Stanley G Payne is an expert on the twin subjects of Fascism and Spain. This volume reinforces his reputation as an outstanding scholar. Noting the twentieth century was "a great generator and destroyer of myths," including fascism and communism, he observed, "the myth of the Spanish Republic by comparison has retained its power to enlist the sympathy of later generations." The myth lives on as a battle between democracy and fascism. Payne shows this characterisation is false. The main causes of the war were pre-revolutionary violence, persistent social disorder, the factionalism of the Left, the government's disregard for constitutional law, Stalin's foreign policy aims and the nefarious influence of Stalinist political analysis.
Payne starts with an examination of Soviet foreign policy and the Comintern. In the early 1920's Communist revolutionary activity was focused on central Europe but pulled back to consolidate Russia's position following the failure of the policy of permanent revolution. In 1928 the Comintern introduced a new strategy, increasing Communist revolutionary activity, attacking social democracy as "social fascism" and condemning reformist programmes. Communism and Socialism were seen as rivals rather than comrades in the struggle against Capitalism. In Spain this was complicated by a long tradition of dissent based on anarchosyndicalism.
King Alphonso X111 fled after the 1931 elections and was replaced by the Second Spanish Republic in accordance with a new anticlerical constitution. Liberal reforms were introduced, promises given for autonomy in Spain's regions and agrarian reform quickly approved. The Spanish Communist Party (PCE) was berated by Moscow for viewing the Republic as the outgrowth of feudalism rather than a bourgeois counter-revolution. Thus when the PCE defended the Second Republic against anarchist insurrection, the Comintern expelled the PCE's old guard and replaced them with new leaders, notably Jesus Hernandez and Dolores Ibarruri (La Pasionaria). Ibarruri was a hard line Stalinist with no qualms about removing or ignoring inconvenient parts of the Constitution and implementing a "dictatorship of the proletariat" to suppress opposition parties.
The reversal of many of the Second Republic's reforms by the Centre-Right government which claimed power in 1934, took place amidst widespread political violence. While recognising the part played by both sides Payne argues that the main perpetrator of political terror was the PCE whose policies were based on a transition to Communism with all possible speed. The breakdown in normal political discourse ripped the heart out of the constitution which was dead by the time civil war broke out in 1936. The elections of that year demonstrated the extent of the political polarisation which had taken place between Left and Right. The Moscow inspired Popular Front (which had replaced the Communists' earlier isolation from the Left) won one percent more of the popular vote than the Centre-Right but had a Parliamentary majority of 107. The Falangist Party gained less than one percent but grew rapidly in response to political violence.
Many in the revolutionary Left welcomed the civil war whereas the Comintern considered it "an undesirable complication" and the PCE, which had the capacity to create a puppet Soviet state, did not do so on orders of Moscow. Stalin's intention was to disguise his foreign policy objectives and avoid a reaction from other European states. By this time Stalin had become paranoid, instigating the Great Purges and extending that policy to Spain through the NKVD (Soviet Secret Police) who supervised the liquidation of the POUM, the Leninist rivals of the PCE. Stalin personally ordered the murder of Andreas Nin with Ibarruri faithfully parroting the Stalinist line that action against the POUM was to prevent an anarchotrotskyist counter revolution.
Stalin's long term goal was to establish a Soviet-style regime in Spain by using the fake pluralism method which was later applied to the creation of "People's Republics" in Eastern Europe. Payne disputes Hugh Thomas's claim that by 1937 the Communists were the real executive power in Spain but suggests they were the only group with a coherent plan for overthrowing the Republic but were constrained by Stalin's opposition. Although united on the creation of a non-democratic regime the various factions of the Left were unable to agree as to its nature. The alternative of expanding the political base of the government by modifying its ideology was not tried. This failure instigated the civil war, Left factionalism maintained it and Soviet interference lost it.
The Soviets did benefit from the war. The Republican regime emptied the Spanish treasury of its entire reserve of gold (at that time the fourth largest in Europe) to pay for Soviet military assistance. The NKVD used its presence to set up intelligence networks, screen potential agents from amongst the multi-national idealists who came to fight and establish their own jails to refine liquidation methods. According to Payne the Soviet military misread the Spanish conflict as an example of the nature of future wars while Stalin did not understand Hitler's policy. He opines "Hitler's policy of using and prolonging the Spanish conflict as a grand international distraction to deflect attention from his own rearmament and expansion in Central Europe was generally successful. London and Paris often dedicated more attention to Spain than to Austria and Czechoslovakia." He concludes that while Soviet intervention was "economic and efficient...the overall international consequences for the Soviet Union was hidden even from the Soviet public."
Payne's book dispels many of the myths which have arisen from the Spanish civil war, setting the conflict in its historical context and identifying the dynamics of the conflict. While "fascism" lives on as a term of political abuse its application is the language of the bigot rather than the historian. Payne deserves credit for separating fact from fiction and myth from reality. Five stars.
