoded cable from the Vatican setting out terms agreed by Franco and Mola for Euzkadi’s surrender had – in error – been sent via Barcelona rather than London for onward transmission to Bilbao. The central government did not pass the message on, but sent a bitter denunciatory cable to the Basque government which was unaware of the cause. Preoccupation about Vizcaya’s resistance was a factor in Largo Caballero’s downfall after the May events in Barcelona.

  10. Given the type of war that was being fought, however, fixed defensive lines could prove their worth, as the XYZ line demonstrated the following year. Built into the mountains, the fortifications – with trenches capable of withstanding 1,000-lb bombs – prevented the nationalists taking Valencia (see Thomas, The Spanish Civil War, p. 834). By comparison, the iron ring was poorly constructed, unfinished and betrayed.

  11. See p. 191.

  12. ‘Some of us believed that the government, despite all the difficulties it faced – among them the fact that the police force had had to be created from scratch – could have acted more effectively and rapidly to prevent the massacre, and at a party meeting we resigned. But we accused no one of responsibility, accepting our own in what was a terrible blot on our reputations’ (Juan AJURIAGUERRA, president, Vizcaya PNV).

  13. Guerra y revolución en España, 1936–1939, vol. 3, p. 140, n. 4, cites a list of the plants and equipment, drawn up for the army of the north’s chief-of-staff.

  14. Before passing judgement on the lack of sabotage of war industries in Vizcaya, it is necessary to recall that neither in socialist-dominated Asturias, as we shall see, nor in CNT Catalonia was there any large-scale sabotage before defeat.

  15. At the same time, the concierto económico, the right of self-taxation, was abolished for Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa. In the words of José Maria de Areilza, Count of Motrico, newly appointed mayor of Bilbao: ‘The horrible, sinister nightmare called Euzkadi has been conquered … Vizcaya is once again a piece of Spain by pure and simple military conquest … ’

  16. See Whealey, ‘How Franco Financed His War – Reconsidered’, Journal of Contemporary History, nn. 27 and 28, p. 151.

  17. Under the pact, all Basque officers were to be allowed to leave – ‘our aim was that they should be transferred to Barcelona to take up new commands’; no Basque soldiers were to serve in the nationalist army; there would be no reprisals against civilians. The Basques, in return, would surrender their arms, maintain public order and guarantee the lives of right-wing prisoners in the zone around Santoña. ‘The negotiations weren’t very tough. The Italians didn’t try to impose more conditions. All they wanted really was their little victory’ (Juan AJURIAGUERRA).

  18. ‘The surrender plan I had negotiated included a series of stages, with different sectors surrendering in successive steps. We weren’t military experts and we miscalculated; later – after who knows what pressures from Franco – our failure was used to justify the Italian pretext that we had broken the pact, although their officers on the ground maintained that it was valid. Indeed, when the Italians entered Laredo, they kept saying: “there are no Spaniards, only Italians and Basques here … ” ’ (Juan AJURIAGUERRA).

  19. On 15 October the first carefully selected prisoners were shot on the beach: two PNV political leaders, two PNV army leaders, two STV (Basque nationalist trade union) leaders, two socialists, two
communists, two anarcho-syndicalists, two republicans. While the repression in Vizcaya was less ferocious than elsewhere (320 prisoners were executed in the Dueso and Larrínaga prisons between October and the following July, according to R. de Garate’s Diario de un condenado a muerte, Bayonne, 1974), it was a common experience to spend two years or more, as did AJURIAGUERRA and Luis MICHELENA, amongst many others, under sentence of death, uncertain from one day to the next whether the sentence would be carried out.

  20. Twenty year after the war, President Aguirre told the American historian Stanley Panyne that one third of the Basque country supported the anti-fascist coalition, one third was opposed and one third neutral (see Payne, El nacionalismo vasco, Barcelona, 1974, p.238).

  21. See Points of Rupture, A.

  22. ‘We argued that, as a result, the bishops – both Basques – were unable to ascertain what was going on. The theologians agreed. Ordinary people would ask us after mass if we had heard of the pastoral and reached a decision. When we told them we had, they went on their way without asking more; they had absolute confidence in our judgement’ (Juan AJURIAGUERRA, president Vizcaya PNV). The tribulations of Bishop Múgica, an extreme right-wing Integrist who supported the military at the start and was exiled by them within two months of the rising, reflected some of the drama of the Spanish hierarchy’s relations with Basque nationalism. In Rome he protested to the Vatican at the insurgents’ execution of Basque priests, refused to sign the bishops’ collective letter but equally refused representations from the Basque clergy to rectify his joint pastoral. His public and private postures remained very different; he had, he said, been told ‘to keep silent’. In 1945, however, he broke his silence in Imperativos de mi conciencia (Paris, 1945), in which he expressed his previously held private views and excused himself for his public stance. (See A. Onaindía, Hombre de paz en la guerra, Buenos Aires, 1973; also J. de Iturralde, El catolicismo y la cruzada de Franco, Toulouse, 1965, vol. 3.)

  23. Both Fathers BASABILOTRA and ECHEBARRIA were court-martialled by the Franco forces along with nearly fifty other Basque priests and sentenced respectively to twelve years and life imprisonment; both spent three years in confinement before being exiled to parishes in New Castile.

  24. See Point of Rupture, B.

  25. Points of Rupture, B.

  26. The defence of El Mazuco pass in eastern Asturias, where for thirty-three days forces commanded by Carrocera, a libertarian steelworker from La Felguera, held out in hand-to-hand combat as positions were taken, lost and retaken, was the most outstanding of these actions.

  27. Col. Franco had previously been court-martialled by the Popular Front forces in Asturias and acquitted.

  28. At the end of the civil war, in April 1939, things began to change for the guerrillas. The regime now attempted to wipe them out in direct attacks against their mountain strongholds and indirectly by reprisals on their civilian support. The latter were more successful than the former. ‘Guerrillas began to get demoralized as a result of the defeat in the war and many gave themselves up. Others, too young to have fought in the war, later joined us.’ In 1940 MATA and others tried to break out and reach France, but were forced to fight a battle in the Picos de Europa, the highest range in the north, where MATA was wounded. He returned to the Peñamayor area where he commanded a guerrilla division of some forty men. Their actions included many more shoot-outs in the villages in search of food and supplies. Arms and ammunition were captured or bought – indirectly – from the guardia civil: ‘They were so poor in the hunger years after the war that they’d sell ammunition at one peseta a round.’ Leading falangists fell to the guerrillas’ guns in reprisal. for the repression which included the slaughter of twenty-two people in Pozo Funeres in 1948. With the end of the Second World War and evidence that the Allies were not going to intervene in Spain, the socialist guerrilleros called on their party either to support the struggle and assign it an objective or to abandon it after eleven years. The latter course was chosen and Prieto took charge of getting the men out. At 10 p.m. on Saturday, 21 October, 1948, after a summer spent in preparation, a French tunny fishing boat arrived off the small Asturian port of Luanco. Only MATA and one other knew the details of the plan. Under the noses of the guardia civil in their barracks by the port, thirty-one people, including a woman, leapt aboard. ‘The whole operation was over in three minutes, the boat didn’t even tie up. There were others we wanted to take off but we couldn’t get in touch with them. At 4 a.m. on Monday, 23 October, we were in San Juan de Luz in France.’

  Ten months after the end of the civil war (and twenty-eight months after it had finished in Asturias) Paulino RODRIGUEZ emerged from hiding. He had written to the civil governor that he was willing to give himself up and stand trial on condition that he did not have to surrender to falangists or give information as to who had hidden him. His terms were accepted; on his emergence he was reasonably treated, given safe-conduct papers and not charged. His wife reproached him for having come out of hiding. ‘The only thing they will let you do is attend my funeral. After that they’ll kill you. In the short time left, someone must be found to look after the children. It is they who are going to suffer for all this – ’ She told him of the beatings she and their daughter had received in the guardia civil barracks, how the latter had lost consciousness and died soon afterwards. His wife had told her torturers that she knew where her husband was hiding but wouldn’t tell them. She wouldn’t be the cause of his death.

  ‘A fortnight after I came out of hiding, she died. My daughter was dead too. All from the maltreatment they received protecting me. And I lived.’

  29. ‘One of my brothers recently went to Algeciras to locate his grave. The cemetery keeper remembered Timoteo and his execution. He showed my brother the cemetery records for his burial. It said simply: “Charity – for the common grave,” A similar entry stood beside a long list of people who were executed there.’

  30. A silence that descended, not untypically, on the second generation also. As Juan’s nephew, Francisco’s son, explained: ‘The civil war was never discussed in my family. My father’s brother was shot by the Franquistas; my mother’s father, who lived in Valdepeñas, was shot by the reds. My father had a lot of medals which, on his death, we found; but he never told me on what fronts he had fought or any of his experiences. All I knew about his war is what I learnt for myself. At home there was complete silence.’

  31. See p. 286.

  32. The choice of a theme which would be studied in all its inter-related (linguistic, mathematical, geographical, etc.) aspects by children in work groups.

  33. In the end it was the Second World War and Hitler’s advance into France which got them back to the Basque country. ‘In 1940, nearly a year after the civil war ended, I received a telegram saying they were being sent to Bilbao. I went there to wait for them. My delight at seeing them getting off the ship was marred by the way the Spanish nuns pushed them about as though they were lepers, almost a sub-human species … ’ (Ignacia OZAMIZ, their mother).

  Winter 1937 to Summer 1938

  The winter of 1937–8 was bitterly cold and it snowed heavily on the central and Aragon fronts. Spirits in the republican zone were momentarily raised by the capture of Teruel, the only town of size to be occupied by the Popular Army. From Barcelona, Jaume MIRAVITLLES, Catalonia’s propaganda chief, hastened to see Prieto, the socialist defence minister, to propose a massive propaganda campaign to mark the largest republican victory to date. Prieto refused; the republican army could not hold the town for more than three weeks.

  —I saw then that the war was lost. The offensive had been carried out simply as an attempt to bring about a negotiated settlement to end the conflict …

  A bitter nationalist counter-offensive threw the Popular Army back. The anarchist-led 25th division, which had been badly mauled in the initial offensive, was ordered back into the line. Saturnino CAROD, the division’s political commissar, refused to counter-sign the order. It was inhuman
to send men into battle without proper equipment and arms. Thumping the table, the divisional commander, García Vivancos, exploded.

  —‘If there are no arms we’ll fight with sticks and stones, with our nails. This order has got to be carried out.’ We were still discussing it when a fresh signal arrived ordering the 118th brigade of the division to report to Galan’s army corps. We set off …

  It was snowing hard. On arrival, García Vivancos remained with the men in the uncovered lorries while CAROD went in to report. Around a stove he found a group of men who offered him coffee. They began to talk. ‘It wasn’t long before the eternal theme of unity between the communist party and the CNT was brought up.’ He said this was a matter to be dealt with directly between the leadership of the two organizations. As a disciplined member of the CNT he would obey whatever decision the national committee reached. But one of the men present insisted, saying that as a well-known militant he could put pressure on the CNT to agree.

  —In their attempt to persuade me, they argued that the future of Spain lay in the unity of the communist party and the CNT, that the war would be won by the two organizations. They proposed that the communist party should form the political organization of the CNT, and the CNT the trade union organization of the party …

  He replied again that this was not the moment to discuss the matter. His men were freezing outside, he needed orders and especially the arms which the brigade had been instructed were waiting for them. The tone of his voice was rising in anger when one of the men put his hand in his pocket and brought out a communist party membership card.

  —‘Take this, or none of the arms you see there will be given to the 25th division. I looked: in a shed at the back there were arms enough to re-equip the men. They included Maxim machine-guns which we had never had. ‘I’ll get the men off the lorries and we’ll pick up the arms.’ ‘You’ll do that only when you accept the membership card.’ I presume it must already have been filled out, for I don’t suppose they expected me to sit down and do so myself at that moment. I gave them a piece of my mind. One of them put his arm round my shoulder and said, ‘Calm down, Carod, there’s no need to get upset. The comrades have not posed this matter correctly. You Spaniards are all the same. Don’t worry, everything will be sorted out.’ I recognized the man: Ercoli. It was only later that I learnt his real name: Togliatti, the Italian communist leader …