Double Helix: Blueprint of Nations
Welcome to 'Double Helix: Blueprint of Nations,' the podcast where we analyze and look at the events, people and actions that have shaped the nations of our world . From revolutions to treaties, conflicts to triumphs, we explore the historical blueprints that continue to influence the way nations think and act today.
Double Helix: Blueprint of Nations
The Spanish Civil War: A House Divided (Part 7)
The Republic begins to fracture under the weight of its own internal divisions. The revolutionary zeal that once united its disparate factions gives way to the harsh realities of prolonged mechanized warfare and the relentless pressure of Franco’s increasingly organized and well-equipped forces.
In Barcelona, ideological tensions within the left explode into infighting, as factions once united against fascism now turn on each other. These internal struggles not only drain resources and morale but also foreshadow the inevitable collapse of the Republican effort.
Meanwhile, Franco capitalizes on the dysfunction and chaos. With the Republican forces weakened by internal strife and war fatigue, he meticulously lays the groundwork for his final, decisive assault on the beleaguered Republic—a campaign designed to crush the last remnants of resistance and secure his vision of a unified, authoritarian Spain.
A British volunteer is writing in his diary Harama Valley, february 1937. The paper is stained with mud, maybe blood. He's using the light from an enemy flare to see Strange day. This morning we fought the fascists. Tonight we're watching our own side point guns at each other. The anarchists don't trust the communists. The communists say the anarchists are undermining the war effort. And here we sit in our trenches wondering if we're more likely to be shot by Franco's men in front of us or our own side behind us. Now picture a street in Barcelona A few months later, in May 1937. Barricades are going up, but not against Franco's forces. Communist troops face off against anarchist militias. Workers who fought side by side at Jarama are now aiming rifles at each other. From a balcony. A woman shouts Are you mad? The fascists are laughing at us. Meanwhile, in his headquarters, francisco Franco receives the news of this Republican infighting with satisfaction. He turns to his German advisor and says according to one present, let them destroy each other. They're doing our work for us. Franco. Always the opportunist knows a good thing when he sees it.
Speaker 1:This is part seven of the Spanish Civil War series A House Divided. You know how they say you can't understand someone until you walk a mile in their shoes. Well, I'd argue you can't understand a nation until you've walked through its history, not just the highlight reel or the sanitized version you find in textbooks. I mean really getting into its DNA, those defining moments that shaped everything that came after, those moments where paths were chosen, where decisions were made in palaces and backrooms and city streets that changed the course of millions of lives. I'm your host, paul, and this is Double Helix Blueprint of Nations, where we unravel the genetic code of countries through their most transformative moments. Think of it like ancestry testing, but for entire nations. We dig deep into the historical DNA, finding those crucial moments that made countries who they are. So you know how family reunions can get awkward when politics come up Well, imagine that. But everyone has guns. That's basically what happened to the Spanish Republic in early 1937.
Speaker 1:For those of you who've been with us on this journey and thank you for enabling my historical obsessions you might remember back in episode three when we talked about the Spanish left being like the world's most complicated group project. You had anarchists, communists, center-left republicans, syndicalists Basically everyone who'd ever read Marx or owned the red flag showed up to the party and just like any good party with too many strong personalities, things were bound to get messy. When the military uprising broke out in 1936, the Republican government actually lost control of many major urban centers for a while. Picture that moment the government essentially saying we're in charge, and the cities responding with that's cute, but no. Well, all those chickens were coming home to roost in early 1937. And these weren't just any chickens. These were ideologically motivated chickens with very strong opinions about the direction of the revolution.
Speaker 1:Today's episode is the direction of the revolution. Today's episode is the story of how those divisions finally cracked wide open, spelling the beginning of the end of the young Spanish Second Republic. This is one of those episodes that made me question my life choices as an aspiring historian. No-transcript. Last time we saw how Spain became a battleground for international ideologies, with volunteers and weapons pouring in from across the world. Today we'll witness how these foreign influences, combined with deep-seated internal tensions, turn the Republican zone into a war within a war. The story of 1937 is really two stories that became tragically intertwined. The Republic fought some of its most heroic actions against Franco's forces, but in the cities, behind the lines, political divisions erupted into open conflict. As one Spanish anarchist bitterly wrote we fought fascism in the trenches while communism stabbed us in the back, because, apparently, the only thing more dangerous than your enemies is your allies.
Speaker 1:Let me take you to Harama Valley in February of 1937. It's dawn and a cold mist hangs over the olive groves. The British battalion of the International Brigades is moving into position. Among them is a young poet named John Cornfort. In his pocket is an unfinished poem Before the Storming of Jarama, because nothing inspires poetry like the prospects of imminent death.
Speaker 1:Franco's forces are trying to cut the vital road from Madrid to Valencia, the Republic's lifeline. If they succeed, madrid will be completely isolated. The British volunteers, along with American, french and Spanish units, are all that stands in their way. What followed was one of the bloodiest battles of the war. The British battalion lost 275 out of 400 men in the first day alone. Jason Gurney, a sculptor who survived the battle, wrote in his memoir we had no military training, no proper weapons, no understanding of tactics. What we had was conviction. It turned out to be almost enough. And it's almost but not quite. And that is the story of the Spanish Republic in a nutshell. The Republic held the valley, but at a terrible cost, and while these volunteers were dying to protect Madrid's supply line.
Speaker 1:Another kind of conflict was brewing in Barcelona. The arrival of Soviet aid had strengthened the Spanish Communist Party's influence. They pushed for a conventional military structure, centralized command and the elimination of worker-controlled militias. This didn't sit well with the anarchists and independent socialists who had been running their own units since the war began. A militia leader named Ricardo Sanz wrote they tell us we must have discipline to win the war. But what are we winning it for, if not for the right to be free? This is a question that would haunt the Republic until its dying days.
Speaker 1:These tensions exploded in May 1937 in what became known as the Barcelona May Days. Let me paint you a picture of how it started. On May 3rd, government forces tried to take control of the Telefon building in Barcelona's center. It had been run by anarchist workers since the war began. What seemed like a simple administrative action turned into a street battle that would change the course of the war. George Orwell was there. He had come to fight fascism but found himself watching workers who should have been allies shooting at each other. In his book Homage to Catalonia he wrote I have no particular love for the idealized worker as he appears in the bourgeoisie communist mind, but when I see an actual flesh and blood worker in conflict with his natural enemy, the policeman, I do not have to ask myself which side I am on. As we know about Orwell, he was always the master of understatement.
Speaker 1:For five days, barcelona became a battlefield of former allies. Anarchist workers fought communist-led government forces in the narrow streets of the old city. Barricades appeared at every major intersection. Friends who had fought together at Madrid now found themselves in opposite sides. A young anarchist militia member wrote in his diary this morning I saw Antonio across the barricade. Last year we shared trenches at Jarama. Today he wears a Communist Party armband and points his rifle at me. This is how revolutions die. The May Days left nearly 400 dead and 1,000 wounded, but the real casualty was the spirit of the revolutionary unity that had helped defend Madrid and other cities across Spain. The Communist Party emerged stronger, backed by Soviet weapons and advisers. The anarchist and independent Marxist Party, the POM, were marginalized. Their leaders were arrested. Their militias disbanded. Among those arrested was Andrew Nin, the POMS leader. He disappeared into a secret communist prison and he was never seen again. When asked about Nin's fate, the communist leader Palmito Toglatti reportedly said he who is not with us is against us, and who is against us does not deserve to live.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile, on the battlefields, the war continued. In March 1937, mussolini had sent 50,000 Italian troops to help Franco. Their first major action was an offensive against Madrid at Guadalajara. It was meant to be a showcase of fascist military power and it turned into something very different. Spoiler alert it didn't go well for Mussolini. The Republican forces defending Guadalajara included the Garibaldi Battalion, italian anti-fascists who had come to Spain to fight Mussolini. When the Italian fascist troops attacked, they found themselves fighting their own countrymen. The anti-fascist broadcast messages across no-man land in Italian Brothers, why do you fight for Mussolini? Come join us, and some did. A captured Italian soldier wrote we were told we were coming to fight Bolsheviks and Jews. Instead we found Italians like ourselves, speaking our dialects, singing our songs. What kind of war is this? It was the kind where the lines between friend and enemy get very, very blurry. And also I just want to make a comment about the quote when he says he came to fight Bolsheviks and Jews. It's not like that's better, but you get the point.
Speaker 1:The Republic won at Guadalajara, capturing huge quantities of Italian equipment. It should have been a turning point. But while the Republic soldiers were winning battles, its politicians were losing the war, squandering opportunity at every turn. In Valencia, where the government had relocated after leaving Madrid, the communist minister of war, juan Negrin, was consolidating power. His slogan was first win the war, then make the revolution. It sounded logical, but for many anarchists and socialists, the revolution was why they were fighting the war, because why put off until tomorrow the revolution that you can lose today? A Catalan anarchist leader captured this dilemma in a letter to his comrades. He tells us to wait for the revolution until after we defeat fascism. But if we abandon our revolution principles now to win the war, what exactly are we winning?
Speaker 1:The political purges that followed the May Days weakened the republic in crucial ways. Experienced militia officers were replaced with political loyalists. Independent worker collectives were brought under state control. The spontaneous revolutionary energy that had saved Madrid in 1936 was channeled into conventional military structures. In other words, bureaucracy came into play. Franco watched all this with satisfaction. In a conversation with his German advisors, he said time is on our side. Each day the Reds spend fighting each other is a day they cannot fight us, and Franco, as we've seen, was one. Always for the long game.
Speaker 1:The tragedy was that both sides in the Republican conflict had valid arguments. The Communists were right that a modern war required military discipline and central coordination. The anarchists were also right that betraying revolutionary principles would demoralize their supporters. But neither side could find a way to reconcile these truths by the end of 1937, the Republic had lost something crucial the belief that it was fighting for a new kind of society. As George Orwell observed when he left Spain, the war was essentially a triangular struggle. The Communists were fighting Franco, but they were also fighting the Revolution. Many who came to defend democracy ended up defending something quite different, and many who came to make a revolution ended up in unmarked graves. When I read the diaries and letters from both sides of the Republican divide, I can understand everyone's position. Each side believed that they were doing what was necessary to defeat Franco. Each side was certain the other was undermining the war effort and in fighting each other, they all but guaranteed their eventual defeat.
Speaker 1:I'm always struck by an entry in the diary of Emma Goldman. She was a famous anarchist who came to Spain to support the revolution. She wrote about visiting a collectivized factory in Barcelona just before the May days. The workers had increased production by 50% since taking over. They were making artillery shells for the front, while also implementing the eight-hour day and equal pay for women. It was everything the revolution promised Workers controlling their own lives while supporting the war effort, and proving that you can have your revolution and shoot fascists too. Two weeks later, that same factory was under government control. The workers' committee was dissolved, armed guards stood at the gates. Production actually decreased, as Goldman noted. They said they were imposing discipline to help win the war, but they were killing the very spirit that had made people willing to fight in the first place.
Speaker 1:The thing is the communists weren't wrong about everything. The reality was that enthusiastic but untrained militia units often broke under serious attack. The Republic desperately needed professional military organization to face Franco's increasingly well-equipped army. But here's where it gets complicated. Let me tell you about what happened at the Battle of Belchite in September of 1937. The Republic launched an offensive to capture the small Argonese town. They had Soviet tanks, international aircraft, professional officers On paper, everything the communists had argued for. But when the attack bogged down, it was the old anarchist militias, the ones tagged for dissolution, who finally broke through. They knew how to fight house to house. They had experience with urban combat from July in 1936. I mean, sometimes revolutions do no best. An American volunteer named Harry Fisher wrote about watching the anarchists advance. They didn't fight like a regular army, they fought like people defending their homes, because for them this wasn't just a military campaign, it was a revolution. That's what the communists never understood and ultimately what caused the Republic the war. The cost of this internal conflict went beyond military effectiveness. It broke something in the spirit of Republican Spain.
Speaker 1:I found a letter written by a young socialist named Marina Ginesta. You might know her from that famous photo where she's standing on the Barcelona hotel roof with a rifle. Her from that famous photo where she's standing on the Barcelona hotel roof with a rifle. I'll post it on social media. After the episode she wrote to a friend in late 1937. Last year we believed we were fighting for a new world. Now we're just fighting against the old one. It's not the same thing at all and it's a lot less inspiring to put on a recruitment poster. To be honest, the thing that really gets to me is how personal these conflicts had become.
Speaker 1:In researching this episode, I came across an oral history from a Barcelona tram worker. He described how his union locals split during the May days. Men who had been friends for 20 years stopped speaking to each other. They had fought together in 1936, shared food during the hard winter that followed, and now they crossed the streets to avoid each other. It was worse than fighting Franco, he said. But Franco, you knew who your enemy was. But this, this was like a poison in the blood, and like poison, it slowly killed the republic from within.
Speaker 1:The saddest part about all this infighting is that it happened just as Franco was preparing his most devastating offensive. You see, while the republic was tearing itself apart, the nationalists were becoming more unified, more organized and more determined. The nationalists were becoming more unified, more organized and more determined, almost as if having a common enemy and not fighting each other was a good strategy. Imagine that. There's a moment that I think captures this perfectly. In late 1937, a Republican officer intercepted a radio message from the nationalist lines. The officer, who had been part of the street fighting in Barcelona, wrote about what he heard. The fascists were joking about our internal conflicts. One of them said let them keep fighting each other. They're doing our work for us. I felt sick because he was right. The human cost of this division is really what haunts me.
Speaker 1:I think about people like Simone Weil, a French philosopher who came to Spain to fight with the anarchists. She wrote about watching her friends disappear one by one, and not at the front, but in the political purges. Each arrest, she wrote, kills something in those left behind First hope, then faith, finally the will to resist. And with each arrest the Republic died a little more. By the end of 1937, the Republic still controlled Madrid, still held Catalonia, still had international support from the masses, although not from the governments. But something fundamental had changed. A British journalist visiting Barcelona in December noticed the difference. In 1936, he wrote, people would greet each other with Salud, a revolutionary salutation. Now they just nodded silently and hurried past. The war would continue for another year and a half, but in many ways the Republic's faith was sealed in those bitter months of 1937. Not because they couldn't fight Franco they proved that Guadalajara and Belchite that they could still win battles but because they'd lost the unity, the passion, the belief in a common cause that had made people willing to die for the Republic in those first crucial months and because, as it turns out, you can't win a war when you're too busy fighting yourself.
Speaker 1:In the archives there are letters from an anarchist militia woman to her sister in France. There are letters from an anarchist militia woman to her sister in France. She wrote it just after the May days Last year. She says when the fascists attacked Madrid, everyone knew what we were fighting for. Now, when I look around our trenches, I see people watching each other instead of watching the enemy. How can we defeat fascism when we've lost trust in each other? That loss of trust, more than any military defeat, was what ultimately doomed the republic. Franco could lose battles, and he did, but he never lost control of his own side. He never had to worry about his forces fighting each other in the streets while his enemies advanced.
Speaker 1:What makes this all the more tragic is that many saw it coming. La Pasionaria, speaking to a workers' assembly in Valencia, warned a house divided against itself cannot stand against its enemies. But by then the divisions were too deep, the suspicions too entrenched and betrayals too bitter, and the Republic's house was not so much divided as it was demolished. At this point, as we'll see in our next episode, the Republic would continue to fight bravely the Battle of the Ebro still lay ahead, the largest, bloodiest battle of the war, but they would fight it as a conventional army largest, bloodiest battle of the war, but they would fight it as a conventional army, not as a revolutionary force. The dream of a new kind of society which had inspired so many to take up arms in 1936, which had brought the masses of the world to Spain to fight for revolution, was already dead by the end of 1937.
Speaker 1:Next time, on Double Helix, as the Republic struggles to recover from its internal wounds, franco launches his War of Annihilation. We'll witness the Battle of the Ebro, where young men from four continents fought and died along the Spanish River, and we'll see how the Republic's military professionals tried to compensate with strategy and courage for what had been lost in the revolutionary spirit Until then. Thank you for listening. We will see you soon. ©. Transcript Emily Beynon. Thank you.
