Franco: Who Is He? What Does He Fight For?

By Edward Lodge Curran, Ph.D.
International Catholic Truth Society No.ctsa001 (1937)

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Dedication

The Spanish people who follow the leadership of Franco have a right to the sympathy and understanding of American citizens.

The Nationalists are fighting for home and country and freedom and culture and social justice, for all the things which we hold dear in America.

In memory of the glorious contributions of Spain to our own national life and in gratitude for the struggle which the Nationalists are making for the defeat of Communism and for the preservation of civilisation, this pamphlet is dedicated in their honor.

May their cause succeed! May their memory never perish from the earth!

VIVA ESPANA!

THE AUTHOR.

In a radio broadcast from Salamanca, on January 19, 1937, General Francisco Franco, leader of the Nationalists, warned Spaniards at home and Spaniards abroad against the vicious campaign of Red propaganda.

"We must warn Spaniards abroad," said Franco, "and all those who sympathize with Nationalist Spain against the groundless lies of Red propaganda. Hundreds of millions have been spent on this propaganda, and although much has been diverted through robberies by agents, much has reached the propagandists. Ten million francs is the cost of the last campaign in the Press over the fantastic story of the presence of German troops in Morocco, a campaign that for a time disturbed a great public who in their innocence and good faith were unable to comprehend the degree of vileness and degeneracy to which Governments are reduced by Communism.

"Nor let our hearers forget that the gold of the Spanish banks, the art treasures in private ownership, the sacred vessels and religious treasures—the accumulation of centuries in our Churches and Monasteries—have been melted down or exported for the great campaign of defamation against National and Catholic Spain by the Russian Communists—today dictators in suffering Red Spain."

Biased Press

In England, in France, in Mexico, yes even—be it said to our shame—in the United States of America, the Press has thrown the weight of its influence on the side of the Spanish Loyalists, who are loyal to no one but Moscow. The Spanish Revolution is a little over a year old. Not until recently has the American Press called the Spanish people in revolt by the name which they themselves use throughout the country they are fighting to save, the glorious all inclusive title of "Nationalists." Neither justice nor fair-mindedness can ever be expected from Red publications in the United States, such as the Daily Worker, Soviet Russia Today, The New Masses and others whose editors and news commentators must blindly follow dictation from Moscow lest they feel the scourge of a Moscow purge. Organizations like the North American League for Spanish Democracy have suppressed facts, uttered half truths and manufactured sentiment.

The American people, and the people of Spain who have rallied to the cause of Franco, however, had a right to expect that the larger and more intellectual newspapers throughout the country would analyse and verify and print both sides of the Spanish situation. Some have become impartial under the pressure of righteous public opinion. Others have even yet refused to be purveyors of the whole truth. It is not rare to find Gil Robles and Calvo Sotelo, the Spanish martyr, whose murder at the hands of the Spanish "Loyalist" Government was the inspiration for the Spanish people to rise and throw off the bloody chains that bound them, referred to as Fascists. Neither Gil Robles nor Calvo Sotelo nor Francisco Franco is or was a Fascist. The present campaign of misinformation and misrepresentation of the American Press concerning the Spanish Revolt has robbed it forever of the right to be considered a medium of truth or accuracy or fair play.

The Truth

We Americans who are grateful for the gifts of culture and civilisation which the Spanish people brought to this country and we Americans who see in the Spanish struggle of 1936–1937 a replica of our own struggle against British political tyranny in 1776, we wish to assure the people of Nationalist Spain that we are neither responsible for nor do we condone the attitude of the American Press towards Franco and the people who have followed him. We know the red and pink and sometimes merely pale complexion of the editorial staffs and news commentators and foreign correspondents and book reviewers of the American Press. We know how the Red forces in America have tried to blind the American people to the real issues at stake in Spain. We know how they have petitioned the Government of the United States to bring Basque children into the United States for purposes of exploitation. We know how the Red government of Valencia refused to take advantage of General Franco's offer to provide for the Basque children on Spanish soil, far from the line of battle and in homes of their own nationality and racial traditions. Such an offer, of course, would have removed the possibility of exploiting the Basque children. Consequently, such an offer was rejected.

We Apologize

We wish, therefore, to apologize to the Spanish people for the cowardly failure of the American Press to do them justice. We wish, also, to apologise to General Franco for the odious picture that the American Press has too often drawn of him. Real Americans sympathize with the Nationalists of Spain, with all the peasants and workers and professional men and housewives who have sacrificed their lives and their energies under the leadership of General Franco for the deliverance of their country from a government whose eyes were turned towards the monster of Soviet Russia instead of towards the martyrdom of Spain.

The Iberian Peninsula has often been the decisive battle ground of civilization. Once again the Spanish people, under the leadership of Franco, are fighting against a menace—this time a Red menace—from the east. The cause of the Nationalists is the cause of all opposed to the godlessness, the immorality, the tyranny, the brutality, the bigotry, the dictatorship of Communism.

Franco and his Nationalists are determined that Madrid will not become the second Moscow of the world. That is why all Spanish lovers of liberty and democracy and culture and civilisation have united in the shout that has welcomed Franco wherever he has gone:

"Viva Espana!" "Viva Franco!"

Tyranny of Communism

There is no longer any mystery about the Spanish Revolution. It is a struggle between civilisation and Communism. Communism means the destruction of the home, of religion, of political freedom, of intellectual culture, of economic liberty, of everything which we hold dear in America. Communism means the abolition of all criticism and the destruction of every form of political or printed opposition. There is no opposition press in Soviet Russia. No political party is tolerated in Soviet Russia except the Communist Party to which only 2,000,000 out of a total Russian population of 170,000,000 are permitted to belong. In Russia a political party which represents less than one-third of one per cent of the Russian people is alone allowed to exist.

On November 13, 1927 an official publication called "Troud" admitted the political and civil tyranny which exists in Russia when it declared: "The sole possibility with Communism is: one party is in power and all the others are in jail." That the same political dictatorship and civil tyranny continues, is proven by the remarks of Molotov, President of the Council of the Peoples' Commissariat, in Izvestia, on October 23, 1934: "In the course of elections no one will dare show his nose, for the dictatorship of the proletariat will strike without pity." What Molotov meant to say was that "the dictatorship of the Communist Party will strike without pity." Scores of recent public purgings or bloody pogroms in Russia and scores upon scores of unpublished purgings or bloody pogroms bear tragic testimony to the truth of Communistic tyranny.

Oppose Moscow

This status of political tyranny in Russia, a system which the Communist International proposes to impose upon the entire world, should be sufficient to rally the liberals and democrats of the world to the side of the Nationalists. And when, to this truthful description of political tyranny and civil servitude we add the blasphemous campaign of Communism against God and morality and religion through the medium of the Union of Militant Atheists and through public teaching in the Russian schools and papers and museums, every lover of civilization must enroll his sympathies on any side, in any country, which is opposed to Moscow.

Opposing Aims

There is no longer any mystery about the aims of the opposing parties in the Spanish Revolution because the leaders on either side have declared themselves. The former premier of the Red Spanish Government, Francisco Largo Caballero, has openly declared himself for the establishment of an association of Soviet Socialistic Republics in the Iberian Peninsula. That means Russia and Moscow and Communism with all their blasphemous and antidemocratic tyranny. The Reds of Spain are annoyed because the people of Nationalist Spain arose to defend themselves. It was not a Nationalist Revolution which the Red Spanish Government was thinking about in the weeks between the elections of February, 1936, and the murder of Calvo Sotelo on July 12–13, 1937. Plans for a Communist Revolution had already been prepared in May, 1936, under the direction of Ventura, a delegate of the Third International. The people of Spain rallied behind General Franco just in time. The Spanish Reds goaded on by Russia were not satisfied with the Red leanings and support and supine cowardice of the Left Republican Government which the Reds themselves—Communists, Syndicalists, Anarchists and Socialists—had placed in power. Churches were not being burnt up fast enough. The murder of religious was too slow. The destruction of printing presses was not systematic enough. The slaughter of church-goers was too slim. Abetted by the Left Republican Government the Spanish Reds, a generic term which includes the Communists and Syndicalists and Anarchists and Socialists, contemplated the violent overthrow of the government which they themselves had installed and controlled. Plans for this Red Revolution are in the possession of General Franco. The plainly stated purpose of Caballero sustains them.

The Nationalists

In contrast to the aim of the Red Head of the Red Loyalist Government we have the aims of the Nationalists stated by General Franco in October, 1936, on the occasion of his installation as head of the Government of Spain in Burgos:

"We promise the Spanish people that no home shall lack a hearth and fire; no worker shall lack bread; everybody shall have work, because those who have more shall give away something for those who have less. Our social justice will be based on brotherly love and on the intimate collaboration of all classes. Our hand will be hard and relentless to establish social justice."

The Issue

Here then is the issue. Social justice, which means political and economic and social freedom, against Russian Communism, which means political and economic and social slavery. The leaders have spoken. They should be taken, both of them, at their word.

There is no longer any mystery about the incidents which led up to the Nationalist uprising against the Red ruthlessness of Communist leaders acting under the protection of the Government which they had placed in power only to despise. The ignorant and the prejudiced and the radicals of America have been fond of prating about the popular elections of February, 1936, and about the so-called Popular Front government which is presumed to have been born of such elections. For a long while the reds and pinks of the United States were able to maintain a thick smoke screen about the facts. Impartial testimony and impartial investigation on the part of decent minded people, both at home and abroad, have finally succeeded in piercing if not dissolving the smokescreen.

The Elections

Prominent amongst articles that sought to give the facts about the elections of February 16, 1936, is one which appeared in the May, 1936, issue of Current History Magazine. According to Current History, 9,408,514 Spanish voters went to the polls out of a possible electorate of 13,528,609. Of these nine millions 5,051,935 voted for the Rightists and Centrists, for those, in other words, who are the present Nationalists, fighting for civilisation against Communism. Only 4,356,579 voted for the Left Republicans and Reds: the Communists, the Socialists, the Syndicalists and the Anarchists.

It is well to analyse these accepted figures if only to refute the claim made so often in this country by the enemies of the Spanish Nationalists, that the "Loyalist" Government was elected by an overwhelmingly popular vote. The "Loyalist" Government was not even elected by a plurality. In the first place, 4,120,095 Spanish people, who could have voted, did not vote (13,528,609 minus 9,408,514). In the second place, the Rightists and Centrists (now the Nationalists) received 695,376 more votes than the Leftists and the Reds (5,051,935 minus 4,356,559). To say that the Red Loyalist Government, for which over four million people did not vote at all and which received over six hundred and ninety-five thousand votes less than the Rightists and Centrists, is a Government of the Popular Front or a Popular Government is to reveal Red hypocrisy and Red duplicity to an unwarrantable though not an unprecedented degree. Pink minds and Red minds, however, are not worried about the truth. When the case does not fit the facts, then according to communistic philosophy it becomes necessary to fit the facts to the case.

Owing to the system of proportional representation, it is true, the disposition of seats in the Cortes, or Spanish House of Representatives, resulted in 266 seats for the Leftists and Reds, 52 seats for the Centrists and 165 seats for the Rightists. This gave the Leftists and Reds forty-nine seats more than the Rightists and the Centrists, a lead which the so-called "Popular Front" soon increased to over 100 by violently unseating many of its opponents. Violence in the Cortes was preceded by violence throughout the elections. Communists, Syndicalists, Anarchists and Socialist leaders left nothing undone to intimidate the Spanish people. Over four million of them did not go to the polls. Many of these failed to go through fear of Red reprisals.

The Red violence which characterised the elections and the distribution of seats in the Cortes spread out into the public thoroughfares and into the private lives of Spanish citizens almost immediately. A Cabinet was composed almost exclusively of Left Republicans at the suggestion of the Spanish Reds. Without the votes and support of Communists, Syndicalists, Anarchists and Socialists the Left Republicans could not have formed a Government.

Politics Exposed

The reason for this shrewd political gesture of permitting the Left Republicans to take over the Cabinet and thereby accept responsibility for the Government, was soon manifest. The Reds—Communists, Socialists, Anarchists and Syndicalists—had more violent work to do. Naturally, having put the Left Republicans in the Cabinet, they could count on the dignified silence or cowardly surrender of the Government which owed its possession of authority to them.

The return of the Communists, Anarchists, Syndicalists, Socialists and Left Wing Radicals to power became the signal for a general campaign of lawlessness. Two quotations from a book entitled "Spanish Journey" will give some insight into the Red terror which followed the Red victory. Incidentally Mrs. Eleonora Tennant is not a Fascist. She is not a Spaniard. She is not a Catholic. She is an Englishwoman who knows Spain and who has given an eye-witness account of events prior to October 30, 1936, when she left Spain.

Eye-Witness Account

"Immediately after the return of the Red Government," writes Eleonora Tennant, "mine and factory work became completely disorganized. British managers of mines and factories all told the same story, namely, that from the moment the Red Government was returned, conditions rapidly went from bad to worse. The workers, run by Committees of Anarchists, Communists, or Syndicalists, put forward the most impossible demands which the owners nevertheless did their best to meet. Yet, as soon as one demand was settled, a more audacious one took its place. These demands were mainly put forward for the purpose of creating difficulties, and the last thing the Communists really desired was a settlement of any dispute. Stay-in strikes were accompanied by the shooting of individuals, and the Red Terror became gradually established."

"The workers," Mrs. Tennant continues to say, "as the result of persistent Communist propaganda carried on over a period of years with financial assistance from Moscow, never doubted they could now behave as they liked. They believed that whatever acts they committed would not only have the approval but would have the support of the Red leaders they had placed in power, including permission to wreak their vengeance on all and sundry with no risk of punishment." The same reference to Russian propaganda and Russian control of the Red or Valencia Government is made by Mr. J. L. Garvin in The Observer, a London newspaper, on November 29, 1936. "Madrid and Catalonia," says Mr. Garvin, "are largely or mainly led today, not by Spaniards, but by foreign agents and zealots of the international revolution. The Soviet Ambassador in Spain is the chief patron, purveyor, and manipulator of the Red junta.

"Without the deliberate encouragement and stimulus and aid of Moscow from a date long before General Franco had any thought of calling patriotism and nationhood to arms for the fight of life and death—without the continued Russian supplies of arms and auxiliaries—the Spanish horror never could have happened in its present infernal shape, and never could have been fed and prolonged as we see it."

A Red Alliance

The alliance between Russia and the Spanish Reds and the Spanish government was known by General Franco.

"Hidden pacts with Russian Communism," broadcasted General Franco from Salamanca, January 19, 1937, "secret agreements with foreign nations behind the back of the Constitution and the Laws, persecution without truce of everything representing any spiritual or moral value, or that did not yoke itself to the tumbril of Muscovite revolution—this was the Spain of yesterday: the Spain of workers criminally exploited by their employers, of the tubercular without sanatoriums, of the hearths without fires, of political bosses, of social injustice, of children with no schools, of Spaniards without a Fatherland, of men without a God."

Franco's Spain

After picturing Spain dominated by the Reds since February, 1936, and disturbed by Red lawlessness since the very inception of the Republic in 1931—a Republic which to every thousand of church schools closed opened only a hundred of its own—General Franco proceeds to speak of the Spain that will be tomorrow, the Spain for which he and the Spanish people are fighting.

"For peace and the country's welfare," General Franco continues, "for the rational and just betterment of working and middle classes, for liberty of conscience and respect for Religion and Tradition, for the tranquillity and prosperity of the home, for our threatened civilisation, and the prestige of our Flag, for the independence of our country, for a new Spain, a free Spain, a great Spain, our soldiers are fighting today this Russo-Communistic invasion."

"Franco," as the famous General Lyautey once remarked, "is somebody who counts." His radio broadcasts and his speeches to the Spanish people likewise prove that Franco is somebody who knows. He knows why he is fighting and against whom he is fighting. He also knows for whom and for what he is fighting. No one can accuse him of ignorance or insincerity.

Orgy of Destruction

The Spanish Reds have always been active since 1931. After February 1936 they became aggressive. "The burning and sacking of churches has been going on ever since the return of the Republic in 1931," says Eleonora Tennant, "but the orgy of burning and sacking developed on a grander scale after the return of the Popular Front Government (falsely so-called) and became almost universal immediately the Civil War broke out. Anyone known to be a regular churchgoer became suspect and liable to be shot. The torture and murder of priests (about which the American Press has been so silent), the torture, raping and murder of nuns (about which the American Press has been so silent) have been looked on by the Reds as deserving of praise. It was evidence of devotion to the Communist cause. To stand well with the Reds a Communist must be able to claim that he has put at least one priest or nun in his game-bag."

Against the slaughter and incendiarism and destruction of churches and murder of church goers, which mounted continually after the elections of February 1936, Gil Robles and Calvo Sotelo protested unceasingly in the Cortes. The Left Republican Cabinet paid no attention to their protests. Threats were made by Red members of the Cortes against their lives. Sometime during the night between July 12th and 13th Calvo Sotelo was roused from his slumbers, dragged from his home and cruelly murdered.

Spineless Government

The Spanish Government was impotent in the midst of Red and mutinous fury. The Spanish Government was losing its right to rule. It exercised no authority. It dared not denounce its Red supporters. Two functions a government must perform. It must give peace and order and security to the country it governs. It must protect the rights of all minorities and of all citizens. The Spanish Government both failed and refused to do so. It was no longer a Government. It was as if our Federal Administration should refuse to protect American citizens and American minorities against the violence and depredations of its own party followers.

Spain for Spaniards

After February, 1936, the Spanish Government had only been a cloak for the designs of the Spanish Reds. Red violence had torn away the toga. A corpse and not a living Government lay beneath. The people were in protest. The army was in arms. Francisco Franco Bahamonde was on the horizon. On July 17, 1936, the struggle of the Spanish people for civilisation and for the return of law and order and security to Spain was on. Everywhere towns and cities, peasants and workers, soldiers and business men, all Spaniards except the minions of Moscow and some of the Basques, who have allowed their immediate political dreams for autonomy of government to blind them to the fundamental issues at stake, rallied around the leadership of Franco. Madrid must not become another Moscow. Despite Largo Caballero the Iberian Peninsula must not become a union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Spain for the Spaniards! The Spaniards for God and liberty!

Who Is Franco?

Who is this Francisco Franco Bahamonde whom two-thirds to three-fourths of Spain acknowledges gladly and willingly as their leader and for whose sake thousands behind the besieged walls of Madrid are praying knowing that Franco alone can rescue them from the terror and torture of the Reds? It is an International Army which fights against Franco behind the walls of Madrid. While the American Press has emphasised the presence of German and Italian troops on the side of Franco, little mention has been made of the Russian and French troops on the side of the Reds. Only recently has the American Press even mentioned their presence. Only reluctantly is the press-ridden world admitting that there are more Russians and French fighting for the Spanish Reds than there are Germans and Italians fighting for the cause of Franco. Only very recently has it been acknowledged that Moorish troops are fighting for Red Loyalists as well as for the Nationalists.

Franco at Madrid

Who is Franco? Judge him by what he first did before the walls of Madrid. Knowing that thousands of the civil population of Madrid, the Madrilenos as the Spanish so musically calls them, were blameless for the outrages of the Madrid Government, Franco, whose first thought was of his countrymen, proclaimed a neutral zone north-east of the capital for their refuge. In a spirit of charity and mercy he informed the military authorities in Madrid that the civil population could retire to that zone, still within the control of the Red Loyalists, without fear of shells or planes or bullets. Few of the civil population dared take advantage of his offer. Why? Because they doubted the sincerity of Franco? No. But because to have done so would have meant to antagonize the Red Government, to have drawn suspicion upon themselves. In Red Spain, as in Red Russia, as in every place where the Red tyranny of Communism enslaves humanity, to be suspected is to be accused and convicted and condemned and liquidated without the formality of a trial or any other due process of law. Between 1929 and 1934 in Russia two million people were deprived of life and liberty without due process of law.

Again Franco thought of his countrymen, powerless in the grip of the Red forces in Madrid. And again he sought to remove the civilian population from danger. A line of retreat on the Valencia road was left for the civil population to take out of Madrid. The Red army in Madrid closed the line to all but the families of those who were fighting for the Reds. Twice Franco had tried to protect the civilian population of Madrid. And twice he was prevented from doing so by the Red forces which opposed him. The death of civilians, of men and women and children, in the cities entered by Franco was not due to Franco. Wherever the Reds have been forced to retreat they have left a holocaust of hatred and revenge in the shape of burning churches and raped women and murdered men and abandoned babies. The civilian population of Spain has been slaughtered by the Reds, in retreat or in advance, and not by Franco.

Communist Technique

"Communist technique," says Mrs. Tennant, "was almost identical in every town and village. The plan carried out in the villages was usually as follows:

The churches were sacked and burnt.
Nuns and priests were tortured and murdered.
Private houses were sacked and burnt.
Individuals were robbed or murdered (or both), for the following reasons: a. Because they belonged to the upper class. b. Because they were church-goers. c. Because they were anti-Communist or not sufficiently pro-Communist.

These appalling conditions continued everywhere until Franco's troops took the locality. The longer the town or village was under the Red Government the worse the Terror became."

Who is this Franco, destined to lead his countrymen out of the slavery and torture to which Moscow and its Spanish minions have subjected them? He was not born for revolution. He was not trained as a rebel. All his life he has believed in Constitutional Government and in the sacredness, as well as the necessity, of authority. In 1931 he stood apart from the political upheaval which swept King Alfonso out of Spain and the Leftist Parties into power. He refused to be tempted by any revolutionary project. "We must put the country first," he said; "soldiers should stand aside from politics and think first of the nation."

Franco and Authority

Before the elections of February, 1936, Franco was chief of staff. On the very day of the elections disorders had broken out in Spain. Anarchists were tampering with the freedom of elections. Churches were burning. Church-goers were being listed. Before the elections Franco had been asked his opinion about revolution. "No," was his reply; "it is now for the people to decide." The same question was put to him on election day. "No," he again replied, "the people have made their decision." Little he knew, at the time, of the fraudulent elections, and the stolen seats in the Cortes and the long train of abuses that was to follow the establishment of a Left Republican Cabinet with its servile attitude towards the Reds and with its repeated renunciation of the very functions of government.

Franco was not born for Revolution. The Revolution was born for him. He respected authority. Not until the authority of the Spanish Government had debased itself and denied itself and effaced itself and permitted the slaughter of innocents by the Reds of Spain, not until the blood of the slain and the smoke of ruined churches and the torture of the living called, did Franco wing his way from the Canary Islands to Morocco, cross the Mediterranean, and conquer so much of his own country for his countrymen.

Franco's Record

Franco was born to discipline. He was nearly forty-four years of age when the murder of Calvo Sotelo ignited the conflagration of Civil War. He was born on December 3, 1892. He is a Galician. As a "Gallego" we expect to find him warm blooded and enthusiastic and engaging. He is all of that and more. The discipline of the army and of intellectual activity has steadied him. His emotions are none the less enthusiastic because controlled.

His father was Commandant of the naval base of Ferrol. Nicolas, the first son, was therefore destined for the navy. Francisco, the second son, was destined for the army. Ramon, the third son, quite naturally took to the air. As an aviator, one of the first to cross the Atlantic, Ramon's name soon reached around the world. The name and the deeds of Francisco remained hermitaged in Spain.

Man of Books

For forty-three years, until the call of blood and civilization re-echoed his name around the world, Francisco Franco was a man of books and a man of discipline. At the age of fourteen he became a student in the Spanish Infantry Academy. At seventeen he faced the world in Morocco. There in the important work of organising native Moroccan troops he had plenty of action and plenty of time to read the military treatises and memoirs of the past. At twenty he became a Captain and commander of a company of Moroccan Regulars at Tetuan. He was wounded and recovered. At twenty-three he became a Commandant. Military operations became slower in Morocco. For four years he devoted the major part of his time to study. While Ramon Franco was winning a world of space Francisco Franco was winning the spaceless world of self.

Franco in Morocco

At twenty-eight he changed his field of activity from the Moroccan Regulars to the newly formed Spanish Foreign Legion under the leadership of Colonel Millan Astray. At first standoffish the Legionnaires grew, like the Moors, to love him. They admired his sincerity, his geniality and most of all the fact that he could discipline himself as well as others. When Franco led, they won. When Franco led, he himself was in the front. At thirty he was decorated with the Military Medal. At thirty-one he became Lieutenant-Colonel and stood at the head of the Legion. At thirty-four he was Brigadier-General, with a second Military Medal shining on his breast. His career in Morocco was drawing to a close. He seemed to have reached the climax of his career. He was married. He was the father of a little girl. He was a general. He had mastered books. He had mastered men. He had mastered himself. He seemed to have reached the climax of his career. Yet, Spain herself was calling for him.

Soldiers and Politics

Placed in charge of the new military academy at Saragossa, he entered upon his new scholastic duties with enthusiasm. To equip himself further as a soldier and as a scholar he himself became a student at Versailles and enrolled in a course for Colonels and Brigadier-Generals. In April, 1931, the monarchy was abandoned. Alfonso XIII fled. Franco, the soldier and scholar was undisturbed by the galaxy of political events. He has one love: it is Spain. That is why in the midst of the political turmoil, which ushered in the Second Republic and placed the Government of the Spanish people in the hands of the Left Republicans, he is quoted as saying: "We must put the country first. Soldiers should stand aside from politics and think first of the nation."

The new Government was unkind to him. The Military Academy was dissolved. Franco was removed. The youngest general in Spain found himself with nothing to do. For two years, 1931–1933, the Leftists were in power. For the same two years Franco bided his time. Fortunate for him that he had become a man of books and a man of discipline as well as a man of action. Inactivity kills the active. It inspires the disciplined and the thinker.

In 1933 the Leftists were defeated. A government of the Right-Center came into power. Franco was given command of the Balearic Islands. In 1934 the Reds revolted in the Asturias. Franco was called back to defend the Government of Spain. The revolt was suppressed. He was promoted to Commanding General of the Army in Morocco. In 1935 Gil Robles became Minister of War in the Coalition Government and Franco was made Chief of Staff. Five years before he had created a military academy. Now his task was to create an army for the defence of Spain. The army had nothing. The army was next to nothing. Equipment had to be replaced. Discipline and order had to be established. Again the man of books and the man of action was successful. And again a Spanish Government proved ungrateful.

Franco Demoted

In February 1936 the Leftists and the Communists came to power. An unholy alliance had arisen between the Left Republicans and the Reds: the Communists, the Socialists, the Syndicalists and the Anarchists. Franco was demoted to the Canary Islands. There, across the restless waves, he learned of what was happening to Spain. The smoke of burning churches drifted across the horizon. The cries of murdered priests and nuns and mothers and peasants mingled in his ears with the sounds of the sea. The Government was collapsing. Ruthless riots had taken the place of law and order and security. Madrid was to be sold to Moscow.

Franco Takes Command

From his retreat in the Atlantic Franco complained to the Spanish Government, without success. He demanded, like Gil Robles and Calvo Sotelo, that the Government govern. The death of Calvo Sotelo was the rebirth of Spain. On July 17th Franco flies from the Canary Islands to Morocco. The Moroccan Legionnaires and Regulars await him. Across the Strait he goes. Huelva, Badajos, Merida, Caceres and Toledo acclaim him. On October 1, 1936, he is invested at Burgos with the title of supreme head of the Government of Spain. The Spanish people immediately accepted him as their deliverer.

Nationalist Spain Today

There is peace and happiness and security in Nationalist Spain today. There is ruthlessness and terror in Red Spain. The reason is not hard to understand. The essence of Communism is terrorism. The essence of authority is peace. Wherever Franco has gone he has been welcomed with open arms. "Seville," as Eleonora Tennant describes it under Nationalist control, "was teeming with people; trams were running as usual, taxis were good and numerous, and there were many horse-drawn cabs. Perfect order was to be seen everywhere, and I was surprised to find Seville so full of life and bustle and the municipal services so efficient. 'Business as usual' was the order of the day, except, I gather, that there was far more business than at any time since the fall of the Monarchy in 1931." "Nowhere," she continues, "in Nationalist Spain did I see the slightest sign of scarcity of food."

Peace and Security

The same peace and the same security characterize every spot of Nationalist Spain. Security and social justice are the gifts which Franco promises. They are the gifts already present in the territory he controls. Witness the great scene of joy upon his entrance into Bilbao. The citizens of Bilbao were supposed to be amongst his most dangerous enemies. Men and women thronged the streets to welcome the troops of the Nationalists, a welcome whose joy was marred by the memory of the Red terrorism to which the Basques had been subjected by Anarchists and Communists and by the visible evidences of wanton murder and destruction which the Reds left as a sign of their occupation and departure.

A Popular Cause

Ask the British residents in Spain. They are on the premises. They know. They know the joy which greeted the coming of Franco. They know how peasant and worker left field and shop to join him. They know, what the rest of the world is so slow in realising, that the cause of the Nationalists is the popular cause. German and Italian troops are but offsets to the greater number of French and Russian troops which World Communism has injected into the situation. The civilian population of every inch of Red territory and the entire Spanish people of the two-thirds of Spain which already belong to the Nationalists and consequently to the Spanish, are supporting the cause of Franco with their lives, their energies, their sacrifices and their prayers.

The Nationalist Cause is the popular cause. Again and again Franco has given evidence of this popularity. In his radio broadcast from Salamanca, January 19, 1937 General Franco said:

"Thus is our country served; thus is our cause helped on—with arms, by those who can wield them; those who, because of age or distance, cannot attain this honor, by giving what they have. Many have given their blood; others, according to their means. Some, their gold; all, their faith, their enthusiasm, their persuasion, for even with the tongue one can serve Spain... What did this poor suffering people see in the National Movement? They saw the defence of their fireside, of the family, the Faith; freedom from Marxist tyranny in their work."

The Nationalist Cause is one of peace and reconstruction. General Franco himself bears witness to the fact:

"Our soldiers at the front," he says, "are continuing their triumphant advance. They are giving their lives generously and without hesitation. They are going steadily to final victory. And while they are doing that, the rearguard is doing something, too. And something just as important. It is studying the means of ending the sufferings caused by stoppages of work; of adequately assisting people out of work; the education of the poor and middle classes and the provision of facilities for those humble children that will equip them for careers. Plans are being made for free medical assistance to all; to fight against tuberculosis; to help poor families—in a word to do everything to secure the new happy Spain which we desire. This is our salute to the world of today, especially to those who understand that the enemy we are fighting is the foe of civilization everywhere, who understand that this is not an ordinary civil war but a crusade; to those who sympathize with our murdered, with our monuments and works of arts destroyed, with our maidens assaulted, with our churches profaned."

The Nationalist Cause is a nationalist cause. It is Spain for the Spaniards. No foreign nation is ever again to duplicate the ruthlessness, interference and invasion of Russia. In his statement to Harold G. Cardoso, which appeared in the London Daily Mail, January 18, 1937, General Franco declared:

"Neither now nor in the future is the Government of national Spain prepared to hand over to anybody a single square yard of Spain's national territory, her possessions or her zones of influence.

"The international character our domestic conflict has assumed has not been of our doing, for we strove against it.

"All that we are fighting for now, and all that we will fight for until the bitter end, is that final victory which will banish forever from our soil the evil forces of Communism.

"We are determined to free our Spain from the deadly influences of those Marxist principles, which are not only false and anti-Christian, but are also entirely foreign to all our traditions and culture."

Not Fascist

The Nationalist Cause is not a Fascist cause. Franco himself is not a Fascist. "General Franco," as Eleonora Tennant points out, "is a Republican, and has never been a Fascist. His supporters are drawn from all classes and a variety of parties—Republicans, Monarchists, Radicals, Carlists, Fascists, and all those who do not belong to any party, but who believe in law, order, and decency."

On February 19, 1937, Franco himself declared:

"The composition of the forces fighting on the Nationalist side clearly shows that the movement is not one that can be called exclusively Fascist... The fact is that our enemies, the Bolshevists, call us Fascists as an accusation to arouse the animosity or coolness of attitude of some countries in which the Liberal tradition lives on. But they are well aware that in doing so they are deliberately misrepresenting the facts.

"Nor is it right," he continues, "to brand us as militarists. It is not the army alone that is fighting, with the rest of the population holding aloof or showing hostility. The whole of the nation is in arms; the whole of the civil population has mobilized spontaneously, without distinction of class, sex or age. At the front aristocrats of the most ancient Spanish lineage are fighting side by side with peasants and proletarians from the towns, and young intellectuals from the universities are sharing the hardships and dangers of the campaign with humble farm servants, clerks, employees and men of the bourgeoisie."

For the People

The Nationalist Cause is a proletarian cause. The Nationalist Cause is for the benefit of the workers and the middle class and the poor. No statement of Franco's aims is so striking as that in which he pleads his devotion to the proletariat and the poor. One of the greatest crimes of the secular press has been the suppression of this truth. Franco is not merely a military man. His readings in Morocco and his formal education placed him in contact with works on politics, on industry, on sociology and on agrarianism. He belongs to the middle class himself. He is proud of his love for the middle class, for the laboring class and for the poor. Over the radio from Salamanca he said:

"We who have lived in contact with the laboring masses, who have slept long years on the bare ground, side by side with our soldiers, those men of bronze, sons of the people, with their vices and their grand virtues; we who have not despised the horny hand of the workman, but warmly squeezed it when he was giving up his life for Spain, know and feel more for the people than those who gather around to deceive and exploit them."

Economic Aims

He makes no mystery of his economic aims. He stands for social justice. He is on the side of the workers and the peasants and the poor. He warns all other classes of his stand.

"Do not expect us," he says over and over again, "to defend the privileged classes. We shall govern in favor of the middle class and the poor. The workers have nothing to fear from us."

And again:

"We do not want only to end the sufferings of the working classes and abolish forever the poverty of our middle classes. We want to banish and we shall banish, the injustices and sufferings of many who have a right to live and be happy. Spain is sufficiently large and rich to afford a happy life for every one of its inhabitants, provided that there exists an administration sufficiently just and honest to see that every individual gets his share of the goods of the mother country. Collaboration of all classes towards the one end in view is the sure remedy for all evils."

And still again:

"The laborer is worthy of his hire, and will receive an absolute guarantee that he will not be a slave to capitalism... We are fighting for a State which will be like one great family, without overlords or serfs, plutocrats or proletarians; and in which all the elements that go to make the national wealth will be represented."

That, I take it, is the essence of democracy. It is the essence of what Franco and his people are fighting for.

The reality of social justice has already been realised in Nationalist Spain. The promise of social justice recurs as a refrain in every one of Franco's statements and broadcasts. From Radio Castille, he said, on October 1, 1936:

"Security for daily labor will be assured and the laborer will participate in the benefits and share in the increase of production...

"The State, as the collector of taxes, will organise the just and graded imposition of all taxes and dues, avoiding the destruction of created wealth, and will see to it that these impositions are made on those who should bear them.

"In the field of agriculture, the establishment of the home will be effected by the settlement of the cultivator on the land, not in a state of slavery, or by having recourse to disputes which depend on pure hypothesis but by the direct and constant help which, in so far as it renders the peasant independent, produces a general state of well-being."

And once again from Salamanca, January 19, 1937, the Spanish people heard him say:

"This new Spain will represent a great national family, one without masters or vassals, without poor or potentate. Social justice will be the basis of our new Empire, without destructive and suicidal class warfare, without meddlesome interferences from abroad that are so incompatible with our national dignity. We want a fraternal Spain, an industrious and working Spain, where parasites can find no lodging. A Spain without chains and tyrannies; a nation without destructive Marxism and Communism; a State for the people and not a people for the State."

Forgiveness

With truth and justice on his side there is also charity. While Stalin, the savage, purges his own followers before the firing squad, after fraudulent trials that would be funny if they were not so hideous and diabolical, Franco offers peace and love and forgiveness to those who, deceived by Russian propaganda, are at present against him. He understands the position of the Basques. He realises that they have been blinded by politicians and politics. It is not hard to understand how politicians can thwart the popular will. The Basques officially are fighting on the Red Loyalist side, because and only because the Red Loyalists have promised to give them complete independence and political autonomy. In other words, they fight to get away from Madrid and not to be identified with Madrid. Franco knows that the majority of the Basque people are with him. They welcomed him at Bilbao. They wait to welcome him elsewhere.

"Nor need those fear," he says from Salamanca, "who at first have not been with us, nor those, who, misled by propaganda, have been on the side of the Red hordes, or even fought in their ranks.

"Those who either by conviction or through being deceived (as the Basques) by others are fighting against us have my word of honor that nothing will happen to them if they surrender to our troops...

"We shall forge a new Spain for all, and we will not close the doors of the State to any who come to it frankly and without evil intentions, for we know that of those great numbers who have been exploited and deceived will, one day come new Spain's most enthusiastic defenders. Peace and Justice we offer and the sooner our offer is accepted the sooner will the land go forward with the rhythmical progress we announce to all."

These are the words of a Lincoln. They are not the words of Stalin. They are the words of Franco.

Life Begins for Franco

He has done much. Three-fourths of Spain has already been rescued from the Red scourge and the scarlet epidemic. Wherever the Nationalists have been victorious peace and security and social justice have immediately taken root. He has announced there will never be any compromise with Communism. He has defied the largest and most vicious warlike country in the world: Soviet Russia with its military strength of 15,770,000 men and women trained in the bearing of arms. He has restored respect for authority. He has done all this despite a world campaign of falsehood and vilification which Red gold and Red hatred have tried to extend around the earth.

He has done much. Much remains to be done. He is still young. His present efforts and successes are but the prelude to the complete salvation of his country, a salvation which he promises must go forward in accordance with social justice. Life for Franco may only be beginning at forty-five.

Small of stature—five feet five or six—he is large in mind. He is at home when working. Nothing escapes his attention. Clean of body, he is clean of soul. He is not the murderer of women or of children or of any civilian population whatsoever. He loves the Spanish People. He has always taken pains to protect civilian populations. It is the Spanish Reds who murder the civil population of the towns they occupy. It is the Spanish Reds who murder women and children, who burn churches, who massacre the innocent whenever they are forced to leave a town before the victorious advance of Franco. A slanderous and vicious press has sought to place the blame upon Franco but in vain.

Spain for Spaniards

He is humble, courageous, courteous and intelligent. He is calm in the face of fire. He is quiet in the presence of popular demonstrations. He is forgiving to his enemies. He is beloved by the Spanish people. He belongs to them. Spain for the Spaniards! Social Justice for all! This is his message. By it he stands. Because of it he cannot fail.