La guerra di Spagna

by Gabriele Ranzato

Alla metà degli anni Trenta la Spagna irrompe sulla scena mondiale.
Il 17 luglio del 1936 un gruppo di generali, fra i quali emerge il più giovane, Francisco Franco, si ribellano al legittimo governo repubblicano.
Sembra uno dei tanti pronunciamenti che caratterizzano la storia spagnola, ma questa volta i ribelli ricevono l'immediato appoggio di Hitier e Mussolini.
Il mondo si schiera: Stalin e l'Internazionale comunista si impegnano ai fianco del governo del Fronte popolare, solo tiepidamente sostenuto da Francia e Inghilterra.
Un golpe fallito si trasforma così in una lunga guerra, in cui combattono e muoiono migliaia di volontari di altri Paesi e che il mondo interpreta come una lotta tra fascismo, comunismo e democrazia.
Ma la guerra di Spagna è prima di tutto una guerra civile, in cui si confrontano i due volti di uno stesso Paese: la Spagna rurale, nazionalista e cattolica da una parte, quella cittadina, repubblicana e laica fino all'anticlericalismo dall'altra.
In una lotta senza quartiere che, come ogni guerra civile, abbassa il livello di civiltà nell'uno e nell'altro campo; e che per tre anni offrirà uno scenario prefigurante i futuri orrori della guerra mondiale, prima che la Spagna sprofondi nella dittatura.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Spain

126 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1999

Reviews

[Δημήτρης · Rating 4 out of 5]

Αν κάποιος ενδιαφέρεται να μάθει για τον Ισπανικό Εμφύλιο Πόλεμο, αυτό το βίβλιο είναι μια πολύ καλή περίληψή του. Η σκοπία είναι αρκετά αντικειμενική, η γραφή σύντομη και το φωτογραφικό υλικό είναι επίσης πολύ ενδιαφέρον και πλούσιο.
Ως πρώτη επαφή με την ιστορία του εν λόγω πολέμου, είναι μία πολύ καλή έκδοση.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 1 out of 5]

You know a book about the Spanish Civil War is not going to be any good when it is part of a Traveller's history series and views the rapine and theft and violence of the Republican left of Spain as an "opportunity" for social beneficial social change that was beset with problems instead of being rotten from the core.  Basically, this is a book by and for fellow socialist and Communist travelers and the only benefit that anyone else will gain from it is seeing the warped and biased and crazy way that leftist view the world.  Some people, like me, generally enjoy seeing how other people know the world as a way of studying our opposition and recognizing the blind spots and hypocrisy and internal tensions of those views so as to better counter them, but if you do not have this interest this book is easy enough to avoid and offers nothing worth reading unless you either are warped enough to be leftist or have an interest in counteracting the sort of perspective that can be found in this book and many other books like it that are less forthright about their biases.

This book is mercifully short, at about 100 pages or so.  The book begins with a discussion of the initial attempt at a coup d'etat by right-leaning generals that failed to take over the country but provided a basis for further expansion (1).  After that there is a discussion of the context of Spain's troubled republic that founded on growing extremism and some malapportionment of seats that benefited the extremes against the middle (2).  This leads to a discussion of the revolutionary moves of the left that led to a civil war within the civil war (3) and then finally the author turns his attention to Franco and his rise to power within the Nationalist ranks (4).  The fifth chapter discusses the horror of the Civil War with the usual double standard between the harshly condemned "dirty work" against leftists on the one hand and then the explained away "spontaneous" violence done by the leftists on the other hand (5).  After that there is a discussion about the roads to defeat and victory and then a bibliography, chronology, and index of names.

In reading books like this, especially if you come from a non-red perspective as I do, it is easy to see that the tendency for hypocrisy and injustice is extremely obvious to the reader and completely hidden to the writer.  The writer thinks that anti-Christian intellectuals and those who have bought into the cult-mentality of Marxism have a moral superiority to those who believe in Christianity, and thinks that theft of other people's property is entirely appropriate for those who feel themselves to be oppressed, instead of showing some initiative and seeking to better one's position through education and hard work and the development of skills that will improve one's life.  This same sort of problem can be seen in many places where those who complain the most about injustice are those who have done the least to improve their lives or demonstrate their ability to rise from poverty to a better manner of living.  It is hard to feel sympathetic for those who think that envy and theft is an appropriate response to one's initial low social status.  My sympathies in such a case are with those who worked hard and managed to better themselves, because that is what happened for me, and those who want to steal what I have earned had better be prepared to meet their maker, however little they acknowledge him in their words and deeds at present.

[Nico C · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book I get to learn abut the civil war of my country. It explains about important people in the war, the territorieas each party had in different times of the war, it shows pictures and tells about the brutality of the war, it brings many important and intresting details, etc. This book is excelent for all the people that want to learn about the spanish civil war. This book talks about places were important things of the war happened.

I really liked the way everithing is descrived in this book. I too especialy like the way it is organized. It comes organizedBY chapters, but in the chapters there are some extra titles, and it sometimes in the extra titles comes a date. I recomend this book to pople from 11-12+ because it sometimes is kind of hard to understand. I too recomend you to know a little about the spanish territory and provinces, because if not you´ll get kind of lost.

[George]

thanks to last minute IB History Study for increasing my Goodreads total this year

[S. Shelton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ranzato presents us with a pocketsize, summary of the political machinations of the various fighting-factions during the 1936 to 1939 Spanish Civil War. In large measure, he skips the military campaign. Permeating the conflict was the chaos of vacillating loyalties, conflicting interests of the various factions, and the telling influence of the military involvement of “non-interventionists” countries: for example, the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics and its Communist International’s (COMINTERN) domination of the “Republican” government, and the International Brigades comprised of men from most western nations. On the Nationalist side (Generalissimo Francisco Franco) were the Moroccan Legion, Nazi Germany’s Condor Legion, and Fascist Italy’s contribution of all manner of soldiers and arms.

On the positive side, he opens this book with an excellent summary of the political events that racked Spain before the Revolution. He discusses in detail the Soviet Union’s domination of the “Republican” government. On page fifty is a picture of a street scene in Barcelona—seen on the façade of a building is a large portrait of Vladimir Lenin. Emphasized throughout are descriptions of the atrocities committed by both sides. Relevant photographs and posters suffuse throughout the book. The Chronology at the end of the book set the perspective for the raison d’être the revolution.

Unfortunately, in Ranzato’s short treatise, he does not enlighten us very much. He mentions some of the factions and their involvement, but not enough to clarify the chaos. In fact, his text is so surfeit of details that our understanding of the internecine of the factions is seriously incomplete and muddled. Numerous side bar texts interrupt the flow of his narrative. His two small maps are insufficient in several ways: some geographic locations mentioned in the text are not shown on the maps, their scale is too large, and their paucity is a serious negative.

I would suggest that, in part, the problem lies in the translation to English from Spanish, his writing style, and the subject is so convoluted that one cannot resolve it in such a simple book.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ranzato does a decent job providing a solid primer on the Spanish Civil War, albeit with an anti-war agenda in my opinion. While no one particularly likes war, I feel the focus of Ranzato is on the horrors and atrocities committed and less about the plain facts and details of the conflict itself. I certainly agree that the origins of any conflict must be covered, but a primer style of book must not get lost in all the causes and just gloss over the actual war itself. Far more effort was put into describing in morbid detail the mistreatment of Catholic nun corpses exhumed from cemeteries than on the equipment utilized by the armies on each side.

The negatives aside, what is contained in the book is well written and extremely well illustrated. Propaganda is front and center, along with news reel images of important or stirring scenes. There are some well thought out discussions on the final outcome, and the reasons for the failures of the Republicans that I thought added a great deal of value. Even the condemnation of the atrocities committed by both sides seemed well balanced and critical; the civilians always suffer and get abused regardless of ideology.

I wanted to like this short book more, but really felt it needed more discussions on the campaigns themselves, as well as more time devoted to the arms and equipment. More details on foreign aid would also have been nice. For a compact primer book, it does pretty well though and earns a solid 3 stars.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book covering the lead up, and development of the Spanish Civil War. The book shows the civilian groups' mindsets, and their efforts to create change, that ultimately drew in other European powers, along with their own ideologies (The USSR, Germany, and to a larger extent, Italy). The book gives a good account of which powers committed which resources, and how others seemed to stand idly by, while giving the illusion of some type of support, by signing meaningless agreements and treaties.
The history of the war, and the creation of General Francisco Franco's career, is well-documented here, and I would highly recommend this to anyone who would like to see the boiling point of Europe, slightly before World War II broke out.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very balanced view of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)