Catalonia in the Face of the USSR: Soviet Intervention in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–9

Abstract

The Politburo of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), with Stalin at its head, began its intervention in Spain in September 1936. From the beginning, Stalin understood very clearly what the logic, goals and mechanisms of Soviet intervention in Spain should be. He approved the Spanish Republican Government’s request for Soviet aid, but one of the Republic’s autonomous regions held surprises. Catalonia proved itself an unpredictable and, at times, undesirable player with respect to the USSR. This was due to a series of idiosyncrasies of the region that were incomparable throughout the Spanish Republic or indeed throughout the rest of Europe, making it necessary to seek unorthodox solutions. The two main focuses were the internal relations of the international communist movement led from Moscow and the interstate political relations between the Republic and the USSR. The dynamics generated were unique at both the Spanish and European level, and led to various hiccups for the Soviet intervention in Spain. On the basis of primary evidence found in Russian archives, this article examines how local dynamics affected, pressurised and shaped an intervention model that was conceived from the perspective of the state, standardisation and centralisation.