scholarly journals Secret services of the USSR in Spain and their role in the military and political conflict of 1936–1939

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 356-369
Author(s):  
Sergey V. Ratz ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Intelligence Agencies ◽  
Gold Reserve

The article is dedicated to the activities of the Soviet intelligence agencies in Spain during the Civil War of 1936–1939. By June 1936, diplomatic relations between USSR and Spain were absent. Due to the putschist revolt and the appeal of the legitimate government of Spain to the USSR, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) made a decision to establish diplomatic, military, and trade delegations in Spain. The intelligence agencies of the USSR planned operation ‘X’ for military assistance to Spain. As part of this operation, a Soviet advisory staff concerning military and foreign intelligence was formed. The author brings to light the goals of the secret service authorities of the Soviet Union, including such particular ones as the removal of Spain’s gold reserve and the creation of the 14th Partisan Corps. The article analyses the activities of the advisory staff, their role in the development of the largest military operations during the Spanish Civil War, and traces the fate of the conflict’s most active participants. Based on the analysis of new data introduced into the historical discourse in recent years, the author concludes that the secret services of the USSR played a large role in this conflict. The Soviet advisors and specialists obtained unique experiences, including conducting large-scale operations; military equipment was tested in actual battle activities; intelligence specialists enlisted information sources with great potential. Many military specialists tried and trained in Spain in 1936–1939 later played an invaluable role in the victory of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War.

The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)

Secret Wars ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 99-141
Author(s):  
Austin Carson
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Unique Role ◽  
Limited War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Over Time

This chapter analyzes foreign combat participation in the Spanish Civil War. Fought from 1936 to 1939, the war hosted covert interventions by Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union. The chapter leverages variation in intervention form among those three states, as well as variation over time in the Italian intervention, to assess the role of escalation concerns and limited war in the use of secrecy. Adolf Hitler's German intervention provides especially interesting support for a theory on escalation control. An unusually candid view of Berlin's thinking suggests that Germany managed the visibility of its covert “Condor Legion” with an eye toward the relative power of domestic hawkish voices in France and Great Britain. The chapter also shows the unique role of direct communication and international organizations. The Non-Intervention Committee, an ad hoc organization that allowed private discussions of foreign involvement in Spain, helped the three interveners and Britain and France keep the war limited in ways that echo key claims of the theory.

Irish newspapers and the Spanish Civil War

2002 ◽  
Vol 33 (129) ◽  
pp. 68-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fearghal McGarry
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
George Orwell ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
International Diplomacy ◽  
Irish People ◽  
The Stability

Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed.George Orwell (1943)The Spanish Civil War was one of the most controversial conflicts of recent history. For many on the left, it was a struggle between democracy and fascism. In contrast, many Catholics and conservatives championed Franco as a crusader against communism. Others felt Spain was the beginning of an inevitable conflict between fascism and communism which had increasingly threatened the stability of inter-war Europe. Spain has remained a battleground of ideologies ever since. Many supporters of the Spanish Republic attribute its defeat to the failure of other democratic states to oppose fascism, a policy of appeasement which ultimately led to the Second World War; for others on the left, including Orwell, Spain came to symbolise the betrayal of socialism by the Soviet Union — a disillusioning suppression of liberty repeated in subsequent decades in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and elsewhere. Ireland was no less drawn to Spain than other European nations. Within months of the war breaking out, close to one thousand Irishmen were fighting among the armies of both sides on the frontlines around Madrid. But for most Irish people, influenced by the Catholic church and sensational newspaper reports of anticlerical atrocities, the ideological conflict was perceived to be between Catholicism and communism rather than left and right. The outbreak of the war was followed by an immense outpouring of popular sympathy for Franco’s Nationalists. During the autumn of 1936 the Irish Christian Front organised mass pro-Franco rallies which attracted the support of opposition politicians, clergymen and much of the public. The dissenting voices of support for the Spanish Republic emanating from the marginalised Irish left were ignored or, more often, suppressed. De Valera’s Fianna Fáil government expressed its support for Spain’s Catholics while, somewhat awkwardly, adopting a position of neutrality for reasons of international diplomacy.

The Spanish Civil War and the Yugoslav Successor States

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-281
Author(s):  
Vjeran Pavlaković
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Resistance Movement ◽  
Second World

Yugoslav scholarship about the Spanish Civil War, specifically the Yugoslav volunteers who fought in the International Brigades, was almost exclusively tied to the partisan struggle during the Second World War and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Many countries in the Soviet bloc published books about their heroes who fought fascism before Western Europe reacted and raised monuments to Spanish Civil War veterans. However, many lost their lives during Stalinist purges of the late 1940s and early 1950s since they were potentially compromised cadres who returned to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and other countries only after the Red Army's occupation. Yugoslav volunteers, however, generally had a more prominent status in the country (and historiography) since the Yugoslav resistance movement liberated the country with only minimal support from the Soviet Union.

CIVIL WAR IN TAJIKISTAN : IT’S IMPACT ON TAJIK-RUSSIA RELATIONS

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (26) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jajneswar Sethi
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
State Relations ◽  
Two Sides ◽  
Second World

The relations between Tajikistan and Russia have passed through various stages of development starting from the Tsarist Colonial times to the present. Though the disintegration of the Soviet Union brought about drastic changes in the post-Second World War balance of power affecting the interests of both the countries, there is still a continuity in Tajik-Russia relations. The relation between the two sides has remained strong and cordial even after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Tajikistan witnessed a civil war in 1992 that resulted in large-scale out-migration of Russians who constituted the skilled and the elite groups key to the industrial development of Tajikistan. Realizing the seriousness of the situation, the Tajik Government adopted policies and confidence-building measures which cemented their relationship again. Now the inter-state relations between the two countries are on firm footing..

Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War

2001 ◽  
Vol 80 (6) ◽  
pp. 184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Hoffmann ◽  
Ronald Radosh ◽  
Mary R. Habeck ◽  
Georgi Sevostyanov
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
The Soviet Union

Los Cuatro Generales

2021 ◽  
pp. 209-212
Author(s):  
William Klinger ◽  
Denis Kuljiš
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Military Training ◽  
Soviet Leader ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
To Receive

This chapter looks at Marshal Tito's power in the secret sphere that was based on the revolutionary cadres from the Spanish Civil War. It describes Tito's own four Spanish generals, namely Enrique Líster Forján, Juan Modesto, Antonio Cordon, and José Manuel Tagüeña Lacorte. It also talks about General Líster, who was born in Cuba but went to the Soviet Union to receive military training in 1932. The chapter discusses Moscow's accusation that Tito was repatriating important cadres after the defeat of the Republican army and about 440,000 people crossed the Pyrenees. It explains that the 1944 Churchill–Stalin Agreement sealed the fate of revolution in Europe as the Soviet leader ordered all the guerrillas to demobilize.

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