The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain by Paul Preston
New York: W.W. Norton, 2012 ISBN: 9780393064766
Usually once I've finished a book I write a review shortly after, but I've been mulling over this one for a week or so and I'm still not sure what I think of it on many levels. It's certainly a tour-de-force of scholarship, and a harrowing catalogue of the atrocities committed by both sides of what was a terrible civil war.
Paul Preston is a long-standing Spanish Civil War historian, and in The Spanish Holocaust, he has collected together information about the many atrocities perpetrated by both the Nationalist and Republican sides. Most of the crimes Preston chronicles occurred during the war itself, with a short chapter on post-war retribution by Franco.
The revelations of what happened are truly shocking, and go to the hatred that was endemic within the Spanish polity by 1936, exacerbated by a history of repression that had existed in the country for decades before. The Spanish Holocaust assumes a knowledge not only of broader Spanish history, but also of the progress of the War itself, and the depth of Preston's research means that many of the incidents he describes can turn into a parade of names, times, and places that become confusing.
There is also a strange bias in Preston's book - for this reader anyway. While there is no doubt that the Nationalist side committed more barbarities than the Republican side, Preston continually excuses the Republican crimes, while excoriating the Nationalists every time. This obvious bias - which extends to Preston writing that anti-Republicans should have known that Largo Caballero's threat of revolution was an empty one, and therefore not have staged the coup (why they should have known that is never explained) - colours what is otherwise an excellent book.
From the detailed descriptions of the crimes of both sides, the reader can draw some conclusions about the wider war. The Nationalists, under Mola and Franco, were absolutely ruthless. They let nothing stand in the way of their conquest of Spain, gathering any forces that might be useful to them, which meant the landowners, the Church, business and of course the army. What did they want? They wanted to go back to a time before democracy and the republic, when their groups had total sway over society - so they effectively sold their souls to Franco, who not only destroyed any opposition, perceived or real, but double-crossed most of these allies by taking control himself.
The Church in particular played a murky role in the putsch and war that followed: while there were some religious who tried to minimize the violence and suffering, much of the Church hierarchy encouraged and enabled the Nationalists in their rampage across the country. Some priests even took part in the murders and fighting.
In contrast to the single-mindedness of the Nationalist forces, the Republican side was doomed from the start owing to the fractiousness of the varied groups that comprised the Popular Front. The main protagonists, the forces of the Anarchists and Communists, were at odds with each other, and often literally at each other's throats. The more moderate Republicans were squeezed in the middle. While the Nationalists had one aim - to crush the forces of the Republic, and the Republic itself, the Republican forces were not only resisting Franco, but trying to bring a social revolution to the country at the same time. This led to a dispersal of effort that was fatal to their cause. The only reason the war lasted as long as it did was that the Nationalist side not only wanted to win a military victory, but also crush the Republican spirit for generations to come.
This book is very hard to read, a grueling trawl through horrors that can be hard to credit, and that emphasize the hatred that existed between sections of Spanish society at that time. Preston has used much recent scholarship to show us in great detail the machinations of the terror that descended from 1936 up until the early 1950s. This book will be a resource for many years to come for those with an interest in the Spanish Civil War, despite the curious bias that comes no doubt from Preston's anguish at the horrors inflicted on all by the decision to overthrow a government.
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