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May I ask why the "Red Terror" of Spain, in which some 38,000 perished, has a devoted article on Wikipedia, while the "White Terror" executed by the nationalists which claimed some 200,000 victims in the same period is not mentioned here or even worthy of a sentence in the pitifully brief and summary article on White Terrors throughout history? As horrific as the anti-clerical murders were, this seems a deliberate attempt to paint an equivalence between the violence of the anarchists - which was denounced by Republican leaders, in another detail apparently unworthy of mention in this article - and the state-sponsored, catholic-supported brutality of the fascist regime. 140.247.153.14 21:01, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
A "neutral" page on "Atrocities during AND AFTER the Spanish civil war" should replace this monument to militant anti-Leftism and reestablish proportions. Also it should be explained why the Spanish Left had such ferocious hate for the Church: I do not think they were suddenly possessed by satan. The Church had done nothing to endear herself among the struggling populace, actually, constantly condemning every idea of social change and democracy and supporting the landed gentry and the rich. Basil II 20:29, 15 June 2007 (CET)
You could create a page on the "White Terror" or on any subject you believe is worthy of a Wikipedia article.-- Gloriamarie 19:22, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
White Terror has a page of it's own. I'm wondering why half the introduction of this article is devoted to talking about White Terror. WP: TQ? 99.231.200.55 ( talk) 09:47, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Please provide the information about the origins and the usage of the term "Rer Terror" in reference to the described events, or the article will be renamed. `' mikka 20:16, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
Nobody in Spain call these things "Red Terror" (or terror rojo as is read here. Well, it was quite lol). The same thing is for the "White Terror". Both are Anglo-saxons terms used in anti-communist and pro-communist slang. Seriously, one guy from San Diego that has "read something" about these topic can not write a whole article about it. -- Hoygan!! ( talk) 01:24, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
This page differs significantly from the depiction of events on the Spanish Civil War page. It appears biased in it's reporting of the events. Especially considering what was posted in the previous note. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tsunami7 ( talk • contribs)
This article is embarrassingly biased. The information is inaccurate (e.g. the opening sentence seems to suggest the Republican government was a communist regime organising selective murders around the nation!). It is written in un-encyclopaedic language (with vague references such as 'things like that occurred almost everywhere in the country'). Quotes have been selected so as to provide a warped perspective of the events. I don't intend to defend those who commited atrocities in the past (in whichever side they were), but this article reads as a justification of Franco's regime and a monument to those who launched the coup d'etat. 129.67.88.118 15:02, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
A lot of the incidents recited as fact are heavily disputed. The rosary incident, for example, is cited by George Orwell (who fought in the war) as an example of alleged atrocities entirely fabricated by the counter-revolutionary press. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.23.135.169 ( talk) 21:39, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
In the spirit of verification, I thought I'd go through the citations. I found quite a bit of (mostly inadvertent) plagiarism and a few mistakes on those I could check online, so put a "citation needed" tag on the Beevor references and suggest that these and the Mitchell citations be double-checked. NB even if a few words are changed from the original, it is still plagiarism to claim such lightly-changed sentences as your own. -- jbmurray ( talk| contribs) 07:54, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
The Spanish Civil war is always shown as a war between communists/socialists/anarchists and catholics/conservatives. To some extent, it was that. However, in the Basque Country, for instance, the nationalists (nearly all of them catholics and conservatives) were in the side of the Republic, side by side with the socialists and communists, and there was no catholic prosecution. It was also the same in some other parts of Spain.
I think the article should reflect that not all the republicans were burning curches, as it might be understood when reading it now.
I think the name change to "Atrocities committed during the Spanish Civil War", conflating the Red and White Terrors is not an improvement, and I am reverting it. For one thing the two are separate subjects and are best dealt with in separate articles linking to each other and with sufficient references to the other incidents for context. Conflating the two sets of atrocities tends to create a number of false dichotomies, for example, that one set of killings was bad and that the other was therefore good, or that one side killed more and they are therefore more morally culpable. The latter confusion is particularly misleading because a vast number of those killed in the Red Terror were not combatants or even active opponents to the Republicans (this fact is recognized by scholars and cited in the article). Also the title is innacurate, because some of the Red Terror (a substantial number of the killings) occurred before the war in 1934. As to the name change serving to eliminate the "bias" in the article, User:Jbmurray already did an admirable job of editing, reorganizing and adding context to the article to eliminate claimed bias. Rather than the facile "fix" of renaming, someone needs to get down to the hard work of creating the White Terror article. Mamalujo 18:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Red Terror - Spain →
Atrocities in the Spanish Civil War — Or some other alternative such as "Red and White Terror- Spain". Following this , description of Nationalist atrocities in the war should be substantially expandedc. The White Terror in the Spanish Civil War was far worse than the Red Terror, yet this, the only article, on the atrocities on the war, only details the far less significant Republican atrocities, iwht only a brief mention of the White Terror. This is outrageously POV, out of proportion, and extremely misleading and historically inaccurate —
Nwe
14:31, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
*'''Support'''
or *'''Oppose'''
, then sign your comment with ~~~~
. Since
polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account
Wikipedia's naming conventions.It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved. -- Stemonitis 08:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
OK, in retrospect two separate articles might be a better idea, but in that case an equally detailed article on the White Terror is badly needed. I'll try set one up when I have time, but that could be a while, if anyone else here feels they can start things up please do so. Nwe 21:07, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
If you wish the tag removed, reduce the overdependence of the article on a single source. Hornplease 15:10, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
The term is the moniker which is and has been used to describe this subject. It is not a novelty or neologism in its use with regard to Spain. It is used by Beevor, Thomas, and Payne just to name a few. It is used by prominent publishers (Ruiz, Julius, Franco's Justice: Repression In Madrid After The Spanish Civil War(Oxford University Press 2005) ISBN 0199281831 pp. 10, 23, 33,40, 233, 234). It was used by noted news periodicals and dailies at the time ( Crumbling RepublicTime Magazine, Monday, Oct. 05, 1936), as it is today (Tonkin, Boyd A Week in Books The (London)Independent July 26, 2006). It is also used by scholarly journals (Chodakiewicz, Marek Jan Review of Las relaciones de Franco con Europa Centro-Oriental, 1939-1955 by By Matilde Eiroa The Sarmatian Review (January 2003 Issue, Rice University)). The argument that it is not the right name for the events is weak. Not to mention the fact the the White Terror - Spain article(also an accepted term) has now been created. Mamalujo 23:06, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
If the context its used in is, as you claim, a tag to refer to the assasination of clergy at the start of and during the civil war, case rested, as far as I'm concerned *nodnods* :) . As to the White Terror article, it's only there because there's a Red Terror article. I find that term equally tendentious, and if it was up to me I'd be merging Red Terror and White Terror as well as Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War (in it's current format and projection; if it was a bio article on these martyrs I'd let it stay on its own) into an article about "Atrocities of the Spanish Civil War", or something like that. But thst's just me *shrug* Dr Benway 06:47, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Yup, saw it further up in the page before, thanks for the reminder :) . I was just commenting. However, in most of the history books I've checked (Payne, and others) they are both dealt with in the same section, as related phenomena. In Beevor, where it is given its own chapter, it is treated in the context of an analysis of events and offers numerous counterbalances and comments, which this article does not and shows no intention of doing. And I heavily disagree with your argument against the "Atrocities of the Spanish Civil War" heading line and merge, mainly because all of these atrocities occured within its temporal and historical context, if not its specific dates. I think this approach would be the only one that would guarantee a moderate level of neutrality. Dr Benway 09:22, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, these subjects are handled together in a more abreviated fashion in the Spanish Civil War article. As to Beevor, I don't think he is any example to follow with regard to neutrality. His 1982 book I found to be decidedly anti-Catholic (of the sort that used to be more common among British authors in the 19th and mid 20th century). The context that he gives is often nothing more than an apology for murder. I think that Beevor is one of the examples of the "attempts at justification" that Julio de la Cueva criticises. Including that sort of crap in the article is like incorporating the work of holocaust deniers into the holcaust article in the name of balance. Mamalujo 11:26, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, I actually liked Beevor and found him quite objective :) He gives a good explanation for what happened, and his account on the Terror is not skewed one way or the other as far as I can see. As for the analogy, I don't think denying the Holocaust in the Holocaust article has anything to do with inserting contextual information of what happened in the onset of the Spanish civil war with the murders of catholic clergy, firstly because nobody denies it happened and that it was murder, and secondly because one situation had absolutely no historical similarities with the other one whatsoever. Cheers! :) Dr Benway 07:09, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
I would beg to differ. To say that the situations had absolutely no historical similarities shows no understanding of modern bigoted eliminationist mass murder. No the Red Terror was not the Holocaust. But neither were the killing field of Pol Pot, Rwanda or the pogroms in Russia. Mamalujo 06:17, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
No, Pol Pot, Rwanda and the russian pogroms had nothing to do with each other. That's like saying that AIDS and EBOLA are the same virus because they kill people. I'm afraid I don't quite follow your argument. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree ;) Dr Benway 06:39, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
"The Franco government now gives the names of 61,000 victims of the Red terror, but this is not subject to objective verification."
I'm not sure what Beevor means by this, firstly because the "Franco government now" does not exist as of today, and secondly because if his figure is "not subject to objective verification" I really fail to see what it's doing in an encyclopaedic article, despite it being a reputed source. I'll check the new edition. Cheers ;) Dr Benway 07:39, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I was looking through "In El Pardo, near Madrid, a group of militiamen became drunk on communion wine while trying the parish priest. One militiaman used the chalice as a washing bowl as he shaved himself. [31]"
Firstly, I'm trying to figure out what is meant by "became drunk on communion wine while trying the parish priest". All help would be appreciated.
Secondly, in the context of mass executions, raping of nuns and other savagery, mentioning a "militiaman [that] used the chalice as a washing bowl as he shaved himself" is hardly reasonable if we're talking about atrocities, no? Cheers Dr Benway 08:04, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Oh, cool, now we've added "desecrations" to the Red Terror. Why not also include the fact that militiamen were using foul language in consecrated ground? Oh, and that they didn't cross themselves before walking into the church and shooting the priests. I mean, come on, seriously... *rolls eyes* Dr Benway ( talk) 10:52, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm extremely sorry if I have offended your religious beliefs, and please accept my apologies since it was not my intention. What I meant is that desecration is already implied by the fact that they're castrating and crucifying priests, raping nuns, executing clergy and burning churches to the ground. It simply makes the part on a militiaman using the chalice as a washingbowl sound absurd. Atrocities, I think, would refer to acts which would horrify any human being, regardless of ritual and belief. Mentioning desecrations such as the chalice being used as a shaving bowl is quite simply not equatable to assasination. Again, just an observation. Dr Benway ( talk) 10:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I see this issue has already been raised by the above poster, and Mamalujo failed to respond. I suspect that Mamalujo's trying to use the talk page simply to resist fairly indesputable edits. Since without my edits this article violates NPOV, however, they should remain regardless of ancillary discussion. As already stated in the edit summary, improper use of proper isn't usually part of "terrors", that's an objective view, and undoubtedly while representatives of the Catholic Church were persecuted, it was for reasons not directly related to Catholicism and the Terror was not in itself anti-Catholic. Nwe ( talk) 00:05, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
So what was it "anti-" exactly, if not anti-religious???
This is leftist BS and newspeak to put it mildly. (By Unsigned)
198.84.162.153 ( talk) 05:20, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Regarding current disputes;
Nwe ( talk) 14:17, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
Apologies for length;
A terror or such-like is generally understood to describe atrocities, almost always committed on human lives or at the very least their freedom or ability to sustain themselves. Attacks on symbolic buildings or objects cannot, therefore, in any way be described as part of a “terror” . To make such a suggestion would be ludicrous, not least since one of the first, and normally least contested, acts of a new regime, particularly one overthrown in a popular, is to destroy the images or objects associated with the previous regime. Hence the demolition of communist statues etc. after the fall of Communism or the attack on the Stalin monument in the 1956 Budapest uprising, or the destruction of images of Saddam in 2003, hence the ever-symbolic lowering of flags by conquering armies. And the list goes on. Now monuments and flags are surely as well-regarded as churches by people attached to that previous regime, but I’d hardly call the actions of those anti-communist a “White Terror”. After the Russian Revolution, statues and images of the Tsar were destroyed, we talk about the Russian Red Terror but that’s never mentioned. The suppression and probable of Catalan, Basque or leftist symbols and ideas by Franco isn’t mentioned as unlikely ever to be in this articles impoverished sister on the White Terror. Bolshevik attacks on the Orthodox church aren’t mentioned anywhere in the article on that terror. Nor is the “desecration” of churches cited in the article of “the Terror” of the French Revolution.
Regarding desecration, no it isn’t; the word is plainly POV, it implies that some objects are somehow above others in values merely because of their association with a controversial institution; that is plainly biased in its assumptions. I don’t know about other religions, but humanists would definitely find the word very objectionable.
Regarding your comparison of the red and white terrors, may I speak frankly when I see this is when your views enter into the territory absolute and patent nonsense. The Nationalists, unlike Republicans, engaged in extensive massacres of civilian populations; in Badajoz, Malaga, etc. Among others they murdered teachers, intellectuals, civil servants, members of trades unions, “Freemasons”, waverers, people suspected of voting the wrong way and plain randomers. Among the worst perpetrators were Moroccan troops who embarked s of rape and murder. Now I don’t see how that consisted of “acting against its opposition” more than the Red Terror which generally attacked nationalist politicians, clergy and the wealthy; in other words the people who were almost certainly supporting the Nationalists. I don’t see how it involved the murder of more “innocent people “ and less “dangerous elements” unless being a teacher or an organised worker made you more likely to engage in opposition than being a priest in an unashamedly pro-monarchy church did, and less “innocent”. And the clergy weren’t attacked because the “Reds” in an attempt to eradicated religion, religion among the general populace was pretty much on the wane anyway, it was because the Church had been an invaluable supporter of the old monarchy and the unequal aristocratic system that lay behind and was to become a very useful supporter of Franco. Additionally, the Nationalists almost certainly had killed more people by than the Republicans by 1939, and according the Antony Beevor at least the White Terror reached its peak in September 1936.
Rest of the Payne paragraph; there are a number of problems here. Firstly lets deal with what’s “indisputable”, for example the claim that the attacks were not the outpouring of the oppressed ‘’very’’ disputable, in fact many would suggest that its quite wrong, considering that many of the first targets of the terror were individuals who’d exploited or abused their positions of power when times were better (e.g. Landowners, industrialists, clergy, blacklegs etc.), although often the more benign ones were spared. The idea that it was carried by “all leftist groups” is not indisputable; there isn’t much evidence of participation by most elements of the government, by moderate Republicans and by numerous other socialist, anarchist, nationalist and other factions, in fact there isn’t really clear evidence on who it was that carried it out. Such a statement is almost axiomatically doubtful. Incidentally the idea that they were “semi-organised” kind of contradicts the claim that the attacks were irrational. The final sentence, on the persecution of Catholics, is simply totally out-of-place, not a key fact to included in the description and discussion of the terror and clearly part of an agenda of using the article to push the some form of pro-Catholic message and anti-Republican message.
Regarding the intro. Firstly one of my problems, which you don’t address, was the linguistic detail, mention that the terror attacks included on clergy, fine, but that should be enough, no need to engage in greater detail than that. Regarding numbers, well inclusion of the total c30,000 number would be acceptable, but for a start simply focusing on one group is rather strange, and incidentally the figures, format and composition mentioned in the Holocaust article are apparently a source to fairly major dispute according to a brief look at the article’s talk page and talk page archives. The numbers in this article are also disputed as well. For a start you simply can’t round a number in its thousands, from a period as uncertain as the Spanish Civil War, to single figures. The article you give also only really engages in fairly significant praise for that research, he doesn’t call it categorical. This article is not so certain, it says Montero’s research “leave much to be desired at times”. I also, though with no particular basis, think some suspicions should arise from the fact it was carried out under Franco.
Atrocities; well actually only four different sources are cited at all in the paragraph, and really its only one. While ancillary details from Payne, Beevor and Mitchell are cited; with the exception of the first, all individual stories given are from pages 172-74 of Hugh Thomas. That’s an extremely narrowly focussed set of unverified reports, no matter how well-regarded (though also, it has to be said, quite old) the book from which they originate.
Religious persecution; I forgot this in my original list. The red terror should definitely not be included under the category of religious persecution; since the large majority of the of people weren’t attacked for the connection of the church, and for those that were it was more an attack on the church as an institution and its political connections, as opposed to anything to do with the beliefs of Catholicism in itself.
I find your “final plea” extremely disingenuous. For a start the “stability” of an article is no argument when it isn’t neutral, and “material” doesn’t automatically become good when its “sourced” when it pushes a particular viewpoint. But much more importantly, taking for example the images we’re discussing, the page’s history says that they were only re-added by you 1 month ago, following a 7-month absence during time which you had significant activity. Most of the problems regarding Payne were restored by you only 2 weeks ago, after a similarly long absence. For none of this did you make any contribution to talk. Finally, if it had not been for the intervention of other editors, the article as you originally created it around a year ago would be an appalling piece of propaganda. So cut the nonsense. Nwe ( talk) 01:19, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Update; If you resort to the kind of personal insults and plain spiteful reverts as you just did in your last edit then you're guarenteed to lose the argument, never having begun to enage in it in the first place. Please see WP: TALK. Nwe ( talk) 22:20, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
It is difficult to discuss views, which implicitly negate the Holocaust or other Crimes against humanity. It is almost impossible to negate the persecution during the Red Terror. In 2007, the Catholic Church beatified the largest number of persons in its history, all of them martyrs of the persecution in Spain. The secular media reported this as persecution. Somehow, I am inclined to believe, that the rare unanimity of World Media and Catholic Church is the closest thing you ever get to infallibility.
I am somewhat new on this page and very surprised about some arguments above. This is an article about Red Terror in Spain, not about white terror or other topics. It is not an evaluation of the Spanish Civil War. The only issue is, what really happened. Since it is an emotional topic for many, sources have to be provided generously, and wording should be as neutral as possible, but, without loss of information.
The Catholic Church is the main focus of discussion here. It is therefore perfectly normal to use legal Catholic terminology, (Canon Law), to describe situations and events, including, Eucharist, Desecration, the Faithful (take a look at these two pages), etc. These are not value-judgements but technical terms, necessary to understand the story. It is irrelevant, if all here agree, whether the persecution actually took place or not, just as it is irrelevant to agree, whether Christ is fully present in the Eucharist or not. The only relevance which we have to judge extends to the facts and statements and their full back-up, whether we personally agree or not. The pictures, like many Wikipedia pictures illustrate and support the article. -- Ambrosius007 ( talk) 16:19, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
A fascinating paragraph which has... erm... absolutely no relevance to the article? The only interesting piece of data, the sentence dealing with these anti-clerical guerrilla terrorist commandos is, quite unsurprisingly, unsourced.
This new Soviet-Mexican-Republican Spanish axis of anticatholic terror - again unreferenced- is another new occurrence which has genuinely surprised me.
As even the author will probably understand, I'm tagging this, for what it's worth, as POV.
Cheers. 80.32.151.233 ( talk) Dr Benway 08:08, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Dr Benway (
talk)
13:18, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Hi there, Ambrosius
Like most fellow Wikipedia Editors, usually when I tag something it's not out of whim or sudden caprice, but because I consider as an editor that something needs to be done.
I am aware that there is a difference between tagging an article and tagging a section. While I appreciate your will to help, if you take a careful look at the actual tag text, you will se it quite purposefuly states that the factual accuracy and neutrality of this article, as opposed to section, are in dispute, which is the reason I tagged it at the top of the article and not on top of the section.
So I'd like to ask you please, in future occasions, refrain from moving tags around without prior notice to the editor. As far as my experience in Wikipedia goes, it's regarded as common practice and shows courtesy to first try and settle any points in the discussion pages, and then moving in for changes. So if you find that there's any disagreement on this, I would kindly ask you first mention it here and then do the moving round bits after we've talked about it.
Cheers, Dr Benway ( talk) 13:51, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
p.s. I'm removing the factual accuracy tag. I haven't seen anything on the talk page about that and I don't think there's any basis for it. Mamalujo ( talk) 00:17, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
Hi there Mamalujo, again apologies, I thought it had been you doing the referencing there. I really need to get some practice in using the page History tool.... *blush* About the factual/POV dispute, I think there have been a number of changes to the balanced article you mention back in june, but I'm not sure. In any case, the reasons for the tags are as follows:
- POV and Disputed Facts: Intro section: "a program of systematic persecution of the Church was planned to the last detail". Most disputable, but aside from that, quoted from Antonio Montero's "Historia de la persecución religiosa en España 1936-1939" from the Catholic Press, 1961. I'd really have trouble using a pro-catholic source like this, especially written byu the Archbishop of Mérida, especially published in times of Franco, as a factually accurate referent to defend a disputed issue such as defining the aggressions against the Church as a "systematic prosecution ... planned to the last detail."
- Disputed Fact: Background Section: "the Popular Front, whose leadership was clearly moving towards the left (abandoning constitutional Republicanism for leftist revolution.[5])"... I would have thought Azaña was more the former than the latter. As well as most of the Republican cabinet. The nationalist (as in regionalist nationalists) elements of the Republican government were not great revolutionaries, either. The Communist takeover of the Republican government would occur much later, well into the war. There was a struggle between these "factions", sure. But this clear trend is extremely disputable.
- Disputed Fact: Death Toll section: "Figures for the Red Terror range from 38,000 to 110,000, with most estimates closer to the former.[13]" I think that if you give an approximate range where the maximum exceeds the minimum in almost 300%, and say that most estimates are closer to the former, well... bit of a weasel, no?
- POV and Disputed Facts: Ditto: "The Franco government now gives the names of 61,000 victims of the Red Terror, but this is not subject to objective verification." If there is a figure given that is not subject to objective verification, I really fail to see what it is doing in an encyclopaedic article. So I'd dispute it. Heavily.
- Disputed Fact: Ditto: César Vidal's figures are amply disputed. In fact, all of his works on the Spanish Civil War are heavily contested by most modern Spanish historiographers. I'd like to see a more concrete reference as to where he got the numbers from.
- POV: Attitudes: National Side: "The tone of the letter was balanced, describing the realities of 1937. [34]" I suppose the editor who put this meant the letter that calls Franco's rebellion a "civic-military movement"... and a great number of other things. SOrry, but this fact is again, contested.
- POV: Ditto: "The attitudes towards the Church had changed from hostility to admiration. [35]" Well... again... need I go into detail?
- POV and Disputed Facts: Conclusion and Aftermath: "although individual terror attacks seem to have continued sporadically, carried out by remnant Communists [46] and Socialists, hiding in French border regions, but without great results. " Factually disputed. A reference would be needed.
- POV: The part on the Communist Triangle of Terror would need a bit of balancing, in my opinion.
Anyway, these are the reasons why I tagged the whole article, again, as POV and factually inaccurrate as opposed to tagging the sections.
If the editors find these observations warranted, perhaps we should re-tag this? Because, in my opinion, I really think this article needs major work to have a minimum encyclopaedic standard. Cheers! Dr Benway ( talk) 08:41, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Tagged this again, since the issues presented have not been addressed. I'd like to kindly request any editors who wish to remove them to please engage in a bit of dialogue before just erasing.
Reasons:
- POV and Disputed Facts: Intro section: "a program of systematic persecution of the Church was planned to the last detail". Most disputable, but aside from that, quoted from Antonio Montero's "Historia de la persecución religiosa en España 1936-1939" from the Catholic Press, 1961. I'd really have trouble using a pro-catholic source like this, especially written byu the Archbishop of Mérida, especially published in times of Franco, as a factually accurate referent to defend a disputed issue such as defining the aggressions against the Church as a "systematic prosecution ... planned to the last detail." ---> Still the same
- Disputed Fact: Background Section: "the Popular Front, whose leadership was clearly moving towards the left (abandoning constitutional Republicanism for leftist revolution.[5])"... I would have thought Azaña was more the former than the latter. As well as most of the Republican cabinet. The nationalist (as in regionalist nationalists) elements of the Republican government were not great revolutionaries, either. The Communist takeover of the Republican government would occur much later, well into the war. There was a struggle between these "factions", sure. But this clear trend is extremely disputable .---> I don't see where the footnoted reference supports the statement. On the contrary, I think Payne is even saying that the Republican leadership lost centralised control to a number of leftist factions.
- Disputed Fact: Death Toll section: "Figures for the Red Terror range from 38,000 to 110,000, with most estimates closer to the former.[13]" I think that if you give an approximate range where the maximum exceeds the minimum in almost 300%, and say that most estimates are closer to the former, well... bit of a weasel, no? ---> Numerically, statistically and informatively speaking, this reference is plain silly.
- POV and Disputed Facts: Ditto: "The Franco government now gives the names of 61,000 victims of the Red Terror, but this is not subject to objective verification." If there is a figure given that is not subject to objective verification, I really fail to see what it is doing in an encyclopaedic article. So I'd dispute it. Heavily.---> Ditto. Using Franco government figures is not really very neutral, is it?
- Disputed Fact: Ditto: César Vidal's figures are amply disputed. In fact, all of his works on the Spanish Civil War are heavily contested by most modern Spanish historiographers. I'd like to see a more concrete reference as to where he got the numbers from.---> And again
- POV: Attitudes: National Side: "The tone of the letter was balanced, describing the realities of 1937. [34]" I suppose the editor who put this meant the letter that calls Franco's rebellion a "civic-military movement"... and a great number of other things. SOrry, but this fact is again, contested.---> Ditto
- POV: Ditto: "The attitudes towards the Church had changed from hostility to admiration. [35]" Well... again... need I go into detail? ---> Ditto
- POV and Disputed Facts: Conclusion and Aftermath: "although individual terror attacks seem to have continued sporadically, carried out by remnant Communists [46] and Socialists, hiding in French border regions, but without great results. " Factually disputed. A reference would be needed.---> Ditto
- POV: The part on the Communist Triangle of Terror would need a bit of balancing, in my opinion.---> Ditto
Cheers!
Dr Benway (
talk)
14:50, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
The attitudes of these folks towards religion in general and the Catholic Church in particular would be helpful in the context, as to why so many members of clergy and laity were killed. Was it hate? conviction? Or, a part of the Marxist-Leninist ideology? Or was it only an oversight, as claimed in the article? Hard to believe! I can see Benways frustration with the absence of this information, which makes these events look almost like a natural event (anti-Catholic bias). But for this, the article does not need to be tagged. Abelincoln —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.65.167.166 ( talk) 12:02, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
Cool, I think that's much needed. I'll be glad to lend a hand :)
Dr Benway (
talk)
10:49, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
Added some info on this on the BACKGROUND section. Still a lot of w0rk to be done on this though. The issue wasn't as simple as "oooh, the priests stand with the fascists, let's shoot them all" either. Cheers! ;) Dr Benway ( talk) 08:21, 1 September 2008 (UTC).
I think the only views needed from Marxists and Anarchists are their declarations of Terror against religious people. The Left reliably indicts itself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.194.63.129 ( talk) 10:41, 6 April 2009 (UTC) If anybody wants to examine what the Communist view of the war is, it might be worth examining Arthur Landis' book 'Spain: the unfinished revolution', International Publishers, 1972. Stevenjp ( talk) 16:40, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
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Under Conclusion and aftermath we find the following "Franco's victory was followed by thousands of summary executions (from 15,000 to 25,000 people [55])"
The note 55. tells us the following "# ^ Recent searches conducted with parallel excavations of mass graves in Spain (in particular by the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory, ARMH) estimate that the total of people executed after the war may arrive at a number between 15,000 to 35,000. See for example Fosas Comunes - Los desaparecidos de Franco. La Guerra Civil no ha terminado, El Mundo, 7 July 2002 (Spanish)"
Those two statements are incorrect. The example provided talks just of people still in mass graves and gives the number as 35,000. Jorge P ( talk) 13:49, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
It's indefensible that atrocities in the spanish civil war redirected to this page alone. Is the murder of trade unionists and journalists any better than the murder of priests and nuns? BillMasen ( talk) 17:17, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
I've commented out the photo which appeared in the lede section which purported to show Reblican militiamen shooting at a statue of Christ because its source, subject and purpose are unknown. Fopr more information, please see this discussion on the talk page of the editor who uploaded the image. Ed Fitzgerald t / c 23:09, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
I read in some sites, about the support from American press, to this massive persecution of catholics.Some sites writes that only after protests from catholics, this support became over. Agre22 ( talk) 12:09, 26 May 2009 (UTC)agre22
I have seen that this point has already been raised above, but I still do not understand why there is an article titled 'red terror (Spain)' in/on wikipedia. As far as I can see the arguments raised by like-minded fellows above have not been logically or intelligently refuted. For example, I saw several pointless and anachronistic 'Ad Hitlerum' associations of the red terror with the holocaust. The obvious point I would like to raise, and I haven't checked to see if it has been raised before, is that by titling an article with a contentious and POV term (one which is more likely to be used by amateurs on the right than by right/left academics... or even for that matter the vast majority of people as the google hits show) you are already giving an undue amount of weight to a point of view. This is even more the case for an article relating to the republicans in the civil war. By ascribing the political adjective 'red' to the republican side and its atrocities the article has already surrendered itself to a commonplace Francoist propaganda stance and fallacy... namely that the republic was guided chiefly by communists (and through the connotation of the Russian 'red terror'... the Soviet Union). There are in fact several pieces of evidence that show the republic worked hard in the later stages of the civil war to reverse the effects of persecution (this was under the socialist government of Juan Negrin, remember), which unlike the Russian red terror was largely unsystematic and directed mainly at the clergy. Whilst the term might carry some legitimacy (although I myself regard it as little more than an epithet), the fact remains that this legitimacy is highly contentiosu and by titling an article with the term wikipedia is taking sides. In addition, whilst I wholeheartedly agree that it is not wikipedia's palce to justify atrocities... they still must give background information and explain the cause for them otherwise this leads to systematic bias. Without explanations a reader might be led to assume that communist 'bad guys' randomly came out of the woods and killed 7 thousand priests for no reason... which we all know was not the case.
My suggestion is to either rename the article 'republican artocities during the Spanish civil war' (although even this feels a little wrong, considering that there was often little centralised control exerted by the republic) and keep the 'red terro' as a sub-heading, or simply to put all the atrocities commited in the war together in oen article. My feeling from reading above comments is that a few possible apologists do not wish this to happen because the republican side would look comparatively better... tough... in the interests of historical coherence and continuity, and in offering an exact explanatory narrative, this is probably the best solution. 86.139.131.125 ( talk) 13:13, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
+... who the hell is Julius Ruiz? Can he be used as a legitimate source? 86.139.131.125 ( talk) 13:17, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
The "Background" section as it stands right now is heavily biased, being essentially a justification of the repression. It doesn´t discuss previous incidents of anti-Catholic activities (for instance the events during the "Tragic Week in 1917, the assassination of Cardinal Soldevilla in 1923 or the burning of churches and monasteries during the Second Republic). It does not mention the explicitely antireligious stance of many of the Republic´s supporters (communists and anarchists, for instance). Essentially it claims that the "red terror" was a consequence of the support that the Catolic Church gave to Franco's uprising, while it could be argued that it was the other way around: that the Curch supported Franco because it felt that the Republic was trying to destroy it. 213.4.112.58 ( talk) 13:51, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
There seems to be an unintentional bias in the second paragraph of the Nationalist Side section, due to lack of clarity as to what is quotation from the Episcopal letter and what is being stated as encyclopedic fact. I imagine it is quotation, in which case simple quotation marks would resolve the issue, or a paraphrase, in which case this should be more clearly denoted. I have removed the last sentence of the paragraph as this was clearly not a a reference to content but, as it stood, a POV judgement upon the letter; happy to see it go back if the view is attributed (as opposed to just referencing it, whether the author's own view or otherwise). Mutt Lunker ( talk) 11:40, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
The whole background is heavily biased. Just take a look at the affirmations around the "Dilectissima Nobis" encyclical (which, by the way, is cited as "On Oppression Of The Church Of Spain" when the spanish version reads as "Sobre la injusta situación creada a la Iglesia Católica en España", a totally different subtitle with a milder meaning) text according to the Vatican. Not a single time are Masons or any other group mentioned on it, in spite of the affirmations on the article. -- Richy ( talk) 12:15, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
searching The Terror in the French Revolution on amazon ,you get many results. searching red terror (spain), you get 4 results . 3 are by Books Llc which i think is wikipedia, this is just stanley payne and mamlujo his prophet, pet poodle article. it does not justify a separate article - i think mainstream opinion is that leftist violence was typically spontaneous violence against a Church seen as on the side of the rich , the russians were anti-revolutionary,, the fascists won because they had the germans, the italians,modern arms and the others didn't. 92.3.18.183 ( talk) 18:27, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
I believe that much of the material recently added in the section now "Squeezing Out the Centre: Catholic Party Politics" is WP:SYN. I've read quite a bit on this subject and I haven't seen all of this connected to the Red Terror. Also, because this material is of tenuous connection to the subject, I believe it is given undue weight. Moreover, the title is odd and perhaps POV. Also, I think there has been some sourced material deleted recently with no more real justification than the whim of the editor. Mamalujo ( talk) 23:02, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
I have cobbled together an article on this topic titled
Catholic Church and the Spanish Civil War
Catholicism in the Second Spanish Republic using text copied from other Wikipedia articles.
It would be reasonable to ask how this is not a fork from this article or from Spanish Civil War. My answer would be that the new article focuses specifically on the role of the Catholic Church in the Spanish Civil War whereas the Spanish Civil War article covers the entire Spanish Civil War from a political and military perspective and not just on the role of the Catholic Church. Thus, the new article has more ability to delve into the details of the Catholic Church's role in the war whereas it would be a bit of a distraction in this article.
Similarly, this article focuses on the actual anticlerical violence whereas the new article covers the background of the Church's involvement in Spanish politics in the period leading up to the 1936 elections.
Please take a look at the new article and help improve it. Thanks.
-- Richard S ( talk) 21:13, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Does this article appear neutral, or twisted with a POV? it is heavily dependent on Stanley payne a pro-franco scholar , and right wing catholic sources, who is franzen, is a german article a legitimate cite in any case for the english wiki. Look at the lead with its special pleading. I know Beevor wrote a chapter called Red Terror - but is there even generally accepted academic agreement on this title - was there a period known as The Red Terror, like The Great Fear in France at the time of the Revolution or The Terror of Robespierre ,or is it mainly a term used by pro-Franco historians? Sayerslle ( talk) 01:32, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
The american journalist journalist John Whitaker talking about Talavera de la Reina in 1936: “I never passed a night in Talavera without being awakened at dawn by the volleys of the firing squads. There seemed no end to the killing...They were simple peasants and workers. It was suficient to have carried a trade-union card, to have been a free-mason, to have voted for the Republic." Preston., Paul. The Spanish Civil War. Reaction, revolution &revenge. Harper Perennial. London. 2006. p.123
Juana Capdevielle San Martin raped and killed by a falangist death squad in 1936 because she was the the wife of the republican civil governor of La Coruña.Preston., Paul. The Spanish Civil War. Reaction, revolution &revenge. Harper Perennial. London. 2006. p.207. Amparo Barayon killed in august 1936 because she was the wife of a republican writer, Ramon J. Sender, and her sins against traditional gender norms. Pilar Espinosa killed during the war because she read socialist newspaper and was known to “have ideas” (tener ideas). “...thinking for oneself being considered doubly reprehensible in women.” Graham, Helen. The Spanish Civil War. A very short introducción. Oxford University Press. 2005.p. 29
The dead in Granada, between 26 july 1936 and 1 march 1939 included the poet Lorca, the editor of the Left-wing El Defensor de Granada, the professor of paediatrics in the Granada University, the rector of the university, the professor of political law, the professor of pharmacy, the professor of history, the enginer of the road to the top of the Sierra Morena, the best-known doctor in the city and more than 2,000 ordinary people.Thomas, Hugh. The Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. 2001. London. p.253
.“We killed Federico García Lorca. I gave him two shots in the arse as a homosexual.”. Beevor, Antony. The battle for Spain; the Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. 2006. p.92
“In Cordoba, nearly the entire republican elite, from deputies to booksellers, were executed in August, September and December,...”Thomas, Hugh. The Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. 2001. London. p.255
“This profession was one of the most heavily punished in the nationalist repression. Several hundred teachers were murdered in the first few weeks; 20 in Huelva, 21 in Burgos, 33 in Saragossa, 50 in Leon...” Beevor, Antony. The battle for Spain; the Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. 2006. p.460
University professors, teachers, booksellers, poets, gays, peasants, doctors, women who read newspapers and think ...You are right, Mamalujo...Only combatants and political leaders. Ajfernandez2001 —Preceding undated comment added 01:58, 30 November 2010 (UTC).
Furthermore time it's not important. The Brazilian dictatorship killed about 350 persons in 21 years (1964 to 1985), the argentine "Dirty War" between 9,000 and 30,000 in seven years (1976 to 1983), Pol Pot more than 1,000,000 in four years and in Ruanda more than 500,000 in less than a year. Ajfernandez2001
I like the picture in the article because it draws together two far right conspiracy theories - that the Jews killed Jesus and that Communism was Jewish-controlled (see Jewish Bolshevism). Franco of course frequently spoke of the "Jewish-Masonic conspiracy" and his patron, Adolph Hitler, was also known for anti-Semitism. But I do not see the relevance to this article, unless it is to tie the republicans to the alleged Jewish conspiracy. TFD ( talk) 01:48, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
the term that titles this article is already biased!
-- Ne0bi0 ( talk) 22:37, 26 October 2010 (UTC)Ne0bi0
The background section is too long, meandering, confusing and filled with matter which is outside the scope of the article or too detailed and not helpful to understanding the Red Terror. (It also probably contains a lot of wp:original research and wp:synthesis, because I suspect much of what is there is not taken from the source's discussion of the Red Terror, but of other matters.) A background section should give a succinct summary of the relevant history prior to the subject of the article. Here the section is nearly as long as the rest of the article itself. It could use some judicious editing in the form of deleting extraneous matter and summation of pertinent matter. If someone else doesn't get to it soon, I probably will. Mamalujo ( talk) 19:06, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
The article was assessed C-class for lack of sufficient in-line citations. Boneyard90 ( talk) 23:54, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
in the early outbreak section the bit on the NKVD and soviet role - is that part of what is called the Red Terror - like the May days in barcelona - I've never come across Orwells predicament in Catalonia being described as 'part of the Red Terror' for eg. Some of the problem i have with this is that its not easy far as I can see to find neutral historians who discuss 'The Red Terror' - what it refers to exactly - i still think its pretty much a Francoist, and Francoist historians phrase - otherwise historians speak of the early outbreak of terror in response to the rightist actions - sporadic episodes later - does Beevor discuss the NKVD role in his chapter - I dont have his book to hand. Sayerslle ( talk) 13:57, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
The term is the moniker which is and has been used to describe this subject, by writers of all sorts of political stripes. It is used by Beevor, Thomas, and Payne just to name a few. It is used by prominent publishers (Ruiz, Julius, Franco's Justice: Repression In Madrid After The Spanish Civil War(Oxford University Press 2005) ISBN 0199281831 pp. 10, 23, 33,40, 233, 234). It was used by noted news periodicals and dailies at the time ( Crumbling RepublicTime Magazine, Monday, Oct. 05, 1936), as it is today (Tonkin, Boyd A Week in Books The (London)Independent July 26, 2006). It is also used by scholarly journals (Chodakiewicz, Marek Jan Review of Las relaciones de Franco con Europa Centro-Oriental, 1939-1955 by By Matilde Eiroa The Sarmatian Review (January 2003 Issue, Rice University)). Mamalujo ( talk) 22:41, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: not moved. Favonian ( talk) 10:06, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Red Terror (Spain) → "Red terror" (Spain) – i think this should be re-named, moved to - "Red terror" (Spain) - (in apostrophes ) -reason is; reading 'Unearthing Franco's legacy" , and Julian casanova's essay it is referred to thus: - "It gave citizens a chance to vent their feelings about the "Red terror" and solidified the collective memory .." The word "Reds" to designate opponents of Franco in one indiscriminate word - here's an eg. "Punishments and misery were deemed part of an ideal education for the daughters of "Reds" in order to turn them into good Catholic girls.." "Reds" and "Red Terror" originated not with historians ,(in this scw context), but with franquistas, and fascists, so historians , when they use the term put them in "apostrophes" to indicate their partisan nature and origins . If a historian just said 'The Reds wanted '..such and such , it would look very odd imo and would be the work of a Francoist. Historians talk about anarchists and liberals and trade unionists, and communists etc..Francoists and their partisan historians talk about 'Reds' - the Ruiz link above, given , has these apostrophes round the term too. So did the term terror rojo originate with franquistas, or was it started by impartial historians? the apostrophisation used by Julian Casanova and others when using "Red terror" and "Reds" can't just be ignored - the lead just says 'red terror- is the term used by historians - ' -but historians don't all use it like that, unapostrophised and without making it clear that the designation 'Reds' was a catch-all term used by fascists - "as Michael Richards has observed, the negative epithet "Red" would come, after the war, to refer not only to political affiliation with the left as it had before, but also to a general filthiness, the fact of being a pariah it is a partisan term , it needs apostrophising imo for the sake of integrity. Sayerslle ( talk) 08:30, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
These kind of articles tend to read like pov forks. Whenever the terms are used in books, as Sayerslle points out, they are part of wider work that explains the context of their use so the reader can clearly see if the author is or isn't condoning the epithet used. In the case of this article the context of the violence is largely missing and reads too much like a litany of woe. Michael Burleigh, whom I gather is well respected in "conservative" Catholic circles, and doesn't appear to use the term "Red terror" writes "This level of violence requires an explanation." and proceeds to give some details as to the source of the animus. (Sacred causes, p. 134) Furthermore the article mentions the beatification of clergy who were killed in the war but doesn't mention the controversy in Spain associated with this act, e.g were they murdered for their faith or something else, and why were the Basque clergy murdered by the Nationalist side not beatified as well? I haven't the time to read the White Terror article but maybe that suffers from the same problem. To avoid pov fork issues and contentious naming I would suggest a merge of both Red and White terror articles and bring them under something which expresses the sentiment "Atrocities associated with the Spanish Civil War". Within such an article the use of Red and White descriptors can be explained. Yt95 ( talk) 14:22, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
I originally wrote this intending to be its own talk page section, but maybe both articles should be merged into something like Atrocities associated with the Spanish Civil War (if that's too jumbled, we can do Atrocities during the Spanish Civil War with a separate article for Atrocities of the Francisco Franco regime for those carried out afterwards. That would solve my relatively limited concern expressed below, and also many of the POV problems alluded to above (and on the White Terror talk page). So:
Would it then be better to simply merge the two articles? I know that's kind of a mammoth undertaking, but it would seem to be better than continuing what looks like a long history of fighting on this talk page...
☯.Zen
Swashbuckler
.☠
19:18, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
"Four, (the converse of number three), it suggests a false moral equivalency, that the two are the same, two sides of the same coin, and perpetrators equally culpable. They are different - for example as pointed out by RSs, the white terror was much more likely to target partisans and combatants, where the Red Terror, for particular ideological reasons, targeted a massive number of people that were neither." I also think that to merger the articles is a bad idea, because the Republican and the Francoist repressions are related but distinct phenomena, but a false moral equivalence? Are you trying to say that the killing of priests, nuns, officials who supported the Nationalist's coup, lawnowners and militants of the fascist party Falange is worse than the killing school teachers, freemasons, booksellers, officials who remained loyal to the Republican government, relatives of republicans and militants of the Communist party? Is worse to torture and kill a eighty years old blind man because he is a priest than to rape and kill a seventeen years old girl because she is an anarchist? Murder is murder, Mamalujo, no matter who the victim is. Does the Red Terror began in 1934? Only one person, monseñor Vicente Carcél Ortí said that, most of historians says that the Red Terror started with the war. In 1934, government forces killed 200 miners after the end of the fighting, committed hundreds of rapes and looting. If the Red Terror began in 1934, also the White terror. Most historians says that the mass executions ended between 1942 and 1945 due to the defeat of the Axis. 1945, Mamalujo, not many years later, although Franco continued jailing and killing opponents until his death in 1975. And please, don't say that I have to read the sources. I had already read the sources: Graham, Preston, Thomas, Beevor, Jackson, Gibson, Espinosa, Casanova, etc. Sorry, for my poor English. User:Ajfernandez2001
Just sayin'. 70.29.99.120 ( talk) 00:52, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
This article clearly has POV problem and it along with the White Terror (Spain) should be merged into one page as suggested by a previous user. Attempting to seperate them gives a distorted view of the event and make both pages susceptible to POV bias. Zubin12 ( talk) 10:24, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
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The Background section reads like a series of arguments, cited though they may be, for why the Republic was quite literally doomed from the start due to its "hostile", "anticlerical" constitutional elements. Are there really no opposing views on this theory of the dynamics of the Republican movement? Is it unanimous among historians that the conflict between the Catholic Church and the Republican government was intractable by nature? I can't claim to be very knowledgeable on this era, so I'm not in a position to edit and provide balancing perspectives, but I'm suspicious of content that reads as persuasion rather than information, and seems closer to literary foreshadowing rather than sober historical and political analysis. This is, after all, part of a conflict that still informs modern politics, a topic that can be considered controversial, personal, and even incendiary in Spain.
This comment is in no way meant to deny the bloodiness of the ensuing persecution and violence, only that the apparent POV narrative expressed in this section may rely on oversimplification and a teleological fallacy. In short, the thesis that these atrocities were baked into the Second Republic-era tension between the right-aligned church and the leftist government doesn't seem appropriate here. From other sources and articles I've read on the period (including this article's lead section), the internal political struggle among the leftist factions and international actors such as the NKVD seems to be more nuanced and have evolved significantly over the course of the war. SamClayton ( talk) 07:30, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
But what does the Spanish language wikipedia [1 ] say about the Red Terror, 'Terror Rojo'? Largely in line with the English version. It also is more detailed, check it out (Right Click (Chrome) to translate.)
In [2] I read an interview with Pio Moa (see his wiki), one time radical of the Communist Party, imprisoned in 1983 and freed after a year. After a period of soul searching he began studying among others archives of the Socialist Party resulting in his book 'The Myths of the Spanish Civil War', [3].
I haven't read the book (yet) but I read the interview [2]; his study confirms the brutality of the Red Terror.
[1] https://www.wikiwand.com/es/Terror_Rojo_(España)
[2] Isabelle Schmitz et Philippe Maxence, ‘Guerre d'Espagne, la mécanique du chaos’, interview with Spanish author Pio Moa, in Le Figaro Histoire augustus/september 2022 – issue 63, pp. 16-23.
[3] Pio Moa, ‘Les Mythes de la guerre d’Espagne’, 2022 ('Los Mitos de la Guerra civil (Historia Del Siglo Xx)', edition 36, 2003)
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May I ask why the "Red Terror" of Spain, in which some 38,000 perished, has a devoted article on Wikipedia, while the "White Terror" executed by the nationalists which claimed some 200,000 victims in the same period is not mentioned here or even worthy of a sentence in the pitifully brief and summary article on White Terrors throughout history? As horrific as the anti-clerical murders were, this seems a deliberate attempt to paint an equivalence between the violence of the anarchists - which was denounced by Republican leaders, in another detail apparently unworthy of mention in this article - and the state-sponsored, catholic-supported brutality of the fascist regime. 140.247.153.14 21:01, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
A "neutral" page on "Atrocities during AND AFTER the Spanish civil war" should replace this monument to militant anti-Leftism and reestablish proportions. Also it should be explained why the Spanish Left had such ferocious hate for the Church: I do not think they were suddenly possessed by satan. The Church had done nothing to endear herself among the struggling populace, actually, constantly condemning every idea of social change and democracy and supporting the landed gentry and the rich. Basil II 20:29, 15 June 2007 (CET)
You could create a page on the "White Terror" or on any subject you believe is worthy of a Wikipedia article.-- Gloriamarie 19:22, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
White Terror has a page of it's own. I'm wondering why half the introduction of this article is devoted to talking about White Terror. WP: TQ? 99.231.200.55 ( talk) 09:47, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Please provide the information about the origins and the usage of the term "Rer Terror" in reference to the described events, or the article will be renamed. `' mikka 20:16, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
Nobody in Spain call these things "Red Terror" (or terror rojo as is read here. Well, it was quite lol). The same thing is for the "White Terror". Both are Anglo-saxons terms used in anti-communist and pro-communist slang. Seriously, one guy from San Diego that has "read something" about these topic can not write a whole article about it. -- Hoygan!! ( talk) 01:24, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
This page differs significantly from the depiction of events on the Spanish Civil War page. It appears biased in it's reporting of the events. Especially considering what was posted in the previous note. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tsunami7 ( talk • contribs)
This article is embarrassingly biased. The information is inaccurate (e.g. the opening sentence seems to suggest the Republican government was a communist regime organising selective murders around the nation!). It is written in un-encyclopaedic language (with vague references such as 'things like that occurred almost everywhere in the country'). Quotes have been selected so as to provide a warped perspective of the events. I don't intend to defend those who commited atrocities in the past (in whichever side they were), but this article reads as a justification of Franco's regime and a monument to those who launched the coup d'etat. 129.67.88.118 15:02, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
A lot of the incidents recited as fact are heavily disputed. The rosary incident, for example, is cited by George Orwell (who fought in the war) as an example of alleged atrocities entirely fabricated by the counter-revolutionary press. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.23.135.169 ( talk) 21:39, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
In the spirit of verification, I thought I'd go through the citations. I found quite a bit of (mostly inadvertent) plagiarism and a few mistakes on those I could check online, so put a "citation needed" tag on the Beevor references and suggest that these and the Mitchell citations be double-checked. NB even if a few words are changed from the original, it is still plagiarism to claim such lightly-changed sentences as your own. -- jbmurray ( talk| contribs) 07:54, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
The Spanish Civil war is always shown as a war between communists/socialists/anarchists and catholics/conservatives. To some extent, it was that. However, in the Basque Country, for instance, the nationalists (nearly all of them catholics and conservatives) were in the side of the Republic, side by side with the socialists and communists, and there was no catholic prosecution. It was also the same in some other parts of Spain.
I think the article should reflect that not all the republicans were burning curches, as it might be understood when reading it now.
I think the name change to "Atrocities committed during the Spanish Civil War", conflating the Red and White Terrors is not an improvement, and I am reverting it. For one thing the two are separate subjects and are best dealt with in separate articles linking to each other and with sufficient references to the other incidents for context. Conflating the two sets of atrocities tends to create a number of false dichotomies, for example, that one set of killings was bad and that the other was therefore good, or that one side killed more and they are therefore more morally culpable. The latter confusion is particularly misleading because a vast number of those killed in the Red Terror were not combatants or even active opponents to the Republicans (this fact is recognized by scholars and cited in the article). Also the title is innacurate, because some of the Red Terror (a substantial number of the killings) occurred before the war in 1934. As to the name change serving to eliminate the "bias" in the article, User:Jbmurray already did an admirable job of editing, reorganizing and adding context to the article to eliminate claimed bias. Rather than the facile "fix" of renaming, someone needs to get down to the hard work of creating the White Terror article. Mamalujo 18:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Red Terror - Spain →
Atrocities in the Spanish Civil War — Or some other alternative such as "Red and White Terror- Spain". Following this , description of Nationalist atrocities in the war should be substantially expandedc. The White Terror in the Spanish Civil War was far worse than the Red Terror, yet this, the only article, on the atrocities on the war, only details the far less significant Republican atrocities, iwht only a brief mention of the White Terror. This is outrageously POV, out of proportion, and extremely misleading and historically inaccurate —
Nwe
14:31, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
*'''Support'''
or *'''Oppose'''
, then sign your comment with ~~~~
. Since
polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account
Wikipedia's naming conventions.It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved. -- Stemonitis 08:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
OK, in retrospect two separate articles might be a better idea, but in that case an equally detailed article on the White Terror is badly needed. I'll try set one up when I have time, but that could be a while, if anyone else here feels they can start things up please do so. Nwe 21:07, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
If you wish the tag removed, reduce the overdependence of the article on a single source. Hornplease 15:10, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
The term is the moniker which is and has been used to describe this subject. It is not a novelty or neologism in its use with regard to Spain. It is used by Beevor, Thomas, and Payne just to name a few. It is used by prominent publishers (Ruiz, Julius, Franco's Justice: Repression In Madrid After The Spanish Civil War(Oxford University Press 2005) ISBN 0199281831 pp. 10, 23, 33,40, 233, 234). It was used by noted news periodicals and dailies at the time ( Crumbling RepublicTime Magazine, Monday, Oct. 05, 1936), as it is today (Tonkin, Boyd A Week in Books The (London)Independent July 26, 2006). It is also used by scholarly journals (Chodakiewicz, Marek Jan Review of Las relaciones de Franco con Europa Centro-Oriental, 1939-1955 by By Matilde Eiroa The Sarmatian Review (January 2003 Issue, Rice University)). The argument that it is not the right name for the events is weak. Not to mention the fact the the White Terror - Spain article(also an accepted term) has now been created. Mamalujo 23:06, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
If the context its used in is, as you claim, a tag to refer to the assasination of clergy at the start of and during the civil war, case rested, as far as I'm concerned *nodnods* :) . As to the White Terror article, it's only there because there's a Red Terror article. I find that term equally tendentious, and if it was up to me I'd be merging Red Terror and White Terror as well as Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War (in it's current format and projection; if it was a bio article on these martyrs I'd let it stay on its own) into an article about "Atrocities of the Spanish Civil War", or something like that. But thst's just me *shrug* Dr Benway 06:47, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Yup, saw it further up in the page before, thanks for the reminder :) . I was just commenting. However, in most of the history books I've checked (Payne, and others) they are both dealt with in the same section, as related phenomena. In Beevor, where it is given its own chapter, it is treated in the context of an analysis of events and offers numerous counterbalances and comments, which this article does not and shows no intention of doing. And I heavily disagree with your argument against the "Atrocities of the Spanish Civil War" heading line and merge, mainly because all of these atrocities occured within its temporal and historical context, if not its specific dates. I think this approach would be the only one that would guarantee a moderate level of neutrality. Dr Benway 09:22, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, these subjects are handled together in a more abreviated fashion in the Spanish Civil War article. As to Beevor, I don't think he is any example to follow with regard to neutrality. His 1982 book I found to be decidedly anti-Catholic (of the sort that used to be more common among British authors in the 19th and mid 20th century). The context that he gives is often nothing more than an apology for murder. I think that Beevor is one of the examples of the "attempts at justification" that Julio de la Cueva criticises. Including that sort of crap in the article is like incorporating the work of holocaust deniers into the holcaust article in the name of balance. Mamalujo 11:26, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, I actually liked Beevor and found him quite objective :) He gives a good explanation for what happened, and his account on the Terror is not skewed one way or the other as far as I can see. As for the analogy, I don't think denying the Holocaust in the Holocaust article has anything to do with inserting contextual information of what happened in the onset of the Spanish civil war with the murders of catholic clergy, firstly because nobody denies it happened and that it was murder, and secondly because one situation had absolutely no historical similarities with the other one whatsoever. Cheers! :) Dr Benway 07:09, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
I would beg to differ. To say that the situations had absolutely no historical similarities shows no understanding of modern bigoted eliminationist mass murder. No the Red Terror was not the Holocaust. But neither were the killing field of Pol Pot, Rwanda or the pogroms in Russia. Mamalujo 06:17, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
No, Pol Pot, Rwanda and the russian pogroms had nothing to do with each other. That's like saying that AIDS and EBOLA are the same virus because they kill people. I'm afraid I don't quite follow your argument. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree ;) Dr Benway 06:39, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
"The Franco government now gives the names of 61,000 victims of the Red terror, but this is not subject to objective verification."
I'm not sure what Beevor means by this, firstly because the "Franco government now" does not exist as of today, and secondly because if his figure is "not subject to objective verification" I really fail to see what it's doing in an encyclopaedic article, despite it being a reputed source. I'll check the new edition. Cheers ;) Dr Benway 07:39, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I was looking through "In El Pardo, near Madrid, a group of militiamen became drunk on communion wine while trying the parish priest. One militiaman used the chalice as a washing bowl as he shaved himself. [31]"
Firstly, I'm trying to figure out what is meant by "became drunk on communion wine while trying the parish priest". All help would be appreciated.
Secondly, in the context of mass executions, raping of nuns and other savagery, mentioning a "militiaman [that] used the chalice as a washing bowl as he shaved himself" is hardly reasonable if we're talking about atrocities, no? Cheers Dr Benway 08:04, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Oh, cool, now we've added "desecrations" to the Red Terror. Why not also include the fact that militiamen were using foul language in consecrated ground? Oh, and that they didn't cross themselves before walking into the church and shooting the priests. I mean, come on, seriously... *rolls eyes* Dr Benway ( talk) 10:52, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm extremely sorry if I have offended your religious beliefs, and please accept my apologies since it was not my intention. What I meant is that desecration is already implied by the fact that they're castrating and crucifying priests, raping nuns, executing clergy and burning churches to the ground. It simply makes the part on a militiaman using the chalice as a washingbowl sound absurd. Atrocities, I think, would refer to acts which would horrify any human being, regardless of ritual and belief. Mentioning desecrations such as the chalice being used as a shaving bowl is quite simply not equatable to assasination. Again, just an observation. Dr Benway ( talk) 10:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I see this issue has already been raised by the above poster, and Mamalujo failed to respond. I suspect that Mamalujo's trying to use the talk page simply to resist fairly indesputable edits. Since without my edits this article violates NPOV, however, they should remain regardless of ancillary discussion. As already stated in the edit summary, improper use of proper isn't usually part of "terrors", that's an objective view, and undoubtedly while representatives of the Catholic Church were persecuted, it was for reasons not directly related to Catholicism and the Terror was not in itself anti-Catholic. Nwe ( talk) 00:05, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
So what was it "anti-" exactly, if not anti-religious???
This is leftist BS and newspeak to put it mildly. (By Unsigned)
198.84.162.153 ( talk) 05:20, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Regarding current disputes;
Nwe ( talk) 14:17, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
Apologies for length;
A terror or such-like is generally understood to describe atrocities, almost always committed on human lives or at the very least their freedom or ability to sustain themselves. Attacks on symbolic buildings or objects cannot, therefore, in any way be described as part of a “terror” . To make such a suggestion would be ludicrous, not least since one of the first, and normally least contested, acts of a new regime, particularly one overthrown in a popular, is to destroy the images or objects associated with the previous regime. Hence the demolition of communist statues etc. after the fall of Communism or the attack on the Stalin monument in the 1956 Budapest uprising, or the destruction of images of Saddam in 2003, hence the ever-symbolic lowering of flags by conquering armies. And the list goes on. Now monuments and flags are surely as well-regarded as churches by people attached to that previous regime, but I’d hardly call the actions of those anti-communist a “White Terror”. After the Russian Revolution, statues and images of the Tsar were destroyed, we talk about the Russian Red Terror but that’s never mentioned. The suppression and probable of Catalan, Basque or leftist symbols and ideas by Franco isn’t mentioned as unlikely ever to be in this articles impoverished sister on the White Terror. Bolshevik attacks on the Orthodox church aren’t mentioned anywhere in the article on that terror. Nor is the “desecration” of churches cited in the article of “the Terror” of the French Revolution.
Regarding desecration, no it isn’t; the word is plainly POV, it implies that some objects are somehow above others in values merely because of their association with a controversial institution; that is plainly biased in its assumptions. I don’t know about other religions, but humanists would definitely find the word very objectionable.
Regarding your comparison of the red and white terrors, may I speak frankly when I see this is when your views enter into the territory absolute and patent nonsense. The Nationalists, unlike Republicans, engaged in extensive massacres of civilian populations; in Badajoz, Malaga, etc. Among others they murdered teachers, intellectuals, civil servants, members of trades unions, “Freemasons”, waverers, people suspected of voting the wrong way and plain randomers. Among the worst perpetrators were Moroccan troops who embarked s of rape and murder. Now I don’t see how that consisted of “acting against its opposition” more than the Red Terror which generally attacked nationalist politicians, clergy and the wealthy; in other words the people who were almost certainly supporting the Nationalists. I don’t see how it involved the murder of more “innocent people “ and less “dangerous elements” unless being a teacher or an organised worker made you more likely to engage in opposition than being a priest in an unashamedly pro-monarchy church did, and less “innocent”. And the clergy weren’t attacked because the “Reds” in an attempt to eradicated religion, religion among the general populace was pretty much on the wane anyway, it was because the Church had been an invaluable supporter of the old monarchy and the unequal aristocratic system that lay behind and was to become a very useful supporter of Franco. Additionally, the Nationalists almost certainly had killed more people by than the Republicans by 1939, and according the Antony Beevor at least the White Terror reached its peak in September 1936.
Rest of the Payne paragraph; there are a number of problems here. Firstly lets deal with what’s “indisputable”, for example the claim that the attacks were not the outpouring of the oppressed ‘’very’’ disputable, in fact many would suggest that its quite wrong, considering that many of the first targets of the terror were individuals who’d exploited or abused their positions of power when times were better (e.g. Landowners, industrialists, clergy, blacklegs etc.), although often the more benign ones were spared. The idea that it was carried by “all leftist groups” is not indisputable; there isn’t much evidence of participation by most elements of the government, by moderate Republicans and by numerous other socialist, anarchist, nationalist and other factions, in fact there isn’t really clear evidence on who it was that carried it out. Such a statement is almost axiomatically doubtful. Incidentally the idea that they were “semi-organised” kind of contradicts the claim that the attacks were irrational. The final sentence, on the persecution of Catholics, is simply totally out-of-place, not a key fact to included in the description and discussion of the terror and clearly part of an agenda of using the article to push the some form of pro-Catholic message and anti-Republican message.
Regarding the intro. Firstly one of my problems, which you don’t address, was the linguistic detail, mention that the terror attacks included on clergy, fine, but that should be enough, no need to engage in greater detail than that. Regarding numbers, well inclusion of the total c30,000 number would be acceptable, but for a start simply focusing on one group is rather strange, and incidentally the figures, format and composition mentioned in the Holocaust article are apparently a source to fairly major dispute according to a brief look at the article’s talk page and talk page archives. The numbers in this article are also disputed as well. For a start you simply can’t round a number in its thousands, from a period as uncertain as the Spanish Civil War, to single figures. The article you give also only really engages in fairly significant praise for that research, he doesn’t call it categorical. This article is not so certain, it says Montero’s research “leave much to be desired at times”. I also, though with no particular basis, think some suspicions should arise from the fact it was carried out under Franco.
Atrocities; well actually only four different sources are cited at all in the paragraph, and really its only one. While ancillary details from Payne, Beevor and Mitchell are cited; with the exception of the first, all individual stories given are from pages 172-74 of Hugh Thomas. That’s an extremely narrowly focussed set of unverified reports, no matter how well-regarded (though also, it has to be said, quite old) the book from which they originate.
Religious persecution; I forgot this in my original list. The red terror should definitely not be included under the category of religious persecution; since the large majority of the of people weren’t attacked for the connection of the church, and for those that were it was more an attack on the church as an institution and its political connections, as opposed to anything to do with the beliefs of Catholicism in itself.
I find your “final plea” extremely disingenuous. For a start the “stability” of an article is no argument when it isn’t neutral, and “material” doesn’t automatically become good when its “sourced” when it pushes a particular viewpoint. But much more importantly, taking for example the images we’re discussing, the page’s history says that they were only re-added by you 1 month ago, following a 7-month absence during time which you had significant activity. Most of the problems regarding Payne were restored by you only 2 weeks ago, after a similarly long absence. For none of this did you make any contribution to talk. Finally, if it had not been for the intervention of other editors, the article as you originally created it around a year ago would be an appalling piece of propaganda. So cut the nonsense. Nwe ( talk) 01:19, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Update; If you resort to the kind of personal insults and plain spiteful reverts as you just did in your last edit then you're guarenteed to lose the argument, never having begun to enage in it in the first place. Please see WP: TALK. Nwe ( talk) 22:20, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
It is difficult to discuss views, which implicitly negate the Holocaust or other Crimes against humanity. It is almost impossible to negate the persecution during the Red Terror. In 2007, the Catholic Church beatified the largest number of persons in its history, all of them martyrs of the persecution in Spain. The secular media reported this as persecution. Somehow, I am inclined to believe, that the rare unanimity of World Media and Catholic Church is the closest thing you ever get to infallibility.
I am somewhat new on this page and very surprised about some arguments above. This is an article about Red Terror in Spain, not about white terror or other topics. It is not an evaluation of the Spanish Civil War. The only issue is, what really happened. Since it is an emotional topic for many, sources have to be provided generously, and wording should be as neutral as possible, but, without loss of information.
The Catholic Church is the main focus of discussion here. It is therefore perfectly normal to use legal Catholic terminology, (Canon Law), to describe situations and events, including, Eucharist, Desecration, the Faithful (take a look at these two pages), etc. These are not value-judgements but technical terms, necessary to understand the story. It is irrelevant, if all here agree, whether the persecution actually took place or not, just as it is irrelevant to agree, whether Christ is fully present in the Eucharist or not. The only relevance which we have to judge extends to the facts and statements and their full back-up, whether we personally agree or not. The pictures, like many Wikipedia pictures illustrate and support the article. -- Ambrosius007 ( talk) 16:19, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
A fascinating paragraph which has... erm... absolutely no relevance to the article? The only interesting piece of data, the sentence dealing with these anti-clerical guerrilla terrorist commandos is, quite unsurprisingly, unsourced.
This new Soviet-Mexican-Republican Spanish axis of anticatholic terror - again unreferenced- is another new occurrence which has genuinely surprised me.
As even the author will probably understand, I'm tagging this, for what it's worth, as POV.
Cheers. 80.32.151.233 ( talk) Dr Benway 08:08, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Dr Benway (
talk)
13:18, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Hi there, Ambrosius
Like most fellow Wikipedia Editors, usually when I tag something it's not out of whim or sudden caprice, but because I consider as an editor that something needs to be done.
I am aware that there is a difference between tagging an article and tagging a section. While I appreciate your will to help, if you take a careful look at the actual tag text, you will se it quite purposefuly states that the factual accuracy and neutrality of this article, as opposed to section, are in dispute, which is the reason I tagged it at the top of the article and not on top of the section.
So I'd like to ask you please, in future occasions, refrain from moving tags around without prior notice to the editor. As far as my experience in Wikipedia goes, it's regarded as common practice and shows courtesy to first try and settle any points in the discussion pages, and then moving in for changes. So if you find that there's any disagreement on this, I would kindly ask you first mention it here and then do the moving round bits after we've talked about it.
Cheers, Dr Benway ( talk) 13:51, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
p.s. I'm removing the factual accuracy tag. I haven't seen anything on the talk page about that and I don't think there's any basis for it. Mamalujo ( talk) 00:17, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
Hi there Mamalujo, again apologies, I thought it had been you doing the referencing there. I really need to get some practice in using the page History tool.... *blush* About the factual/POV dispute, I think there have been a number of changes to the balanced article you mention back in june, but I'm not sure. In any case, the reasons for the tags are as follows:
- POV and Disputed Facts: Intro section: "a program of systematic persecution of the Church was planned to the last detail". Most disputable, but aside from that, quoted from Antonio Montero's "Historia de la persecución religiosa en España 1936-1939" from the Catholic Press, 1961. I'd really have trouble using a pro-catholic source like this, especially written byu the Archbishop of Mérida, especially published in times of Franco, as a factually accurate referent to defend a disputed issue such as defining the aggressions against the Church as a "systematic prosecution ... planned to the last detail."
- Disputed Fact: Background Section: "the Popular Front, whose leadership was clearly moving towards the left (abandoning constitutional Republicanism for leftist revolution.[5])"... I would have thought Azaña was more the former than the latter. As well as most of the Republican cabinet. The nationalist (as in regionalist nationalists) elements of the Republican government were not great revolutionaries, either. The Communist takeover of the Republican government would occur much later, well into the war. There was a struggle between these "factions", sure. But this clear trend is extremely disputable.
- Disputed Fact: Death Toll section: "Figures for the Red Terror range from 38,000 to 110,000, with most estimates closer to the former.[13]" I think that if you give an approximate range where the maximum exceeds the minimum in almost 300%, and say that most estimates are closer to the former, well... bit of a weasel, no?
- POV and Disputed Facts: Ditto: "The Franco government now gives the names of 61,000 victims of the Red Terror, but this is not subject to objective verification." If there is a figure given that is not subject to objective verification, I really fail to see what it is doing in an encyclopaedic article. So I'd dispute it. Heavily.
- Disputed Fact: Ditto: César Vidal's figures are amply disputed. In fact, all of his works on the Spanish Civil War are heavily contested by most modern Spanish historiographers. I'd like to see a more concrete reference as to where he got the numbers from.
- POV: Attitudes: National Side: "The tone of the letter was balanced, describing the realities of 1937. [34]" I suppose the editor who put this meant the letter that calls Franco's rebellion a "civic-military movement"... and a great number of other things. SOrry, but this fact is again, contested.
- POV: Ditto: "The attitudes towards the Church had changed from hostility to admiration. [35]" Well... again... need I go into detail?
- POV and Disputed Facts: Conclusion and Aftermath: "although individual terror attacks seem to have continued sporadically, carried out by remnant Communists [46] and Socialists, hiding in French border regions, but without great results. " Factually disputed. A reference would be needed.
- POV: The part on the Communist Triangle of Terror would need a bit of balancing, in my opinion.
Anyway, these are the reasons why I tagged the whole article, again, as POV and factually inaccurrate as opposed to tagging the sections.
If the editors find these observations warranted, perhaps we should re-tag this? Because, in my opinion, I really think this article needs major work to have a minimum encyclopaedic standard. Cheers! Dr Benway ( talk) 08:41, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Tagged this again, since the issues presented have not been addressed. I'd like to kindly request any editors who wish to remove them to please engage in a bit of dialogue before just erasing.
Reasons:
- POV and Disputed Facts: Intro section: "a program of systematic persecution of the Church was planned to the last detail". Most disputable, but aside from that, quoted from Antonio Montero's "Historia de la persecución religiosa en España 1936-1939" from the Catholic Press, 1961. I'd really have trouble using a pro-catholic source like this, especially written byu the Archbishop of Mérida, especially published in times of Franco, as a factually accurate referent to defend a disputed issue such as defining the aggressions against the Church as a "systematic prosecution ... planned to the last detail." ---> Still the same
- Disputed Fact: Background Section: "the Popular Front, whose leadership was clearly moving towards the left (abandoning constitutional Republicanism for leftist revolution.[5])"... I would have thought Azaña was more the former than the latter. As well as most of the Republican cabinet. The nationalist (as in regionalist nationalists) elements of the Republican government were not great revolutionaries, either. The Communist takeover of the Republican government would occur much later, well into the war. There was a struggle between these "factions", sure. But this clear trend is extremely disputable .---> I don't see where the footnoted reference supports the statement. On the contrary, I think Payne is even saying that the Republican leadership lost centralised control to a number of leftist factions.
- Disputed Fact: Death Toll section: "Figures for the Red Terror range from 38,000 to 110,000, with most estimates closer to the former.[13]" I think that if you give an approximate range where the maximum exceeds the minimum in almost 300%, and say that most estimates are closer to the former, well... bit of a weasel, no? ---> Numerically, statistically and informatively speaking, this reference is plain silly.
- POV and Disputed Facts: Ditto: "The Franco government now gives the names of 61,000 victims of the Red Terror, but this is not subject to objective verification." If there is a figure given that is not subject to objective verification, I really fail to see what it is doing in an encyclopaedic article. So I'd dispute it. Heavily.---> Ditto. Using Franco government figures is not really very neutral, is it?
- Disputed Fact: Ditto: César Vidal's figures are amply disputed. In fact, all of his works on the Spanish Civil War are heavily contested by most modern Spanish historiographers. I'd like to see a more concrete reference as to where he got the numbers from.---> And again
- POV: Attitudes: National Side: "The tone of the letter was balanced, describing the realities of 1937. [34]" I suppose the editor who put this meant the letter that calls Franco's rebellion a "civic-military movement"... and a great number of other things. SOrry, but this fact is again, contested.---> Ditto
- POV: Ditto: "The attitudes towards the Church had changed from hostility to admiration. [35]" Well... again... need I go into detail? ---> Ditto
- POV and Disputed Facts: Conclusion and Aftermath: "although individual terror attacks seem to have continued sporadically, carried out by remnant Communists [46] and Socialists, hiding in French border regions, but without great results. " Factually disputed. A reference would be needed.---> Ditto
- POV: The part on the Communist Triangle of Terror would need a bit of balancing, in my opinion.---> Ditto
Cheers!
Dr Benway (
talk)
14:50, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
The attitudes of these folks towards religion in general and the Catholic Church in particular would be helpful in the context, as to why so many members of clergy and laity were killed. Was it hate? conviction? Or, a part of the Marxist-Leninist ideology? Or was it only an oversight, as claimed in the article? Hard to believe! I can see Benways frustration with the absence of this information, which makes these events look almost like a natural event (anti-Catholic bias). But for this, the article does not need to be tagged. Abelincoln —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.65.167.166 ( talk) 12:02, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
Cool, I think that's much needed. I'll be glad to lend a hand :)
Dr Benway (
talk)
10:49, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
Added some info on this on the BACKGROUND section. Still a lot of w0rk to be done on this though. The issue wasn't as simple as "oooh, the priests stand with the fascists, let's shoot them all" either. Cheers! ;) Dr Benway ( talk) 08:21, 1 September 2008 (UTC).
I think the only views needed from Marxists and Anarchists are their declarations of Terror against religious people. The Left reliably indicts itself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.194.63.129 ( talk) 10:41, 6 April 2009 (UTC) If anybody wants to examine what the Communist view of the war is, it might be worth examining Arthur Landis' book 'Spain: the unfinished revolution', International Publishers, 1972. Stevenjp ( talk) 16:40, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
The image Image:House of the people.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check
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Under Conclusion and aftermath we find the following "Franco's victory was followed by thousands of summary executions (from 15,000 to 25,000 people [55])"
The note 55. tells us the following "# ^ Recent searches conducted with parallel excavations of mass graves in Spain (in particular by the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory, ARMH) estimate that the total of people executed after the war may arrive at a number between 15,000 to 35,000. See for example Fosas Comunes - Los desaparecidos de Franco. La Guerra Civil no ha terminado, El Mundo, 7 July 2002 (Spanish)"
Those two statements are incorrect. The example provided talks just of people still in mass graves and gives the number as 35,000. Jorge P ( talk) 13:49, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
It's indefensible that atrocities in the spanish civil war redirected to this page alone. Is the murder of trade unionists and journalists any better than the murder of priests and nuns? BillMasen ( talk) 17:17, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
I've commented out the photo which appeared in the lede section which purported to show Reblican militiamen shooting at a statue of Christ because its source, subject and purpose are unknown. Fopr more information, please see this discussion on the talk page of the editor who uploaded the image. Ed Fitzgerald t / c 23:09, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
I read in some sites, about the support from American press, to this massive persecution of catholics.Some sites writes that only after protests from catholics, this support became over. Agre22 ( talk) 12:09, 26 May 2009 (UTC)agre22
I have seen that this point has already been raised above, but I still do not understand why there is an article titled 'red terror (Spain)' in/on wikipedia. As far as I can see the arguments raised by like-minded fellows above have not been logically or intelligently refuted. For example, I saw several pointless and anachronistic 'Ad Hitlerum' associations of the red terror with the holocaust. The obvious point I would like to raise, and I haven't checked to see if it has been raised before, is that by titling an article with a contentious and POV term (one which is more likely to be used by amateurs on the right than by right/left academics... or even for that matter the vast majority of people as the google hits show) you are already giving an undue amount of weight to a point of view. This is even more the case for an article relating to the republicans in the civil war. By ascribing the political adjective 'red' to the republican side and its atrocities the article has already surrendered itself to a commonplace Francoist propaganda stance and fallacy... namely that the republic was guided chiefly by communists (and through the connotation of the Russian 'red terror'... the Soviet Union). There are in fact several pieces of evidence that show the republic worked hard in the later stages of the civil war to reverse the effects of persecution (this was under the socialist government of Juan Negrin, remember), which unlike the Russian red terror was largely unsystematic and directed mainly at the clergy. Whilst the term might carry some legitimacy (although I myself regard it as little more than an epithet), the fact remains that this legitimacy is highly contentiosu and by titling an article with the term wikipedia is taking sides. In addition, whilst I wholeheartedly agree that it is not wikipedia's palce to justify atrocities... they still must give background information and explain the cause for them otherwise this leads to systematic bias. Without explanations a reader might be led to assume that communist 'bad guys' randomly came out of the woods and killed 7 thousand priests for no reason... which we all know was not the case.
My suggestion is to either rename the article 'republican artocities during the Spanish civil war' (although even this feels a little wrong, considering that there was often little centralised control exerted by the republic) and keep the 'red terro' as a sub-heading, or simply to put all the atrocities commited in the war together in oen article. My feeling from reading above comments is that a few possible apologists do not wish this to happen because the republican side would look comparatively better... tough... in the interests of historical coherence and continuity, and in offering an exact explanatory narrative, this is probably the best solution. 86.139.131.125 ( talk) 13:13, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
+... who the hell is Julius Ruiz? Can he be used as a legitimate source? 86.139.131.125 ( talk) 13:17, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
The "Background" section as it stands right now is heavily biased, being essentially a justification of the repression. It doesn´t discuss previous incidents of anti-Catholic activities (for instance the events during the "Tragic Week in 1917, the assassination of Cardinal Soldevilla in 1923 or the burning of churches and monasteries during the Second Republic). It does not mention the explicitely antireligious stance of many of the Republic´s supporters (communists and anarchists, for instance). Essentially it claims that the "red terror" was a consequence of the support that the Catolic Church gave to Franco's uprising, while it could be argued that it was the other way around: that the Curch supported Franco because it felt that the Republic was trying to destroy it. 213.4.112.58 ( talk) 13:51, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
There seems to be an unintentional bias in the second paragraph of the Nationalist Side section, due to lack of clarity as to what is quotation from the Episcopal letter and what is being stated as encyclopedic fact. I imagine it is quotation, in which case simple quotation marks would resolve the issue, or a paraphrase, in which case this should be more clearly denoted. I have removed the last sentence of the paragraph as this was clearly not a a reference to content but, as it stood, a POV judgement upon the letter; happy to see it go back if the view is attributed (as opposed to just referencing it, whether the author's own view or otherwise). Mutt Lunker ( talk) 11:40, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
The whole background is heavily biased. Just take a look at the affirmations around the "Dilectissima Nobis" encyclical (which, by the way, is cited as "On Oppression Of The Church Of Spain" when the spanish version reads as "Sobre la injusta situación creada a la Iglesia Católica en España", a totally different subtitle with a milder meaning) text according to the Vatican. Not a single time are Masons or any other group mentioned on it, in spite of the affirmations on the article. -- Richy ( talk) 12:15, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
searching The Terror in the French Revolution on amazon ,you get many results. searching red terror (spain), you get 4 results . 3 are by Books Llc which i think is wikipedia, this is just stanley payne and mamlujo his prophet, pet poodle article. it does not justify a separate article - i think mainstream opinion is that leftist violence was typically spontaneous violence against a Church seen as on the side of the rich , the russians were anti-revolutionary,, the fascists won because they had the germans, the italians,modern arms and the others didn't. 92.3.18.183 ( talk) 18:27, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
I believe that much of the material recently added in the section now "Squeezing Out the Centre: Catholic Party Politics" is WP:SYN. I've read quite a bit on this subject and I haven't seen all of this connected to the Red Terror. Also, because this material is of tenuous connection to the subject, I believe it is given undue weight. Moreover, the title is odd and perhaps POV. Also, I think there has been some sourced material deleted recently with no more real justification than the whim of the editor. Mamalujo ( talk) 23:02, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
I have cobbled together an article on this topic titled
Catholic Church and the Spanish Civil War
Catholicism in the Second Spanish Republic using text copied from other Wikipedia articles.
It would be reasonable to ask how this is not a fork from this article or from Spanish Civil War. My answer would be that the new article focuses specifically on the role of the Catholic Church in the Spanish Civil War whereas the Spanish Civil War article covers the entire Spanish Civil War from a political and military perspective and not just on the role of the Catholic Church. Thus, the new article has more ability to delve into the details of the Catholic Church's role in the war whereas it would be a bit of a distraction in this article.
Similarly, this article focuses on the actual anticlerical violence whereas the new article covers the background of the Church's involvement in Spanish politics in the period leading up to the 1936 elections.
Please take a look at the new article and help improve it. Thanks.
-- Richard S ( talk) 21:13, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Does this article appear neutral, or twisted with a POV? it is heavily dependent on Stanley payne a pro-franco scholar , and right wing catholic sources, who is franzen, is a german article a legitimate cite in any case for the english wiki. Look at the lead with its special pleading. I know Beevor wrote a chapter called Red Terror - but is there even generally accepted academic agreement on this title - was there a period known as The Red Terror, like The Great Fear in France at the time of the Revolution or The Terror of Robespierre ,or is it mainly a term used by pro-Franco historians? Sayerslle ( talk) 01:32, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
The american journalist journalist John Whitaker talking about Talavera de la Reina in 1936: “I never passed a night in Talavera without being awakened at dawn by the volleys of the firing squads. There seemed no end to the killing...They were simple peasants and workers. It was suficient to have carried a trade-union card, to have been a free-mason, to have voted for the Republic." Preston., Paul. The Spanish Civil War. Reaction, revolution &revenge. Harper Perennial. London. 2006. p.123
Juana Capdevielle San Martin raped and killed by a falangist death squad in 1936 because she was the the wife of the republican civil governor of La Coruña.Preston., Paul. The Spanish Civil War. Reaction, revolution &revenge. Harper Perennial. London. 2006. p.207. Amparo Barayon killed in august 1936 because she was the wife of a republican writer, Ramon J. Sender, and her sins against traditional gender norms. Pilar Espinosa killed during the war because she read socialist newspaper and was known to “have ideas” (tener ideas). “...thinking for oneself being considered doubly reprehensible in women.” Graham, Helen. The Spanish Civil War. A very short introducción. Oxford University Press. 2005.p. 29
The dead in Granada, between 26 july 1936 and 1 march 1939 included the poet Lorca, the editor of the Left-wing El Defensor de Granada, the professor of paediatrics in the Granada University, the rector of the university, the professor of political law, the professor of pharmacy, the professor of history, the enginer of the road to the top of the Sierra Morena, the best-known doctor in the city and more than 2,000 ordinary people.Thomas, Hugh. The Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. 2001. London. p.253
.“We killed Federico García Lorca. I gave him two shots in the arse as a homosexual.”. Beevor, Antony. The battle for Spain; the Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. 2006. p.92
“In Cordoba, nearly the entire republican elite, from deputies to booksellers, were executed in August, September and December,...”Thomas, Hugh. The Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. 2001. London. p.255
“This profession was one of the most heavily punished in the nationalist repression. Several hundred teachers were murdered in the first few weeks; 20 in Huelva, 21 in Burgos, 33 in Saragossa, 50 in Leon...” Beevor, Antony. The battle for Spain; the Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. 2006. p.460
University professors, teachers, booksellers, poets, gays, peasants, doctors, women who read newspapers and think ...You are right, Mamalujo...Only combatants and political leaders. Ajfernandez2001 —Preceding undated comment added 01:58, 30 November 2010 (UTC).
Furthermore time it's not important. The Brazilian dictatorship killed about 350 persons in 21 years (1964 to 1985), the argentine "Dirty War" between 9,000 and 30,000 in seven years (1976 to 1983), Pol Pot more than 1,000,000 in four years and in Ruanda more than 500,000 in less than a year. Ajfernandez2001
I like the picture in the article because it draws together two far right conspiracy theories - that the Jews killed Jesus and that Communism was Jewish-controlled (see Jewish Bolshevism). Franco of course frequently spoke of the "Jewish-Masonic conspiracy" and his patron, Adolph Hitler, was also known for anti-Semitism. But I do not see the relevance to this article, unless it is to tie the republicans to the alleged Jewish conspiracy. TFD ( talk) 01:48, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
the term that titles this article is already biased!
-- Ne0bi0 ( talk) 22:37, 26 October 2010 (UTC)Ne0bi0
The background section is too long, meandering, confusing and filled with matter which is outside the scope of the article or too detailed and not helpful to understanding the Red Terror. (It also probably contains a lot of wp:original research and wp:synthesis, because I suspect much of what is there is not taken from the source's discussion of the Red Terror, but of other matters.) A background section should give a succinct summary of the relevant history prior to the subject of the article. Here the section is nearly as long as the rest of the article itself. It could use some judicious editing in the form of deleting extraneous matter and summation of pertinent matter. If someone else doesn't get to it soon, I probably will. Mamalujo ( talk) 19:06, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
The article was assessed C-class for lack of sufficient in-line citations. Boneyard90 ( talk) 23:54, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
in the early outbreak section the bit on the NKVD and soviet role - is that part of what is called the Red Terror - like the May days in barcelona - I've never come across Orwells predicament in Catalonia being described as 'part of the Red Terror' for eg. Some of the problem i have with this is that its not easy far as I can see to find neutral historians who discuss 'The Red Terror' - what it refers to exactly - i still think its pretty much a Francoist, and Francoist historians phrase - otherwise historians speak of the early outbreak of terror in response to the rightist actions - sporadic episodes later - does Beevor discuss the NKVD role in his chapter - I dont have his book to hand. Sayerslle ( talk) 13:57, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
The term is the moniker which is and has been used to describe this subject, by writers of all sorts of political stripes. It is used by Beevor, Thomas, and Payne just to name a few. It is used by prominent publishers (Ruiz, Julius, Franco's Justice: Repression In Madrid After The Spanish Civil War(Oxford University Press 2005) ISBN 0199281831 pp. 10, 23, 33,40, 233, 234). It was used by noted news periodicals and dailies at the time ( Crumbling RepublicTime Magazine, Monday, Oct. 05, 1936), as it is today (Tonkin, Boyd A Week in Books The (London)Independent July 26, 2006). It is also used by scholarly journals (Chodakiewicz, Marek Jan Review of Las relaciones de Franco con Europa Centro-Oriental, 1939-1955 by By Matilde Eiroa The Sarmatian Review (January 2003 Issue, Rice University)). Mamalujo ( talk) 22:41, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: not moved. Favonian ( talk) 10:06, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Red Terror (Spain) → "Red terror" (Spain) – i think this should be re-named, moved to - "Red terror" (Spain) - (in apostrophes ) -reason is; reading 'Unearthing Franco's legacy" , and Julian casanova's essay it is referred to thus: - "It gave citizens a chance to vent their feelings about the "Red terror" and solidified the collective memory .." The word "Reds" to designate opponents of Franco in one indiscriminate word - here's an eg. "Punishments and misery were deemed part of an ideal education for the daughters of "Reds" in order to turn them into good Catholic girls.." "Reds" and "Red Terror" originated not with historians ,(in this scw context), but with franquistas, and fascists, so historians , when they use the term put them in "apostrophes" to indicate their partisan nature and origins . If a historian just said 'The Reds wanted '..such and such , it would look very odd imo and would be the work of a Francoist. Historians talk about anarchists and liberals and trade unionists, and communists etc..Francoists and their partisan historians talk about 'Reds' - the Ruiz link above, given , has these apostrophes round the term too. So did the term terror rojo originate with franquistas, or was it started by impartial historians? the apostrophisation used by Julian Casanova and others when using "Red terror" and "Reds" can't just be ignored - the lead just says 'red terror- is the term used by historians - ' -but historians don't all use it like that, unapostrophised and without making it clear that the designation 'Reds' was a catch-all term used by fascists - "as Michael Richards has observed, the negative epithet "Red" would come, after the war, to refer not only to political affiliation with the left as it had before, but also to a general filthiness, the fact of being a pariah it is a partisan term , it needs apostrophising imo for the sake of integrity. Sayerslle ( talk) 08:30, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
These kind of articles tend to read like pov forks. Whenever the terms are used in books, as Sayerslle points out, they are part of wider work that explains the context of their use so the reader can clearly see if the author is or isn't condoning the epithet used. In the case of this article the context of the violence is largely missing and reads too much like a litany of woe. Michael Burleigh, whom I gather is well respected in "conservative" Catholic circles, and doesn't appear to use the term "Red terror" writes "This level of violence requires an explanation." and proceeds to give some details as to the source of the animus. (Sacred causes, p. 134) Furthermore the article mentions the beatification of clergy who were killed in the war but doesn't mention the controversy in Spain associated with this act, e.g were they murdered for their faith or something else, and why were the Basque clergy murdered by the Nationalist side not beatified as well? I haven't the time to read the White Terror article but maybe that suffers from the same problem. To avoid pov fork issues and contentious naming I would suggest a merge of both Red and White terror articles and bring them under something which expresses the sentiment "Atrocities associated with the Spanish Civil War". Within such an article the use of Red and White descriptors can be explained. Yt95 ( talk) 14:22, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
I originally wrote this intending to be its own talk page section, but maybe both articles should be merged into something like Atrocities associated with the Spanish Civil War (if that's too jumbled, we can do Atrocities during the Spanish Civil War with a separate article for Atrocities of the Francisco Franco regime for those carried out afterwards. That would solve my relatively limited concern expressed below, and also many of the POV problems alluded to above (and on the White Terror talk page). So:
Would it then be better to simply merge the two articles? I know that's kind of a mammoth undertaking, but it would seem to be better than continuing what looks like a long history of fighting on this talk page...
☯.Zen
Swashbuckler
.☠
19:18, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
"Four, (the converse of number three), it suggests a false moral equivalency, that the two are the same, two sides of the same coin, and perpetrators equally culpable. They are different - for example as pointed out by RSs, the white terror was much more likely to target partisans and combatants, where the Red Terror, for particular ideological reasons, targeted a massive number of people that were neither." I also think that to merger the articles is a bad idea, because the Republican and the Francoist repressions are related but distinct phenomena, but a false moral equivalence? Are you trying to say that the killing of priests, nuns, officials who supported the Nationalist's coup, lawnowners and militants of the fascist party Falange is worse than the killing school teachers, freemasons, booksellers, officials who remained loyal to the Republican government, relatives of republicans and militants of the Communist party? Is worse to torture and kill a eighty years old blind man because he is a priest than to rape and kill a seventeen years old girl because she is an anarchist? Murder is murder, Mamalujo, no matter who the victim is. Does the Red Terror began in 1934? Only one person, monseñor Vicente Carcél Ortí said that, most of historians says that the Red Terror started with the war. In 1934, government forces killed 200 miners after the end of the fighting, committed hundreds of rapes and looting. If the Red Terror began in 1934, also the White terror. Most historians says that the mass executions ended between 1942 and 1945 due to the defeat of the Axis. 1945, Mamalujo, not many years later, although Franco continued jailing and killing opponents until his death in 1975. And please, don't say that I have to read the sources. I had already read the sources: Graham, Preston, Thomas, Beevor, Jackson, Gibson, Espinosa, Casanova, etc. Sorry, for my poor English. User:Ajfernandez2001
Just sayin'. 70.29.99.120 ( talk) 00:52, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
This article clearly has POV problem and it along with the White Terror (Spain) should be merged into one page as suggested by a previous user. Attempting to seperate them gives a distorted view of the event and make both pages susceptible to POV bias. Zubin12 ( talk) 10:24, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 05:38, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
The Background section reads like a series of arguments, cited though they may be, for why the Republic was quite literally doomed from the start due to its "hostile", "anticlerical" constitutional elements. Are there really no opposing views on this theory of the dynamics of the Republican movement? Is it unanimous among historians that the conflict between the Catholic Church and the Republican government was intractable by nature? I can't claim to be very knowledgeable on this era, so I'm not in a position to edit and provide balancing perspectives, but I'm suspicious of content that reads as persuasion rather than information, and seems closer to literary foreshadowing rather than sober historical and political analysis. This is, after all, part of a conflict that still informs modern politics, a topic that can be considered controversial, personal, and even incendiary in Spain.
This comment is in no way meant to deny the bloodiness of the ensuing persecution and violence, only that the apparent POV narrative expressed in this section may rely on oversimplification and a teleological fallacy. In short, the thesis that these atrocities were baked into the Second Republic-era tension between the right-aligned church and the leftist government doesn't seem appropriate here. From other sources and articles I've read on the period (including this article's lead section), the internal political struggle among the leftist factions and international actors such as the NKVD seems to be more nuanced and have evolved significantly over the course of the war. SamClayton ( talk) 07:30, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
But what does the Spanish language wikipedia [1 ] say about the Red Terror, 'Terror Rojo'? Largely in line with the English version. It also is more detailed, check it out (Right Click (Chrome) to translate.)
In [2] I read an interview with Pio Moa (see his wiki), one time radical of the Communist Party, imprisoned in 1983 and freed after a year. After a period of soul searching he began studying among others archives of the Socialist Party resulting in his book 'The Myths of the Spanish Civil War', [3].
I haven't read the book (yet) but I read the interview [2]; his study confirms the brutality of the Red Terror.
[1] https://www.wikiwand.com/es/Terror_Rojo_(España)
[2] Isabelle Schmitz et Philippe Maxence, ‘Guerre d'Espagne, la mécanique du chaos’, interview with Spanish author Pio Moa, in Le Figaro Histoire augustus/september 2022 – issue 63, pp. 16-23.
[3] Pio Moa, ‘Les Mythes de la guerre d’Espagne’, 2022 ('Los Mitos de la Guerra civil (Historia Del Siglo Xx)', edition 36, 2003)