ABSTRACT
To understand Spain’s two-and-a-half year Civil War it is necessary to bear in mind that it was not a single, self-contained event. Rather, it was composed of several overlapping and interrelated conflicts that operated on various levels. First and foremost, the Civil War represented the culmination of decades of political instability and domestic unrest. The war itself pitted the Spanish left – as represented by the greater part of the organized workers’ movement, regionalists in Catalonia and the Basque country, and progressive segments of the bourgeoisie – against the forces of the right, who were led by the conservative elements of the military, the Catholic Church, and Spain’s traditional social and economic elites. The grouping together of such disparate elements on both sides inevitably produced further arenas of conflict. For example, in Republican Spain all parties were unified in their opposition to the Nationalists but were irreconcilably divided among themselves over a number of fundamental issues. Chief among these was the question of whether the massive working-class revolution that was unleashed by the July military rebellion helped or hindered the Republicans’ war effort. Political differences also existed in the Nationalist camp, though, in contrast to the Republican side, tensions aroused by factional disputes were kept under control by the military dictatorship that grew up around Francisco Franco.
