Spanish Civil War: The three conflicts

Barcelona, 1992 / © I.A. Daglis

There were at least three major conflicts going on throughout the Spanish Civil War. There was the war between Franco and the republic. At the same time, there was a revolution going on within the republic, an extremely militant popular anarchist movement that was finally crushed by the communists and the middle classes. And finally, in the background, was the third conflict: between the Old Right and the New Right, between the right that only wanted to defend the old order, and the right that wanted to change and modernise the society by authoritarian, non-democratic means. In other words, between Franisco Franco and Jose Antionio Primo de Rivera, the leader of the Falange Espanola.


Geert Mak [In Europe, 2004]