SPAIN’S descent into civil war between 1936 and 1939 had deeply rooted causes. Islamic colonisation and the subsequent Reconquista spawned two contrasting models of national identity: one firmly Roman Catholic and traditionalist, the other more cosmopolitan and relaxed about porous boundaries. Napoleon’s invasion served to intensify longstanding clashes of outlook. In conservative eyes, liberalism tout court became associated with the French oppressor.
Domestic instability grew chronic for over a century after the Peninsular War. By the 1930s, Spain was sullied by extremism of Left and Right alike. While having nothing positive to say about Franco’s personality and methods, a historian such as Antony Beevor is correct in also excoriating anti-democratic elements on the far Left — forces content to goad the other side by burning churches and seeking a ban on the religious orders before the Nationalist uprising. Beevor took the trouble to rewrite his history of the civil war after the opening of KGB archives during the 1990s revealed the full extent of Stalin’s plan to subjugate Spain if the Republic had prevailed.
Two very different readings of Franquismo are thus easily spotlighted. The Left deplores what it sees as an illegitimate conflict rendered still more tragic by the lost decades that followed. Conservative attitudes spring from a sense that the regime saved Spain from communism, and thus from evisceration by Hitler. The tenacity with which these interpretations are held still renders consensus elusive.
Giles Tremlett understands these dynamics, and much else about the country he has long reported from for The Economist and The Guardian. His lack of sympathy for his biographical subject is plainly justified: Franco himself was thought colourless as well as cruel even by many of his supporters. But Tremlett’s narrative gifts nevertheless make his story readable. The future dictator’s early life in Galicia is especially well traced, though church life tends to be described without nuance.
Franco deserves particular censure for his vengefulness. No attempt was made to promote national reconciliation during the post-war period. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost after, as well as during, the conflict. Spain then languished for decades. Cronyism prospered; the economic boom of the 1960s could have started far sooner. That is a message that parts of the Spanish Right still don’t want to hear.
AlamyGeneral Francisco Franco and his wife, Carmen Polo y Martínez Valdés (1900-88), during the Spanish Civil War. From the book
But there are also matching blind spots among today’s secular progressives, many of whose forebears welcomed the prospect of civil war as a path to Bolshevik-style revolution. Prominent socialists displayed extremist impulses during the early 1930s. One of their number, the Prime Minister Largo Caballero, declared that “the differences between [the Communists] and us is no more than words”. This and other examples of irresponsible rhetoric played into Franco’s hands. Such factors discredit accusations that the military insurgents were motivated by paranoia alone.
Tremlett’s verdict on this conundrum has plainly been influenced by a weighty left-leaning figure such as Paul Preston. Preston’s contentious line is challenged by revisionists of comparable stature, however: not only Beevor, but also Stanley Payne and Michael Seidman in the English-speaking world. Spanish historians are divided along allied lines. Tremlett’s critics may judge that he should have recorded a greater cross section of scholarly interpretations. El Generalísimo Franco often reads like an extended op-ed article reflecting a particular viewpoint. It would also have benefited from tighter editing. Missing Spanish accents should be inserted — and regular examples of sloppy journalese removed — from what I hope will be future editions of a valuable but not flawless work.
Rupert Shortt is a Fellow Commoner of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge. He was formerly Hispanic editor of The Times Literary Supplement.
El Generalísimo Franco: Power, violence and the quest for greatness
Giles Tremlett
Bloomsbury £30
(978-1-5266-5195-2)
Church Times Bookshoip £27