The Pete Quiñones Show - Pete Reads 'The Last Crusade' by Warren H Carroll Part 1

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

54 MinutesPG-13Pete begins a reading of Warren H. Carroll's 1996 book, "The Last Crusade: 1936." In this episode, he covers January–March: the Winter of 1936.Antelope Hill - Promo code "peteq" for 5% off - https://antelopehillpublishing.com/FoxnSons Coffee - Promo code "peter" for 18% off - https://www.foxnsons.com/The Last CrusadePete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'VIP Summit 3-Truth To Freedom - Autonomy w/ Richard GroveSupport Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's Substack Pete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

There's so much rugby on Sports Extra from Sky. They've asked me to read the whole lad at the same speed I usually use for the legal bit at the end. Here goes. This winter sports extra is jam-packed with rugby. For the first time, we've got every Champions Cup match exclusively live, plus action from the URC, the Challenge Cup, and much more. Thus the URC and all the best European rugby all in the same place.

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Get the facts, be drink aware, visit Drink Away, I want to welcome everyone to the first reading of book six in my reading series. This book is called The Last Crusade by Warren E. Carroll. It came out in 1996 and it is a short book telling of the crusade to save Spain from communism and death in the Spanish Civil War. It's the first book I ever read cover to cover on the Spanish Civil War, and it was the one that left the most lasting impact. So I've talked about the Spanish Civil War,

done some episodes with Thomas on it, did a recent episode with Carl Dahl, and I was thinking about what I wanted to follow up Israel Shahawks' book with. I wanted to get away from that subject, but I wanted to get into something that I know a lot of people are interested in. A lot of people still don't know anything about. And I like the way Carol comes at this book. Warren Carroll was a Catholic historian and the founder of Christendom College.

And this book is very well written, and it really, it hits you hard. So to get known. idea of what happened in the war. He, um, he concentrates on certain aspects of the war, especially how the church was targeted and how, um, you know, how Catholic Spain responded. So before I start, so remind everybody about the reading, the watching of movies and reviewing that Thomas and I are doing, freemamandmeonthewall.com, forward slash movies.

And my partnership with NLP Hill Press. Anything you order from there, if you put in PQ, all lowercase, and check out, you get 5% off. So I'm going to start reading this one and see how far we get.

This is a weird one because it has never been available in electronic form, no e-books, no anything. So the only copies that I could find were copies that were basically scanned in. And some of them I'm going to have to, as I scroll, you'll see I may have to even actually turn them because they're sideways. And the initial file of this left out two pages and someone inserted them. So yeah, someone really wanted to get this in an electronic form. And and they did a lot of work to do it.

So, all right. I will start reading. Winter, January through March, and this is, we're talking about 1936 here. For more than a thousand years, Spain had been the sword of Christendom. Her sons had fought and won the longest war in the history of the world. The 770-year struggle against the Moors who invaded and conquered Spain from Arabia and North Africa, bringing their Muslim faith,

conquered it all but a tiny mountain eerie in the far north, where embattled King Palo proclaimed in 722, Our hope is in Christ. This little mountain will be the salvation of Spain. Over that immense spans of time, he and his descendants and their people

made their promise good. Acre by acre, mile by mile, they redeemed their lands from its conquerors by their blood. during the 150 years after the completion of the reconquest, Spain opened up America and became the leading power in the world. A long decline was followed by an astonishing rise from the ashes and defiance of would-be world conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte heir to the French Revolution.

But during the remainder of the 19th century, Spain lost her way again, and this time her decline was not only political, and economic, but moral and spiritual. The legitimacy of her monarchy was challenged by the strongly Catholic movement known as Carlism in a series of civil wars. Her parliament was discredited by rampant corruption. Her remaining overseas territories were badly misgoverned. In 1898, Spain was grotesquely humiliated in a war with the United States in which the Philippine Islands, which she had ruled for more than 300 years, were taken from her without a single casual

to the attacking force, and the Spanish warship sent to hold Cuba were scuttled in the open sea rather than fight a hopeless contest. The wave of national shame which followed was skillfully turned to their own advantage by those who wanted to make Spain less Catholic and more revolutionary. Large segments of Spanish society were alienated from the national heritage. Among intellectuals taught to despise Spain's Catholic glories, among workers newly come to the cities and torn from their traditional roots. Among even rural people in the hot, dry south, where excessively large estates created a gulf between the owners of the land and the laborers on it, and among the restless, angry Catalans of the North, who more and more emphasized their

ethnic distinction from the rest of Spain, the popularity of revolutionary movements grew. National unions of socialist and even anarchists burgeoned to memberships of hundreds of thousands. No country in all history has had nearly so many organized anarchists as Spain in 1931. In proportion to the total population of the country, the Communist Party in Spain at the beginning of 1936 was larger than the Bolshevik Party in Russia at the beginning of 1917, the year in which it took power. Yet another military disaster in Morocco in 1921 led to a strong patriotic reaction among most of the war. of the high-ranking army officers and the installation of one of them, Miguel Primo de Rivera, as dictator. He was not an oppressive ruler, executing no one during his seven years of power,

and stepped down willingly when he concluded that he had lost much of his initial support. But his sudden, unexpected departure left a vacuum which weak-willed and experienced King Alfonso the 13th was unable to fill. In municipal elections in April 1931, the cities rejected most monarchist candidates, though in the countryside most of them prevailed. In a manner reminiscent of his unhappy predecessor, Charles VIII, who accepted a villa in France from Napoleon in return for his abdication on demand. Alfonso the 13th declared, quoting, Sunday's elections have shown me that I no longer enjoy the love of my people. I could very easily find means to support my royal powers among all comers, but I am deterred. determined to have nothing to do with setting one of my countrymen against another in a fratricidal civil war.

Thus, until the nation speaks, I shall deliberately suspend the use of my royal prerogatives. The feudal king at once boarded a plane for England and never set foot in Spain again. Five years later, that fractricidal civil war came in full measure. A second Spanish Republic was promptly proclaimed. The first had failed to ignit. ignominiously in the late 1860s. Its first prime minister was Niseto Alcala Samora, but he and interior minister Miguel Mora were the only practicing Catholics in his cabinet.

The other cabinet members ranged from total indifference to outright hostility to the faith that was so profoundly intertwined with Spain's origins, history, character, and national identity. All of them believed, as manuals, Azania, their most prominent leader, openly stated in a major speech in October 1931, that Spain had ceased to be Catholic. The trend did appear to be running in that direction. Not only were the majority of Spanish Catholics non-practicing, but in some parishes, mass attendance had virtually ceased. The priest would say most Masses alone. Sunday Masses alone. Socialists and anarchists never tired of painting the clergy as hirelings of the rich upper classes, though in fact most priests received little more money than their parishioners and most religious lived in near poverty. But in these turbulent and disillusioned times, many Spanish people believe the socialist and anarchist charges. In May 1931, about 100 churches and other religious

buildings were destroyed or damaged throughout Spain. The Jesuit church on the Caye de la Flore in the center of Madrid was burned to the ground. Though eventually the Catholic Interior Minister Mora persuaded the government's call out the army to stop the attack on the churches, Azania opposed this action, saying that all the Conventos in Spain are not worth the life of a single Republican. The Republicans in Spain were leftists. They were the revolutionaries. By the fall of 1931, the new regime had presented its constitution, which included prohibition of any financial support of the church by public funds, authorization for the government to expel religious orders, so phrased as to require the expulsion of the Jesuits, a requirement for government approval of

every public manifestation of religion, including even the ancient traditional procession on great fiesta days, and an end to all religious education in any school. You've heard that, oh, the rebels in Spain rose up to throw off the Republicans. They overthrew a republic and overthrow a republic. Does this sound like a republic to you? When even some liberal newspapers criticize these measures, Azania responded, do not tell me that this is contrary to freedom. It is a matter of public health.

There was fierce debate on these constitutional provisions in Spain's parliament, the Cortez. Prime Minister Alcala Zamora and Interior Minister Mora resigned. At the end of the year, the Constitution was approved and Azania became the new prime minister. Rather curiously, Alcala Zamora was elected the first president of the Second Republic, despite his alienation from the government. All European presidents at that time had very limited power, much less than the prime minister. However, the new Spanish constitution did give the president power to dissolve the Cortez and call for new elections once, but no more than once, during his five-year term in office. Thus did Manuel Azania, emerged as a leader of his deeply troubled country for the next two years, and again, after the epochal election of February 1936. He was very much an intellectual, raised a Catholic, and sent to the highly regarded Maria Cristina University at El Escorial, directly across the street from the monastery palace of Philip II, from which he had directed the lay program of the Catholic Reformation in the second half of the 16th century.

Azania had lost his faith there. He was a skillful wordsmith, but a political dilettante, as far removed as is possible to be from a man of action. action. A lonely man because of his extreme physical unattractiveness, he had genuine compassion, but little resolution. As the liberal president of Spain, he was to watch a tide of demonic slaughter sweep over his country, obviously horrified by it, yet unable and unwilling to do anything to stop it. There's so much rugby on sports extra from Sky. They've asked me to read the whole lad at the same speed I usually use for the legal bit at the end. Here goes. This winter sports extra is jam-packed with rugby. For the first time we've got every Champions Cup

match exclusively live, plus action from the URC, the Challenge Cup and much more. Thus the URC and all the best European rugby all in the same place. Get more exclusively live tournaments than ever before on Sports Extra. Jam-packed with rugby. Phew, that is a lot of rugby. Get Sports Extra on Sky for 15 euro a month for 12 months. Search Sports Extra.

New Sports Extra customers only. Standard pressing applies after 12 months for the terms apply. Don't let foot pain or discomfort hold you back. At foot solutions, we specialize in high-quality supportive footwear. Use the latest scanning technology to custom-make orthotics. Designed for your unique feet. If you want to free your feet in joints from pain,

improve balance or correct alignment, book a free foot assessment at footsolutions. or pop-in store today. Food Solutions, the first step towards pain-free feet. There's so much rugby on sports extra from Sky, they've asked me to read the whole lad at the same speed I usually use for the legal bit at the end. Here goes.

This winter sports extra is jam-backed with rugby. For the first time we've got every time, Champions Cup match exclusively live, plus action from the URC, the Challenge Cup, and much more. Thus the URC and all the best European rugby all in the same place. Get more exclusively live tournaments than ever before on Sports Extra. Jam packed with rugby. Phew, that is a lot of rugby.

Get Sports Extra on Sky for 15 euro a month for 12 months. Search Sports Extra. New Sports Extra customers only. Standard Pressing applies after 12 months for the terms apply. Azanya's government fell in 1933 as Catholic opinion in Spain hardened against it after the ranking general of the army, Jose Sondi

Mjouardson Huo unsuccessfully attempted a military coup late in 1932 to overthrow it. The government had not yet actually closed the Catholic schools as the Constitution called for, but was scheduled to do so at the end of 1933. Spaniards who were still Catholic, still a very large number, realized they must act, and the elections that followed Azanya's resignation gave them their opportunity. They were a major defeat. for the left. Parties and Independence of the right gained 201 seats in the Cortez up from 41 in 1931. Those of the center had 177 down from 152, and those of the left got only 97, down from 247.

The largest single-party representation belonged to the Seda, a new and explicitly Catholic party founded that very year headed by Jose Gil Robles, full of youthful vigor at 34, an excellent speaker and a loyal Catholic, who had consistently and strongly opposed the anti-Catholic clauses of the Constitution from the beginning. His party included both monarchists and Republicans, and as such, was well-suited to gain broad support. But with the hesitancy and timidity that were to characterize as political actions, though not his oratory, over the next three critical years, Gil Robles declared before the election that his party did not seek immediately to set up a government. Therefore, this task was left to the unprincipled political

manipulator Alejandro Laru, head of the misnamed Radical Party of the Center, who had indeed been a revolutionary in his youth, but now, at twice Gilroblis' age, was willing to get power wherever and however he could find it. Two years later, Larue and much of his government would discredit in a gambling scandal, and the left had a golden opportunity to recoup. The election in the New Cortez, it shows, marked the emergence of a famous but enigmatic figure

of the Spanish Civil War, who was buried beside Franco at the Valley of the Fallon, Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, son of the retired dictator, known only by his first two, names to distinguish him from his father. Franco is no longer in the valley of the fallen. He was disinterred.

And so was, so was Primo Derevo. He founded the Falunge, the Spanish organization, which most nearly resembled the totalitarian parties of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. We shall see the Falun Gay engaging in assassinations and preemptive assaults of the same as were conducted by the radical socialist, communist, and anarchists, though for the purpose of aiding the right. The Falun Gay was by no means always friendly to the Catholic Church, yet Jose Antonio himself was, by the admission even of his enemies, a remarkably gentle and charming man given to poetic, if rather, woolly, philosophizing, who always remained a practicing Catholic.

He felt driven to defend his father, and like his father, had little use for representative government, a viewpoint widely held in Spain since the French Revolution. In the end, Jose Antonio proved far more significant as a victim than as an actor in history, more memorable dead than alive. In what remained of the left in the New Cortez, the Socialists had the majority, 58 seats. The communists, though they had pulled 200,000 votes, had only one seat. The system of proportional representation used in the Second Spanish Republic had many quirks. The anarchists, true to their principles, had refused to run candidates. But the communists were much more significant than their representation indicated, and the

socialists were deeply split between their two leaders, both of whom had sat in Azania's cabinet. Indelisio Prieto and Francisco Largo Caballero. The two men had hated each other for more than 15 years. Prieto had a brilliant mind and was very conscious of it, Largo Caballero did not. Prieto was an excellent writer and speaker. Largo Caballetto was neither. Prieto was a genuine democratic socialist.

Largo Caballetto was a revolutionary who enjoyed being called the Spanish Lenin, and though not formally a communist, followed the communist leader's doctrine without deviation after reading his works while in prison in 1935. Largo Caballetto excelled as an organizer and had built up the socialist

built up the socialist labor union UGT, of which he was Secretary General, until by 1932, it had over a million members. Prieto, at 50, looked like a cartoon caricature of a capitalist, hugely corpulent, egg-balled, with little pig-like eyes. By contrast, Lager Caballetto looked avuncular, but younger than his 64 years. He had tremendous energy, always a vital asset in a revolution. He was very popular with the workers, and despite his intellectual limitations, was to prove the most dangerous and capable of all the Spanish revolutionary leaders. The Communist Party of Spain, headed by Jose Diaz, formerly an anarchist baker in Seville, in Seville, was still small in numbers, despite its strong vote in the 1933 elections. It worked closely with Lenin's common turn, the Third International, and had deeply penetrated the socialists loosely organized and split as they were.

The Secretary for the Socialist Party and the Cortez elected was Carlos La Moneda, who had been a member of the Communist Party since 1921, though he pretended to change parties during the election campaign, while Alvarez Del Vallejo, a secret communist, dominated relations between the parliamentary, representation and the Socialist Party at large. By late 1935, Del Vallejo had become primary ideological guides of Largo Caballero. Santiago Carrillo, a future leader of the Spanish Communist Party, was secretary of the socialist youth organization. Working through their natural ally, Largo Caballero, the communists were to gain rapidly

growing influence in Spain during 1936. All the political elements in Spain, which we have discussed, along with the remaining marginalized supporters of the vanquish, of the vanished Alfonso the 13, had their counterparts in other countries in Europe during that dark decade of depression and spreading totalitarianism. But there was one large, well-organized, and totally committed movement that was unique to Spain, the traditionalist communion, the resurrection of Carlism, in the 20th century. The Carlos were the champions of the Spanish Catholic tradition. Their movement came into being in the aftermath of the Great War against Napoleon and the atheistic spirit of the

French Revolution, which had become a crusade for Spain. The unworthy Ferdinand the 7th was king, but he was middle-aged, in poor health, and childless. His brother Carlos was therefore his heir. Carlos was a dedicated Catholic whose goal was to restore the greatness of the Spain of Queen Isabella and Philip the second and make it a bulwark against any revival of revolution. But four years before his death, King Ferdinand remarried and had two children, both girls. A complex legal dispute developed as to whether under the law of royal succession as it then stood in Spain, a woman could be the ruler. Ferdinand's wife, Maria Christina, was young and liberal.

The policies she would espouse as regent for her baby daughter had nothing in common with those of Prince Carlos. Soon after Ferdinand and the 7th died, war broke out between his adherents and Maria Christina's, lasting for seven years. The Carlos were finally defeated in 1840 by the treason of one of their leading generals. Two other Carless wars followed.

The Hard Fort Third Carlist War begun in reaction against the First Spanish Republic, ended in 1876, and another Carless defeat. Its leader, Charles' seventh, the tradition, known therefore as Carlos Septimo, still a young man in his 20s, was forced to leave Spain, but vowed to return and resume the struggle. This is all background, so I'm hesitating to comment, just letting it play itself out. As we get more into the war, I will have more to say. He was never able to do so, and it seemed to almost everyone that history had left him

and his movement behind. Despite the increasing weakness and decline of Spain, support for Carlos Septimo and his claim to be the legitimate monarch had shrunked with tiny minority by the time he died in 1909. His one son, James, half-heartedly maintained his father's claims. The Carlos movement, once vigorous and popular, throughout the whole northern half of Spain, survived in an attenuated form only in the province of Navarra,

and at full strength in the mind of its own. great theoretician Jose Vasquez de Mela de Mea. Then in October 1931, six months after the flight of King Alfonso XIII to England, and five months after the assaults on the Catholic Churches and monasteries, James died without issue. The Carlos secession was a man whose very existence nearly everyone in Spain had forgotten. Carlos Septimo's brother Alfonso, a commander at his brother, side during the third Carlos War, now 82, who had been living in exile in Italy and Austria

for no less than 55 years, his commitments of the Carlos' cause never wavering. He took the name Alfonso Carlos, assumed command of what was left of the Carlos movement, renamed it the traditionalist communion, and saw it expand throughout Spain. In two and a half years, its membership grew to nearly a million. Alfonso Carlos chose Manuel Falcande, a brilliant young, lawyer from Sevia to lead it in Spain as Secretary General. Under Falcande's dynamic leadership, by April 1935, there were some 700 carless councils in all parts of Spain, 350 study circles, each with a priest as spiritual director, 250 active youth groups,

300 women's groups, numerous workers groups, and at least a skeleton organization in every province. Two major daily newspapers supported Carlism, along with a wide-circulated weekly, which was explicitly a Carlist organ. There were Carlist libraries, orchestras, choirs, folk dance societies, dramatic societies, and sports leagues. Furthermore, Falcande, who had been in prison in 1932 with a young colonel named Jose Varela, Varela. They had both taken part in General Sanjuro's, San Jorjos, abortive uprising that year, and there had converted Varela to Carlism. Varela trained the Carlos militia, known from the days of the first Carlos War of the 1830s, as the Riquette, to a high level of fighting skills.

Weapons were found for them, some from abroad, some locally manufactured. They were organized into battalions, companies, and platoons. every man wore the traditional carless emblem a red beret. By the beginning of 1936, their strength had reached 30,000 nationwide, with large additional numbers of potential recruits available in Nevada, where a solid majority of the people were Carlist. Ever since the Second Spanish Republic was established in 1931, with its anti-Catholic constitution and old warrior Alfonso Carlos had emerged, as though out of its time,

to become their leader, the Carlos had been convinced that they would soon be fighting another crusade to save the Catholic faith in Spain, so obviously threatened by the revolutionaries and their sympathizers and other anti-Catholics in the Republic. This was indeed their destiny. It was the Carlos who proclaimed the last crusade and above all carried its banner. In October 1934, Largo Caballetto had called the general strike in Madrid, whose only result was to have him thrown in prison, where he spent the next year reading and glorifying in Lenin's works. Catalan separatists and the miners of the northern mountain province of Asturius had risen in armed revolt and had been harshly suppressed by the government.

Azania was imprisoned for months, though he had nothing to do with the rebellion. The left vowed vengeance. A year later, when Alejandro was LeRue's son and three leading members of the radical party were found guilty in October 1935 of accepting bribes to introduce a new type of roulette wheel called the Strapherlo into Spain, thereby making it impossible for the prime minister widely believed to be personally involved in the scandal to continue to govern. Gil Robles finally made his move to head a government. He also demanded major revisions of the 1931 Constitution. President Alcala Al Alcala Samora opposed any change in the Constitution and feared and envied Gil Robles. Consequently, he refused to ask him to form a government, though no other leader in the Cortez was in a position to do so,

and decided to call for new elections. The Constitution provided that the president could only dissolve the Cortez once during his five-year term of office, but Alcala Samora, rather speciously, argue that the the First Cortez of the Second Republic, which he had dissolved in the fall of 1933, did not count because it was also a constituent assembly. On the many days of Christmas, the Guinness Storehouse brings to thee,

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Visit drinkaware.e. Don't let foot pain or discomfort hold you back. At foot solutions, we specialize in high-quality supportive footwear. And use the latest scanning technology to custom-make orthotics, designed for your unique feet. If you want to free your feet in joints from pain, improve balance or correct alignment, book a free foot assessment at foot-solutions.com.

or pop-in store today. Foot Solutions. The first step towards pain-free feet. There's so much rugby on Sports Extra from Sky, they've asked me to read the whole lad at the same speed I usually use for the legal bit at the end. Here goes. This winter sports extra is jam-packed with rugby.

For the first time, we've got every Champions Cup match exclusively live, plus action from the URC, the Challenge Cup, and much more. Thus the U.S.C and all the best European rugby all in the same place. Get more exclusively live tournaments than ever before on Sports Extra. Jam-pack with rugby. Phew, that is a lot of rugby. Get Sports Extra on. sky for 15 euro a month for 12 months.

Search Sports Extra. New Sports Extra customers only. Standard Pressing applies after 12 months for the terms apply. He had a caretaker government set up under Manuel Portela via Dares, an active Freemason and historian of Spain's ancient Brazilian history, heresy, who was not even a member of the Cortez, nor were several of the ministers he selected. Gil Robles declared with some reason that the president was actually. outside the law and was so angry that the that he that he asked some leading generals to consider

military action against the government but they refused to take it on December 30th 1935 president Alcalia Zamora drafted the decree dissolving the Cortez but kept its secret for the moment merely declaring the Cortez suspended when 10% of the Cortez deputies signed a demand for it to meet immediately, which under the Constitution had to be obeyed unless the president dissolved the Cortez, Portela Valladeras, released a decree of dissolution on January 7, 1936. The decisive election campaign began. Speaking of Madrid, on January 12th, Lagro Caballero set the tone. Quoting, before the Republic, our duty was to bring it about, but with the Republic established, our duty used to bring about socialism. And when I speak of socialism, I do not speak of socialism alone. I speak of

Marxist socialism. And in speaking of Marxist socialism, I speak of revolutionary socialism. Our aspiration is the conquest of political power. Method, that which we are able to use. Three days later, a popular front was formed by five major Spanish parties. The socialist, the communists, as a Zanja's left Republicans, Martinez-Badios Republican Union, and the separatist Catalan Esqueda, led by 34 rebel Luis Companies. The Popular Front Strategy had been adopted by the common turn in a major speech by its general secretary Georgi Demitrov in July 1935. It called upon communist and democratic countries to join with other left-wing parties to gain power, a tactic rejected by Lenin, but favored by Stalin, which had almost almost.

succeeded in China in the 1920s until frustrated at the last moment by Chengkai Sheck. The platform of the Spanish Popular Front proclaimed January 15th called for the release of everyone in prison since the 1933 elections, regardless of whether they were political prisoners or common criminals. The reinstatement of all workers and civil servants dismissed since those elections and retention of the Constitution with no major changes, with educational reform, meaning the closing of Catholic schools, to proceed as had been planned by the Azania government. Promises were also made to push land reform, a public works program, and social welfare legislation. On January 22nd, Largo Caballero revealed still more clearly what this program meant in his eyes.

Quoting, we have always intended to forge a united party that has nothing to do either directly or indirectly with the bourgeoisie, a party that adopts as a standard, the armed insurrection for the conquest of power and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a party that, in case of war, will have nothing to do with the bourgeoisie that ought not and will not lend an aid. A party that, guided by the norms of democratic centralism, achieves a single will, unanimous decision in all its efforts. We are on the way to achieving such a party." End quote. The term democratic centralism was one of Lenin's favorites, his euphemism for absolute totalitarian rule of and by the Communist Party. No recorded statement of Lenin's exceeds in savagery, Largo Cabieto's offhand remark in the January 28th

issue of his party newspaper El Socialista. Quoting, I desire a republic without class warfare, but for this, it is necessary for one class to disappear. You still thinking it was just you. They overthrew a republic. public. Three days later in that same newspaper, Largo Caballetto openly stated his commitment to communism, quoting, I'm a Marxian socialist. Communism is the natural evolution of socialism, its last and definitive stage. End quote. On February 9th, El Socialista printed this and even more,

this even more explicit statement, though from another source. We are determined to do in Spain what was done in Russia. The plan of Spanish socialism and of Russian communism are the same. The day before, lecturing on historical panels between the Russian and Spanish revolutions, left socialist Luis Arakestein said that conditions in the two countries on the eve of revolution were analogous. With a strong workers' movement and a weak government, he predicted that Spain may very well be the second country where the proletarian revolution triumphs and becomes consolidated. after which it will be protected by the Soviet Union. Just a republic.

It's just a republic. I mean, Franco and the boys just overthrew a republic. It's just like ours, right? Some would have it. Ours be like this. Small wonder that Jose Diaz, head of the Spanish Communist Party,

declared on February 11th, quoting, There is one man today who has put all his intelligence and all his energy to the service of the United Popular Front in our country so that when time comes it will triumph. Comrade Lago Caballero. We could recount the history of the international movement of the proletariat and see that in the era of Largo Caballetto, it is very difficult to find another case of evolution

such as his, especially with regard to everything that has occurred in these last days. There is a considerable mass who follow him with a very clear vision, because they have hopes of what will follow as a result of the revolutionary period of position that he has embraced. End quote. Then and since, many have accused a Spanish right of overreacting to the Popular Front challenge. But the statements here quoted speak for themselves. The goal of the most dynamic and dominant leader of the Popular Front was maximum violent revolution followed by the imposition of a totalitarian state.

Largo Caballero headed a union, UGT, with a membership of more than one million. He could count on the support in any revolutionary violence of an anarchist union, CNT, almost as large. His socialist opponent, Prieto, was outclassed. He had almost no impact on the campaign while Largo Caballero was winning most of the local elections in the Socialist Party during these weeks. The election was literally a matter of life and death for Spain. in the words of the most eloquent monarchist deputy in the Cortez, Jose Galvos Sotelo, quoting, The possibility must be admitted that on the day after the election, Spain will awaken to the red glare of a stormy Marxist triumph,

which will cast down our foundations, our history, our spirituality, our economy, our morality, and all we are. But this will never be, because God does not wish it, and we will not permit it. End quote. inevitably, though reluctantly, because their own divisions were deep, the Spanish right on February 4th formed a national counter-revolutionary front to oppose the popular front, including Gil Robles, Calvo Catello, and also the Carlists. The political philosophy of the traditionalist commune rejected any strong central government, parliamentary, or otherwise, except for national defense and foreign affairs. They wanted Spain governed by its separate provinces. which always spells their demise. The Carlos motto was Dios, Patriot, Fuero, Ray, God, the fatherland, local rights, and the king, in that order.

Therefore, in the past, Carlos had hesitated to run his candidates for the national parliament. But in the moment of crisis, old Alfonso Carlo from Vienna, he would almost certainly have been imprisoned had he set foot on Spanish soil, directed his people, quote, to put up as many candidates as possible in defense of religion and country. Election day was February 16th, a Sunday. Making a correct tabulation of the results baffled people at the time, and has baffled historians ever since, because of their great complexity combined with the arcane system for according seats in the Cortez to various regions and the further complication of recounts, runoffs, and special elections held here and there when the initials, votes were invalidated by some official body. No two historians agree on exactly how many seats each

party finally won, but the Popular Front emerged clearly victorious with an absolute majority in the Cortez. According to meticulous historian Richard Robinson, the Popular Front had 263 seats compared to 133 for the right and 77 for the center, giving it an absolute majority of 26. The popular vote gave a contrary result, a plurality of 4,570,744 votes for the right, 4,340,059 for the Popular Front, 340,073 for the center, and 141,137 for the Basque Nationalists, who were separatists, but also mostly good Catholics. The largest representation in the Popular Front was 88 seats for the Socialists, followed closely by 79 for a Socialists. followed closely by 79 for Zanya's Republican left. A large majority of the right deputies were in Gil Robles' Catholic Seda, with 101 seats. The Carless were next with 15, approximately equal to the 14 seats gained by the Communists.

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or correct alignment, book a free foot assessment at footsolutions.i or pop-in store today. Foot Solutions, the first step towards pain-free feet. The Falunge ran candidates, but they received a minuscule vote of only about 40,000. The Popular Front won all the major cities, but the Wright received many votes there, nevertheless, in Madrid, the right had 186,422 votes compared to 224,540 for the Popular Front. Few had expected the Popular Front to win an absolute majority in the Cortez. Anyone could see the shock effect on the right would be tremendous, and that there was a grave threat of civil war. At 4 o'clock in the morning on the day after the election, Gil Robles went to Prime Minister Portela Valladas with a request that he be included.

included in the new government, if only as a typist, to calm the fears of the right, and that the government declare a state of maximum emergency. Portel Valadez, the dithering academic whom Prime Minister Leroux, had rediscovered as a politician on a beach in northern Spain in the summer of 1934, was totally out of his depth in crisis of this magnitude. He was too old, he said, to take any strong measures. All he wanted was to get out of office. Strikes began. In Valencia and Oviedo, the anarchists were opening the prisons. General Francisco Franco, the Army Chief of Staff, refused to lead any military action without the approval of someone in a position to speak for the government, which was not given. On February 19th, just three days after the election, President Alcala Zamora asked Azanya to return his prime minister.

He agreed and selected a cabinet, but his was a minority government for the Socialists and Communist refused to join it. Their goal was now full revolution. The Azanya's government first major action taken February 21st was to release all prisoners, the first plank in the Popular Front program, providing instant reinforcement for the revolutionaries, and wholly ignoring the constitutional requirement that the political amnesties must be approved by majority vote of the Cortez, which had not yet had time to convene. The next day, the government dismissed General Franco as chief of staff of the army, and transferred him to the distant Canary Islands. This made sense from the left standpoint for Franco, the most intelligent and youngest general in the army, and a hero of the war in Morocco, was a devout Catholic and dedicated foe of revolution.

Just before leaving for the Canary Islands, he told President Alcala Zamora, I can guarantee that whenever circumstances may arise, wherever I am, there will be no communism. But a week later, in a move that defies rational explanation, the government transferred General Emilio Mola. potentially almost as great a danger to them as Franco, from Morocco to Pamplona and Navarra, the heart of armed and resurgent Carlism. For the Carlos Valcande had declared on the day the new government was formed, the traditional communion will fully recover its personality and freedom of movement. Coalition fronts and blocks are done with.

The Ricketta were ordered to a state of war readiness. On February 23rd, the Ozania government suspended, payment of rent by tenant farmers in the south of Spain, Andalusia, and Exeter Madura, and reinstated Luis Companies, who had led their armed rebellion in Catalonia in 1934 as head of the General Littot, the local government of Catalonia. On the 29th, it ordered the rehiring of all workers dismissed after January 1, 1934, for striking, with compensation for lost wages, and suspended all evictions of agricultural tenants throughout the country. On March 8th, several generals known for their conservative views met in Madrid,

three of them in transit to new assignments. Franco posted to the Canary Islands, Molot to Pamplona, and former Inspector General Manuel Goded to Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean. Also participating in the meeting was to Carlos Varela, now at General 2, former Undersecretary of War, Joaquin Fonhull, and several other high-ranking officers. None was yet ready to attempt a coup, but they were now per force, beginning to consider what circumstances might make it necessary. They agreed they would have to act if Largo Caballetto should become prime minister, if the government should suspend the Civil Guard, the national police, or if the country should slip into evident anarchy.

Dorella urged an immediate uprising, but Franco and Mola said they must have more civilian support. That's interesting because we talk about elite theory and there are two elites saying, we need to see the people on our side. Before leaving Madrid, Franco had gone to see Prime Minister Azania to warn him about the growing threat of communism in Spain. Like so many other intellectuals before and after him, Azania scoffed at the idea. He might have felt differently had he known of the letter sent March 4th from the Communist Party Central Committee to the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party, proposing socialist communist worker-peasant alliance groups at all levels, local to national,

playing the role of Soviets with the terms of alliance to be, quoting, complete independence via the bourgeoisie and of complete break of the Social Democratic bloc with the bourgeoisie, prior achievement of unity of action, recognition of the need for the revolutionary overthrow of the domination of the bourgeoisie and the installation of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the form of Soviets, the renunciation of support for the national bourgeoisie in the event of an imperialist war, construction of the unified party on the basis of democratic centralism, assuring unity of will and of action, tempered by the experience of the Russian Bolshe.

end quote. The Socialist Executive Committee did not reply to this letter directly, but the next day I proposed a joint committee of two representatives from each of the working class parties of the Popular Front to coordinate their efforts. During March, the Socialist and Communist youth organizations of Spain agreed to merge under the guidance of Crypto Communist Alvarez Del Vallejo, common-turn agent Vittorio Cotavia, and youth leader Santiago Carrillo, former head, future head of the Spanish Communist Party. On March 19th, the Madrid section of the Socialist Party led by enthusiastic followers of Largo Caballero declared its intention to ask the National Congress of the Socialist Party to unite with the Communist Party. The Madrid Socialists also drafted a new program to be submitted to its next Congress. Its preamble was a complete endorsement of communist-style ultimate revolution, the destruction of existing society down to its roots. quoting, the illusion that the proletarian socialist revolution can be achieved by reforming the existing state must be eliminated. There is no course but to destroy its roots.

Imperceptibly, the dictatorship of the proletariat or workers' democracy will be converted into a full democracy without classes from which the coercive state will gradually disappear. The instrument of the dictatorship will be the socialist party, which will exercise the dictatorship during the period of transition. from one society to another. Also in March, moderate socialist Gabriel Mario de Koka published a book ending with this lament. Quote, I close my work with an impression of Bolshevist victory in every sector of the Spanish socialist party. The socialist parliamentary authority in the court's heads will be impregnated with a strong

Leninist tone. Prieto will have few deputies on his side, while Bastetto, another moderate socialist, will be completely isolated as a Marxist dissenter. The outlook that all this leaves for the future of the working class and of the nation could not be more pessimistic. The Bolshevist centipede dominates the proletariat's horizon, and Marxist analysis vindicates that it is on its way to another of its resounding victories. End quote. The sense of helplessness and despair before the advancing cataclysm which exudes from these words of Mario de Koka, found this counterpoint in the order of the day on March 7th by Jamie Del Bergo, Chief of the Carlos Ricketts of Pamplona,

quoting, We will fall upon the barricades of the revolution and sweep away forever at the point of our bayonets, this filthy foreign Marxism. The crusading hour was indeed approaching. On the next day, March 8th, a Sunday revolutionary mob seized control of the southern port city of Cadiz, burning five churches, a convent, a seminary, and a Catholic school. When General Franco came to Cadiz two weeks later to embark for the Canary Islands, saw what had happened there, and learned that the military governor of the city had watched the convent burn within sight of his barracks. He exploded in a rare outburst of anger. Is it possible that the troops of a barracks saw a sacrilegious crime being committed and that you just stood by with your arms

folded. When the governor replied that the new government in Madrid had forbidden him to intervene in such matters, Franco was unappeased. Such orders, he snapped, since they are unworthy, should never be obeyed by an officer of our army. He refused to shake the governor's hand as he left him. Later that week, five churches were burned in Grenada, and five also in Central Madrid, notably the Church of San Luis, which was destroyed by fire without any effort being made to protect it or to save it, though it stood only 200 paces from the interior ministry building. Clearly, the non-intervention orders which the military governor of Cadiz had cited to Franco were still in effect. The government was much more diligent in cracking down on the Falun Gay, which was officially

banned March 16th after its leader, Jose Antonio, was arrested on the charge of keeping arms without a license. In the central Spanish city of Albasid, on March 17th, Revolutionary, burned the center of Catholic studies and two parish churches. Over the next three days, 14 more churches were burned there. Most of those in the city and its vicinity, and 375 holy images disappeared. The churches destroyed included one built during the 13th century and another containing a statue of Christ attributed to Berwick. As peasants in southern Spain taking over land from the great estates at the end of March, with no check from the government,

and later recognition of the land that had seized as theirs, Gil Robles urged Azania to turn away from the socialist and communists and toward the center before it was too late. But Manuel Azanya was a broken reed. However much he might personally deplore some of what was happening, and he had already made it clear and was to repeat that he did not really deplore the destruction of churches. He had neither the means nor the will to act against it. More and more he was seen as playing the role of Kerensky to Largo Caballeros Lenin. From February 16th to the end of March, 178 buildings, including many churches, had been burned throughout Spain and 197 more sacked.

There had been 169 people killed and many hundreds wounded. Anarchy loomed and was hailed as it approached by the hundreds of thousands of organized anarchists in the Great CNT Union. late in March, Carlos leader Falcande went to Portugal to speak with the exiled Jose Sanjuro, who had been the ranking general in the Spanish army who led the unsuccessful uprising against the Republic in 1932. He had been born in Pompona during the Third Carlos War in which his father had served in the Riquetta and been killed in action. Falcande and his aides dressed Sanjuro's son Pepito as a Riquetta. with his own red beret, Sanjuro was deeply removed, and he and the Carlos agreed to support

one another with Sanjuro to take command of Derrieta when they went into battle. By now, nearly all the Carls leadership was convinced to the inevitability of war to save the faith in Spain. Plans for a Carlos coup in Madrid were already being made by various Carles leaders and supported by General Varela, but they were still prematurely. and an official approval for such a venture had not yet been given by Falcande or

Alfonso Carlos. On March 31st, most of the right deputies temporarily withdrew from the Cortez. Many did not return. The revolutionaries were having their way. Government and society were disintegrating. The first general persecution of the Catholics in Spain since the time of the Roman Emperor

Dioclation was just over the horizon. All who saw one of the burning churches or heard, the insults flung at priests and monks and nuns and devout laymen, and women could feel it coming. From this war and this persecution, there would be no place to hide. But since Pileo's last stand, more than 1,200 years before, Spain had bred legions of true sons of the church militant. Even after a century of degeneration, many remained who would never submit to the modern infidel. Spaniards had made the longest crusade in the history of the world. The 770-year war of reconquest. Not all of them had forgotten it.

Their priests and monks were ready for martyrdom. Their crusading warriors would sell their lives dear to the enemies of Christ. In this very year, they would once again take the cross together and march us to Jerusalem. All right. That's the setup, and we'll start getting into more of the battle, and start getting into the battle and the lead-up, because basically what we're looking at is July. July, I guess the official start of the war would be July, 1936, June, 1936. But, yeah, this is a really good look at the war and look at the just exactly what they were up against.

that this was not a bunch of fascists right-wingers who were upset that they had lost an election. You see what this was, and we'll see more. Imagine, I'm sure everyone knows that the right wins this war. Imagine if they had lost. Until the next time. All right, there were ads during this. want to get these episodes, all of my episodes early and ad-free. Subscribe over at freemanbeonthe-wall.com forward slash support. You can subscribe there. You can subscribe

a subscribe star, gumroad, Patreon, substack where I'm doing some doing some videos two, three times a week, extra little 10 minute, 15 minute. And yeah, until the next time, I really hope you're enjoying these readings. Take care. Bye.