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 Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 10:14 pm Post subject: Stanley Payne and Pio Moa prove that 'Republicans' were resp |
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Franco and his cohorts only rebelled because the Republic was falling
into the hands of far left communists. Franco saved Spain like
Pinochet saved Chile from Allende who, like Hitler, was using
democracy to set up a communist dictatorship.
It's better to use shortterm dictatorship to save democracy in the
long run than use shortterm democracy to establish long term tyranny
in the long run.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Payne
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/nov/14/books.spain |
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RSF Group
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| Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 10:17 pm Post subject: Re: Stanley Payne and Pio Moa prove that 'Republicans' were |
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On Jul 12, 5:14 pm, RSF Group <aegisi...@hotmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
Franco and his cohorts only rebelled because the Republic was falling
into the hands of far left communists. Franco saved Spain like
Pinochet saved Chile from Allende who, like Hitler, was using
democracy to set up a communist dictatorship.
It's better to use shortterm dictatorship to save democracy in the
long run than use shortterm democracy to establish long term tyranny
in the long run.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Payne
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/nov/14/books.spain
|
http://wais.stanford.edu/Spain/spain_piomoaandthecivilwar7803.html
Here is Stanley Payne's review of Pío Moa, Los mitos de la Guerra
Civil (Madrid: La Esfera de los Libros, 2003).
It has become a commonplace to refer to the sheer quantity of
publication on the Spanish Civil War, which runs to many thousands of
books in all major and many minor languages. Professional historians
in the western world, taken as a whole, no longer have great interest
in the theme, and now generally tend to discount its importance. In
other western countries, historians at the present time largely regard
it as a uniquely Spanish self-slaughter, and for the most part no
longer accord it the kind of international importance once ascribed to
it during the era of the Second World War. Even so, new historical
literature continues to proliferate very rapidly in Spanish, and new
research also appears at a much lower rate in other languages,
primarily English.
Infinitely more is known about the Spanish war than was the case back
in 1961, when Hugh Thomas initially published what was to become the
classic one-volume history. New research has broadened, deepened and
clarified the understanding of nearly all its major aspects. A degree
of objectivity has been achieved, at least to the extent that a
certain proportion of historians and other writers who deal with the
war sometimes suggest that both sides were "almost equally"
responsible for originating the conflict, as well as almost equally
atrocious in its prosecution. Nonetheless, the universities and the
political life of the western world have been dominated since the
1980s and 90s by Political Correctness, with its matrix of diffuse yet
often carefully prescribed ideas. Moreover, the Spanish Civil War was
one of the comparatively few modern conflicts in which the losers
largely won the battle of propaganda-to some extent during the war,
but certainly during the decade that followed. Given the general
dominance in the humanities and social sciences of professors and
students sympathetic to the politics of the left, it is hardly
surprising that such sympathies have been extended to the
understanding of the Civil War of 1936-39, as well. With the passing
of an older generation in Spain that had sometimes been more
sympathetic to Franco and the Nacionales, this tendency probably
became more firmly established by the close of the twentieth century.
Moreover, most of the new research in Spain on the conflict appears in
the form of published doctoral theses. These are almost always
predictably and distressingly narrow and formulaic, and rarely ask new
and interesting questions. The senior professional historians are, to
tell the truth, not much better. They almost always avoid raising
fundamental new questions about the conflict, either ignoring them or
acting as though nearly all the major issues had been resolved. This,
of course, is very far from the case, for the Spanish Civil War will
long constitute a major problem area, in its own way rather like the
French or Russian revolutions, which have been and will continue to be
long debated. Debate, revision and reinterpretation are of the essence
of historiography, yet in Spain within recent years the kind of debate
that has flourished with regard to economic history or even the
political history of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has
rarely extended to the theme of the Civil War.
Into this partial vacuum of historical debate there suddenly stepped
four years ago the previously little known pen of Pío Moa, when he
published in 1999 the first of his four volumes on the Republic and
Civil War, Los orígenes de la Guerra Civil española. This was followed
by Los personajes de la República vistos por ellos mismos (2000), El
derrumbe de la Segunda República y la Guerra Civil (2001), and now
most recently by Los mitos de la Guerra Civil. Taken as a whole, they
constitute the most important endeavor by any historian writing in any
language during the past two decades to reinterpret the history of the
Republic and the Civil War.
The corpus of Moa’s work constitutes a challenge to the standard
politically correct interpretations of this epoch. The "myths" he
confronts include, inter alia, such topics as a) the notion that
leftist politics under the Republic were inherently democratic and
constitutionalist; b) the idea that the Civil War was the product of a
long-standing conspiracy by wealthy reactionaries rather than a
desperate response to a revolutionary process that had largely
destroyed constitutional government; c) the belief that prior to 18
July 1936 Manuel Azaña had in fact been more respectful of the
constitutional and legal process than Francisco Franco had been; d)
the vision of Franco as a blindly lucky incompetent rather than an
able leader who did a capable job militarily, politically and
diplomatically of managing a civil war in which initially he held the
weaker hand; e) the projection that the revolutionary third Republic
of the civil war years was somehow a pure continuation of the
democratic parliamentary Republic of 1931-36; and many lesser issues
which cannot be recounted in detail.
Each of Moa’s theses is seriously argued in terms of available
evidence and based either on direct investigation or, more commonly, a
careful re-reading of the available sources and historiography. As
revisionist historiography, the new book presents its main theses
forcefully and, as is frequently the case with revisionist
historiography, sometimes with an exaggerated emphasis, for polemical
effect. This is not, however, uncommon practice in historical debate.
The public response to the appearance of these works has been fairly
strong, with relatively good sales and sometimes several editions.
Among historians and reviewers, however, the most remarkable thing
about the response to Moa’s work has been the absence of debate and
the refusal to discuss the many serious issues that it raises. With
only a few exceptions, it has encountered either an icy or a furibund
hostility. Most frequently it has been ignored or, if reviewed,
dismissed as unworthy of consideration. Indeed, commentary on his work
has often been reduced to seemingly sensationalist though completely
irrelevant ad hominem remarks about his one-time militancy in a
Marxist-Leninist revolutionary organization during the 1970s.
There seem to be at least three reasons for this extremely negative
response. One is the fantasy that it breaks a supposed "pact of
silence" about troublesome issues established during the
democratization of 1976-78. The trouble with this argument that no
such "pact of silence" ever existed. The pact of the democratization
was altogether different; it had to do, instead, with renouncing the
politics of vengeance and beginning democracy for all with a clean
slate. As far as historical publication has been concerned, since that
time Spain has been full of books denouncing franquismo and the right-
before, during and after Civil War . The notion that only critics of
the left must be bound by any such supposed (in fact, non-existent)
"pact of silence" is preposterous.
A second reason, and this one much more substantial, is that the
dictatorship lasted so long (even though with ever declining
repressiveness) that there has been an uncritical tendency on the part
of its opponents to reject any historical analysis that is seriously
critical of the opponents of franquismo. This psycho-political
tendency is perfectly understandable in human terms, but results in an
unbalanced historiography which in fact makes it harder to understand
how franquismo came about in the first place.
A third reason is simply the domination of "politically correct"
attitudes among intellectuals, the universities and the media in
western countries during recent years. In that regard, Spain is little
different from, say, France or the United States, though the
particular emphases in political correctness may vary somewhat from
country to country. In the United States, for example, this has been
most concerned with issues of race. So-called "victimophilia" has for
years been an important feature of political correctness, and in Spain
this has recently taken the form of special new concerns for various
categories of victims of franquismo. There has been little or no
concern during that same period of time for victims of the left
(categorization and recognition of the official status of "victim" in
contemporary culture always being dependent on political attitudes and
political recognition), though again in the case of Spain this is
somewhat understandable in human terms because of the long duration of
the dictatorship.
There have been a few exceptions to the wall of hostility that has
greeted Moa’s work. One of the most distinguished and venerable
contemporaneistas in current Spanish historiography, Carlos Seco
Serrano (known for his objectivity and lack of partidismo), has termed
the findings of one of Moa’s books "verdaderamente sensacional." César
Vidal, one of the most active figures in Civil War historiography and
author of the best and most complete study of the Brigadas
Internacionales in any language, calls some of Moa’s theses "verdades
como puños" (truths like fists) while the television host Carlos
Dávila has interviewed Moa on his program.
Since nearly all the standard myths and topics of the Republic and
Civil War favor the left, a partisan reaction will inevitably be that
to reevaluate or criticize them seriously is to favor the "right," or
franquismo. Again, in human terms, this reaction is understandable
enough, but it has nothing to do with serious scholarship or
scientific investigation. In terms of historical inquiry, such an
attitude is merely irrational and anti-intellectual. On such a mental
basis, any significant advance in historiography becomes impossible.
The most noteworthy thing is that apparently not a single one of the
many denunciations of Moa’s work makes any intellectually serious
effort to refute any of his interpretations. The critics adopt a
hieratic stance of keepers of the sacred flame of the dogmas of a kind
of political religion, which must be accepted purely on faith and are
immune to the slightest inquiry or criticism. This attitude may
reflect sound religious dogma, but again has nothing to do with
scientific historiography.
One of the hallmarks of contemporary Spanish historiography has been
the absence of serious critical investigation of the left. There have
been exceptions-perhaps most notably several of Santos Juliá’s
excellent early monographs on the PSOE during the 1930s-but they have
been rare. The result has been a mountain of historiography on the
iniquities of franquismo-many of these iniquities genuine enough, but
others sometimes imagined or exaggerated-and a yawning gap on the
other side of the political equation.
Much of Moa’s work deals with inordinate shortcomings of the leaders
of the Republic, especially Azaña, Alcalá Zamora, Prieto and Largo
Caballero. The material here is rich and abundant, much of it provided
by the Republican leaders themselves in their continuous and mordant
mutual denunciations of each other. Rarely has a political regime in
the history of modern Europe had a more self-destructive group of
political leaders than those of the Second Republic. By comparison,
the leaders of the Weimar Republic in Germany were much of the time a
seasoned group of wise democratic statesmen. With leadership such as
that enjoyed by the Second Republic and policies as destructive as
those of the leftist and revolutionary parties, to attribute its
downfall to the conspiracy of a handful of wealthy reactionaries may
make a good fairy tale or political fable, but has nothing to do with
serious critical historiography.
It would be an easy matter to call upon Spanish historiography to
"grow up," become adult and mature, and to develop a balanced critical
sense. As indicated above, however, the problem of political
correctness and the "partisan tabú" extends far beyond Spain and has
become a malady of western culture in the twenty-first century. In the
United States, serious critical discussion of racial questions is
usually ruled out of order before it even begins. University
administrations, much stronger in the United States than in European
countries, frequently attempt to impose politically correct speech
codes on professors and students alike, and are frustrated primarily
by legal recourse to the First Amendment of the United States
Constitution, which mandates freedom of speech. In France similar
tabues long extended to the critical discussion of Vichy and now often
prohibit rational analysis of Middle Eastern problems. In Spain, for
obvious reasons, they revolve around questions of franquismo, the left
and the Civil War.
The main concern here is not that Moa is correct on every issue. This
is true of no historian, and as for myself, I disagree with several of
his theses. The principal point, rather, is that his work is critical,
innovative and opens a breath of fresh air in a vital area of
contemporary Spanish historiography long stultified by narrow
formulaic monographs, hoary stereotypes and a long dominant political
correctness. Those who disagree with Moa need to confront his work
seriously and, if they disagree, demonstrate their disagreement in
terms of objective research and serious analysis that takes up the
serious issues that he raises, rather than seeking to suppress his
work through a kind of censorship of silence or denunciatory diatribes
more worthy of Fascist Italy or the Soviet Union than of democratic
Spain.
RH: For many, these are fighting words. Moa's revolutionary activities
are important. There are many people who were revolutionaries in their
youth and then swing to the other extreme, which is scarcely a
guarantee of objectivity. We should therefore know more about Moa's
life and about his personal relations with the republican leaders.
What does he say about Negrín?
Ronald Hilton - 7/8/03 |
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tomcervo
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| Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 10:55 pm Post subject: Re: Stanley Payne and Pio Moa prove that 'Republicans' were |
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| More Bush-bashing!!! |
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Howard Brazee
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| Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2008 4:54 am Post subject: Re: Stanley Payne and Pio Moa prove that 'Republicans' were |
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On Sat, 12 Jul 2008 15:14:43 -0700 (PDT), RSF Group
<aegisigea@hotmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
Franco and his cohorts only rebelled because the Republic was falling
into the hands of far left communists. Franco saved Spain like
Pinochet saved Chile from Allende who, like Hitler, was using
democracy to set up a communist dictatorship.
It's better to use shortterm dictatorship to save democracy in the
long run than use shortterm democracy to establish long term tyranny
in the long run.
|
Do you have any evidence that in the event that the communists had
won, they would have lasted longer than Franco's dictatorship did?
(And for a while, the Communists would likely have been democratic
until a tyrant took over). |
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