Spanish Civil War and Cold War: Key Events and Alliances
The Spanish Civil War
The coup and the division of Spain’s African army revolt moved to the Peninsula on 18 July 1936. The strike, blessed by the Church, was supported by the army and the Carlist monarchist party, conservatives, and phalanges. The coup divided Spain into two zones.
The area dominated by insurgents, who were called nationalists, covered most of the kingdom of Castile, Galicia, Caceres, the western part of Andalusia, Navarre, the Balearic Islands (except Minorca), and the Canaries. To unify the command and exercise real political authority, the rebels created the National Defense in Burgos. Months later, Franco was appointed head of the unified government and all political forces that supported the insurgency in a single match, Traditionalist Spanish Falange and of the Boards of the National Syndicalist Offensive (FET and las JONS).
The Republican side controlled much of Aragon, northern Spain (except Navarra), Catalonia, the Levant region, Madrid, and most of Andalusia. After the coup, the government’s authority all but disappeared. The unions and some grassroots organizations took the opportunity to achieve the social revolution and expropriated farms and factories. At the time, militias were organized to defend the Republic, but lacked coordination, and sometimes, they faced each other. Months later, the popular army was created, which encompassed the militias, but the disobedience to the government by some groups (anarchists, nationalists…) weakened the Republican side.
The Cold War Begins
The deterioration of relations between the allies in 1946 led Winston Churchill to denounce in a famous speech: “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has fallen on the continent [Europe].” That phrase described the growing Soviet influence over the countries of central Europe and made public that the understanding between the allies was breaking down. The next step toward the Cold War was in Greece, where communists and monarchists vied for power in a civil war. U.S. President Truman decided to support the royalist Greeks to prevent communists from taking power. Truman later extended its support to anti-communists anywhere in the world, a strategy known as the containment policy or Truman Doctrine.
After these initial disagreements, the U.S. and the USSR reinforced their respective areas of influence. Thus, the Americans held on to the Marshall Plan in 1947, which was an aid program to rebuild Europe’s economy. This project was rejected by the USSR, which also forced Eastern Europe to reject the Marshall Plan. At the time, the USSR created the Cominform to coordinate support for its policy of communist parties worldwide.
U.S. Global Strategy
The U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War was aimed at averting the establishment of communism beyond the area of Soviet influence in Europe. Part of its strategy was the creation of a network of military alliances around the world, many still in force:
- In Western Europe, this tactic was a financial aid (the Marshall Plan) and the creation of a military organization: NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).
- Outside of Europe, the U.S. signed the Rio Treaty (1947) with Latin America, SEATO (1954) with the States in Southeast Asia, and the Baghdad Pact (1955) with the peoples of the Middle East.
- Additionally, the U.S. signed bilateral pacts with countries such as Spain and Japan.
Thanks to these partnerships, the United States had a network of military bases worldwide.
Political Systems: Westernization Block
The U.S. favored the adoption of democratic systems within their block. Democracy was introduced in Western European countries that participated in the Second World War and also in other regions. The principles of democracy today are:
- Popular sovereignty, exercised in free elections.
- The separation of political power. Laws are made in elected parliaments, which form the legislature. The government embodies the executive and is accountable for their actions before the parliament. And judges make up the Judiciary.
- The recognition of freedoms and rights to citizens.
- Political pluralism, which is expressed in the freedom of association, and implies the possibility of creating political parties to access the government.
But democracy was limited. The U.S. tolerated the existence of dictatorships in southern Europe and occasionally promoted them in Latin America, Asia, and Africa if it served to stop communism.
The Formation of the Communist World
The Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe was organized while the western block was being formed. At the end of World War II, the Soviets agreed that in their area of influence (Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria) coalition governments would be formed with all political forces. However, the Communist parties controlled the key ministries and, driven by Stalin, monopolized all power between 1946 and 1948 and established communist dictatorships. This block was organized largely in opposition to U.S. initiatives, and its institutions were somewhat beyond the Western bloc:
- The USSR replied to the Marshall Plan with the organization of Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) in 1949. Its aim was to coordinate the economies of European countries that were under Soviet hegemony.
- The USSR created the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1949 in its area of Germany, in response to the creation of the Federal Republic in the west.
- The Soviets responded to NATO with the creation of the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance created in 1955 with its satellite countries.
In addition, communism spread to more countries. In Europe, Yugoslavia and Albania instituted communist systems, though not dependent on the USSR. Outside Europe, the Communists succeeded in China and North Korea. This expansion was seen by Westerners as a threat to liberal and democratic systems.