“Either planes will arrive from abroad, or there will be nothing left but to die as best as possible. » – Andre Malraux, hope1937
In 1937, the French novelist André Malraux pleaded for better support from the European democratic powers and the United States for the Republican combatants of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). The latter fought against the fascists who, on July 17, 1936, had overthrown the constitutional government installed in Madrid by a military coup led by General Francisco Franco.
The resistance to the putschists had then been praised by many artists, including illustrious writers of several nationalities, Spanish, of course, but also Russian, Greek, French, British and American. This commitment, often characterized by participation in the fights with the Republican resistance fighters and against the Francoists, including within the international brigades, resonates in a singular way today. This is particularly the case of the one presented in hope (1937), Tribute to Catalonia (1938), by the British George Orwell, and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), by the American Ernest Hemingway.
In addition to being poignant war stories, these three books have in common a vigorous stand against dictatorship and true, nationalist and totalitarian fascism, embodied then by Franco and today by Putin. It should be remembered that at the dawn of the Second World War (1939-1945), England, France and the United States were still trying to appease Hitler. Consequently, he and his ally the Italian dictator Mussolini, taking advantage of the wait-and-see attitude of the democracies while flouting the Munich agreements signed in 1938, continued to support Franco throughout the duration of the civil war.
One of the most infamous examples of this support was the massacre of more than a thousand civilians perpetrated on April 26, 1937 in Guernica, a small Basque town. The work of German and Italian bombers using incendiary bombs, this abomination was shortly afterwards depicted by Picasso in one of his most famous paintings.
Three writers for freedom
André Malraux was one of the most active writers in the denunciation of the war crimes committed by the aggressors of democracy. For most of the war he fought in the ranks of the anti-fascists, mostly as an airman. He also multiplied his written and oral interventions with public opinion and governments—even going to the United States to plead his case and request humanitarian aid—so that they would support the Republicans more concretely.
As for Orwell, his participation in the fighting led him to Catalonia alongside an astonishing assembly of authentic socialists, but also anarchists and even more so communists, with whom he was often at odds. Witnessing the killings of which both sides were guilty, he became aware of the danger inherent in any form of authoritarianism, dogmatism and ideological manipulation. Lucidity and creativity marked his subsequent works, including animal farm (1945) and 1984 (1949). He nevertheless celebrated the courage of the anti-fascists, as evidenced by his Tribute to Catalonia.
Closer to the heart of Spain, in the highlands of Castile, it was as a war correspondent that Hemingway closely followed the combatants, often Communists allied with the Republicans. But he was little involved in the fighting itself. The one who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954 still delivered a remarkable story. Imbued with fury and romance, while illustrating the entanglements of this war, his For Whom the Bell Tolls has also been successfully brought to the screen.
Lessons to be learned
The very causes of the civil war in Spain as well as its stakes, its protagonists and its unfolding, all things of infinite complexity, are apparently hardly comparable to those of the war of aggression suffered by Ukraine. However, several lessons should be learned, including the following: with the concrete support of his dictator friends, Hitler and Mussolini, Franco was able to intensify his practice of murderous terror until his final victory in April 1939, heavy consequences for humanity. And the warlord, that is to say the Caudillo, was able to continue to reign as dictator over all of Spain until 1975.
At the end of March 2022, one wonders how long, armed with the support, however ambiguous, of his friend the authoritarian Chinese president, Xi Jinping, Putin will continue to massacre the Ukrainians and destroy their country, while the major European and North American democratic powers are reluctant to step up their military support. Will the Ukrainians have to persist much longer in fulfilling the role of the main, if not the only, sacrificial victims?