Red Terror (Spain)

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The Red Terror in Spain is the name given to various acts committed by Spanish Republicans during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. It included sacking and burning monasteries and churches and killing of 6,832 members of the Catholic clergy, as well as attacks on landowners, industrialists, and right-wing politicians.[1]

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[edit] Background

Regional, religious and ideological tension had been developing for decades and possibly centuries in Spain in the lead-up to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Since completion of the Reconquista at the end of the 15th century the Spanish monarchy had maintained a centralized, traditionalist, aristocratic and devoutly Catholic regime that became increasingly difficult to maintain as the country industrialized and anarchist, socialist, communist and nationalist thinking grew in popularity. The fall of the monarchy and establishment of the Spanish Republic in 1931 exacerbated these tensions, between conservatives trying to maintain the old order and those demanding redistribution of wealth and retribution for the traditionally privileged and pro-hierarchical position of the landowning class and the Catholic church.

Following the general election of February 16, 1936, political bitterness grew in Spain. Violence between the government and its supporters, the Popular Front, whose leadership was clearly moving towards the left (abandoning constitutional Republicanism for leftist revolution.[2]), and the opposition accelerated, culminating in a military revolt of right-wing generals in July of that year. As the year progressed Nationalist and Republican persecution grew, and republicans began attacking churches, occupying land for redistribution and attacking nationalist politicians in a process of tit-for-tat violence.

One scholar noted that despite the fact that "the Church...suffer[ed] appalling persecution" behind Republican lines, the events have been met by much silence and even attempts at justification by some scholars and memoirists.[1]

[edit] Red and White Terrors

Following the outbreak of full-scale civil war there was an explosion of atrocities in both the Nationalist and Republican zones. The bloodiest days of the red terror were at the beginning of the civil war, when the government failed to control of much of its forces in the aftermath of the generals' rising, and large areas of the country fell under the control of local loyalists and militias.[3] A large part of the terror consisted of a perceived settlement of accounts against bosses and clergy as they lost their powerful position in the social revolution and move towards extremism that took place in the first months of the civil war.[4]

Stanley Payne claims, "during the first months of the fighting most of the deaths did not come from combat on the battlefield but from political executions in the rear—the 'Red' and 'White' terrors. Payne claims that the terror consisted of semi-organized actions perpetrated by almost all of the leftist groups, Basque separatists being an exception. [5]

Describing specifically the Red Terror, Payne suggests that this "began with the murder of some of the rebels as they attempted to surrender after their revolt had failed in several of the key cities. From there it broadened out to wholesale arrests, and sometimes wholesale executions, of landowners and industrialists, people associated with right-wing groups or the Catholic Church." [6] Payne claims that this was "not an irrepressible outpouring of hatred by the man in the street for his 'oppressors,' but a semi-organized activity carried out by sections of nearly all the leftist groups."[7]. The Basque nationalists, largely Catholic but still aligned with the Republicans, did not largely participate in the Red Terror, particularly against the Church.

Stanley Payne has claimed that ,unlike the repression by the right which "was concentrated against the most dangerous opposition elements," the Republican attacks were more irrational, "murdering innocent people and letting some of the more dangerous go free. Moreover, one of the main targets of the Red terror was the clergy, most of whom were not engaged in overt opposition." [8]

[edit] Death toll

Religious discrimination
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By victimized group

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By method

Abuse · Censorship · Desecration
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Historical events

Inquisition · French Wars of Religion
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Cromwellian conquest of Ireland
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In his recent, updated history of the Spanish Civil War, Antony Beevor "reckons Franco's ensuing 'white terror' claimed 200,000 lives. The 'red terror' had already killed 38,000."[9] Julius Ruiz concludes that "although the figures remain disputed, a minimum of 37,843 executions were carried out in the Republican zone with a maximum of 150,000 executions (including 50,000 after the war) in Nationalist Spain."[10]

Previously, Payne had suggested that, "The toll taken by the respective terrors may never be known exactly. The left slaughtered more in the first months, but the Nationalist repression probably reached its height only after the war had ended, when punishment was exacted and vengeance wreaked on the vanquished left. The White Terror may have slain 50,000, perhaps fewer, during the war. The Franco government now gives the names of 61,000 victims of the Red Terror, but this is not subject to objective verification. The number of victims of the Nationalist repression, during and after the war, was undoubtedly greater than that."[11] In Checas de Madrid (ISBN 8497931688), César Vidal comes to a nationwide total of 110,965 victims of Republican repression; 11,705 people being killed in Madrid alone.[12]

[edit] Toll on Clergy

It is estimated that in the course of the Red Terror, 6,832 members of the Catholic clergy were killed.[1] Another source breaks down the figures as follows: 282 nuns, 13 bishops, 4172 diocesan priests, 2364 monks and friars, among them 259 Claretians, 226 Franciscans, 204 Piarists, 176 Brothers of Mary, 165 Christian Brothers, 155 Augustinians, 132 Dominicans, and 114 Jesuits were killed.[13] In some dioceses, the numbers are overwhelming: "in Barbastro 88 percent of the secular clergy were murdered, 66 percent in Lleida, 62 percent in Tortosa, 44 percent in Segorbe, about half of the priests in Malaga, Menorca and Toledo."[1] There are accounts of the faithful being forced to swallow rosary beads, being thrown down mine shafts and of priests being forced to dig their own graves before being buried alive.[14][15]

In 2001 the Catholic Church beatified hundreds of Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War[16] and beatified 498 more on October 28, 2007[17].

[edit] Attitudes

Attitudes to the "red terror" varied on the Republican side. President Manuel Azaña made the well-publicized comment that all of the convents in Madrid were not worth one Republican life.[18] Yet equally "commonly cited, for example, is the speech by the Socialist leader Indalecio Prieto on Madrid radio on 9 August 1936 pleading that Republican militiamen should not ‘imitate’ the murderous actions of the military rebels" and also "the public condemnation of arbitrary ‘justice’ by Julián Zugazagoitia, the editor of El Socialista, the Socialist Party newspaper, on 23 August."[19]

Julius Ruiz goes on to note, however, that "not cited [. . .] are El Socialista’s regular reports extolling the work of the Atadell brigade", a group of Republican agents who engaged in detentions and frequently murders of (in the end) up to 800 Nationalists. "On 27 September 1936", Ruiz continues, "an editorial on the brigade stressed that its ‘work, more than useful, is necessary. Indispensable.’ Similarly, the Prieto-controlled Madrid daily Informaciones carried numerous articles on the activities of the Atadell brigade during the summer of 1936."[19]

[edit] Atrocities

An eye witness to some of the persecution, Cristina de Arteaga, who was soon to become a nun, commented that they "attacked the Salesians, people who are totally committed to the poor. There was a rumor that nuns were giving poisoned sweets to children. Some nuns were grabbed by the hair in the streets. One had her hair pulled out ..."[18]

On the night of July 19, 1936 alone, 50 churches were burned.[20] In Barcelona, out of the 58 churches, only the Cathedral was spared, and similar atrocities occurred almost everywhere in Republican Spain.[21]

The parish priest of Navalmoral was put through a parody of Christ's Crucifixion. At the end of his suffering the militiamen debated whether actually to crucify him or just shoot him. They finished with a shooting.[22] The Bishop of Jaen and his sister were murdered in front of two thousand celebrating spectators by a special executioner, a woman nick-named La Pecosa, the freckled one.[23] The Bishop of Almeria was murdered while working on a history of Toledo. His card index file was destroyed.[23] In Madrid, a nun was killed because she refused a proposition of marriage from a militiman who helped storm her convent.[24]

Although rare, it was reported that some nuns were raped by militiamen before they were shot.[24] However, according to Antony Beevor, the 1946 nationalist indictment of Republican atrocities contained no evidence for any such incident.[25] The priest of Cienpozuelos was thrown into a corral with fighting bulls where he was gored into unconsciousness. Afterwards one of his ears was cut off to imitate the feat of a matador after a successful bullfight.[26]

In Ciudad Real, the priest was castrated and his sexual organs stuffed in his mouth.[27]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c d de la Cueva 1998, p. 355
  2. ^ Payne p. 646–647.
  3. ^ Beevor 2006, pp. 83–86
  4. ^ Beevor 2006, p. 83
  5. ^ Payne, Stanley G. THE A History of Spain and Portugal, Vol. 2, Ch. 26, p. 650 (Print Edition: University of Wisconsin Press, 1973) (LIBRARY OF IBERIAN RESOURCES ONLINE Accessed May 15, 2007)
  6. ^ Payne p. 649
  7. ^ Payne p. 649.
  8. ^ Payne p. 650
  9. ^ "Men of La Mancha". Rev. of Antony Beevor, The Battle for Spain. The Economist (June 22, 2006).
  10. ^ Ruiz 2007, p. 97
  11. ^ Payne p. 650.
  12. ^ International justice begins at home by Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami Herald, August 4, 2003
  13. ^ Beevor 2006, pp. ???
  14. ^ Beevor 2006, pp. ???
  15. ^ Thomas 1961, p. 272
  16. ^ New Evangelization with the Saints, L'Osservatore Romano 28 November 2001, page 3(Weekly English Edition)
  17. ^ Tucson priests one step away from sainthood Arizona Star 06.12.2007
  18. ^ a b Mitchell 1983, p. 17
  19. ^ a b Ruiz 2007, p. 100
  20. ^ Mitchell 1983, p. 45
  21. ^ Mitchell 1983, p. 46
  22. ^ Thomas 1961, p. 173
  23. ^ a b Thomas 1961, p. 174
  24. ^ a b Thomas 1961, p. 173
  25. ^ Beevor 2006, pp. 83
  26. ^ Thomas, p. 173.
  27. ^ Thomas, p. 173.

[edit] References

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