‘Discipline and punishment’: coercive measures used by the rebels against their troops during the Spanish Civil War

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article aims to illustrate the measures which were developed by the rebel army in order to maintain control over their troops during the Spanish Civil War. Coercive measures were adopted that became progressively tightened, reaching a peak during the first Francoist government. They were based on integration, propaganda, surveillance and punishment. This article focuses on the idea that surveillance and punishment were applied because troops were not socio-politically homogeneous. Measures were also based on traditional and colonial military ideology, and nationalist in nature, and new tendencies arriving from Europe: such as fascism. This text also serves to portray the context in which the combatants were integrated, as well as how the Francoist ‘New State’ was established during the 1940s and early 1950s.