La ofensiva cinematográfica de la URSS en la guerra civil española

This article explores Soviet cinema and the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939. The article focuses on three separate components of Moscow’s cinematic operations vis-à-vis the Spanish imbroglio: 1.) the distribution of Soviet-made feature films in the Loyalist zone, 2.) the production of Soviet propaganda newsreels on Spanish subjects intended for distribution within the Soviet Union, and 3.) the significance of the Spanish war for Soviet cinema throughout the balance of the Bolshevik period. The narrative and conclusions herein are supported by new research from archives in both Spain and the Russian Federation, as well as analyses of films rarely if ever discussed in the scholarly literature, either within film studies or twentieth century European history.

Cold War Politics in Britain and the Contested Legacy of the Spanish Civil War

This article offers a sustained examination of how the vicissitudes of the Cold War shaped changing interpretations of the Spanish Civil War in Britain. Considering the perspectives of participants and historians, it focuses on the diverse strands of the Left that frequently drew on the civil war to attack each other and to make wider arguments about the global Cold War. First, with the aim of criticizing Communist take-overs in Eastern Europe in the late 1940s, the article analyzes retrospective assaults on Communist party tactics and Soviet foreign policy in Spain. Second, in order to argue that the Soviet Union took a counter-revolutionary line after 1956, it investigates the re-emergence of debates over the Spanish revolution. Third, to express disapproval of the United States, it examines the increasing use of the civil war as an analogy in Cold War international affairs from the 1960s. Fourth, in support of non-Soviet Left-of-Centre collaboration, most notably Eurocommunism in the 1970s and opposition to Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government in the 1980s, it considers the renewed emphasis on the popular front. The trajectories of these debates reveal that, over time, the weight of the Left’s criticism moved from the Soviet Union towards the United States.

Operation X: Soviet Russia and the Spanish Civil War

This article offers a critical reassessment of the Soviet role in the Spanish Civil War, based on recent scholarship and declassified official documents. The author interrogates the broad historiographical consensus that reduces Soviet intervention in Spain to a sinister and nefarious force. Stalin's ignominious reputation vis-à-vis the Loyalist side is present in nearly all Western scholarship on the war, whether specialized studies by Nationalist sympathizers or Republicans in exile, or general treatments of European history written in England or America. It would be difficult to locate even a brief overview of the Civil War published outside of Russia that does not in some fashion demonize the Soviet dictator and the Soviet military assistance, code-named ‘Operation X’. The author argues that the basic error in the wide-ranging literature of this topic has always been to approach Stalin's position in Spain as one based on strength rather than weakness. If framed within the context of failure, Stalin's long-standing reputation as the villain of the Civil War may appear in a strikingly different light, and Soviets’ overall contribution to the Loyalist struggle therefore deserving a nuanced revision. The author also explores the multiple strands of the Soviet-Spanish relationship, which included not only military aid but also diplomatic, cultural and humanitarian facets.

Truth Recovery and Transitional Justice: Deferring human rights issues

This book investigates why some societies defer the solution of transitional justice issues, such as the disappeared/missing, even after successful democratic consolidation. It also explains why the same societies finally decide to deal with these human rights issues. In short, it considers the interesting and understudied phenomenon of post-transitional justice. The prolonged silences in Spain, Cyprus and Greece contradict the experience of other countries -- such as South Africa, Bosnia, and Guatemala -- where truth recovery for disappeared/missing persons was a central element of the transition to peace and democracy. Despite democratization, the exhumation of mass graves containing the victims from the violence in Cyprus (1963-1974) and the Spanish civil war (1936-1939) was delayed until the early 2000s, when both countries suddenly decided to revisit the past. Cyprus and Spain are not alone: this is an increasing trend among countries trying to come to terms with past violence. Interestingly, despite similar background conditions, Greece is resisting the trend, challenging both theory and regional experience. Truth Recovery and Transitional Justice considers three interrelated issues. First, what factors can explain prolonged silence on the issue of missing persons in some transitional settings? Second, which processes can address the occasional yet puzzling transformation of victims’ groups from opponents of truth recovery to vocal pro-reconciliation pressure groups? Third, under which conditions is it better to tie victims’ rights to an overall political settlement? The book looks at Spain and Cyprus to show how they have attempted to bring closure to deep trauma by exhuming and identifying their missing, albeit under considerably different conditions. It then probes the generalizability of the conclusions on Spain and Cyprus by looking at the Greek experience; oddly, despite similar background conditions, Greece remains resistant to post-transitional justice norms. Interestingly, each case study takes a different approach to transitional justice.

The Long Aftermath: Cultural Legacies of Europe at War, 1936-2016

In its totality, the “Long Second World War”—extending from the beginning of the Spanish Civil War to the end of hostilities in 1945—has exerted enormous influence over European culture. Bringing together leading historians, sociologists, and literary and film scholars, this broadly interdisciplinary volume investigates Europeans’ individual and collective memories and the ways in which they have shaped the continent’s cultural heritage. Focusing on the major combatant nations—Spain, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, and Russia—it offers thoroughly contextualized explorations of novels, memoirs, films, and a host of other cultural forms to illuminate European public memory.

The Soviet Union and the International Brigades, 1936-1939

The International Brigades are typically viewed as a fighting force whose impetus came from the Comintern, and thus from within the walls of the Kremlin. If the assumption is essentially correct, the broader relation between Stalin’s USSR and the IB has received little attention. This chapter constitutes an empirically-based study of the Soviet role not only in the formation of the IB, but of the Red Army’s collaboration with IB units, and Moscow’s role in the climax and denouement of the brigadistas’ Spanish experience. This study’s principal conclusion is twofold: First, that the creation and sustenance of the IB was part of Stalin’s goal of linking the Loyalist cause with that of the Soviet Union and international communism, a component of a larger geo-strategic gamble which sought to create united opposition to the fascist menace, one which might eventually bring Moscow and the West into a closer alliance. The second conclusion is that the IB, like the broader projection of Soviet power and influence into the Spanish theater, was an overly ambitious operational failure whose abortive retreat is indicative of the basic weakness of the Stalinist regime in the years prior to the Second World War.