“The Spanish Civil War was the first fought in Europe in which civilians became targets en masse, through bombing raids on big cities.” CiviliansBombingSpanish Civil War Book:The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction Source: The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction
“Notwithstanding the currency of ideas about ‘two Spains’ ready to confront each other on 18 July 1936, ‘us’ and ‘them’ were categories actively made by the violent experience of the war and did not fully exist prior to it.” SpainSpanish Civil WarUs And Them Book:The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction Source: The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction
“From the start, the Left was handicapped by the great ideological differences between its constituent parts. Widest of all was the gap between the parliamentary socialist movement and the anti-parliamentary anarcho-syndicalist CNT. These differences were not a matter of voluntarism or sheer bloody-mindedness, as the standard historical narrative so often implies. Rather, their irreducibility was a result of the vastly different political, economic, and cultural experiences of the Left’s social constituencies in what was a highly unevenly developed country. For example, the direct political action favoured by many anarcho-syndicalists instantly recommended itself to the unskilled and the landless poor, whose lack of bargaining power and social defencelessness made socialist promises of gradual change through the ballot box seem immensely improbable, if not downright incredible.” SocialismSpanish Civil WarAnarcho Syndicalism Book:The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction Source: The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction