The Spanish Civil War

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The Spanish Civil War raged between 1936 and 1939 as a prelude and dry run of the wider conflict that erupted in 1939 in World War II. The causes and conditions that framed the Spanish conflict centered around the ideological polarization of Spain traceable to the Enlightenment and Napoleonic invasions and to the response of traditional opposition groups to modernization and secularization. Over the course of the 19th and early twentieth century, Spain was characterized by internal political strife between groups that clamored for liberal and popular government, typically supportive of secularization, and sectors that favored a continuation of monarchy with strong religious institutions controlling education. The constant conflict resulted …show more content…

A second Republic was declared but was weakened from the very beginning by the ideological and political polarization that continued to dominate Spanish politics. If anything else, the chasm became wider as different and even more aggressive ideologically driven political movements emerged. Anarcho-Syndicalism, Marxist communism clashed with Liberals and each other to dominate the left; while on the right the fascist Spanish Falange emerged along with traditional forces. Elections in 1934 witnessed the rise of brief conservative government that enacted policies which attempted to reverse the actions of the earlier period. Workers, miners and farmers engaged in militant protest while the government used military force to put them down, exacerbating the explosive political divisions. Leftist leaders were imprisoned and the situation grew increasingly tense. The return of a leftist government in 1936 with the Popular Front victory did not calm the political landscape but increased the determination on both sides to continue the struggle denying the democratic process any consensus or …show more content…

Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy lent military support to the Nationalists, while Joseph Stalin lent assistance to the Loyalists, although funneling it to communist groups. Great Britain, France and the US remained neutral. The lack of direct involvement by the liberal democracies caused both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union to doubt the willingness of liberalism to defend its interests; some historians have argued that the later rapprochement and Nazi-Soviet Non Aggression Pact (Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact) in 1939 resulted from the common view of the inadequacy of liberal states held by Hitler and Stalin because of the Spanish experience. After hundreds of thousands died and millions were displaced in the conflict, Franco and the Nationalist triumphed and, by 1939, Spain was subjected to authoritarian one-party rule that survived World War II and lasted until the late

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