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Speaker 1: Spain. I'm Robert Evans. This is Behind the Bastards. But actually, yeah, Spain,

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Speaker 1: that's what I got. This is Behind the Bastards. It's

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Speaker 1: actually Behind the Insurrections special Behind the Bastards miniseries talking

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Speaker 1: about the history of fascist attempts to seize power from democracies. Yes, um,

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Speaker 1: we started our our first opening of this episode with

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Speaker 1: me shouting, what's bombing Mike Guernica's But then we decided

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Speaker 1: that would get me canceled and was a bad idea. Um,

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Speaker 1: we would be talking about what I mean. I would

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Speaker 1: have just gone, yeah, I just shouted the name Spain.

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Speaker 1: Alternate pitch what about Yeah, there we go, There we go,

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Speaker 1: There we go power. Unfortunately, my knowledge of Spanish is

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Speaker 1: mostly limited to buying drugs. That's the NBA player from

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Speaker 1: that that was a really great laker. But you know

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Speaker 1: has really good seafood. You can say that about Spain.

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Speaker 1: I can. Oh my god, Yes, I have had some

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Speaker 1: amazing piea. One of the pie as I had was

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Speaker 1: partly responsible for me vomiting on the limousine of the

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Speaker 1: King of Spain. But um, that's amazing. That's a story

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Speaker 1: for another day. Best friend, my best friend died in Spain.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. No, that's a great thing to say.

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Speaker 1: That's years ago. My old DJ flew to Spain. He

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Speaker 1: was actually doing a he was doing a master chef

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Speaker 1: class with his pias. He's Filipino, dude, he was going

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Speaker 1: to do this like piea adobo. It was this crazy

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Speaker 1: Filipino Spanish. He sounds amazing. Yeah, yeah, and he had

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Speaker 1: like and he just his blood pressure dropped his zero.

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Speaker 1: Oh ship died in his airbnb. That's horrible. That's horrible. Well,

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Speaker 1: we are going to talk about a lot of people

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Speaker 1: dying in Spain today, so that's the effect, though, love

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Speaker 1: you doubt that that's there's Actually this is actually gonna

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Speaker 1: be a very sad episode in a lot of ways.

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Speaker 1: So that's an appropriate emotional tone to start it off with. Ye,

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Speaker 1: the fuck Spain throws down a current Spain is not

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Speaker 1: your fault. Um. So we're gonna be talking about the

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Speaker 1: Spanish Civil War today. Uh. And we left off last

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Speaker 1: time with the establishment of an actual, like real, fat,

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Speaker 1: organized fascist party in Spain. The Philogists, Um, they went

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Speaker 1: the first, but they were the first to kind of like,

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Speaker 1: I don't get it right, is a weird phrase to

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Speaker 1: apply to fascism, but they were. They were the Spanish

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Speaker 1: fascists who would, um become kind of the watchword for

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Speaker 1: Spanish fascism. When people talk about the fascists in Spain,

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Speaker 1: they're talking about the philogists, you know, yeah, the philangers

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Speaker 1: um fa lenx is, which kind of also I think

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Speaker 1: that I think philanges comes from fai lenx because it's

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Speaker 1: that word for that Greek military. You know, we have

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Speaker 1: a shiploaded dudes standing in like a series of lines,

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Speaker 1: all supporting each other in kind of like a hand

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Speaker 1: I don't know, that'd be my guess. I'm not a worder.

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Speaker 1: So the oddest thing about the phlogists, um is that

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Speaker 1: alone among fascists pretty much any period I'm aware of,

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Speaker 1: they well except for maybe the modern period, they were

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Speaker 1: giant wusses to start out with. And this may be

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Speaker 1: due to the fact we've talked a lot about how

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Speaker 1: like World War One is why the Italian and German

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Speaker 1: fascists were terrifying people, um because they, you know, we're

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Speaker 1: very comfortable killing people. Spain stayed out of World War One.

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Speaker 1: Most of the early fascists were like more on this,

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Speaker 1: like fascist intellectuals than street fighters, and they weren't initially

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Speaker 1: very willing to use force. Now they talked about violence

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Speaker 1: a lot. Um and Jose Antonio, their leader, was definitely

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Speaker 1: a fascist, but he was very uncomfortable with physical violence,

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Speaker 1: even when when it was directed at him and it

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Speaker 1: was repeatedly, he was loath to actually organize retaliatory violence.

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Speaker 1: During his speech he gave after his party's unification with

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Speaker 1: the John Seasta's, a leftist gunman opened fire, intending to

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Speaker 1: kill Jose Antonio and instead killing a spectator and wounding

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Speaker 1: for other people. The fascists launched no reprisals against theft

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Speaker 1: in response, which is like you you look at Germany

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Speaker 1: or Italy's is very strange, yeah, very different than it

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Speaker 1: was elsewhere. Um. And the kind of unwillingness in this

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Speaker 1: period of the fascists to use violence lead one columnist

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Speaker 1: for a right wing newspaper to note sarcastically, so that

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Speaker 1: everything will be incongruous here, it is that the fascists

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Speaker 1: who are made to swallow castor oil, which is referring

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Speaker 1: to the fact that in Italy the fascists would force

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Speaker 1: castor oil down the throats of their enemies to make

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Speaker 1: them ship themselves sometimes to death, like it was a

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Speaker 1: horrible torture, Like they thought it was funny, but it

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Speaker 1: killed people. And this guy's being like in Italy, the

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Speaker 1: fascists make their enemies drink castor oil. Here, we have

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Speaker 1: to drink the castor oil, right, because we're not willing

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Speaker 1: to use violence. Um, that's weird. It is very odd.

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Speaker 1: It does not last. But this is a period of

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Speaker 1: time early in the fascist So also, every black person's

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Speaker 1: grandma made them drink castor oil at some point. Sucks

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Speaker 1: one of those you know that, you know that that

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Speaker 1: image macro from from the movie Predator where uh those

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Speaker 1: two guys are shaking hands and meeting in the middle. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Italian fascists and black grandma's feeding people castor oil. Yes,

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Speaker 1: dang it. Grandma's stomach was just just give me. Look,

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Speaker 1: it had been fine. Just let me drink some water.

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Speaker 1: God drink this cast or. Can't tell her no either,

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Speaker 1: tell the black woman no, I dare you. And they were,

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Speaker 1: you know, the Italians were giving people much larger like

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Speaker 1: it killed people sometimes. Yeah, other Phalangists leaders were happier

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Speaker 1: to endorse physical violence than Jose Antonio was. But for

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Speaker 1: a little while. Initially, a number of them kind of

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Speaker 1: felt like it was good to have some of their

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Speaker 1: members gutted down by the left. When one Phalangist was

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Speaker 1: killed in the movement's first street fight, it was thought

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Speaker 1: that the brawl had been a successful baptism of fire. Basically,

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Speaker 1: we're trying to ramp these people up to violence, so

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Speaker 1: it's good that we're like this. It's positive for us

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Speaker 1: that we're being tested with like deadly force. Um. This

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Speaker 1: was some people's attitude initially, but the deaths kept coming,

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Speaker 1: and for a while they were entirely caused by leftists.

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Speaker 1: Most of this violence occurred between nineteen thirty four and

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six, during a period of escalating political violence

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Speaker 1: that historians call the militarization of politics during the Second Republic.

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Speaker 1: And when you're talking about at least the violence that

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Speaker 1: was between fascists and the left, it was pretty one

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Speaker 1: sided for a while. While fascists being fascists always talked

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Speaker 1: about violence, Jose Antonio particularly resisted putting the party on

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Speaker 1: a militant footing. Now, this was unpopular within the movement,

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Speaker 1: and one internal meeting, Jose Antonio expressed his desire to

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Speaker 1: engage the left in the dialectic of fists and pistols.

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Speaker 1: But he was kind of being more metaphorical than anything right,

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Speaker 1: like we're gonna have like the verbal equivalent of war,

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Speaker 1: and he was kind of himing and hawing around because

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Speaker 1: he wasn't really willing to commit fully at this point. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: one of his colleagues in the same meeting expressed a

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Speaker 1: desire to treat leftists as enemies in a state of war. Now,

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Speaker 1: there were discussions with the party of overthrowing Jose Antonio

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Speaker 1: and replacing him with a more violent fascist because he

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Speaker 1: just wasn't willing to kill fast enough um and these

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Speaker 1: suggestions were shot down because they couldn't really exist without him.

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Speaker 1: At this point. The police kept shutting down their party offices,

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Speaker 1: so the only place they could gather was Jose Antonio's

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Speaker 1: law offices. He was also like the one who had money,

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Speaker 1: um and so they couldn't A lot of people were

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Speaker 1: angry at him, but they couldn't really exist without him.

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Speaker 1: Um on A Simo Redondo, who was another phalangeious leader

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Speaker 1: uh and probably the one who urged violence most openly

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Speaker 1: around the same time, was very willing to kind of

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Speaker 1: go against Jose Antonio and say people like we should

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Speaker 1: be we should be ready to kill people in the streets.

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Speaker 1: In December of nineteen thirty three, he promised his followers

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Speaker 1: a situation of absolute violences approaching. And I'm gonna quote

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Speaker 1: now from a speech he gave to Phalangeist youth, young workers,

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Speaker 1: young Spaniards. Prepare your weapons, get used to the crack

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Speaker 1: of the pistol. Caress your dagger. Be inseparable from your

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Speaker 1: vindictive club. Young people must be trained in physical combat,

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Speaker 1: must love violence as a system, must arm themselves with

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Speaker 1: whatever they can, and must be prepared to finish off

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Speaker 1: by whatever means. A few dozen Marxist impostors. There's a

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Speaker 1: lot that's in there. Yeah, I'm really And when he's

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Speaker 1: saying there, when he especially when he says they must

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Speaker 1: love violence as a system, he's kind of yeah, spanishifying

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Speaker 1: the concept the Italians had and that the Germans developed

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Speaker 1: of like the cult of action for action's sake, the

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Speaker 1: almost this almost worship of violence as an an end

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Speaker 1: in and of itself. Um, you're seeing that start to

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Speaker 1: percolate into Spanish fascist culture in this period. Now more

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Speaker 1: than a dozen Phalangists and other fascists were killed by

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Speaker 1: anarchists and communists before the fascist right properly organized itself

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Speaker 1: for violence, but organized themselves for violence they did, and

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote now from the book Fascism in Spain.

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Speaker 1: The point of inflection in the political violence took place

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Speaker 1: on Sunday, June tenth. The Chibberries of the Young Socialists

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Speaker 1: had been prohibited by authorities from marching in the streets

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Speaker 1: of Madrid, but during the warm weather organized regular weekend

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Speaker 1: outings to the Casa de Campo recreation area on the

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Speaker 1: west side of Madrid. On the tenth a group of

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Speaker 1: Phalangists intercepted them, and the usual fight took place. An

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Speaker 1: eighteen year old Phalangists, Juan Queler, son of a police inspector,

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Speaker 1: was killed and his corpse was subsequently mutilated, his head

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Speaker 1: apparently crushed with rocks. One of Ansaldo's squads was quick

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Speaker 1: to respond, allegedly without obtaining approval from the tree embers

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Speaker 1: who directed the party. The Fascist Party later that evening,

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Speaker 1: as a bus transporting the Young Socialist excursionists unloaded some

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Speaker 1: of them in Madrid, a car full of Phalangist Pistolero's

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Speaker 1: personally led by Ensaldo, who's a fascist militant, was waiting.

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Speaker 1: It slowly passed the young couple on the sidewalk, spraying

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Speaker 1: them with bullets. A twenty year old shop clerk, Juanito Rico,

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Speaker 1: was killed. The Phalangists claimed she had been involved in

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Speaker 1: desecrating the corpse. Her twenty one year old brother was

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Speaker 1: left permanently disabled and several others were wounded. Four days earlier,

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Speaker 1: a Phalangist smallholder in Torre perogl Jane Province had been

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Speaker 1: killed during a farm workers strike. So that Queller was

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Speaker 1: the fifteenth or sixteenth John Cisto or Phale and just

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Speaker 1: killed since the John ceased to teenager had been slain

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Speaker 1: by assault guards, which are like socialist militants, and uh

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Speaker 1: May of nineteen thirty two, all the others had been

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Speaker 1: killed by the left. Though numerous leftists had been injured

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Speaker 1: by philogists and street of phrase and university assaults, Rico

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Speaker 1: was the first leftist fatality at their hands for years.

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Speaker 1: She would be commemorated as the first victim of fascism

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Speaker 1: in Spain. So that's really the start of Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's so much there, man, Like, first of all, I'm

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Speaker 1: still dangling at the phrase dialectic of fists and pencils.

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Speaker 1: I'm like, that's that's raptists and pistols. Yeah and pencils. No, no,

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Speaker 1: fist dialectic a fist like a conversation that involves yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: no I I actually yeah, yours is better. Yeah. I

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Speaker 1: was like yeah, I was like yo, those are bars man, Okay.

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Speaker 1: And then also, you know, there's there's a part of

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Speaker 1: you know, and then it's a strange like survival tactic

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Speaker 1: or just just a byproduct of like just being around

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Speaker 1: like inner city just kind of like gang violence that

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Speaker 1: like you the desensitization of it, like where you're just like,

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Speaker 1: you know, people die daily, you know what I'm saying,

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Speaker 1: Like you just kind of like get used to and

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Speaker 1: used to such a bad word to explain what I'm

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Speaker 1: trying to say. But no, no, you, but you get it.

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Speaker 1: It's like violence is just a part of life and

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Speaker 1: and it but it's still like even knowing that, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm an adult, you know, and I'm moved out, we

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Speaker 1: you know, done so many different things now and it's

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Speaker 1: not like I still don't live in an active community.

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Speaker 1: But like, um, at the same time, though, like you know,

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Speaker 1: like I was crazy, Like, okay, so that shooting, the

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Speaker 1: shooting at that walmart in Texas, Uh yeah, yeah, the

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Speaker 1: A Chance shooting. Yeah, Like I watched the video of

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Speaker 1: like a cell phone video of like you know, like

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Speaker 1: a hood dude that was at the walmart that I

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Speaker 1: when the shooting started, he was just like that, that's

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Speaker 1: crazy fool shooting. We probably better slide out. How calm

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Speaker 1: he was is because of how we grew up, you

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Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. So you're just like somebody got

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Speaker 1: a tech. That's a tech. I know what that is.

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Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. And it's like it's so weird.

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Speaker 1: It's just a weird thing. So we So when I

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Speaker 1: hear this, when I hear y'all talk, when you know,

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Speaker 1: we talk about this like moment of this like political upheaval,

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Speaker 1: there's still part of me that goes, but I still

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Speaker 1: don't understand why you're killing each other, you know what

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Speaker 1: I'm saying. And then and then the idea of how

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Speaker 1: I gave that whole preference to say, it's still jolting

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Speaker 1: to hear the type of like mutilation now he has

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Speaker 1: with a rock. And then like like got dog, like

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Speaker 1: you know, you know, I like crazy, you gotta be

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Speaker 1: to blunt force trauma killer person like that's it's just

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Speaker 1: I don't know anyway, it's just going on here. I

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Speaker 1: think you're It's very important to point out the desensitization

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Speaker 1: that occurs during this that that's why the phrase is

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Speaker 1: used that like um um, the militarization of politics. It's

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Speaker 1: a process that starts in thirty one and doesn't really

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Speaker 1: reach its apothesis until ninety six when the Civil War starts.

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Speaker 1: But it's a process of getting people ready to that

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Speaker 1: of escalating street violence. And you see that just within

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Speaker 1: the Fascist party, where initially the fascists are willing to fight.

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Speaker 1: There's brawls in the street from day one, right as

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Speaker 1: soon as there's fascists, before the John Z Eastas merge

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Speaker 1: with UM with Jose Antonio's group, there's street fighting and stuff.

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Speaker 1: But it when the killing starts, a lot of these

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Speaker 1: fascists because these are not and and again we get

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Speaker 1: to the civil war, a significant chunk of the fascist

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Speaker 1: military are combat veterans, and and these are the guys

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Speaker 1: who come up from Africa. Um. But these these dudes

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Speaker 1: who are actually in Iberia, they don't have experience killing people,

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Speaker 1: not not by and large, and it takes number one,

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Speaker 1: it takes time of some of them being killed before

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Speaker 1: they really start responding with deadly violence as a matter

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Speaker 1: of course. And once you have that on both sides,

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Speaker 1: once you have anarchists and communists and and other kinds

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Speaker 1: of like left socialists killing fascists in the streets and

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Speaker 1: fascists committing murder right back and vice versa, then you

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Speaker 1: have this. It starts to ramp up the whole kind

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Speaker 1: of level of comfort with deadly violence in society up

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Speaker 1: to a level that you can have the kind of

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Speaker 1: war that we're about to talk about it. But you're right,

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Speaker 1: it is a process um and I think in terms

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Speaker 1: of like how people would justify like bashing the kid's

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Speaker 1: head in with Iraq and desecrating his corpse, It's less

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Speaker 1: about that guy. It's not that individual dude. They were

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Speaker 1: probably angry, but they're looking at what's happening in Spain

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Speaker 1: and in Germany and what fashion the concentration camps that

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Speaker 1: have already been set up, the mass executions of leftists

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Speaker 1: in Italy and in Germany, the thousands who are already dead,

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Speaker 1: and they're going the only way to stop that here

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Speaker 1: is to kill as many of And and you can

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Speaker 1: argue that was that that was the wrong tact. Take that.

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Speaker 1: You could argue that you could argue that it actually

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Speaker 1: raised the level of violence to a point where you

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Speaker 1: were able to have this open conflict that the left

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Speaker 1: doesn't win. But at the time, all they know is

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Speaker 1: they see what's happening in Germany and in Italy, and

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Speaker 1: they think, I don't know what else to do but

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Speaker 1: be violent, you know, and I yeah, it's it's fucked

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Speaker 1: like the whole situation. But yeah, it's like, yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: the thing where you're like, okay, they you know, the

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Speaker 1: streets that that's like, you know, they take one, we

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Speaker 1: take four exactly one of ours. We kill for yours,

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Speaker 1: you know. And and it's supposed to be the turrent.

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Speaker 1: And that means like, okay, so I'm saying this to say,

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Speaker 1: don't kill ours. Yeah, and you call it, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it is street ship. But it's also like U S

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Speaker 1: military policy and massive retaliation, right, And this is what yes,

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Speaker 1: speaking of us in speaking of like US history, recent

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Speaker 1: history and the history of like terrorism on the right.

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Speaker 1: Tim McVeigh when he blew up the Murra Building was

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Speaker 1: very consciously being like, this is the kind of reaction. Uh,

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Speaker 1: this is like I am attacking the government because they

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Speaker 1: killed all these people in Waco, and I learned that

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Speaker 1: this is an acceptable His argument was, I learned this

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Speaker 1: was an acceptable way to respond to violence because that's

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Speaker 1: how the military trained me. Right. You can quibble with

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Speaker 1: how honest McVeigh was being there, but like hard not

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Speaker 1: to see some through lines. You know, you look at

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Speaker 1: the first Iraq War or the more reason like, right,

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Speaker 1: it's it is the way everything works, right, yeah, how

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Speaker 1: how the idea of how the idea of Pearl Harbor,

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Speaker 1: Yeah is equivalent to rosiuma yeah right, yeah, well you

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Speaker 1: take out a base, we take out an island. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's like yeah yeah, and collective punishment. There's a lot

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Speaker 1: to say about all of that. We need to move

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Speaker 1: on to the rest. T Yeah, this because I'm pretty

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Speaker 1: sure you wrote seventy yeah, more or less. Now, while

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Speaker 1: all of this was happening, while the Philangists were starting

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Speaker 1: to commit murder and stuff, and and the street fighting

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Speaker 1: between left and right is escalating in Spain, well, all

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Speaker 1: this is happening on the ground, the political situation and

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Speaker 1: like the actual like elected politics and stuff, is continuing

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Speaker 1: to unravel, and this is due in large part to

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Speaker 1: the fact that the Africanistas, who were again the members

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Speaker 1: of the Spanish military who had fought in Morocco, were

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Speaker 1: increasingly frustrated with the Republic in nineteen thirty two, So

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Speaker 1: just like a year after the Republic starts, one general,

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Speaker 1: a guy named san Juro, launches a coup that fails.

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Speaker 1: But rather than wonder if the African Eestas weren't a

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Speaker 1: problem and a threat to democracy, the government brought in

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Speaker 1: Franco and his foreign legion to massacre anarchists and communists

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Speaker 1: during their nineteen thirty four uprising, where the foreign legion

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Speaker 1: executes more than a thousand people. Um. So, the Republic

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Speaker 1: knows that the military these African veterans are a problem

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Speaker 1: and also uses them to crush the left when the

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Speaker 1: left rises up because you know, governments generally smart. Um

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Speaker 1: So a gap begins to form during the Republican period

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Speaker 1: between the the the the junta's officers and the Peninsula

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Speaker 1: who supported the Republic, and the African and Eistas who

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Speaker 1: the Junta is called stormtroopers. Um. Now, by nineteen thirty six,

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Speaker 1: the political situation, which had simmered for years, broke out

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Speaker 1: into an open boil. The explanation as to why starts

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Speaker 1: with the Popular Front. In nineteen thirty four, the USSR

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Speaker 1: announced that given the worldwide advance of fascism, it was

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Speaker 1: now acceptable for good communists to make political alliances with

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Speaker 1: other left wing groups. This included both moderate liberals and

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Speaker 1: people like anarchists and even in some cases like Trotskyists,

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Speaker 1: which communists trot Skits are communists too. They don't like

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Speaker 1: each other, right, Um, and this is this is a

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Speaker 1: real big change. And we talked about in our in

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Speaker 1: our the non Nazi bastards who made Hitler. One of

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Speaker 1: the reasons why the left failed to stop the Nazis

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Speaker 1: is that the Communist Party in Germany, which you know,

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Speaker 1: generally under orders from Moscow UH called the Social Democrats

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Speaker 1: social fascists. And I'll admit right now we weren't entirely

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Speaker 1: fair to the Communists in that episode. The Social Democrats

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Speaker 1: did some really fucked up stuff to the Communists that

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Speaker 1: we will talk about later in this very series. Um,

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Speaker 1: they had good reasons to distrust the Social Democrats, that said,

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Speaker 1: the failure to work with them to stop Hitler was

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Speaker 1: very clearly a mistake. Like, and the USSR admits them

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Speaker 1: is like, you know what, maybe maybe it's necessary in

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Speaker 1: countries facing fascism for there to be for for us

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Speaker 1: to allow communists are kind of communists at least to

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Speaker 1: have a broad popular front with other people in the left. UM.

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Speaker 1: And this is a very successful idea politically. UM. And

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Speaker 1: in fact, there was also a Popular Front in France

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Speaker 1: that that succeeded in pushing some major reforms, and we

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Speaker 1: will talk about that later too. The tactic worked very

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Speaker 1: well politically electorally in Spain. The Popular Front swept the

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six elections UM, but in a way that

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Speaker 1: will be familiar to everyone listening. They did so in

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Speaker 1: a way that enraged the right wing, and it's not

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Speaker 1: hard to see why the right felt like they've been cheated.

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Speaker 1: Right Wing parties pulled four million, five hundred and five thousand,

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Speaker 1: five hundred and twenty four votes and gained a hundred

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Speaker 1: and twenty four seats in the ninety six election. Now,

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Speaker 1: the Popular Front only got about a hundred and sixty

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Speaker 1: thousand more votes, but they gained two hundred and seventy

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Speaker 1: eight seats, So they get a hundred and sixty thousand

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Speaker 1: more votes in an election with nine or ten million

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Speaker 1: votes twice as many seats. You can see why people

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Speaker 1: on the right would be like kind of piste about this. Right. Um,

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Speaker 1: and there may have been cheating. I don't really know,

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Speaker 1: like it's I'm not going to get into whether or

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Speaker 1: not there was cheating. What's important is that the right

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Speaker 1: felt that they had been cheated, right. That's what actually matters,

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Speaker 1: as opposed to whether or not there was um any

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Speaker 1: kind of electoral malfeasance. Um. And of course the c

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Speaker 1: e d A, that Catholic kind of right wing party

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Speaker 1: that's the dominant right wing party, and the Phalangists the

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Speaker 1: fascists absolutely would have cheated themselves in this election and

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Speaker 1: they actually they probably did. Um. And as a matter

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Speaker 1: of fact, when Roblez, the head of the c e

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Speaker 1: d A, realized that he wasn't going to be a

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Speaker 1: winted prime minister after the nineteen thirty six election, he

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Speaker 1: started negotiating with Africans to generals to try to convince

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Speaker 1: them to do a coup, to force it, like, to

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Speaker 1: put him into power um as a dictator basically uh.

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Speaker 1: And he failed, but there was a lot of sympathy

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Speaker 1: for the ideal. While the left looked at the Phalanges

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Speaker 1: and the C. E. D A and saw Hitler and Mussolini,

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Speaker 1: the right looked at the Popular Front and saw it

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Speaker 1: as the inevitable prelude to Soviet style state communism. Uh

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Speaker 1: and I'm going to quote from a write up in

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Speaker 1: lumen dot UK right now. When this coalition came to power,

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Speaker 1: popular unrest in the countryside exploded into land seizures, encouraged

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Speaker 1: by radical anarchists. So as soon as like the Popular

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Speaker 1: Front wins the election, the anarchists are like, we're we're

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Speaker 1: going to do our thing now, like it's time to

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Speaker 1: it's time to take power for the people. There was

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Speaker 1: little attempt by the anarchists to moderate their behavior and

404
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Speaker 1: no demands to allow the Popular Front to reassure moderate elements.

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Speaker 1: In Spain, a C and T, which is an anarchist

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Speaker 1: party conference held in May nineteen thirty six, was full

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Speaker 1: of revolutionary language. It seemed that the New Republic had

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Speaker 1: not been able to control the major revolutionary group. The

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Speaker 1: murder of a former finance minister, Jose Calvo Sotelo, on

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Speaker 1: thirteenth July nineteen thirty six was the trigger for the war,

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Speaker 1: and much the same way as the assassination of Archduke

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Speaker 1: Franz Ferdinand had sparked the First World War. Sotelo had

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Speaker 1: been an exile from nineteen thirty one to thirty four,

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Speaker 1: but had returned to become a leading right wing figure

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Speaker 1: associated with the Spanish Fascists and a deputy for the

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Speaker 1: Spanish Revival Group. He clashed with the socialists and the

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Speaker 1: Assembly and was murdered by left wing members of the

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Speaker 1: Civil Guard. So you have a couple of things happened.

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Speaker 1: The Popular Front wins election, the anarchists just start seizing

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Speaker 1: the ship out of land and saying, like the revolution,

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Speaker 1: We're doing a revolution. Um, it's happening. And at the

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Speaker 1: same time, another left wing group of left wing people

423
00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:45,600
Speaker 1: murders a popular right wing politician. Um. So this all

424
00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:49,160
Speaker 1: kind of snowballs into the start of the Civil War,

425
00:22:49,320 --> 00:22:52,639
Speaker 1: you know, Uh Okay, Now, when the c e d

426
00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:55,640
Speaker 1: A lost the election, that was kind of it for them. Um,

427
00:22:55,840 --> 00:22:59,160
Speaker 1: and most of the party, like after failing to win

428
00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:01,800
Speaker 1: in thirty six, just kind of gets fully on board

429
00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:05,680
Speaker 1: with authoritarianism. One scholar writes that everyone got the message

430
00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:08,760
Speaker 1: to quote abandon the ballot box and take up arms.

431
00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:12,520
Speaker 1: The c E d AS youth movement collapses. Yeah, yeah,

432
00:23:12,600 --> 00:23:16,640
Speaker 1: that's so like the the Young Republicans. Basically they collapse

433
00:23:16,760 --> 00:23:19,520
Speaker 1: overnight and they all joined the Falange. So all of

434
00:23:19,560 --> 00:23:21,920
Speaker 1: the young like conservatives who had been in the c

435
00:23:22,080 --> 00:23:23,879
Speaker 1: E d A and trying to get out the vote,

436
00:23:24,160 --> 00:23:28,360
Speaker 1: immediately joined the Fascist Party and start picking up guns. Um,

437
00:23:28,440 --> 00:23:31,400
Speaker 1: and street fighting and political murders reach a fever pitch

438
00:23:31,400 --> 00:23:33,960
Speaker 1: in this in this period. Now, the quote I read

439
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:37,159
Speaker 1: earlier mentioned land seizures by the CNT and other groups

440
00:23:37,160 --> 00:23:40,000
Speaker 1: of anarchists um, And it's actually true that in the

441
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:43,320
Speaker 1: trade unions major strongholds, the areas where the anarchists the

442
00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:47,040
Speaker 1: Anarchist Trade Union was most powerful Barcelona, Zaragosa and Seville,

443
00:23:47,520 --> 00:23:49,320
Speaker 1: there was actually very little in the way of like

444
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:51,960
Speaker 1: strikes or mass demonstrations in the lead up to the war.

445
00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:56,040
Speaker 1: The CNT tried to keep their people kind of calm um.

446
00:23:56,040 --> 00:23:58,280
Speaker 1: But there are a lot of their anarchists, right, A

447
00:23:58,280 --> 00:24:00,359
Speaker 1: lot of them aren't part of the CNT, and a

448
00:24:00,359 --> 00:24:03,120
Speaker 1: bunch of them and a bunch of socialists occupy land

449
00:24:03,160 --> 00:24:05,879
Speaker 1: in battle Yaws which took over seventh and like this

450
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:08,680
Speaker 1: land occupation. I mentioned at the start of the Republic

451
00:24:08,680 --> 00:24:11,360
Speaker 1: that they took about ten percent of the undeveloped land

452
00:24:11,359 --> 00:24:14,119
Speaker 1: and gave it to peasants. This occupation of land in

453
00:24:14,119 --> 00:24:17,240
Speaker 1: battle Yaws takes seven times that much land and starts

454
00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:21,560
Speaker 1: redistributing it to like peasants um. And this fucking terrifies

455
00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:24,880
Speaker 1: the rich people in Spain. If you've at this point,

456
00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:27,280
Speaker 1: the anarchists have fucked with the money, right, I've talked

457
00:24:27,320 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 1: about about the money, funked up the money. I talked

458
00:24:30,080 --> 00:24:32,600
Speaker 1: about how like Trump a big part of why on

459
00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:35,359
Speaker 1: the day on the six, like all these fucking banks

460
00:24:35,359 --> 00:24:37,920
Speaker 1: started coming out of like Chase Bank and Chevron or

461
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:41,399
Speaker 1: like yeah, like condemning President Trumble because with the money,

462
00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:43,359
Speaker 1: you can't suck up the money. Dot can't suck up

463
00:24:43,359 --> 00:24:45,760
Speaker 1: the money. And of course anarchists are all about like

464
00:24:45,920 --> 00:24:47,959
Speaker 1: they want to funk up the point, which is one

465
00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:50,080
Speaker 1: of the things I like about them, not saying that's wrong,

466
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:52,640
Speaker 1: but they funk up the money, and that that gets

467
00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:54,639
Speaker 1: a lot of the a lot of rich people, a

468
00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:57,800
Speaker 1: lot of like the Spanish kind of like ruling class

469
00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:00,960
Speaker 1: on board some sort of revolution and against the left.

470
00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:06,119
Speaker 1: Now in Spain. The seizure of about yas convinces a

471
00:25:06,119 --> 00:25:08,040
Speaker 1: lot of these like rich people that the government can't

472
00:25:08,040 --> 00:25:11,600
Speaker 1: guarantee stability anymore. So while past coup attempts by generals

473
00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:13,800
Speaker 1: had generally folded due to a lack of support from

474
00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:16,080
Speaker 1: the dominant classes who didn't want to see a coup right,

475
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:17,800
Speaker 1: they didn't like the left, but I don't want to

476
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:21,240
Speaker 1: have like a coup again, by nineteen thirty six, a

477
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:23,040
Speaker 1: lot more of those folks are like, you know what,

478
00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:25,480
Speaker 1: it's either a coup or we don't get to be

479
00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:28,320
Speaker 1: rich people anymore. And they do what rich people do.

480
00:25:28,840 --> 00:25:32,840
Speaker 1: Who it is, who it is. So the government had

481
00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:36,120
Speaker 1: known that the African EASTA generals weren't super trustworthy, which

482
00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:38,320
Speaker 1: is why they tried to post the ring leaders, General

483
00:25:38,320 --> 00:25:40,840
Speaker 1: Franco and a guy named General Mola to the Canary

484
00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:43,600
Speaker 1: Islands and Pamplona, respectively, right keep them out of the

485
00:25:43,640 --> 00:25:46,399
Speaker 1: center of ship. But these guys were still collaborating with

486
00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:49,480
Speaker 1: a codra of other officers, and on July seventeenth, under

487
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:53,040
Speaker 1: orders from Franco, troops and Morocco rebelled and obviously the

488
00:25:53,600 --> 00:25:55,640
Speaker 1: foreign legion are kind of like the core of this

489
00:25:56,240 --> 00:25:59,200
Speaker 1: over the next three days, military units and commanders all

490
00:25:59,280 --> 00:26:02,320
Speaker 1: over Spain rose up against the legitimate government, and the

491
00:26:02,359 --> 00:26:04,439
Speaker 1: hope from Franco and his fellows had been that they

492
00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:07,960
Speaker 1: would swiftly take control of major cities, jail their political opponents,

493
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:10,439
Speaker 1: and install a dictator like they've done with de Rivera,

494
00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:12,840
Speaker 1: not all that long ago, right, Vera comes to power

495
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:15,800
Speaker 1: like a decade or so earlier. So they were hoping

496
00:26:15,840 --> 00:26:19,040
Speaker 1: it would follow that trend. But the left was way

497
00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:21,720
Speaker 1: more organized now and it did not work out that way.

498
00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:23,399
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna quote now from a write up in

499
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:27,359
Speaker 1: the New Left Review. Confidence in a rapid rebel victory

500
00:26:27,440 --> 00:26:30,280
Speaker 1: was quickly dispelled when the insurrection in most major cities,

501
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:33,119
Speaker 1: notably Madrid and Barcelona, was crushed in the streets by

502
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:36,119
Speaker 1: a combination of loyal security forces and political and trade

503
00:26:36,200 --> 00:26:39,840
Speaker 1: union militants. Where this combination failed or the security forces

504
00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:43,040
Speaker 1: went over to the rebels, the rising was almost immediately successful,

505
00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:45,680
Speaker 1: as in Seville and Saragosa. The fact that less than

506
00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:48,560
Speaker 1: half the army and security forces united behind the rebellion

507
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:50,800
Speaker 1: was the principal reason why the coup failed in its

508
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:54,160
Speaker 1: principal objective and turned into a civil war. Now that's

509
00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 1: not the unified opinion on things, right, the idea that yeah,

510
00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:02,359
Speaker 1: they're they're significan a debate over why the coup failed, right,

511
00:27:02,400 --> 00:27:04,879
Speaker 1: because who does fail? Right? The speciest win in the end,

512
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:06,840
Speaker 1: but they don't get they don't succeed by coup. They

513
00:27:06,840 --> 00:27:09,640
Speaker 1: have to fight a war, and a lot of scholars

514
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:11,800
Speaker 1: will actually argue A lot of them will argue that, well,

515
00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:15,520
Speaker 1: it was the security because most of the security forces

516
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:18,840
Speaker 1: didn't go with the rebels. That's why the rebels didn't

517
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:21,480
Speaker 1: win immediately. A lot of scholars will also argue that

518
00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:24,560
Speaker 1: actually the bulk of the credit for halting rebel victory

519
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:28,400
Speaker 1: goes to local militias, which are kind of spontaneously organized

520
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:31,479
Speaker 1: just because a bunch of people started picking up guns.

521
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:33,640
Speaker 1: The argument is that in the wake of the coup,

522
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:37,160
Speaker 1: the Spanish military and the Republican government lost basically all

523
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:40,720
Speaker 1: cohesion incredibility, which they did, right, Like half of your

524
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:43,719
Speaker 1: military like decides to overthrow the government. Not a lot

525
00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:46,920
Speaker 1: of people had to have faith in the government and

526
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:49,240
Speaker 1: the arrest of all can stop these people from taking

527
00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:52,639
Speaker 1: my land from me? Yeah, like y'all. And the reason

528
00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:56,080
Speaker 1: that Franco and his allies these scholars who will kind

529
00:27:56,080 --> 00:27:57,680
Speaker 1: of take this out of it argue that the reason

530
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:01,000
Speaker 1: Frankoin his allies didn't win immediately that hundreds of thousands

531
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:03,320
Speaker 1: of civilians took to the streets and these is a

532
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:07,040
Speaker 1: general rule in the early days, these citizens militias. Um.

533
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:09,200
Speaker 1: These people were just like picking up their grandpa's hunting

534
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:11,959
Speaker 1: rifle or in a lot of cases, looting sporting goods stores,

535
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:15,480
Speaker 1: like busting like busting into like a fucking a sportsman

536
00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:18,800
Speaker 1: warehouse and just taking all the guns. Okay, like we

537
00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:21,600
Speaker 1: need guns, these guys have them, let's grab them. Um.

538
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:24,040
Speaker 1: And you know there's later too, there's looting off like

539
00:28:24,119 --> 00:28:26,800
Speaker 1: military barracks is. But like, yeah, they just get whatever

540
00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:30,480
Speaker 1: guns they fucking can and they start fighting the Africanistas,

541
00:28:30,520 --> 00:28:34,640
Speaker 1: who are at that point very experienced, disciplined and well

542
00:28:34,680 --> 00:28:38,480
Speaker 1: equipped veterans. UM. So it's like this mix if you've

543
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:40,840
Speaker 1: got hundreds of thousands of men and women, because women

544
00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:43,440
Speaker 1: are a part of the fighting forces briefly in this period,

545
00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:46,240
Speaker 1: just picking up whatever guns they can get and going

546
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 1: to war against one of the most veteran military units

547
00:28:48,840 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 1: in all of Europe. Um in his nineteen eight six

548
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:54,960
Speaker 1: essay on the matter, Morae. Book Chin writes quote to

549
00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:58,880
Speaker 1: have stopped Franco's Army of Africa, composed of foreign legionnaires

550
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:02,520
Speaker 1: and Moorish mercenary perhaps the bloodthirsty ist and certainly one

551
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:05,360
Speaker 1: of the most professionalized troops at the disposal of any

552
00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 1: European nation at the time, and it's well trained civil

553
00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 1: guards and political auxiliaries would have been nothing less than

554
00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:14,240
Speaker 1: miraculous once it established a strong base on the Spanish mainland.

555
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:18,360
Speaker 1: That hastily formed untrained and virtually unequipped militiamen and women

556
00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 1: slowed Franco's army's advance on Madrid for four months and

557
00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:24,280
Speaker 1: essentially stopped it on the outskirts of the capitol, is

558
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 1: a feat for which they have rarely earned the proper

559
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:31,600
Speaker 1: tribute from writers on the civil war of the past century. Wow. Yeah, yeah,

560
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 1: just everyone picking up their guns and being like fuck

561
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:39,200
Speaker 1: these guys, right, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I

562
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 1: think there's like this, you know, um yeah. The miracle

563
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:49,040
Speaker 1: that they was actually able to stop this fool or

564
00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:53,160
Speaker 1: these dudes is like yeah, it's I mean, obviously ultimately

565
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:57,360
Speaker 1: they don't, but like that, I think about like what

566
00:29:57,440 --> 00:30:01,000
Speaker 1: we used to call like like dad strong, you know,

567
00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:04,640
Speaker 1: like you just you're you don't you know, your dad's strong,

568
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:06,800
Speaker 1: but you don't, like you don't really believe it, you

569
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:08,480
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. And then you're like, then you're

570
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:11,480
Speaker 1: sixteen and you want to like throw hands with him,

571
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:14,520
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, and then he just lays

572
00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 1: you out flat, you know what I mean. You're like,

573
00:30:16,440 --> 00:30:20,479
Speaker 1: I don't I I didn't expect you to be this strong,

574
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 1: you know that? To me sometimes it's like I feel

575
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:26,200
Speaker 1: like that with like military dudes that are like super trained,

576
00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 1: where it's like you think, you think you can take them,

577
00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:33,560
Speaker 1: and then you're like, oh, yeah, no, you're actually trained.

578
00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:38,000
Speaker 1: This is not a game. So so knowing that, but

579
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:43,080
Speaker 1: then the fact that just the that these just untrained

580
00:30:43,120 --> 00:30:47,080
Speaker 1: militias were still able to like, yeah, pull this off,

581
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:50,160
Speaker 1: you know, in four months of brutal fighting. Yeah, and

582
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:53,840
Speaker 1: they lose a funk load of thousands like and it

583
00:30:53,960 --> 00:30:57,040
Speaker 1: and it is. It is a very lopsided kill ratio

584
00:30:57,080 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 1: at this point, right because you're you are these are

585
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:02,640
Speaker 1: some of the most veteran military units in all of Europe,

586
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 1: right um, going up against like fucking grandpa and grandma

587
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 1: with hunting rifles right, Yeah, it's it's ugly. It is ugly,

588
00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:16,280
Speaker 1: but they they slow, They stopped Franco from winning in

589
00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:18,920
Speaker 1: the thirties six, you know, and there seems to be

590
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 1: very little debate about that that they were Some people

591
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 1: argue how critical, but they were critical in stopping the nationalists,

592
00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:27,840
Speaker 1: which is what the other thing. The rebels are called

593
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 1: at the gates of Madrid, and they're not the only ones.

594
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:31,920
Speaker 1: We'll talk a little bit about the We're gonna talk

595
00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:34,720
Speaker 1: about the international brigades in a second, Um, but first

596
00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:37,640
Speaker 1: you have to take an ad break, sir. You know

597
00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:42,840
Speaker 1: who else would have stopped Franco at the Gates of Madrid, Sophie. Yeah,

598
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:46,880
Speaker 1: Sophie would have. Um, Sophie would have backed by the

599
00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 1: militant products and services that support this podcast, Yes, including

600
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:54,600
Speaker 1: Sportsman's warehouse where you two can steal guns to fight

601
00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:57,959
Speaker 1: the fat Well now, okay, maybe not not. I might

602
00:31:58,040 --> 00:32:10,640
Speaker 1: be the wisest. Okay, we're back back and for a

603
00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 1: brief time in nineteen thirty six, the Spanish Republican military

604
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:17,440
Speaker 1: was vastly dominated by, as opposed to like a kind

605
00:32:17,480 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 1: of traditional military, a dizzying array of independent, interlocking, and

606
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:25,040
Speaker 1: largely democratic militias. Most of the militias are either anarchist

607
00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:28,000
Speaker 1: or trotskyist, So there's the the c n T and

608
00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:29,720
Speaker 1: the p o u M, and then there's groups that

609
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:31,240
Speaker 1: aren't a part of those, but like a lot, largely

610
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:33,520
Speaker 1: they're either anarchist or kind of trotskyist, and both are

611
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:36,640
Speaker 1: heavily democratic. So men and women take up arms together,

612
00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 1: they vote for their leaders, so their officers are elected

613
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:44,719
Speaker 1: in recallable um and yeah, it's it's it is. You know,

614
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:47,000
Speaker 1: there's critiques to make up the system. We'll talk about

615
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:49,680
Speaker 1: that a bit, but that's what the military is at

616
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 1: this point in nineteen thirty six. It's largely just a

617
00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:55,760
Speaker 1: funkload of these militias because the actual military is not

618
00:32:55,840 --> 00:32:58,440
Speaker 1: in a good way, you know, very chaotic and and

619
00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:01,240
Speaker 1: disorganized itself. And in a lot of cases, because of

620
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:03,960
Speaker 1: the fact that a lot of the military had rebelled,

621
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:07,720
Speaker 1: soldiers will leave their units and join militias. So it's

622
00:33:07,400 --> 00:33:10,800
Speaker 1: a very complicated Please do not take this as a

623
00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 1: comprehensive or particularly in depth explanation of what happens with

624
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:18,000
Speaker 1: the Spanish militia system in the Republican like. It is

625
00:33:18,040 --> 00:33:21,760
Speaker 1: incredibly complicated. This is an overview. This is all an overview.

626
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:27,320
Speaker 1: The Spanish Civil War is is very very complex. Um so, yeah.

627
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:30,040
Speaker 1: And while this is happening, while while all these democratic

628
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:33,360
Speaker 1: militias are rising up to fight the fascists in the countryside,

629
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:35,760
Speaker 1: behind the lines and sometimes right up to the lines,

630
00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:39,000
Speaker 1: something equally interesting is happening. I'm gonna quote Moray Bookchin's

631
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 1: article here again. The wave of collectivizations that swept over

632
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 1: Spain in the summer and autumn of nineteen thirty six

633
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:48,600
Speaker 1: has been described in a recent BBC Granada documentary as

634
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:52,200
Speaker 1: the greatest experiment and workers self management. Western Europe has

635
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:55,160
Speaker 1: ever seen a revolution more far reaching than any which

636
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:57,760
Speaker 1: occurred in Russia during nineteen seventeen to twenty one and

637
00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 1: the years before and after it an anarchist industrial areas

638
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:04,280
Speaker 1: like Catalonia and estimated three quarters of the economy was

639
00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:07,840
Speaker 1: placed under workers control as it was an anarchist rural

640
00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:11,360
Speaker 1: areas like Aragon. The figure of tapers downward, where the

641
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:13,319
Speaker 1: U G T, which is another group shared power with

642
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:16,759
Speaker 1: the C and T or else predominated fifty and anarchist

643
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:20,120
Speaker 1: and socialist Valencia and thirty in socialist and liberal Madrid

644
00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:24,040
Speaker 1: and more thoroughly anarchist areas, particularly among the agrarian collectives.

645
00:34:24,080 --> 00:34:26,640
Speaker 1: Money was eliminated and the material means of life were

646
00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:29,719
Speaker 1: allocated strictly according to need rather than work, following the

647
00:34:29,719 --> 00:34:33,680
Speaker 1: traditional concepts of a libertarian communist society. As the BBC

648
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:36,680
Speaker 1: Granada television documentary puts it, the ancient dream of a

649
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:39,920
Speaker 1: collective society without profit or property was made reality. In

650
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:43,240
Speaker 1: the villages of Aragon, all forms of production were owned

651
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:46,680
Speaker 1: by the community, run by their workers. And again, as

652
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:48,400
Speaker 1: books to notes, this is not you know, this is

653
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:52,160
Speaker 1: different everywhere that in Republican Spain. But in Catalonia, which

654
00:34:52,200 --> 00:34:54,279
Speaker 1: has a lot of industrial areas, three quarters of the

655
00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: industrial economy is directly controlled by the workers manning these

656
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:01,880
Speaker 1: factories as opposed to them like even having elected bosses

657
00:35:01,880 --> 00:35:06,319
Speaker 1: and stuff. Um, which is really interesting. Um, it's it's

658
00:35:06,360 --> 00:35:12,000
Speaker 1: something that doesn't happen. Yeah, Like how long was it

659
00:35:12,080 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 1: like kind of working. There's debate as to how long

660
00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:20,279
Speaker 1: it worked, but a couple of ye generally speaking, a

661
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:23,040
Speaker 1: year or two. You know, It's it's different in different regions.

662
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:26,640
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about what happens there. Um. Bookshon continues,

663
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:30,759
Speaker 1: the administrative apparatus of Republican Spain belonged almost entirely to

664
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:34,280
Speaker 1: the unions and their political organizations. Police in many cities

665
00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:37,800
Speaker 1: were replaced by armed workers patrols. Militia units were formed

666
00:35:37,840 --> 00:35:40,840
Speaker 1: everywhere in factories, on farms, and in socialist and anarchist

667
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:44,279
Speaker 1: community centers and union halls, initially including women as well

668
00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:48,080
Speaker 1: as men. A vast network of local revolutionary committees coordinated

669
00:35:48,120 --> 00:35:50,440
Speaker 1: the feeding of the cities, the operations of the economy,

670
00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:53,200
Speaker 1: and the meeting out of justice. Indeed, almost every facet

671
00:35:53,200 --> 00:35:55,919
Speaker 1: of Spanish life, from production to culture, bringing the whole

672
00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:58,480
Speaker 1: of Spanish society and the Republican zone into a well

673
00:35:58,600 --> 00:36:03,120
Speaker 1: organized and coherent whole. This historically unprecedented appropriation of society

674
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:06,640
Speaker 1: by its most oppressed sectors, including women, who were liberated

675
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:09,360
Speaker 1: from all the constraints of a highly traditional Catholic country,

676
00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:12,080
Speaker 1: be it the prohibition of abortion and divorce, or a

677
00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:14,640
Speaker 1: degraded status in the economy, was the work of the

678
00:36:14,680 --> 00:36:18,280
Speaker 1: Spanish proletariat and peasantry. It was a movement from below

679
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:22,600
Speaker 1: that overwhelmed even the revolutionary organizations of the impressed, including

680
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:26,960
Speaker 1: the C and T. Significantly, no left organization issued calls

681
00:36:26,960 --> 00:36:30,960
Speaker 1: for revolutionary takeovers of factories, workplaces or the land, observes

682
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:32,880
Speaker 1: Ronald Fraser and one of the most up to date

683
00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:35,800
Speaker 1: accounts of the popular movement. Indeed, the C and T

684
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 1: leadership in Barcelona, epicenter of urban anarcho syndicalism, went further

685
00:36:40,440 --> 00:36:43,880
Speaker 1: rejecting the offer of power presented to it by President Companies,

686
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:46,279
Speaker 1: the head of the Catalan government. It decided that the

687
00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 1: libertarian revolution must stand aside for collaboration with the Popular

688
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:52,840
Speaker 1: Front forces to defeat the common enemy. The revolution that

689
00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:55,520
Speaker 1: transformed Barcelona in a matter of days into a city

690
00:36:55,600 --> 00:36:59,000
Speaker 1: virtually run by the working class sprang initially from individual

691
00:36:59,080 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 1: C and T Union impelled by their most advanced militants,

692
00:37:02,280 --> 00:37:05,280
Speaker 1: and as their example spread, it was not only large enterprises,

693
00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:07,799
Speaker 1: but small workshops and businesses that were being taken over.

694
00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:10,719
Speaker 1: So what Bookstion is saying there is this is a

695
00:37:10,719 --> 00:37:13,680
Speaker 1: true bottom up revolution. And even in some cases this

696
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:16,560
Speaker 1: the anarchist trade union is like, don't do this, we

697
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:19,360
Speaker 1: need to work with the government. We're not calling for revolution,

698
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:21,879
Speaker 1: and the individual groups of workers are like, no, we're

699
00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:24,239
Speaker 1: just going to take over our office. We're just taking over.

700
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:28,880
Speaker 1: That's fine, it's fine. That's fine, um, And it proves

701
00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:31,040
Speaker 1: to be a mixed bag, like we'll we'll talk about this.

702
00:37:31,120 --> 00:37:33,680
Speaker 1: There's fair critiques about what happens, but it is amazing

703
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:36,920
Speaker 1: and unprecedented and one of the great what ifs of histories.

704
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:39,279
Speaker 1: If there had not also been this massive civil war

705
00:37:39,280 --> 00:37:42,040
Speaker 1: and this fascist invasion, might it have worked? You know?

706
00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:45,719
Speaker 1: And they're under a pressure that is kind of impossible

707
00:37:45,719 --> 00:37:48,640
Speaker 1: to overcome in this invasion. But it is an interesting

708
00:37:48,719 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 1: question what is Yeah, dude, what is strange? Like it

709
00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:54,520
Speaker 1: was strange because we've never seen it, but like, yeah,

710
00:37:54,600 --> 00:37:56,439
Speaker 1: what was that year? Like you know what I'm saying,

711
00:37:56,480 --> 00:37:59,759
Speaker 1: Like rates were, like what was the I don't say

712
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:02,480
Speaker 1: like petty crimes, you know what I'm saying. Like, one

713
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:06,120
Speaker 1: of these days I will do because I don't know

714
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:08,239
Speaker 1: nearly enough about this. One of these days I would

715
00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:10,880
Speaker 1: like to do like a hardcore history link, like a

716
00:38:10,960 --> 00:38:13,680
Speaker 1: twelve hour deep dive into the Spanish Civil War where

717
00:38:13,760 --> 00:38:16,399
Speaker 1: it's mostly focused on like, yeah, what what are these?

718
00:38:16,440 --> 00:38:18,239
Speaker 1: Like what are these your place? The cops with like

719
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:20,600
Speaker 1: citizens patrols? How did that actually work? What was that? Like?

720
00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 1: What are what are what are kind of like the

721
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:25,680
Speaker 1: first person accounts we can have of those. Um, obviously

722
00:38:26,239 --> 00:38:27,920
Speaker 1: we don't have the time to go into that much

723
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:32,680
Speaker 1: detail today, so but it's definitely like, yeah, that would

724
00:38:32,760 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 1: that would call for like a twelve hour Yes, yes,

725
00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:38,000
Speaker 1: it's a very complicated and this is just I'm hoping

726
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:40,919
Speaker 1: what this mostly does is wet people's appetite to read

727
00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:43,600
Speaker 1: more themselves, right, which I am also going to do.

728
00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:46,760
Speaker 1: But it's a very interesting period of history. Now, obviously

729
00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:48,759
Speaker 1: this system had a number of upsides, if you want

730
00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:50,719
Speaker 1: to call it a system. What happens in Spain in

731
00:38:50,760 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 1: this period has a number of upsides. That mobilizes a

732
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:57,000
Speaker 1: huge portion of the republic citizenry very quickly. Um, it

733
00:38:57,360 --> 00:39:01,160
Speaker 1: brings a people into arms very rapid more rapidly probably

734
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:03,440
Speaker 1: than a central government could have done. And these people

735
00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:07,080
Speaker 1: were highly motivated to resist fascism. But they also in

736
00:39:07,160 --> 00:39:10,040
Speaker 1: large part weren't motivated to live under the republic, and

737
00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:13,360
Speaker 1: coordination between all of these groups was very difficult and

738
00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:17,560
Speaker 1: sometimes impossible. Meanwhile, the rebels the nationalists had a strict

739
00:39:17,600 --> 00:39:21,319
Speaker 1: military hierarchy, and that's a benefit in a war sometimes, right,

740
00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 1: it can also be you know, you can you can

741
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:24,600
Speaker 1: look at the Germans in World War DWO. It doesn't

742
00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:27,080
Speaker 1: always work out. But when you've got one side that's

743
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 1: made up of a thousand different fractious people who agree

744
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:31,879
Speaker 1: on some things and disagree on a lot, that can

745
00:39:32,680 --> 00:39:37,080
Speaker 1: deplete your ability to counterattack and to organize effectively. Meanwhile,

746
00:39:37,239 --> 00:39:40,080
Speaker 1: Franco winds up, and you know there's a process. He's

747
00:39:40,120 --> 00:39:42,959
Speaker 1: not initially the only guy, but eventually he's the only

748
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:45,160
Speaker 1: dude whose opinion really matters. He's the guy at the

749
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 1: top um and and that happens fairly quickly, and Franco

750
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:53,880
Speaker 1: is able to coordinate a centralized military in order to

751
00:39:53,960 --> 00:40:00,920
Speaker 1: like like attack this very decentralized folks. Motherfucker. He's a

752
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:03,719
Speaker 1: sneaky guy. There's also one of his fellow generals dies

753
00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:05,360
Speaker 1: in a plane crash, so some of it's just like

754
00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 1: dumb lock um. Now, since the c E d A

755
00:40:09,120 --> 00:40:11,880
Speaker 1: had failed, that he didn't he Franco didn't really want

756
00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:13,600
Speaker 1: to like wrap himself in the c E d a

757
00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:15,400
Speaker 1: s flag because they've gotten their asses kicked in the

758
00:40:15,400 --> 00:40:18,040
Speaker 1: thirty six selection. And he kind of winds up embracing

759
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:20,439
Speaker 1: the Phalangists. And this is part of why people argue

760
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:22,640
Speaker 1: of Franco himself was really a fascist. If he was

761
00:40:22,640 --> 00:40:25,200
Speaker 1: just kind of co opting fascism, I don't really see

762
00:40:25,239 --> 00:40:27,920
Speaker 1: the point in getting involved in that. Franco gets in

763
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:31,160
Speaker 1: like wraps himself in the Phalange Party and like like

764
00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:34,000
Speaker 1: they become kind of a dominant right wing force in

765
00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:37,600
Speaker 1: this in the nationalist cause. Now, Jose Antonio, who had

766
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:39,880
Speaker 1: been the leader of the Phalangists, had been arrested by

767
00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:42,160
Speaker 1: the republic right at the start of the rebellion, and

768
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:45,160
Speaker 1: he was almost immediately executed for sedition even though he'd

769
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:48,160
Speaker 1: been incarcerated when the rebellion cooked off. Like, if you

770
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:49,960
Speaker 1: want to argue how just it was, he didn't really

771
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:52,640
Speaker 1: have much to do with it. Um. But they kill him. Um,

772
00:40:52,680 --> 00:40:54,840
Speaker 1: And I'm not, I don't care he's a fascist. Like,

773
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:59,800
Speaker 1: I'm not, I'm not gonna weep over him. But Franco

774
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:03,320
Speaker 1: takes Jose Antonio and turns him into a martyr right. Um.

775
00:41:03,400 --> 00:41:05,440
Speaker 1: And he also imprisons the guy who takes over the

776
00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:08,200
Speaker 1: Phalangists after Jose Antonio, so that he can turn the

777
00:41:08,239 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 1: Phalangists into his own basically like cult of personality. Yeah, exactly, um,

778
00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:16,600
Speaker 1: And Franco co opting the fascists had the side effect

779
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:19,080
Speaker 1: of making this war, which had started as a conflict

780
00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:21,840
Speaker 1: between Spanish left and right and a conflict between you know,

781
00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:26,480
Speaker 1: the Africanist military and and the Republic, into the world's

782
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:30,440
Speaker 1: first open battle ground between fascism and democracy. And the

783
00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:32,680
Speaker 1: first three months of the civil war were some of

784
00:41:32,719 --> 00:41:36,920
Speaker 1: the bloodiest. Both sides carried out a horrific series of assassinations.

785
00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:40,080
Speaker 1: Is a very the the early period. There's this amazing

786
00:41:40,280 --> 00:41:42,560
Speaker 1: rising up of of the people to defend themselves, and

787
00:41:42,560 --> 00:41:45,520
Speaker 1: there's also a ton of fucking vigilante murders, and it

788
00:41:45,560 --> 00:41:47,920
Speaker 1: does occur on both sides. It's really ugly. And I'm

789
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:49,879
Speaker 1: going to read a quote from the New Left Review here.

790
00:41:50,719 --> 00:41:53,880
Speaker 1: Even so, there were significant differences between the massacres on

791
00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:56,239
Speaker 1: the left and the right. Many voices unheard on the

792
00:41:56,280 --> 00:41:59,360
Speaker 1: rebel side were raised in the Republican zone against the slaughter.

793
00:41:59,640 --> 00:42:03,240
Speaker 1: By early September, a new government under Largo Caballero began

794
00:42:03,280 --> 00:42:05,719
Speaker 1: to create a semblance of public order, which slowly put

795
00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:08,399
Speaker 1: it into the killings there, but not soon enough. News

796
00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:12,280
Speaker 1: of the anti clerical violence, which included the disinternament of nuns, coffins,

797
00:42:12,320 --> 00:42:15,759
Speaker 1: widespread burning of churches and desecration of religious objects, was

798
00:42:15,800 --> 00:42:19,960
Speaker 1: broadcast around the world, creating extremely negative international image of

799
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:23,800
Speaker 1: the Republican zone does not not good optics yet. Yeah yeah, yeah,

800
00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:27,239
Speaker 1: look man, yeah, you messing with the nuns. Like we

801
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:30,680
Speaker 1: all like, yeah that the nuns are fine guys. Yeah,

802
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:33,360
Speaker 1: and we felt earlier about how like you can you know,

803
00:42:33,400 --> 00:42:35,920
Speaker 1: there's arguments to be made about like obviously there's a

804
00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:39,640
Speaker 1: lot of problematic priests part, but disentering nun's coffins, there's

805
00:42:39,680 --> 00:42:47,440
Speaker 1: really not that I know of. They're like, come on, okay, guys. Yeah,

806
00:42:47,840 --> 00:42:50,720
Speaker 1: and it it is bad for the early rebel pr

807
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:55,280
Speaker 1: Now on the rebel side, with occasional exception, tight censorship

808
00:42:55,360 --> 00:42:57,960
Speaker 1: kept the assassinations out of the news. The Church, which

809
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:01,680
Speaker 1: would soon sanctify the insurgents War a religious crusade, turned

810
00:43:01,719 --> 00:43:04,160
Speaker 1: a blind eye, though hundreds of clergy were witnessed the

811
00:43:04,280 --> 00:43:07,440
Speaker 1: oppression executed not only by the military but by Philangists

812
00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:10,479
Speaker 1: and normally law abiding conservative Catholic citizens. So, of course

813
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 1: the church is both victim and perpetrator and a lot

814
00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:16,160
Speaker 1: of and the death toll is much higher in terms

815
00:43:16,160 --> 00:43:18,160
Speaker 1: of people killed by the right than people killed by

816
00:43:18,160 --> 00:43:21,800
Speaker 1: the left. Um and again on in the Republic there's

817
00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:25,279
Speaker 1: outcries against the vigilante violence, and on the right there's like,

818
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:28,640
Speaker 1: don't talk about it, keep killing people, don't talk stop

819
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:31,560
Speaker 1: just stop putting it on TV, like do what you

820
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:35,280
Speaker 1: gotta do. But hey, yeah, Now, on the Republican side,

821
00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:37,640
Speaker 1: the two largest left wing groups at the start of

822
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:39,440
Speaker 1: the war, because the communists are very small at the

823
00:43:39,440 --> 00:43:42,839
Speaker 1: start of the war. Again, because Spain doesn't industrialize into

824
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:44,879
Speaker 1: a lot later than a lot of the it doesn't

825
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:47,440
Speaker 1: have a very powerful communist party at this period. At

826
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:50,000
Speaker 1: the start of things, the two largest and left wing

827
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:52,839
Speaker 1: groups are the anarchists and the Trotskyists, and they were

828
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:56,200
Speaker 1: immediately torn between stopping fascism at all costs and of

829
00:43:56,200 --> 00:43:59,680
Speaker 1: course funk the state right like there's a there's this

830
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:02,040
Speaker 1: is a tough choice for them. Now. The CNT, the

831
00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:05,719
Speaker 1: largest anarchist organization, lands on the side of allying with

832
00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:09,400
Speaker 1: the state to fight fascism, but many local workers councils

833
00:44:09,400 --> 00:44:12,400
Speaker 1: were not on board. Now. While this is happening in

834
00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:14,720
Speaker 1: the early part of the war, the communists very quickly

835
00:44:14,760 --> 00:44:17,960
Speaker 1: come to hold significant power within the confusing and fractious

836
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:22,319
Speaker 1: Republican military establishment. Now and they grow rapidly at this

837
00:44:22,360 --> 00:44:25,440
Speaker 1: period too, and this is due to the pretty sensible

838
00:44:25,480 --> 00:44:29,080
Speaker 1: fact that the communists had a communist state, the USSR,

839
00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:31,920
Speaker 1: that they could go to and beg for aid, right

840
00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:35,560
Speaker 1: the like the USSR is provides aid. We'll talk about

841
00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:37,840
Speaker 1: that a bit more to the Republicans. And so the

842
00:44:37,880 --> 00:44:40,279
Speaker 1: Communists very quickly gain a lot of power within the

843
00:44:40,320 --> 00:44:44,600
Speaker 1: military establishment of the Republic. Now, unfortunately, the fascists also

844
00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:47,040
Speaker 1: had states they could go to for help, Italy and Germany,

845
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:49,239
Speaker 1: and from the very beginning of this war they're Italian

846
00:44:49,280 --> 00:44:53,000
Speaker 1: and German troops fighting on the ground alongside the nationalist

847
00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:57,000
Speaker 1: Spanish troops um And unfortunately for everybody, the fascist states

848
00:44:57,040 --> 00:44:59,560
Speaker 1: were way more willing to provide direct aid to their

849
00:44:59,600 --> 00:45:02,359
Speaker 1: side than the Communists were. I'm gonna quote again from

850
00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 1: the New Left Review here. Without Fascist aid, most of

851
00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:08,239
Speaker 1: it provided on credit, the rebels would not long have

852
00:45:08,280 --> 00:45:10,440
Speaker 1: been able to continue the war, let alone win it.

853
00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:13,880
Speaker 1: Aside from the Nazis condor legion, Germany and Italy together

854
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:17,359
Speaker 1: provided tens of thousands of troops, mainly Italian, nearly six

855
00:45:17,680 --> 00:45:20,880
Speaker 1: hundred war planes, thousands of armored vehicles, and hundreds of

856
00:45:20,920 --> 00:45:24,160
Speaker 1: field guns. Equally important were the three point five million

857
00:45:24,200 --> 00:45:27,440
Speaker 1: tons of oil provided on credit by Texico and Shell,

858
00:45:27,920 --> 00:45:31,240
Speaker 1: double the amount imported by the Republic, without which Franco's

859
00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:33,719
Speaker 1: army could not have maneuvered as rapidly as it did. So. Yes,

860
00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:37,920
Speaker 1: the victory of the fascists in Spain is a great

861
00:45:37,960 --> 00:45:41,160
Speaker 1: deal to our good friends Texico and Shell. O my

862
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 1: Texico and Shell. Should we back fascists or not? Fashion fascists?

863
00:45:46,480 --> 00:45:50,799
Speaker 1: Of course we're Texico. Yeah. Yeah, Oh my god. They

864
00:45:50,800 --> 00:45:53,319
Speaker 1: don't talk about that no more. No, let me tell

865
00:45:53,320 --> 00:45:57,120
Speaker 1: you the last two names. I thought you was going

866
00:45:57,160 --> 00:46:00,840
Speaker 1: to say right now, yeah, Texico and Shell. Like I

867
00:46:00,920 --> 00:46:07,640
Speaker 1: was like, wait, wait what yah? Yeah? Uh So. Not

868
00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:09,799
Speaker 1: wanting to provoke Britain and France, with whom he was

869
00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:13,360
Speaker 1: still seeking an anti fascist alliance, Stalin initially held back,

870
00:46:13,640 --> 00:46:17,600
Speaker 1: but blatant Nazi and Fascist intervention increasingly alarmed him, ensuring

871
00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:20,160
Speaker 1: that all European powers were made aware that Soviet aid

872
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:22,759
Speaker 1: to the Republic was not in support of advancing revolution.

873
00:46:22,960 --> 00:46:25,680
Speaker 1: In October nineteen thirty six, the first Soviet shipment of

874
00:46:25,800 --> 00:46:28,760
Speaker 1: arms and the first contingent of the International Brigades reached

875
00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:30,600
Speaker 1: Madrid and the nick of time to help prevent the

876
00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:33,680
Speaker 1: capital's fall and all the Soviet unions since seven hundred

877
00:46:33,680 --> 00:46:36,200
Speaker 1: war planes and four hundred armored vehicles, plus some two

878
00:46:36,200 --> 00:46:39,759
Speaker 1: thousand pilots, engineers, military advisers, and in k v D

879
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:43,160
Speaker 1: secret police. Now there's a lot. We're going to talk

880
00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:45,800
Speaker 1: a lot about criticisms of Soviet AID and of Soviet

881
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:47,200
Speaker 1: policy in this and there are a lot of valid

882
00:46:47,200 --> 00:46:49,920
Speaker 1: ones to give. But it's also worth noting that Soviet

883
00:46:49,960 --> 00:46:53,359
Speaker 1: AID was absolutely crucial in stopping Madrid from falling when

884
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:56,200
Speaker 1: Franco made his first advance, right, the militias slowed it down,

885
00:46:56,480 --> 00:47:00,239
Speaker 1: but without this hard core military equipment, they probably don't

886
00:47:00,239 --> 00:47:03,960
Speaker 1: stop Franco from taking Madrid in ninety six. You know,

887
00:47:04,680 --> 00:47:09,319
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, like, uh, that like tradition of

888
00:47:09,400 --> 00:47:17,200
Speaker 1: like Communist Russia AID, I've been I've been thinking about

889
00:47:17,239 --> 00:47:22,440
Speaker 1: that a little bit, Like you know, I'm I'm stretching

890
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:26,319
Speaker 1: this as far as this this idea that like the

891
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:30,920
Speaker 1: way that they exported AID in communists like block countries

892
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:33,879
Speaker 1: like you know, at the like there was once upon

893
00:47:33,920 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 1: a time, like North Korea was actually doing way better

894
00:47:36,600 --> 00:47:39,279
Speaker 1: than South Korea, you know, because of this Communists AID.

895
00:47:39,600 --> 00:47:41,360
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, a number of other reasons

896
00:47:41,360 --> 00:47:45,319
Speaker 1: to like the nature of the Japanese invasion. But yeah, absolutely,

897
00:47:45,400 --> 00:47:48,400
Speaker 1: you know. And then when I think about like Cuba

898
00:47:49,080 --> 00:47:52,279
Speaker 1: and I got I got friends from like you know,

899
00:47:52,520 --> 00:47:56,120
Speaker 1: South Africa, Western African countries, Zambia, all these things, and

900
00:47:56,160 --> 00:47:58,959
Speaker 1: they're like, yo, you could say whatever you want. They're

901
00:47:59,000 --> 00:48:03,560
Speaker 1: like every every every nation in Africa got a Cuban doctor.

902
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:06,480
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. It just this idea that

903
00:48:06,560 --> 00:48:10,400
Speaker 1: like it was like it's just like when you the

904
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:12,719
Speaker 1: more I traveled, the more I started going day, maybe

905
00:48:12,760 --> 00:48:18,560
Speaker 1: they just think about aid and they this is Understaalin.

906
00:48:18,719 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 1: It's very like, for one thing, the Cuban medical aid,

907
00:48:21,040 --> 00:48:24,160
Speaker 1: which is incredible. The way that the Cuban government sends

908
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:27,239
Speaker 1: out doctors, what Cuban doctors do and have been doing

909
00:48:27,280 --> 00:48:30,120
Speaker 1: for decades is absolutely amazing, and as far as I know,

910
00:48:30,160 --> 00:48:32,200
Speaker 1: it is done without any sort of hope of recompense.

911
00:48:32,680 --> 00:48:36,640
Speaker 1: The Soviets are getting paid very well. So when when

912
00:48:36,680 --> 00:48:40,360
Speaker 1: Republican Spain happens, when there's this split, the Republic winds

913
00:48:40,440 --> 00:48:43,759
Speaker 1: up with Spain's gold stockpile, which is the largest gold

914
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:46,160
Speaker 1: reserves on planet Earth at the time, about eight hundred

915
00:48:46,160 --> 00:48:50,279
Speaker 1: and five million dollars and that that time's currency. Um

916
00:48:50,320 --> 00:48:54,120
Speaker 1: And while the fascists provided aid to Franco on credit right,

917
00:48:54,239 --> 00:48:56,680
Speaker 1: Italy and Germany are like, you don't have to pay now,

918
00:48:56,760 --> 00:48:58,960
Speaker 1: We'll just give you stuff and you'll owe us. You'll

919
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 1: pay us later. Um. Stalin's like, I you know, I'm

920
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:07,560
Speaker 1: gonna need some cash up, ye do you? I'm I'm

921
00:49:07,640 --> 00:49:11,279
Speaker 1: Joseph Stalin, Like, I don't just give people ship you know.

922
00:49:12,120 --> 00:49:14,719
Speaker 1: Um he does later in the war a bit he

923
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:20,240
Speaker 1: was him alone. But where he they they so about

924
00:49:20,280 --> 00:49:23,000
Speaker 1: eight five million dollars is what Spain's gold reserves the

925
00:49:23,040 --> 00:49:25,359
Speaker 1: Republican Spain's gold reserves are. At the start of the war,

926
00:49:25,760 --> 00:49:29,040
Speaker 1: they pour more than five hundred million dollars in gold

927
00:49:29,120 --> 00:49:30,919
Speaker 1: into the Soviet Union by the end of the war.

928
00:49:31,440 --> 00:49:35,600
Speaker 1: Um And because a lot yeah, and also they have

929
00:49:35,640 --> 00:49:37,239
Speaker 1: to they have to burn a bunch of money on

930
00:49:37,320 --> 00:49:40,719
Speaker 1: like shady arms dealers and like it's very bad. Like

931
00:49:40,960 --> 00:49:42,960
Speaker 1: and a lot of the blame also goes to France,

932
00:49:42,960 --> 00:49:45,040
Speaker 1: who makes it difficult to get shipped through the border,

933
00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:47,000
Speaker 1: which is why they have to go with arms smugglers

934
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:50,319
Speaker 1: as opposed to just getting weapons directly imported. Um, it's

935
00:49:50,440 --> 00:49:54,280
Speaker 1: very messy. The fascists also had the benefit of receiving

936
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:56,880
Speaker 1: much better guns um. And I don't know how much

937
00:49:56,920 --> 00:49:58,640
Speaker 1: you can blame the Soviets for this. The Germans had

938
00:49:58,640 --> 00:50:00,799
Speaker 1: the best weaponry and the planet at this point in time,

939
00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:04,480
Speaker 1: so the quality of arms that Franco receives blows everything

940
00:50:04,560 --> 00:50:06,880
Speaker 1: Soviet out of the water. Now, a lot of the

941
00:50:06,920 --> 00:50:10,720
Speaker 1: blame for the Republic's loss tends to go to Stalin

942
00:50:10,840 --> 00:50:12,399
Speaker 1: and the u s s R. But if we're really

943
00:50:12,440 --> 00:50:15,319
Speaker 1: being and that like when you read articles trying to

944
00:50:15,400 --> 00:50:17,480
Speaker 1: like a lay blame, a lot of people will put

945
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:20,080
Speaker 1: blame on Stalin in the USSR, and there are very

946
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:23,040
Speaker 1: legitimate things to criticize them about. But if we're truly

947
00:50:23,120 --> 00:50:26,840
Speaker 1: being fair, the foreign nations most responsible for the victory

948
00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:29,160
Speaker 1: of fascism in Spain where the United States, England and

949
00:50:29,200 --> 00:50:34,080
Speaker 1: France um, because the entire free world basically engaged in

950
00:50:34,080 --> 00:50:37,279
Speaker 1: a policy of non intervention within the Spanish Civil War.

951
00:50:37,640 --> 00:50:40,360
Speaker 1: This was part of the appeasement policy that the British

952
00:50:40,360 --> 00:50:42,520
Speaker 1: were doing with the Germans at the time, and they

953
00:50:42,560 --> 00:50:44,880
Speaker 1: were trying to get the Germans basically agreed to neutrality

954
00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:47,680
Speaker 1: in the war, and Germany would put some lip services

955
00:50:47,719 --> 00:50:49,880
Speaker 1: at this, but they didn't like they sent soldiers and

956
00:50:50,200 --> 00:50:54,359
Speaker 1: planes and arms in both fascist states intervened directly, which

957
00:50:54,400 --> 00:50:57,200
Speaker 1: meant that the Republic of Spain was standing on their

958
00:50:57,239 --> 00:51:01,160
Speaker 1: own against the entire fascist international fact Spain, fascist Italy,

959
00:51:01,200 --> 00:51:04,760
Speaker 1: fascist Germany. And they have some backup from the Soviets,

960
00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:07,200
Speaker 1: and that's it, right. Everyone else is like fuck you,

961
00:51:07,239 --> 00:51:10,520
Speaker 1: the French closed the border. We're not jumping in. Yeah,

962
00:51:10,800 --> 00:51:13,080
Speaker 1: the Democrats and this is again part of why this

963
00:51:13,239 --> 00:51:17,520
Speaker 1: the communists their criticisms of decisions made by Communist advisors

964
00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:21,160
Speaker 1: and communist leaders in the Spanish Republican cause. The reason

965
00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:24,560
Speaker 1: the Communists wind up in power largely in the Spanish

966
00:51:24,560 --> 00:51:27,520
Speaker 1: Republican side is because the democracies are like, oh, we

967
00:51:27,560 --> 00:51:29,759
Speaker 1: don't want any part in this ship. Right, could have

968
00:51:29,840 --> 00:51:32,880
Speaker 1: been different, if you know, damn right. Yeah, so I

969
00:51:32,920 --> 00:51:36,879
Speaker 1: can't blame the USSR here, you know. Yeah that's good dude,

970
00:51:36,880 --> 00:51:39,080
Speaker 1: because it's like, yeah, you getting you see a homeboy

971
00:51:39,080 --> 00:51:41,600
Speaker 1: getting like slept, you know what I'm saying, Like somebody

972
00:51:41,640 --> 00:51:43,719
Speaker 1: just brought the night quill, just knocking the holme me out,

973
00:51:44,040 --> 00:51:46,640
Speaker 1: and then everybody jumping into help, and you're like, well,

974
00:51:46,760 --> 00:51:49,200
Speaker 1: I thought we all agreed we weren't going to jump in. Yeah,

975
00:51:49,280 --> 00:51:52,800
Speaker 1: but like, if you isn't good at throwing a haymaker,

976
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:55,000
Speaker 1: it's not really his fault. He fucking tried. You're the one.

977
00:51:56,480 --> 00:52:00,520
Speaker 1: None of y'all was jumping in. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um So,

978
00:52:00,880 --> 00:52:05,400
Speaker 1: the like the failure of the democratic world, so to speak,

979
00:52:05,440 --> 00:52:08,320
Speaker 1: to get involved in any kind of organized way is

980
00:52:08,520 --> 00:52:10,640
Speaker 1: one of the great tragedies and maybe one of the

981
00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:13,480
Speaker 1: reasons World War two happens, right, maybe one of the

982
00:52:13,560 --> 00:52:18,160
Speaker 1: reasons why no, no, no, this is this is FDR FDR. Yeah,

983
00:52:18,239 --> 00:52:22,480
Speaker 1: because I watched the speech about this time of him

984
00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:26,200
Speaker 1: explaining why he was like, we don't want no parts

985
00:52:26,200 --> 00:52:28,920
Speaker 1: of this. I remember, I remember exactly, but I remember

986
00:52:29,360 --> 00:52:32,239
Speaker 1: being really interested in the fact that like, yeah, like

987
00:52:32,520 --> 00:52:36,960
Speaker 1: you know, awesome, Like look, we like some isolation and stuff, awesome,

988
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:38,879
Speaker 1: Like look, man, we got our own problems here. Man.

989
00:52:38,920 --> 00:52:42,480
Speaker 1: We look, we just we can't even feed ourselves. Like

990
00:52:42,600 --> 00:52:45,560
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna like send people. Maybe we should stay

991
00:52:45,560 --> 00:52:47,759
Speaker 1: out of this one. Yeah, that's that. That is very

992
00:52:47,840 --> 00:52:53,280
Speaker 1: much the attitude and the the fascists use Spain, particularly Germany,

993
00:52:53,360 --> 00:52:56,200
Speaker 1: you Spain as a testing ground for new weapons and tactics,

994
00:52:56,239 --> 00:52:58,360
Speaker 1: particularly their new air force because the air and the

995
00:52:58,440 --> 00:53:00,520
Speaker 1: concept of an air force is very new. There had

996
00:53:00,560 --> 00:53:02,760
Speaker 1: been air forces in World War One, but they mostly

997
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:05,799
Speaker 1: just shot at each other and like spotted right for

998
00:53:05,920 --> 00:53:09,279
Speaker 1: artillery and ship. Now you've got bombers right now, Now

999
00:53:09,320 --> 00:53:12,479
Speaker 1: you have air tactical air support that can destroy armor

1000
00:53:12,560 --> 00:53:15,520
Speaker 1: and stuff. And the Spanish civil wars the first time

1001
00:53:15,560 --> 00:53:17,840
Speaker 1: this really comes together in an organized way, and it

1002
00:53:17,880 --> 00:53:21,040
Speaker 1: provides the LEFTWAFFA, the Nazi Air Force with a way

1003
00:53:21,080 --> 00:53:24,080
Speaker 1: to test out its tactics and bombs on Spanish cities

1004
00:53:24,080 --> 00:53:26,960
Speaker 1: and civilians in many cases. And we'll talk about that

1005
00:53:27,000 --> 00:53:30,560
Speaker 1: a little bit later in the episode two. But first,

1006
00:53:31,040 --> 00:53:34,879
Speaker 1: you know who won't attack Spanish cities and civilians with

1007
00:53:34,920 --> 00:53:39,440
Speaker 1: Stuka dive bombers, And Sophie won't. So Sophie, we might, though,

1008
00:53:39,480 --> 00:53:41,719
Speaker 1: if you start messing with her products and cyrus. I

1009
00:53:41,760 --> 00:53:44,640
Speaker 1: have been worried about Sophie's cash of Stuka dive bombers.

1010
00:53:44,719 --> 00:53:47,680
Speaker 1: I am consumed saying why you have so many cut

1011
00:53:47,719 --> 00:53:51,959
Speaker 1: to check where my contract? So she might If they don't,

1012
00:53:52,239 --> 00:53:55,600
Speaker 1: she might they don't money, she might bomb Spain. You

1013
00:53:55,640 --> 00:53:58,759
Speaker 1: know I've always said that about Sophie. Spain's lucky they

1014
00:53:58,800 --> 00:54:05,360
Speaker 1: gave us pogosol, or else things might be different. Alright,

1015
00:54:05,640 --> 00:54:14,879
Speaker 1: here's some products. All right, so we're back now. While

1016
00:54:14,920 --> 00:54:19,759
Speaker 1: the Republic lacked official international support. Uh so again, the

1017
00:54:20,000 --> 00:54:24,560
Speaker 1: the governments of the democratic world like, uh, fun, you guys,

1018
00:54:24,560 --> 00:54:26,200
Speaker 1: like you're on your own right. I don't know, but

1019
00:54:26,600 --> 00:54:29,319
Speaker 1: an awful lot of their citizens and citizens from like

1020
00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:31,759
Speaker 1: Poland is a huge number of these guys, an awful

1021
00:54:31,800 --> 00:54:35,240
Speaker 1: lot of people from around the world. Individual people correctly

1022
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:37,719
Speaker 1: see that, like, well, I don't live in Spain, but

1023
00:54:37,840 --> 00:54:40,720
Speaker 1: I don't like fascism, and I think that whatever happens

1024
00:54:40,719 --> 00:54:44,160
Speaker 1: in Spain will probably directly impact my future. So I'm

1025
00:54:44,160 --> 00:54:46,520
Speaker 1: going to go travel to Spain and try to get

1026
00:54:46,520 --> 00:54:50,120
Speaker 1: ahold of a rifle and shoot some fucking fascists. Um,

1027
00:54:50,160 --> 00:54:54,520
Speaker 1: A lot of people do this movie. There's a couple

1028
00:54:54,880 --> 00:54:56,960
Speaker 1: and there's being worked on right now that I hope

1029
00:54:57,000 --> 00:54:59,719
Speaker 1: will wind up being good. Yeah. There's this c where

1030
00:54:59,760 --> 00:55:03,160
Speaker 1: Big HOMEI like, uh gives this big speech about why

1031
00:55:03,239 --> 00:55:07,680
Speaker 1: he's still willing to like from America go volunteer in

1032
00:55:07,800 --> 00:55:09,600
Speaker 1: this war. I forget the name of this movie, but

1033
00:55:09,640 --> 00:55:11,880
Speaker 1: it was like a it's an interesting scene about this

1034
00:55:11,960 --> 00:55:14,160
Speaker 1: time that like, Okay, the government saying we're not going

1035
00:55:14,200 --> 00:55:16,040
Speaker 1: to do it, but that don't stop me. I could

1036
00:55:16,080 --> 00:55:18,120
Speaker 1: fly out there, I hope. Yeah. Yeah, you know, there's

1037
00:55:18,120 --> 00:55:20,440
Speaker 1: a lot of These are the people who recognize what

1038
00:55:20,560 --> 00:55:23,400
Speaker 1: is a timeless truth, which is that, um, fascism and

1039
00:55:23,480 --> 00:55:28,040
Speaker 1: authoritarianism in in one part of the world is a

1040
00:55:28,200 --> 00:55:30,680
Speaker 1: threat to freedom everywhere in the world. And that's the

1041
00:55:30,680 --> 00:55:32,399
Speaker 1: way it's always been. And we can talk a lot

1042
00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:37,000
Speaker 1: about the fallout from what happened in Syria. Um, but

1043
00:55:37,360 --> 00:55:38,799
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of

1044
00:55:38,880 --> 00:55:43,240
Speaker 1: stories of that in history, you know. Um, So while

1045
00:55:43,440 --> 00:55:47,240
Speaker 1: the Republic lacked, Yeah, so a funklet of people, eventually

1046
00:55:47,320 --> 00:55:50,120
Speaker 1: something close to forty people will wind up volunteering to

1047
00:55:50,239 --> 00:55:52,960
Speaker 1: fight in Spain. And two of the first foreigners to

1048
00:55:53,080 --> 00:55:55,560
Speaker 1: volunteer to fight in Spain where a twenty one year

1049
00:55:55,560 --> 00:55:58,640
Speaker 1: old classics graduate from Cambridge named Bernard Knox and his

1050
00:55:58,719 --> 00:56:01,960
Speaker 1: friend John Cornford. They took with them an old pistol

1051
00:56:01,960 --> 00:56:05,520
Speaker 1: that had belonged to John's Cornfia it's a weird name. Um.

1052
00:56:05,760 --> 00:56:08,880
Speaker 1: They took with them an old pistol. Yes, Cornford, Sophie,

1053
00:56:09,239 --> 00:56:11,560
Speaker 1: they took with him. He dies fighting fascists. He's a

1054
00:56:11,560 --> 00:56:19,520
Speaker 1: good guy. But alright, they took with them an old pistol. Okay, Sophie, sorry,

1055
00:56:20,680 --> 00:56:23,399
Speaker 1: So they traveled to Spain together with just like nothing

1056
00:56:23,440 --> 00:56:25,640
Speaker 1: but an old handgun that had belonged to John's dad

1057
00:56:25,640 --> 00:56:28,600
Speaker 1: in the First World War. Knox had to carry a gun.

1058
00:56:28,719 --> 00:56:30,800
Speaker 1: The gun because his friend had already been to Spain

1059
00:56:30,920 --> 00:56:33,640
Speaker 1: once before. And the British policy of non intervention mean

1060
00:56:33,719 --> 00:56:36,560
Speaker 1: they did everything, meant that Britain like was trying to

1061
00:56:36,640 --> 00:56:40,640
Speaker 1: actively stop people from going to Spain to fight fascism. Um.

1062
00:56:40,680 --> 00:56:43,239
Speaker 1: But but Cornford and his buddy join a militia, like

1063
00:56:43,239 --> 00:56:45,200
Speaker 1: get to Spain, they joined a militia as soon as

1064
00:56:45,239 --> 00:56:47,839
Speaker 1: they land. Um, which is like at this point one

1065
00:56:47,840 --> 00:56:49,680
Speaker 1: of the many groups that had taken up arms to

1066
00:56:49,719 --> 00:56:52,839
Speaker 1: fight against the military coup. Um. And as I had said,

1067
00:56:52,880 --> 00:56:54,520
Speaker 1: the early days of this war, there's a lot of

1068
00:56:54,520 --> 00:56:57,120
Speaker 1: women who are fighting in the militia's. This ends at

1069
00:56:57,120 --> 00:56:59,719
Speaker 1: like the end of nineteen thirty six when Largo Caballero

1070
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:01,920
Speaker 1: comes to power because he kind of he argues that

1071
00:57:01,920 --> 00:57:04,360
Speaker 1: women are needed behind the lines, so they're not really

1072
00:57:04,520 --> 00:57:06,560
Speaker 1: fighting in the front. After this point, it's a pretty

1073
00:57:06,600 --> 00:57:10,680
Speaker 1: brief period and that's again a criticism, one of the

1074
00:57:10,719 --> 00:57:13,799
Speaker 1: good criticisms of the Spanish Republican government is like, well,

1075
00:57:14,280 --> 00:57:18,240
Speaker 1: I lost out on a lot of soldiers. Huh yeah,

1076
00:57:18,640 --> 00:57:20,480
Speaker 1: so yeah, people will in a suit. You told him

1077
00:57:20,520 --> 00:57:24,360
Speaker 1: stay home. In those early days of revolutionary ardor though,

1078
00:57:24,360 --> 00:57:27,680
Speaker 1: when Cornford and his friend arrive in Spain, uh, like,

1079
00:57:27,800 --> 00:57:30,520
Speaker 1: Spain is kind of like overtaken by this this feeling

1080
00:57:30,560 --> 00:57:33,880
Speaker 1: of revolution um and and this is swellowed by the

1081
00:57:33,880 --> 00:57:36,520
Speaker 1: fact that the people of Republican Spain had literally taken

1082
00:57:36,520 --> 00:57:38,880
Speaker 1: to the streets to defend themselves in mass and it

1083
00:57:39,000 --> 00:57:44,160
Speaker 1: lent cities like Barcelona a revolutionary air that international volunteers noticed.

1084
00:57:44,400 --> 00:57:47,400
Speaker 1: One of those volunteers was a young George Orwell, and

1085
00:57:47,440 --> 00:57:51,400
Speaker 1: he described the atmosphere in Barcelona as startling and overwhelming

1086
00:57:51,480 --> 00:57:53,880
Speaker 1: and like a positive sense, just like so incredible, this

1087
00:57:54,000 --> 00:57:58,560
Speaker 1: like outpouring of of of liberty. Now, the Communist International

1088
00:57:58,640 --> 00:58:01,800
Speaker 1: or common turn quickly re allies that volunteers like Cornford

1089
00:58:01,840 --> 00:58:04,960
Speaker 1: represented a massive opportunity, so they devoted some of their

1090
00:58:04,960 --> 00:58:07,040
Speaker 1: resources to organize in what came to be known as

1091
00:58:07,080 --> 00:58:10,280
Speaker 1: the International Brigades. So it's it's the Communist who put

1092
00:58:10,280 --> 00:58:13,160
Speaker 1: together the International Brigades, which are a huge factor in

1093
00:58:13,160 --> 00:58:17,919
Speaker 1: in both why the republic last so long and why

1094
00:58:18,240 --> 00:58:20,640
Speaker 1: um it becomes so internationally famous. Although a lot of

1095
00:58:20,640 --> 00:58:23,520
Speaker 1: these volunteers are anarchists and not communists, you know, it's

1096
00:58:23,520 --> 00:58:25,480
Speaker 1: a bunch of different kinds and Trotsky like a bunch

1097
00:58:25,480 --> 00:58:28,880
Speaker 1: of different kinds of people volunteer. And I'm gonna quote

1098
00:58:28,920 --> 00:58:31,240
Speaker 1: from a rite up on the International Brigades and the Guardian.

1099
00:58:32,440 --> 00:58:36,840
Speaker 1: Another recruit, Winston Churchill's rebel nephew, Esmond Romilly, had cycled

1100
00:58:36,880 --> 00:58:40,240
Speaker 1: across France fueled by coffee and kognac before volunteering and

1101
00:58:40,280 --> 00:58:43,240
Speaker 1: declaring himself a member of that very large class of

1102
00:58:43,320 --> 00:58:46,800
Speaker 1: unskilled laborers with a public school accent. He sailed on

1103
00:58:46,840 --> 00:58:49,080
Speaker 1: a boat from Marseilles with watch duties split in two

1104
00:58:49,120 --> 00:58:53,400
Speaker 1: hour shifts between French, German Poles, Italians, Yugoslav's, Belgians, Flemish

1105
00:58:53,400 --> 00:59:00,160
Speaker 1: and Russian speakers. And it's yeah, it's very dope. Yeah,

1106
00:59:00,520 --> 00:59:02,919
Speaker 1: it's it's we're gonna talk mostly it is very dope. Yeah,

1107
00:59:02,960 --> 00:59:05,720
Speaker 1: Winster Churchill's nephew is showing up. Yeah. It was like

1108
00:59:05,840 --> 00:59:08,600
Speaker 1: coffee and cone out here with the hobbies, like we're

1109
00:59:08,640 --> 00:59:10,560
Speaker 1: on the streets right now. I look, I went to

1110
00:59:10,600 --> 00:59:14,080
Speaker 1: public school, Hobbie. You get this accent? I love it.

1111
00:59:14,280 --> 00:59:17,560
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, okay, and it's um and and it's

1112
00:59:17,640 --> 00:59:19,880
Speaker 1: it's there's a couple of things going on there. Um.

1113
00:59:20,200 --> 00:59:21,800
Speaker 1: One of them is that like by public school that

1114
00:59:21,840 --> 00:59:24,960
Speaker 1: in England actually means like a fancy school. So he's like,

1115
00:59:25,040 --> 00:59:27,040
Speaker 1: I I have I have a public school accent. But

1116
00:59:27,160 --> 00:59:29,800
Speaker 1: I too am like whatever you call what I call

1117
00:59:29,840 --> 00:59:33,160
Speaker 1: it an unskilled labor, like I identified okay, that's that's

1118
00:59:33,160 --> 00:59:35,720
Speaker 1: actually even cooler it is because I don't have to

1119
00:59:35,760 --> 00:59:38,360
Speaker 1: do this, okay. It's the opposite of like, you know,

1120
00:59:38,440 --> 00:59:41,320
Speaker 1: that common people thing where it's like I want to be,

1121
00:59:41,640 --> 00:59:43,360
Speaker 1: you know, like a labor. Is like, well, I want

1122
00:59:43,360 --> 00:59:46,640
Speaker 1: to be like a laborer. So I'm gonna go stand

1123
00:59:46,640 --> 00:59:48,560
Speaker 1: with a rifle next to them and fight the fascist,

1124
00:59:48,600 --> 00:59:50,800
Speaker 1: which yeah, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna talk to

1125
00:59:50,800 --> 00:59:54,400
Speaker 1: you about you for doing that. And it's also worth

1126
00:59:54,400 --> 00:59:58,360
Speaker 1: noting we're gonna talk mostly about American volunteers um here.

1127
00:59:58,640 --> 01:00:01,200
Speaker 1: One of the largest nation is that that a lot

1128
01:00:01,240 --> 01:00:04,439
Speaker 1: of people volunteer to fight in Spain from is Poland. UM.

1129
01:00:04,480 --> 01:00:07,120
Speaker 1: And obviously Poland becomes the first one of the first

1130
01:00:07,200 --> 01:00:10,720
Speaker 1: large national victim at least of nazism um. So you

1131
01:00:10,880 --> 01:00:12,520
Speaker 1: and you can see why, right, Like a lot of

1132
01:00:12,560 --> 01:00:15,840
Speaker 1: Poles looking at Germany on their doorstep, agitating about taking

1133
01:00:15,840 --> 01:00:18,240
Speaker 1: back land given to them by Versailla, and you're like,

1134
01:00:18,400 --> 01:00:22,360
Speaker 1: we should probably go try to stop this. Yeah. So

1135
01:00:22,560 --> 01:00:25,360
Speaker 1: the invasion of Madrid was the first terrible battle of

1136
01:00:25,360 --> 01:00:28,000
Speaker 1: the Civil War the verse like really massive and important one,

1137
01:00:28,040 --> 01:00:31,720
Speaker 1: I think. And Franco's colonial army, including the Spanish foreign Legion,

1138
01:00:31,920 --> 01:00:35,040
Speaker 1: were airlifted from Morocco to Seville by German planes in

1139
01:00:35,120 --> 01:00:37,920
Speaker 1: order to fight there in an operation that Hitler himself

1140
01:00:38,000 --> 01:00:41,480
Speaker 1: named Operation Magic Fire, which is based on a part

1141
01:00:41,480 --> 01:00:45,160
Speaker 1: of a Wagner opera, Franco's Fast. So they and again

1142
01:00:46,200 --> 01:00:48,600
Speaker 1: the bulk of the nationalist troops don't get out of

1143
01:00:48,640 --> 01:00:52,240
Speaker 1: Africa to fight in Spain without Hitler's airlift. They did,

1144
01:00:52,240 --> 01:00:54,120
Speaker 1: they had, they would have had because the navy doesn't

1145
01:00:54,120 --> 01:00:56,920
Speaker 1: go fascist. The Spanish navy, such as it is, stays

1146
01:00:56,960 --> 01:00:59,480
Speaker 1: loyal um in large part because like there's actually a

1147
01:00:59,520 --> 01:01:02,280
Speaker 1: lot of spam fish naval officers who try to go

1148
01:01:02,440 --> 01:01:05,840
Speaker 1: against the Republic and then their crews killed them and stuff.

1149
01:01:05,880 --> 01:01:09,600
Speaker 1: You know. Um, so the only reason that Franco's army

1150
01:01:09,680 --> 01:01:14,640
Speaker 1: gets to Iberia is because the Nazis airlift them. Um. Now,

1151
01:01:14,720 --> 01:01:17,840
Speaker 1: Franco's fascist towards tour through Republic territory on their way

1152
01:01:17,880 --> 01:01:21,520
Speaker 1: to Madrid. They were slowed by the militias um and

1153
01:01:21,560 --> 01:01:24,880
Speaker 1: eventually turned back by a significant amount of Soviet armored

1154
01:01:24,920 --> 01:01:28,360
Speaker 1: aid UM. And you know, a lot of people sacrificed

1155
01:01:28,440 --> 01:01:30,440
Speaker 1: to stop them. But a lot of the credit for

1156
01:01:30,560 --> 01:01:34,160
Speaker 1: finally stopping the fascist advanced on Madrid goes to the

1157
01:01:34,160 --> 01:01:37,360
Speaker 1: International Brigades who turned back the fascists at a place

1158
01:01:37,400 --> 01:01:41,080
Speaker 1: called University City, which is like a college campus, in

1159
01:01:41,160 --> 01:01:44,680
Speaker 1: a heroic defense that has become like very like famous

1160
01:01:44,680 --> 01:01:47,760
Speaker 1: in history. Now, most of the International Brigade members at

1161
01:01:47,760 --> 01:01:50,960
Speaker 1: this point were untrained, inexperienced, and nearly all of them

1162
01:01:51,000 --> 01:01:54,640
Speaker 1: were poorly armed. They found themselves confronting a battle hardened

1163
01:01:54,720 --> 01:01:58,040
Speaker 1: army with cutting edge German weaponry, and somehow they held

1164
01:01:58,080 --> 01:02:01,680
Speaker 1: the line. Cornford Squad operated a machine gun nest in

1165
01:02:01,720 --> 01:02:05,880
Speaker 1: the philosophy faculty offices of the University City campus. They

1166
01:02:05,920 --> 01:02:09,280
Speaker 1: built barricades out of books in order to stop fascist bullets.

1167
01:02:09,640 --> 01:02:14,200
Speaker 1: The Guardian notes, yeah, okay quote enemy bullets gave up

1168
01:02:14,240 --> 01:02:17,760
Speaker 1: before reaching page three fifty, making them believe old tales

1169
01:02:17,800 --> 01:02:21,080
Speaker 1: of soldiers saved by bibles in their breast pockets. I

1170
01:02:21,120 --> 01:02:24,200
Speaker 1: think I killed a fascist, Cornford, a former pacifist, wrote

1171
01:02:24,240 --> 01:02:28,480
Speaker 1: excitedly to his girlfriend Margot Hyneman on eighth December fifteen

1172
01:02:28,560 --> 01:02:30,840
Speaker 1: or sixteen of them were running from a bombardment. If

1173
01:02:30,880 --> 01:02:35,640
Speaker 1: it is true, it's a fluke, that's yeah, yeah yeah,

1174
01:02:35,720 --> 01:02:41,040
Speaker 1: building this entire like building barricades out of philosophy books

1175
01:02:41,120 --> 01:02:45,640
Speaker 1: to stop fascist bullets. Yeah, it's it's yes. That is

1176
01:02:45,760 --> 01:02:50,320
Speaker 1: punk rock. He was like about page three as they

1177
01:02:50,320 --> 01:02:56,640
Speaker 1: can get. Yeah. Uh. Now. The achievement of the International

1178
01:02:56,640 --> 01:02:59,560
Speaker 1: Brigades at University City turned them into a symbol both

1179
01:02:59,560 --> 01:03:03,160
Speaker 1: in Spain and in worldwide of resistance to fascism. They

1180
01:03:03,200 --> 01:03:06,480
Speaker 1: also received more international attention because their numbers included men

1181
01:03:06,520 --> 01:03:08,640
Speaker 1: who spoke dozens of different languages. They were like fifty

1182
01:03:08,640 --> 01:03:12,120
Speaker 1: four nations represented eventually, and this made it really easy

1183
01:03:12,160 --> 01:03:14,600
Speaker 1: for the foreign press to to embed with people because

1184
01:03:14,600 --> 01:03:16,800
Speaker 1: they could find people that they could talk to, you know,

1185
01:03:16,920 --> 01:03:18,520
Speaker 1: like it like as just speaking of somebod who's done

1186
01:03:18,520 --> 01:03:20,280
Speaker 1: war zone reporting. If there's a group of people like

1187
01:03:20,320 --> 01:03:21,880
Speaker 1: that that I can embed with. That's what I'm gonna

1188
01:03:21,920 --> 01:03:24,760
Speaker 1: do because I'll meet other people who are English speakers

1189
01:03:24,760 --> 01:03:28,920
Speaker 1: and it's way easier to conduct interviews and stuff that. Um.

1190
01:03:28,960 --> 01:03:32,120
Speaker 1: And of course, the United States was well represented among

1191
01:03:32,120 --> 01:03:35,800
Speaker 1: the international volunteers. Now, it was very illegal for U.

1192
01:03:35,840 --> 01:03:38,760
Speaker 1: S citizens to join a foreign military force at this time,

1193
01:03:39,040 --> 01:03:41,480
Speaker 1: but still hundreds and hundreds joined what came to be

1194
01:03:41,560 --> 01:03:45,840
Speaker 1: known as the Abraham Lincoln Battalion. These soldiers underwent two

1195
01:03:45,840 --> 01:03:49,160
Speaker 1: weeks of clandestine training near New York City before shipping out.

1196
01:03:49,640 --> 01:03:51,760
Speaker 1: New York, by the way, was the source of a

1197
01:03:51,880 --> 01:03:54,800
Speaker 1: huge number of Lincoln Battalion troops. It is worth noting

1198
01:03:54,840 --> 01:03:58,080
Speaker 1: that about one tenth of foreign Spanish volunteers were Jewish,

1199
01:03:58,280 --> 01:04:00,520
Speaker 1: so of all of the people who could like and again,

1200
01:04:00,520 --> 01:04:02,160
Speaker 1: it's the same thing as the polls, a lot of

1201
01:04:02,200 --> 01:04:04,400
Speaker 1: Jewish folks are like, looking at Nazi Germany are like,

1202
01:04:04,520 --> 01:04:07,880
Speaker 1: we should probably gonna do something about this problem. There's

1203
01:04:07,880 --> 01:04:10,760
Speaker 1: gonna be a problem for us, I think. Um. And

1204
01:04:10,800 --> 01:04:14,800
Speaker 1: in fact, American historian and international veteran Albert Prago called

1205
01:04:14,800 --> 01:04:18,480
Speaker 1: the International Brigades quote the vehicle through which Jews could

1206
01:04:18,560 --> 01:04:22,880
Speaker 1: offer the first armed resistance to European fascism, and that's

1207
01:04:23,040 --> 01:04:26,600
Speaker 1: pretty rad Now. One of the most notable aspects of

1208
01:04:26,680 --> 01:04:28,960
Speaker 1: the Abraham Lincoln Battalion is that, in an era in

1209
01:04:28,960 --> 01:04:33,280
Speaker 1: which racism was almost unbelievably present in American society, and

1210
01:04:33,280 --> 01:04:36,520
Speaker 1: there in which even the military was heavily segregated, the

1211
01:04:36,600 --> 01:04:40,960
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln Battalion was completely unsegregated. Black men could not

1212
01:04:41,000 --> 01:04:44,480
Speaker 1: only join, they could become officers and command white troops

1213
01:04:44,480 --> 01:04:46,640
Speaker 1: in battle, and this had never happened in the U.

1214
01:04:46,640 --> 01:04:48,920
Speaker 1: S s. This point that I am aware of this

1215
01:04:49,000 --> 01:04:53,400
Speaker 1: brings me to the incredible story of El Word Luteal McDaniels,

1216
01:04:53,560 --> 01:04:54,840
Speaker 1: and I'm going to quote from a writ up in

1217
01:04:54,840 --> 01:04:59,320
Speaker 1: the Smithsonian Magazine here. L Lord Lute McDaniels traveled across

1218
01:04:59,360 --> 01:05:02,080
Speaker 1: the Atlantic in nineteen thirty seven to fight fascists in

1219
01:05:02,120 --> 01:05:04,480
Speaker 1: the Spanish Civil War, where he became known as El

1220
01:05:04,600 --> 01:05:07,920
Speaker 1: Fantastico for his prowess with a grenade. As a platoon

1221
01:05:08,000 --> 01:05:11,200
Speaker 1: sergeant with the McKenzie Papinau Battalion of the International Brigades,

1222
01:05:11,400 --> 01:05:14,480
Speaker 1: the twenty five year old African American from Mississippi commanded

1223
01:05:14,480 --> 01:05:17,200
Speaker 1: white troops and led them into battle against the forces

1224
01:05:17,240 --> 01:05:20,440
Speaker 1: of General Franco, men who saw him as less than human.

1225
01:05:20,840 --> 01:05:22,720
Speaker 1: It might seem strange for a black man to go

1226
01:05:22,760 --> 01:05:24,840
Speaker 1: to such links to fight in a white man's war

1227
01:05:24,960 --> 01:05:27,600
Speaker 1: so far from home. Wasn't there enough racism to fight

1228
01:05:27,640 --> 01:05:30,560
Speaker 1: in the United States, But McDaniels was convinced that anti

1229
01:05:30,600 --> 01:05:33,440
Speaker 1: fascism and anti racism were one and the same. I

1230
01:05:33,480 --> 01:05:36,160
Speaker 1: saw the invaders of Spain were the same people I've

1231
01:05:36,160 --> 01:05:40,320
Speaker 1: been fighting all my life, McDaniels says. I've seen lynching

1232
01:05:40,320 --> 01:05:44,240
Speaker 1: and starvation, and I know my people's enemies. Let's go

1233
01:05:44,880 --> 01:05:48,120
Speaker 1: First of all, Man's last name is McDaniels, which already

1234
01:05:48,120 --> 01:05:50,960
Speaker 1: tells you someone Yep, you know what I'm saying, So

1235
01:05:51,600 --> 01:05:53,640
Speaker 1: we know his family story. You know what I'm saying.

1236
01:05:54,120 --> 01:05:58,120
Speaker 1: And yeah, that just and the Fanessa just just the

1237
01:05:58,160 --> 01:06:00,520
Speaker 1: culture that you get there and get a nickname immediately,

1238
01:06:00,560 --> 01:06:03,120
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like El fantastical because she's

1239
01:06:03,200 --> 01:06:08,280
Speaker 1: really good at killing fascist at this ship, Dan, I

1240
01:06:08,360 --> 01:06:10,920
Speaker 1: was crazy, I was gonna say that that. Yeah, that

1241
01:06:11,120 --> 01:06:18,200
Speaker 1: like a stut, like you know, like the observation of

1242
01:06:18,240 --> 01:06:19,800
Speaker 1: just like where we're just like, look, man, you gotta

1243
01:06:19,840 --> 01:06:22,240
Speaker 1: trust us. Like I'm trying to tell you this is

1244
01:06:22,280 --> 01:06:25,080
Speaker 1: the same same ease, like this is the same people

1245
01:06:25,160 --> 01:06:30,400
Speaker 1: to the people trying to tell you the same problem. Yeah. Now.

1246
01:06:30,480 --> 01:06:32,960
Speaker 1: The United States in this period also banned black men

1247
01:06:33,040 --> 01:06:36,640
Speaker 1: from serving as fighter pilots, but three black pilots, James Peck,

1248
01:06:36,720 --> 01:06:41,000
Speaker 1: Patrick Roosevelt, and Paul Williams, served in Spain. Canute Wilson,

1249
01:06:41,080 --> 01:06:43,760
Speaker 1: a black American volunteer, was the head mechanic for the

1250
01:06:43,800 --> 01:06:47,400
Speaker 1: International Garage, which maintained all of the Brigades fighting vehicles.

1251
01:06:47,840 --> 01:06:50,640
Speaker 1: He wrote this of his reasons for volunteering to fight

1252
01:06:50,640 --> 01:06:53,800
Speaker 1: in Spain, and a letter home to his family. We

1253
01:06:53,880 --> 01:06:57,560
Speaker 1: are no longer in isolated minority group fighting hopelessly against

1254
01:06:57,600 --> 01:07:00,520
Speaker 1: an immense giant, because, my dear, we have joined with

1255
01:07:00,600 --> 01:07:03,120
Speaker 1: and become an active part of a great progressive force

1256
01:07:03,160 --> 01:07:07,480
Speaker 1: on whose soldiers rests the responsibility of saving human civilization

1257
01:07:07,720 --> 01:07:10,680
Speaker 1: from the planned destruction of a small group of degenerates

1258
01:07:10,920 --> 01:07:13,720
Speaker 1: gone mad in their lust for power. Because if we

1259
01:07:13,760 --> 01:07:16,760
Speaker 1: crush fascism here, we'll save our people in America and

1260
01:07:16,760 --> 01:07:19,160
Speaker 1: in other parts of the world from the vicious persecution,

1261
01:07:19,400 --> 01:07:23,000
Speaker 1: wholesale imprisonment, and slaughter which the Jewish people suffered and

1262
01:07:23,080 --> 01:07:29,360
Speaker 1: our suffering under Hitler's fascist heels. That is that is sentenced,

1263
01:07:29,680 --> 01:07:33,880
Speaker 1: that is that is I think there's like this like this,

1264
01:07:34,080 --> 01:07:36,520
Speaker 1: this part of this like longing and I'm going to

1265
01:07:36,600 --> 01:07:39,920
Speaker 1: speak in like generalities, but just this longing in that

1266
01:07:40,000 --> 01:07:43,919
Speaker 1: like that African American like the black community, I think

1267
01:07:44,000 --> 01:07:48,440
Speaker 1: that's gone. That goes very far back to say, surely

1268
01:07:48,480 --> 01:07:51,120
Speaker 1: not all white people are like this. Yeah, you know

1269
01:07:51,120 --> 01:07:53,280
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Like you have you're like this. It

1270
01:07:53,440 --> 01:07:57,240
Speaker 1: can't be. It can't be all of y'all, you know

1271
01:07:57,240 --> 01:07:59,840
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So like when you when you find

1272
01:08:00,480 --> 01:08:03,680
Speaker 1: like I mean, obviously I'm marketing back to history, but

1273
01:08:03,720 --> 01:08:06,480
Speaker 1: when you like like when you see when you see, uh,

1274
01:08:06,560 --> 01:08:09,120
Speaker 1: during like the Harlem Renaissance, you see black people going

1275
01:08:09,160 --> 01:08:13,320
Speaker 1: to going to France and being like, look, there's reasonable

1276
01:08:13,320 --> 01:08:16,839
Speaker 1: white people. Like I'm telling you there they have to exist,

1277
01:08:17,760 --> 01:08:21,320
Speaker 1: you know, there has it has to exist, you know

1278
01:08:21,320 --> 01:08:23,840
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So like it's it's almost like I

1279
01:08:23,960 --> 01:08:27,680
Speaker 1: hear that in this guy's statement, like look, dude, the

1280
01:08:29,600 --> 01:08:33,280
Speaker 1: reasonable white people. Yeah. Well, and in speaking about you

1281
01:08:33,320 --> 01:08:35,680
Speaker 1: know the fact that L word's last name is McDaniels, right,

1282
01:08:35,760 --> 01:08:39,960
Speaker 1: that probably means that like an Irish person owned his ancestors,

1283
01:08:40,000 --> 01:08:42,400
Speaker 1: not all that far back. We're talking about like like

1284
01:08:42,400 --> 01:08:47,759
Speaker 1: like let like not all that long ago, like his grandpa. Yeah. Now,

1285
01:08:49,160 --> 01:08:51,920
Speaker 1: because of the realities of the war, babe, when it

1286
01:08:51,920 --> 01:08:54,679
Speaker 1: were there were a funkload of Irish volunteers and Irish

1287
01:08:54,680 --> 01:08:58,600
Speaker 1: American volunteers, which means it's conceivably like part of what

1288
01:08:58,720 --> 01:09:02,440
Speaker 1: probably happened here is he was leading irishman, Irish descendediment

1289
01:09:02,520 --> 01:09:05,599
Speaker 1: into battles man who had been enslaved by an Irish descendent,

1290
01:09:06,040 --> 01:09:09,519
Speaker 1: leading them into into combat, which is amazing. Shit happens,

1291
01:09:09,520 --> 01:09:14,439
Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, during its brief and and yeah,

1292
01:09:14,640 --> 01:09:18,360
Speaker 1: it's it's amazing. In some ways, during its brief period

1293
01:09:18,360 --> 01:09:22,040
Speaker 1: of existence, wartime Republican Spain was in some ways almost

1294
01:09:22,080 --> 01:09:26,920
Speaker 1: impossibly progressive. In nineteen thirty six, Largo Caballero appointed Federica

1295
01:09:27,040 --> 01:09:30,240
Speaker 1: monts Ceni, a female anarchist, to be the nation's Minister

1296
01:09:30,320 --> 01:09:34,000
Speaker 1: of Health. Federica immediately set to work focusing the embattled

1297
01:09:34,080 --> 01:09:37,040
Speaker 1: nations health infrastructure to serve the needs of the poor

1298
01:09:37,080 --> 01:09:39,840
Speaker 1: and the working class. She believed that health care should

1299
01:09:39,840 --> 01:09:44,679
Speaker 1: be decentralized, locally organized, and based around prevention rather than treatment.

1300
01:09:45,000 --> 01:09:48,080
Speaker 1: She was also responsible for making Republican Spain the first

1301
01:09:48,160 --> 01:09:52,320
Speaker 1: nation on Earth to legalize on demand abortion. Wow yeah,

1302
01:09:52,840 --> 01:09:57,080
Speaker 1: now yeah, there's a lot of really interesting ship yeah

1303
01:09:57,400 --> 01:10:01,080
Speaker 1: now months Senny was a controversial figure in anarchists, and

1304
01:10:01,160 --> 01:10:03,799
Speaker 1: she engaged in some pretty officious arguments with Emma Goldman,

1305
01:10:03,800 --> 01:10:06,519
Speaker 1: who is another very famous anarchist. In particular, and the

1306
01:10:06,600 --> 01:10:09,519
Speaker 1: general focus of criticism on Monsini and other anarchists who

1307
01:10:09,600 --> 01:10:12,280
Speaker 1: take part in the Republican government, um is on the

1308
01:10:12,320 --> 01:10:14,960
Speaker 1: subject of whether or not it was ethical for anarchists

1309
01:10:15,040 --> 01:10:18,320
Speaker 1: to coordinate with governments and with Marxists, because obviously in

1310
01:10:18,320 --> 01:10:20,920
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union they kill a funkload of anarchists too,

1311
01:10:21,080 --> 01:10:24,800
Speaker 1: you know. Um, this is a recurring theme in anarchist

1312
01:10:24,920 --> 01:10:27,360
Speaker 1: history and it's something that's very hotly debated to this day.

1313
01:10:27,400 --> 01:10:29,240
Speaker 1: I could note here that Nestor mak know who we

1314
01:10:29,240 --> 01:10:32,080
Speaker 1: talked about in our Christmas episode, also had to thread

1315
01:10:32,080 --> 01:10:35,240
Speaker 1: this moral needle because he collaborated with the post revolutionary

1316
01:10:35,280 --> 01:10:37,960
Speaker 1: government of Russia, which he didn't like, to fight against

1317
01:10:37,960 --> 01:10:40,800
Speaker 1: the white forces which were worse. You know, it's a

1318
01:10:40,920 --> 01:10:43,200
Speaker 1: it's a debate that anarchists have had a number of

1319
01:10:43,240 --> 01:10:45,760
Speaker 1: times in history, and is never really settled to a

1320
01:10:45,880 --> 01:10:49,880
Speaker 1: satisfactory degree. But it happens now. A decent number of

1321
01:10:49,880 --> 01:10:52,639
Speaker 1: the anarchists who fought for Republican Spain would in fact

1322
01:10:52,680 --> 01:10:55,840
Speaker 1: come to regret their collaboration with the government and the communists,

1323
01:10:55,840 --> 01:10:57,960
Speaker 1: and they had some good reasons to do that. For

1324
01:10:58,080 --> 01:11:01,280
Speaker 1: one thing, Republican Spain has lost the war. For another thing,

1325
01:11:01,600 --> 01:11:04,320
Speaker 1: the broad left unity that characterized some of the early

1326
01:11:04,400 --> 01:11:07,760
Speaker 1: stages of the war did not last. The government of

1327
01:11:07,800 --> 01:11:11,400
Speaker 1: Republican Spain, which did at one point include four anarchist ministers,

1328
01:11:11,439 --> 01:11:13,120
Speaker 1: as well as a number of communists and of course

1329
01:11:13,160 --> 01:11:16,360
Speaker 1: many more moderate Republicans, made a lot of tremendous errors.

1330
01:11:16,640 --> 01:11:20,040
Speaker 1: For one thing, the government fled Madrid while Franco was advancing,

1331
01:11:20,280 --> 01:11:22,760
Speaker 1: something which hampered their ability to capitalize on the moral

1332
01:11:22,880 --> 01:11:26,320
Speaker 1: victory of halting the fascists. Right, you can't brag about

1333
01:11:26,320 --> 01:11:28,360
Speaker 1: it as much because you ran away. You know you

1334
01:11:28,439 --> 01:11:32,160
Speaker 1: ran though. Yeah. For another reason, starting in late nineteen

1335
01:11:32,200 --> 01:11:34,800
Speaker 1: thirty six, the Republic's new government embarked on what they

1336
01:11:34,840 --> 01:11:39,000
Speaker 1: called militarization. This involved involved integrating the hundreds of different

1337
01:11:39,000 --> 01:11:42,439
Speaker 1: militias into the formal Spanish military. On the surface, this

1338
01:11:42,520 --> 01:11:44,080
Speaker 1: was a sensible call and it may have been the

1339
01:11:44,160 --> 01:11:45,800
Speaker 1: right one, and it was one that was heavily backed

1340
01:11:45,840 --> 01:11:49,160
Speaker 1: by communist advisors the USSR had sent in. Many historians

1341
01:11:49,200 --> 01:11:52,600
Speaker 1: will argue that it was necessary um and and some

1342
01:11:52,720 --> 01:11:54,439
Speaker 1: of the evidence for this is that, like in February

1343
01:11:54,439 --> 01:11:57,000
Speaker 1: of nineteen thirty seven, Malaga fell due in part to

1344
01:11:57,000 --> 01:11:59,240
Speaker 1: the fact that it was defended by a patchwork of

1345
01:11:59,280 --> 01:12:03,440
Speaker 1: militia's that we're not well coordinated. UM. But these militias

1346
01:12:03,479 --> 01:12:07,080
Speaker 1: that are being inducted into the formal military establishment, a

1347
01:12:07,080 --> 01:12:09,400
Speaker 1: lot of them have been again anarchist and Trotskyist, and

1348
01:12:09,400 --> 01:12:13,080
Speaker 1: they've been free democratic fighting units. This led to problems

1349
01:12:13,080 --> 01:12:15,440
Speaker 1: and there were cases where you know, like whole battalions

1350
01:12:15,439 --> 01:12:18,479
Speaker 1: would vote to leave combat zones while the fighting was happening.

1351
01:12:18,640 --> 01:12:20,880
Speaker 1: This happened in the Battle of Madrid with when a

1352
01:12:20,920 --> 01:12:24,520
Speaker 1: guy named Drudy gets killed with like his guys leave UM.

1353
01:12:24,560 --> 01:12:27,720
Speaker 1: But it also meant so it's not like obviously before militarization,

1354
01:12:27,880 --> 01:12:30,400
Speaker 1: they decided to militarize because there's a lot of problems

1355
01:12:30,400 --> 01:12:32,920
Speaker 1: with the fact that all these militias are so decentralized.

1356
01:12:33,320 --> 01:12:36,960
Speaker 1: These militias are also very motivated and very resistant to

1357
01:12:37,000 --> 01:12:39,679
Speaker 1: the idea of losing their democratic rights and bring brought

1358
01:12:39,800 --> 01:12:43,080
Speaker 1: under military discipline. UM. So, while a lot of militias

1359
01:12:43,120 --> 01:12:46,160
Speaker 1: were integrated to the Republican military, a significant number of

1360
01:12:46,200 --> 01:12:49,360
Speaker 1: fighters refused to join UM And whether or not this

1361
01:12:49,479 --> 01:12:52,920
Speaker 1: was a good idea is still hotly debated. And George,

1362
01:12:52,920 --> 01:12:55,760
Speaker 1: a lot of people will argue that because there's kind

1363
01:12:55,760 --> 01:12:57,680
Speaker 1: of a broad consensus, I would say among a lot

1364
01:12:57,680 --> 01:13:00,920
Speaker 1: of historians, I read that after the initial period where

1365
01:13:00,920 --> 01:13:03,439
Speaker 1: they were necessary, the militia's kind of hindered things more

1366
01:13:03,439 --> 01:13:06,400
Speaker 1: than they helped because of how disorganized they were. George

1367
01:13:06,520 --> 01:13:10,240
Speaker 1: Orwell himself argued against that um and argued in his

1368
01:13:10,560 --> 01:13:12,639
Speaker 1: opinion at least and he was, you know, his opinion

1369
01:13:12,680 --> 01:13:15,720
Speaker 1: was as a ground level soldier, that the shortcomings of

1370
01:13:15,720 --> 01:13:17,760
Speaker 1: the militias system had less to do with the fact

1371
01:13:17,760 --> 01:13:20,640
Speaker 1: that they were democratic and decentralized and more to do

1372
01:13:20,680 --> 01:13:22,840
Speaker 1: with the fact that they were inexperienced. And I'm gonna

1373
01:13:22,880 --> 01:13:26,200
Speaker 1: quote Orwell here it's a good argument. Later it became

1374
01:13:26,200 --> 01:13:28,799
Speaker 1: the fashion to decry the militias and therefore to pretend

1375
01:13:28,840 --> 01:13:30,759
Speaker 1: that the faults, which were due to lack of training

1376
01:13:30,760 --> 01:13:34,759
Speaker 1: and weapons, were the result of the equalitarian system. Actually,

1377
01:13:34,800 --> 01:13:37,519
Speaker 1: a newly raised draft of militia was an undisciplined mob,

1378
01:13:37,600 --> 01:13:40,479
Speaker 1: not because the officers called the private comrade, but because

1379
01:13:40,560 --> 01:13:43,759
Speaker 1: raw troops are always an undisciplined mob. And a worker's

1380
01:13:43,840 --> 01:13:47,200
Speaker 1: army discipline is theoretically based on class loyalty, while the

1381
01:13:47,200 --> 01:13:50,920
Speaker 1: discipline of a bourgeoisie conscript army is based ultimately on fear.

1382
01:13:51,200 --> 01:13:54,000
Speaker 1: The popular army that replaced the militias was midway between

1383
01:13:54,040 --> 01:13:56,719
Speaker 1: the two types. When a man refused to obey an order,

1384
01:13:56,720 --> 01:13:59,559
Speaker 1: you did not immediately get him punished. You first appealed

1385
01:13:59,560 --> 01:14:02,519
Speaker 1: to him and name of comradeship. Cynical people with no

1386
01:14:02,640 --> 01:14:05,759
Speaker 1: experience handling men, will say instantly that this would never work,

1387
01:14:05,960 --> 01:14:07,840
Speaker 1: but as a matter of fact, it does work in

1388
01:14:07,880 --> 01:14:11,240
Speaker 1: the long run. Revolutionary discipline depends on an understanding of

1389
01:14:11,320 --> 01:14:14,400
Speaker 1: why orders must be obeyed. It takes time to diffuse this,

1390
01:14:14,640 --> 01:14:16,760
Speaker 1: but it also takes time to drill a man into

1391
01:14:16,800 --> 01:14:19,320
Speaker 1: an automaton on the barracks square. And it is a

1392
01:14:19,360 --> 01:14:22,040
Speaker 1: tribute to the strength of the revolutionary discipline that the

1393
01:14:22,080 --> 01:14:24,479
Speaker 1: militias state in the field at all. And or Well

1394
01:14:24,520 --> 01:14:27,479
Speaker 1: has a good point here, that's a that's a whole

1395
01:14:28,120 --> 01:14:34,400
Speaker 1: there's a whole like worldview, philosophy in those two approaches.

1396
01:14:35,960 --> 01:14:41,719
Speaker 1: I'm about to compare this to parenting, but yeah, because

1397
01:14:41,800 --> 01:14:45,320
Speaker 1: like there's parts of me that go, Man, if I

1398
01:14:45,400 --> 01:14:49,280
Speaker 1: just parented the way I was parented, I see why

1399
01:14:49,360 --> 01:14:52,479
Speaker 1: my parents quicker. You know what I'm saying. It's like,

1400
01:14:52,840 --> 01:14:56,200
Speaker 1: you know, you're just it's like it's less emotional work

1401
01:14:56,240 --> 01:14:59,479
Speaker 1: to just be like, hey, it's time to do the dishes.

1402
01:14:59,800 --> 01:15:05,639
Speaker 1: Wh what why you ever say what I'm saying, dude,

1403
01:15:05,680 --> 01:15:08,160
Speaker 1: the you got five seconds to get up and do

1404
01:15:08,280 --> 01:15:11,040
Speaker 1: the dishes, you know what I'm saying. Right, So, and

1405
01:15:11,080 --> 01:15:13,000
Speaker 1: I'm like, y'all, don't care if you you scrunch up

1406
01:15:13,000 --> 01:15:14,559
Speaker 1: your face how you want to scrunch up your face.

1407
01:15:14,560 --> 01:15:16,840
Speaker 1: You better hide your emotions. I don't need to see it,

1408
01:15:16,920 --> 01:15:20,400
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like that you live here,

1409
01:15:20,120 --> 01:15:23,960
Speaker 1: you washing dishes? I bought you know, I'm using using water.

1410
01:15:24,120 --> 01:15:26,639
Speaker 1: I'm paying for him. So I'm black dadding on you.

1411
01:15:26,680 --> 01:15:28,920
Speaker 1: But like that's the way we was raised, you know

1412
01:15:28,920 --> 01:15:32,720
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So Like, but it's just like but

1413
01:15:32,960 --> 01:15:35,400
Speaker 1: I know, the whole time I'm doing this, I'm just like, man,

1414
01:15:35,439 --> 01:15:37,439
Speaker 1: I can't wait to get out of this house. Man always.

1415
01:15:37,439 --> 01:15:39,559
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Like I'm just salty. I'm

1416
01:15:39,560 --> 01:15:42,519
Speaker 1: gonna do it, and I'm not gonna say nothing to it. Yes, sir,

1417
01:15:42,640 --> 01:15:45,800
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. But like I don't like you,

1418
01:15:46,000 --> 01:15:48,479
Speaker 1: I don't respect this ship. You know what I'm saying.

1419
01:15:48,680 --> 01:15:52,040
Speaker 1: I'm not doing this because I understand that the dishes

1420
01:15:52,080 --> 01:15:54,640
Speaker 1: are dirty. I'm doing this because I don't wanna hear

1421
01:15:54,680 --> 01:15:56,720
Speaker 1: your mouth. You know what I'm saying. I don't want

1422
01:15:56,720 --> 01:16:00,639
Speaker 1: the I don't want the consequences with my child. Now

1423
01:16:01,280 --> 01:16:06,600
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, the we have we have budgeted the

1424
01:16:06,640 --> 01:16:10,360
Speaker 1: amount of money we have for our water bill, which

1425
01:16:10,400 --> 01:16:13,080
Speaker 1: means that we can run our our dishwasher this many

1426
01:16:13,120 --> 01:16:15,800
Speaker 1: times we need it by We needs to happen by

1427
01:16:15,800 --> 01:16:18,479
Speaker 1: two because when we start cooking dinner, since we in

1428
01:16:18,520 --> 01:16:20,920
Speaker 1: this quarantine, we need to have clean dishes to do

1429
01:16:20,920 --> 01:16:22,960
Speaker 1: this or it's gonna pile up. And now it's gonna

1430
01:16:22,960 --> 01:16:24,720
Speaker 1: be two runs instead of one. So, like you, I

1431
01:16:24,880 --> 01:16:26,439
Speaker 1: make sure you finish this by two so we can

1432
01:16:26,479 --> 01:16:28,840
Speaker 1: have plates to eat off when it's time for dinner.

1433
01:16:29,240 --> 01:16:34,000
Speaker 1: She goes, all right, and it's like and so now

1434
01:16:34,040 --> 01:16:37,240
Speaker 1: it's like I've included you into this, so you have

1435
01:16:37,280 --> 01:16:40,600
Speaker 1: a steak into Like it's not me being a bully,

1436
01:16:40,720 --> 01:16:44,400
Speaker 1: it's just I mean it's functional, like we need we

1437
01:16:45,160 --> 01:16:48,120
Speaker 1: need place to eat off and the dishes are your chore,

1438
01:16:48,439 --> 01:16:51,240
Speaker 1: so just so do it. So just do it, you

1439
01:16:51,240 --> 01:16:53,080
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. And and when she tell me

1440
01:16:53,120 --> 01:16:56,200
Speaker 1: she don't feel like it, like now I'm not appealing

1441
01:16:56,240 --> 01:16:58,439
Speaker 1: to like while i'm your father, you do it because

1442
01:16:58,439 --> 01:17:01,160
Speaker 1: I tell you to. I'm appealing to like, yeah, you

1443
01:17:01,360 --> 01:17:03,160
Speaker 1: don't feel like doing it either, but I also want

1444
01:17:03,200 --> 01:17:04,960
Speaker 1: something to eat off on dinner. You have saying it.

1445
01:17:05,040 --> 01:17:07,840
Speaker 1: So she's like all right, yeah, you know what I'm saying,

1446
01:17:07,880 --> 01:17:09,880
Speaker 1: Like so, and I think, yeah, you can make an

1447
01:17:09,920 --> 01:17:12,320
Speaker 1: argument that like, you know, you get the dishes done

1448
01:17:12,320 --> 01:17:14,679
Speaker 1: faster if you're just the If you don't do the dishes,

1449
01:17:14,720 --> 01:17:18,960
Speaker 1: there's fucking consequences. Then if you explain why it's necessary,

1450
01:17:19,000 --> 01:17:22,360
Speaker 1: but it's a long term results are probably better. The

1451
01:17:22,400 --> 01:17:26,479
Speaker 1: long term is probably better. So now it's like now

1452
01:17:26,600 --> 01:17:29,920
Speaker 1: she actually, you know, if some drama going on or

1453
01:17:29,960 --> 01:17:32,280
Speaker 1: her little friends, she's actually willing to talk to me,

1454
01:17:33,120 --> 01:17:36,400
Speaker 1: rather like this is oritarian ruler that tells me what

1455
01:17:36,439 --> 01:17:38,280
Speaker 1: to do all the time. You know, the Will's argument

1456
01:17:38,360 --> 01:17:40,400
Speaker 1: is that like the long term would have been better

1457
01:17:40,520 --> 01:17:43,160
Speaker 1: if they had stuck with a malicious system, maybe with

1458
01:17:43,200 --> 01:17:46,479
Speaker 1: some reforms and stuff now and again, a lot of

1459
01:17:46,479 --> 01:17:50,200
Speaker 1: why a lot of historians will kind of just assume like, yeah,

1460
01:17:50,200 --> 01:17:53,040
Speaker 1: it was bad, like that the malicious system like needed

1461
01:17:53,080 --> 01:17:54,880
Speaker 1: to be reformed, it needed to be militarized. It was

1462
01:17:54,880 --> 01:17:57,280
Speaker 1: the only way to do things. It's what the communists felt,

1463
01:17:57,280 --> 01:18:00,960
Speaker 1: It's what most of like the cinterests and and stuff felt.

1464
01:18:01,400 --> 01:18:04,599
Speaker 1: And you know, there's very strong arguments to be made

1465
01:18:04,600 --> 01:18:08,000
Speaker 1: that that's that that's true just based on military history.

1466
01:18:08,000 --> 01:18:10,160
Speaker 1: There's also strong arguments to be made that like, well,

1467
01:18:11,360 --> 01:18:13,639
Speaker 1: you guys were just like that's what all of you assumed,

1468
01:18:13,640 --> 01:18:15,439
Speaker 1: because all of you are the kind of people who

1469
01:18:15,479 --> 01:18:18,479
Speaker 1: are in favor of some form of centralized state and

1470
01:18:18,479 --> 01:18:21,400
Speaker 1: in favor of us why of a centralized military, and

1471
01:18:21,439 --> 01:18:25,800
Speaker 1: that you're listening to like standard military people's attitudes, which

1472
01:18:25,840 --> 01:18:28,680
Speaker 1: aren't always right, and maybe this could have worked and

1473
01:18:28,800 --> 01:18:31,920
Speaker 1: other things. Systems like it have worked in other militaries

1474
01:18:31,960 --> 01:18:34,960
Speaker 1: for different periods of time. I get interesting results when

1475
01:18:35,000 --> 01:18:38,839
Speaker 1: I bring up the idea of a democratically, of of

1476
01:18:38,960 --> 01:18:43,120
Speaker 1: a military that votes democratically on its officers. Um when

1477
01:18:43,120 --> 01:18:45,160
Speaker 1: I talk, because that's what how these militias worked. And

1478
01:18:45,200 --> 01:18:47,360
Speaker 1: I've talked to some friends of mine who are veterans,

1479
01:18:47,360 --> 01:18:49,519
Speaker 1: and it's interesting some of some people say, like, I

1480
01:18:49,520 --> 01:18:51,360
Speaker 1: don't see how that could work. I've had a good

1481
01:18:51,360 --> 01:18:53,559
Speaker 1: friend of mine who is a veteran say, oh, you

1482
01:18:53,560 --> 01:18:56,120
Speaker 1: know what, that makes sense because when you've been in

1483
01:18:56,200 --> 01:18:58,559
Speaker 1: combat with a group of people, you know who you

1484
01:18:58,600 --> 01:19:01,400
Speaker 1: trust to give orders, like right, you know who you was?

1485
01:19:01,479 --> 01:19:05,679
Speaker 1: Like yeah, yeah, it's like I know you got the ranks.

1486
01:19:05,760 --> 01:19:09,679
Speaker 1: Mom listening to him because this boy kept me alive. Yeah, yeah,

1487
01:19:09,760 --> 01:19:13,080
Speaker 1: so sure, yes, sir, I'm not gonna I'm certainly not

1488
01:19:13,120 --> 01:19:14,800
Speaker 1: going to say I know more about this than a

1489
01:19:14,840 --> 01:19:17,719
Speaker 1: number of historians who will say that militarization was really

1490
01:19:17,720 --> 01:19:20,759
Speaker 1: the only option they had. I'm just saying there's argument

1491
01:19:20,840 --> 01:19:23,040
Speaker 1: about that, and it's something you should read about. I'm

1492
01:19:23,040 --> 01:19:24,599
Speaker 1: not going to make a harsh stance on it, because

1493
01:19:24,640 --> 01:19:27,640
Speaker 1: like an expert on war or an expert on the

1494
01:19:27,640 --> 01:19:30,880
Speaker 1: Spanish Civil War, there's there's there, there's something that we

1495
01:19:30,920 --> 01:19:32,720
Speaker 1: said at least to like to make sure that your

1496
01:19:32,720 --> 01:19:36,960
Speaker 1: militia knows what they're doing. Yeah, absolutely, that needs to happen.

1497
01:19:37,640 --> 01:19:40,800
Speaker 1: At least some level of cohesiveness of communications seems like

1498
01:19:40,800 --> 01:19:43,599
Speaker 1: it has to be necessary. There's some degree you at

1499
01:19:43,640 --> 01:19:45,960
Speaker 1: least need, like a centralized communication network to make sure

1500
01:19:45,960 --> 01:19:49,440
Speaker 1: people know. But I think anyway, one of the tragedies

1501
01:19:49,479 --> 01:19:51,040
Speaker 1: of the Spanish Civil War is that there's a lot

1502
01:19:51,080 --> 01:19:54,719
Speaker 1: of cool what ifs that because there's this horrible war happening,

1503
01:19:54,840 --> 01:19:57,519
Speaker 1: nobody gets the time to really figure out, Right, maybe

1504
01:19:57,520 --> 01:20:00,280
Speaker 1: this could have worked if they hadn't been at the

1505
01:20:00,360 --> 01:20:04,519
Speaker 1: edge of extermination, right, Yeah, we weren't facing a minute. Yeah. Now,

1506
01:20:04,560 --> 01:20:08,439
Speaker 1: The unrest between anarchists and Trotskyists and communists within Republican

1507
01:20:08,479 --> 01:20:11,400
Speaker 1: Spain eventually led to bloodshed in the streets of Barcelona

1508
01:20:11,479 --> 01:20:15,000
Speaker 1: as anarchists and Trotskyist militants fought in the streets against

1509
01:20:15,000 --> 01:20:18,160
Speaker 1: communists and socialists. This right up from the New Left Review,

1510
01:20:18,200 --> 01:20:20,360
Speaker 1: does I think a fair job of explaining how this

1511
01:20:20,439 --> 01:20:24,679
Speaker 1: all got underway. Quote, under the revolutionary ferment, a struggle

1512
01:20:24,680 --> 01:20:27,320
Speaker 1: for power and control of scarce arms was being waged.

1513
01:20:27,600 --> 01:20:29,760
Speaker 1: That was the real meaning of the Barcelona fighting. The

1514
01:20:29,800 --> 01:20:32,920
Speaker 1: Communist Party's increasing influence in the army and political life

1515
01:20:32,920 --> 01:20:35,240
Speaker 1: and the growth of its membership do mainly to Soviet

1516
01:20:35,240 --> 01:20:38,439
Speaker 1: aid direct government interventions stop finally stopped the fighting in

1517
01:20:38,479 --> 01:20:42,120
Speaker 1: the streets and shortly thereafter ended the revolutions. Consolidation that

1518
01:20:42,160 --> 01:20:44,760
Speaker 1: has ended the the anarchists and sort of trotsky Is

1519
01:20:44,840 --> 01:20:48,639
Speaker 1: the far left like consolid like gaining of power, taking

1520
01:20:48,640 --> 01:20:51,840
Speaker 1: of businesses, all that sort of stuff. The immediate beneficiary

1521
01:20:51,840 --> 01:20:54,320
Speaker 1: of the crisis was Juan Nigrin, a forty five year

1522
01:20:54,360 --> 01:20:58,479
Speaker 1: old socialist physiologist, polyglot and acknowledged expert in financial affairs.

1523
01:20:58,640 --> 01:21:01,919
Speaker 1: As Treasury Minister, he organized the dispatch of gold to Moscow,

1524
01:21:02,120 --> 01:21:05,320
Speaker 1: whom President Azana appointed Prime Minister. To put an end

1525
01:21:05,320 --> 01:21:07,880
Speaker 1: to the indiscipline and disarray in the rear Guard, especially

1526
01:21:07,920 --> 01:21:11,240
Speaker 1: in Catalonia and Aragon, the government took over public order

1527
01:21:11,240 --> 01:21:14,479
Speaker 1: in Catalonia, dissolved the anarchist dominated a Council of Aragon,

1528
01:21:14,800 --> 01:21:17,880
Speaker 1: and sent Enrique Lister's Communist Army Division to break up

1529
01:21:17,880 --> 01:21:21,400
Speaker 1: the rural Aragonese collectives more easily expedited the p O

1530
01:21:21,520 --> 01:21:24,280
Speaker 1: U WIM trotsky Is, which is the trotsky Ist militia,

1531
01:21:24,360 --> 01:21:27,879
Speaker 1: which they called trotsky Is provocateurs and fascist spies. Clamored.

1532
01:21:27,920 --> 01:21:31,280
Speaker 1: The Spanish Communist Party was outlawed, its army division disbanded,

1533
01:21:31,280 --> 01:21:34,640
Speaker 1: and its leader, Andrew Ninn, one of Trotsky's former secretaries,

1534
01:21:34,720 --> 01:21:37,400
Speaker 1: was disappeared, in fact, kidnapped and murdered by the n

1535
01:21:37,479 --> 01:21:40,639
Speaker 1: k v D. The affair further deepened the distrust between

1536
01:21:40,640 --> 01:21:43,559
Speaker 1: Communists and the rest of the political organizations, especially the

1537
01:21:43,600 --> 01:21:46,559
Speaker 1: anarchists and left socialists, and it made clear to the

1538
01:21:46,600 --> 01:21:50,400
Speaker 1: republic serious ongoing problems of internal political discord, which were

1539
01:21:50,400 --> 01:21:53,200
Speaker 1: a considerable stumbling block to winning the war. On the

1540
01:21:53,240 --> 01:21:55,240
Speaker 1: other side of the lines, there was no such problem.

1541
01:21:55,400 --> 01:21:57,800
Speaker 1: Franco By, now head of the so called nationalist side,

1542
01:21:57,960 --> 01:22:01,320
Speaker 1: crushed dissent in the bud forcibly unite the Phalangen Carlists

1543
01:22:01,520 --> 01:22:06,760
Speaker 1: the only permitted civilian political organizations now. And there's a

1544
01:22:06,760 --> 01:22:09,720
Speaker 1: lot of debate about what happens in Barcelona orwell was

1545
01:22:09,760 --> 01:22:11,719
Speaker 1: there for most of this part He was. He took

1546
01:22:11,760 --> 01:22:14,280
Speaker 1: part in the fighting in Barcelona, and he was with

1547
01:22:14,360 --> 01:22:16,800
Speaker 1: the p o u M. He's with this Trotskyist militia,

1548
01:22:17,040 --> 01:22:19,600
Speaker 1: and his recollections of the purging of the po U

1549
01:22:19,800 --> 01:22:22,800
Speaker 1: M are available for free in his book Homage to Catalonia.

1550
01:22:23,120 --> 01:22:26,280
Speaker 1: He reserves tremendous criticisms for the Communist Party, in large

1551
01:22:26,320 --> 01:22:29,000
Speaker 1: part because they murdered some of his friends. There are

1552
01:22:29,160 --> 01:22:32,600
Speaker 1: of course very good critiques of Orwell's narrow perspective in this,

1553
01:22:32,640 --> 01:22:35,280
Speaker 1: because he's on the ground, and long after the war

1554
01:22:35,400 --> 01:22:37,840
Speaker 1: he would admit himself that he was somewhat myopic and

1555
01:22:38,000 --> 01:22:40,880
Speaker 1: unfair to the Republican government and the communists In this.

1556
01:22:41,360 --> 01:22:43,360
Speaker 1: Critics will point out that the C and T and

1557
01:22:43,400 --> 01:22:46,040
Speaker 1: the p o u M undermined coordination and unity in

1558
01:22:46,080 --> 01:22:48,840
Speaker 1: the Republic, and that the violent certain anarchists carried out

1559
01:22:48,840 --> 01:22:51,680
Speaker 1: against the clergy in particular, helped dissuade foreign governments from

1560
01:22:51,680 --> 01:22:54,320
Speaker 1: wanting to help. So this is again a complicated issue,

1561
01:22:54,720 --> 01:22:58,599
Speaker 1: but the fact that the left is literally in fighting

1562
01:22:58,640 --> 01:23:01,000
Speaker 1: here is a big part of what underminds their ability

1563
01:23:01,040 --> 01:23:04,960
Speaker 1: to fight the fascists. Although historians are very split as

1564
01:23:05,000 --> 01:23:06,559
Speaker 1: to how much of a factor the behavior of the

1565
01:23:06,560 --> 01:23:10,400
Speaker 1: Spanish Communists or which were directed by Moscow played in

1566
01:23:10,439 --> 01:23:15,440
Speaker 1: the Republican defeat. Um Julian Casanova directly credits the Republic's

1567
01:23:15,439 --> 01:23:18,120
Speaker 1: defeat mostly to the international situation. So he says, you

1568
01:23:18,160 --> 01:23:20,479
Speaker 1: can talk about what the communists did wrong with the

1569
01:23:20,520 --> 01:23:24,320
Speaker 1: anarchist did wrong. The reason Republican Spain lost is because

1570
01:23:24,439 --> 01:23:27,160
Speaker 1: nobody helped them out except for the communists a bit,

1571
01:23:27,520 --> 01:23:30,639
Speaker 1: whereas the fascists had to modern states throwing huge amounts

1572
01:23:30,640 --> 01:23:33,280
Speaker 1: of aid in military forces. It right, That's why they lost.

1573
01:23:33,560 --> 01:23:37,160
Speaker 1: It's like you can debate who made mistakes. Everybody made mistakes.

1574
01:23:37,200 --> 01:23:41,160
Speaker 1: They lost because nobody, like almost only the communists helped

1575
01:23:41,200 --> 01:23:43,759
Speaker 1: them in. You know, you just out in the fascists

1576
01:23:43,760 --> 01:23:45,519
Speaker 1: had a lot, Yeah, the fascists had a lot more help,

1577
01:23:45,560 --> 01:23:49,040
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah. Um. Now, while I think it's fair

1578
01:23:49,080 --> 01:23:51,320
Speaker 1: to criticize the nature of the help the USSR sent,

1579
01:23:51,400 --> 01:23:53,920
Speaker 1: both of its reduced quantity relative to the fascists and

1580
01:23:54,040 --> 01:23:56,200
Speaker 1: the fact that it made the republic pay up front,

1581
01:23:56,439 --> 01:23:57,960
Speaker 1: you have to be fair here and note that the

1582
01:23:58,040 --> 01:24:00,280
Speaker 1: Russian Civil War had not been over for all that

1583
01:24:00,360 --> 01:24:02,920
Speaker 1: long when the Spanish Civil War started, and like nine

1584
01:24:02,960 --> 01:24:05,479
Speaker 1: million people had died in that country. After nine million

1585
01:24:05,520 --> 01:24:08,400
Speaker 1: had died in World War One, and it was fucking devastated,

1586
01:24:08,439 --> 01:24:11,160
Speaker 1: Italy and Germany were in comparatively better shape and able

1587
01:24:11,200 --> 01:24:15,920
Speaker 1: to provide more aid. Now. British military historian Anthony Beaver, however,

1588
01:24:16,040 --> 01:24:19,360
Speaker 1: does blame the Republic's high command, which was Communists dominated

1589
01:24:19,560 --> 01:24:23,479
Speaker 1: and Soviet military advisors, for their quote disastrous conduct of

1590
01:24:23,520 --> 01:24:25,920
Speaker 1: the war, and he has some very fair critiques here.

1591
01:24:26,160 --> 01:24:30,400
Speaker 1: Um He criticizes them for engaging in multiple disastrous conventional offensives,

1592
01:24:30,560 --> 01:24:32,280
Speaker 1: which where this happened a few times, where they get

1593
01:24:32,280 --> 01:24:35,160
Speaker 1: a huge number of soldiers together, most of which were

1594
01:24:35,200 --> 01:24:38,200
Speaker 1: not super well trained, and send them on these massive

1595
01:24:38,200 --> 01:24:40,840
Speaker 1: offensives that would they would get mowed down. And the

1596
01:24:40,880 --> 01:24:43,599
Speaker 1: purpose of this was for propaganda to be able to show, look,

1597
01:24:43,760 --> 01:24:46,839
Speaker 1: we're advancing against the fascists, and of course the fascists

1598
01:24:46,840 --> 01:24:48,640
Speaker 1: are better armed in train and would just dig in

1599
01:24:48,680 --> 01:24:52,360
Speaker 1: and massacre these people. Um And and Anthony Beaver will

1600
01:24:52,439 --> 01:24:56,439
Speaker 1: argue that these this series of horrible, horrible decisions taken

1601
01:24:56,800 --> 01:25:00,599
Speaker 1: for mainly propaganda quote gradually destroyed the re Public's army

1602
01:25:00,640 --> 01:25:04,920
Speaker 1: and resistance. Now, no matter what kind of leftist or

1603
01:25:04,960 --> 01:25:07,959
Speaker 1: liberal or whatever you happen to be, there are aspects

1604
01:25:07,960 --> 01:25:10,800
Speaker 1: of your ideology that should be challenged by observing the

1605
01:25:10,800 --> 01:25:13,519
Speaker 1: way the Spanish Civil War went. Speaking as an anarchist,

1606
01:25:13,600 --> 01:25:16,519
Speaker 1: it is impossible to ignore the fact that the fascists

1607
01:25:16,520 --> 01:25:21,879
Speaker 1: had the great advantage of centralized control and particularly food distribution. Meanwhile,

1608
01:25:21,960 --> 01:25:26,639
Speaker 1: Republican territories had more than twenty independent food collectives. Workers

1609
01:25:26,640 --> 01:25:28,919
Speaker 1: in many of these collectives were hostile to the government

1610
01:25:28,920 --> 01:25:32,120
Speaker 1: because they were anarchists, and in some areas money had

1611
01:25:32,120 --> 01:25:35,160
Speaker 1: been entirely abolished, and since money did exist in the

1612
01:25:35,200 --> 01:25:39,360
Speaker 1: rest of the Republic, that made cooperation difficult. Food shortages

1613
01:25:39,400 --> 01:25:42,200
Speaker 1: were common in the Republic and this also contributed to

1614
01:25:42,240 --> 01:25:45,160
Speaker 1: their defeat. UM And again it's the kind of thing

1615
01:25:45,160 --> 01:25:47,880
Speaker 1: where like this system of local sort of food exchanges

1616
01:25:48,080 --> 01:25:50,240
Speaker 1: might have worked, if they might have figured out how

1617
01:25:50,240 --> 01:25:52,280
Speaker 1: to make it work had there not been a war on.

1618
01:25:52,560 --> 01:25:55,640
Speaker 1: But it's hard. It is hard to beta test an

1619
01:25:55,840 --> 01:25:59,559
Speaker 1: entire system of social organization while fighting a war of

1620
01:25:59,600 --> 01:26:03,080
Speaker 1: exter the nation. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to get

1621
01:26:03,160 --> 01:26:04,840
Speaker 1: all grey people to fight for you, you know what

1622
01:26:04,880 --> 01:26:07,040
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like if we hung gry, it's like, well,

1623
01:26:07,680 --> 01:26:10,240
Speaker 1: oh no, who got the food? And it's it's worth

1624
01:26:10,320 --> 01:26:12,719
Speaker 1: noting that of all the people fighting, you know, about

1625
01:26:12,760 --> 01:26:15,599
Speaker 1: half of the prisoners of war the fascists took wound

1626
01:26:15,640 --> 01:26:18,920
Speaker 1: up fighting for the fascists. They were organized into into

1627
01:26:19,160 --> 01:26:22,479
Speaker 1: fighting units UM and a significant number of the captured

1628
01:26:22,520 --> 01:26:25,680
Speaker 1: fascists wound up fighting in units for the Republics. Like

1629
01:26:25,720 --> 01:26:27,240
Speaker 1: that happened on both sides. A lot of these guys

1630
01:26:27,240 --> 01:26:30,000
Speaker 1: are just dudes, you know. Um, They're not all like

1631
01:26:30,040 --> 01:26:32,920
Speaker 1: the Internet. The International Volunteers tend to be very ideological.

1632
01:26:33,080 --> 01:26:35,000
Speaker 1: That's not all in the case with a lot of soldiers.

1633
01:26:35,479 --> 01:26:38,479
Speaker 1: In early nineteen thirty seven, Franco's forces had recovered from

1634
01:26:38,479 --> 01:26:41,000
Speaker 1: their defeat outside of Madrid, and they launched an invasion

1635
01:26:41,000 --> 01:26:44,280
Speaker 1: of the northern Basque territories of the Republic. The success

1636
01:26:44,280 --> 01:26:47,479
Speaker 1: of this offensive is largely credited to the Condor Legion,

1637
01:26:47,520 --> 01:26:49,840
Speaker 1: a German led air force that spent the Spanish Civil

1638
01:26:49,840 --> 01:26:52,880
Speaker 1: War experimenting with new textniques the Loofwava would later use.

1639
01:26:53,479 --> 01:26:56,400
Speaker 1: This experimentation started in earnest with the bombing of Madrid

1640
01:26:56,479 --> 01:26:59,120
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty six, which killed and wounded a lot

1641
01:26:59,160 --> 01:27:02,000
Speaker 1: of civilians, like hundreds of people killed and wounded, but

1642
01:27:02,040 --> 01:27:05,920
Speaker 1: did nothing but harden Republican resistance. And the Germans realized this,

1643
01:27:06,040 --> 01:27:08,519
Speaker 1: Like the guys in charge of the Condor Legion of like,

1644
01:27:09,040 --> 01:27:11,479
Speaker 1: just bombing a bunch of civilian targets seems to piss

1645
01:27:11,479 --> 01:27:13,679
Speaker 1: them off and make them want to fight harder. Perhaps

1646
01:27:13,760 --> 01:27:17,280
Speaker 1: that's not the best tactic. Um. Now, several cities were

1647
01:27:17,280 --> 01:27:20,599
Speaker 1: bombarded by the Condor Legion during the advance in Tabasque territory,

1648
01:27:20,840 --> 01:27:23,479
Speaker 1: leading to a lot of civilian casualties, but none of

1649
01:27:23,479 --> 01:27:26,240
Speaker 1: these bombings were more famous than the city of Guernica

1650
01:27:26,280 --> 01:27:29,160
Speaker 1: and their significant debate over Guernica. As well, historians will

1651
01:27:29,200 --> 01:27:31,640
Speaker 1: note that the command or of the Condor Legion was

1652
01:27:31,760 --> 01:27:34,519
Speaker 1: more or less abiding by the rules of war UM,

1653
01:27:34,680 --> 01:27:37,840
Speaker 1: striking at bridges and roads and cities, like aiming primarily

1654
01:27:37,880 --> 01:27:41,800
Speaker 1: for targets of military value. Um. There were civilian casualties

1655
01:27:41,840 --> 01:27:44,040
Speaker 1: because precision bombing is a myth, but the goal was

1656
01:27:44,080 --> 01:27:46,919
Speaker 1: not what's called terror bombing, which they kind of rejected

1657
01:27:46,960 --> 01:27:49,720
Speaker 1: after Madrid, And like this guy goes to trial in

1658
01:27:49,840 --> 01:27:52,120
Speaker 1: Nuremberg and that is kind of the conclusion of the

1659
01:27:52,120 --> 01:27:55,479
Speaker 1: Allied militaries, Like his bombing of Guernica was part of

1660
01:27:55,520 --> 01:27:59,600
Speaker 1: a military action. Like you to repeat the line that

1661
01:27:59,720 --> 01:28:03,880
Speaker 1: you precision bombing is a myth. Precision bombing is absolutely

1662
01:28:03,880 --> 01:28:07,080
Speaker 1: a myth, as someone who who watched it is a myth.

1663
01:28:07,360 --> 01:28:10,479
Speaker 1: Now it was even more of a mythent. Yes, I

1664
01:28:10,520 --> 01:28:14,320
Speaker 1: have a friend who lives in Iraq, and he's like, yeah, no,

1665
01:28:14,439 --> 01:28:17,280
Speaker 1: there's no such thing. No, No, you're just blowing up neighborhoods, guys.

1666
01:28:17,360 --> 01:28:20,800
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Um, Now how much of a difference it

1667
01:28:20,840 --> 01:28:23,680
Speaker 1: makes that their goal was not terror bombing? You know

1668
01:28:23,800 --> 01:28:25,880
Speaker 1: what they did. They killed a funkload of civilians and

1669
01:28:25,960 --> 01:28:29,040
Speaker 1: leveled a lot of Guernica. And it's it's horrible, horrible,

1670
01:28:29,080 --> 01:28:33,240
Speaker 1: horrible thing. I'm not trying to justify it, um, But

1671
01:28:33,560 --> 01:28:36,120
Speaker 1: what's happened in what actually happened and what is kind

1672
01:28:36,160 --> 01:28:39,040
Speaker 1: of like remembered about Guernaka are sometimes two different things.

1673
01:28:39,720 --> 01:28:43,080
Speaker 1: Because the bombing of Guernica, for whatever reason, horrifies the

1674
01:28:43,240 --> 01:28:45,559
Speaker 1: entire world. It becomes and there's when I say thout

1675
01:28:45,600 --> 01:28:47,679
Speaker 1: every reason, because there are other cities that are bombed

1676
01:28:47,720 --> 01:28:50,080
Speaker 1: in a similar manner that don't get as famous in

1677
01:28:50,120 --> 01:28:53,000
Speaker 1: this period of time. Um, it's not the first time

1678
01:28:53,040 --> 01:28:55,320
Speaker 1: that the civilian population is bombed as a part of

1679
01:28:55,320 --> 01:28:58,280
Speaker 1: a war, but it becomes the most famous. The Republicans

1680
01:28:58,280 --> 01:28:59,560
Speaker 1: made a lot out of it and used it for

1681
01:28:59,560 --> 01:29:02,400
Speaker 1: propagate and purposes. They would claim that sixteen hundred people

1682
01:29:02,400 --> 01:29:06,560
Speaker 1: had died, a figure that's likely impossible because they calculated

1683
01:29:06,600 --> 01:29:10,360
Speaker 1: basically when you're looking at like civilian casualties. There are

1684
01:29:10,400 --> 01:29:12,760
Speaker 1: calculations you can do to estimate them by estimating the

1685
01:29:12,840 --> 01:29:15,360
Speaker 1: number of people killed per tonnage of bombs dropped. And

1686
01:29:15,360 --> 01:29:17,920
Speaker 1: if sixteen hundred people died in Guernica, it would meant

1687
01:29:17,960 --> 01:29:20,040
Speaker 1: that it would have meant that the Condor Legion were

1688
01:29:20,120 --> 01:29:23,120
Speaker 1: killing more civilians than the US did during its bombings

1689
01:29:23,120 --> 01:29:26,519
Speaker 1: of like Dresden, like like per per tonnage, you know,

1690
01:29:26,800 --> 01:29:30,400
Speaker 1: which is not possible really like um, credible death counts

1691
01:29:30,439 --> 01:29:32,000
Speaker 1: range from as low as a hundred and fifty to

1692
01:29:32,040 --> 01:29:34,479
Speaker 1: the to the low hundreds, which is terrible, Like that's

1693
01:29:34,560 --> 01:29:37,840
Speaker 1: hundreds of civilians killed by bombs from the sky. It's

1694
01:29:38,000 --> 01:29:41,280
Speaker 1: it's horrible. I'm not saying it's not. But again it's

1695
01:29:41,320 --> 01:29:43,960
Speaker 1: also seeing the Republicans see this as a way to like, oh,

1696
01:29:44,080 --> 01:29:46,439
Speaker 1: this is something we can use to get international support,

1697
01:29:46,479 --> 01:29:50,960
Speaker 1: which we desperately need. Um. And while Republican forces used

1698
01:29:50,960 --> 01:29:54,599
Speaker 1: Guernica to try to generate international sympathy, the fascists used

1699
01:29:54,640 --> 01:29:56,960
Speaker 1: it as a cudgel. When Hitler met with the Premiere

1700
01:29:57,040 --> 01:29:59,400
Speaker 1: of Austria prior to the Angelus, which is when they

1701
01:30:00,040 --> 01:30:03,599
Speaker 1: Kapaie Austria, he brings the commander of the Condor Legion

1702
01:30:03,640 --> 01:30:06,280
Speaker 1: with him as a not so subtle threat to Vienna,

1703
01:30:06,360 --> 01:30:11,000
Speaker 1: because the the the image internationally is that Guernack has

1704
01:30:11,040 --> 01:30:13,720
Speaker 1: been wiped out by the Condor Legions. So Hitler once

1705
01:30:13,720 --> 01:30:15,040
Speaker 1: this guy is sitting next to him, so that when

1706
01:30:15,040 --> 01:30:17,080
Speaker 1: he meets with the premiere of Austria, this guy's like,

1707
01:30:17,320 --> 01:30:19,800
Speaker 1: They're gonna level Vienna if I don't, if I don't

1708
01:30:19,920 --> 01:30:23,240
Speaker 1: agree to whatever Hitler wants, you know. So Hitler makes

1709
01:30:23,240 --> 01:30:25,680
Speaker 1: a lot of use out of the terrible reputation that

1710
01:30:25,720 --> 01:30:29,120
Speaker 1: the Condor Legion gets, regardless of how much that reputation

1711
01:30:29,160 --> 01:30:34,040
Speaker 1: may be earned. Um now, the battle and I mainly

1712
01:30:34,200 --> 01:30:37,160
Speaker 1: quibble on how terrible the Condor Legion was because by

1713
01:30:37,240 --> 01:30:40,479
Speaker 1: any objective measure, the United States Air Force was a

1714
01:30:40,520 --> 01:30:42,800
Speaker 1: lot worse in World War Two in terms of its

1715
01:30:42,880 --> 01:30:45,120
Speaker 1: its willingness to kill civilians, not in terms of its

1716
01:30:45,160 --> 01:30:49,840
Speaker 1: goals obviously, but to blast. Yeah there's the yeah, I

1717
01:30:49,280 --> 01:30:52,840
Speaker 1: I I still can't because I mean, I've never lived

1718
01:30:52,840 --> 01:30:55,240
Speaker 1: in like an actual active war zone, you know. But

1719
01:30:55,320 --> 01:31:01,839
Speaker 1: obviously more more humans alive now have lived in active

1720
01:31:01,840 --> 01:31:05,920
Speaker 1: war zones than not, So like I know that I'm

1721
01:31:05,920 --> 01:31:09,120
Speaker 1: in the minority for that, and it's a very privileged position.

1722
01:31:09,479 --> 01:31:12,840
Speaker 1: But I still can picture or having a hard time

1723
01:31:12,880 --> 01:31:15,320
Speaker 1: wrapping my mind around the idea that like death is

1724
01:31:15,360 --> 01:31:19,160
Speaker 1: coming from the sky. It's fun. I'm saying, like that's yeah,

1725
01:31:19,200 --> 01:31:22,080
Speaker 1: that's it changes you, I mean it changes. And just

1726
01:31:22,120 --> 01:31:27,519
Speaker 1: to have that experience for a few days, Um, it's

1727
01:31:27,560 --> 01:31:32,400
Speaker 1: something else, man, Just like seeing breathing in the dust

1728
01:31:32,520 --> 01:31:37,320
Speaker 1: that includes pulverized concrete and incinerated bodies. Um, Like an

1729
01:31:37,320 --> 01:31:41,160
Speaker 1: air strike is yeah, unreal that like, yeah, it's a

1730
01:31:41,240 --> 01:31:44,800
Speaker 1: laser from space, like you can't. Yeah, there's like it's

1731
01:31:44,840 --> 01:31:51,080
Speaker 1: the hammer of God, you know. Yeah. Yeah, it's terrible, Yeah, terrifying. Yeah. Now,

1732
01:31:51,120 --> 01:31:54,880
Speaker 1: the battle over Guernica was very consequential. The city's fall

1733
01:31:54,960 --> 01:31:58,439
Speaker 1: helped enable Franco's forces to cut Republican held territory in two,

1734
01:31:58,800 --> 01:32:01,439
Speaker 1: so to separate the two junks of Republican territory, the

1735
01:32:01,479 --> 01:32:04,559
Speaker 1: north from the south. Um. Now, around the same time,

1736
01:32:04,600 --> 01:32:08,240
Speaker 1: the French, like Germany, occupies Austria and the French start

1737
01:32:08,280 --> 01:32:11,200
Speaker 1: getting really scared of the Nazis um and so they

1738
01:32:11,240 --> 01:32:13,960
Speaker 1: reopened their border and this allows thousands of tons of

1739
01:32:14,000 --> 01:32:16,160
Speaker 1: war material to flow into the Republic freely for the

1740
01:32:16,200 --> 01:32:19,120
Speaker 1: first time, and the republic is able to like gin

1741
01:32:19,240 --> 01:32:21,479
Speaker 1: up a new Republican army made up in part of

1742
01:32:21,520 --> 01:32:25,000
Speaker 1: prisoners of war and conscripts as young as sixteen UM.

1743
01:32:25,120 --> 01:32:27,200
Speaker 1: And this what's known as the Army of the Ebro,

1744
01:32:27,560 --> 01:32:29,479
Speaker 1: launches what would come to be known as the last

1745
01:32:29,520 --> 01:32:31,880
Speaker 1: great Republican assault of the war. And like there are

1746
01:32:31,920 --> 01:32:35,519
Speaker 1: other great assaults, it was a fucking disaster. Thirty thousand

1747
01:32:35,520 --> 01:32:40,559
Speaker 1: Republican fighters died to just sixty Fascist casualties. UM. Just

1748
01:32:40,640 --> 01:32:45,000
Speaker 1: an absolute nightmare. Now, the war officially ended in April

1749
01:32:45,040 --> 01:32:47,840
Speaker 1: of nineteen thirty nine with the unconditional surrender of the

1750
01:32:47,840 --> 01:32:51,479
Speaker 1: Republicans to the fascist Francisco Franco. In the areas the

1751
01:32:51,479 --> 01:32:54,439
Speaker 1: Fascist retook, they were as brutal as you might expect.

1752
01:32:54,760 --> 01:32:57,160
Speaker 1: The most egregious example of this happened in August of

1753
01:32:57,240 --> 01:32:59,920
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six and Batillas, which we talked about earlier,

1754
01:32:59,920 --> 01:33:02,960
Speaker 1: that where the anarchists and socialists take a huge amount

1755
01:33:02,960 --> 01:33:05,000
Speaker 1: of land and give it to the people while the

1756
01:33:05,040 --> 01:33:07,840
Speaker 1: fascists take back bad of yaws and they just they

1757
01:33:07,880 --> 01:33:10,160
Speaker 1: massacre everyone. Then get their fucking hands on more than

1758
01:33:10,200 --> 01:33:15,240
Speaker 1: four thousand people, mostly civilians and prisoners gunned down, including

1759
01:33:15,320 --> 01:33:18,280
Speaker 1: hundreds of people who are dragged into the bowl ring

1760
01:33:18,360 --> 01:33:21,400
Speaker 1: to the stadium where they hold bullfights and surrounded by

1761
01:33:21,479 --> 01:33:24,200
Speaker 1: machine guns and just massacred in a circle by the

1762
01:33:24,240 --> 01:33:29,519
Speaker 1: foreign legion. Um. Now, brutality knows no allegiance in war.

1763
01:33:29,760 --> 01:33:33,280
Speaker 1: Somewhere around fifty thousand civilians were killed in the Republican

1764
01:33:33,400 --> 01:33:35,360
Speaker 1: zone over the course of the war, and acts of

1765
01:33:35,360 --> 01:33:39,360
Speaker 1: brutality that many in the Republican government deplored. Federica Montseny

1766
01:33:39,479 --> 01:33:42,640
Speaker 1: described the slaughter as a lust for blood, inconceivable and

1767
01:33:42,720 --> 01:33:47,120
Speaker 1: honest man before but republic War crimes bore little resemblance

1768
01:33:47,160 --> 01:33:49,000
Speaker 1: to the crimes of the fascists, who in the same

1769
01:33:49,040 --> 01:33:51,639
Speaker 1: period of time murdered more than a hundred and thirty

1770
01:33:51,640 --> 01:33:55,719
Speaker 1: thousand civilians. And those deaths, of course, occurred during the war.

1771
01:33:56,040 --> 01:33:59,599
Speaker 1: During his decades in power, Franco's forced labor, concentration camps,

1772
01:33:59,600 --> 01:34:02,880
Speaker 1: torture and execution of political enemies led to another thirty

1773
01:34:02,920 --> 01:34:06,320
Speaker 1: to fifty thousand deaths, and as we know, that would

1774
01:34:06,320 --> 01:34:11,160
Speaker 1: make Franco one of the less deadly fascist dictators in history. Um.

1775
01:34:11,200 --> 01:34:14,160
Speaker 1: But yeah, you can compare the number of people kill Yeah,

1776
01:34:14,400 --> 01:34:20,040
Speaker 1: what is it? About just what's the point of being

1777
01:34:20,040 --> 01:34:21,960
Speaker 1: in charge if you kill everybody you're supposed to be

1778
01:34:21,960 --> 01:34:24,040
Speaker 1: in charge of. Because you're killing all the people you

1779
01:34:24,120 --> 01:34:26,479
Speaker 1: don't like that you're supposed to be in charge of.

1780
01:34:26,800 --> 01:34:31,320
Speaker 1: That's easier than arguing dad, Yeah, well touche. Yeah, I

1781
01:34:31,360 --> 01:34:34,479
Speaker 1: guess you're right. Yeah, they're killing. There's like, we just

1782
01:34:34,560 --> 01:34:36,679
Speaker 1: killed people disagree with us. We just kill we disagree

1783
01:34:36,720 --> 01:34:41,840
Speaker 1: with us. Yeah, okay, so my bad. I understand your logic. Now. Yeah,

1784
01:34:42,560 --> 01:34:46,160
Speaker 1: obviously the Republicans lost their war, UM, but many of

1785
01:34:46,240 --> 01:34:48,559
Speaker 1: the more than thirty five thousand men who joined the

1786
01:34:48,600 --> 01:34:51,320
Speaker 1: International Brigades, and something like ten thousand of them died

1787
01:34:51,400 --> 01:34:55,040
Speaker 1: in the Spanish Civil War. UM. Many of those guys

1788
01:34:55,080 --> 01:34:58,400
Speaker 1: would continue fighting fascism in World War Two. Some of

1789
01:34:58,439 --> 01:35:00,559
Speaker 1: them fought in the French Resistance. Some of them fought

1790
01:35:00,600 --> 01:35:02,840
Speaker 1: in the U. S. Army after being by the way,

1791
01:35:02,840 --> 01:35:06,120
Speaker 1: when US veterans like l Ward come home, they get

1792
01:35:06,160 --> 01:35:09,479
Speaker 1: like spite on by the FBI because they're suspected of

1793
01:35:09,520 --> 01:35:14,280
Speaker 1: being communist sympathizers and stuff like, and some of those people.

1794
01:35:14,400 --> 01:35:17,000
Speaker 1: Some of that stops when the war starts. People like, ah,

1795
01:35:17,040 --> 01:35:20,080
Speaker 1: maybe you had a point. It doesn't all stop. Um.

1796
01:35:20,240 --> 01:35:23,960
Speaker 1: But a number of these guys continue fighting. Um. And

1797
01:35:24,000 --> 01:35:26,920
Speaker 1: while they failed in their ultimate goals, the battle cry

1798
01:35:26,920 --> 01:35:30,320
Speaker 1: of the Spanish anti fascists, they shall not pass or

1799
01:35:30,680 --> 01:35:34,599
Speaker 1: no pass Ian still rings loudly and anti fascist rallies today.

1800
01:35:34,800 --> 01:35:38,120
Speaker 1: And that's you know, yeah, the fight isn't over. They

1801
01:35:38,120 --> 01:35:41,519
Speaker 1: didn't win in Spain. They didn't succeed in in turning

1802
01:35:41,520 --> 01:35:45,200
Speaker 1: back fascism and bringing in a new golden age for

1803
01:35:45,280 --> 01:35:48,880
Speaker 1: humanity there. But it didn't end in the fight didn't

1804
01:35:48,960 --> 01:35:51,320
Speaker 1: end in Spain either, you know, and it it continues

1805
01:35:51,439 --> 01:35:58,000
Speaker 1: to this day, Yes it does. Oh man, Yeah, let's

1806
01:35:58,080 --> 01:36:01,960
Speaker 1: let's let that one breathe for a second. Yeah, okay,

1807
01:36:03,560 --> 01:36:12,840
Speaker 1: everybody take a deep breath. Yeah. Anyway, man, So at

1808
01:36:12,880 --> 01:36:15,920
Speaker 1: some point we're going to talk about when Spain stops

1809
01:36:15,960 --> 01:36:19,559
Speaker 1: being fascist. Yeah, I'm gonna do episodes on Franco at

1810
01:36:19,600 --> 01:36:22,360
Speaker 1: some point that will that will get into that history. Um.

1811
01:36:22,400 --> 01:36:26,280
Speaker 1: But this is more specifically about vomiting on the King's limits. Yeah,

1812
01:36:26,320 --> 01:36:29,519
Speaker 1: this was this is about fascism. You know, I wanted

1813
01:36:29,560 --> 01:36:32,000
Speaker 1: to talk about how the fascists gained power in Spain.

1814
01:36:33,000 --> 01:36:38,839
Speaker 1: This is and it's like it's such a like because

1815
01:36:38,880 --> 01:36:42,439
Speaker 1: of like you said, because of the enormity of other

1816
01:36:42,520 --> 01:36:46,880
Speaker 1: fascist reasimes, this guy gets so overlooked. But it's so

1817
01:36:48,160 --> 01:36:52,280
Speaker 1: such a pivotal moment in just even just the meta narrative.

1818
01:36:52,320 --> 01:36:55,280
Speaker 1: But what we understand is like western modern, Western civilization,

1819
01:36:55,320 --> 01:36:57,479
Speaker 1: like you have to have this moment, you know, if

1820
01:36:57,520 --> 01:37:00,559
Speaker 1: you're not talking about it, it's like you the story line.

1821
01:37:00,640 --> 01:37:03,400
Speaker 1: I feel like the storyline doesn't make sense if you're

1822
01:37:03,400 --> 01:37:06,000
Speaker 1: trying to get from World War One to World War Two,

1823
01:37:06,080 --> 01:37:09,360
Speaker 1: and why all the players are on the play are

1824
01:37:09,439 --> 01:37:11,920
Speaker 1: on the board game the way that they are if

1825
01:37:11,960 --> 01:37:16,280
Speaker 1: you don't include the Spanish Civil War, and you you

1826
01:37:16,320 --> 01:37:18,840
Speaker 1: can argue in a lot of people, the historians will

1827
01:37:18,960 --> 01:37:21,880
Speaker 1: that had the Republic one, we might not have had

1828
01:37:22,080 --> 01:37:24,920
Speaker 1: a Second World War because that might have been a

1829
01:37:25,000 --> 01:37:27,320
Speaker 1: check to fascist ambitions. Now I don't know how much

1830
01:37:27,360 --> 01:37:30,080
Speaker 1: I agree with that. It's certainly arguable that had there

1831
01:37:30,080 --> 01:37:33,000
Speaker 1: been a concerted had the had the democracies of the

1832
01:37:33,000 --> 01:37:37,080
Speaker 1: world been willing to take concerted action against the fascists

1833
01:37:37,160 --> 01:37:40,080
Speaker 1: in Spain, uh, that probably would have meant they would

1834
01:37:40,080 --> 01:37:42,880
Speaker 1: have been willing to take considered actions to stop Hitler

1835
01:37:42,960 --> 01:37:48,720
Speaker 1: from gaining from taking over Czechoslovakia. Austria eventually Poland UM.

1836
01:37:48,800 --> 01:37:51,640
Speaker 1: And then the Nazi state would have collapsed because it

1837
01:37:51,680 --> 01:37:56,000
Speaker 1: was never based on anything but stealing land from other people,

1838
01:37:56,040 --> 01:37:58,080
Speaker 1: and without the ability to do that, it would not

1839
01:37:58,160 --> 01:38:00,519
Speaker 1: have lasted. The economy would have apps, there would have

1840
01:38:00,560 --> 01:38:03,040
Speaker 1: been some sort of a revolution um, and maybe we

1841
01:38:03,040 --> 01:38:06,160
Speaker 1: would have not had World War two. Um. That's a

1842
01:38:07,080 --> 01:38:11,440
Speaker 1: pretty solid argument you can make. Obviously, any any historical

1843
01:38:11,439 --> 01:38:13,439
Speaker 1: debate like that is like, who knows what the truth is?

1844
01:38:13,479 --> 01:38:15,720
Speaker 1: I wonder what I wonder how the cold would have

1845
01:38:15,760 --> 01:38:18,600
Speaker 1: looked if we had at some point, or if it

1846
01:38:18,600 --> 01:38:21,200
Speaker 1: would have been if would have been like I guess

1847
01:38:21,200 --> 01:38:24,080
Speaker 1: the communists, I mean, I mean it's that bad, you know,

1848
01:38:24,800 --> 01:38:28,880
Speaker 1: because like you know, Stalin not a big fan of Stalin. Um.

1849
01:38:28,960 --> 01:38:31,760
Speaker 1: But you can argue, like, well, one of the best

1850
01:38:31,760 --> 01:38:34,840
Speaker 1: things that happened to Stalin's personal power was World War Two.

1851
01:38:34,840 --> 01:38:37,439
Speaker 1: If there's no World War Two, and if there's less

1852
01:38:37,560 --> 01:38:42,040
Speaker 1: open conflict between you know, fascism and communism, to Stalin

1853
01:38:42,120 --> 01:38:44,360
Speaker 1: stay in power, does the does the Soviet Union take

1854
01:38:44,400 --> 01:38:47,160
Speaker 1: a different path that maybe more resembles what a lot

1855
01:38:47,160 --> 01:38:49,919
Speaker 1: of the people who fought for it initially wanted. Um,

1856
01:38:49,960 --> 01:38:53,760
Speaker 1: How like or yeah, I mean, who knows or does

1857
01:38:53,840 --> 01:38:55,799
Speaker 1: all of the Western world go to war in Russia

1858
01:38:55,800 --> 01:38:58,680
Speaker 1: and as many people die and an even dumber war,

1859
01:38:58,800 --> 01:39:03,640
Speaker 1: like who the funding? Nobody, nobody's fan fiction right here. Yeah,

1860
01:39:03,720 --> 01:39:07,599
Speaker 1: but it's it's an interesting conversation to have, and I think, like, yeah,

1861
01:39:07,640 --> 01:39:09,920
Speaker 1: I I am, I'm always intrigued by some of these

1862
01:39:09,920 --> 01:39:12,920
Speaker 1: like counterfactuals. But you know, what we what we know

1863
01:39:13,040 --> 01:39:16,839
Speaker 1: is what happened. What happened is um a very flawed

1864
01:39:16,960 --> 01:39:19,680
Speaker 1: alliance of a lot of brave people and a lot

1865
01:39:19,720 --> 01:39:23,519
Speaker 1: of messy people did their best and ultimately failed to

1866
01:39:23,560 --> 01:39:28,639
Speaker 1: stop fascism before the Holocaust. You know it isn't isn't

1867
01:39:28,640 --> 01:39:32,240
Speaker 1: at all of history a bunch of messy people and yeah, yeah,

1868
01:39:32,400 --> 01:39:35,880
Speaker 1: just trying to figure to ship out man. Damn yeah,

1869
01:39:36,960 --> 01:39:39,559
Speaker 1: damn Robert. Yeah, there's a lot of lessons in there,

1870
01:39:39,720 --> 01:39:42,120
Speaker 1: a lot of lessons in the story of the Spanish

1871
01:39:42,120 --> 01:39:44,960
Speaker 1: Civil War. And obviously I'm not I hope no one

1872
01:39:45,000 --> 01:39:49,240
Speaker 1: takes this is like anything comprehensive or or like anything.

1873
01:39:49,280 --> 01:39:51,559
Speaker 1: But here's an overview of stuff you might want to

1874
01:39:51,560 --> 01:39:55,280
Speaker 1: read more about. Yeah, I have a lot more reading

1875
01:39:55,320 --> 01:39:59,479
Speaker 1: to do, you know. Yeah, it's important that like you

1876
01:39:59,520 --> 01:40:06,760
Speaker 1: know the the current American does we Yeah that that

1877
01:40:06,920 --> 01:40:11,200
Speaker 1: like that, you know, American exceptionalism is such a hell

1878
01:40:11,240 --> 01:40:14,120
Speaker 1: of a drug that, like you, we think that all

1879
01:40:14,160 --> 01:40:16,160
Speaker 1: of our issues are unique, you know what I'm saying,

1880
01:40:16,479 --> 01:40:19,960
Speaker 1: Because we're uniquely special where God's little boy, you know

1881
01:40:19,960 --> 01:40:23,040
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So like this stuff is important to know,

1882
01:40:23,280 --> 01:40:25,000
Speaker 1: Like I mean, we we hammer it all the time,

1883
01:40:25,040 --> 01:40:26,800
Speaker 1: but just to be like, man, look at all these

1884
01:40:26,840 --> 01:40:29,800
Speaker 1: different moments throughout history, like this ship is not new,

1885
01:40:29,880 --> 01:40:32,599
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like we are toddlers when

1886
01:40:32,640 --> 01:40:37,080
Speaker 1: it comes to the world scene, you know. So yeah, yeah,

1887
01:40:37,120 --> 01:40:39,760
Speaker 1: And that's you know, Spain is going through a lot

1888
01:40:39,760 --> 01:40:42,680
Speaker 1: of the same as our colonial is, our power as

1889
01:40:42,720 --> 01:40:47,400
Speaker 1: a colonial nation, ebbs, as the result of horrible decisions

1890
01:40:47,400 --> 01:40:49,920
Speaker 1: we've made and the fact that colonialism is never a

1891
01:40:50,000 --> 01:40:52,680
Speaker 1: very stable platform. We're dealing with a lot of the

1892
01:40:52,680 --> 01:40:54,920
Speaker 1: same issues that Spain was dealing with, you know, and

1893
01:40:54,920 --> 01:40:57,639
Speaker 1: in the ramp up as fascism came to Spain, because

1894
01:40:57,640 --> 01:41:02,479
Speaker 1: it's fascism is in part a reacttion too, like fail

1895
01:41:02,720 --> 01:41:05,960
Speaker 1: failures of colonialism fail like the like, like like you

1896
01:41:06,000 --> 01:41:07,599
Speaker 1: need to have some sort of golden age you can

1897
01:41:07,640 --> 01:41:10,120
Speaker 1: harken back to write the Italians, the Germans, Spanish, I'll

1898
01:41:10,160 --> 01:41:13,080
Speaker 1: have that um and so do American fascists. And so

1899
01:41:13,479 --> 01:41:16,320
Speaker 1: while you should never treat it all as if it's

1900
01:41:16,360 --> 01:41:19,240
Speaker 1: too similar, you also shouldn't ignore that there are some

1901
01:41:19,320 --> 01:41:24,400
Speaker 1: real similarities. Yeah, I love it anyway you could. You

1902
01:41:24,400 --> 01:41:28,639
Speaker 1: can follow Sophie and why Sophie, Why Hell yeah, I

1903
01:41:28,640 --> 01:41:31,200
Speaker 1: threw that one in there. That's a little curveball. Yeah

1904
01:41:31,320 --> 01:41:37,960
Speaker 1: say yea, oh god yeah, no profit pop dot com.

1905
01:41:38,040 --> 01:41:40,840
Speaker 1: I knew what you was gonna say. Uh, follow me

1906
01:41:40,880 --> 01:41:48,000
Speaker 1: at prop hip Hop and I'll be looking at all

1907
01:41:48,080 --> 01:41:50,559
Speaker 1: y'all's replies because I'll tell you what, man, this pod

1908
01:41:50,600 --> 01:41:56,599
Speaker 1: has got some amazing fans and followers. I like, y'all, Yes,

1909
01:41:57,560 --> 01:41:59,600
Speaker 1: you're like you're weird in the right ways, you know

1910
01:41:59,600 --> 01:42:01,519
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, And like, you know, you know, people

1911
01:42:01,600 --> 01:42:03,920
Speaker 1: like got like a thing. You know, it's like it's

1912
01:42:03,960 --> 01:42:06,240
Speaker 1: like you want to you want to be a little weird.

1913
01:42:06,360 --> 01:42:08,200
Speaker 1: You know, you're a little weird in the right ways.

1914
01:42:08,240 --> 01:42:10,439
Speaker 1: And I feel like if you're if you're not weird,

1915
01:42:10,479 --> 01:42:12,599
Speaker 1: I'm not. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, Like, can't

1916
01:42:12,600 --> 01:42:16,000
Speaker 1: be just we don't need know, like low sodium khaki.

1917
01:42:16,280 --> 01:42:20,680
Speaker 1: You know, beige fans. You know what I'm saying. Wonder man,

1918
01:42:20,720 --> 01:42:26,519
Speaker 1: ah man, You're not wonder bread y'all like brio. I

1919
01:42:26,600 --> 01:42:33,400
Speaker 1: don't know. I think I'm done. You'd cooked my brain, boy, Yeah, yeah, yeah,

1920
01:42:33,439 --> 01:42:36,439
Speaker 1: I'm cooked, and I'm ready to cook another meal for

1921
01:42:36,520 --> 01:42:39,240
Speaker 1: next week, when we close out Behind the Insurrections with

1922
01:42:39,280 --> 01:42:42,240
Speaker 1: episodes on the fascists that failed and a retrospective of

1923
01:42:42,280 --> 01:42:46,320
Speaker 1: some anti fascists throughout history, where we'll talk about some

1924
01:42:46,560 --> 01:42:51,519
Speaker 1: fun shit umn. But that's all for this week. Um,

1925
01:42:51,600 --> 01:42:57,919
Speaker 1: So go read about the International Brigades and the anarchist

1926
01:42:58,040 --> 01:43:03,000
Speaker 1: militias of Spain. Uh Um. Read George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia.

1927
01:43:03,040 --> 01:43:05,720
Speaker 1: But remember that it's a single dude's perspective who had

1928
01:43:05,760 --> 01:43:08,680
Speaker 1: no understanding of the broader tactical situation because he was

1929
01:43:08,720 --> 01:43:10,800
Speaker 1: just a dude fighting. But there's a lot of great

1930
01:43:10,840 --> 01:43:13,639
Speaker 1: George Orwell talking about what grenades are best to kill people.

1931
01:43:14,600 --> 01:43:20,760
Speaker 1: George Orwell was very good with grenade. That's the thing. Nobody,

1932
01:43:20,800 --> 01:43:23,240
Speaker 1: nobody told me when we were reading nineteen eighty four

1933
01:43:23,280 --> 01:43:26,760
Speaker 1: that George Orwell had extensively written about which grenades are

1934
01:43:26,800 --> 01:43:30,760
Speaker 1: best to kill fascists with. I probably would have paid

1935
01:43:30,840 --> 01:43:33,959
Speaker 1: much more attention. Was like, I would have paid more attention,

1936
01:43:35,320 --> 01:43:39,719
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, it's the It's one of the coolest

1937
01:43:39,720 --> 01:43:41,599
Speaker 1: things you can do good with. That's why they called

1938
01:43:41,640 --> 01:43:46,800
Speaker 1: that other data fantastic. You know. Mr Williams, who was

1939
01:43:46,840 --> 01:43:49,920
Speaker 1: my who's my teacher? Mr Pollicky, he was Mr Pollicky,

1940
01:43:50,000 --> 01:43:52,040
Speaker 1: Polish dude. I was like, they should have led with

1941
01:43:52,120 --> 01:43:54,799
Speaker 1: that man. Lead with the fact that the guy grenade

1942
01:43:55,439 --> 01:44:03,040
Speaker 1: gad Jesus. Alright, alright, alright, uh spots over by bye

1943
01:44:06,360 --> 01:44:06,680
Speaker 1: mm hm