Republic of Egos Republic of Egos A Social History of the Spanish Civil War Michael Seidman THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS The University of Wisconsin Press 1930 Monroe Street Madison, Wisconsin 53711 www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/ 3 Henrietta Street London WC2E 8LU, England Copyright © 2002 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System All rights reserved 54321 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Seidman, Michael (Michael M.) Republic of egos: a social history of the Spanish Civil War / Michael Seidman. p. cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–299–17860–9 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 0–299–17864–1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Spain—History—Civil War, 1936–1939—Social aspects. 2. Spain—Social conditions— 1886–1939. I. Title. DP269.8.S65 S54 2002 946.081'1—dc21 2002002808 Individuality is the only thing that we humans have in common. L. Namdies, Antinomies Contents List of Maps ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction: Bringing Back the Individual 3 1. Militancy 14 2. Opportunism 74 3. Cynicism 155 4. Survival 217 Conclusion 235 Notes 243 Bibliography 279 Index 291 vii Maps 1. Regions and provinces of Spain 2 2. Advance of Army of Africa, summer and fall 1936 48 3. The battles around Madrid, November 1936 60 4. The Madrid front, late November 1936 62 5. March 1937 division of Spain 105 6. The battles near Madrid, 1937 106 7. Republican offensives in Aragon, 1937 116 8. Republican Teruel offensive, December 1937 158 9. Lost by Republic in 1938 184 10. Division of Spain, July 1938 185 ix Acknowledgments I gratefully acknowledge the support of a number of friends, colleagues, and institutions. An American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship and a Uni- versity of North Carolina–Wilmington Research Reassignment provided resources that allowed me to spend a year in Spain conducting archival research. The College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of History of UNC–W offered grants that permitted travel to appropriate collections. I wish to express gratitude to Gabriel Jackson and Raymond Carr, who endorsed my project of a social history of the Spanish civil war. I am indebted to the car- tographer, Todd Richardson. I owe special thanks to Stanley Payne both for his encouragement and deep insight. Jim Amelang and Elena López in Madrid were generous in many ways. Quím and Sara, Paco and Juliá, Coro and Pili always offered warm and intelligent refuge in Barcelona. Michael Seidman Kure Beach, N.C. xi Republic of Egos Introduction Bringing Back the Individual It remains surprising that a civil war in a minor power on the periphery of Europe has generated and continues to provoke enormous interest. There are, it is said, twenty thousand books on the Spanish civil war—which may be as many as on the French Revolution or the Second World War, undoubtedly more significant events than the Spanish conflict. Yet perhaps because of its proximity to the Second World War and its ideological and theological scope, the Iberian conflict of the 1930s incites ongoing fascination. Unlike contem- porary—principally ethnic—civil wars in southeastern Europe or in Africa, the Spanish conflict involved, to some degree, almost every important polit- ical ideology and three major religions—Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. During the conflict, opposing “isms”—Communism and fascism, anarchism and authoritarianism, republicanism and monarchism, Catholicism and anti- clericalism, democracy and dictatorship—battled each other. The under- standable fascination provoked by the struggles among these belief systems has marked the literature with an ideological stamp. The historiography usu- ally explains the holy wars of right versus left, Catholics against atheists, tra- ditionalists confronting modernizers. The many forms of the collective have mesmerized the most recent gen- erations of historians, including those who have studied the Spanish war. Investigation has centered on political, religious, and trade-union collectiv- ities or has focused on social groups, such as classes or genders. This new 3 4 Introduction emphasis was a healthy reaction to the previous stress on great men who sup- posedly made history largely by themselves. Two major traditions, the Marx- ist and, more inclusively, the sociological, have inspired the shift to the study of collectivities and social groups. Both traditions emerged from the positivist position that sought to determine the laws of history and therefore disregarded the unique. The Marxist tradition views the individual as a mem- ber of a social class that, in turn, struggles for survival and dominance.1 To resolve the class struggle, Marxism offers the tantalizing ideal of social rec- onciliation, a goal that still continues to inspire many. Although the socio- logical orientation is broader and less political, it shares the Marxist view of men and women as social beings. This tradition argues that human subjec- tivity is unintelligible outside a social context. Society creates individuals, not vice versa (Lukes 1977:177). Many who follow this orientation echo the Marxist yearning for social reconciliation or integration. The sociological perspective has inspired a wide variety of historical inves- tigations, all of which celebrate the social and correspondingly neglect the individual. Perhaps the most influential representative of the sociological ori- entation in historical studies is the Annales. This school’s stress on climate, geography, and demography conceded a very limited importance and reduced autonomy to the lone human being. The disdain of Annales scholars for the personal may be extreme, but it is indicative of what has been, until recently, the climate in the humanities and social sciences. Indeed, the very formula- tion, “social sciences,” reveals the bias against what Steven Lukes has labeled “methodological individualism.” Do not, he and many others tell us, start with the individual since beginning with the unique will lead to both political and methodological failure. According to Lukes, methodological individualism can never eliminate social explanations. It can only mask them as they return clandestinely. Furthermore, methodological individualists, such as Friedrich Hayek and Karl Popper, are hopelessly reactionary and capitalist. Lukes’s durkheimian objections deserve serious consideration but not uncrit- ical acceptance. Oddly enough, it was Louis de Bonald, the classic Catholic reactionary, who first challenged the methodological individualism of Thomas Hobbes by arguing that the individual can be known only in society (see Moulinié 1979:165). One of the aims of this study is to dispute de Bonald and Lukes by showing that beginning with the individual and the personal is use- ful for historical understanding. There is no reason to accept a priori the philosopher’s or social scientist’s argument that man is merely a social being. Truisms, such as “human subjectivity is unintelligible outside a social context,” can easily be refuted by claiming that the social context is unintelligible with- out the individual.2 The priority of the social and the rejection of personal sub- jectivity should not be accepted on faith. Introduction 5 The following study of the Spanish civil war and revolution intends to demonstrate how individuals make history. These actors cannot be reduced to mere members of social or political collectivities. Individuals were not deter- mined by their social class or gender or, if they were, the ways they interpreted and acted upon their class or gender identities diverged enough to dilute the explanatory usefulness of these concepts. The emphasis on the collective expe- rience of a class or a gender assumes and even encourages the discovery or invention of a community or commonality that may not have existed. The exploration of the individual and the personal in the following pages is a primary justification for yet another book on the Spanish civil war. Many of its most famous actors have written their memoirs from the perspective of “squabbles from above.” In this type of apologetic literature, politicians and military men employed by the various collectivities defend their record (e.g., Martín-Blázquez 1938, Rojo 1974, Cordón 1977). Most historians have pos- sessed a traditional political, diplomatic, and military orientation. They have focused with great intelligence and diligence on political parties, international diplomacy, and military confrontations. Looking back on the interwar period, many observers and participants sympathetic to the left have viewed the Span- ish war as a prelude to or the first phase of the Second World War (Líster 1966:293; Modesto 1969:288). A newer type of investigation—pioneered by Theda Skocpol—combines structural concerns with international diplomacy (see Skocpol 1979:37; Gold- stone 1986:7). States in international competition have been forced to tax their people to remain competitive geostrategic players, thereby increasing social and economic tensions. In this context of internal and global pressures, cer- tain elites subjected their own state organization to severe criticism. The lower classes, especially peasants, took advantage of divisions among elites to advance their own demands. Eventually, urban revolutionaries triumph. This model has a certain, but nonetheless limited, usefulness for the Spanish case. It underlines the importance of elite divisions, peasant revolt, and the urban/rural split, which were all central in the Spanish revolution. However, the model’s stress on the influence of geopolitics on domestic policy has lit- tle meaning in Spain (see Stone 1994:16). Spain’s admitted position as a sec- ond-rate power outside of the major forums of international competition does not fit into Skocpol’s model, and it is not surprising that she ignored the Span- ish revolution. Furthermore, structural models are concerned primarily with the origins of revolutions and do not explore social revolutions and civil wars in terms of the lived experiences of the population.3 The structural approach priv- ileges investigation of the state and social elites and ignores—except insofar as they are members of a social class—the people.