Different Spanish Civil War

[Condottiero]

IOTL in the 1936 elections the result was very close, in fact it could have been understood as a victory of the left or as a victory of the right, and what decided was the action of the Frente Popular who claimed that they had won the elections and controlled the final count of votes. What if it was the CEDA the one that moved fast and claimed that they had won the elections, the Frente Popular and in a CEDA controled count the victory goes to the right.

Then politic rivalries cause a coup to be performed but from the left and with soviet support. Would the legitimate government be supported by british and french as in the Russian Civil War? What would nazi Germany and fascist Italy have done?

 

[Condottiero]

I have just found this interesting POD. that I proposed and nobody seemed to be interested.

Basically we have:

January 7th, 1936. Elections are held, but the right controls the electoral process and manages a narrow win.
The Frente Popular denounces a fraud in the elections and start some protests that soon escalate to armed clashes.
The situation is unstable, until some military commanders close to the Frente Popular start to deliver weapons to the Unions and some left wing political parties. The government does not see clearly that they would win in a military clash and try to reduce the tensions. Political violence erupts and some CEDA leaders are attacked or killed, Falange gunmen retaliate and kill some Frente Popular members.
April, 1936. The Frente Popular parties, some Unions and part of the army attempt a coup. The CEDA government controls the situation in Old Castille, Navarre, Aragon, Canarias, Balearic Islands, Madrid and some of the surroundings populations and Africa, rural areas of Galicia, Basque Provinces, Andalucia and Extremadura.
The government receives international support from the British Empire, France, Portugal and Italy, while the rebels receive open support from the Soviet Union.

How does the Civil War goes on? And World War II? Do we see an even closer cooperation between nazi Germany and the Soviet Union? Does Italy fall on the allied side from the beginning?

 

[David T]

A post of mine in this forum in 2017: https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...anish-elections-of-1936.429481/#post-15930496

---

I had a post on that some years ago in soc.history.what-if . Here's part of it:

***

We've had many what-ifs on the Spanish Civil War but I don't recall any on
what would have happened if the Popular Front had lost the elections in
February 1936. Yet that does not seem so implausible; after all, in OTL
the victory of the Popular Front was far from overwhelming:

Electors............. 13.553.710
Voters............... 9.864.783 (72%)
Popular front...... 4.654.116 (34,3%)
National front..... 4.503.505 (33,2%)
Center and Basque....... 525.714 (5,4%)
https://web.archive.org/web/20020803143704/http://www.guerracivil1936.galeon.com/popularfront.htm

(The electoral system gave the Left an exaggerated share of the seats in
parliament, just as it had done for the Right in 1933. As Stanley Payne
has observed, "The great majority of votes were cast in much the same way
as in 1933, the main differences being the shift by Radical voters and the
partial participation of the CNT membership." *Spain's First Democracy:
The Second Republic 1931-1936*, p. 277)

So what do we need in order to make the Popular Front lose? Maybe the key
is provided by Payne's remarks on "the partial participation of the CNT
membership." What if the Anarchists in February 1936 adhered to their
prior opposition to participation in elections? The Anarchists were by no
means unanimous on this point and some did abstain, but in a close race,
those who did vote--attracted by the Popular Front's promise of amnesty
for Anarchist and other political prisoners--may have made the difference.
Murray Bookchin in *The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years 1868-1936*,
notes that Urales, perhaps the most venerated of the Anarchists, warned
that it would be "a great error on the part of the anarchists if, as a
consequence of their action during the electoral period, the rightists
triumphed over the leftists." (p. 278) Durruti also opposed abstention
and later said: "We came to tell the Left that we were the ones who
decided your triumph...It was our generosity that decided the reconquest
of February 16th." (p. 284)

Suppose the Anarchists had abstained, and the Popular Front had lost.
Here are two contrasting Anarchist views of the consequences:

(1) "In his book Lessons of the Spanish Revolution, Vernon Richards raised
a forbidden question: did the CNT leadership take into account that by
ensuring the electoral victory of the left it was also ensuring that the
generals of the right would stage a military putsch which the respectable
left politicians would not restrain? 'On the other hand a victory of the
right, which was almost certain if the CNT abstained, would mean the end
of the military conspiracy and the coming to power of a reactionary but
ineffectual government which, like its predecessors, would hold out for
not more than a year or two. There is no real evidence to show that there
was any significant development of a fascist movement in Spain along the
lines of the regimes in Italy and Germany.'"
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/colin-ward-the-case-against-voting.html

(Of course one may ask: if a conservative government fell apart in one or
two years, what then? If its fall led to new elections and a victory by
the Left, wouldn't OTL's 1936--including a military revolt and civil war--
simply happen one or two years later?)

(2) By contrast, Bookchin, while admitting some force in "Vernon
Richards' observation that a conservative victory in the February election
would have been far less of a setback to the Spanish labor movement than
the slaughter that followed the generals' rebellion" nevertheless takes a
darker view of the mainstream Spanish Right and its leader Gil Robles:
"Gil Robles seemed definitely intent on becoming Spain's Dollfuss (his
public speeches had acquired an unprecedentedly violent character) and the
CEDA's electoral posters had a distinctly fascistic flavor, appealing for
the 'Ministry of War and all the power,' 'all power to the Leader,' and
the like" (p. 283)

***

As that post indicates, there have been varying estimates of CEDA, which would presumably dominate any right-of-center elected government. CEDA was not exactly a clerical-fascist party and it wasn't exactly a Christian Democratic party either--though there were representatives of both tendencies in the party. The dominant tendency, however, represented by Gil Robles, was "accidentalist"--i.e., either a democratic or authoritarian regime could be satisfactory if it maintained order and the rights of the Church. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/José_María_Gil-Robles_y_Quiñones

Probably Gil Robles would at least make a show of governing in a legal, parliamentary way. No doubt there would be repression against the Left, but it is hard to see it reaching the extremes it did under Franco. And unlike the Right in OTL, the Left would not be powerful enough to start a full-scale civil war. What would happen would probably be more like 1934: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asturian_miners'_strike_of_1934

 

[HammerofWar]

I think Britain and France would have supported the legitimate government, for what it's worth.

 

[Condottiero]

And unlike the Right in OTL, the Left would not be powerful enough to start a full-scale civil war. What would happen would probably be more like 1934: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asturian_miners'_strike_of_1934

But did they know they were not powerful enough? If they tried another 1934, it would be made to win it (I do not mean they would win). They would not try to achieve a full mobilisation and to neutralise the army. IOTL they controled most of the navy, most of the air force and more troops than the rebels (although with less officers and less quality). I find possible that the PSOE leaders ordered to kill someone in the government, thinking that they would force them to make something impopular and to gain more support in a possible civil conflict. The left in Spain was thinking more in making a revolution than in wining elections, the prove is what the republican territory became.

 

[Athelstane]

Then politic rivalries cause a coup to be performed but from the left and with soviet support.

It'd be harder for them without the Army. That was a great advantage for Franco.

I think civil war was coming, though, regardless of the exact election results. It was a powder keg.

 

[David T]

But did they know they were not powerful enough? If they tried another 1934, it would be made to win it (I do not mean they would win). They would not try to achieve a full mobilisation and to neutralise the army. IOTL they controled most of the navy, most of the air force and more troops than the rebels (although with less officers and less quality). I find possible that the PSOE leaders ordered to kill someone in the government, thinking that they would force them to make something impopular and to gain more support in a possible civil conflict. The left in Spain was thinking more in making a revolution than in wining elections, the prove is what the republican territory became.

A lot of what support the Popular Front government had in the military was due to the reluctance of some soldiers to rebel against an elected and apparently legitimate government. This would not exist in favor of an attempted left-wing revolution.

 

[UnaiB]

Necrothread @CalBear

 

[CalBear]

Necrothread @CalBear

Restart by the OP.

 

[CHKeeley]

I would imagine it would look like a much larger version of the Asturias in 1934.. general strikes of the from trade unions like the CNT and FAI as well as popular rebellions from larger anarchists groups. Communist participation would depend on the region, but largely they could either join or (more likely) condemn the revolt as adventurism and hold off. I can't see a left wing revolt becoming the formal civil war we saw in Spain OTL due to Gil-Robles and the CEDA controlling the legitimate state apparatus and all of the Spanish military essentially. I imagine it would be an eventful note in a long series of strike breaking and suppression, but nothing to rival the formal conflict of OTL due to the lack of the Frente Popular, sections of the armed forces, disunity on the left, lack of support from abroad (Soviets will not aid this rebellion in all likelihood), etc.

 

[Condottiero]

So let's say Spanish Civil War is averted. The conservative government manages to survive two years and we get to 1938. Germany is pressing on Czekoslovakia, would the British Empire and France cede to Germany's claims with an allied Spain (although weak militarly)?

 

[Santo Nombre]

So let's say Spanish Civil War is averted. The conservative government manages to survive two years and we get to 1938. Germany is pressing on Czekoslovakia, would the British Empire and France cede to Germany's claims with an allied Spain (although weak militarly)?

Hello Condottiero.
I'm very interested in this thread, so thanks for starting it.
IMHO all depends on the social and political situation of this alternate Spain.
The left loosing in 1936 because of the anarchist abstention means that the strategy of Popular Front didn't work for Spain, so the communist party may almost disapear, maybe some members will try to enter the PSOE to gain power. That can produce a crisis inside the PSOE, even maybe a formal division between the Caballeristas (closer to the unions, some kind of sindicalist branch of socialism) and the Prietistas (centered on the party, they were socialdemocrats and willing to participate in the parliament). The communist will support Prieto, but the members of UGT (the trade union associated with the PSOE) could follow Largo Caballero.
The CEDA governement will recall the jesuits, allow the religious education, try to crash the UMRA (antifascist faction of the military), cancel or reverse the land reform, rewrite the laboral laws favouring the employers... and the unions could do nothing because many CNT members will still be in jail (no 1936 amnesty) and UGT is divided because of the PSOE inner struggle. Some anarchists, specially the FAI faction, could retake terrorism as a way of action.
The big issue can be the cancellation of the Estatuto of Catalonia. I can imagine a revolt in there if the CEDA tries to do so, and that means many options for your ATL :
-France and Britain decide that this is an inner problem of Spain and don't send aid. Gil Robles receive support from Portugal, Italy and... Germany (could we have a Campodron's bombing instead of Guernica?).
-France and Britain send aid and Gil Robles stops his semifascists ways and allies clearly with the western democracies.
In the second option I cannot imagine that the Germans would change their mind, but without the test of new weapons durng the SCW or an alternative "Catalonia crisis" they may change or adapt their strategy. Maybe inciting a rightist coup in France against the second term of Léon Blum?
Bye and good luck.

 

[Condottiero]

Hello Condottiero.
I'm very interested in this thread, so thanks for starting it.
IMHO all depends on the social and political situation of this alternate Spain.
The left loosing in 1936 because of the anarchist abstention means that the strategy of Popular Front didn't work for Spain, so the communist party may almost disapear, maybe some members will try to enter the PSOE to gain power. That can produce a crisis inside the PSOE, even maybe a formal division between the Caballeristas (closer to the unions, some kind of sindicalist branch of socialism) and the Prietistas (centered on the party, they were socialdemocrats and willing to participate in the parliament). The communist will support Prieto, but the members of UGT (the trade union associated with the PSOE) could follow Largo Caballero.
The CEDA governement will recall the jesuits, allow the religious education, try to crash the UMRA (antifascist faction of the military), cancel or reverse the land reform, rewrite the laboral laws favouring the employers... and the unions could do nothing because many CNT members will still be in jail (no 1936 amnesty) and UGT is divided because of the PSOE inner struggle. Some anarchists, specially the FAI faction, could retake terrorism as a way of action.
The big issue can be the cancellation of the Estatuto of Catalonia. I can imagine a revolt in there if the CEDA tries to do so, and that means many options for your ATL :
-France and Britain decide that this is an inner problem of Spain and don't send aid. Gil Robles receive support from Portugal, Italy and... Germany (could we have a Campodron's bombing instead of Guernica?).
-France and Britain send aid and Gil Robles stops his semifascists ways and allies clearly with the western democracies.
In the second option I cannot imagine that the Germans would change their mind, but without the test of new weapons durng the SCW or an alternative "Catalonia crisis" they may change or adapt their strategy. Maybe inciting a rightist coup in France against the second term of Léon Blum?
Bye and good luck.

OK to the divission in the PSOE with the division into a more socialdemocratic faction and a more communist group.

I do not see the CEDA recalling the jesuits, but they could guarantee more cult rights and some religious order could be allowed to own schools.

OK to the destruction of the UMRA, that would lead to a more stable regime.

OK to the economic reforms (that would make France and the British Empire closer) and to the anarchist terrorism.

I do not see such a big issue the cancelation of the Estatuto. If they manage to have an unified army, a better economy and the threat of anarchist and left wing terrorism, the support from the population would not be that wide and the upper classes would side with the government.
Anyway, if it took place, a more centered PSOE and a CEDA showing that they plan to respect the political order would make France and the British Empire to support the government and not recognize the catalonian rebels. Maybe they could receive some support from Germany!

The idea of a coup in France with a more stable Spain would be really interesting.