My book on the Spanish Civil War (I ordered it) will be coming in about 3 weeks time.
My book on the Spanish Civil War (I ordered it) will be coming in about 3 weeks time.
There's an entire world of difference between Salazar and Franco, and between Salazar and any other european ditactor of the XX century. Estado Novo regime was the most soft and open regime of all, and the one with the less repressive nature by far. There was no death penalty for political crimes, and the dada shows that the big majority of political prisoners were sentenced to months in jail.Originally Posted by Dreamwoven
More than that, an this is the most impressive aspect of Salazar's regime, there were people from other political areas that integrated Salazar's government. Many Ministers and Secretaries of State of Salazar's government were actually political adversaries of the regime, people connected or close to opposition sectors. Franco Nogueira, Correia de Oliveira, Kaulza de Arriaga, Adriano Moreira and Marcelo Caetano are examples of people that when invited by Salazar to join his government were connected to the opposition to the regime (Franco Nogueira was associated with the democrats and was perceived as a socialist democrat, Correia de Oliveira and Kaulza de Arriaga were close to most conservative groups that contested many Salazar policies, Adriano Moreira was known for his liberal and democratic tendencies and Marcelo Caetano had some type of sympathy with liberal models like the british parilamentarism). There most clear example of this tolerant nature of the regime was that Craveiro Lopes, who served as President of the Republic for 8 years, was well known for his connection with the democratic sector of portuguese politics. He would even be part of a conspiracy against Salazar three years after leaving the presidency.
Another important and clear example of how Salazar had a more tolerant posture than any other dictator of the time is that besides the communists (who were considered a big and dangerous threat to the regime) most political sectores of the oppostion had considerable freedom to politicaly operate in the country. At the high point of the Ultramar War, two of the most notorious critics of Salazar's colonial politic published books against the war and against Salazar colonial politic. Cunha Leal published "Homeland in Danger" and Homem de Mello published "Portugal, the Oversear territories and the Future". Can you find any other dictatorship in which political adversaries of the regime would publish books publicly condening and attacking the regime's politics concerning such a crucial subject as a colonial war?...
Not to mention the intelectual space that was given in college's. A spanish historian once said that when he did a year of college in Portugal was the first time he eard about Gogol, Gorki or Victor Hugo, because their works were forbidden in Spain.
Last edited by Lendo; 03-09-2017 at 05:07 PM.
In my county, both the far-left and the far-right are in favour of leavint the EU.
But the far-left is in favour of open borders to the immigrants, and the far-right is against.
The far left always want open borders until they are open and the far right want to have their cake and everyone else's.
In today's Dagens Nyheter there is an article on the divisions in the EU being made clear when Poland was bypassed. There is a group of countries - Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia - organised into the Visegrad Group. This group of countries opposed the re-appointment of Donald Tusk to his EU post. The EU refused to accept this and confirmed the appointment of Tusk.
We don't know the reasons for this, or even the Visigrad Group's reasons for their opposition to the Tusk appointment. This is no surprise because the EU is, as we know, not a democratic organisation. Czechoslovakia (as it was before Slovakia became independent from Bohemia) was the last country to confirm membership of the EU under the Lisbon Treaty.
We can only surmise the reasons. What we do know is that Tusk was a driving force in the expansion of the EU to include Ukraine, which led to the current Cold War, centrally involving the EU against Russia, under the Obama Regime.See http://www.visegradgroup.eu/joint-communique-of-the.
Thanks for this fine update, Lendo.
The Swedish magazine Ordfront (Wordfront) published an article today showing that over 650 volunteers from Sweden went to Spain to fight for the Republicans and against the fascists in the 1930s, significantly more than the 500 figure commonly given. Sweden is (and was at the time) neutral.
That's much less than what Salazar's regime provided to Franco: the most recent dada shows that about 6000 portuguese volunteers fought alongside Franco's forces. Plus, Portugal supplied Franco's men with food, clothes, footwear and light weaponry. But the most important of all, Salazar did a real effort in providing money to Franco's cause: it's today well documented that Salazar appealed to some important portuguese businessmen of the time for them to make financial contribution to the nationalist cause, which really happened. Thousands and thousands of dollars given by portuguese businessmen helped Franco to finance his war effort, and all because of Salazar's political contribution.
There's even a funny story about it: one of the most preponderant contributors to Franco's war effort was a man called Alfredo da Silva, owner of one of the biggest economical groups in Portugal and in all Iberian Peninsula, a group called CUF. After the Civil War, Alfredo da Silva passed by the spanish embassy in Lisbon and noticed there was an event taking place. He told his driver to take him to the embassy, he got out of the car and when he got to the gates a spanish security asked his name. Since his name was not in the gest list, the security said he couldn't get in, to what Alfredo da Silva repplied before he walked in the embassy: "Your president as won the war because of my money, you can be sure i get in this embassy anytime i want".
Its what I'd expect, Portugal and Spain being neighbours.
The Spanish Civil War was absolutely crucial to the Estado Novo regime. For various reasons.
First of all, it's important to have in mind that when whe Spanish Civil War broke out, in 1936, the portuguese regime had only 3 years of existence, and Salazar is in power for only 4 years. So, in a period in which Salazar is still consolidating his power and the regime's foundations, a civil war breaks out in the country's only neighbour and a very influencial country to Portugal's stability. Salazar knew that a communist Spain would be an absolute nightmare for him and his regime, a safeland for the opposition, a safeland for the portuguese communists. More than that, what garantees did Salazar have that a communist Spain wouldn't plot to overthrow him from power, that a communist Spain wouldn't give all the political, economical and militarly support for a communist coup d'etat in Portugal? None. And the biggest prove that Salazar's concerns were right, is that only two months (two months!) after the spanish civil war started, a coup d'etat took place in Portugal: a group of communist Navy soldiers tried to overthrow Salazar, precisely because their intent was to change Portugal's position concerning the spanish civil war, and support the Republicans cause.
I go even further than that: what garantees did Salazar had that a communist Spain wouldn't invade Portugal? Spain always had iberian ambitions, always dreamed with a single country peninsula with Madrid as capital. The fact that a communist Spain had a right-wing conservative regime as neighbour in Portugal would be the perfect excuse to invade Portugal. To the historical ambition of uniting Portugal and Spain, the communists would had the "fight against imperialism and fascism".
Last edited by Lendo; 03-12-2017 at 10:37 AM.
As usual, you make some very interesting observations. That is not something that occurred to me to ask. The USSR did indeed have to aim of creating a socialist Europe. I wonder if the USSR sent volunteers to fight Franco, and roughly how many were there? Or did they also subsidise the Spanish communist party with funds? Very likely, I would have thought, though the USSR did what it could to to appease Hitler, especially after the war started. The critical time was the late 1930s up to when Hitler broke the non-aggression pact and invaded the USSR in 1941. David Wingate Pike wrote about the Communists against Franco (In the Service of Stalin), but way too expensive for me to buy.Pity I am not near a good university library to research it thoroughly.
The URSS contributed deeply in the Republican war effort. First of all, with the International Bridages, an international militia of volunteers from all over the world, created and promoted by the URSS all over the world, specially in socialist countries. The most recent dada shows that the International Bridages had close to 60000 soldiers, and that around 3000 of them were soviet soldiers. This ofcourse in the known operations and regular volunteering. There was many cover operations done by soviet secret service NKVD, including assassinations of nationalists and anti-stalinist left figures. Plus, the Soviet Union provided close to 1000 war airplanes, more than 500 tanks and thousands of rifles and light weaponry (grenades, etc).As usual, you make some very interesting observations. That is not something that occurred to me to ask. The USSR did indeed have to aim of creating a socialist Europe. I wonder if the USSR sent volunteers to fight Franco, and roughly how many were there? Or did they also subsidise the Spanish communist party with funds? Very likely, I would have thought, though the USSR did what it could to to appease Hitler, especially after the war started. The critical time was the late 1930s up to when Hitler broke the non-aggression pact and invaded the USSR in 1941. David Wingate Pike wrote about the Communists against Franco (In the Service of Stalin), but way too expensive for me to buy.
It´s interesting that according to Antony Beevor's work concerning the Spanish Civil War, there was as many americans fighting for the Republicans as there was soviets: 3000 from each side. Again i say, in the regular volunteering.
Last edited by Lendo; 03-12-2017 at 12:35 PM.
My book on the Spanish civil war has still not come, I expect it to come in the next 3 weeks. Thanks for your observations, they are very interesting!
It's important to stress that Tusk is simply an official in Brussels and the real reason for the Visigrad Group is opposition to Merkel and Berlin who want the group to take in some of the million plus Muslims that the idiotic Merkel has allowed flood into Europe.
They have refused and sealed their borders, making a mockery of Merkel and Brussels's open border polcy.
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
You raise some very good points, Emil. The EU also want to have the first member state they arrive at take the immigrants. Not surprisingly, the Visegrad Group by their location as the southern flank, make them prime targets for immigrants to come to the EU. No wonder these countries resist. We are seeing reactions in the Netherlands, in France and even in Sweden, where the Sweden Democrats support grows.
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