Repression in the Spanish Republic

[Menydh]

The Truth Behind the Repression
by Pío Moa

(from the book
Los orígenes de la guerra civil española
vol. II: El derrumbe de la República y del Frente Popular
chap. VI: La realidad de la represión)

The Left rejects the parliamentary debate

The intention of the campaigns denouncing the repression was not, as it is evident, to shed light over the events but rather to rise a tide of anger among the public opinion and to justify the right of the left -or at least the moral right- to uprise against a reaction which unconceivably bleeding and blindly egoist character had made it deserve to be destroyed, by one means or another, in the good of progress. The defense of the legality by the Right was thus discredited and without significance before the weight and the stain of some horrendous crimes.

The intensity and emotion used in the antirrepresive campaign has taken many historians to not questioning its veracity, without further considerations and even adding a little something of their own, which in occasions is a lot. Gerald Brenan, for example, stops at nothing: "Thousands of detentions were practiced and prisoners, except for those assasinated on road, were taken to the garrisons (...) Once there, they were taken out and shot in serial. The Legionaries of Colonel Yagüe and the Moors had already finished off, according to their habits, all prisoners fallen in the fight. It is impossible to tell how many fell in the executions carried out by the squads of the Guardia Civil." In total, together with those fallen in the fight, there must be many thousands of dead casualties, but Brenan offers the incongruous figure of only 3,000. Too few for so much ferocity like the one he describes, although, for the rest, he multiplies the figure by 3.

To explain so much cruelty, Brenan adduces that "General López Ochoa, a humanitarian man and a Freemason (...) was totally annulled by the orders arrived from the Ministry." It is difficult to know where does Brenan get those stories, which surpass the stories of the Socialist campaign. The reality is that the troops of Africa did not have the habits that he attributes them so lightly, of assassinating prisoners by the loads, if they ever had any. With regards to López Ochoa it was much less humanitarian than in Brenen's fantasies, and far from being annulled, he imposed his criterion in all disagreements with Franco or with Yagüe before the Ministry, as we have already seen in the first volume of "Los orígenes de la guerra civil" (the origins of the civil war).

In the same line, Hugh Thomas assures that the troops "behaved in the conquered territory the same as if they were a victorious army which was living of the sufferings of the defeated (...) Undoubtedly many deaths took place after the fight was over, when La Legión was 'enjoying' its victory." Brian Crozier speaks of, without further evidence than his own imagination, of the "orgy of executions and rapes by the Moors of Yagüe, the executions of thousands of prisoners by the Guardia Civil, and the sadistic tortures inflicted on thousands of miners captured by a major of the Police (in reality he was a major of the Guardia Civil) called Doval." Gabriel Jackson believes that he knows that "if a small contingent of soldiers crossing a mountainous and hostile territory heard one shot or a curse (...) believing that this shot could be the prelude of a general attack in an effort to free the prisoners, the prisoners where killed by the guardians". Which specific cases of this barbarity will have Jackson known? As he points himself, "it is impossible to know how many men were dead in this way".

Refuting the above authors, Enrique Barco Teruel calls the attention upon the fact that the Left virtually never gave the names of the victims: "How many denounces of illegal deaths (...) were presented to the authorities, to the Parliament, and to the media of Frente Popular when it was in office? (...) No one tells exactly the names of those who were assassinated by the thousands, by the hundreds, or simply by the tens, long after the fights had ended, something curious if one takes into account that the Left had on its hands, since February 1936, the possibility of carrying out a full investigation." Undoubtedly it was all a propaganda designing, made sound in all possible tones, and with a more than noticeable efficiency⁽¹⁾.

Which were the facts behind the propaganda? How many were the victims? That should be known because the field was open to investigation in the right moment. On October 30, 1935, Gil-Robles exhorted the Left to a parliamentary debate, and encouraged the author of one of these reports about the atrocities, much spread in and outside Spain, "that Sr. Gordón Ordás has the chance to tell to this Chamber, where he can be contradicted with facts and evidences, what he intends to make in the place of a simple agitation". He [Gil-Robles] boasted that "this Government is the first example which I think that has existed in Spanish politics (...) which has opened the way to a judicial or parliamentary investigation in a way as wide as never" (he was refering to the initial negative by Azaña to open a parliamentary commission for the events of Casas Viejas). Gordón, enraged, reminded that he had performed an inquiry on site, and that in November 1934 he had been prevented from taking it to the Courts. Another MP, Vicente Marco Miranda, had tried it too by the end of that same month, getting the answer that he should give notice of his data to the tribunals, and if they were rejected, then he should go to the Parliament.

Gil-Robles replied that in November of the previous year, the revolutionary tension was still strong and that there was an offensive international campaign on the make, and so the debate had simply been postponed, with all the legal rights for it. But ever since then neither Gordón nor any others had insisted, despite their usual tenacity in issues of lesser importance: "If His Lordship had put in this case the interest that he put in going to stir up in Asturias, in the lower depths of the revolution to extract a portion of inafamies (...) he would have been able to shed light on whatever had wanted to shed light." Gordón, incoherent, refused to offer a debate under the excuse that he was not going to deal with the issue "whenever Gil-Robles wants", nor to "give him an electoral platform": "we shall speak when I believe that the Government has the titles." The electoral allusion indicates that at least Gordón, was using the issue under that point of view, and that he was not sure that he would come out clean of the debate. To the demand for evidences he replied: "If I can speak out one day it will be from office." Marco Miranda had requested to speak, but then the renounced to do so. Neither did the Socialists nor the Republicans of the Left believe that it was convenient to pick up Gil-Robles's invitation to the debate.

The occasion for Gordón Ordás came four months later, when the Left came into power, in February 1936, after some elections marked by a reinforced campaign around the supposed crimes in Asturias. However, Gordón and the rest of the Frente Popular showed an amazing disinterest in the investigation and the debate, which never took place. On June 16, 1936, in the Courts, Dolores Ibárruri praised with passion "the glorious october of which all the Spanish citizens who have a political sense, who have dignity are proud of", defining it, against all the evidence, like "an instinctive defense of the people against the danger of Fascism", and accusing "the men of the Right" who "arrived to such terrible extremes of ferociousness, never known in the history of repression of any country. Thousands of men imprisoned and tortured; men with the testicles extirpated; women hanged for denying to denounce their men; children executed; mothers went crazy when they saw their children tortured", etc. Gil-Robles challenged his enemies once more: "All the responsabilities must be clear (...) It is not licit to come here to give a speech like in a meeting."

Ten days later, the Government of the Left refused to take the case to the Parliament, and even on July 15, close to the military uprising, the leader of CEDA told his accusers in the Congress: "When you don't bring bread to the workers (...) what you do is giving them some stories about october (...) It is really strange that while these Courts have been opened several months, and while the main item of the propaganda of the parties of Frente Popular has been the demand of responsibilities for the repression of October, you have not taken any determination yet (...) Mr Prieto said that it is compelling to measure everyone's responsibilities. I am looking forward to speak about everything, (...) also of the responsibilities of Mr. Prieto and of all those who prepared the revolutionary movement and unchained the catastrophe over Spain."

The investigative listlessness of the Frente Popular has put clouds over the issue, submitted since then to contradictory estimations, used often, even today, with warmongering aims. It suggests that the denounces of the atrocities were false, although it is difficult that they were completely false. The propagandistic tinge of the report by De los Ríos is obvious, like it is obvious the propagandistic tinge of the posterior investigations by Eduardo de Guzmán, from the Communist group International Red Aid, and others. Marco Miranda made his enquiries with the help of a Socialist politician. Gordón Ordás offers more guarantees, as he avoids to put the blame on the entire army or govenment, and he doesn't forget the crimes of the insurrects; besides, he had condemned the revolution before October and he had no interest, thereafter, in diverting the attention from it. The military auditor implicitly admitted excesses when complaining: "You are forgetting that the troops acted in a regime of real war against an enemy big in numbers which, well armed, developed an offensive action with the unusual intensity and cruelty." There probably were some military men who wanted the revenge for the assassinations of the guards who had been taken prisoners, and for the tales about some ferocious acts committed by the revolutionaries. On the other hand, a commission sent in January by Lerroux denied the veracity of the denounces, like did the writer Ramón Pérez de Ayala, MP for Asturias and elected by peoples of the left, according to historian Ricardo de la Cierva⁽²⁾.

We are left with the deep impression that the accusations had some basis, but that they were hugely exaggerated by an unscrupulous propaganda.



Summarizing, in Avilés, López Ochoa uttered brutal threats, although he didn't have to fulfill them, and then, in order to protect his weak column, he placed prisoners in the vanguard, some of which fell in the clashes. His worst act was the shooting of prisoners in the headquarters of Pelayo (from 4 to 48, and even hundreds, depending on who tells it). López argued that they were executions after a summary trial, but in any case they were illegal. There were denounces of assassinations of inocent civilians during the fight, in Oviedo and its surroundings, in particular in Tenderina Baja, Villafría, San Esteban de las Cruces and other places. The more resounding crime, in Carbayín, was perpetrated on October 24, five days after the surrender of the rebels: it was a supposed revenge for the execution of guards in Sama (23 Guardias Civiles and 7 Guardias de Asalto), a group of soldiers or Guardias Civiles shot in reppraisal between 18 and 24^* prisoners including, apparently, a child who was 16 years old and a teacher militant of CEDA³.

^*They told between 18 and 20. Paco Ignacio Taibo II gives the figure of 24

Gordón mentions 24 killings, Marco Miranda 46, and the report divulged by De los Ríos and Álvarez del Vayo, 31, 9 of which died of tortures. If we give as good all the denounces, discounting those repeated (Carabyín and Luis Sirval), we get a total of 84, which is a figure far away from the thousands alleged by the propagandas, and which probably includes the casualties produced during the fights, when it was difficult to distinguish between rebels and ordinary people^(4)*.

^*Ramón and Jesús Salas Larrazábal note: "Díaz Nosty, in La comuna asturiana, raises the number of victims of the Government repression to a minimum of 156 and a maximum of 210 (...) but he doesn't bring evidence nor the figure can resist the confrontation with those managed by the the MPs of the Left which they investigated on site." Ricardo de la Cierva worked out a total of 200 victims, 100 on each side⁽⁵⁾.

This aside, the execution of captured rebels as they were caught with weapons was common in this kind of actions. It had been practiced by the Social-Democratic Government in Germany against the Spartakusaufstand insurrection, and against the Soviet of Bavaria, in 1919. In Spain, during the Anarchist revolt of January 1932, much less grave than that of October 1934, Azaña wrote in his diary: "When Fernando [de los Ríos] heard me saying that anyone who was caught with weapons on his hands would be shot dead, he wanted to dissent; but I didn't allow him to, and with much abruptness I replied that I wouldn't tolerate that they ate up the Republic. All other Ministers approved my resolution."⁽⁶⁾ Such executions would be realized massively by the Frente Popular (like by their adversaries) in July 1936, when the Right, in turn, raised. In any case, in October 1934 there were comparatively few victims from such practices.



NOTES

1.- G. Brenan, El laberinto español, Madrid, Globus, 1984, p. 309.
H. Thomas, La guerra civil española, Madrid, Darlo 16,1976, p. 155. B.
Crozier, Franco. Historia y biografía I, Madrid, NyC, 1969, p. 221.
G. Jackson, Entre la reforma y la revolución. La república y la guerra civil española, Barcelona, Crítica, 1981, p. 159.
E. Barco Teruel, El golpe socialista de octubre de 1934, Madrid, Dyrsa, 1984, p. 284

2.- F. Gordón Ordás, Mi política en España, II, México, 1963, p. 165 y ss.
J. A. Sánchez García-Saúco, La revolución de 1934 en Asturias, Madrid, Edit. Nacional, 1975, p. 145

3.- P. I. Taibo II, Asturias, I, p. 110-1

4.- R. y J. Salas Larrazábal, Historia general de la guerra civil española, Madrid, Rialp, 1986, p. 19

5.- Ibíd, p.19

6.- M. Azaña, Memorias políticas, Barcelona, Grijalbo, 1978, p. 384