The War and Its Shadow: Spain's Civil War in Europe's Long Twentieth Century

by Helen Graham

In Spain today, its civil war remains 'the past that will not pass away.' The long shadow of World War II also brings back to central focus its most disquieting aspects, revealing to a broader public the stark truth already known by specialist historians - that in Spain, as in the many other internecine wars that would soon convulse Europe, war was waged predominantly upon millions were killed, not by invaders and strangers, but by their own compatriots, including their own neighbors. Across the continent, Hitler's war of territorial expansion after 1938 would detonate a myriad 'irregular wars' of culture, as well as of politics, which took on a 'cleansing' intransigence, as those driving them sought to make 'homogeneous' communities, whether ethnic, political, or religious. So much of this was prefigured with primal intensity in Spain in 1936, where, on July 17-18, a group of army officers rebelled against the socially-reforming Republic. Saved from almost certain failure by Nazi and Fascist military intervention, and by a British inaction amounting to complicity, these army rebels unleashed a conflict in which civilians became the targets of mass killing. The new military authorities authorized and presided over an extermination of those sectors associated with Republican change, especially those who symbolized cultural change and thus posed a threat to old ways of being and progressive teachers, self-educated workers, 'new' women. In the Republican zone, resistance to the coup also led to the murder of civilians. This extrajudicial and communal killing in both zones would fundamentally make new political and cultural meanings that changed Spain's political landscape forever. The War and Its Shadow explores the origins, nature, and long-term consequences of this exterminatory war in Spain, charting the resonant forms of political, social, and cultural resistance to it and the memory/legacy these have left behind in Europe and beyond. Not least is our growing sense of the enormity of what, in greater European terms, the Republican war effort Nazi adventurism and the continent-wide wars of ethnic and political 'purification' it would unleash.

Genres: History, Spanish Civil War

372 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Duncan Prior · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thought-provoking book which sets its arguments out with conviction supported by exhaustive, detailed and accessible footnotes. The author puts forward arguments similar to those propagated by Paul Preston, and indeed only draws on his research in the Spanish Holocaust but includes a forward from him. Whereas Preston can be seen as a part of the long tradition of British narrative historians addressing key periods of Spanish history, and has an incredible back catalogue of books charting the genealogy of the Spanish conflict through leading personalities and events, Graham's approach is more sociological and more thematic. Perhaps this is what Preston means when he comments in the foreword "Helen Graham is probably the most profound historian writing about the Spanish Civil War in the English language today"
That said, the examples she quotes in the last chapter post 1977 (the year of the death of Franco) of both the successful quashing of historical memory and of the faltering steps towards addressing the past are quite astounding. Breath-taking in fact.
The entire book poses questions for the reader and goes someway to propose sound arguments to many. A good example is the assertion that the restored Bourbon monarchy had an "iron grip" of society, and later in the book she justifies use of this term and explains the causation for the events in the 1930s. Comparisons are used to strengthen important postulates such as there are more similarities in the totalitarian philosophy and techniques of Francoist authorities with those of other twentieth century regimes such as the Hitler's Nazis and Stalin's Communists in that all were fighting purifying wars to remove the already present viruses in their targeted area. A second example, this time to draw out a different not a similiarity, is the comparison of the organised violence behind rebels lines compared to the more spontaneous, strongly anti-clerical violence in government held territory in the absence of the law and order authorities. Others are not so sure about this - see Martin Baumeister. In a similar view, in describing the nature of violence on females in Nationalist areas (and providing a memorable example in Chapter 3) she draws reference to the fact that nuns were largely unmolested in Republican lines even when their male counterparts and colleagues were shot.
Graham serves up this multitude of conclusions in a finely-worded and intelligent prose style. Only occasionally does this become a carapace, on the whole it serves to strengthen her points, which are supported by a richness of references.
However I have two major difficulties with the book - one is omission and the other is emphasis. Firstly the omission. In the first chapter she draws contracts with the recent fighting and killing in Yugoslavia and comments that "Bosnian Serbs, like Franco's military rebels before them, unleashed a war which was publicly justified as a means of "resisting a fearful fate which was first attributed to, and then inflicted upon the "enemy", thereby reducing the opponent to the same level ... ". Thought provoking and probably sound argument. However she omits a major difference. The violence unleashed in Yugoslavia was in part an incited response to the violence in the 1940s which in turns was a response to those of the 1910s. And so on. No matter how hard the Yugoslav regime tried between 1945 and, say, 1990 (and perhaps it did not try at all), the resentments and bitterness were never far below the surface and so could be whipped up to frightening effect. Whereas this simply has not happened in Spain post 1977, and it is possible to forecast to occur in the near future. This is despite the fact the 1936-39 war was proceeded by a multiplicity of conflicts, skirmishes, and killings. It is possible to argue that the Yugoslav example is sadly the more common in the world today as anyone with interest in the Middle East must acknowledge. This point is so crucial that it is remiss to ignore it in this comparison.
Secondly the question of emphasis. In the final chapter at least twice she uses the phrases "high stakes" when referring to the need to "defuse the myths of Francoism" and in the "definition of memory, the context and with what stakes, certain moments in the past are spoken about in the present". She goes on to explain how these are key requirements for Spaniards to be treated as civilians and for a strong civic society, which is sensible. However I am less sure these ingredients are necessarily pivotal. What is more important is to tackle the ever-present inertia and self-fulfilling nature of Spanish bureaucracy and political corruption. The legacies of Felipe II and of Lerroux are as omnipresent as that of Franco. Interestingly the figure of Garzon was central to a particularly high-profile case of the latter of these as well as the on-going struggle against crime committed by the Francoist regime. If they were to be treated as citizens of a mature and responsible state in the face of the sharp and deep downturn of 2008-9, the Spanish people had a right to provision of a safety net such as continual provision of social welfare and of a upturn in the economy. Whereas in reality the response was less than satisfactory - social welfare payments were time-boxed [check], and cases of government misuse of funds were not tackled. Then only gradually and fitfully did the labour market pick up.
Notwithstanding this, social order did not collapse in a mirror image of the 1930s fuelled by fear and loathing (a term Graham uses), because, I think. of the strong local and family support networks in place, a sense of general satisfaction over the past decades of growth with a bank of goodwill and savings in place to draw upon and a strong desire not to repeat the past blood-letting.
Spain has moved on in a positive fashion, generally; due to exhaustion, folk-memories and decades of complacent economic growth. It remains to be seen if the Balkans does. This may not be "utopian" but is pragmatically constructive. Of course Spanish civil society has much progress ahead of it but I think the reconstruction of "historical memory" while fascinating and revealing is not a contributory of "high stakes" for that.