The Pete Quiñones Show - The Spanish Civil War Episodes on Targeted Subjects w/ Karl Dahl (Part 2)

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

7 Hours and 53 MinutesPG-13These are continuing episodes concentrating on specific aspects of the Spanish Civil War.Episode 1286: Learning from the Martyrdom of José Calvo Sotelo w/ Karl DahlEpisode 1291: Women in the Spanish Civil War w/ Karl DahlEpisode 1322 and 1323: The Spanish Civil War - Radicalizing a Moderate Socialist w/ Karl Dahl and MorghurFaction: With the CrusadersKarl's SubstackKarl's MerchPete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete'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.

I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekinguena show. Carl Dahl's back. What's up, girl? Not much Pete. Happy to be here. Awesome. Awesome. Let's continue talking about the Spanish Civil War.

And there's a collection of episodes that we have that I call, you know, like specific subjects, like targeted, targeted subjects that I release every once in a while as a large file for people to listen to. can have it all in one spot. And I assume this one is going, this one will definitely be added on to that. But this is a really, this is important. And this is one of those, one of those things that once you understand the story of Jose Calvo Sotelo, you, you can start understanding that if something isn't done pretty quickly. this is the kind of direction we're headed. So, yeah, I'll turn it over to you.

Yeah, so I have to point out on my substack, I publish many pieces. It's typically research that I've done with primary sources or like one, one source removed. That's really good summary material using Spanish primary sources, Spanish language materials. And in this case, I have two articles now in the now and then series by my friend Morgor, who's a Spanish friend and correspondence. He helped me with a lot of Spanish language idiom and a little bit of research validating some of the assumptions that I was making based on my own studies of materials of materials. when I was working on with the Crusaders. And so he's the one who helped with the Negratta Brilliante turn of phrase that I had to add to that story for a nice twist. And he has really enjoyed diving into the subject himself.

He's one of us. And the environment in Spain is really interesting because there's all this great material and there's a subset of the population that knows the score. In Spain, the academy and the government are acting like, you know, the Western misperception propaganda, propaganda-driven misperception of the war is correct. But they have way too much evidence to the contrary from primary sources that really explain the situation. And that creates a big challenge for them in the academy, and they have their own kind of, you know, correcting the record revisionist population that has to play a little bit to, the, you know, the current powers that be while also having a realistic conversation on the

subject of what was actually going on. So for example, you know, one of the big elements is that there was no, there was no happy middle ground like, you know, Democratic Republic that wasn't Bolshevik. And the anarchists weren't just these, you know, kind of libertarian hippies who wanted to be left alone man. You know, that's totally not the case. You have to deal with the reality of the people. And you don't see this kind of information in so many of the English language sources. Stanley Payne's an exception.

But, you know, the big boys, Bivar, Preston, Thomas, etc, aren't going to bring you the material that we have here, which is taken from very good sources that can be found all over the internet in Spanish that Morgor is translated for us with an introduction. His motivation for this was when Charlie Kirk was shot, he immediately was like, you know, there's elements that are related to this, but he agreed with me, which is that, you know, Charlie Kirk is going to be a martyr figure, and he's an early, like you said, Pete, warning of where this is going to go if we don't change direction. And the direction change has to be done by the government.

And we have Trump and his people in the administration right now. We absolutely need them to step in and intervene and be the legitimate system that will uphold order because you can't do this one-sie-to-z-ozy light touch thing that will just like push it out into the future and you really have to crush these people. So that was the motivation for this piece. There's a large section, well, there's a section of kind of opinion and observation, a summary of the life of Jose Calvo Soelho, who was a Spanish, parliamentarian who was murdered, which essentially set things in motion for the military uprising, which caused the Spanish Civil War. And we have great detail about the actual night of the murder

and the days beforehand what was taking place in the government, where they made the arrangements which made this possible from like a security perspective. And I think people need to understand that the, you know, when you hear that the government, you know, basically they, it was elements inside the army that planned this that said, you know, this must be done. People need to realize that they didn't go, obviously they didn't go out to do it. They sent their, was it the civil ghetto? Yeah, largely. And they also had assault guards. and some other militia.

Yeah. Yeah. So you're not going to have, you're probably not going to have that in this country because they've already built up an army on the street. So what people I think need to understand is, is that you can make fun of these people, all you want these people who show up at protests

and are black block and masks. And then whenever they get arrested, you get to see the, you get to see the mug shots and you get to laugh at them. These are people who have nothing to lose. They have no life whatsoever. And they're just waiting. Yep.

They're waiting to be told, yeah, sure, you can go. We're not going to stop you if you start killing our enemies. And once you're, once you're, realize that that is that's what it is that you will have it will come off as random violence but really it's top down because it's always top down sorry yeah they have to create the conditions that make it possible and that comes from the top down correct so you know even though once you go through this story and you see exactly who the players were um you need to understand that those these people are already out there.

And, um, yeah, they're, they're not going, they have no one, they're not going to answer to anyone unless people decide now to make them answer because it's, unless you get this reined in now, it's going to be much more difficult to rain it in later. Because this is not going to jump off the way it will when Donald Trump is president or or even a Trump kind of person as president. But unless you crush these people now, there will be somebody who is, who wants to kill you because of what you believe

that will get in office. And that's when these people or the ones that come after them will be activated. And I know people don't want to believe that. But when you start studying who like the leftists were, the people on the left in the Spanish Civil War, these weren't impressive people. No.

These people were scum. They were no different than the anti-fight you're making fun of when you see their mugshots. Yet how many people did they kill? How many people did they execute? There is a, I'm going to be doing a show with Astral after Halloween on anarcho-tirony and bio-Leninism as it relates to Spain. and as well as just those pieces. So like Sam Francis on anarcho tyranny and spandrel on biolaninism. And if you go through and you look at the photos of the,

to your point, Pete, the photos of the leaders of the left in Spain, they all look like degenerates. Every single one of them. None of them are handsome. none of them look in the least bit like ordered. It's completely crazy when you see that. And it's like you said,

it's just like when you see the mugshot of the Antifa types. It's just these degenerates. And it's an interesting process because there's a little bit of a chicken and egg thing going on there. There's interesting arguments to be had there. And a lot of work has been done by psychiatrists in the past on this subject. But that is a conversation for another time. Why don't you talk a little bit about the meeting of politicians and what leads up to this?

Okay, great. So shall we consult the piece? Please. Let's do it. Okay, great. So I'm going to cruise down. Shall we start out with just kind of an overview of who Jose Calvo So Tella was and who he represented? Absolutely.

But I would, I think it's hilarious. I realize this the other day that both sides of my family come from Galicia. Oh, interesting. Came to this kind, like came to this kind. Like I have relatives that came from Galicia. Belicia in Spain, you know, or I mean, really, is that Spain or Portugal? Historically, who knows? Yes, exactly.

It could be France, too. But, you know, also, you know, my great-grandparents escaped Delicia to get away from the murderous psychopaths there in 1910 and 1911. That's the one up in the corner of the peninsula. Yeah. Yeah, I believe, I believe Morrigo is from Galicia. I believe he's Galician. Is he, so he's back,

is he Basque? I don't have a way of knowing. Okay. But yeah, I believe so. Wouldn't be, wouldn't be surprising if he was. Oh,

I'm sure. I'm sure genetically the vast majority of, especially northern Spaniards, are going to show up as quote unquote Basque. Well, especially the ones that are, um, racially aware.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Um, so should I, I just read directly from the piece?

Yeah, go ahead, man. It'd be nice for an episode like this where I don't have to read. You have the most melodious voice, but I will happily dive into this. So now and then the murder of Jose Calvo So Tello. I begin with a brief biography of Jose Calvo So Tello as it is appropriate to have an understanding of the man whose murder we are discussing. Jose Calvo Sotelo was born in Tui, Galicia, on May 6, 1893, to a deeply religious middle-class family. In his early years, he proved to be a very capable and intelligent young man who easily scored in the top of his

class. He began work on his bachelor's degree at the University of Zaragotha in 1909, where he showed great aptitude for the sciences and languages, but like Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, he was drawn to the law. As a student, he took many small jobs, such as artist or tutor, to aid his family while still excelling in academics. He graduated in 1912. Armed with his bachelors, he undertook doctoral studies at the University of Madrid, where he became extremely close to his professor, Gumercindo Ascarate, who eventually nominated his thesis

for an extraordinary doctorate award. I checked it out. Extraordinary doctorate award is like the top person in every field of study in Spain, whether it's at the university level or nationally,

they kind of call it the same thing. So shortly after completing his studies, Jose Calvo Soelho applied for the public examination to work in the Ministry of Justice. And keep in mind, he's like 21 years old at this time. While preparing for his upcoming exams, he became a familiar site in debate circles at Madrid's many libraries in Athenayams. Here, Calvo Soeltollo would meet many of his future political foes, such as Manuel Azanya and Angel Galarza. It was around 1915 when he was appointed Secretary of Politics and Moral Sciences, when Calvo Sotello became a supporter of Marismo, a truly reactionary conservative faction led by Antonio Mora, which broke off in a schism within the contemporary conservative party.

And then my editor's note, The conservative and liberal parties had participated in the Torno Pacifico, the peaceful turn, in which leadership of the government was handed off between the two parties in fixed intervals over several decades, a real-life example of the conservative, quote, if you use government power, the opposition will simply use that same power against you, so never do anything for your constituency, unquote, mentality. In 1916, at the age of 23, he became a state attorney after achieving a perfect examiner, nation score. In a twist of fate, Calvo Sotelo was assigned to Toledo, where he met

Henrietta de Grondona, daughter of a wealthy and prominent civil engineer whom he would wed a year later. In 1919, Antonio Mora selected Calvo Sotelo to become an electoral candidate for his faction, and in the following elections, he became a member of parliament, a position he lost the following year. In 1921, with grave disasters, such as the murder of Eduardo Dato by Catalan anarchists, and the disaster of Anuol, an earth-shaking defeat of the Spanish army in the Moroccan Rift War, new elections were held in which the Morists surged. Mora became president again, and Calvo Sotella was appointed governor of Valencia.

All changed drastically the 13th of September, 1923. with the military coup d'etat led by General Primo de Rivera, driven by reactionary elements who were done with the weakness of the parliament and useless squabbling of the politicians and sought to, quote, regenerate Spain. Calvo Sotelo strongly ascribed to these ideas and became a vocal supporter of the dictatorship. He was soon appointed general administration director, and later in 1925 he was appointed chief of the revenue ministry where he carried out many innovative tax reforms, which would result in some people calling him a, quote, communist. So this is that third position that the Spanish right was shifting towards, particularly the younger Spanish right.

In 1930, shortly after the death of old age of General Primo de Rivera and the global stock market crash of 1921, 29, Calvo Sotelo and many former ministers of the dictatorship decided to band together to create a party which, quote, carried the spirit and will of Primo de Rivera, unquote, to help Spain recover. They sought the aid of General Berringer, the then dictator, to form a government. But with mood brought about by the victory of Republican and left-wing parties in the 1931 elections, Calvo Sotelo fled to Portugal. The painful birth of the republic, celebrated with looting and the destruction of churches, deeply tarnished Calvo Soelho's belief in helping Spain recover via political means. Nonetheless, he became a Morist candidate for Arensse Galicia and the hope that the law of pardons would be applied to him in the same manner it was applied to communist criminals, such as Largo Caballero and Julian Bastiero, who had led the strike of 1917. team. Side note, Morrigar is going to do an article about Largo Caballero, for whom there just isn't a lot of really good English language material. There are some new biographies that are available. There's one where the title, and again, Spanish language only, the title is essentially

Largo Caballero, Spain's Lenin, or the Spanish Lenin. So that will be coming. Didn't he when he was in jail, didn't he call himself that? Correct. Yeah, he referred to himself at when he was in jail, yeah. Even though the party he represented wasn't a per se Bolshevik party, it was a Spanish kind of national socialist, quote-unquote party in a left sense. But he converted to Marxist Leninism while he was in prison and then was totally open about it. Okay. However, the Republicans sought to persecute those who had, quote, collaborated with the dictatorship and created a special court, which further soured Calvo Sotelo's opinion on the republic.

In 1933, Calvo Sotelo established residence in Paris, where he networked with and learned from personalities such as Charles Morris of Action Francae and established ties with the Italian government via Italo Balbo, even meeting Illinois. Ducce himself in Rome to garner support for the conservative movement of Spain. Yet his most important role during exile was as a conduit between the Carlists and Alphanists to create a unified monarchist element. With the passing of an amnesty law in April 1934 and the resounding defeat of the left in the 1934 general elections, Calvo Sotello returned to Spain as a member of parliament for the party Renovacion Espon. And here's an image from a Renovacion Espanola event. That flag is incredible energy.

Incredible energy. And look at that carpet, that rug is incredible. Oh, yeah. All right. His political career after returning to Spain is well known, specifically because he became an icon of the right, which the leftist sought more than any other to cast down, not only because he was staunch in his assertions,

but because he had served in government during the dictatorship and was thus a collaborator. The left was truly out for blood, which in his case would be realized, a tragic night of July 12, 1936. If this murder was not, quote, unquote, premeditated, it had been announced multiple times in the days prior. It was during a session of Parliament on June 16th, 1936, when then-minister of war, Santiago Casares Kiroga threatened Jose Calvo Sotelo, amid thunderous support from fellow leftists who began shouting, hail the Red Army.

Let's stop right there. We're just, they're just liberal Democrats. I mean, this is a Republican, is this a Republican government? incredible oh yeah see what happened in spain was they had the they elected this republican government and everything was going to be great and a bunch of fascist rose up to overthrow the republican government that was shouting hail the red army and for those who don't know the spanish republic's army had red rank insignia with red stars on it and was led by, they were advised and sometimes led directly by NKVD

and always NKVD trained and led officers. This was a communist operation run by the Soviets in Western Europe. It was Republican. It says it's that's their name. Their name are Republicans. Aren't you a Republican? It's incredible. It's incredible. That very day, the commander of the core of Carabinero's and close friend of Casares Kiroga, Luis Barcelo, said, quote, I will kill him myself, unquote. On June 29th,

Then general security chief Alonzo Malol called agents Jose Gariga Pato, a communist fully loyal to the popular front. The popular front was basically the coalition of leftist, communist, etc. parties that were running the government. And Rodolfo Serrano de la Parte, a close friend of Casares Kiroga, to his office to replace the current agents who were then assigned to guard Calvo Sotelo. So they hand-picked leftists to be his guards. The following day, Staff Sergeant Lorenzo Aguirre Sanchez briefed the two men that their task was not one of protection but of espionage. They were to report on Calvo Soelho's schedule and the identities of everyone that met with him. Two days later, the very same sergeant informed the men, per orders from the security chief, that if an attempt on the life of Calvo Sotello were made in a public place with witnesses, they should pretend to protect him.

But if it happened in a place without witnesses, they should be sure to finish him off. And here's Santiago Casares Kiroga, looks like a worm. Yeah, I mean, it's amazing how the physiognomy never fails on these people. Never. Never. And we're not talking about just, um, no, the kind of physiognomy that we normally talk about. We're talking about just, you know, the, um, the mystery grove tweet. Just ugly, ugly people. Yeah, exactly. You can tell if you do a line chart, you know, the eye, top of the ear, et cetera. That's not, that's not what we're talking about here. Right. Yeah, yeah. All right. Unfortunately for the conspirators, Agent Rodolfo Serrano had a conscience. He spoke of this troubling revelation with Joaquin Bao Nola, a carolest member of parliament and close friend of Calvo Sotelo. Upon hearing this news, Mr. Bao immediately visited the office of the Minister of Government to confront him about this outrageous order. Minister Alfredo Moles denied having given such an order. The following day, Bao and Calvo Sotelo visited the office, now more alarmed than before, and demanding explanations.

Molles downplayed their alarm saying that it was quote-unquote trash talk, from a couple of officers to which Calvo Sotelo, rightfully angered, asked the minister, are we their buddies or members of the government? In the early evening hours of July 12th, assault guard lieutenant Jose del Castillo was assassinated by suspected members of the Falongha, although succeeding events prevented the government from confirming who had murdered him. Upon hearing this news, an emergency cabinet meeting regarding retaliation for the murder of Lieutenant Del Castillo was conducted between Alfredo Moles, Casares Kiroga, and Alonzo Malol, with commander of the Guardia de Assaulto, the assault guards,

Ricardo Burrio Sotoli, Lieutenant Maximo Moreno, and Captain of the Guardia Civil, Fernando Condes. After a heated discussion, it was agreed that they would arrest high-profile right-wing figures and defined a list of suspects

to which they added a few standing members of Parliament, hey, why not? Among which were Jose Maria Gil Robles and Jose Calvo Soelho. During the early hours of July 13, Fernando Condes gathered a number of men at the Pontejo's barracks. The most important names among them, aside from Condes, were Victoriano Quenca, aka Luis Quenca Estevas, a hitman, bodyguard, and close friend of the socialist Indolethio Prieto,

known as the Cuban. Jose Ray Hernandez, bodyguard and close friend of the socialist Margarita Nelkin. Interesting last name. Frederico Cuello Garcia, medical student, socialist and close friend of Indolecio Prieto, and Anaceto Castro Pignera, member of the Guardia de Assaulto, who had later confessed to the events which transpired. There were a total of 14 men in a van, followed by a car with five more. The van is interesting. We have a picture of it in this article.

It's of the era. Very narrow. The group, after a fruitless hunt for Jose Gil Robles, who was away from Madrid, decided to drive to Velazquez Street number 89, the home of Calvo Soelho. So I'll point out, Jose Gilroblis, I have an article in here that Morgor also wrote, which is translating a speech that Jose Gilroblis gave in the Cortes. after the assassination of Calvo Soelho, which basically stated the rights case and why they were done with talking anymore. Jose Gilroblis was the leader of Seda, which was that coalition government. And Jose Calvo Sotelo wasn't the leader, but he was like one of the most prominent figures of that Renovacion Española, which was that royalist faction. Condes and Quenka left the van at Calvo Sotelo's home with a group of Guardia who surrounded the building.

The rest followed Condes and Quenka inside, where they knocked on the door and were met by a maid. And remember, this is like two or three in the morning. They stated that they wanted to carry out a search. The maid warned Calvo Sotelo of what was taking place, so he came to the door. upon opening Condes and his men entered the home and told Calvo Sotelo that they were to search his house. They spread out and cut the phone line. Quenka instructed Calvo Sotelo that by order of the general security directorate, he was under arrest. Upon hearing this, Sotelo warned the men that he was a member of parliament,

and he could not be arrested without the order of a judge or clear evidence of a crime. Calvo Sotelo attempted to make a call to the security directorate, but he realized the line had been cut, and the troopers were preventing his wife and maids from leaving the house to call for help. Due to the tense situation, Condes showed his badge and assured Calvo Sotelo that he was called

for an emergency meeting in Parliament. Once they arrived, he could meet with the security chief himself. Seeing the tense situation he was in, on top of his family being completely surrounded and helpless. Calvo Sotelo agreed to leave his home for the quote-unquote meeting. After dressing and kissing his children goodbye, his wife pleaded with him not to leave the house. Calvo Sotelo reassured her that when he arrived at Parliament, he would call her, though he added, quote, unless these men put a bullet in the back of my head, unquote. This statement has led many to conclude that

Calvo Sotelo suspected what was going to happen, but in order to protect his loved ones, he agreed to go even though he suspected he was to be murdered. In the van, Condes proceeded to tell his men that it was time to leave. Aniseto Castro Pignero sat to the right of Sotelo, while Victoriano Cuenca, the hit man, sat in the seat directly behind him. The van drove for roughly 500 meters, when Victoriano drew a gun and shot Calvo Sotelo twice in the back of the head, causing him to fall dead upon the seats in front of him. The van didn't stop, and the men inside didn't protest or make a sound. Eventually the van reached

a Guardia de Assaulto checkpoint, which, upon seeing that the van was one of theirs, they let them through. Barely an hour later, the van arrived at the Cemetery del Estes, or Eastern Cemetery, where Condes hailed the guards to let the van in. The men left Calvo Sotelo, body at the door of the morgue without informing the graveyard shift employees of his identity. So this is a diagram where he's seated and his assassin was right behind him with all these other men. And who was with which Guardia Seville, Guardia de Assaulto and PSOE militants? After this grim task was performed, the men returned to the van and drove away. the driver commented, I guess they won't rat us out. Condes replied, don't worry, nothing will happen.

Quenka added, whoever blabs about this better kill himself, or else we will kill him like this month. Upon returning to the Pondejos Barracks, Commander Burillo received Condes and Quenka with a sound handshake and led them to his office while the driver, Tomas Perez, cleaned the back of the van of any blood. the van would be decommissioned to the following day. Meanwhile, Calvo Soelho's wife, Lady Enriquez de Grondona, excuse me, began to contact authorities, friends, and relatives the instant her husband was taken away. She tried best to report the kidnapping and get help to track down Calvo Soelho, but the pertinent authorities reported, quote,

he hasn't arrived to the General Security Directorate, unquote. many of the public employees, security officers, and command members of the General Security Directorate, and the Ministry of Public Order corroborated that no one in charge upon hearing the news of the disappearance of Calvo Sotello took any action to find out where he was. It wasn't until early in the morning when relatives of Calvo Sotello went directly to the government ministry that the crime report was even formally filed. In this report, a concern to the report, a concern Lieutenant Sanchez Plaza recorded that during the night van number 17

arrived after patrol with blood inside due to a minor injury to one of the troopers and all of the agents involved in the incident were reassigned to other duties the following day. This information caused panic among Sotelo's relatives

and after a short talk outside sub-secretary Osorio's office, Lieutenant Sanchez confirmed that a group of the Guardia de Assaulto had committed high insubordination. So I have a nice image here of Jose Calvo Sotelo's funeral, attended by thousands in Madrid. And I note that Libtards had sealed their fate.

Well, they weren't, I mean, they were just getting started. But, I mean, there was no way that after this that the military wasn't going to be involved. Yeah, there was no way that there was going to be any. more talk right and um i just think it's interesting that um last year 2024 when butler pennsylvania happened oh it happened on july 13th yes yep i remember you pointing that out and it's it's wild they i mean i don't know who they is i i don't know who they is i don't know who they is but they sure do you like to pick certain dates, don't they? They use them over and over again. They do. You can go back a couple centuries on September, just search September 11th,

things that happened on September 11th, and you'll go back a couple centuries and you'll be like, this has to be wrong when you see the things that were done on September 11th of certain years throughout the last few centuries. It's one of those things where you're like, I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist, but how could I not be? Oh, of course. And it makes me wonder sometimes.

So there's obviously scenarios in which things are done on certain dates for deliberate reasons. There's also, you know, as Thomas likes to point out, that war comes like the season, right? You will have a season of war. And so sometimes I think, you know, there are certain scenarios in which you're like, maybe that's just a cycle. But it sure is interesting and it's definitely noteworthy. And at the very least, it bears scrutiny before you can come to any conclusions. Yep. Correct. All right. So again, this is the morning immediately after the

assassination and tensions are extremely high, but things have not exploded yet. At the same time, at the same time as this report was being filed by the family and these conversations were taking place internally with concerned officers and like legitimate guys who worked within the government. At the same time, Alonso Malol received in his office a nervous captain of the Gardia de Asselto, concerned over the disappearance of Calvo Sotelo. Malol answered, quote, we should not make hasty conclusions as to what has happened. After all, whatever happened, we cannot do anything about it, unquote, signaling his passivity

and suggesting to a certain degree that he knew what had happened. Later, this captain would corroborate the outstanding passivity of the government regarding the disappearance and potential member of a standing member of parliament, which spread in the media and reached the police chief of Madrid, who only gave an order to arrest the driver of the van. It wasn't until noon, when a cemetery employee reported to Town Hall that the body of Calvo Sotello was in the morgue, since he knew the man personally.

He shared all of what was known to have happened that night at the morgue. authorities who weren't controlled by left-wing elements soon mobilized to investigate the case, although they were constantly halted by higher-ups in the Republican government. For example, when a police lineup was conducted in order to identify the troopers who took Calvo Sotelo, none of the agents who were there that night were called to it. In fact, the government took direct action to protect those involved in the event. When Lieutenant Maximo Moreno was called to testify before a judge, he took refuge in the General Security Directorate for a week before agreeing to appear, where he refused to testify. After the military uprising on July 25th, a group of 10 armed communist militiamen burst into the Supreme Court of the Palace of Justice and demanded to be handed the files in everything related to the investigation of the murder of Calvo Sotelo.

powerless, a judge handed over the files, and from there, nobody knows what happened to them. Most of the events related above were corroborated by many people from public officials to the friends and family of Jose Calvos Sotelo. probably the most revealing and important of all testimony. Details regarding the actual murder were recounted in an interview with Aniceto Castro Piniero, Aguardia de Asselto, who was in the van when Sotelo was murdered. This enlightening interview performed during the war in a nationalist prison camp was published in El Diario Vosco newspaper the 16th of November of 1938. So this is two years later, before the war is over, this reporter is able to interview someone who is involved in what was taking place in these prisoner of war camps. The nationalists were taking all these people that they had captured who had been fighting against them and interrogating and parsing them and corroborating their backgrounds and researching their backgrounds and researching their

backgrounds and stories to figure out, are these just draftees? Are these people who've been involved in atrocities? Are these red agitators? Are they just like a liberal who happened to vote liberal, but they're not like fire breathers and then they were drafted or conscripted or whatever? Like, this is what those camps, like a major portion of what they were, because You needed to figure out and identify who had brought the country to the point where there was a war. Correct.

Yeah. You had mentioned that the war wasn't over yet. But really, I think at this point, really isn't it only the Battle of Ebro that's really left? That's the only major thing that's going to happen. Correct. It's still simmering at this time. The Battle of the Ebro is still underway by November 16th of 38. they're completely isolated and cut off up there.

And so that just has to be resolved and then force is kind of reconstituted so that they can take Catalonia and then go through Valencia and up through up to Madrid. There's a really good book by Osprey Press on the Battle of Ebro. It is detailed. It is, you know how Daryl's World War I episode, how. Yeah. I mean, that's how that book is. And you're just like, oh, I'll have to get that. That's fairly recent, isn't it? Or am I misremembering? Yeah. Yeah. And that, yeah, that's one of those ones where you're like, oh, yeah, I wouldn't want to be in the trenches of World War I. And I would not be in the battle of Ebro. No, you would not. On either side, it was it was brutal. It was brutal. All right. I wet my whistle. And I'm ready to continue. So this is that interview straight out of the newspaper.

And you can find this in Spanish all over the internet in Spanish language, you know, Spanish Civil War themed websites and forums and stuff like that. I corroborated all this stuff. I have a screenshot of like the cover of this newspaper. or the first page of the article, like above the fold, etc. Like this is straight out of that paper. And there's photos of the people that are involved in everything like this. This is incredibly well documented.

These camps were not just atrocities taking place. They were just Democrats who wanted to vote. So they were in a prison camp. We filed the paperwork to access the prison camp and speak with the Gardia, Assaulto, who was in the van 17 when the illustrious Jose Calvo Sotelo was murdered. Aniceto Castro Pinero was taken prisoner by our forces in Madrid near the clinical hospital. We also need the permission of the standing judge to speak with a prisoner.

It's a little, the translation here is slightly stilted, but it's a good translation in terms of being technically accurate. This judge is a captain of the law corps who not only allowed us to talk with him, but accompanied us to the camp. We find many prisoners in this place. We are taken aback by the vast diversity of clothing, some wearing sleeveless shirts, others wool jackets, and most militia uniforms of many colors. Soon we see a prisoner leaving the barracks. He stands out among the rest due to the way he carries himself. That one is on Seto Kavis.

Castro Pinero, says the captain. He approaches our group and addressing the captain, he asks, Your orders? The captain answers, these people wish to ask you some questions. Interviewer. Where are you from? Aniseto. Lugo. How old are you? 27. Marital status? I'm single. Siblings? I have two brothers. One in the Guardia de Assaulto and the other a priest. Interesting. Do you belong to any or... Did you belong to any political organization or workers' union before joining the Corps? None.

What was your employment before joining the Corps? I was a farmhand. I also worked as a stone cutter for a time. What was your first destination when you joined the Corps? I begun in Oviedo, the capital of Asturias. I served from November of 1934, up to April of 1935, which would have been a rather busy first. uh, tour given what was going on up there. Then I was sent to Madrid.

Did you request a transfer? Of course. The third of April, I joined the second assault company, one of the specials. What specialty did your company have? We had divisions of machine gunners, mortars, and gas weapons. These are internal police. It's not, they aren't just like gum shoes and, you know, beat cops. Who was in charge of your company?

Captain Moreno Navarro, the entire group was under the orders of Commander Barrio. It was said that the second company you belonged to leaned heavily to the left. Almost every trooper in it was a member of the most extreme left-wing organizations. Truly, very few of us were moderates or right-leaning. Among our lot, there were two sergeants who were displeased with the leftist aspect of the company. It got to a point where any trooper in another company had, had problems or a fight with his superiors, due to their rebellious leftist attitude, they asked to be reassigned to the second company.

They were among their peers there. However, there was another company formed mainly of right-wingers, men of order and loyalty. We called it the Pacific Company. And I'll add a note here that keep in mind that the assault guards were a special core established under the Republic, by the Republic, specifically looking for a, to create a new law enforcement arm that would be loyal to the Republic, that would enforce their, basically their politically moderating stance. Their concern was that the Civil Guard was this old established system that had a lot of like royalists and people who had served under the

dictatorship and they wanted to create this new arm that would do whatever but again you know obviously you're getting these rather tough people and so you need to go with who you can get and so there's going to be kind of a mix of people but they're kind of segregating which you see during the war, the same thing took place. Some, uh, the different groups and it was heavily influenced by your chances of actually pulling off, you know, asserting whichever group, uh, you, uh, you decided to throw in with like in the time and place of where you were at. So like if you were behind like Republican lines, it would be a lot harder for you

to, you know, side with the, the nationalists. Okay, continuing. Interviewer, I wish you to tell us how the crime against Mr. Calvo Sotello was planned and how it took place. I know very little of the planning. When Lieutenant Castillo was murdered, the second company was an uproar. No wonder. Lieutenant Castillo had a great reputation among those men, and our company was commonly called the revolutionary. They were very angry with corporal's Francisco Condé Garcia and Mari.

Gariano Garcia Garria being the angriest. They said they had to put all the fascists down. They had to kill them to the last to avenge the lieutenant. You didn't know the assassination of Lieutenant Castillo was carried out by the government in order to rouse the radical leftists into action. So this is kind of like, yeah, this is a theory that pushed by the right. I don't know how accurate it was. I don't think there's enough evidence to come to any conclusions there.

But that was kind of one of the right-wing, quote-unquote conspiracy theories, that it was a, that it was an op of some kind. But it was the, it's commonly thought that the Falunke carried it out, right? Yeah, correct. And I've never seen any evidence that that wasn't the case, but there isn't a ton of evidence. But again, he was a big glowing, pulsating target for the Falunhe because of the types of stuff that he was doing against them, where they would go. Castillo was leading men to arrest Falunhe members, and they would just wipe them out quite often. So it's assumed that that's the case, but it's interesting when these things pop up. you know, conspiracy theories of the time.

Continuing, he responds, no, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was carried out by the government as a false flag. Interviewer, keep going. As I was saying, that kept going on about avenging Lieutenant Castillo, there were very heated arguments and fists in the air, and with those passions running high, we got to the night of the 12th and into the 13th. The captain of the Guardia Civil Condes was in the barracks of Pontejos. He was in plain clothes. He made his way to the boss's office. After that, others arrived. Among them, there was a sinister man, a hitman.

It was he who carried out the barbaric crime. Soon begun rumors among the troopers that we were going to carry out the arrests of dozens of right-wingers. With that news, the leftists among us rejoiced, and like that, midnight arrived. A little after midnight, many truers. troopers left to carry out the arrests. Around two in the morning, Lieutenant Andres Leone-Lupon left his office and addressed all of us saying, three of you, get in the van. He then spoke with the Guardia, Jose Del Rey, and gave him a document that looked like a list with names of people we were to arrest. Three of us in uniform got in the van. After us came the driver, Captain Condes and the

Guardia, Jose del Rey. After them arrived other troopers, all in plain clothes, belonging to the Gardia de Assaulto. With them came the sinister hitman that, as it was rumored then, and I would know much later, was the bodyguard of former socialist minister in Deletio Prieto. That man had a badge from our corps given to him by the General Security Directorate, even though he didn't fulfill the requirements, which would be handy. He looked to be around 27th. strong and cheery. He was always smiling. We left the barracks and left up Alcala Street until we reached Velazquez Street, driving to a building at the end of the street. We stopped there and the doorman approached the van to ask the driver if we arrived to arrest Calvo Sotelo.

One of the troopers shouted to him to open the door, keep quiet, and leave if he didn't want to get killed. Captain Condes, who by order of Lieutenant Lupion, we had to Bay ordered the Guardillas with machine pistols to surround the building and others to cover the surrounding streets. After that, Condes, accompanied by the Guardia Jose Del Rey, and the hitman, went into the home of Mr. Calvo Soelho. By the door, there was the doormand and two guards who were on duty guarding the house. I do not know what happened inside. Nobody spoke of it. Around 15 minutes later, they came down. The three of them with Calvo Soelho, who dressed in a gray suit and carried a briefcase. They made him get into the van, and he took the third seat in the middle.

I sat to his left and do his right was another trooper. The hitman sat directly behind Calvo Sotelo. Worried, Mr. Sotelo asked where the captain was, and Condes answered from outside the van. He looked at us and said, let's see what they want with me. The other troopers got in the van soon after. We could see some of his relatives peeking out of the balconies and windows to bid him farewell, to which he answered, waving his hand. Sorry. I'm sorry, I'm a... Yeah.

After that, the van departed. We drove down Velasca Street. We didn't even drive 500 meters when we heard a weird popping sound. Then Calvo Sotelo, without giving a hint of pain, dropped onto the seat in front of him, and rolled on the Gardia to his right. Finally, he dropped to the floor. two men kicked his body so that it would fit between the two rows of seats.

You want me to read? Oh, I'm okay. Okay. Moments after the gunman who sat behind Mr. Sotelo got up and kneeling on the seat, shot him again in the head. He said, one of the murderers of Castillo is down. And again, you were like, one of the murders of Castillo, what are you talking about? when the anarchists and socialist and communist risings took place in Astorius and all over the country in 1932, excuse me, 1933 into 34, the government cracked down on them and the right-wingers were blamed, even though like the republic's government, the Republican government basically said this is too much. We got to do something.

And the excuse for the uprising, which, of course, the real goal behind it was Bolshevik revolution and anarchist revolution was that, oh, well, we can't tolerate, you know, having an elected right-wing government after a legitimate election. Like, it's the republic and we're stealing this motherfucker. So that's their cope is they do killing. There's a reaction to them. and then they called the people who reacted to them to bring an order, the murderers, right? Sounds familiar, huh? Sounds familiar. I noted that the first shot of the hitman was from below in the nape,

while the second was from above in the head. I think the first one had to be lethal. Then the guardia to the right of Calvo Sotelo got up and left for a seat in the back. I sat still. Nobody realized that such a horrible, murder took place? Nobody said a word. Those in the back of the van didn't even turn their heads. The van kept driving on with its terrible cargo. When we reached the crossing, with Alcala Street, there were a couple of Gardia de Assaulto at a checkpoint, stopping any driver and asking for

papers from anyone driving at that hour. They signaled us to stop, but when they saw we were in a van of the security directorate, they let us through. We kept driving on to the eastern Cemetery. We tried to place the body of Calvo Sotelo in such a way that you couldn't see it from the outside. We arrived to the graveyard, and Captain Condes and Del Rey hailed the cemetery guards. They opened the doors and let us through until we reached the building. The captain told us to drop the body, and three of us took it out of the van. I grabbed one of his arms, another the legs, and another the other arm. We pulled as hard as we could, but due to how he fell, it wasn't easy to get him out.

That's why he had bruises on the knees. We dropped the body outside. There wasn't a struggle? No. The van was filled with blood, but Calvo Sotelo didn't utter a word. Soon after we drove back to the barracks, the driver, looking at us and addressing Captain Condez, said, quote, I suppose you won't wrap me out, unquote. Del Rey answered, quote, don't worry, whoever blabs about this better kill himself, or else we will kill him.

them like this, unquote. We drove back without uttering a word until we got back to the barracks. When we arrived to the hitman, or better said, the murderer of Calvo Sotelo, and Captain Condez left for the office of Commander Barrio, who gave a handshake to the murderer. They went up to the commander's office. You didn't speak with any of the troopers about what happened? Not that day. Others caught wind of it from the papers, but I spoke about it with some

friends the next day. And the van? What happened to it? Since it was soaked in blood, it had to be cleaned up. That task was for Guardia Thomas Perez. Once it was done, it was ordered to be decommissioned. What happened after all of that? We all kept on active duty, but after that day, we never saw Captain Condez or the hitman ever again. A few days after, due to the police investigation, a maid and a teacher that were in the home of Calvo Sotelo came to the barracks for a line. up. All of our company was ordered to attend, except the three of us who were in the van the day of the murder. This was done to see if any of the servants of the house recognized any of the men who were there. But the three of us that were in the van didn't set foot in the house anyways. Well, all of this happened, Lieutenant Barletta called the three of us who weren't at the identity parade, which the police lineup, and told us, quote, don't worry, nothing will happen to you. This hit was ordered by the general security director, who was ordered by the minister of government. Everyone in the government and your bosses know about it. They are the ones who did it, unquote.

Did he really say that? Exactly as he said, it was an order from the security director and the government minister. And you know what happened to the others that were in the van with you? Yes, Guardia del Rey fled to Portugal and then was in Bada Holes as head of the militia. Right now he's a lieutenant in Barcelona. I was told that the hitman was killed, and justice was served on his part. They riddled him with bullets in Guadorama. And last I know, Captain Condes died in Extremadora. Weren't some guardia and the driver of the van arrested and taken to the Palace of Justice?

Yes, but it was all a ruse. The government just put up a farce. Why do you think that Lieutenant Sanchez Planois went to the barracks of Pontejos? He was the head of the Gardia de Assaulto. He probably wanted to know what happened. This information confirms what we knew already. The murder of Mr. Calvo Sotello was a crime ordered by the state. The blood of our martyr was a war cry against the Marxist beast, which threatened to destroy Spain.

Okay. So. Yeah. Yeah, these next parts are, your notes here are very important. And I credit, I credit Morgor with the vast majority of this. These are his sentiments. But I love that closing. The blood of our martyr was a war cry against the Marxist beast, which threatened to destroy Spain.

And this is written when they're on the march and the final victory over this Marxist beast in Spain is almost achieved. The final victory for for now. There is no yeah Thomas and I are doing we're doing a series on Suveroff and Hoffman's book which pin basically pin world war two on on Stalin icebreaker outstanding icebreaker and Stalin's war of extermination yes yes really good books and I haven't gotten through all of Stalin's War of extermination, but I've read Icebreaker and Icebreaker, I mean, that it's one of those ones is just all circumstantial evidence, but it's so, once you, you read it all, you're just like, yeah, this, we're so far away from the, you know,

from the official, officially what happened to, that led up to that, led up to that conflict. But one of the things, yeah, one of the things I said in that, episode at the end of that episode was, you know, what a lot of people don't realize, you know, Spain and the right get all this, uh, flack for, you know, Germany helping them and, um, Italy helping them and, you know, basically fascists coming in from Romania, coming in from everywhere, uh, to help them. Um, but they left after they won. if the left would have won, Spain belonged to Stalin. Absolutely.

He wasn't leaving. And that means that he would have had a foothold at the top of the peninsula, and he would have had a foothold at the bottom of the peninsula. He would have basically had the mouth of the Mediterranean. And I suspect that the international brigades would have swelled. and the communists in Western Europe would have amassed there, as well as the Anglosphere, would have amassed in Spain to prepare for the next phase. I firmly believe that.

Yeah, people do not realize what the bullet that was dodged by the right winning. If the left would have won, I mean, if the left would have won basically, I mean, the outcome of World War II was bad enough. There's a pretty good chance Stalin would have had all of Europe. And I don't know that the United States or England would have said anything about it. And England would have just basically continued on the angle that it was, that it was following, right? That they would have just been that much more communist flavored instead of pretending that they aren't. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. All right. Let's wrap this up. So these are more rigorous sentiments, but great stuff. while I advise that everyone read this with a pinch of salt, it was written during the war after all. It is important to note that the bloodlust of the left was not much different then as it is now, an open secret to everyone that they constantly try to deny publicly, obviously,

although less so, I'll add, these days, as they do not want to suffer the rightful retribution, which will eventually come. And if it comes to one of them, they firmly believe it will come for every single. one of them. That said, the true subject of this article is the indecisive centrist or conservative, the man who stands by and lets things happen, either out of fear or indifference, an all too common archetype today, as they watch the world devolve into barbarism, yet refuse to budge until they are personally victimized, or refuse even then to act, whether out of fear of prison, social scorn, death, economic loss, such are

Legion in this day and age. While their passivity is worthy of scorn, you must remember that many of them are struggling like you or others you know. They wish they could do something. They wish they could spare time or money or maybe escape from everything that is becoming worse and worse over time. But remember, while the left will attempt to gain the support of the middle via terror, you can win them over by offering a world of order and virtue. The end. This is the monument to Jose Calvo Sotelo and the Plaza de Castilla in Madrid. Do you think they can be won over by that?

I believe. How bad will it have to get in order for them to embrace the order and virtue? I kind of feel like they will get with the program. and you will have people as things progress that get with the program sooner rather than later but I think it's a it's a progression many are you know pretty much useless

what matters is that they stay out of the way yeah I mean that's unfortunately that's exactly where it exactly the point is that right now there's just in the way and they just need to step aside and they don't want to i mean they've no absolutely not yeah they've they've been in power for so long they've been um you know they've been the top of the heap for so long and it's like well no no i'm going to hold on to this until the day i

die well everything else is dying around you while you're while you're holding out so um yeah maybe you need to step aside. Yeah. And I feel I feel pretty positive in regards to wherever there's energy

it's either on real energy, it's on our side or the enemies. And that middle is so increasingly irrelevant that I just want to

to be left alone is a sentiment you hear all the time, but they're irrelevant. They don't participate in anything. They don't do anything. And I just feel like that their irrelevancy is so obvious to people that they're just not worried about them. And that's the correct mentality to have. Like every once in a while you run across someone who's like, oh, someone's, we got to persuade all these people and other people are like no they'll they will be persuaded by action and events taking place around them and so i wouldn't worry about it you know do you remember a few years ago when john brennan like mentioned enemies of the regime and he happened to mention libertarians yes yeah all of their fucking nipples got hard when he said that yeah they all got so excited

because look, we're relevant. I had someone tell me that. He goes, we're an enemy of the regime because John Brennan, I'm like, somebody told him to say that. He doesn't know what a libertarian is. Are you kidding me? This is a guy who was going on TV and talking about his white privilege. Do you think he can explain to you what white privilege means in, you know, in context of who he's supposed to be signaling that to? Please stop. Libertarians, classical liberals, are a threat?

Well, how come they're the ones who are leaking the fucking group chats? Yes. Yeah. Well, he could be, it could be a mask off moment because as we know, the Bolsheviks always enjoy massacring the libertarians. So they're not an actual combatant enemy, but they're an enemy that they deal with, right? They usually end up being useful in some way to them. Yeah, they're useful idiots, and then they just get rid of them, even though they're never a threat. They just sweep them into the dustbin. They do it everywhere. They did it in Russia.

They did it in Spain. Yeah, it was, you can read about some, like, they would just have it in the streets of Madrid, a libertarian and an anarchist or a libertarian and a communist would just start having an argument. And the communist or the anarchist would just pull a gun out and shoot the libertarian, just kill them right there. Even though they were on the same, even though they were on the same side. Yep. Yeah, they're fighting side by side and they're like, I mean, which is one of the reasons, you know, probably the main reason the left lost.

thankfully was not only because the right was, you know, they had purpose and they were basically fighting a crusade and it's kind of hard to be crusaders. But you're, it's kind of hard to beat crusaders if you're not organized. If you're not one, if you're not all, you know, dropping your ideological, you know, your ideological baggage and you're letting it get in the way and you're like executing the person who's fighting alongside of you. Exactly. Exactly.

They could have probably held Madrid if it wasn't for that. Probably. They probably could have probably could have. But the other thing too is it took so long. There was such a long protracted period of this internal grinding against each other. Because remember, Madrid, there was that heavy push for, I want to say, like nine months about before before the nationalist

pretty much just stopped worrying about Madrid. I mean, they still had to have their holding units there to retain the ground that they had taken around it, but they weren't attempting any pushes after

basically spring of 1937. And so when they shifted national attention elsewhere to grind out the war elsewhere. To your point, the various factions in Madrid had nothing to do, no one to fight with, except each other, which is brilliant, really, to leave them to fight against one another. So that by the time, you know, the grinding war has taken place all around the country,

all that you have left are these, you know, hard-cor, like internal security types who aren't like real soldiers. They are just murderers that are running around in the cities, you know, quote unquote, you know, maintaining order. And they don't, they don't have anyone who wants to fight with them left. To the point where there was a huge faction within, that basically took over the government, you know, the remains of the Republican government and said,

we're going to surrender. A couple of communists stood up and tried. tried to take them out and they were crushed because everyone was basically like all we have to do is kill like a couple hundred communists and the war is over and the war is over anyway so why not just waste them and like negotiate which is what they did and then they handed over Madrid to the nationalists basically without a shot fired against the nationalists so absolutely incredible and an important lesson that's what they do And so all these people, these like libertarians who are taking up aspects of the left because they're like, oh, you're just statists.

You worship the state. You know, oh, what about the liberties of the people being grabbed by ice? It's like, look, if you want that kind of world, you need to understand who it's for and who can create it and who can maintain it. and it's not the people being deported. Like if they're here, the parasitism that you decried in the 90s when it was almost purely domestic parasitism, like what you have now is 30, 35 years of highly evolved parasitism, whereas we've seen recently the SNAP benefits are going like two thirds to form. if not more than two-thirds, it's massive.

And they're people who are literally imported here just to be given Gibbs and just to replace you. So they're out of here. You have a much better chance of resolving the internal situation where you have more of the liberty that you want because it's a Western country and filled with Western people who care about European people. who care about these beliefs that you say are important to you. You can't get that among being swarmed with people who not only don't believe in this stuff, but have been told that they're here to take your stuff. And so all they have to do is side with the people who want to take your stuff and replace you. And so they do it.

sorry it's not that complicated yeah it's just once you see it you know it's uh it's kind of hard to unsee because um you once you start reading about stuff like this you know it's like i mean libertarians and classical you know that's so much classical liberals but definitely like the libertarian types will say, you know, the reason the Spanish Civil War happened is because they were all statists. And what do you, I mean, what? So the anarchists in Catalonia who are running around murdering priests and raping nuns and burning down churches, well, they weren't statists. Well, they were, those, those aren't real anarchists, Carl.

Choose your own Spanish Civil War. Yeah, exactly. Libertarian version. Libertardi inversion. That's like eight people agreed with them in all of Spain. Like maybe, maybe. They even called themselves libertarian. They were still the violent anarchists among them.

Hope all you want. That's who they were. That's where your identity comes from. sorry. Well, I think one thing, I think they're one of the reasons why the libertarian, to remember, they call it the alt-right pipeline, why that exists is, is because deep down in the recesses of their, the part of them that they don't want to admit exists, they know that authoritarianism is the only way that they get to anything that looks close to what they want.

Oh, and that's, I realized that quite, you know, relatively early in the period of calling myself a libertarian. I was like, that's the only way you can get to it. And then I read Hoppa and was like, that's literally all he just said. He repeated the exact same thing that I kind of intuited. And yeah, So, you know, if you're just holding it as like this, it'd be nice to have. It's an ideal that I would like to achieve. You have to understand that the only way to get anywhere close to that is you have the shield wall around your society on the outside so that you can have that kind of world on the inside.

And you have to have that shield wall. And you have to enforce that against people that oppose it. which is not very nice. And that requires power to do it. And if you call that a state or it's a group of people, you know, who just volunteer to do it, hey, you know, whatever. Call it whatever you want, man. I don't care.

Yeah. I mean, I'm very happy that I used to be able to look at a situation and go, hey, here's the problem. No, I didn't, I didn't know what the problem was. No, no. I wasn't able, oh, libertarians are really good at diagnose. No, they're not. No. Communists, Marxists are much better. People who like study dialectical materialism, they're much better at diagnosing what the problem is. The problem is they don't know how to fix it any better. Their ways are just as destructive as the anarcho-capitalist answer would be. Absolutely.

Absolutely. All right, man. Tell everybody where they can find you. And we were just reading basically right off of your substack. So there's more stuff like there's more stuff like that on there. So tell people where they can find it. Carl Dahl. That's K-A-L-D-H-L-Substack.com.

I have two books on Amazon. and Faction with the Crusaders. Faction with the Crusaders is my Spanish Civil War story. I'm also on Twitter, although I really dislike Twitter. But every once in a while, I will put up a banger. So that's where you see my mindless posts thrown into the void. And I also will update when I'm posting stuff on subsets. stack there as well. But it's fun because you get to engage with your friends.

So thanks Pete. Had a great time talking to you today. Yeah, man. That's what the group chats are for though. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Group chats are the best part of it. Always appreciate it, Carl. Thank you. Thanks.

I want to welcome everyone back to the Peking Yeno show. Carl Dahl is back. How you doing, Carl? Doing great, Pete. Glad to be here. Awesome. Awesome. Hey, if you're here, let's talk about a little more about the Spanish Civil War.

And let's go in a completely different direction than we've done before. When I read this, I was like, yeah, this information has to get out there because not only does this speak to the time they were in, but I think it definitely speaks to a lot of the conversations that we have now as far as women in politics and, you know, conversations like that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'll just let you go. All right. So, as in our last recording, my Spanish correspondent and friend Morgor, he'd been helping me with some research and translation and then started, he was really inspired by the assassination of Charlie Kirk to talk about like a real, perspective on the similarities and differences between Spain of the 30s and the United States now, as well as just kind of the meta-global, kind of European political scene.

And so he keeps coming across all this really interesting information. And so he's been writing these articles. I just apply a tiny bit of polish to them because some stuff does. doesn't translate perfectly from Spanish to English. And so I'm just happy to be sharing those. But yeah, this one is a banger. Women in the Spanish Civil War. And, you know, putting together my substack article,

and you can read this, read along with us at Carldall. Dot substack.com. That's K-A-L-D-H-L-Substack.com. And the subtitle I gave it is the natural, order versus progressive delusion. So let's dive right into it. I'll read along and Pete will pipe up when he wants to add some comments. There will be plenty more coming on this topic, including a full article on one of the women

who's mentioned herein and as well as Largo Caballero, which is going to be super interesting because there just isn't a ton of great single source information about Largo Caballero in English. That's awesome. All right. Great. So we begin. Women are important. No matter what we say, think or do in our heart of hearts, we know that women are very important to any healthy society or movement. We have all indulged in comments about foids, women moments, and whatnot, rightfully criticizing the behavior and habits of the vast majority of modern women, but we know that despite their behavior flaws and the many things men cannot comprehend about them, which transcends time, women are important. This is a constant, as true in the past

as it remains today. No matter how many years go by or how our ideas may have changed, a properly functioning movement needs both men and women. It can be divided by gender subgroups for men and women, as in the Falongha, but we need places of honor for both. I learned some time ago that a man is a product of his experience while a woman is a product of her environment. This truism is illustrated by the years leading up to and during the Spanish Civil War, a tumultuous time of change with new ideas, mentalities, and organizations which also changed women in many different ways. During the last years of the dictatorship in the early years of the Republic, there was considerable growth in workers' unions and left-wing associations. Initially, these groups focused

upon working men, as most women in Spain did not work. Around 24% of women were employed at the time, with more than 80% of those being widows or single. But most women during the late 1920s joined Catholic associations as well as welfare or mutual aid organizations. Because at the time, it would have been done privately in Spain, in the United States, etc. So the rise of left-wing organizations and workers' unions in the 1930s saw a steady increase in the number of working women, mainly from humble families, from Andalusia, Austurius, Catalonia, and Bass Country, who formed the main bulk of those organizations' female membership, along with outliers, such as the occasional daughter of a wealthy family, intellectuals, or aspiring politicians, which are so common today. As the left saw a steady rise in both manpower and influence within the Republic, reactionary right-wing organizations also developed and grew their own institutions. These organizations began with the old religious unions and welfare organizations,

which could be transformed into something new, or else were abandoned in favor of a more fitting structure. The moderate right-wing organizations allowed female participation, but others, like the Falonghe, did not allow female membership. For this, women created their own parallel all-female organizations as a complementary wing of the one they wished to join. Such was the case of the Sessione Feminina female section, which began as a student's union,

which evolved into the support wing of the Falonghe, led by the scrumption, Pilar Primo de Rivera, sister of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, the leader of the flange. Most women who joined right-wing organizations were religious women from all walks of life, from college-day aged women to daughters and wives, from wealthy families, and the nobility. There was a substantial divide between the left and right in how women contributed and took action. Each side bears the names of important women who played significant roles. The lovely Pilar Primo de Rivera with her chud jaw and Mercedes-San-Bashiler.

So two great women of the Spanish right were Mercedes-San-Bashelair and the aforementioned Pilar Primo de Rivera. Mercedes-San-Bashiler founded the Auxial or Social Aid, which initially served as a welfare organization focused upon poverty relief in the countryside, via food says rationing, but really provisioning at this stage, closed distribution and providing health care. When the Civil War broke out, the Auxelio Sociol expanded into a support wing for the Army and was soon in charge of providing aid to the civilian population within liberated zones through field kitchens, hospitals, and the managed distribution of rationed supplies. Pilar Primo de Rivera founded the Sessione Feminina, or female section, support wing of the Falange, mentioned before.

Their initial responsibilities focused upon communication with imprisoned Falonghai members, propaganda, and aiding the members, the families of members of the Falunhe killed by the left, of whom there were many. When war broke out, the Sessiona feminina grew into an extreme. important movement aiding the civilian population within the nationalist zone in the same manner as the auxilios social. These two organizations, which eventually developed a rivalry, grew into immense formal operations, with the Session Feminina reaching 900,000 members by the end of the Civil War. In the post-war Franco era, men were compelled into mandatory military service, while women were required to engage in social service via one or the other of these two organizations. While some readers will understand neither the importance nor the dignity of the women serving in these critical supporting roles, we cannot deny their relevance in securing the final victory.

So I have two. Yes, sir. Well, what's interesting about this is that, so take the war in Vietnam, okay? United States invades Vietnam, and any kind of help that's being done in there is either going to be done. There'll be foreign aid. There'll be Vietnamese who would actually do it. It's really different this being a civil war. Anyone coming in from the outside to help, you would, I mean, I would look at with suspicion.

Yes. You know, because you, this is a war where you did have foreign, you know, foreign outfits coming in. You had foreign divisions coming in, the United States, Germany, Russia. there is, I mean, pretty much England, France, you know, it's really, it's really important that, you know, you have women in a civil war, that it's women who are from there. And, you know, obviously they're going to choose sides. I mean, someone with the last name, Primo de Rivera, you know, with a, with a moniker Prima de Rivera is going to be, you know, obviously on one side. So, yeah, I just thought I'd put that in there that if you're having a civil war, you probably do not want any, you'd be hesitant to have quote-unquote volunteers coming in on your side. Absolutely. Yeah. And the, the Republic had largely, I mean, at the local level, women were essentially conscripted also into.

these like workers bands and everything. So they, they helped to some degree. We'll get into that in a moment. But to your point, there was a significant bit of foreign aid where foreigners were doing the distribution and it was heavily communist.

There were some religious, I want to say it was the Quakers, had some fairly decent numbers, but it was nothing. like mobilizing the whole society in the way that the nationalist did. All right. So we have some nice propaganda posters here. And as noted in the script here, the Spanish rights women were never delusional.

They have women supporting the men in the field and the women responding to the women responding to take care of Spain in response to basically the refugee crisis in destroyed cities. So it's the it's very good framing. So the remainder

of this article will focus upon the women of the left, excuse me, of whom the most ardent, rabbit and militant saw their dreams and delusions fade to dust as the true goals of their movement were realized. Liberation, in quotes, drove them to destroy the virtue of other women. Their ideals led them to be betrayed by everyone around them, the moment reality set in. This last is the case of Clara Campo Amor, one of the first and perhaps most important

feminists in Spain, a woman from a humble family who, after a tremendous struggle, became a divorce lawyer and eventually a politician in the moderate left, in fact, the first woman to serve in the Cortez. During her time as a politician, she worked tirelessly to gain voting rights for women, a proposition that was ironically opposed by fellow feminist politicians, such as Victoria Kent and Margarita Nelkin, last name check, who stated that, quote, women brainwashed by the church do not deserve the vote lest we give victory to the right unquote you know when um you know when someone says oh you know the whatever power you take while you're in power when you're out of power that whoever gets in power is just going to use it against you i mean that's literally what i'm reading

here yes exactly yep i mean i'm not saying i agree with that especially with the left in this country I mean, when has the left ever needed an excuse to increase their power once they get in? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. All right. This statement may surprise some readers or listeners, but note that many prominent interwar figures on the right promoted the female franchise for that precise reason. Spanish women would eventually achieve the franchise with their first national engagement taking place in 19.

which the right won substantially. This marked the end of Clara Campo Amor's reputation and political career, as the 1934 electoral defeat caused the left to actively disregard the issue of women's political rights. Campo Amor made an attempt to launch her own political party, but her reputation was destroyed, and joining another left-wing party was destroyed. out of the question. She fled to France shortly after the Civil War broke out, but not without first witnessing and testifying to the lies of the leftist government and the lack of order,

discipline, and honor of the leftist militias who often confronted and murdered their own officers. So there's Frumpy Claudia, who realized that it was all in vain. You know, we just really have to thank leftists for murdering their own officers. This just does the work. Yeah. That's just work that doesn't have to be done. A nice compounding effect. Yes.

All right. Okay, so the newborns second Spanish Republic of 1931 was one of the most progressive governments in of regarding women's rights in certain aspects. The Constitution recognized women as eligible for public service, as well as the election to Parliament, and in 1932, both civil union laws and a divorce law were passed. That said, quote-unquote liberation was still a long road ahead as women face severe disadvantages in the labor market, such as explicit, codified. wage discrimination, a lack of unemployment benefits in the unavailability of medical insurance.

This, coupled with the spirit of the time, led many single working women, whether widows, mothers, or not, to form the bulk of women supporting the left. The Spanish leftist political parties of the time fit broadly into three groups. the anarchists of the CNT, the Spanish Communist Party, or PCE, and the Socialist General Workers Union, the UGT. During the electoral era of the Republic, these three organizations didn't attract a great number of female members, with their numbers barely breaking 500 at best. When the Civil War broke out, these organizations saw an immense surge in female membership, with the CNT gaining a peak of 30,000 female members in 1938, or about 80% of female militants participating in this Civil War, with about 16% of female militants in the PCE, the communists,

and the remaining 4% in the UGT, the Socialist General Workers Union. Despite female enthusiasm for anarchism, the communists controlled about 40% of all left-wing committees, and the Soviets had a lock on arms distribution and leadership within the Republican Army and militias, which meant that all organizations would effectively fall into the hands of the communists. As the Civil War dragged on, their claws sank in deeper. The most prominent and influential left-wing female organization during both the Republic and the war was the Union de Mujeres antifascists or anti-fascist women's union, the UMA, created in 1933 by the Communist International Gasp.

This organization was outlawed in Spain in 1934 after the October Revolution, or the Asturian Revolution, Asturian Uprising, etc. but it was rebranded as pro-infancia-Obrera or working mothers support, an organization which supported leftist militants affected by or actively involved in the revolt of 1934. After the victory of the left, quote-unquote, side note, stolen victory, in 1936 elections, the PIO was once again renamed the Anti-Fascist Women's Union or UMA, which received enormous support from the government. Again, this is a communist Oregon. When the civil war began, the UMA was officially incorporated into the government as the commission de Auglio Feminino, the Female Aid Commission, an organization directly under the control of the Ministry of War, and in charge of the government,

of organizing and distributing Spanish women within the war industry. When the war began, the UMA had around 50,000 members, and it promoted the, quote, liberation of women through the workers' struggle in order to transform society, end quote. This organization saw a sharp decline in membership, however, when many women realized that their duties were limited to support and manufacturing. There was a similar trend among the PCE and the UGT who firmly believed that women should only engage in support roles aiding male soldiers. Meanwhile, the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification, or P.O.U.M., which was Orwell's militia,

advocated for allowing women to join the fight on the front as staff and drill sergeants, as well as engaging in a legitimate. and serving as quartermasters. This firm position on their role in the war by the Communists and Socialists is likely the main reason 80% of leftist women flocked to the anarchists, women who yearned to take the fight to their purported enemies, to be truly equal with men, or perhaps they were attracted by the extremely high wage of ten Pesetas, which the anarchists paid the members of their militias. Interesting. And so I note here this is perhaps the most famous

image of Spanish Civil War Girl Power translator and cutie pie Marina Githena member of the unified socialist youth org of the Spanish Communist Party and assistant to Mikhail Koltsov

Pravda correspondent here she poses with a mauser in Barcelona in July 1936 T. He women were all It's amazing how many women can get taken in by thinking that, like, I mean, her clothes are brand new. She never held a rifle again for the rest of the war for the record. It was strictly propaganda. Yeah. I mean, it was, and it was, oh, she, she did this and she did. She was executed because she was such a, she was such a powerful soldier. Okay. Yeah. She actually ran to France very quickly.

So, but people couldn't find her until she came forward in like the 90s or something right before she passed away. So she had never seen the picture interestingly, or she claimed that she had never seen the picture. So hilarious. Communist propaganda. Again, provda. Provdav people. Women were also prominent within the short-lived Frentee popular government of 1936, a government characterized. by radical and detrimental left-wing policies.

Most know of famed communist Dolores Iberuri, who controlled most left-wing parties in the Cortes on behalf of the Soviets, while the second most prominent Spanish female leftists was Frederica Monstani, the first female minister in the cabinet of Largo Caballero. Her noteworthy achievements as Minister of Healthcare and Social Issues for Barcelona were to decriminalize abortion,

and to aid those who sought it as well as to legalize prostitution. As part of her campaign... That's just helping in the war effort. I mean, come on. It's wild. It's just... I mean, it's... It's wild.

It's just... I mean, it's exactly what you would think. It's, I mean, it's another version of every single time. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. As part of her campaign to establish libertarian, communism. She pressured the Republic to finance brothels, which soon led

Barcelona, the most important city within Republican territory, to become a den of vice. And then here is the excrable, frumpy, disgusting Dolores Ivaruri, who shouted to Jose Calvo So Tello

the day he was executed, this is your last speech. In the Cortes. Once the Civil War began, pardon me, the Frente Popular government quickly mobilized their organizations and members against the nationalist uprising, distributing weapons to the populace, mainly through the labor unions, and incorporating the many leftist militias into their squalid army. The mobilization received overwhelming support from these organizations with enormous participation by female combatants.

During the summer of 1936, the image of the female fighter became a staple in the Republic. These women were motivated to join the fight for an array of stated motives, leftist ideology, defending the rights they had gained during the Republic, revenge for a dead relative or friend. Many joined up with their husbands, boyfriends, and some even with their children. Most women were initially assigned support duties in the army, but an immense number saw armed combat in one way or another. The most surprising trend was the average age of the female combatants, 16 years old, and the most common lifestyle these women came from, which later caused both serious and even hilarious problems. So here is a classic example of a C&T militia poster with a female holding the flag, leading the men, who kneel before her because she's so cool. A black and red flag.

Yes, a black and red flag. A squad of simps for every woman. The ultimate dream. The inclusion of women at the front lines was heavily supported by several female figures of the left, Dolores Iboruri, the most ardent among them, with others, such as the aforementioned anarchist Federica Monseni, calling every woman of the left to join the fight against fascism. This call was soon picked up by the Republican government as a powerful propaganda tool to boost their recruitment among the civilian population.

the image of the fighting woman in uniform and armed against the fascist became its main hook for recruitment drives in order to push men to fight on the front lines. In the early months of the Civil War, the Republic constantly showed the image of the militia woman, enshrined her as the, quote, heroin of the nation, unquote, and lauded the women who moved with, quote, unquote, manly demeanor to push men to join their female comrades on the front,

and take the fight to the enemy. As we know now, this is not a winning strategy. It's just, I got nothing. Yeah. So here's an example, Catalan flag, black and red anarchist flag, and a red communist flag with a woman saying that the, basically that the militants need us,

the women who joined the fight initially enjoyed special privileges in combat, in addition to a gleaming reputation and public support. Women were incorporated into the militias without specific orders, but within the first few weeks, they gained privileges above their prestige, such as being quickly promoted, or being capable of disregarding orders from their superiors without consequence. By the end of August 1936,

There were two female-only battalions within the Republic. Can you imagine? One in Malorca and the other on Asturius. Despite their prestige and the initial ease of duty, the first cracks in this illusion began to appear, both on the front lines and in the rear. Many women filled the vacuum left by men joining the war, by men joining the war,

to work in steel mills, foundries, and the many factories whose workers were now in the army or militias. The sudden influx of women in these activities caused a clash between them and the men who stayed in the rear, who often saw them as unfit or unqualified to perform those jobs, as well as an invasion of the workplace in fields, which until then had been only performed by men. And the women demanded the same wages and better working conditions. Keep in mind, this is a very military. labor universe.

So these are very assertive people. If you've ever worked in a union shop and you've seen scabs come in, this is exactly what is taking place here. That's the perception. So despite their alleged ideological affinities, the men and women at the factories began to butt heads, with the men defending their territory, which for so long had,

been theirs alone and the women bringing a battering ram to attempt to demolish barriers to entry. The most strike, sorry, go ahead. There's a war going on. Let's turn it into a labor issue. Well, I mean, yeah, exactly. And if we see this now where, like, leftist labor unions are, you know, pushing diversity. in which breaks up cohesion and allows for, you know, cuts in wages and everything like that. And it's just this, this conflict that just has no choice but to explode right there on the surface.

And like you said, there's a war going on. So imagine this. The most striking and extreme problems between men and women happened on the front lines. Initially, the gleaming reputation of the militia women held, but the propaganda primarily attracted more women than men, and the women were as concerned with breaking the old and tested gender roles as they were with joining the fight. What a surprise. Several women became legendary Republican war heroes, such as Lena O'Dana, Casilda Mendez, and Margarita Perez. But a radical paradigm shift began in October of 9th. 36, barely three months into the Civil War, when radical socialist Francisco Largo Caballero became head of the government and sought to directly manage the war. His approach to the war was not ideological, but very pragmatic, so he surrounded himself with career officers and generals who strengthened the position of professional military officers in the field. This was the beginning

of the end for the militia women, as at the time a number of glaring problems with women on the front lines arose, which ultimately led to the Largo-Cabayero government barring them completely from combat roles. The greatest challenge was that many men saw the militia women as unfit, unprepared, and unqualified as combatants, particularly the Republican officer corps who had been military professionals before the Civil War broke out. This created a wide rift between the military command and ideologically driven militia members who sided with their female peers.

A second issue stem from the reputation militia women developed, as many of them were held in higher esteem among the militias than the professional officers, and thus the militias followed their orders rather than those of their superiors. Oh, my God. Yeah, what a surprise. This led many units to clash directly with their officers

and sometimes even murder their superiors, which led some career officers who had remained loyal to the Republic to defect to the nationalists rather than lead troops who might kill them over a disagreement. And I think it's also like they realized what was going on. This trend, on top of how unprepared the average militia member was for actual combat, whether a man or a woman, led to an extreme combat ineffectiveness in the early months of the year, only mitigated by their sheer numbers. So here is a Catalan propaganda poster after the pivot to reality. No more girl power.

It's anti-fascist women. get sowing and taken care of sick kids and are wounded soldiers. Maybe get to those brothels and make yourself useful. That will pop up again here in just a moment, as a matter of fact. Ultimately, these issues and the lack of manpower in critical industry and support roles ended the fantasy of plucky militia women fighting both the nationalists and gender norms. As noted previously, this is so funny, I just can't help but laugh while I'm reading it. As noted previously, many women supported the war effort on the factory production lines, but not enough.

And without properly functioning factories, the Republic would run dry of weapons, munitions, supplies, and food very quickly. understanding the severity of this problem, Largo Caballero gave the order to withdraw all women from the front lines and that they be assigned to work in support roles at hospitals and field kitchens. This decision was accepted by all of the parties, political parties, which supported the Republic, and was spun to appease women so that they didn't feel they'd abandoned the front. Dolores Ibaruri spoke of women as, quote, motherly, heroes, unquote, and hoped they would mobilize to the factories and hospitals to fight there for a

better future for their husbands and children. Even anarchist organizations, those who had promoted putting women on the front lines the most, began to speak about the quote-unquote true femininity of women possessed of a, quote, delicate softness unique to female psychology, unquote, and that they should oppose violence in every way and support the soldiers with, quote, unquote, motherly care. This radical shift was seen as a terrible betrayal by countless women, particularly the anarchists, who remained outspoken about their quote-unquote rights to be on the front alongside their male peers. Despite the Republic's orders, or perhaps because of them, the anarchists refused, to withdraw women from the front lines, I should say some did, which caused big problems.

Who would think that anarchists would be against taking orders? Imagine. Being led. I'm shocked. It's delightful. The anarchist versus republic struggles are the funniest, imagine. because of the sheer volume of dead anarchists who resulted. All right.

The final lesser-known reasons for withdrawal of women from the front lines are definitely the most interesting and perhaps hilarious. As explained previously, a certain type of woman joined the anarchist militias in droves shortly after the war broke out, Women from a particular and not very wholesome way of life. A plurality of leftist female recruits, around 45% of the women who joined the fight, were prostitutes. This was narrated by the aforementioned Clara Campoamore in her book, La Revolution Española Vista for Una Republican, Spanish Revolution witnessed by a Republican woman.

She wrote, in the beginning more dire events took place ready to take advantage of this situation all women of quote unquote joyful life prostitutes yes which was heavily promoted

by these feminist heroes and my theory is like if you look at the sows that promote this stuff they're just like imagining like men coming to them and which just would not happen because they're gross.

Oh, sorry. Sorry for the diversion. Okay, joyful life whom war doomed to a life of unemployment, disappeared from the cities and joined along many others who fought in the militia with respectable feelings and sincere faith. I can imagine, as a consequence, the frenzy which took hold of the front lines, and how many soldiers had to be hospitalized.

This revelation became the main weapon to destroy the reputation of the women fighting with the militias, as the politician soon had no qualms about saying that they were prostitutes and made public the fact that on certain fronts, men were sent to the sick bay more often for STDs than being shot. Who could have... No one could have predicted this at all, right? Most of the women who joined the military were outraged by this campaign that sought to shame them in the eyes of the public with the most vocal declaring it calumny from the, quote, horrific patriarchal leadership, unquote, of the Republic. Some politicians who participated in the campaign to drive compliance with the republic's orders openly addressed the fact that certain camps on the front lines had become. little more than whore houses for soldiers. The most prominent was the psychologist and politician

Felix Marti Ibanez, who made great guitars, and who claimed that most of the women in the militia used their time on the front lines to, quote, mercantilize their bodies, unquote, violating male chastity for their own gain. And, quote, robbing men of their magnificent energy reserves, unquote. This is like something literally out of, like, if you were doing like parody in cell. Oh my God. Like literature. And it's because it's, it's Bolshevik, it's Bolshevik talking points.

And this is, um, that it's not detailed here. Uh, it's heavily detailed in everything. about this period and the pivot from that kind of free-for-all, like, purest, dream state, you know, socialist, communist, anarchist, propaganda push at the very beginning. And then they had to pivot to actually focus on the war. And the way to focus on the war is to be serious and to follow military leadership, which rolled everyone under the communists. And the Catalonia and the anarchists didn't bend the knee until like mid-1937, which is where you get like Orwell talking about being hunted by the NKVD in Barcelona as they were cracking down on these militias that were resisting.

And even the CNT leadership, the anarchist, the biggest anarchist party leadership bent the knee. their most fervent killers in like the derutie column were pushing for this as well like get serious stop being ideological until the war is won and then we can settle it then you know by this time in in russia um Stalin had taken care of most of the people who were talking like this you know like who were doing the um the um the um oh women's lib kind of stuff, you know, all this crap right here. Oh, Stalin was just pretty much just making sure that they disappeared. And it's actually one of the things that Trotsky's son complained about the most. Mm-hmm. Because Trotsky's son had bought it into all this. And it's like, keep your head down, dude, because you saw what happened to your dad, right?

What was the son's name? Oh, I forget. Leon Setoff. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. had a look at ugly on set off yeah it's like he he was he was yeah spewing that in the 30s knowing that Stalin was already like okay if you start coming up no no that's why I can just imagine what the what the Soviet advisors were thinking when they were seeing all this

oh I mean it's probably something they'd seen a million times but it's so I mean it was it was disappearing quickly in Russia. I mean, Russia was already going on to their empire footing at that point. So it was like they were, everybody's like, oh, the purges and everything. You know, once you read Suveroff and Hoffman, you realize the purges were getting rid of the revolutionaries. They just wanted soldiers. They wanted like, you know, generals who weren't revolutionaries, generals who, you know,

could go into battle. And these revolutionaries who were just lining people up and killing them. Well, they sort of got their just recompense in many cases. Yeah, yeah. It's wild stuff. So, yeah, with this, war became again a task only for men and women were sent back to the rear. Disobedience was treated with all martial severity, and by the middle of October, the presence of women on the front lines began to steadily decline.

By December 1936, the international voluptial. volunteers of the international brigades were warned that women were barred from combat and from joining the brigades. By February 1937, women disappeared from the Republican Army. Let's hold up here for a second. So basically about three months into the war, Cabieto starts to phase. We need to get women off the front line. Those first three months, the first six months, really, but the first three months, months too. We're talking about the most brutal time, especially if, especially if you were a Catholic,

especially if you were clergy or a seminarian or a layman or something like that. So, you know, you have to, I would assume that the women had a big part. That was a big part of a big part of it. Oh, 100%. 100%. It has to be because it was the most extreme militants. And when you look at those pictures of destruction of churches and statues and like you know where they're basically going in and killing everybody uh women are female militants are very prominent in those in those images it's wild many joined many women joined the production lines in barcelona and valencia an event which would later cause many calls for equality in the workplace since they, despite the progressiveness of the Republic, suffered wage discrimination as well as hostility from their male peers. They also demanded permanent contracts in anticipation of the end of the war and the return of men to the factories so that they couldn't be fired or replaced.

Can you believe that? I mean, you know, Rosie the Riveter, I don't, I wonder how many Roses wanted to actually stay and keep, keep their jobs because it was, you know, at the end of the war, it was like, yeah, go home. And how much of that was like, yeah, exactly, how much of it was real and how much of it was like one loud mouth? Yeah, legend. Just making the demands and, you know, women being women all going in. supporting it. Yeah. Good times. So wrapping up here, we got two more paragraphs. Note the stark difference between the women of the right and the left. By taking up critical support and administrative duties that men did not occupy, nationalist women made the army and the liberated

regions work like a well-oiled machine. Meanwhile, the women on the left in their pursuit of personal and ideological goals often became a hindrance, which caused problems for the Republican war effort. When every person counts, those who antagonize their peers disrupt harmony and everyone's contributions to the struggle. This is clearly prevalent among leftist women, both 100 years ago and today. We know them on site, the women who don't seek to work alongside men, but instead to cast them down confident in their superiority. You know the type, and you know they must be avoided. Like a nugget of pyrite, it is not worth a second look.

So, fools gold. I began the now and then series in reaction to the murder of Charlie Kirk, as I'd seen parallels to the assassination of Calvo Soelho brought up quite a few times, and I wanted to provide lesser-known details regarding the murder in its aftermath. The more I revisit Spanish primary sources regarding, the Civil War, I decided to continue researching and sharing my findings with those interested. One thing is certain, despite how much time has passed, how many well-documented mistakes were made by the left in the intervening period, and how things in our world seem to have changed, the left

are still the same. With the branding of Antifa as a terrorist organization in the U.S. and the reaction to the murder of Kirk, both in the intermediate aftermath and now, immediate aftermath and now, rather, we see ardent leftists openly mock as murder, leftists who carry the same spirit found in the speeches of leftist figures of the Republic. The left of today carries the same bloodthirsty spirit seen since the beginning of the 20th century. I was nearly surprised by how the adage, quote, the more things change, the more they stay the same, unquote, still rings true. With this in mind, I will be writing a couple more articles about the most important leftist

figures of the Spanish Republic so that you can understand their motives, their drives, and most importantly, their character, because to invoke another adage, you must know your enemy to defeat him. Elfin. It is, you know, I want to go back up to this part right here. there is clearly prevalent this is clearly prevalent amongst leftist women both under years ago and today we know them on site women who don't seek to work alongside men but instead to cast them out how many times in quote unquote I mean in like the right circles even like right circles do these women come in all based all saying the right

things, but eventually, you know what happens. Eventually, the feminism comes out. Eventually, the leftism comes out. Eventually, the woman comes out. I mean, sorry, women should not be in leadership. Look at what, look at Nikki Haley and all these women on the right, Nancy Mace. I mean, in what world do you look at those women and go, yeah, I want them to lead? Is there a woman you could think of that you're like, yeah, they should be leading men? Oh, absolutely not. Like, it's completely absurd because it's all about them. And then the most important, you know, especially among conservatards, the most important thing is conserving like ridiculously.

leftist victories. Like Nancy Mace, her claim to fame is that she was the first female allowed into VMA. Her father was the commandant, and she basically like ruined that organization because it just was all about her. And every picture that she puts up is a, you know, basically a thirst trap from someone who doesn't, like, instill thirst, except among like boomers who watch Fox News. But it's insane and it's all about them and not about the mission and i mean you know when you when you understand where we are yeah we were talking about this yeah i i mentioned this before we uh before we started recording that as we were starting to record orin was live streaming and he was just on fire just going the gop does not want to win

They were always our enemies. They would rather talk about group chats than win elections. Yep. Why are you dealing with these people anymore? You know, they, they, sure, you're not going to win in New York, but at least you, in New York City, but at least have somebody who can put a message out there that would, you know, that's a counter to it instead of, I mean, Curtis Slewa. I remember seeing this guy on the subway when I was growing up.

I mean, he was afraid, just grifter. They used to fake events where he'd be like, oh, look what we did. And it would just fake events that he would save people from. And then Chris Cuomo or is a court. Yeah, Chris Cuomo. Yeah, I mean, just, I mean, it's a degenerate loser. And or what about Virginia? You have basically a CIA agent who's running and you put up a woman, a black woman who was born

in another country, I think. I'm not really sure. but she's, I mean, she's not, she's not on the right. I mean, some of them at least fake being on the right. She's not on the right. And then you, you, you aren't able to counter anyone for the AG in Virginia, who basically says, yeah, I mean, I will shoot white, I will shoot white children. I will kill white children because that's what we do.

and you you want to be taken so but you want to talk about who Tucker Carlson has on his show and make a big deal out of that and then you want to cancel the heritage foundation which I mean come on when the last when the last boomer stopped sending the money no one else is going to so basically at this point at this point they're just looting boomers because they know they're gone as soon as the last boomer's gone and who else? Oh, you know, obviously the Jewish lobby who is, I mean, just absolutely lost their minds.

Absolutely. I mean, nothing they say makes any sense whatsoever. They clearly say that, yeah, if you want to be an American, you have to support Israel. If you don't support Israel, you're not an American. Who the fuck are you? Yeah. And, like, speaking of the Heritage Foundation, today, someone, you know, some, I don't know, some Ghalesean lawyer type, was ranting and raving because they leaked audio of a call where a Catholic staffer at the Heritage Foundation said, basically, it's ridiculous to force, to compel us to. go to these like Seder dinners, which is a religious, religious, a Jewish religious practice.

Oh, yeah, was some Jewish, some Jewish group like was laying out for heritage how they could weed out all the anti-Semites by setting up like a like a Shabbat dinner every week and you see who comes to it. Yeah, yeah. Who doesn't come to it? You get rid of them. Are you, are you fucking kidding me? Which is just like, okay, so you're literally just telling us that we control everything or you're not allowed to exist. I don't think so. Yeah.

If they are not bowing to Jews, then they're not right wing basically. They're not conservative. I mean, I would say that if you're bowing to Jews, you're. probably the most conservative value you can have now. Because that's all they seem to do and have been doing. That's why they exist. And that's the like these are all people who are anti-Trump and people. The vast majority of people who supported Trump in his third successful election are people

who aren't Trump cultists. They're people who want the things that he promised. They want America first. They want to make America great again, et cetera. And these people are refusing to go along with it, and they're already gloating. They're celebrating. They're focusing on basically crashing and burning that ascendant movement to steer us back to losing conservatardism, which has no appeal to anyone like who's going to be alive in 10 years.

Like there's no appeal to that. It's a joke, other than like 2% of the population. Only 2% of the population wants it, a very specific 2% of the population. Anybody who's working at one of these, you know, basically Chavez-Coy organizations, they have to, if they don't realize that their days are just numbered, because they're not, who's, who's going to support them, Gen Z? Gen X. Yeah. Gen X.

I mean, millennials, maybe, probably not. Gen Z's not going to do it. They already fucked themselves. How much, think about it. They're relying upon money from the boomer generation. Which other generation has as much money as the boomer generation? None. Not even the rest combined don't even have a fraction. They're fucked. They're fucked. They're there are irrelevant at this point. And they just don't know it.

They're dead man walking and they don't know it. They don't have anything. The only thing that they could do is to embrace us is to be like, okay, we see where this is going. I mean, basically where we're going is we're going to far right and far left. Yes. And let's bring this back home, which is why we're talking about the Spanish Civil War. Ding, ding. The in 19, I posted about this today. In 1934, the Pyrrhic victory, the Pyrrhic electoral victory of 1934 by the right, the right coalition under Seda and some other parties did nothing for the right.

The Republic illegally would not permit them to form a cabinet and take charge of the government in the fashion that was specified by the Constitution. And so with that, the younger members of the members of the, of this political coalition, this right-wing political coalition, left in droves for the most militant organizations, the Falunhe and the Carlist Requette's, and basically said, the only thing left to do now is to fight.

That's where all the best people and the best young leaders went. They went right into the fight and began preparing seriously for a post-post political world, a world outside of like the Cortez and the drama and the machinations of the, you know, parliamentary government. And this, in America, it's even worse because in Spain at the time, the right wing was actually like the right wing leadership and money people, you know, in these groups began to build up these groups because they realized that war was coming.

That was the only thing that was left because there was so much violence in the street. In America, look at Mike Johnson and other dorks like that. They should have no political power. The only reason Mike Johnson has any political power is because people voting for Donald Trump because they want nationalism. And they're saying you're not going to get nationalism. You're going to get sold down the river. You're going to be unemployable.

You're going to owe all this money for having gone to college. You should have just been a plumber while the left builds up their supporters, gets them jobs, gets them free money. Like the right basically says, you have to support us for ideological reasons. Oh, and by the way, those ideological reasons are that are. you know, lead to you getting fucked. But you got to do it because Israel. Otherwise you're Hitler.

You know, when people were, when, when Oran was talking yesterday about, um, what Fuentes was, uh, what he actually was,

what he is, uh, many people who refuse to understand nuance were flipping out. you have groipers who are flipping out, but groipers don't really care about anything. They just worship Nick Fuentes. You have people on the right who I think mean well most of the time, who like spicy things that Fuentes says about certain things and they seem as very popular, so they don't want to talk against him.

But Fuentes is an entertainer. That's what he is. he's not, you know, he's all over the place. And he's not like, like the way I look at it is the Tucker interview with him was a paternalistic show of like care where Tucker brought him on and basically said, I'll let you talk, but I'm going to point out things that I take issue with. but he did it in a way where he, you know that he actually cares. He doesn't want to slander him. He doesn't want to attack him or his viewers

or the people who listen to him. Like most people who have a, like a completely positive view of Nick Fuentes don't know a lot of his history or they only see little clips of him here and there and they're mostly concerned with like Israel and stuff like that or they're just like Fuentes worshiping groipers right like that there's very little in between other people have nuanced views on him and so when Oron's talking about you have to understand what he is you know

the biggest reaction I saw against that wasn't from groopers or even you know like people who have a nuanced or even distracted view of what he is. It was from these Jewish supremacists who are freaking out because they're like, no, you have to call him a Nazi and like, you know, push him out and expel him from what you're doing. And it's like, what he's doing is he's intelligently explaining like what is taking place in front of us. And you can't do that.

That's not allowed. You have to be a retard. You have to just like obey. You have to fall on your hands and knees and obey. It's really quite incredible. What scares them the most is the fact that there are already so many of the young staffers and everything or agree with him. Oh, yeah. Or basically Groyper's.

And, you know, what he was saying on his show yesterday was, look, start hiding, hide your power levels. Get offline. You know, do what you got to do. Get in government and just, you know, subvert these people. Yeah, yeah. You know, and once they, you know, these people just do not understand that they, their days are numbered. And not because, not for any nefarious reason.

It's because they're an anachronism. Yes. Yeah. They just, this isn't their world anymore. And nobody can, you know, most people look at the average person looks at Israel and sees what they've been doing for the last few years. And they're like, don't we fight a war? Wasn't there like this huge war to stop stuff like this from happening? I mean, I'm not really one of the big fan of, oh, you know, I'm not a fan at all of, oh, they're like Nazis and everything like that.

But they are ethno-nationalists. And they basically, they're like, okay, well, you know, we have this group of people here that we, you know, are beneath us and we're going to kill them. And I mean, for what other, for what reason? Because they were there. Their families were on the land there for forever. You have some kind of ethnic grievance because of what? I mean, I just don't get it. All I know is, is that I don't, they should, their days are numbered.

Oh, yeah. And for no other reason. And I'm not saying, you know, it's like because, oh, they're about to be overthrown. It's because they're going to, they're going to be crushed under their own weight. Yes. It's all. It's very important. Yeah.

It has nothing to do. It has nothing to do with this. They always say. or the most vocal retards among them will say that like anti-Semitism is inherent to the European genome. And it's like, what? That's totally untrue.

That's completely untrue. The opposite is true. You get too many chances and you hate us. Like it based on their behavior. Like all they had to do, they could have milked this forever, but instead they had to crush, to crush us in America and like just attempt to dispossess us and then gloat about it and say, we just got you to fight, you know, two decades

for our purposes, and you have to do that forever. You're not allowed to say no. That has that has nothing to do with, you know, our people's response to that isn't inherent. It's a response to the conditions that you're imposing upon them. It's hilarious. Yeah, it's, you know, when you, I was saying this, Dr. Johnson and I recorded episode 85 of 200 years together, about, you know, like three hours ago. And, you know, we were talking about how, like, the Russians were like, okay, we've been pushed off our land and now Jews have moved in. And the question is, is where's all this anti-Semitism coming from in the 1920s? And they're answering the question.

He's answering the question in that text. And he's using, he's using Jewish sources to answer the, yes, answer the question. And it's like, well, how is it any different now? You're giving billions and billions and billions in your findings. financing a war and you're dropping bombs for it for Israel when people here can't afford a house. Yes. I mean, where people just people need help here where you have, you know, some people are losing their jobs because of AI, you know, I've talked to coders contact me all the time.

And they're like, and I'm like, I'll try. I'll try, you know, try to help all I can and everything. But everyone's like, well, I mean, what takes them in a day to do, I can do it, you know, in five minutes with a $20, what a $20 a month subscription, a subscription. Yeah. So it's like, and then you, you demand our loyalty. Yes. I mean, you tell us, you tell us, oh, those who bless Israel will be, where the fuck are the

blessings, man? So the, you've been counting down to you since, it since 1948, really, 1967 on call it 1973, we've been bowing down to you, bending over backwards, doing everything possible that you ask. Did America get better after 1973? Are we just not phylo-Semitic enough? We need to be more phylo-Semitic, then the blessings will start. The fuck we're talking about it.

We won't be really phylo-Semitic until we're dead and our people are gone, and Christianity is wiped off of the earth. That's when we'll be phylo-Semitic enough. for them. I can't, I fucking can't stand it. And I mean, and I can't say it. It's not like, okay, this isn't affecting me personally, you know, I mean, if I search, maybe I can find some way. That's really fucking insulting. And it's, it's insulting for those of us who like, this country is all we have. Yeah. We have nowhere else to go. If they have somewhere else to go. they have somebody they built someplace they can escape to but i mean the whole purpose of this is

you know it's like you know a certain painter said and uh you know francis parker yaki said they're not going to go there no the diaspora is what's most important it's the it's the jewish billionaires in this country is what keeps them is what you know and all the lobbying to steal money from us to send to them that that's that's it that's the problem it's not the problem that israel exists it's the the diaspora exists and of course it's not all jews but i mean let's start with the billionaires let's start with let's start with the you know like the bill actman's of the world and let's start with and i don't know that i don't think josh hammers a billionaire but the josh hammers of the the world and you know the the larry ellison's of the world this is the problem that a jewish

woman complaining about the left becoming anti-semitic and saying the entire left is was created by us like every ideology and the leader of every movement and everything was jewish and you're you don't appreciate us enough for that it's like, well, you said it. Yeah. It's like, I mean, you know, what's that? Um, Dilly Forward or Dairy Stormer? Yes, exactly.

I mean, seriously, are you, exactly. What are you trying to do here? Cartoonish, cartoonish. Oh, man. It's so ridiculous. But anyway, I got to get out of here. Yep. And I'm sure you probably do, uh, you probably got, got stuff.

to do too. But, um, and I really, uh, I always appreciate these episodes because I think they're, uh, they're probably, I think people can see and listen and make the correlations. It's not going to be exactly the same. Obviously, we're not a Catholic country. We're not, I mean, but, you know, open your eyes. Yeah. Yeah. You'll, you'll see it. You'll see it. You'll see it. Tell people where they find your stuff, ma'am. All right. Best place is Substack where this article resides. Carl Dahl.com.

That's K-A-R-L-D-H-L dot substack.com. I have two books on Amazon, Faction and Faction with the Crusaders, By Book. And I'm also on the Hellscape known as X. The platform stupidly renamed X. Happy to be here. Thanks again, Pete. See you very soon.

See you soon. Thank you. Thanks. I want to welcome everyone back to the Piquaneda show. Carl Dahl's back. I'm going to talk some more Spanish Civil War. Carl, how are you doing? Doing great. Thanks for having me. Why don't you introduce your friend?

This is a gentleman you've introduced me to and you've talked about in the past. So go right ahead. Great. I will lead off and then hand it over. So my friend and correspondent Morgor, who is a writer and artist from Spain, who I've been collaborating with on a series of articles on my substack, the now and then series. Really great content that he's been providing. And a lot of it is a Spanish orientation that often doesn't show up in the English language material that comes up.

but is fairly well known in Spain, easily accessible. And so a lot of the material that I've been able to provide in the last, like what is it, six to eight months or so on this topic has been with Morgor. So welcome and please introduce yourself as much as you want to. Well, hello, it is, well, I can then I'm a little bit nervous because I don't appear in podcasts that much, but I am Morgor, I'm from Spain, I draw, I write, I have aspirations as an artist, but very humble.

And this series of articles about the Spanish Civil War, initially it was kind of a niche interest because when I studied Spanish history in high school and later, the Civil War and the Civil War and the, period of the dictatorship was very glossed over. It was usually at the end of the academic year, so teachers wanted to get it done as quickly as possible. And essentially the general conception of the Spanish Civil War is that the legal, peaceful, and righteous republic elected a left-leaning government and some military people that were very evil decided to take them down.

That is the general widespread idea that happened. But if you look deeper, if you go beyond the surface, you start noticing a lot of discrepancies, a lot of information that there is evidence and retellings, not only of historians or individuals that are obscure, know, that, for example, a lot of evidence of the public disturbances that took place during 36 come from the president of the government, no, president of parliament, Nitha Talkarrafamora. He literally said the left manipulated the elections and there is widespread banditry and riots

in Spain. And it is amazing that a lot of people don't know about it. And to a certain degree, I think this is kind of a public service announcement, especially when so many people talk about civil war. This is the situation like the Spanish Civil War relating to a lot of things that are happening right now. Great. All right. So thank you. What we're going to do here is for some of our listeners, just to be clear, we're going to be walking through this article in particular, as well as sprinkling in some additional commentary. It is now and then, anatomy of a leftist part two, Francisco Largo Caballero, the radicalization of a moderate socialist. And that was kind of my own spin on the language based on the reading, you know, because I think it tells a clear story as to kind of how we get,

here. Some people might characterize it slightly differently, be less charitable, but I think, you know, it makes sense for this framing and understanding, you know, the conflagration in Spain. So, you know, folks who are just listening, we're not going to be lingering on, you know, images and the like too much. We'll focus on the text and commentary. So, uh, Morgar introduced the piece that I edited down. Part of it was because there are, that there's information that is pretty, like, obvious that you can state in a very direct way and move on in Spanish, or I should say for a Spanish audience, that I have to explain more for Americans. and sometimes I'm like, I kind of know what that is, but I have to look it up. Yeah, if you need more information, context, or whatever, just ask me, I would be glad to share my question. Absolutely. Yeah, and we have another piece that will be coming up, which is about that Morgoor wrote that I just started on, which is very good, and I'm very excited to publish it.

It's about the Servicio de Intelligencia Militar, the Military Intelligence Service, the Republic, which almost immediately was co-opted by the communists of the NKVD from control of the socialist government. It's very interesting. So Morgor likes to start with a quote, whether it's biblical or from literature. And in this piece, anatomy of a leftist part two, and the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night forever and ever. And that's from Revelation 2010. So the, I think the way to summarize Francisco Largo Caballero and feel free to jump in is that he was a fellow coming from circumstances that were very common in Spain.

And one of the themes that can be a little challenging sometimes with an American audience that, like, our friend Thomas 777 always talks about, is that the conditions on the ground, like, politically and economically for the working class in America, were very different than that in Europe. And so the whole reason fascism is a thing or was a thing in Europe. Europe, but never was really, I mean, I can say at the time of the communist uprisings really necessary in America was because the conditions weren't ripe in America to require a counter, a counter movement to address a lot of the things that would appeal to, you know, the lower classes in Europe because we had means, you know, economic and political that were not necessarily as available. We were much more enfranchised.

And again, it depends on where you're at in Spain, where people would feel less enfranchised versus more enfranchised. Yes, yes. Because I think you said it in the talk you had with Astral. I listened to it. It was very good. Just a plug here. But the thing is that, of course, it's easily understandable for me because I'm from Spain, I know my country better than you, and you know your country better than me. So you have to understand that. At the time, a lot of people, I also have to explain the Latin industrialization model that. To summarize, it's like people say that in Latin countries, and Latin I mean Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Mediterranean nations. Industrialization is a much slower process and comes with a greater deal of challenges in order to achieve that level of proper industrialization. So the thing that happened is that at the time, Spain was still industrializing.

And there was a transition that was steady, but of course it led to a lot of conflict in factories and production areas, mainly in Basque Country, where most founders of Spain are, in Asturias where most mining operations were, not right now. But the greatest problem in Spain was in Andalusia. and it is because most of the land in Andalusia belonged, back then, belonged to the nobility. They had huge properties for vineyards or olive trees. And that meant that the people only worked during the harvest. There was a lot of work during the harvest. And the rest of the year, if you were a normal person, you had to scrape by with with whatever you could have.

So it was, you have to understand that a lot of people in Andalusia were disbossessed completely. Nobody offered anything. And also the same in Catalonia. Because I remember that you said that a lot of people were coming from the countryside. Something like that happened in Andalusia, they moved north. But in Catalonia, it was usually a tradition that if the father dies, the father, of the family dies, the first son inherits everything and the others get nothing. So they have to strike out on their own. And that made a lot of people from the countryside slowly move to the cities.

And it fed a lot into the workers movement. That is why in Andalusia, the socialist and the anarchists were so big, why Catalonia is still to this day the main stronghold of the left in Spain. Well put. And it's interesting with Largo Caballero. So he was born in Madrid. And one of the things that I've seen, and I'd be interested in your perspective on this, but Madrid has is much more of a stronghold of like a state socialist vibe. And I think it's the fact that, you know, that's the seat of the national government. And my understanding. and from conversations I've had with people is that it's not, it's not the same thing as other places. It was, it was created, it was instituted as the capital because it was in the middle of the country and, and it was less, it developed less organically than say, you know, the countryside anywhere else or towns elsewhere.

And would you say that's a fair characterization that drop, that drove like state socialism versus anarchism in Madrid? To a certain degree, yes, because historically the capital of Spain was Toledo. It was the main city. And Madrid is just a little bit further north from Toledo. Yeah. But the thing is that is like you say, a lot of the development in Madrid is, it's not organic. It is heavily promoted by the government because, of course, the capital and the parliament

and the royal palace, everything is in there. So, of course, the seat of power is going to try to grow as large as possible in order to provide for all of the people living there. The thing is that in terms of socialism and anarchism, back then, with the huge development and especially with the industry, it led to a lot of people, a lot of conflict with four men's business. and mainly. The thing is that anarchism and socialism, I don't want to say that they specifically deviated that much because initially they worked together and it was after the radicalization

that they split apart. So initially they had like a common front. They worked very well together. And it was later when they split apart. The socialists wanted to still negotiate it they still wanted to work with the government. And the anarchist said, no, we have to kill them all. Very well put. Yeah, that's very good to explain. I try not to put my Putin hat on and go too far back. But do you think that my understanding is a lot of that split that in Spain,

the non-Marxist state socialists and the anarchists kept more of a thread together with one another, despite what was going on in the Second International. Would you say that's a fair characterization from your understanding? On the anarchist side, I'm not so sure, but on the socialist side, yes, because the thing that happened very, very peculiar is that with the Second International, actually Largo Caballero distance itself from the international. That's right. That's right.

Yeah, he moved aside. The problem is that as things developed later on, he saw, okay, I have been in politics for nearly 50 years and I have achieved very little. I have to do something like right now. And I think that is an important part that drove him towards the collaboration with the communist. But still, inside the Socialist Party, even to the end of the war, there was a sector that was actively anti-Marxie. And it was led by Julian Besteiro, really interesting guy as well. Yeah, that's right. So, you know, there's so much to explore in this topic.

I'll take my Putin hat off and hang it up, but keep it handy because this is great color. Thank you very much. So Largo Cabiero was born. As you pointed out, he was in politics for a very long time. How long? He was born in 1869 in Madrid. His parents divorced four years after his birth, so mother and son were on their own. They moved to Granada.

His mother worked in an inn. Largo Caboero began to attend school, and then they were forced to return to Madrid and live with a relative a year later. So at age seven, Largo Cabiero left school. At age seven, and went to work first as an apprentice and a cardboard factor. and then as a rope maker. At the age of nine, he transitioned into working as a plasterer, which paid much better. Yeah, considering a lot better here as a salary of the time here on 15 pesetas compared to the average two pesetas. Oh, wow. That's a huge difference.

Yeah. But it was variable demand. So would you characterize it as seasonal work? Kind of, yeah, because in the... because it depended on like redevelopments on houses as well as expansions like they get a theater and they need one and it's essentially once the work is done you never know when you're going to go back to work and that that's true and that um kind of irregularity in work demand for slago cavalier to take other works like he was a a fruit salesman, he was a construction worker, he was a farm hand, a lot of things.

So the interesting thing is for those who who listened to the shows that Pete and I did about kind of the 19th century leftist movements, this will make sense. So Largo Cabier was growing up in this era of opening in Spain or political loosening where the, The Cortes is getting a little more powerful and there's more of a diversity of political movements. The left is growing as a movement. Yeah, it grew immensely. And it just started right then.

Yes, it was brand new and it had explosive growth. But the Cortes was essentially keeping a lid on a lot of the potential. conflict through the Terno Pacifico, the kind of handing off in a regular, like, metered fashion between the kind of institutionalized conservative and liberal parties. Yeah. And the thing is that it wasn't exactly handed down. It's because there was constant election manipulation. So to ensure that the opposite won.

in order to ensure that, okay, I'm done here, now it's your turn. Amusing. It is very funny. So in 1890, Largo Cabiero makes his first contact with the socialist movement. And this is really interesting because there's a current here where Largo Cabiero is, he seems like instinctually. His socialism is instinctual more than it's like super ideological and based on like thought reading and being persuaded by, you know, raw ideas. Although, of course, it would appeal to him being a worker who's had this very tough, unsteady existence and just the unsureity of, you know, how he grew up. And also consider that Largo Cavalera didn't finish his existence.

studies because he left the school. He had to learn how to read and write later in life. Excellent. So he encounters the political movement created by the politician Pablo Iglesias Posse. Posse, Posse. I had to include his full name because if today you look for Pablo Iglesias in Googling, you will get the picture of a guy that looks like a hippie with a point. Because he's a singer, right? No, it's the founder of another left-wing party. Yeah, that it happened like in 2012, 2010. Around that time, he founded a new political party, and now he has gone the way of the dodo because his second-in-command kicked him out. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, it's amusing.

So that this follows this party in 1890 that Largo Cabiero encounters follows the pattern that's really important to understand in Spanish political parties is that there is a general workers union Union General de Trabadores UGT and then the PSOE you can say it Pesoe of Partido Socialist Obrero-Spaniel. If you want to know, they are still in the elections and they are the current ruling party in Spain. And that is the Spanish Workers Socialist Party.

Yes. And so the labor union has a corresponding political party. And so you can be, so Largo Cabiero joins the UGT General Union for construction workers, but then they have sub-unions based on your specialties. It's the, oh my, the word is escaping me. It's a syndicalist model. Yes, yes. Because in Spain, the unions are called syndicato.

So it is essentially the same thing. And then the syndicalista becomes like a code word for like the street fighters later. once we get into the 20s, the teams in 20s. Yeah, once that time comes, the syndicalists were essentially the newly ascribed to the UGET. So they were the new guys and they put them to the test. Interesting. That's also the code word for a, like a star 32 automatic from the era, because that was the main pistol that the syndicalis used for,

fighting. Damn. Wow. That is amazing. So it's interesting. Largo Cabiero described this encounter. He attended a speech by Pablo Iglesias, Pose, who explained the great advantage of worker unions and organizations, and Largo Cabiero later described it as light piercing the darkness. So 1890, he joins the UGT, 8,000. 1993, he formally joins the PSOE political party. So again, to reiterate, he had a distinct lack of a formal education, had to learn later on. He'd only ever read the most basic Marxist texts. I get the feeling that he would have dealt with like tracts and then news articles.

Yes, his main source of. kind of ideology, political leanings or, you know, the ideas that he wanted to defend and all that. He got it mainly through reading news articles that were written by other socialists, but mainly by Pablo Iglesias, who was a journalist, by the way. Ah, okay. That makes sense because then the political parties would have their own newspapers as well. Yeah, it is amazing to know how many left-wing people. of the time were journalists.

Gasp. Like, Dolores Ibarrui was a journalist. Santiago Carrillo was a journalist. In the L'Effeo Prieto was a journalist. Pablo Iglesis was a journalist. It kind of makes sense. You know, you think of the same thing. Yeah.

With the thought leaders in the 19th centuries, they were writers and they would get jobs as journalists and get paid through the political parties. way so you know that nothing new under the sun for the people who we know think that it's some new thing that journalism has been recently corrupted not at all just remember time move forward nothing changes yes worth repeating so uh interestingly in 1899 largo caballero was put in charge of the uGT's treasury in an unpaid position he still worked as a plasterer and then he he was elected as a speaker in the National Committee of the PSOE.

In 1904, he becomes the UGT representative to the Social Reform Institute, which is interesting. It's a, it was created by a conservative politician Francisco Silvella as a joint operation between the government and workers organizations with the intent of improving working conditions for Spanish workers. This is something that is, it's so interesting that like the conservatives were doing this. And it gets back to the whole idea behind that that fascist instinct, you know, scare words, fascism, but in reality, it's trying to address the social question. It's the duty of the system and all the people in it to try. to reconcile these things for people.

Whereas the left typically the radicals use these things to stoke revolution, but these kind of institutional socialists want to reform them in a peaceful way or just to get the results that they want to be honest. Yeah, and in this case, you could kind of see it. that the conservatives were starting to see the rise of the socialists and they said okay now we have to tackle this issue this problem that we have in our hands and we better give them the tools to do it or else they will the problem will get much worse on a lot of a lot of ways because they were kind of you have to see that they have the liberal and the conservative and suddenly this guy this

new guy appeared in their midst and they were we have to be a little bit careful with it yes so they would want they would want to have they would want to appease to them in order for so they're they don't grow too big excellent so it's interesting because in 1905 um Largo Caballero Pablo Iglesias and Raphael Garcia who is another related fellow successfully ran for positions in Madrid, local elections, as representatives of the socialist left. And this is when Largo Cabiero is at this point, 36 years of age in 1905, right? So that marks the end of his career as a plasterer and laborer, and now he's a full-time politician, which he will be until, you know, he's deposed. Yeah, until he's removed. Yeah. So he fully dedicates

himself to politics. He's making 50 pesetas and getting this from the Socialist Party of Madrid. This elevates him obviously in life. And he starts getting involved in negotiating strikes and, you know, working conditions with workers in the city in the city. And then he becomes the vice president of the UGT in 1908. And then in the following year, he finds himself, in jail for the first time related to a protest against essentially an escalation in Morocco. Yes, because there was, you could say there was also differences between the army. At the time, the army is another question that would require another article, but I will keep it short, is that the army needed more effective in Morocco. They needed more staff. So they were essentially sending the garrison from the peninsula. The problem is that the garrison of the peninsula usually earn

considerably less than active on-duty personnel in Morocco. And if they send them, they would still earn less than the active on-duty personnel destined. Oops. That's not a good plan. Yeah, that created a lot of content, animosity and created two sides of the army, the Africanists, and the reservists, because the Africanists essentially saw their reservists. They were complacent sitting in their barracks and just taking their money, while the others saw the Africanists as they got unfair positions, unfair merits, and unfair salaries, just because they went to war. Which is a conflict that we saw for the following several decades.

Yes, very much. Excellent. So in 1910, Largo Cabiero and Pablo Iglesias were elected to Parliament with the aid of center left parties. So interestingly, the coalition elections are incredibly important. And Pablo Iglesias had been, you know, against this previously, but we see a lot of this moving forward in Spanish elections. Yes. And one small thing about the in 1910 is because the conservatives were taking, were raising to power, especially Maua, you know. The man that was in charge of regenerating Spain.

he was the kind of the tutor of Calvo Sotelo politically. And it is in this time in 1910 where Pablo Iglesias literally said that Maura should be killed in parliament. And 15 days later, Maura would be gravely wounded by an anarchist gunman. The beginning of a pattern. Very interesting. I mean, you have to consider that during, During the parliamentary monarchy, the anarchist murdered like four presidents and they made an attempt on the life of the king at his wedding. Consider that. Let it sink. And this is so important for people to understand because it contextualizes the reality of what the republic was and the politicians who were running it.

the provisional government, you know, the bit unelected, you know, for the first several years, right? And, uh, and who they worked with and the kinds of things that they were up to. And, and instead, we have to hand wave and say, oh, well, it was a, it was a republic. And, you know, some meanies decided to do a fascism's and overthrow. Yeah. In a lot of sense, they just go, you know, the, the evil fascists just rose, like, the peaceful left and come on it's incredible so in 1911 Largo Cabiero is the head of the UGT he declares a general strike in response to essentially the the the response of the government the liberal government against various workers movements they declare

martial law and Largo Cabiero was rounded up with a bunch of other socialist leaders. And then at this point, there's a consideration to ban the UGT and a great many members of the UGT abandoned that council of the IRS that we mentioned previously. the social reform and stuff. Yeah. So again, World War I erupts. Spain remains neutral. The economy booms because they can sell, you know, all kinds of materials to the belligerent parties on either side and ride this out. So the UGT surges with the, you know, the growth of industry at this time and large.

Cabiero standing goes up considerably. So then we start seeing more of these coordinated general strikes. The next one being 1917, which shuts the country down for five days. It was organized by the PSOE as well as the anarchists of the CNT. Largo Cabiero was a committee member and figurehead of the movement. and the goal is to address workers conditions, the life of Spanish workers, the surge in the price of basic goods.

Yes, because the end of World War I essentially tanked the Spanish production and exports. And you also have to keep in mind that Spain at the time was suffering for huge inflation. because foreign investors were speculating with the peseta at the time. And that was causing. Yeah. It was brutal. Do we have surnames of those foreign speculators? Unfortunately.

Oh, here we go. Unfortunately, I don't have them, but don't worry. People that are like those speculators appear in the Civil War quite often. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah, I did my, I did my homework. Excellent. Excellent.

All right. So at this point, this strike, general strike creates a crisis. You know, Largo Cabiero and his peers who are involved in the strike leadership in particular, as well as many other participants, are rounded up, tried for treason, sentenced to life in prison. Interestingly, just a pattern that we see all the time, the response is so great that Largo Cabiero is released in the following year. Because these are people who are candidates for election in the following year. And because he and several others win their elections and are appointed seats in Parliament, this is essentially an amnesty that's given to them. despite their previous, you know, convictions.

Yeah, because a thing that I didn't understand until I studied administrative law is that if you're a politician, unless you get caught red-handed on committing a crime, they cannot send you to jail. Incredible. And at least here in Spain. And I think the same happen in this regard, because they couldn't like completely, ascertain or say that they were the materials. They could say they were involved, but not the material actor. So that's that plausible deniability is what allowed them to be released.

Excellent. All right. So, uh, the same year, Largo Cabiara was formally named leader of the UGT and speaker. of the PSOE as Pablo Iglesias moved to retire from political activities due to his health and old age. And so interestingly, Largo Cabiero actually worked very hard and was very serious about his beliefs. He worked with that institute for social reform.

And he was very vocal about workers organizing within the bounds of the law, working with the institutions to achieve their goals, improve their lives, while still saying yes, our goal is to enact socialism. And so the really interesting thing is that this is taking place against the backdrop of the communist revolution in Russia and the spread of Bolshevik. influence. And so this success of these more radical strains reinforces the radicalization and buoys the radicals in Spain, whether anarchist, socialist, communist, etc. You know, a fair bit of this, frankly, is that a lot of resources were then able to be directed by the Soviet Union

into these other parties that because the PCE wasn't born yet at this point. No, no. It still needed a couple more years. But the main thing is that the socialist, a sector of the socialists, were steadily being radicalized. And that eventually became the PC, the communists. In the case of the anarchists, they essentially, broke apart from collaborating with the socialists.

They said, okay, we have to kill people, we have to take buildings, we have to burn churches, all of that. They said, okay, we need results and we need them now. But Largo Cavalera at that time was still a kind of staunch moderate. So he resisted very well along with others like Julian Besteiro, the advance of the radical sector. And that is what made the radicals leave the socialists, while the socialists kept their core pretty much untouched.

And so in 1922 is when that formal schism happened at the party level where the Communist Party of Spain was birthed in 1922. primarily from radicals who had split off from that PSOE party. The radicals of the socialists, of the Pesot, were you could say the leadership, because the PCE was formed from a small communist, communist parties and associations that were regional. They were very small. And then they all concentrated in the communist party. great excellent well put and so 1922 what happens in 1923 the coup d'etat with general prima de rivaura as figurehead basically put politics on hold in spain at this point you know it's fair to say that the cortes was essentially

suspended and everything became top down. Calvo Sotelo was appointed minister of revenue. And this became, this is why they hated him so much, even though on paper he was kind of a middle of the road conservative in a lot of ways when he was assassinated, although they saw him as a primary enemy because of his political stances under the dictatorship. Yeah, even though, like it was said in the article of Carl Vosotele, a lot of people saw him kind of like a communist or a socialist, and he was because of his work in the Ministry of Revenue, because he was trying to stabilize the value of the peseta. He was trying to stop the inflation.

He was introducing reforms that a lot of people didn't like, but he said, no, we need this. Stop complaining. Yeah. And it's interesting because Largo Cabierro worked with the dictatorship because, again, the dictatorship reached out directly to them to collaborate within the minister. of labor. Indolecio Prieto, for example, who was younger,

kind of new guard. Yeah. Well, not exactly a new guard. He was already a member of parliament during the parliamentary monarchy. I could talk about one thing that he did that was absolutely scummy back then, but it's not,

it has no relation with this. Okay. The thing is that the collaboration is that Largo Cavalero deciding to collaborate with the dictatorship almost caused another schism

in the Persuil because the young moderates of Prieto essentially said no we shouldn't do it because doing this we're reducing the prestige of the socialists we are actually selling out

to these people that don't have our best interests in mind They just want to draw us in. And Largo Cavalier pretty much said, dictatorship or not, if they allow us to do our work, we will do it. Yeah. Classic.

So, interestingly, that, you know, this is another expression of this. There was another schism within the PSOE, which took place soon. Pablo Iglesias passed away in 1925. Largo Cabo Beiro becomes the formal leader of the PSOE and accepts an appointment by Primo de Rivera to Supreme

Council of Labor Trade and Industry, which again unites representatives of workers and businessmen from different trades across economic sectors to work with the government to resolve these things. And again, this is seen, you know, some people love it. it and it gets a lot of support because they're like we can make real progress here. This also causes a lot of resentment and hatred because it's seen as collaboration with a dictatorship. All right. And so I think what really starts happening interestingly is that in 1927, the dictatorship declares

that there's going to be a newly constituted parliament. but it's going to be appointed representatives and not elected. And so this really creates a huge problem with the socialist parties who want to collaborate. And even though they, in 1929, come to Largo Cabiero and say, you can name five of the representatives and then we'll choose the rest. and the socialist refuse to participate and demanded elections. And then interestingly, you know, Primo de Rivera passes away.

And by 1930, Largo Cabiero considered his efforts to collaborate, like exhausted, but a lot of it was because of the pressure that he was getting from within the PSOE and other people in leadership. Yeah, essentially the more moderates like their Julien Pestato were telling him that, no, we can still do our job. We can still achieve our goals within the bounds of the law. We can still do this without taking up arms like these lunatics that left our party did. Yeah.

Yeah. Do you want to explain the pact of San Sebastian of 1930 a little bit? Okay, the Pact of San Sebastian was essentially an agreement between, at the time, of course, there were no political parties, but there would be the leaders of the future Republican parties between Athana, Diego Martinez Barrio, Santiago Casares, Chiroga. They essentially wanted to put the republic in place, but they knew that by themselves, just by themselves, they didn't have enough support. And that's why they came to the socialists to tell them, okay, if we do this, if we achieve the republic, if we do it with your help, you will be part of the government.

And of course, the socialist agreed because it was a very, very tempting offer in that regard. And the Pact of San Sebastian, the fact that Largo Caballera decided to collaborate there, it is kind of, it kind of washed a, away the guilt that he had in collaborating with the dictatorship because now he was collaborating with the republic very well put thank you so you know this is where we see this this thing that is perplexing to a lot of people which is that very quickly as they start you know moving into this new period where the dictatorship and the republic are, or I should say the dictatorship is essentially

creating the conditions for the restoration of a constitutional monarchy and the republic by the, with the reinstitution of the Cortes, and there's this Republican movement. There's a plan for December 15th, 1930, for an anti-monarchist armed insurrection and general strike. Originally, the plan was for three days later, but the people in charge of this insurrection, the suburbation of Haka, they kind of got a little bit nervous that they were going to be found out, and they decided to do it earlier. And that put through an enormous ranch on the plans of the Republicans because now they were very afraid that Berengar was going to arrest them all too. And so basically a bunch of people flee the country or remain in hiding. but then the newly designated dictator, Osnar,

Admir al-Aznar, yeah. Decides, let's proceed with elections. I want to bring the temperature down. That's surely going to do it by appeasing them, you know, to a certain degree. Again, this is what the Republican, you know, the Republican parties are what became the Republic, the parties that were pro-Republic. framed these local elections as a moratorium on the monarchy.

This plan, yeah, the monarchy in general. And so they went for it essentially and declared their pretty decent performance in the elections to basically have to say, well, obviously because we got elected, you know, that no one wants the monarchy. And so like the king and many members of the dictatorship flee Spain at this point. But I think that you have to, it is usually not said, but it's very important, is that at the time, the king lost the support of the army. He had no one behind him. Because with the destitution of Miguel Primo de Rivera, the dictator, he essentially pissed off the entire army.

Primo de Rivera was a very condecorated general, very prestigious, a war hero, nobleman. He was kind of the man that everyone in the army looked up to. And the king essentially told him, no, I don't like what you did, piss off. You have to consider, okay, because when the elections were won, the detachment of the army and the police were sent to arrest the leaders of the Republican parties. And the person in charge, which was Jose Sanjurjo, important name, essentially said, hail the republic, hailed the new president.

And they just let them go. That is incredibly interesting. You know, Pete, I don't think that that's something that is very clearly explained. the loss of the support because of essentially what's seen as like an insulting or betrayal of the army. That's not really well explained in most of the English language histories as the cause of that. No, I don't know that I've read that at anyone's book, Even Pains. And it's so important because that's something that we see all the time in modern politics. as people are like, no, you have to keep voting for the guy who's like continuously insulting you.

For me, it's very surprising that not a lot of people say that the, because a thing important is that the king had at this time, in 1930, he had no one. He pissed off the army and the politicians were against him. Incredible. Because in 1921, he did a speech in which he pretty much, and he verbatim, very, very brief, he said, you politicians are a bunch of useless idiots, you do nothing, you become obstacles for progress, I should have power. He was a little bit drunk, I admit. Yeah, that's incredible.

Yeah. Well, that's a good lesson for everyone. Yeah, with that speech, long time ago, he pissed off all the politicians. And by dismissing Primo de Rivera, he pissed off the army. Incredible. I mean, it really goes to show not that it was done this way purposely, but by causing the military, you know, forcing bio-Leninism upon the military exactly what, you know, what Obama and the Obama administration,

well, the regime under Obama and the regime under Biden exactly what they were doing. Yeah, absolutely. Incredible. That's wonderful. I'm so glad that we're doing this. This is great. So the period of the Republic, I feel like we've talked about it a lot. And I kind of want to skim some of the details at this point in time.

But I think what the real important takeaway, here for Larger Cabriero. He becomes an integral part of the provisional government. Again, this isn't a elected government. There were these local elections, but the provisional government is just put together by this socialist coalition, by this quote-unquote Republican coalition. Largo Cabiero is at the helm of the Ministry of Labor. He presents numerous labor reforms, such as the for,

40-hour work week, the law of contracts, which I don't know a ton about, and then the creation of the mixed juries, which would be basically these boards that would solve disputes between workers and business owners. What's the law of contracts, more good? The law of contracts is essentially that if you start a work relationship with someone, that you get hired by someone, that person has to formalize that working relationship through written document that is a contract in order to establish that, yes, you work for them, and that they cannot essentially what is called in Spain an undue firing,

that he can dismiss you just like that. Because by that contract, you essentially have a certain set of privileges that you can demand that person. Like, for example, you have been working for five years. If your contract is terminated, you can get how much was. It was you get 20 days of wage for every year you have worked as compensation for firing. So codified severance packages. Yeah, pretty much. It's kind of that. It's both to ensure things for the worker and for the employer. Okay.

That makes sense. Interesting. Okay. So essentially what happens, though, is that, you know, this is stuff that seems fairly moderate to us, but it's also they were very, you know, the characterization is that they were blatantly biased in favor of workers and not necessarily as balanced as they could be.

you know, according to certain business interests. So that said, Largo Cabiero starts wanting to institute more radical socialist policies and the, the Republic is in this position as well in general.

They, you know, they have the religious laws, they have their new constitution, which is really interesting in that, you know, there are constraints upon the government in the new constitution. There's also like real assertions of power that the state had never had previously in the same constitution.

So like no one's happy, essentially. And also you have to keep in mind that there are two very important laws that were enacted in, this period in in 31 and one of them much later would become a very effective they say it's a very effective tool of oppression for of the Franco regime or whatever and that was the it has a very very funny name for me is a lay the vagus imaleantes or a law of vagrants and hoodlums which essentially started the of prison camps in Spain, by the way, but by 1932, important.

And the other law was the law of citizen protection. That law was enacted through most of the government in 36, and to summarize it in brief, extremely brief, it's a law that allows the government to suspend its constitution. institution. Very important because the, that essentially, it's that's essentially the state of emergency that they're in, that this government is in so that they can essentially favor the oppression of the right, for example, and say that it's legally justifiable.

So this is the state that, the state that, uh, that, uh, that. you know, it's codified, that they're essentially allowed to ignore their own constitution? You know, is the characterization that people make? They only, they only, they didn't do it only for that. Because in, in April, there would be local elections also in Spain. And the thing is that Athania, which was the president then, center left, by the way, He knew that if the elections run its course legally, the left would most likely lose. And so he enacted this law to suspend the elections indefinitely.

That's right. And then when they had the 33-34 period, say the Catholic right-wing coalition wins, but the Republic essentially doesn't allow them to form a government. That is because Jose Maria Hilroblis, he was called an accidentalist. His main objective, his main political objective was to destroy the Republic. And he almost achieved it if it wasn't for obviously all the people that prevented him. But the thing is that he was allowed, the CEDA was allowed into the government if no one from CEDA was part of the government. Yes.

No ministries and also no president. That is why the president was Alejandro Lerrux, which was a center-right politician, more or less. He supported the right-wing causes. The thing is that in August of 34 was when Theda said, okay, we have done a good deal of things, but there's a government crisis. And now if you want our support, you have to allow us to take ministries. And that is, that was something that a lot of people really, really, really didn't like. as you will know. And the most amusing thing is that they gave them the military.

Yeah, Jose Maria Gil Robles was the defense minister, which was pretty amusing. Which is essentially what allowed the military conspiracy as well as the, to a degree, the organization of the, the, the carolese, Requette's in particular, as well as the Falunhe training and militarization and equipment gathering. Although the financing for that came from the party's own coffers. That wasn't coming from the military, but it did reduce a certain level of oversight that they would have gotten from Republican officials, who still nonetheless tried their best

to control the military as much as possible, particularly identifying who. was a Republican and who was the thing the thing is that there was ever since the monarchy politicians in Spain had this huge interest on making the military submit to their authority and obviously the military didn't like that the thing is that during the Republic they tried it even harder and that pissed off a lot of old military all people in the military officers especially. And the thing, like you said, in the thing that, the fact that Hill Robles was a minister

of war allowed a lot of things to happen during his role. Still, the main bulk of the conspiracy was in 36. Just seven months, seven months. Yeah. But a lot of work was done during this time. And it is also during this time, when in 34, after the October Revolution is put down, that the UNE, the Union Militar-Spanel or Spanish Military Union,

is born, which is a right-wing military association within the army. They are more or less underground, and their first publication is really amazing. I read parts of it. I couldn't find the full text, but it was impassionate to say the list. And shortly after a left-wing military union is also born to counteract. Yes. Silent war is brewing within the army. And that is why the new corps of the army, like the Air Force, they remain mainly loyal to the Republic,

while the army is sublovated almost completely and also so not only is this military conspiracy taking place and in the right wing parties as I pointed out the among the

carolists and the Falunhe on the left the CNT and their FAI subdivision in particular are all in on getting ready for revolution Largo Caballero and you know other socialists and communists also begin to do the same thing they start sending

some of their trusted people to the to the Soviet Union yeah a lot of them a lot of them mainly from the PCE but also from the socialists and the CNT for example Juan Negring which was a communist he went to Russia and he became the main joint between the socialists and the Russian agents in Spain. Also Enrique Lister, who received military training in Moscow and he also worked in the construction of Moscow subway because he was a stone cutter. But he received training and also political lessons in Moscow. A lot of the Spanish that went there were mainly from the political branch and they learn Russian so they could serve later as a liaison to communicate with Russian agents in Spain. Which is incredibly important and it illustrates how the Soviet Union was able to essentially take over the republic so quickly when.

the Civil War actually began and essentially owned the army almost out of the gate, like within what, a month and a half? Ish, two, three months? More or less. Be very dominant. They essentially got to rebrand it. And then when the Soviet supplies were coming in, and all of a sudden they have these new uniforms with red Rankansignia and red stars and commiss stars.

Because remember that the Republic, after the subloval, took place, they had the marvelous idea of this band in the army. Yes, that's right. And be militias only. And the problem is that because Athenia tells it in a book is that absolutely everyone in Spain that remain loyal to the Republic wanted to do politics, they wanted to do the revolution, they wanted to do absolutely everything except making an army. incredible that is why the

communists took such a preponderance role in the republic because they were the main force that built the army incredible it's like it's like drinking your own Kool-Aid is the

American term of course that being a reference to Jim Jones in their suicide cult I mean I think in England they say to hoist your own petard or something Yes, yes, they do. We use that as well.

So one of the really interesting things that happened among the socialists is that they got a lot of, so they began amassing their own weapons and munitions. The amassing of like dynamite stockpiles and blasting charges from the miners is really important. Yeah. The Asturian miners, although they had a. huge anarchist bent they were still incredibly important in the republican military as sappers and like shock troops because of their familiarity with explosives true because just during the the revolution of october a figures uh i have it here figures said that they destroyed 57 bridges just in one month yeah And for those that might say, oh, but they were like an Afinburgur, they had an army that was 20,000 strong.

And they were planning on moving on Madrid. And because everyone in Madrid was afraid of them, they just sent the army to just sweep them up. Yeah. Because they said, okay, they might move on Madrid. But we don't know it. And they said, we will move on Madrid. So the interesting thing is this was a mess. And this is on the tail end of the basically Prieto being pursued because he was the front man for a big order of weapons that were brought in from overseas.

So he had to flee to France. Yeah, his flight is funny, I will say, very, very funny. He waddles to the border. No, they essentially, at first he was hiding in the home of a friend. Then he went to the home of another friend because he was afraid they will find him there. And he calls for like a sergeant on the Air Force to tell him, okay, I have to flee the country, you have to help me. And the guy arrives, they chuck him in the back of his car, but he doesn't want to get in the, in the, in the goddammit i forgot the word the trunk of the car oh because it is too hard so they have to bring

like the cushions of a sofa for him to be comfortable and they they drive to the border and because the the driver is the is the sergeant of the air force they just let him through and he flees to paris to paris interesting yeah it's interesting because he at the first sign of trouble, he just dipped out. While Largo Caballero, knowing that he handed orders, he did a lot of speeches and all that he remained in Spain. Huh. Interesting. So a lot is happening in this period. There's a law of amnesty that is signed in the summer of 1934. and the original intent supposedly was to pardon the people who were involved in the San Hur Ha'uha. The 1932 basically coup attempt the General Sanjuro tried to spearhead.

But then it evolved into sweeping pardons for all kinds of political agitators. Yeah, it essentially evolved into that. because it was a law with retractive effect that said that political activities and agitation, proclamations and insurrections were essentially null and boyd from this date backwards. Yeah. Everything. So it was not specific. It was everything. And then as you pointed out, this is when, you know, this is right on the tail of this is

when Seda demands to have some positions, you know, even though the left was totally opposed to allowing them into any government organs. Not only the left, but also the center, the Republicans, the people of the center, except the center right, were opposed because they said, how are we going to let an enemy of the republic within it? Yes. So that triggers the Revolution of October 1934, which you pointed out the Austerians, Going Ham, the army goes in, and Largo Cabiero is involved in leadership of the socialist uprising, is arrested by the Republic in November. there were, again, mass arrests. More than 20,000 people were arrested in relation to this, to this uprising.

Again, this is among the socialist, communist, communists, and anarchists. And the Republic is like, we can't really tolerate this. But the government doesn't really have substantial material evidence against the leaders of these parties. and Largo Cabiero's trial is brought to the Supreme Court. The High Prosecutor of the Republic, Marcellino, Valentin Gamazo, calls for Largo Cabiero to be, you know, serve a term of life in prison. There's a long trial. And then, interestingly, he's cleared of all charges,

thanks to that law of amnesty of 1934, because all of his well-documented demands for war and violence had become legally inadmissible in court because of that law of amnesty. We can touch on the speech that he gave in 1933, which was frankly the clearest explanation of his intent or like his willingness to where he could take things. I mean, I have here a quote. he gave in 1931, by the way, it is important that he said,

this attempt of dissolving the courtes for lack of majority would be assigned the Pesso and the UGT, the UGT, would take us a provocation to start a new revolutionary movement. I cannot accept that possibility. It would be like challenging the party and forcing us to start a civil war. In 1931. Yeah. Yeah. And he echoes those terms in his 33 speech as well. So again, that's legally and admissible because of this law of amnesty.

So he's released from jail in December of 1935. The high prosecutor resigns and disgust, but he is not forgotten by the socialists. So this is right when that center-right coalition government is about to collapse. Yes. What happened is that Alejandro LeRuggs was involving two corruption scandals, like very quickly in just a month. And that caused a huge crisis within the party. And seeing that, essentially, Hill-Robles said, okay, if this guy cannot be the president, I'll be the president. And Nifetal Kalafamora, which was the president of parliament, said, no.

So he dissolved the courtes and called for new elections. That was what happened. And that brings us into these spring elections of 1936. Yes, very quickly. Which is what triggers, you know, this is everything is just accelerating at this point. And so Largo Cabiero in his campaigns, his campaign speeches, is he's essentially saying, we need to utterly remove the right from having any power

and getting a little more aggressive. Like, we have to crush the bourgeoisie. How do you pronounce bourgeoisie in Spanish? Burgess. Oh, bourges. Okay, that makes sense. Regarding the election, I have a very, very short quote here,

as he said in the 23rd of January, For us to not repeat again the events of 14 of April, where the people show their enthusiasm, but not their justice, it is necessary for the people on the right to know firsthand what popular justice is and to be punished for their inexorable failures. Incredible. And he essentially said we won't accept an electoral defeat of the left. That would result in a civil war. Again, he said it several times. Yes. Totally like he's totally saying like even if they're legally elected, we won't accept it.

It's unacceptable to us and we will go to war. Yet the official framing, this is from, he becomes the president of the prime minister, rather, of the republic. And, you know, but again, it's this right wing extremists who are the ones that. are out of line. Yeah. So they win in a popular front election, which is essentially a vast coalition of left wingers where everyone agrees, you're going to vote for the popular front candidate. There's a great deal of violence, coercion, destruction of property, and very obvious electoral

fraud in many places. The, let's see. So interestingly, so Azanya enacts a state of emergency to halt local elections that are planned for April. He suspends the Constitution. And I characterize this as creating a state of anarcho tyranny where the left is permitted to run rampant while the right was essentially legally helpless. The declaration of Largo Caballero that they're delegitimizing. and crushing the left or excuse me, crushing the right is actually taking place

under the illusion of it being a legitimate government activity to do this. But you have to consider that Athania did not do it because he wanted to crush the right wing or he wanted to aid the socialist. He just did it because he didn't want to lose his seat. It's essentially that because if the right one again, the Republic was done. Yeah. And he didn't want that to happen.

So he would rather have the left run rampant in Spain than to let his vanity project be destroyed. And he knew that if he acted against the acts of the left, the coalition would be destroyed, new elections, the right would win and they would eventually destroy the republic. Which is a fair point. The right was completely opposed to the republic at this point in time. They felt that it was, you know, illegitimate from the start. And I think we've shown how illegitimate it was, you know, through, you know, many other podcasts, but this one in particular, the way that the left behaves at this point is they say,

We don't care like any right-wing election is illegitimate because we say it is. Yeah. Happens too often. So it's interesting because in the spring of 1936, Largo Caballero basically there's a rift between him and more moderate people within the PSOE. although Largo Cabiero retains the support of their power base, really, he's still very popular. He's this very seasoned senior leader within the party. He proclaims a desire to formally join the Communist International as well as to formally establish a relationship with the Soviet regime. Again, this is before the military uprising.

And then during his speeches and political events in this period, he displays portraits of Stalin, communist flags, and he closes every event by singing the international. Again, this is just a left-wing elected republic. He had become the de facto PSC-O-E party leader and the more moderate socialists are sidelined completely. Yeah, mainly Julian Besteiro. He was the main preponderant. Who, by the way, I forgot to point this, is in response to the revolution of October, he said, and I quote verbatim, let it be known that the fascist threat is not represented by Ceda, but by Largo Cavallero and his supporters then nurture it.

Hmm. Interesting. Yeah, Besteiro was since the beginning opposed to the communists, and he was relegated to complete irrelevancy very quickly. So the military uprising happened July 17th, 1936. Largo Caboero was made the leader of the Republic in September of 1936 at the age of 67, excuse me. Yes.

Before he took possession, there was two other presidents, by the way. When the uprising took place, Casares Kiroga essentially resigned and Diego Martinez-Barrio took the presidency. He tried to negotiate with the sublobated generals. He failed and he resigned. And the new one, Jose Hiral, was the guy that disbanded the army and handed weapons to the population. And when he saw that the country, the republic was in complete anarchy, he also resigned. Oops. Yeah, I mean, a lot of the Republicans were expecting that by disbanding the army, the suburbated would like stop.

Yeah, that the uprising would just disappear because they had declared the army disbanded. Yeah, but what it did is that a lot of in the size, officers and soldiers defected because I have no more obligation to you, bye, bye. And this, it's really important to understand that, like, right at the time of the uprising, the, the deals that the Anglophone world, the British and Americans, the business deals that they had with Spain and the military and particular as it related to like trucks and fuel and tires and things of that nature immediately british and all the british and american companies uh said we recognize the the spanish nationalist the military uprising uh the rebel forces as the people that we have the deal with and so

we will provide this to them on credit so there was no there was no tether between the Republican government and the military and their kind of key sources of these supplies from outside of the country, it was over, like, right at the jump. And so there was nothing they could do about that at this point. Largo Cabiero was only the leader of the Republic for eight months. He would stay in power until May 1937, but the interesting thing is that he essentially attempted direct control of the entire army, but the records of this are very unclear. There's a distinct lack of documentation, probably burned long ago, you know, at some point at this, you know, in this period.

That or essentially there are multiple sources that said that he did this. Another one said, oh, he didn't do it, but he knew it. And others said, oh, he didn't do it and he didn't know about it. But he was informed later. It's a lot of confusion. And at the end of the day, you really don't know exactly what happened. Like with the gold of Moscow or the execution of Primo de Rivera, because there is multiple people that say that, oh, he authorized it, or he didn't do it.

Yeah. And this is where the breakdown of like the people who attempt to own the narrative or direct the narrative on the subject of the Spanish Civil War, it always falls apart because during this period, the, you know, there was a very strong, like, Republican government narrative. that kind of shifted as soon as the the Soviet control of it was so obvious. And so they started retconning that, you know, all these kind of state socialist parties and more moderate, you know, people were, it was, it was taken over. That's kind of an Orwell orientation. Or like the anarchist, you know, they scapegoed the anarchists. And then in the 60s, later 60s, you know, they, you know, especially when the left and the hard left turned against the Soviet Union, they started attempting to resuscitate the anarchists.

And then in the 90s and aughts, like you have Anthony Beaver, who is a, you know, he's essentially playing, choose your own Spanish civil war and, you know, saying, well, really like ideologically, anarchists and like there were the subset of like cool anarchists that were that were really kind of just libertarians and and and hippies and like they were the really good guys but just all these bad people and extremists are the problem it's it's totally ridiculous well the way you said it explains why there was a resurgence in terrorist activity in the 60s in Spain a lot of anarchist groups started to just sprout around here It was also the time when Eta was born. Yes, that's right. That's right. So Largo Cabiero, again, as you pointed out, the army was essentially disbanded. There were all these militias and random political parties and people who were armed. You know, the workers were armed, right?

They just opened up the arsenals to them. They had no idea what they were doing. So Largo Caboero attempted to central. the Army Command and then put professional soldiers in charge of the leftist militias and like incorporate them into the Army, which really it took some time for that to happen. But they really started, you know, having success in that area in the spring, which is around the same time that the right did the same thing, where they were they unified. all the militias under the central command of the army. Yeah, with the decree of unification. Indeed.

But to back up a little bit, the Soviet Union did, as we pointed out, that there was not only a proclaimed relationship directly between the Spanish Republican government and the Soviet Union, but the Soviet Union. but the Soviet Union, their policy was that the Republic would fall without the aid of the Soviet. So by mid-September 1936, the first shipment of military material and personnel, quote-unquote, advisors, but literally like first round, you know, equipment operators, armored cars, tanks, aircraft, and then a hodgepodge of some good weapons and some election. a lot of crap, frankly, flowed as well as the implementation, the institution of the international brigades managed by the Communist International. And we're flowing.

And talking about the Communist International, the General Secretary of the International, Gregory Dimitrov sent the 23 of July instructions to the Communist Party of Spain. And I read exactly. At the present, we should not undertake the task of creating Soviets and establishing a proletariat, this dictatorship in Spain. That would be a fatal mistake. Thus, we proclaim that we must act under the guise of defending the Republic. Indeed. And this balancing act is really well explained, or a contradiction, I should say, is really well explained by some other.

material that we have in here. There's testimony from Alexander Orlov, who is the leader of the NKVD in Spain, and then the Soviet ambassador Rosenberg was serving as a political liaison. There's all kinds of really interesting confessions that Orlov made after he defected to the U.S. He provided testimony to the Eastland Senate judiciary. Committee in 1957 that are like very good records of what Stalin's secret police were doing in Spain and and you know essentially reinforcing you know the the testimony about what was going on in Spain under the NKVD and the SIM you know what the communist political parties were doing in Spain to everyone and what I want to do.

is jump down past, you know, the gold that went to Moscow, like when all of the precious metal reserves were sent out of Spain, 72.6% to Moscow, the remainder going to France for arms purchases, a total joke, and just the NKVD going wild and just killing all kinds of people that, if you'll recall, the prosecutor who had led the prosecution of Largo Caballero in 1935, Marcelino Valentin, was executed, you know, in a very, like, haphazard way, judges who didn't play ball to the degree. And a lot of times it was just revenge, not even trying to get them to do anything. there was a big cleanup.

128 judiciary magistrates were murdered. Two members of the Supreme Court were murdered. And sometimes it was done very haphazardly by just death squads. Other times they were like arrested and then executed. Yeah. A lot of the early executions were just impromptu. The militia arrives. They take you to a desolate place and they just shoot you.

As the war dragged on, they became more subtle about it. And so here's where I wanted to reinforce the point you made about the official Soviet position. And this is a letter from Stalin December 1936 as to like what Largo Cabiero's job was and where their framing came from. I'm just going to quote here and read for a bit. We consider that it is our duty within our capabilities to aid the Spanish government. you lead the fight of all workers and the forces of democracy against the military fascist army that are nothing more than a tool of the international fascist forces remember at this point the the germans had provided airlift and the germans and italians had provided airlift and there was this was just the very beginning of uh you know military aid and and uh forces from Germany and Italy going into Spain as well, just very beginning of it. The Spanish Revolution is taking a much different path than ours.

The vastly different social, historical, and geographical conditions determine it. The international climate is vastly different than the one in the Russian Revolution. It is quite possible that the parliamentary way is a far more efficient revolutionary process in Spain than it was in Russia, although Largo-Cabiero disagreed, I'll point out. You should pay special attention to peasants due to the significance they have in a country like Spain. It would be advisable to issue decrees relative to agrarian patterns and to taxation in order to protect the interests of these workers. It would also be advisable to draw these peasants toward the armed forces and build with them a guerrilla army to fight in the rear of the fascist army. as well, it would be convenient to draw towards the government the petty and middle bourgeoisie from the cities,

or, if possible, allow them to remain neutral as long as they favor the government and protect them against confiscations by ensuring within your means free trade and commerce. You must not reject the leaders of the Republican parties. On the contrary, you should draw them in and associate them with the common efforts of the government. You need to avoid being seen as a communist republic by the enemies of Spain to dismantle their declared intervention. Fueling their rightful claims would be the worst danger for the Spanish Republic. You must seek the chance to declare, through all means available to the government, that you will not tolerate the violation of rights against the property or legitimate interests of foreigners in Spain. So this is Stalin telling Largo Cabiero, you know, how his revolution is going to be.

That, you know, you can't do this now. You can, you can, what you need to do is put on the facade that this is a functional democratic government because we need other European countries to come to the rescue of the republic via military aid or direct intervention. Then after the war is won, you can implement your revolution. You can implement your communist regime or socialist regime. So interestingly, Largo Cabiero formally replies in January of 1937 and essentially says, I agree with your recommended strategies. And then he says, quote, whatever may be the future of the parliamentary form, it does

not possess among us or even among the Republicans enthusiastic defenders. So at this point, the Republic and the Republicans saw the Republican model of government as a failure. In fact, most center and center-right politicians started to support the uprising, started to support the nationals. Yes. And so I'm going to skim a little more here. Largo Cabero agreed with like the PCE and and the the Soviets that yes, I'll displace the anarchists, but then he realized by the end of January 1937 already and along with members of his cabinet, the communists were leveraging his cooperation to destroy the power of all the non-communist leftist parties, as well as to suppress their influence among the public

by incarcerating and murdering their leaders. So that, you know, Stalin's forces as well as their Spanish allies in the Spanish Communist Party are essentially violating the terms of what they said that they were doing on the ground at the low level, but they're keeping a handful of figureheads up at the top while wasting everyone who goes against

them. And the crazy thing is in the militias and in the military in the army, out in the field, this was incredibly violent. It was incredibly violent. And continued to be so. So

Largo Carbiero recognized that despite all this framing, that the PCE and Rosenberg, the Soviet ambassador, were just hammering him, just do what we say, just do what we say, just do what we say, just do what we say. And so, you know, it's really interesting that he realized that he was nothing but a puppet at this point. And interestingly, he,

decided to resist by expelling Rosenberg from Spain and sending him back to the Soviet Union. And rather than a direct confrontation with him and his party and the government, the response from the Soviets and the PCE is to go after the quote-unquote. Trotskyite P-O-U-M, the Marxist Unification Workers Party, which was the party that Orwell was

associated with just because of his international connections. And Largo-Cabiero refused to move against them because he saw them as an integral part of that leftist coalition in Catalonia

where they were just barely hanging on by a thread keeping them working with the central government. Yeah, because a thing that not a lot of people know is that in Catalonia, it was because the anarchists were the main ruling force there, they instorted kind of a system of like libertarian anarcho-communism. It's hard to define. Like they abolish private property, money.

if you needed something you could you could demand it from the government it was all over the place and it was at the beginning it was enforced mainly by the druthy and the druthy column as they advanced to arragone but in catalonia was mainly enforced by the agents of the cn t and the poem were also an integral part of the government in catalonia and the the need to hold this coalition coalition together, this, you know, this Catalonia was already on the verge of breaking. Another civil war was brewing up. Yes, exactly. Exactly.

So the Soviets and communists claimed that the P.O.U.M. were in contact with Franco spies and were essentially, you know, Francoist collaborators, if not fashion, you know, secret fascists themselves. which is obviously ridiculous. But the whole idea here is that they're whittling away this coalition and the authority that Largo Cabiero held. And so in the events of May when they basically there was a civil war in Barcelona, when they win after the C&T and the POUM, the you know this this really did it and the the anarchists fought against the communists more than the P-O-U-M did in terms of like sheer numbers again a lot of it being ideologically driven as well as understanding what the Soviets were and what the communists were and always having

been opposed to them for for decades frankly in in their in their ideology and so this was used by the communists to really be an excuse to go after even more people who are their enemies in the party they took care of the POUM they essentially liquidated the leadership in in horrific ways Andrez Nien was played alive yeah he was arrested they moved him to Madrid for interrogation and then they proceeded to torture him and he died during the torture. And this was really the way that they operated with all of their enemies, a totally a legitimate system. So Largo Cabiero, like, he knew the gig was up, but he was pressured to and ultimately ended up resigning in May 1937, May 16th.

Important to note that Largo Cavalero, his resignation, his resignation, The main, the key component of his resignation was in the leftioprieto who stabbed him in the back in order to get rid of him. He was a key because the moderates in the socialist party went against Largo Cavalero. It's very interesting. But it's so strange because there are a... Essentially, it's a reaction to a situation that the moderates themselves aren't going to be able to keep control either, right? Yeah, but the thing is that the moderates actually thought, okay, if we get rid of Flago Caballero, who is a radical and he's driving us into this, maybe we can fix it with a moderate candidate. They proposed Prieto, but he was rejected and they chose Juan Negring.

Who was arguably worse than Largo Caballero because he actively collaborated with the communists, willingly. Like enthusiastically even. Yeah, to a certain degree he did. And he also did the thing he crushed the Catalonian independent government and he jailed absolutely everyone. involved with it as well. So he was harsh. He was harsh and he did everything he could to keep the communists behind him. So the interesting thing is Largo Cabiero is removed from the government and his leadership position in the PSOE.

He was still a member of the UGT labor union at this point. and my understanding is that he ended up going to Catalonia because it was safer for him essentially. Is that correct? Yes. He went to Barcelona essentially. Yeah. And so he became a vocal opponent of the communists and was calling out what was taking place. Not long later in autumn of 1937, he was expelled from the,

the UGT Labor Union. They claimed that he was not paying his party dues. Then he was arrested, put under house arrest, all of his funds, documents, and properties that he had earned while working in the UGT. Again, remember he had been a politician for, what, 35 years about? Between 30 and 40 years. Yeah. And so they took everything, and he was essentially penniless.

the UGT was essentially disbanded at this point or dismantled and he was just stuck there, you know, unable to really do anything. So of course, this is, you know, it isn't long until the nationalists were advancing on Catalonia. So in January 1939, after the Battle of the Ebro broke the military, around Catalonia.

He and many, many other people fled Barcelona for the French border. And he just had nothing at this point. And so he was dependent on the goodwill of wealthy friends and people keeping his head above water. He did not steal away with a big fortune seized from illicit. And like two other people that I know about. Prieto was one. And Negrin was the other. And Negrin was the other.

Prieto essentially stole like $50 million from Negrin. Because Negrin sent a yacht with stolen goods to Mexico. And they were in transit when the Republic fell. And the crew didn't know what to do with. everything so Prieto took the advantage and seized the money wild yeah and essentially after the war each one had their own organization and they were they were like I have letters that they sent each other and you can you can feel that seething resentment they have for each other reading those letters it is insane that's hilarious that's hilarious

So at this point, you know, Largo Cabiero is stuck in France. There are people advocating that he, you know, relocated to South America like so many people in the Spanish Republic did. The anarchists did. A lot of them went to Mexico. And on the one hand, he like really couldn't afford to do it, but he also didn't want to be that far away from Spain. Yeah. So, you know, Germany invades France. Largo Cabiero was apprehended by French authorities. A lot of other high profile, you know, Republican political figures were also imprisoned. Interestingly, so the Franco regime demanded a return of all of their, you know, political opponents so they could be tried for their crimes against the nation. but the French authorities did not do so.

But the thing is that the French authorities extraded some people. Yes, that's a good point. Like Luis Campanis, which was the president of the Catalonian independent regime. And they just hand him over with little fanfare, but they didn't do it with Largo Caballero or Frederica Monseni. and also other anarchists and socialists that were living in France. It's very peculiar. And it's one of those things where we don't seem to have good explanations as to why. Why the one and not the other is my understanding.

Regarding companies, I have a theory. It's a little bit her brain. And it is essentially because the French really don't like the Catalonian independence. because they have pretensions to land in France. Yes, yes, because of historical patterns from hundreds of years ago. Yeah. If not, and I think they handed him over kind of because of that. That makes sense.

That makes sense. Yeah, there's what, it's about a 40-kilometer wide strip of the Mediterranean and north words that is the old Catalonian kingdom that's in the French side. Not kingdom. Catalonia was never a kingdom. It was a county that were vessels to order. That's right. That's right.

That's right. But yeah, it is essentially that they have pretensions to that land in France and also to the south in Valencia. It is I mean complicated. I never told you this, but

when I was in Spain, you know, many moons ago, I was on a bus from Barcelona headed down to, because I was going to go to Cadi. And yeah. And so it was really, it was really funny because there was a very loud Cotelon woman on the bus. And she started arguing with a bunch. She was talking very loudly about how the Cotelons invented everything. And so people are allowed. laughing and the funniest thing was that she claimed that they invented opera and everyone's laughing and they're like, that's so ridiculous. And then she started singing opera and she had a beautiful voice and she like immediately captivated everyone and within like 20 seconds everyone was applauding. It was absolutely hilarious. It was absolutely hilarious. I mean, with that attitude, it's kind of a general attitude that some Catalonians have, and it's a reason why a lot of people in Spain don't like them.

Yeah, even because, well, a little bit of sidetrack. A lot of people right now in Spain hate Catalonians a lot because of something the government is doing. I won't go into details because it's a very long topic. Maybe another time. Yes. So, okay. So at this point, Largo Caballero

is not sent to Spain. However, he is handed over to the Gestapo and is imprisoned eventually in the Soxenhausen concentration camp at age 71 and in poor health,

and he spends the next several years, in the prison hospital until he's liberated by the Red Army in 1944. At this point, he is just like broken. He's completely jaded. Yes. He dies of kidney failure in January, 1940s, or excuse me, in March, 1946, well, renal colic and is utterly, either. He's been utterly impoverished and living in just horrible conditions for about six years,

five or six years at this point. And he was buried in Paris, but in 1978 in the post Franco pact of forgetting era, he's reinterred in Madrid. A lot of exiles, Spanish exiles, it happened that with them. They died in South America or they died in France and they, asked to later be interred in Spain. It happened with way too many of them. And I think that, you know, you made, you made some interesting observations to wrap this up about, you know, he was no Dolores Iber Ruri, who was just a loathsome psycho. Yeah. He was,

you can see, you can see how he got radicalized. You can see, and you can be a little more more sympathetic given, you know, the way that he grew up, you know, his hard life, the conditions that he just had to like deal with on a regular basis. And frankly, his very, it's seemingly earnest attempts to like work with the system peacefully. And, you know, he had some small, some small successes, but they were very small successes. And he just became bitter and more radical and jaded as time went by. But it's it the interesting, the most interesting thing to me is I just get this impression from everything that

he almost thought it was a waste. Like, and, and he never wrote memoirs. He never, you know, he wasn't, you know,

we have, we have memoirs from pretty much the entire leadership of the CNT. And they're really interesting. But like Largo Cabiero, you know, only biographers can take him on because we have his speeches and we have the testimony of other people. But he just seems like he became a very different man over time. Yeah. You can see that change essentially with the with the dictatorship, with the, with his refusal to work with the government. That is kind of,

it's kind of like he saw that whenever he tried, whenever he tried to convince, concede to aid or to collaborate with the government, someone would put a roadblock in front of him. It's the impression that he gives me that no matter what he proposed, even if it was good or maybe others considered misguided or something like that, he saw that there was always someone out to prevent him from achieving his goals. And it's probably a good part of what drove him towards being more radical in general. And I think we can wrap this up by quoting from his 1933 speech and his infamous November 1933 speech in Badajos where this is, remember, this is in the campaign season. He was a member of the provisional government. He was the head of the ministry of labor.

But they also saw this looming, like right-wing victory that would destroy not only the Republic, but their aspirations to implement a socialist regime. And so the really interesting thing here is that I'm trying to find the best spot to jump off on. Okay, here it is. So this is where we see a lot of the kind of bitterness in this speech. So I'm going to jump ahead and explain his position here from this speech. quoting, he says, The Spanish people have seen that rather than be thankful for their peaceful ways, the enemy comes back to enslave them.

Do not be surprised that history repeats itself, and we must return to a revolutionary movement, a violent one, and the blame will be upon them. The Socialist Party joined the provisional government as a minority with a duty to fulfill. We have accomplished all of our objectives. Funny. even more we allowed some of our political fellows to not fulfill theirs and for all the sake of the republic so it wouldn't fall like the first one from the 19th century I should say back then we thought that we were the backbone of the republic and it was our duty to consolidate it and that is why we accepted the decision that the provisional government would immediately reconvene the cortes that was the second mistake of the Spanish Republic in other words here's this republic we're going to put in place Republican, you know, principles and a Republican form of government.

So he's, you know, talking out both sides of his mouth right here. We prematurely joined the court test before carrying out our revolution, only to be cast out by the parliament. Nobody will be surprised if in similar circumstances the people join a premature call to parliament, only to be cast out once more. So he's essentially saying in this election period, like we're wasting our time by voting for parliamentarians and working with a parliamentarian government. Protests against us were only levied when we began to implement social laws or social reforms. Yes. Did they think that we were in the government to defend partisan interests?

Wasn't our duty first and foremost to triumph for the working class? That is what we did. but our legislation wasn't enforced, and yet we tolerated it, and then we tolerated the obstruction of our reforms in Parliament later on. We tolerated all this, convinced that the Republic was necessary for the working class to go above and beyond, and that's when the campaign of lies and slander began. A campaign carried out by those who very soon will come begging us for help to defend the Republic, and I will ask them, why are you attacking us,

if you will soon beg us for help. Think about it. Don't you see that they represent nothing in Spain? You do not represent anything because you aren't backed by the conscious working masses. Think, because I will say that the republic will not stand without the socialists, and you cannot rule without the socialists. You made the mistake of rushing into elections because you thought that the votes in our favor were from the Republicans, but as soon as parliament was dissolved, you realized this was false,

that the working class is with the socialists more than ever. And if you could, you would not hold elections because you know that the socialists would gain even more a seat in parliament. So how interesting is it that he's complaining not about the right wing, but he's talking about the left Republicans styming and being the chief opposition to the socialists. We have a similar talking points on the right that the enemy

of like our thinking is conservatives. It's an incredibly interesting parallel. He's not even talking about the real enemies. He's talking about being backstabbed by the moderate Republicans.

That just sounds way too familiar. Way too familiar. I mean, it's a, you know, history doesn't repeat itself, but it's a script. It's, if the script works, do it over and over again. Yes, exactly. And so this is really interesting as he closes it. I'm going to skip ahead a tiny little bit, um,

that he's essentially saying, he says therein lies the mistake of the Republicans. They believe that the political struggle is separate from the economic struggle and that the worker cannot even collaborate with his boss in political activity. Now in these elections, they will realize a mistake that will cost them dearly. That sounds pretty familiar right now. And then he says, the candidates of the anti-Marxist front is composed of fascists, monarchists, conservatives, and radical Republicans. And I ask you, is there a difference between any of them. None. Even worse, these last ones are the worst because the radicals are the ones facilitating the return of the monarchy. You don't have to look further than who defended March and the

Cortes, March being a banker, businessman, and a smuggler. Yes, who was a huge financier of the uprise. Even though during the Republic, he played on both sides. But it was when the socialist went after him that he said, oh, I got to save myself from these people. March isn't a Spanish surname, is it? He is from Baleares. That's right. Yes. And important to know, he was originally a pig farmer. It is, it is incredible that he got to the top of a Spanish economy, just as a pig farmer.

Amazing. So there's all this stuff about the radicals collaborating. And by the way, the radicals here, it doesn't mean radicals. It means the center right. The Leroux, Republican radical. Yes. Because a lot of people think, oh, well, the radicals, they are radical, but no, it's just the center right. But it's interesting because I had read some of his speeches from like, 30 years prior and he was very radical. He was talking about like raping nuns and like burning the country to the ground and stuff like that. Totally wild how as soon as as soon he became like a real serious political operator and manipulator. Yeah. I mean, Leroux was a journalist,

so it shouldn't surprise you. All journalists are best. Like I told you, almost everyone in, in the Second Republic was a journalist, almost everyone, except on the right wing. Everyone were where all of them were lawyers. Yes, absolutely. That's a really good point. Calvo Sotelo was a lawyer. Hill Robles was a lawyer.

Primo de Rivera was a lawyer. Manuel Falcone was a lawyer. The Count of Rodafno was a lawyer. Everyone was a lawyer. Incredible. Yeah. It's surprising. Well, let's bring this home.

I will go through some of the spiciest parts of this speech, and he says, here we go. At that moment, everyone will unite against us, but we will tell them, if you do not allow workers to obtain their demands through Parliament, you are casting us out from the law. You're proving that the democratic institutions are unfit to achieve our goals, because the working class will not be content with mere law. from now on. We will fight to take over political power. Don't let our enemies twist our words, since I will speak frankly. We are going for all political power. In making these statements, we are not content with just having two socialist ministers and the government benches. That is not enough to govern. This comes from a man who has been a minister for two and a half years. You don't rule just by being a minister. You need more tools. Every single minister must be social

list. We must take over the judiciary, which is in the hands of the bourgeois, every single enforcement agency of the state, but not the current tools created by the monarchy, but the ones created by our socialist regime. So he's essentially saying that the republic inherited tools of the monarchy that are still run by the bourgeoisie and their collaborators. For a proper socialist regime, we must have every agency and every tool within our grasp. And some will say, that is nothing more than the dictatorship of the proletariat. But do we live in a democracy today?

Don't we live in a bourgeois dictatorship? Who owns the army, law enforcement, and all other government institutions but the bourgeois? Even more. The bourgeois own the machines, the lands, the means of production. And when they see the working class rebel against their oppression, they have the tools to doom us, to starvation and poverty. That is why we declare we are not willing to continue. this situation. We want to hold all political power, much like the bourgeois have done until now.

And don't anyone dare say that the working class doesn't know how to rule. So it is incredible. It is absolutely incredible that he comes right out. And then he goes on to say, we are attacked because we want to abolish private property. And they are right. We do not hide our intentions. We will destroy the regime of private property. We are attacked because we are the enemies of the family, and we answer, they are the enemies of the family. They destroy working families by forcing women and children to work long hours, exploiting their fathers and husbands, and doing them to starvation. We as socialists wish families could be as we believe they should be free from economic burden. Pretty appealing. Yeah, very much.

pretty pretty appealing and so so you know as you go through this um you know he really he really says that um everyone here is basically saying if we're barred from parliament we will turn against it he he says our enemies have already begun this war their voice gil robles says that if they are barred from parliament they will turn against it so be it we respond we are moving legally towards the evolution of society. But if you wish so, we will make the revolution violently. This, our enemies, will say, is inciting civil war. But let's be honest, we are already in a civil war.

What else is the constant war between employers and workers, which takes place every day? We are in the midst of a civil war. Let's not be blind to it. So, you know, despite everything else that he says where he's like, We just need to prepare, and this is how we need to think about things, etc. But really what he's saying, what I think is most important, is that he's saying, we don't believe in the republic, our enemies don't believe in the republic, the only people who believe in the republic don't really believe in the Republican are just using it to, you know,

to manipulate us. Or like I said in the case of Athanas, is a vanity project. Yes, yes. So, like, none of these people, none of these people believed in the Republic. I just don't, I don't see a compelling case that there was like, there were real ideological, true believers who were willing to compromise at this point. I mean, who were promoting the Republic.

I mean, at the beginning, at the beginning, the army was willing to give the Republic a shot, but because the Republican politicians didn't trust the generals and officers from the monarchy and tried to make them bend to their will, they ended up pissing them off since the very start. Yeah, exactly. Because remember, the Republic got instituted because the army, sided with them. Just remember, they were willing to give it a shot and they were essentially stabbed in the back. None of these people working in good faith with one another. That's like the biggest thing that jumps out to me. Yes, because, I mean, I could talk at length about what

happened because there is a lot, a huge web of intrigues between the politicians and the army. during the Republic. And one thing is, of course, you wonder, okay, why did the man that essentially swore obedience to the presence of the Republic, proclaim a coup d'etat on two years after, after he essentially said, hail the Republic? Like, you got to think, because Sanjurjo, essentially at first, he was obedient to the, to the Republic. But the Republic didn't trust him and started closing his military academies. They discharged him. They discharged him.

They set him to reserve. They stripped him of rank. And I mean, you see that happening. Are you not going to be angry? Exactly. It's amazing. And they did the same with essentially almost all of the sublobated general. they did the same to them

then you wonder okay they had it coming because they they pissed off the people that they shouldn't they couldn't help themselves it's like everyone thought it was the all Patriots go moment you know and

all the different factions were competing with one another but you gotta you gotta think that at first the the army just came out of that period what they were at odds with the king and they said okay we're going to give a shot to these guys if they don't mess with us too much because politicians before were messing a lot with the army we're going to give it a shot and they discovered unfortunately that the politicians of the republic were even worse than the ones before because yeah between the religious laws

they also forced them to um to swear religious to the Republic, they foreclosed military academies, they also raised the requirements to access certain ranks in the army, like you needed to have a college degree to reach certain ranks. It was huge. And of course they didn't like it. And also that is not counting all the new people that the Republic and also the socialist and communists were shoveling. in the army that makes sense yeah i really hope that people you know we're uh two hours 15 minutes into this carl and i have done hours on this subject and i hope that people if people haven't figured it out by now i hope they can you know or at least figuring it out now why this is a

subject we're talking about because you know i'm sitting here and listening to you guys have a conversation to you guys who know a lot more about the subject than I do. And I'm just going, well, that's, that's today. That's today. Exactly. That's relevant to today. That's relevant to today. Okay.

So, you know, I guess the question comes down to is you have this information. It's happened before. You get an idea of where this can lead to. Well, what do you do about it? And, you know, that's probably, not something we want to talk about on a podcast but you know it's something that people have to start thinking about i mean that is why i think this is the articles that i've been doing are a public service announcement you know it is it is an interesting period of time but you have to

know you have to know and then you will see absolutely well thank you again for not only writing these pieces, doing all the work that you do to find the material through Spanish sources, which we're just constantly reading everything that we can find about this topic, but we're constantly finding new stuff just has never been in English. Or if it is, it's incredibly obscure and out of print. I mean, in some cases, even in the Spanish, is obscure. And I sometimes can only find part of the text and not the full text. Like, I've been trying to find the instructions reserved as the private instructions, which were the letter with the fundamentals for the suburbation.

I was trying to get them translated, but I only can find parts of it, not the full text. It's a shame. Very, very interesting. Wow. It's still a valuable, what you're doing. doing here is valuable and we appreciate it. You know, you can you can only machine translate so much. You know, you have to be able to the idioms are the hardest thing to figure out when you're translating, which is why German is one of those languages. It's almost impossible to translate into English. But yeah. And I'm thankful that it's appreciated. It's,

It really motivates, motivates me to keep going. Awesome. Awesome. Well, head on over to Carl Substack. It's at it open somewhere right here. What the hell is it called again, Carl? I thought I had it. Carl.gall.

substack.com. Yeah, man. K-R-L-D-H-L-Substack.com. And if Wargur is the author of an article, I always lead with that, but it's generally the now and then series is his series. So we have another one coming up that I'll put up this week. Yeah, that also took me a while to make because I had to sift through quite a few things while doing it. In some cases, I had to hunt for the news articles because I knew there were some of them.

And I wanted to get them there. Well, it's great that we have the internet, and not only can we meet each other that way, but we can find this incredibly important historical material. So, yeah, thanks again for your collaboration. Appreciate your time here. Well done, by the way. Thanks. And I look forward to working with you more.

It will be my pleasure. All right, gentlemen. Thank you very much. Thank you.