The 'red terror' and the Spanish Civil War : revolutionary violence in Madrid / Julius Ruiz, University of Edinburgh.

By:

Ruiz, Julius, 1973- [author.]

Contributor(s):

Cambridge eBooks

Publisher: Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2014Description: 1 online resource (xii, 385 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)Content type:

text

Media type:

computer

Carrier type:

online resource

ISBN:

9781107294349 (ebook)

Other title:

The 'Red Terror' & the Spanish Civil War

Subject(s):

Genre/Form:

Electronic books.

Additional physical formats: Print version: : No titleDDC classification:

946.081/1 23

LOC classification:

DP269.53 .R85 2014

Online resources:

Click here to access online

Contents:

Introduction -- 1. On the brink -- 2. The military rebellion -- 3. Antifascist Madrid -- 4. Forging the new police -- 5. The justice of the people -- 6. If it is the will of the people ... -- 7. Popular tribunals and the Rearguard Vigilance Militias (MVR) -- 8. A fifth column? -- 9. The prison problem -- 10. Paracuellos -- 11. The dirty war against the fifth column -- 12. Dealing with the legacy of the terror: forced labor for fascists, 1937-1939 -- Annex 1. Post-curfew passwords issued by police headquarters in Madrid -- Annex 2. The network of terror -- Annex 3. Prisons in Madrid autumn 1936 -- Annex 4. Evacuations from Madrid's prisons 28 October to 4 December 1936.

Summary: This book deals with one of most controversial issues of the Spanish Civil War (1936–9): the 'Red Terror'. Approximately 50,000 Spaniards were extrajudicially executed in Republican Spain following the failure of the military rebellion in July 1936. This mass killing of 'fascists' seriously undermined attempts by the legally constituted Republican government to present itself in foreign quarters as fighting a war for democracy. This study, based on a wealth of scholarship and archival sources, challenges the common view that executions were the work of criminal or anarchist 'uncontrollables'. Its focus is on Madrid, which witnessed at least 8,000 executions in 1936. It shows that the terror was organized and was carried out with the complicity of the police, and argues that terror was seen as integral to the antifascist war effort. Indeed, the elimination of the internal enemy - the 'Fifth Column' - was regarded as important as the war on the front line.

Item type:

eBooks

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Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

This book deals with one of most controversial issues of the Spanish Civil War (1936–9): the 'Red Terror'. Approximately 50,000 Spaniards were extrajudicially executed in Republican Spain following the failure of the military rebellion in July 1936. This mass killing of 'fascists' seriously undermined attempts by the legally constituted Republican government to present itself in foreign quarters as fighting a war for democracy. This study, based on a wealth of scholarship and archival sources, challenges the common view that executions were the work of criminal or anarchist 'uncontrollables'. Its focus is on Madrid, which witnessed at least 8,000 executions in 1936. It shows that the terror was organized and was carried out with the complicity of the police, and argues that terror was seen as integral to the antifascist war effort. Indeed, the elimination of the internal enemy - the 'Fifth Column' - was regarded as important as the war on the front line.