Franco rebellion in Spain. How the USSR participated in the Spanish Civil War

The rebellion against the republican government began on the evening of July 17, 1936 in Spanish Morocco. Quite quickly, other Spanish colonies also came under the control of the rebels: the Canary Islands, Spanish Sahara (now Western Sahara), Spanish Guinea.

A cloudless sky over all of Spain

On July 18, 1936, the Ceuta radio station transmitted to Spain a conditional signal phrase for the start of a nationwide uprising: "A cloudless sky over all of Spain." And after 2 days, 35 of the 50 provinces of Spain were under the control of the rebels. Soon the war began. The Spanish nationalists (namely, this is how the rebel forces called themselves) were supported in the struggle for power by the Nazis in Germany and the Nazis in Italy. The Republican government received help from the Soviet Union, Mexico and France.

Republican militia fighter Marina Ginesta. (wikipedia.org)

Women's division of the republican militia. (wikipedia.org)

The surrendered Spanish rebel is led to a military court. (wikipedia.org)

Street fighting. (wikipedia.org)

Dead horse barricades, Barcelona. (wikipedia.org)

At a meeting of the generals, Francisco Franco, one of the youngest and most ambitious generals, who also distinguished himself in the war, was elected the leader of the nationalists who led the army. Franco's army freely passed through the territory of his native country, recapturing region after region from the Republicans.

The Republic has fallen

By 1939, the Republic in Spain fell - a dictatorial regime was established in the country, and unlike the dictatorships of allied countries like Germany or Italy, it lasted a long time. Franco became the country's dictator for life.

Civil War in Spain. (historicaldis.ru)

Boy. (photochronograph.ru)

Republican militia, 1936. (photochronograph.ru)

Street protests. (photochronograph.ru)

By the beginning of the war, 80% of the army was on the side of the rebels, the fight against the rebels was led by the People's Militia - the army units that remained loyal to the government and the formations created by the parties of the Popular Front, which lacked military discipline, a strict command system, and sole leadership.

The leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, helping the rebels with weapons and volunteers, considered the Spanish war, first of all, as a testing ground for testing German weapons and training young German pilots. Benito Mussolini seriously considered the idea of ​​Spain joining the Italian kingdom.

Civil War in Spain. (lifeonphoto.com)

Since September 1936, the leadership of the USSR decides to provide military assistance to the Republicans. In mid-October, the first batches of I-15 fighters, ANT-40 bombers and T-26 tanks with Soviet crews arrive in Spain.

According to the nationalists, one of the reasons for the uprising was to protect the Catholic Church from the persecution of atheist Republicans. Someone sarcastically remarked that it is a bit strange to see Moroccan Muslims in the defenders of the Christian faith.

In total, during the civil war in Spain, about 30 thousand foreigners (mostly citizens of France, Poland, Italy, Germany, and the USA) visited the ranks of the international brigades. Nearly 5,000 of them died or went missing.

One of the commanders of the Russian detachment of Franco's army, the former white general A. V. Fok, wrote: “Those of us who will fight for national Spain, against the Third International, and also, in other words, against the Bolsheviks, will thereby fulfill their duty before white Russia.

According to some reports, 74 former Russian officers fought in the ranks of the nationalists, 34 of them died.

On March 28, the nationalists entered Madrid without a fight. On April 1, the regime of General Franco controlled the entire territory of Spain.

At the end of the war, over 600,000 people left Spain. During the three years of the civil war, the country lost about 450 thousand dead.

Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 something looks like the current war in Libya, the scale was only bigger. In Libya, it all started with a rebellion of separatists and Islamists in the east of the country, in Cyrenaica, in Spain - with a military rebellion in Spanish Morocco. In Spain, the rebellion was supported by the Third Reich, Italy, Portugal, and other Western powers - France, England, the USA, with their hostile neutrality. In Libya, the rebellion was also supported by most of the Western world.

There is only one important difference: no one officially supported Gaddafi's legitimate government, except for protests. And the Spanish government was supported by the Soviet Union.

It all started with the fact that in the parliamentary elections in Spain in February 1936, the Union of left-wing parties "People's Front" won. Manuel Azaña and Santiago Casares Quiroga became president and head of government, respectively. They made it legal for the peasants to seize land from the landowners, freed many political prisoners, and arrested several fascist leaders. Their opposition included: the Catholic Church, landowners, capitalists, fascists (in 1933, an ultra-right party, the Spanish Falange, was created in Spain). In Spanish society, a split deepened between supporters of progressive changes in society (overcoming the legacy of the Middle Ages in the form of the huge influence of the Catholic Church, monarchists and the class of landowners) and their opponents. Even in the army, a split occurred: the Republican Anti-Fascist Military Union, which supported the government, and the Spanish Military Union, which opposed the leftist government, were created. There were a number of clashes on the city streets.

As a result, military supporters of the fascist dictatorship decided to seize power in order to destroy the “Bolshevik threat”. At the head of the military conspiracy was General Emilio Mola. He was able to unite some of the military, monarchists, fascists and other enemies of the left movement. The conspirators were supported by large industrialists and landowners, they were supported by the Catholic Church.

It all started with a rebellion on July 17, 1936 in Spanish Morocco, the rebels quickly won in other colonial possessions of Spain: the Canary Islands, Spanish Sahara, Spanish Guinea. On July 18, General Gonzalo Queypo de Llano mutinied in Seville, fierce fighting in the city went on for a week, as a result, the military was able to drown the leftist resistance in blood. The loss of Seville, and then neighboring Cadiz, made it possible to create a bridgehead in southern Spain. On July 19, almost 80% of the army rebelled, they captured many important cities: Zaragoza, Toledo, Oviedo, Cordoba, Granada and others.

The scale of the rebellion came as a complete surprise to the government, they thought that it would be quickly suppressed. On July 19, Casares Quiroga resigned, and the head of the right-wing liberal Republican Union party, Diego Martinez Barrio, became the new head of government. Barrio tried to negotiate with the rebels on negotiations and the creation of a new coalition government, Mola rejected the offer, and his actions caused anger in the Popular Front. Barrio resigned the same day. The third prime minister of the day, the chemist José Giral, immediately ordered to start distributing to everyone who wanted to defend the legitimate government. This helped, in most of Spain, the rebels could not win. The government was able to retain more than 70% of Spain, the rebels were defeated in Madrid and Barcelona. The legitimate government was supported by almost all the Air Force (after the victory of the Nazis, almost all pilots would be shot) and the Navy. On ships where the sailors did not know about the rebellion and carried out the orders of the rebels, having learned about the truth, they killed or arrested the officers.

Mola, Emilio.

This made it difficult for the rebels to move troops from Morocco. As a result, the war took on a protracted and fierce character, a quick victory did not work out, it lasted until April 1939. The war claimed almost half a million lives (5% of the population), of which one in five fell victim to their political convictions, that is, was repressed. More than 600 thousand Spaniards fled the country, in many respects the intellectual elite - the creative intelligentsia, scientists. Many major cities were destroyed.

Aftermath of the bombing of Madrid, 1936.

The main reason for the defeat of the legitimate government

The world "democratic community" reacted very negatively to the victory of the left in Spain. Although these leftist parties in Spain were not all allies of Moscow, there were a lot of movements that considered the Stalinist USSR a traitor to the ideals of Lenin and Trotsky, many anarchists, Trotskyists, etc.

The legitimate government would have won if the "world community" had not simply interfered in the internal affairs of Spain. But openly on the side of the Spanish fascists, monarchists and nationalists were three powers - fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, authoritarian Portugal. England, and under her pressure, France, remained hostilely neutral, stopping the supply of weapons to the legitimate government. On August 24, all European countries announced "non-intervention".

Italian_bomber_SM-81_accompanied_by_fighters_Fiat_CR.32_bombed_Madrid,_autumn_1936_g.

Portugal helped the rebels with weapons, ammunition, finances, volunteers, the Portuguese authorities were afraid that the left forces, having won in Spain, would inspire the Portuguese to change the system.

Hitler solved several problems: testing new weapons, testing military specialists in battle, "hardening" them, creating a new regime - an ally of Berlin. The Italian leader Mussolini generally dreamed of the entry of fascist Spain into a single union state under his leadership. As a result, tens of thousands of Italians and Germans, entire military units, took part in the war against the republican government. Hitler awarded 26,000 men for Spain. This is not counting the help with weapons, ammunition, etc. The Italian Navy and Air Force participated in the battles, although Hitler and Mussolini officially supported the idea of ​​"non-intervention". Paris and London turned a blind eye to this: the fascists are better in power than the left.

Why did the USSR come to the aid of the legitimate government?

One should not think that Moscow supported the leftist government of Spain because of the desire to establish socialism and the ideals of the "world revolution" throughout the world. There were pragmatists in Moscow, and they were interested in purely rational things.

Testing new technology in combat. At least 300 I-16 fighters fought for the legitimate government. Other weapons were also supplied. In total, up to 1,000 aircraft and tanks, 1,500 guns, 20,000 machine guns, and half a million rifles were delivered.

Training of combat personnel in real combat conditions. So, Gritsevets Sergey Ivanovich was the commander of a fighter aviation squadron in the ranks of Republican Spain; became the first twice Hero of the Soviet Union. For 116 days of the "Spanish trip" he participated in 57 air battles, on some days he made 5-7 sorties. He shot down 30 enemy aircraft personally and 7 as part of a group. In Spain, our pilots, tankers, commanders and other military specialists received unique experience that helped us survive the Great Patriotic War. In total, about 3 thousand of our military specialists fought in Spain, Moscow did not cross the border, did not get involved in the war “with its head”. About 200 people died in the fighting.

Gritsevets Sergey Ivanovich.

Soviet ship with military materials in the port of Alicante.

Moscow, thus, kept the beginning of the "Great War" away from its borders. It was impossible to give Spain to the Nazis and the Nazis without a fight; if not for the long civil war that bled the country dry, it is quite possible that the Spanish fascists would have put up in 1941 to help Hitler not one division - the Blue Division, but much more.

Although, of course, we must remember that only the USSR provided purely humanitarian, friendly assistance: Soviet citizens were truly imbued with the tragedy of the Spaniards. Soviet people collected money, they sent food and medicine to Spain. In 1937, the USSR accepted Spanish children, and the state built 15 orphanages for them.

Soldiers of the Republican Guard. 1937

Sources:
Danilov S. Yu. Civil War in Spain (1936-1939). M., 2004.
Meshcheryakov M.T. USSR and the Spanish Civil War // Patriotic. - M., 1993. - N 3.
Chronology of the Spanish Civil War: hrono.ru/sobyt/1900war/span1936.php
Hugh Thomas. Civil War in Spain. 1931-1939 M., 2003.

Chapter 9 Battle of Madrid

October - December 1936

Having strengthened his personal power, Franco reorganized the armed forces of the rebels. They were divided into the Army of the North, led by Mola (consisting of the troops of the former "Director" supplemented by the bulk of the African Army) and the Army of the South, commanded by Queipo de Llano (second-rate units and some units of the African Army).

On September 28, the Generalissimo announced the start of an offensive against Madrid. It was about 70 kilometers to the capital and Franco planned to take the city by October 12, in order to properly celebrate Race Day, especially since 444 years have passed since the discovery of America by Columbus in 1936 - a figure that seemed to promise success.

The supreme command of the troops advancing on Madrid was entrusted to Mola not without secret gloating. Franco assumed that an easy walk would not work and if the operation failed, the "Director" would become a "scapegoat".

The shock group (the one that passed through Andalusia like a knife through butter) instead of Yagüe was commanded by General Enrique Varela (1891-1951). At 18, Varela was already fighting in Morocco. In 1920 and 1921, he received two honorary crosses of San Fernando for bravery at once (a unique case for the Spanish army, since the award was comparable in honor to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union). A staunch monarchist, Varela did not accept the republic and resigned, but already in 1932 he became involved in the Sanjurjo rebellion, for which he was imprisoned until February 1933. Varela from the very beginning participated in the preparation of the rebellion and he was given the task of capturing the important port of Cadiz, which he successfully coped with. Then the troops under his command "pacified" Andalusia, where they were long remembered for their atrocities.

The plan for the operation to capture Madrid was very unpretentious, since the rebels did not expect to meet serious resistance on the outskirts of the capital. Varela's troops were supposed to move towards the Spanish capital from the south (from Toledo) and the west, gradually narrowing the front in order to release the strike force to take the city itself.

The main operational direction was considered to be the south, that is, the African army had to simply continue its victorious march from Toledo to the north. For this, four columns were formed, each of which consisted of two "camps" of Moroccans (each "camps" numbered 450 people), one "bandera" of the Foreign Legion (600 people), one or two batteries of artillery of various calibers (from light 45 mm guns up to 150 mm howitzers), communications units, sappers and medical service. In total, the strike force of Varela had about 10 thousand selected fighters, of which two thousand moved in the forefront.

More than 50 German and Italian aircraft covered the columns from the air, and Moroccan cavalry marched on the flanks. A novelty, compared with August, was the appearance of the Italian fiat ansaldo light tanks, from which mixed Italo-Spanish mechanized units were created. Vehicle-mounted German anti-aircraft guns escorted each column, although there was little need for this. By the time the general offensive of the rebels on Madrid began, the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force of the Republic, Hidalgo de Cisneros, reported to Largo Caballero that ... one (!) Aircraft remained under his command.

On October 2, the brutal bombardment of Madrid heralded the offensive of the "Nationalists". On October 6, leaflets rained down on the city from rebel aircraft, ordering residents not to leave their homes until General Franco's victorious troops entered the capital. However, for the first ten days the offensive was not very fast, and the rebels advanced an average of 2 kilometers per day.

Madrid was defended by about 20,000 militia fighters (there were 25,000 people in Mola's group), who were armed mainly with small arms of various brands and modifications. So rifles were caliber from 6.5 to 8 mm, machine guns were five different calibers, mortars - three, guns - eight. In the militia columns of 1000 people, there were no more than 600 people, and sometimes 40. On October 30, Largo Caballero announced the call for two contingents of conscripts who had already served in the army in 1932 and 1933. The Ministry of Finance was instructed to urgently recruit an additional 8,000 carabinieri (they were subordinate to the Ministry of Finance). Later, two more contingents of reserve soldiers (1934 and 1935 of service) were mobilized, which already looked like an act of desperation. The greeting of the Popular Front was introduced in the army - a clenched fist raised up.

But besides rifles (for which there was practically no ammunition) and fists, the Republicans had practically nothing to oppose to the advancing enemy: there were no tanks, no planes, no anti-aircraft guns.

Therefore, the October battles of 1936 were somewhat similar to the catastrophe that befell the Soviet Union in June-July 1941. The policemen fought bravely. But as soon as the Francoists ran into the slightest resistance, they called in the air force, which, as a rule, dispersed the Republicans. If that weren't enough (which rarely happened in October), Italian tanks went into battle, terrifying yesterday's bakers, hairdressers, shepherds, and elevator operators. Like the Soviet soldiers in the summer of 1941, the Republicans could only threaten with their fists the German and Italian planes that showered them with fragmentation bombs from the air.

On October 15, Varela occupied the town of Chapineria (45 km west of the capital), and the column under the command of Barron broke through the front of the Republicans in the Toledo direction and calmly rolled along the highway to Madrid, reaching Illescas on October 17 (37 kilometers south of Madrid).

The government threw on the southern approaches to Madrid any combat-ready unit that it could find. But the militia columns were brought into battle in parts and, as a rule, were destroyed by the rebel aircraft even as they advanced to the front. As in August, the Republicans defended the roads, not caring about the flanks and not building any fortifications. As soon as the Moroccan cavalry began their rounds, the militiamen retreated in disarray, and they were mowed down like grass by the machine guns of the rebels mounted on vehicles.

After the capture of Illescas, a panic began in the government of Caballero (exactly the same day in 5 years, the same thing will happen in Moscow). The Deputy Minister of War and favorite of Caballero, Colonel Asensio, already wanted to order the cleansing of the capital, but the Communists prevented this capitulation step.

On October 19, Franco informed his troops about the beginning of the final phase of the operation to take Madrid. The order ordered "to concentrate on the fronts of Madrid the maximum number of combat capabilities." Varela's troops achieved their original goal of narrowing the front as much as possible and were reorganized. They now had 8 columns (the 9th was added in November) and a separate column of Colonel Monasterio's cavalry. There were 5 columns in the front line. A reserve was formed, including artillery. The first 9 German tanks Pz 1A (or T-1) arrived near Madrid. The tank weighed 5.5 tons, had armor from 5.5 to 12 mm and was armed with two 7.92 mm machine guns. During the war, the rebels received 148 T-1s, worth 22.5 million pesetas. The Francoists called the German tank “negrillo” (that is, “black”, referring to its dark gray color).

But while the main striking force of the rebels were light Italian tanks (rather tankettes) CV 3/35 "Fiat Ansaldo" (or L 3), the first 5 of which arrived in Spain on August 14, 1936 (in total, Franco received 157 such vehicles during the war) . The prototype of the tankette was the British Cardin Lloyd Mark IV light tank. L 3 had only bulletproof armor (13.5 mm in front and 8.5 mm on the sides). The crew consisted of a driver and commander-gunner, who served two 8 mm machine guns with 3,000 rounds of ammunition. A flamethrower version of the tankette was also delivered to Spain.

The first batch of Italian tanks was used in the north in the capture of San Sebastian. On October 29, 1936, another 10 vehicles arrived at the northern port of Vigo (3 of which were in the flamethrower version). In October, all 15 tanks were concentrated near Madrid. The tank was nicknamed the "sardine can" for its small height (1.28 meters). The main advantage of the Fiat was its high speed (40 km / h), which was complemented by the Republicans' lack of anti-tank artillery.

On October 21, the general attack of the rebels on Madrid began. Republican lines were broken through by Italian tanks and the "nationalists" burst on their shoulders into the important strategic point of Navalcarnero (6 Italian tankers were injured). On October 23, as part of the Asensio column (the namesake of the Republican colonel), Italian tanks took the cities of Sesenya, Esquivias and Borox on the near southern approaches to the capital. The offensive proceeded without much loss, and the Italians did not even imagine that after 6 days they would face a strong, superior enemy in technology and desire to defeat them.

Here we should make a small digression. By the beginning of the civil war, the only type of tank in the Spanish army was the French Renault FT 17 World War I car (this tank was familiar to our Red Army soldiers during the civil war and the first Soviet tank, Comrade Lenin, was created on its basis).

For its time, Renault was very good and had such a technical novelty as a rotating turret. The crew consisted of two people. The tank weighed 6.7 tons and was very slow (8 km/h). But he was armed with a 37 mm cannon with 45 rounds of ammunition. Renault was the most common tank in Europe in the 1920s and early 1930s, but by 1936 it was, of course, very outdated.

By July 1936, the Spanish army had two regiments of Renault tanks (in Madrid and Zaragoza), one of which went to the rebels and the Republicans. Republican "Reno" participated in the assault on the Madrid barracks of La Montagna and tried to stop the advance of the African army from Madrid. On September 5, two tanks were lost in fruitless counterattacks near Talavera. The three remaining supported the militia, who tried to return Makeda. On August 9, 1936, just before the closure of the French border, it was possible to buy and bring 6 Renault tanks to the northern part of the republic (three of them were armed with cannons, and the other three with machine guns). Having learned about the treacherous "non-intervention" of France, the republic, through the mediation of Uruguay, agreed to purchase 64 Renault tanks in Poland (moreover, the Poles broke a fabulous price, but then Spain had no choice), but the first 16 vehicles arrived in Mediterranean ports only in November 1936 year (the rest of the tanks and 20,000 shells arrived in the northern part of the republic in March 1937).

So, by the end of October, the republic had three slow-moving tanks and one fighter.

And suddenly the situation changed dramatically. The Soviet Union came to the aid of Spain at the most difficult time for the republic.

Just before his overthrow from the post of Prime Minister of the Spanish Republic in 1933, Azanha managed to establish diplomatic relations with the USSR. The Soviet government appointed A.V. Lunacharsky. It was a brilliant choice, since Lunacharsky was a deep and witty intellectual who would undoubtedly have established excellent relations with the elite of the republic, consisting of professors and writers. But the right-wing government of Lerrus, which came to power, froze the process of establishing diplomatic relations with the "Bolsheviks". Lunacharsky died in 1933. Before the start of the rebellion, the Soviet ambassador in Madrid did not appear.

As noted above, the Soviet Union joined the “non-intervention” regime, pledging in a note dated August 23, 1936, to prohibit the direct or indirect export and re-export to Spain of “any weapons, ammunition and military materials, as well as any aircraft, both assembled and and in disassembled form and all kinds of warships.

At the end of August, the first Soviet ambassador, Marcel Rosenberg (1896–1938), arrived in Madrid. A close associate of Litvinov, Rosenberg was the first permanent representative of the USSR in the League of Nations. He played a major role in the preparation of the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance, signed in May 1935, directed against the aggressive aspirations of Germany. Even more important for work in Spain was the fact that in the 1920s Rosenberg was in charge of the so-called. an auxiliary bureau of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, which analyzed the secret reports of the GPU and military intelligence received by the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. Finally, Rosenberg had a solid weight in the Soviet hierarchy thanks to his marriage to the daughter of the famous old Bolshevik Yemelyan Yaroslavsky.

An even more famous Soviet statesman was the Consul General of the USSR V.A., who arrived in Barcelona in August 1936. Antonov-Ovseenko. The hero of the revolution in Petrograd in 1917 and one of the founders of the Red Army, Catalonia met with mass demonstrations, flowers and slogans "Viva Rusia!" ("Long live Russia!").

The warm attitude of the Spaniards to the Soviet Union and to the Soviet representatives in Spain was understandable, since immediately after the news of the rebellion in the USSR mass rallies of solidarity with Spain were held, in which hundreds of thousands of people took part. Only in Moscow on August 3, 1936, 120 thousand protesters gathered, who decided to start raising funds to help the fighting republic. Moreover, the Soviet trade unions decided to hold a rally on the same day and, nevertheless, crowds of people who wanted to take part in it blocked the entire city center on this Spanish hot day.

At the initiative of the workers of the Moscow Trekhgornaya Manufactory, in early September 1936, a fundraising began to provide food assistance to the women and children of Spain. In a few days, 14 million rubles were received. By the end of October 1936, 1 thousand tons of butter, 4200 tons of sugar, 4130 tons of wheat, 3500 tons of flour, 2 million cans of canned food, 10 thousand sets of clothes were sent to Spain for 47 million rubles. Spanish children fell in love with condensed milk and eggplant caviar from distant Russia. Women proudly showed Soviet products to their neighbors. In total, during the civil war, Soviet people collected 274 million rubles for the Spanish aid fund.

By the end of November 1938, there were 2,843 Spanish children in the USSR, who were surrounded by such genuine hospitality that many children thought they had been mistaken for someone else. When by the end of 1938 a real famine began in Republican Spain, the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions decided to immediately send 300,000 poods of wheat, 100,000 cans of canned milk and meat, 1,000 poods of butter, 3,000 poods of sugar.

During the war, the Spanish Republic purchased fuel, raw materials and industrial products from the USSR. In 1936, 194.7 thousand tons of cargo were delivered to Spain in the amount of 23.8 million rubles, in 1937 - 520 and 81, respectively, in 1938 - 698 and 110, at the beginning of 1939 - 6.8 and 1.6 .

But in the summer and early autumn of 1936, the Spanish Republic first of all needed weapons.

Already on July 25, 1936, Prime Minister José Giral sent a letter to the Soviet plenipotentiary in France, asking him to supply weapons and ammunition. In early August, the Spanish ambassador in Paris, a well-known figure in the PSOE, Fernando de los Rios, told the USSR plenipotentiary that he was ready to immediately leave for Moscow to sign all the necessary arms supply agreements.

On August 23, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, Litvinov, informed the Soviet Plenipotentiary in Spain, Rosenberg, that the Soviet government had decided to refrain from selling weapons to Spain, since the goods could be intercepted on the way, and besides, the USSR was bound by an agreement on "non-intervention". However, Stalin, apparently under the influence of the Comintern, at the end of August decided to provide military assistance to the republic.

Already at the end of August 1936, the first Soviet military instructors and pilots arrived in Spain. They not only prepared Spanish airfields to receive aircraft from the USSR, but also took part in hostilities. Risking their lives at low altitudes, without fighter cover, Soviet pilots on antediluvian aircraft attacked enemy positions in order to prove to the Spanish comrades the advantages of this type of hostilities. It seemed strange to the regular officers-pilots of the Spanish army that Soviet aviators were on an equal footing with their Spanish flight technicians and even helped them hang heavy bombs on planes. In the Spanish army, caste differences were very great.

In September 1936, several Soviet ships delivered food and medicine to Spanish ports.

Finally, on the proposal of the People's Commissariat of Defense, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided on September 29, 1936 to conduct Operation X - this was the name given to the provision of military assistance to Spain. The ships that transported weapons to the republic were called "igreks". The main condition for the operation was its maximum secrecy, and therefore all actions were coordinated by the Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army.

And it was clearly unnecessary. Agents of Canaris in the Spanish ports were on the alert. On September 23, 1936, the German charge d'affaires in Republican Spain, who was in the Mediterranean port of Alicante, reported that "a huge amount of war material" was arriving in the eastern Spanish harbors, which were immediately sent to Madrid. The German installed aircraft, anti-aircraft guns, aircraft engines and machine guns. According to him, tanks were also expected. On the contrary, on September 28, 1936, the German embassy in Moscow wrote to Berlin that so far there were no confirmed cases of violation of the embargo on arms sales to Spain by the USSR. But the embassy did not rule out that the Soviet ship Neva, which arrived in Alicante on September 25, 1936, had on board not only food officially declared as cargo. A German diplomat in Alicante followed the unloading of the Neva and, according to him, in 1360 boxes marked "canned fish" were actually rifles, and in 4000 boxes of meat - cartridges.

But the Germans deliberately exaggerated to justify their own military intervention in favor of the rebels. In August 1936, Hitler and Goebbels gave secret instructions to the leading German media to publish on the front pages and under yard-long headlines materials about the threat of Soviet Bolshevism to Europe in general, and Spain in particular. Waving the bogey of the Soviet threat, the Germans introduced a two-year military service, which doubled the strength of the Wehrmacht.

In fact, the first Soviet ship to deliver weapons to Spain was the Komnechin, which arrived from Feodosia on October 4, 1936 in Cartagena. On board were 6 English-made howitzers and 6,000 shells for them, 240 German grenade launchers and 100,000 grenades for them, as well as 20,350 rifles and 16.5 million rounds of ammunition. And yet, in October 1936, only tanks and planes could save the republic.

As early as September 10, 1936, 33 Soviet pilots and equipment who arrived in Spain began to prepare airfields in Carmoli and Los Alcazares to receive aircraft from the USSR. On October 13, 18 single-seat I-15 fighters were delivered from Odessa (Soviet pilots called these planes “seagulls”, and the Republicans called them “chatos”, that is, “snub-nosed”; Francoists called the plane simply “curtiss” for its resemblance to the American fighter of the same name) . Three days later, another 12 fighters were reloaded on the high seas from a Soviet ship to a Spanish ship and delivered to the republic. The I-15 biplane was designed by the talented Soviet aircraft designer Nikolai Nikolaevich Polikarpov and made its first flight in October 1933. The maximum speed of the fighter was 360 km per hour. The I-15 was easy to operate and very maneuverable: it made a 360-degree turn in just 8 seconds. Like the Italian Fiat, the Polikarpov fighter was a record holder: in November 1935, it set an absolute world altitude record - 14,575 meters.

And, finally, on October 14, 1936, the Komsomolets steamer arrived in Cartagena, delivering 50 T-26 tanks, which became the best tanks of the Spanish Civil War.

The T-26 was built in the USSR starting in 1931, based on the English Vickers-Armstrong tank, and its first models had two turrets, and from 1933 the tanks became single-turret. A modification of the T-26 V1 was delivered to Spain with a 45 mm cannon and a 7.62 mm machine gun coaxial with it (some tanks had another machine gun). The armor was 15 mm thick and the 8-cylinder engine made it possible to reach highway speeds of up to 30 km/h. The tank was light (10 tons) and had a crew of three (in addition to the gunner and the driver, there was also a loader). Some tanks were equipped with radio communications and had 60 rounds of ammunition (without radio - 100 rounds). The price of each tank was determined at 248,000 pesetas without radio communications and 262,000 pesetas with radio communications.

Soviet tanks were unloaded with their engines and crews running inside, as they feared that the rebel agents would bring aircraft. The brigade commander Semyon Krivoshein commanded the detachment, his deputy was Captain Paul Matisovich Arman (1903–1943), a Latvian by nationality (real name and surname Paul Tyltyn, combat pseudonym in Spain “Captain Greyse”). Tyltyn worked in the Latvian communist underground from October 1920, and his two cousins ​​died in the struggle to establish Soviet power in Latvia. In 1925, Paul, fleeing the persecution of the Latvian police, emigrated to France, and a year later moved to the USSR, where an old Bolshevik, and at that time the head of Soviet military intelligence, Yan Karlovich Berzin, sent his countryman to the Red Army. Paul served in the 5th motorized mechanized brigade stationed in the Belarusian city of Borisov. His elder brother Alfred commanded the brigade. In the autumn of 1936, Tyltyn and Berzin met on Spanish soil: Berzin (real name and surname Peteris Kyuzis, pseudonym in Spain "General Grishin", in correspondence with Moscow - "Old Man") became the first chief military adviser of the USSR in Spain.

30 kilometers from the city of Murcia, in the resort town of Archena, among olive and orange groves, a training base for Spanish tank crews was organized, since the participation of Soviet tankers in hostilities was initially assumed only in exceptional cases.

However, the situation near Madrid was already simply critical, so a company of T-26 tanks, consisting of 15 vehicles with mixed crews, was transferred to the front in a fire order. The transfer took place on the personal instructions of the Soviet military attache V. E. Gorev by rail. The crews consisted of 34 Soviet tankers and 11 Spaniards. On October 27, 1936, Arman's tank company was near Madrid.

From the beginning of October 1936, the Soviet Union warned the London Committee on "non-intervention" that its activity, or rather inaction, against the backdrop of almost open German-Italian intervention, was turning into a farce. On October 7, Lord Plymouth received a Soviet note, which listed the facts of Portugal's violation of the "non-intervention" regime. The note contained a clear warning that if the violations did not stop, the Soviet government would "consider itself free from the obligations arising from the agreement." But nothing changed, and on October 12, the USSR proposed to put the Portuguese ports under the control of the British and French navies. Lord Plymouth, in response, only considered it necessary to request the opinion of Portugal, which, however, was already clear.

Then the USSR decided to state its position not in the language of notes, but through the mouth of I.V. Stalin. On October 16, 1936, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks sent a letter to the leader of the Spanish Communist Party, José Diaz, which stated: “The working people of the Soviet Union are only doing their duty, providing all possible assistance to the revolutionary masses of Spain. They realize that the liberation of Spain from the yoke of the fascist reactionaries is not a private affair of the Spaniards, but the common cause of all advanced and progressive mankind. Brotherly hello. The letter was immediately published on the front pages of all Spanish newspapers and caused real rejoicing among the people. The people's militia fighters realized that they were not alone and that help was close at hand.

Now it became clear to the rest of the world that the USSR picked up the glove thrown by Italy and Germany. On October 23, 1936, Moscow gave an assessment to "non-intervention". The Soviet plenipotentiary in London, I. M. Maisky, handed over a letter to Lord Plymouth, the harshness of which made the battered Englishman dumbfounded. “The agreement (on “non-intervention”) has turned into a torn piece of paper ... Not wanting to remain in the position of people who unwittingly contribute to an unjust cause, the government of the Soviet Union sees only one way out of this situation: to return the Spanish government the right and opportunity to purchase weapons outside of Spain ... The Soviet government does not may consider itself bound by the Non-Intervention Agreement to a greater extent than any of the other parties to this Agreement." The Soviet Union seriously intended to withdraw from the Committee on Non-Intervention, but feared that without its participation this body would turn into an instrument to strangle the Spanish Republic. In addition, the French asked very much not to leave the Committee, appealing to the Franco-Soviet Union Treaty of 1935. Litvinov noted that if there were a guarantee that with the departure of the USSR the Committee on Non-Intervention would cease to exist, Moscow would not hesitate for a minute.

So, on the fields of Spain, the USSR, Germany and Italy were preparing for a fight, thereby anticipating events that would shock the whole world in three years.

Meanwhile, the collapse of the republican front near Madrid assumed alarming proportions. On October 24, Largo Caballero removed his favorite Colonel Asensio from the post of commander of the Central Front, transferring him with a promotion to the post of deputy minister of war. The place of Asensio, behind which the reputation of the “organizer of defeats” was firmly established among the people (romantic rumor explained Asensio’s failures by his problems with his beloved woman), was taken by General Pozas, and General Miaja became directly responsible for the defense of the capital. After the failure at Cordoba in August, he was transferred to the post of military governor of Valencia in the rear, where he had nothing to command. And when he was suddenly sent to Madrid, Miaha realized that they just wanted to make a “scapegoat” out of him for the inevitable surrender of the capital. The general was underestimated by everyone, including Franco, who considered Miaha mediocre and careless. Indeed, the overweight and short-sighted general did not look like a brave hero. But as it turned out, he had no ambition, and he was ready to fight to the end.

Largo Caballero urgently requested Russian tanks near Madrid. Having personally inspected Arman's company, the prime minister perked up and ordered an immediate counteroffensive. It was decided to hit the right, the most poorly defended flank of the Varela strike force south of Madrid, in order to cut it off from Toledo. The 1st mixed brigade of the regular People's Army under the command of Lister (it included four battalions of the Fifth Regiment), supported by Armand's tanks, aviation and five artillery batteries, was supposed to strike from east to west and occupy the settlements of Grignon, Sesegna and Torrejon de Calzada .

The day before, the order of Largo Caballero was transmitted to the troops on the radio in plain text: “...Listen to me, comrades! Tomorrow, October 29, at dawn, our artillery and armored trains will open fire on the enemy. Our aviation will enter the battle, bombarding the enemy with bombs and pouring machine-gun fire over him. As soon as our planes take off, our tanks will hit the most vulnerable points in the enemy's defenses and sow panic in his ranks ... Now we have tanks and planes. Forward, fighting friends, heroic sons of the working people! Victory will be ours!"

Then Largo Caballero was scolded for a long time (and is scolded to this day) that he revealed to the enemy the plan of the counteroffensive and thereby deprived the Republicans of the element of surprise. But the prime minister did not name the exact place of the blow, and his order was calculated to raise the morale of the very drooping Republicans. In addition, the Francoists, accustomed to the loud statements of Caballero, considered the order to counteroffensive as another bravado.

At dawn on October 29, at about 6:30 am, Arman's tanks went on the offensive against the town of Sesenya. Behind them were more than 12 thousand of Lister's fighters and the columns of Lieutenant Colonel Burillo and Major Uribarri supporting him from the flank. And then a strange thing happened: either the infantry of the Republicans fell behind, or began to advance on a completely different city - Torrejon de Calzada, but only in Sesenya Armand's tanks, without meeting resistance, entered alone. On the main square of Sesenyi, infantrymen and artillerymen of the rebels, who mistook Soviet tanks for Italian ones, rested. The day before, Republican intelligence reported that Seseña was not occupied by enemy troops. Therefore, Armand thought that he had met with his own. He leaned out of the hatch of the lead vehicle and greeted the officer who came out to meet him with a republican greeting, asking in French to remove the cannon that was hindering the movement from the road. The officer, unable to hear the words because of the running engines, asked him with a smile: "Italian?" At this time, Armand noticed a column of Moroccans emerging from a side alley. The hatch immediately slammed shut and the carnage began. With difficulty fitting in the narrow streets of Sesenya, the tanks began to crush the enemy with their caterpillars and shoot the fleeing ones with cannons and machine guns. At this time, a detachment of Moroccan cavalry appeared from a side street, which in a few minutes was turned into a bloody mess. However, the Moroccans and legionnaires quickly came to their senses and began to shoot at the tanks with rifles, which was a futile exercise. They did not take the T-26 and hand grenades. But then the Moroccans began to quickly fill the bottles with gasoline and throw them into the tanks. This was the first time Molotov cocktails were used as an anti-tank weapon (in 1941 the whole world would call this weapon a “Molotov cocktail”). The rebels still managed to knock out one tank, but the rest moved further west towards Esquivias. And at this time from the east, on the outskirts of Sesenye, the belated republican units finally appeared, met with dense fire from the alarmed rebels. And after the German-Italian aviation processed the republican infantry, the offensive finally died out and the Listerites began to retreat to their original positions.

And Armand's tanks on the way to Esquivias defeated the motorized column of the Francoists and broke into the town occupied by the enemy cavalry, where the pogrom of Sesenyi was repeated. But at the other end of the Esquivias, the T-26s unexpectedly stumbled upon Italian L 3 tanks, which were accompanied by a battery of 65 mm guns. The Italians quickly deployed their guns in battle formation, and the first clash of Soviet troops with the troops of one of the fascist powers took place. The battery was crushed, but at the same time one Soviet tank was destroyed, and another was hit. But the T-26 also smashed one Fiat with an aimed hit, and the other, like a chip, dropped the tank of Lieutenant Semyon Kuzmich Osadchy with caterpillars into a ditch. It was the first tank ram in history (later, in the battles for Madrid, S.K. Osadchy was seriously wounded and died in the hospital; he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union). After that, the T-26, having passed 20 kilometers behind enemy lines, took a return course towards Sesenya. A T-26 remained in Esquivias with a damaged right track. But the tankers did not give up. They broke into one of the courtyards and, under the cover of a stone wall, began to fire at the rebels. An approaching Italian flamethrower "Fiat" was destroyed by a direct hit. A battery of 75 mm guns came to the aid of the Francoists and, having settled in a dead corner, began to fire at a Soviet tank, which fell silent only after half an hour.

The remaining tanks of Arman's group, having rested a little, broke through Sesenya to their positions. In total, more than an infantry battalion, two squadrons of cavalry, 2 Italian tanks, 30 trucks and 10 75-mm guns were destroyed in this raid. Own losses amounted to 3 tanks and 9 dead (6 Soviet and 3 Spanish tankers), 6 people were injured.

On the whole, the Republican counter-offensive was thought to have failed, as it failed to delay the rebels' advance towards Madrid. The reason was the unsatisfactory interaction of tanks with infantry, or rather the complete absence of such. One of the advisers later said angrily that it would be ideal for the Spaniards if they invented a huge tank that would fit the entire Red Army. This tank would iron all of Spain, and the Republicans would run after him and shout: "Hurrah!" But, on the other hand, it must be admitted that most of the fighters of the Republican army have never seen tanks and were not trained to interact with them.

In addition to the appearance of Soviet tanks on the ground, the rebels and interventionists were in for an equally unpleasant surprise in the air. On October 28, 1936, unknown bombers made an unexpected raid on the Seville airfield of Tablada, which struck just at the time when the Italians were finishing training for the combat use of a new squadron of Fiat fighters. "Crickets" tried to attack the enemy, but unknown planes at high speed calmly went home. It was the debut in Spain of the latest Soviet SB bombers (i.e., "high-speed bomber"; Soviet pilots called the plane respectfully - "Sofya Borisovna", and the Spaniards called the SB "katyushki" in honor of a Russian girl, the heroine of one of the then popular operettas in Spain ). The SB made its first flight in October 1933. He could develop a phenomenal speed for those times - 430 km per hour, which made it possible to bombard without escort fighters. The flight altitude was also solid - 9400 meters, which was also inaccessible to the "Fiats" and "Heinkels" of the enemy. However, the Katyushka was very delicate and capricious in operation (which is not surprising, since the aircraft was brand new), and also carried only 600 kg of bomb load.

Stalin decided to send the Security Council to Spain on September 26, 1936. By October 6, 30 aircraft were already packed in boxes, and on October 15 they were already unloaded in the Spanish port of Cartagena. The assembly of the aircraft took place under the bombing of the Junkers, which were able to damage two SBs (they had to be written off for spare parts).

The Italians did not know that the first flight of the SB to Tablada was not very successful. Eight planes (there were Russians and Spaniards in the crews, and for all of them the plane was a novelty) came across dense anti-aircraft fire and one SB was damaged. He could no longer develop maximum speed and, not wanting to delay his comrades (the rest of the planes were moving at low speed, covering the "wounded" with their machine guns), making a farewell sign, rushed to the ground. Three more planes made an emergency landing, not reaching the airfield. Moreover, one of our pilots was almost lynched by mistake by peasants who arrived in time, accustomed to seeing only enemy planes in the sky.

Yes, the first pancake was lumpy. But already on November 1, the Security Service bombed 6 Italian fighters at the Gamonal airfield, and the stubborn bombers not only met with fire the Fiats that had flown to intercept, but even began to pursue them. In total, by November 5, the "katyushki" chalked up 37 destroyed enemy aircraft. The German and Italian fighters, desperate to catch up with the Security Council, changed tactics. They guarded the planes at high altitude above the airfields and swooped down on them from above, gaining speed. On November 2, the first SB was shot down over Talavera, and its crew under the command of P.P. Petrov died.

In total, during the Spanish Civil War, the Security Council made 5,564 sorties. Of the 92 SBs sent to Spain, 75 were lost, including 40 shot down by fighters, 25 from anti-aircraft fire and 10 as a result of accidents.

The appearance of the Security Council on the front made a great (and, of course, different) impression on both sides of the conflict. The Republicans perked up, and on October 30, English newspapers reported on an unprecedented "huge" bomber of government troops. The Francoists at first thought they had collided with an American Martin 139 aircraft. To reinforce them in this delusion, the republican press published a photograph of a real "Martin" with identification marks of the Republican Air Force.

Franco quickly learned about the arrival of Soviet tanks and aircraft in Spain. Moreover, Soviet technology immediately introduced a turning point in the struggle at the fronts. During the unloading of the T-26 in Cartagena, the German destroyer "Lux" ("Lynx") was in the roadstead of this port, which immediately transmitted information to the flagship of the German squadron off the coast of Spain, the "pocket" battleship "Admiral Scheer". A radiogram sent by Scheer to Berlin was intercepted by the Italian cruiser Cuarto, which was stationed in the port of Alicante, and the Soviet tanks became known in Rome.

The agents of Canaris did not doze off either. On October 29, a message was received in Berlin about the arrival of "20 Russian aircraft, single-seat fighters and bombers in Cartagena, accompanied by mechanics." The German consul general in Odessa, who, judging by his reports, had a good agent in the port, very closely followed all the ships heading for Spain.

Franco summoned the military representative of Italy, Lieutenant Colonel Faldella, to his headquarters and solemnly announced that now he was opposed not only by "red Spain", but also by Russia. Therefore, the help of Berlin and Rome is urgently needed, namely 2 torpedo boats, 2 submarines (so as not to let Soviet ships into Spain), as well as anti-tank guns and fighters.

Canaris began to persuade the top military leadership of Germany to allow sending to Spain not only pilots and technicians (there were more than 500 of them on Franco's side in early autumn), but also combat units. The chief of the German General Staff, Beck, became stubborn, believing that sending troops to Spain would frustrate Germany's own rearmament program. The Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, Colonel-General von Fritsch, generally offered to send Russian White emigrants to help Franco (a small part of them actually fought on the side of the rebels, more on that below). When Fritsch began to talk about the difficulties with transportation, he put a monocle in his eye and, looking at a map of Spain, muttered: “A strange country, it doesn’t even have railways!”

On October 20, 1936, Italian Foreign Minister Ciano arrived in Berlin, who began to persuade the German partners to actively help Franco. At a meeting with Hitler, Ciano first heard from the Fuhrer words about the German-Italian bloc. Flattered, Mussolini proclaimed at a mass rally in Milan on November 1, 1936, the creation of the Berlin-Rome Axis. The battle for Madrid thus led to the formation of an aggressive alliance of fascist states, the fruits of which were soon to be felt by England and France, who missed the chance to stop the aggressors in Spain.

At the end of October, Canaris, equipped with a false Argentine passport in the name of Mr. Guillermo, went to Franco's headquarters to agree on the main parameters for the participation of regular German troops in the war on the side of the rebels. The two old friends hugged in Franco's office in Salamanca just on October 29, when the generalissimo learned of the first battle involving Soviet tanks. Therefore, suppressing pride, he agreed to all the conditions of the Germans, which, at times, were simply humiliating. The German units in Spain were to be subordinated exclusively to their own command and constitute a separate military unit. The Spaniards must provide ground protection for all air bases. The use of German aviation should take place in closer cooperation with infantry units. Franco was made clear that Berlin expected more "active and systematic action" from him. Franco had to agree to all conditions, and on November 6–7, 1936, the German Condor Legion arrived in Cadiz, consisting of 6,500 people under the command of Lieutenant General Hugo von Sperrle of the Luftwaffe (Chief of Staff - Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, who arrived in Spain a little earlier) . The Condor Legion consisted of 4 Junkers squadrons (10 Yu-52s each), united in the K / 88 battle group, 4 Heinkel 51 attack fighter squadrons (also 12 aircraft each; name - Fighter Group J/88), one squadron of naval aviation (aircraft "Heinkel 59" and "Heinkel 60") and one squadron of reconnaissance and communications aircraft ("Heinkel 46"). In addition to supporting the infantry, the aircraft of the Condor Legion were tasked with bombing Mediterranean ports to disrupt the supply of Soviet weapons to the Republicans.

In addition to aircraft, the Condor was armed with the best Krupp 88 mm anti-aircraft guns in the world (there were also 37 mm guns), which could also be used against tanks. The legion also included ground service and support units.

The legion, called for reasons of secrecy the military unit S / 88, was covered by a special group of the Abwehr (S / 88 / Ic) led by an old acquaintance of Canaris, a former submarine commander, Corvette Captain Wilhelm Leissner ("Colonel Gustav Lenz"). The headquarters of German military intelligence was in the port of Algeciras, where Canaris often visited. During the years of the civil war, the Germans trained dozens of agents of the Francoist security service (in 1939, up to 30% of the employees of the Military Information and Police Service - that was the name of Franco's special service - had close ties with the Abwehr or the Gestapo). The head of counterintelligence "Condor" was a recognized ace in this area, Major Joachim Roleder.

But the rival on the side of the Republicans was in no way inferior to him. The reconnaissance and sabotage service of the "Reds" was headed by a worthy representative of the "Berzin galaxy" Ossetians Hadji-Umar Dzhiorovich Mamsurov (1903-1968, "Major Xanthi"). Mamsurov became a scout back in 1919 during the civil war, and since 1931 he worked for Berzin in the Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army.

Soon, on the instructions of Berzin, an international group of demolitionists (among these heroes were Soviet people, Spaniards, Bulgarians and Germans) raided the heart of the Condor, the Seville airfield of Tablada, blowing up 18 aircraft. Soon echelons, bridges and hydroelectric dams began to take off. The local population, especially in Andalusia and Extremadura, fully supported the partisans. After talking with Mamsurov and his assistant, demolition ace Ilya Starinov, Hemingway (the American was introduced to the Soviet intelligence officers by Mikhail Koltsov, bred in the novel under the name Karkov) decided to make his main character in the novel For Whom the Bell Tolls by Robert Jordan a bomber, and that is why the technique of sabotage is so faithfully displayed on the pages of this book. The prototype of Robert Jordan was the American Jew Alex, who fought well in the Starinov demolition group. Interestingly, Mamsurov himself did not have a very high opinion of Hemingway: “Ernest is not a serious person. He drinks a lot and talks a lot."

The Germans decided not to send artillery to the Francoists yet, as there was not enough of it. First there was a turn of tanks. Two weeks after the arrival of the "Condor" in Spain in Kassel, 1,700 soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht tank units were built on the parade ground, who were offered to go "to the sun, where it is not very safe." Only 150 volunteers were recruited, who were transported through Italy to Cadiz.

By the time of the decisive battles for Madrid in November-December 1936, 41 Pz 1 tanks (modifications A, B and a control tank) were in Spain.

As part of the Condor Legion, a tank battalion was formed consisting of two companies (in December 1936, a third was added, and in February 1937, a fourth). The commander of the German armored units in Spain was Colonel Ritter von Thoma, who later became one of the most famous Wehrmacht generals and fought under Rommel in North Africa.

The Germans, unlike the Soviet tankers, pilots and military advisers, did not really care about conspiracy. They had a special uniform (the Soviet military wore the uniform of the Republican army and had Spanish pseudonyms) olive brown. The insignia of soldiers and non-commissioned officers in the form of gold stripes were on the left side of the chest and on the cap (the Germans did not wear caps in Spain, with the exception of generals). Junior officers wore six-pointed silver stars (for example, a lieutenant - two stars). Starting with the captain, eight-pointed gold stars were used.

The Germans behaved proudly and apart. In Burgos - the "capital" of Francoist Spain during the war years - they requisitioned the best hotel "Maria Isabel", in front of which German sentries stood under a flag with a swastika.

The two most "aristocratic" brothels of the city also served only Germans (one soldier and non-commissioned officers, the other only officers). To the surprise of the Spaniards, even there the Germans established their own rules: regular medical examinations, strict hygiene rules, special tickets purchased immediately at the entrance. With amazement, the inhabitants of Burgos watched as the Germans went to the brothel in a column, typing a drill step.

In general, the Spaniards did not like the Germans for their snobbery, but they respected them as competent and intelligent specialists. In total, over the years of the war, the Condor legion trained more than 50 thousand officers for the Francoist army.

On October 30, German aircraft launched a coordinated attack on Republican airfields near Madrid in retaliation for Sesenya, killing 60 children at the Getafe airfield. On the same day, the Francoists broke through the second line of defense of Madrid (though it existed mainly on paper). The communists demanded that Caballero announce an additional recruitment to the police, but he said that there were already enough troops, besides, the mobilization limit for the Central Front (30 thousand people) had already been exhausted (!).

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From the book Tsar's Rome between the Oka and Volga rivers. author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

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July 18, 1936 - military-fascist rebellion and the beginning of the civil (national-revolutionary) war. The rebels are led by a general Francisco Franco, commander of the Spanish troops in Morocco. A supporter of the monarchy, the church, order and strong power. Caudillo is the leader. The slogan is "One country, one state, one leader".

Instead of a quick coup d'état, a long and brutal civil war.

Stages of the civil war:

In August 1936, the northern and southern groups of the rebels united - an attack on Madrid.

In September 1936, the Franco government was established in Burgos, which was recognized by Italy and Germany, and began to assist him.

At the same time, the Western countries (England and France), in response to the request of the republican government to sell them weapons, created in August 1936 Committee for non-intervention in Spanish affairs(prohibition to provide weapons to both sides), which included 27 states (including Italy, Germany, the USSR). The goal is to prevent international conflict. In practice, this agreement was valid only in relation to the Republican government - Italy, Germany and Portugal provided assistance to Franco. From the end of 1936, in addition to weapons, the troops of these countries began to arrive - the Italo-German intervention.

Then, in October 1936, the government of the USSR, in response to the request of the republican government (Largo Caballero), began to provide him with assistance - both weapons (including tanks and aircraft) and volunteers. They paid in gold.

In October 1936, the rebel troops approached Madrid and almost completely surrounded it, until May 1937 the battle for Madrid continued. They defended it, realizing that the fate of the republic depends on the fate of Madrid.

The consequences of the international blockade and the Italo-German intervention had an effect. There were not enough weapons. At the same time, the Republican government of the NF is important social and political transformations, which were supposed to expand the social base of the republic, help to survive:

Confiscation of the lands of the rebels and their transfer to the peasants

Autonomy of the Basque Country (Galicia under Franco rule)

The people's militia was merged with the regular army, the institution of political commissars was created in it.

Enterprises abandoned by their owners were taken over by the state, working committees were created for them to manage enterprises

Nationalization of mines, mines, military industry, road, rail and sea transport

State control over banks and foreign companies

The fight against illiteracy, schools were opened (about 10 thousand schools are open), libraries, houses of culture

The working day was shortened, fixed prices for products were set

Monopoly of foreign trade by the state

Separation of church and state

Women received equal legal and political rights with men

Military failures (at the beginning of 1939, the Francoists captured Catalonia) +

Internal difficulties: differences between socialists and communists + actions of anarchists = lack of unity and cohesion. Groups with different political views. It should be noted that the political regime of the Republic of the Popular Front evolved towards a departure from democracy, the protection of which from fascism was the main goal of the war. The reasons:

1) wartime

2) the main thing is the consequence of the growing influence of the communists, which was determined, first of all, by the support of the USSR (the fight against anarchism - terror, the omnipotence of punitive bodies)

In February 1939, Britain and France recognized the Franco government. (hundreds of thousands of Spaniards who went to France were interned there and imprisoned in camps)

In March, the republic was "stabbed in the back" - a betrayal of the leadership of the army defending Madrid (Colonel Casado), the overthrow of the government on March 6, negotiations with the Francoists and capitulation on March 28, 1939.

Reasons for the defeat of the republic:

1) intervention of fascist powers

2) the criminal policy of "non-intervention" of Western countries

3) internal contradictions, lack of unity

After the defeat of the republic in Spain, fascist-authoritarian regime General Franco, which lasted until 1976

FRANCISM

The political uniqueness of the regime is its relative stability over a long period of time (about 40 years).

At the core of the ideology Franco laid the thesis of the Spanish Civil War as a "crusade" against everything non-Spanish, and at the same time - in defense of Western European civilization, Christian culture and the Catholic religion in the face of the communist threat.

Franco always emphasized the "Spanish character" of his regime, which was based on the traditions of Spanish Catholic absolutism.

He argued that traditional liberal parliamentary democracy was deeply opposed to the intrinsic character of Spanish society and the spirit of Spanish culture. The state, in his opinion, should have been based on the principle of corporate representation of families, territorial districts and professional syndicates (unions) according to the Italian model.

Spain was declared a "Catholic, public and representative monarchy", Franco was proclaimed head of state for life.

Franco concentrated all power and all responsibility in his hands - it was a system of power that rested entirely on the authority of a charismatic leader. All key decisions at the state level could only be made with the consent of Franco. The Franco regime is often called the regime of personal (personal) dictatorship.

However, Franco had to reckon with the interests of those social and political groups that supported him - these are representatives of the army, the phalanx (party), the Catholic Church, the state bureaucracy, as well as monarchists.

Franco acted rather as a "national arbiter": he pointedly distanced himself from the political struggle, not wanting to associate himself with a certain political force. Franco's role was rather to unite various professional, social and political factions within the ruling bloc, which without his decisive leadership would have been mired in internecine strife.

Unlike Germany or Italy "Spanish phalanx”, which provided Franco with unconditional support during the civil war, after its completion did not receive a monopoly on political power. Although the phalanx was the only legal political association in Spain, the official symbol and pillar of the regime, it was not a ruling organization. The Falangists had to share the sphere of political activity (power) with other political groups - the representatives of the party never controlled the army, police, state apparatus, propaganda, culture, education and upbringing.

Army, thanks to which Franco came to power, and with which his professional career was connected, until the end of the existence of the regime remained the main guarantor of stability and order, it actually replaced the ruling party, controlled the situation in the country, carried out, or monitored the implementation of government decisions on the ground.

Representatives of the generals were members of all cabinets of ministers, without exception, where they traditionally advocated a tough domestic policy. The role of the military was very great both in civilian municipal and other local authorities, up to the participation of the army in solving economic issues.

Catholic Church controlled the spiritual and intellectual life in the country and provided religious support for the ruling system - the religious factor in politics distinguished Francoism from fascist regimes.

A separate position in the structure of the regime was occupied by representatives of the state bureaucracy- they were not a political movement, but they had their own private corporate interests and consistently pursued a policy to protect them.

Thus, Francoism is a historical phenomenon that is difficult to classify, there is no unambiguous assessment of it. In the works of researchers, 2 points common to all works can be distinguished:

1) a clear anti-democratic orientation of the regime

2) over the course of almost 40 years of its existence, noticeable changes have taken place in its structure, leading to the liberalization of the political system (transformation of the regime)

The long existence of the regime is evidence of its extremely high level of adaptability to a changing environment.

Row general for Francoism and fascism, traits are the establishment of a one-party system, a high level of political repression, the subordination of the political system to the authority of the individual - caudillo, dictatorship.

Differences from the classical totalitarian regime:

The rise of the Francoists to power as a result of a military coup supported by the army

Lack of full control over the state by the Falangist Party

The presence of various factions in the ruling ideological and political bloc

The lack of initial support for Francoism on the part of the organized and politically active part of the population

Lack of a single developed and guiding ideology

Most scholars characterize the Franco regime rather as authoritarian(transitional between totalitarianism and democracy).

in Europe there was a large-scale armed clash in Spain. At that time, not only the indigenous inhabitants of the country were involved in the conflict, but also external forces in the form of such powerful states as the USSR, Germany, and Italy. The Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 flared up on the basis of conflicting views on the future of the country of the left-socialist (republican) government, supported by the Communist Party, and the insurgent right-monarchist forces led by Generalissimo Francisco Franco.

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Preconditions for war

Until 1931 Spain was a monarchy with a backward economy and a deep crisis, where interclass hostility was present. The army in it was on a special status. However, it did not develop in any way due to the conservatism of management structures.

In the spring of 1931, Spain was proclaimed a republic, and power in the country passed to the liberal socialist government, which immediately began to carry out reforms. However, stagnant Italy stalled them on all fronts. The established monarchical society was not ready for radical changes. As a result, all segments of the population were disappointed. Several times there were attempts to change the state power.

The clergy were especially dissatisfied the new government. Previously, under the conditions of monarchism, it participated in all state processes, having a huge influence. With the establishment of the republic, the church was separated from the state, and power passed into the hands of professors and scientists.

In 1933 the reforms were suspended. The far-right party, the Spanish Falange, won the election. Riots and unrest began.

In 1936, the left forces won the general elections in the country - People's Front party which included Republicans and Communists. They are:

• resumed agrarian reform,
• amnestied political prisoners
• encouraged the demands of the strikers,
• lowered taxes.

Their opponents began to co-operate around the pro-fascist nationalist organization Spanish Falange, which was already vying for power. Her support was in the person of the military, financiers, landowners, and the church.

The party opposing the established government staged an uprising in 1936. It was supported by the troops of the Spanish colony - Morocco . At that time they were commanded by General Franco, supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

Soon the rebels began to rule the Spanish colonies: the Canary Islands, Western Sahara, Equatorial Guinea.

Causes of the Spanish Civil War

Several factors contributed to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War:

The course of events of hostilities

Fascist insurgency and the Spanish Civil War- simultaneous events. The revolution in Spain began in the summer of 1936. The rebellion of the fascist army led by Franco was supported by the ground forces and the clergy. They are also assisted by Italy and Germany, helping with the supply of weapons and the military. The Francoists immediately occupy most of the country and introduce their own regime there.

The government created the Popular Front. He was helped by: the USSR, the French and American governments, international brigades.

From spring 1937 to autumn 1938. military operations took place in the industrial regions of the North of Spain. The rebels managed to break through to the Mediterranean Sea and cut off Catalonia from the Republic. The Francoists had a clear advantage by the autumn of 1938. As a result, they occupied the entire territory of the state and established an authoritarian fascist dictatorship there.

England and France officially recognized the government of Franco with his fascist regime. The war turned out to be long with a huge number of victims and destruction. These events are reflected in films about the revolution in Spain 1936-1939, shot by many directors. For example, the film "Ay, Carmela!" Directed by Carlos Saura.

The revolution in Spain ended with the establishment of fascism in the country for the following reasons: