Spain’s revolution against Franco: The great betrayal

Spain’s revolution against Franco: The great betrayal
Author: Alan Woods
Publisher: Wellred Books
Total Pages: 625
Release: 2019-10-25
Genre: History
ISBN:

The story of the Spanish revolution of the 1930s is quite well known to most people on the left, but there is a surprising level of ignorance concerning the events that occurred subsequently. History did not cease with the victory of Franco in 1939. And the story of how the Franco dictatorship was eventually brought down by the revolutionary movement of the Spanish workers is an inspiring one. Under the most difficult and dangerous conditions, Spanish workers launched a strike wave, which, in its intensity and duration, has no parallel anywhere. There was nothing remotely like this in Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy or Salazar’s Portugal. This was a genuine revolution, which could and should have gone far further than it did. If it did not finally succeed, that was no fault of the working class. The Spanish revolution of the 1970s was shamefully betrayed by the leaders of the communist and socialist parties, who entered into an agreement with former fascists in order halt the movement in its tracks. Alan Woods participated personally in the last phase of this struggle and was a witness to some of its most decisive moments. Using a wealth of documentary material from the time and also new interviews with key participants in the events, he tears away the thick veil of lies, myths and half-truths to reveal what actually occurred. With new struggles and challenges on the order of the day in Spain and the rest of the world, it is the duty of all conscious workers and revolutionary youth to study the lessons of the past as a necessary precondition for victory in the future. This book is an important contribution to a necessary learning process and is obligatory reading for anyone who is interested in the struggle for socialism today.

The Spanish Revolution, 1931-39

The Spanish Revolution, 1931-39
Author: Leon Trotsky
Publisher: New York : Pathfinder Press
Total Pages: 454
Release: 1973
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

Analyzes the revolutionary upsurge on the land and in the factories leading to the Spanish civil war and how the Stalinists' course ensured a fascist victory.

The Spanish Republic and Civil War

The Spanish Republic and Civil War
Author: Julián Casanova
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2010-07-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1139490575

The Spanish Civil War has gone down in history for the horrific violence that it generated. The climate of euphoria and hope that greeted the overthrow of the Spanish monarchy was utterly transformed just five years later by a cruel and destructive civil war. Here Julián Casanova, one of Spain's leading historians, offers a magisterial new account of this critical period in Spanish history. He exposes the ways in which the Republic brought into the open simmering tensions between Catholics and hardline anticlericalists, bosses and workers, Church and State, order and revolution. In 1936 these conflicts tipped over into the sacas, paseos and mass killings which are still passionately debated today. The book also explores the decisive role of the international instability of the 1930s in the duration and outcome of the conflict. Franco's victory was in the end a victory for Hitler and Mussolini and for dictatorship over democracy.