Political+Background

POLITICAL BACKGROUND ==A Brief Summary of Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) [|**[1**]] == Although he claimed to be apolitical, Lorca’s liberal ideals marked him as an enemy of the fascists and made him an early casualty of the Spanish Civil War. The war was a conflict in which conservative forces in Spain overthrew the Second Spanish Republic. It pitted the Nationalists, led by the landed aristocracy, Roman Catholic Church, military leaders, and the fascist Falange party against the Loyalists, consisting of liberals, anarchists, socialists, and Communists. In July 1936, General Francisco Franco led an army revolt in Morocco and invaded Spain to support right-wing rebels. The Nationalist army overran conservative areas in Northern Spain, while the Loyalists remained strong in Catalonia and the Basque Provinces. Volunteers abroad formed International Brigades to fight for the Loyalists, who received supplies from the Soviet Union. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany aided the Nationalists with modern arms and some 60,000 troops. The Loyalist side was divided by factional strife that was exacerbated by the Communists’ suppression of anarchists and Trotskyites. Nationalist forces, unified under Franco, gradually wore down Republican strength, conquering Barcelona and Madrid in early 1939. For Italy and Germany, the war was a testing ground for modern armaments and techniques to be used in World War II. For the youth of the 1930s, saving the Spanish Republic was the idealistic cause of the era. But the civil war’s huge death toll, human suffering, and material devastation were unparalleled in Spanish history. The war also ushered in a long era of right-wing dictatorship that ended only with Franco’s death in 1975.

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