83 years ago today Francisco Franco and a gang of his fellow generals moved to overthrow the elected government of the Spanish Republic and establish a retrograde dictatorship that would roll back all the gains made since the collapse of the monarchy in the spheres of labour legislation, land reform, women’s rights, etc. They acted with the blessing and material support of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, along with the wealthiest and most powerful sectors of Spanish society. So naturally, they expected the whole affair to be over in a matter of hours or days, and that the rest of the country would meekly bow its head. But thanks to the spirited resistance of common people everywhere from Seville to Madrid to Barcelona, those soldiers who remained loyal to the Republic, not to mention the volunteers who came from all over the world to fight fascism, the rebels got a nasty surprise when they sallied out from their barracks.
Unlike Germany and Italy, where fascism came to power more or less smoothly through ‘legal’ means (not to downplay all of the street brawls and resistance that did exist in those countries), in Spain they had to fight a long, bloody three year civil war first. They got to rule the country in the end, but they had to pay with blood for every inch of ground.
So rest in power, all of the antifascist militiamen and women who died in their trenches defending Madrid, or the republican soldiers killed crossing the Ebro in blazing July, or the volunteers who left America, Germany, Italy, China, for Spain and never came home.
Like Hemingway said, “none ever entered the earth more honorably than those who died in Spain”
