Spanish Republic and the Civil War, 1931-1939

Gabriel Jackson

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780691007571, 9780691051543
• eBook ISBN: 9781400820184
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

At the time of its occurrence, the Spanish Civil War epitomized for the Western world the confrontation of democracy, fascism, and communism. An entire generation of Englishmen and Americans felt a deeper emotional involvement in that war than in any other world event of their lifetimes, including the Second World War. On the Continent, its "lessons," as interpreted by participants of many nationalities, have played an important role in the politics of both Western Europe and the People's Democracies. Everywhere in the Western world, readers of history have noted parallels between the Spanish Republic of 1931 and the revolutionary governments which existed in France and Central Europe during the year 1848. The Austrian revolt of October 1934, reminded participants and observers alike of the Paris Commune of 1871, and even the most politically unsophisticated observers could see in the Spain of 1936 all the ideological and class conflicts which had characterized revolutionary France of 1789 and revolutionary Russia of 1917.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the worthwhile books on the Spanish Civil War have almost all emphasized its international ramifications and have discussed its political crises entirely in the vocabulary of the French and Russian revolutions. Relatively few of the foreign participants realized that the Civil War had arisen out of specifically Spanish circumstances. Few of them knew the history of the Second Spanish Republic, which for five years prior to the war had been grappling with the problems of what we now call an "underdeveloped nation."

In Spanish Republic and the Civil War, Gabriel Jackson expounds the history of the Second Republic and the Civil War primarily as seen from within Spain.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Organizations and Political Terms
• 1. The Background of the Spanish Republic
• 2. The First Days of the Republic
• 3. The Creation of a Constitution
• 4. The Politics of the Azaña Government
• 5. Economic Problems During the Azaña Era
• 6. The Defeat of the Left
• 7. Government by the Center-Right
• 8. The Revolution of October 1934
• 9. Politics and Ideologies in 1935
• 10. The Popular Front Election
• 11. From February to June 1936
• 12. The Approach of the Civil War
• 13. The Pronunciamiento of July 17-20
• 14. The Beginnings of International Intervention
• 15. Military Developments, August-October 1936
• 16. Revolution and Terror in the Popular Front Zone
• 17. Authority and Terror in the Insurgent Zone
• 18. The Assault on Madrid
• 19. Politics and War in Early 1937
• 20. Guadalajara and the Unification of Nationalist Spain
• 21. The Fall of Largo Caballero
• 22. The War in the North
• 23. The Initiatives of the Negrín Government
• 24. The Development of Nationalist Spain
• 25. Efforts to Limit Suffering and Destruction
• 26. The Ebro and the Fall of Catalonia
• 27. The End of the War
• 28. The Spanish Tragedy
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index