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D. Murphy

Spanish War in Slogans and Posters

In July 1936, the opening shots of the 2nd World War were fired in Europe’s poorest country. Spain was long governed by a wealthy elite and its brutal military police, the infamous Guardia Civil (civil guard). The people saw their chance for democracy in the collapse of the 13 year old dictatorship of General Primo de Rivera. When elections were held and the monarchist candidates defeated at the polls, King Alfonso XIII left Spain for exile in Italy.

On April 4, 1931, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Spain was proclaimed to wildly enthusiastic crowds. To a nation long victimized by malnutrition, illiteracy, unemployment, mass arrest and torture, these were heady days of freedom. Social Democrats, intellectuals, peasants, workers, artists, labor unionists, anarchists, communists, socialists, all intoxicated with the idea of a new society, worked tirelessly towards a Spain free of grinding poverty, privilege and cruel repression. When the new Republican government set about the task of modernizing Spain, class conflict erupted. To breakup the great estates of the rich and give land to the landless peasants was regarded by the wealthy as an attack on property. Improving the conditions of those who worked in factories, shipyards and mines was seen by the capitalists as threatening their profits. Giving autonomy to Catalonia was for the right-wing nationalists the tearing of Spain to tatters. Removing the privileges of the enormously wealthy Catholic Church was seen by conservative Catholics as the ‘dechristianization’ of the country. Moves to reduce the overblown officer corps created animosity against the government from within the army.

Ultimately these conservative social forces sought salvation and the restoration of ‘order’ by launching a military coup. The aim of the army rebellion led by General Franco and his Nationalist movement was the crushing of the Republican government in Madrid, but instead this treason was met with popular armed resistance. The civil war began in earnest.

Franco’s Nationalist movement had powerful allies in the fascist regimes of Germany and Italy. Without the combined military might of these two dictatorships aiding Franco, his dreams of destroying the Spanish Republic would have failed. The first airlift in modern war occurred when Nazi planes transported Franco’s troops to battle. Italy sent airplanes, tanks, trucks and some 47,000 ground troops. Nazi planes conducted the first saturation bombing of a defenseless civilian target when they obliterated the town of Guernica.

The great powers of the west did nothing while Spain was being ravaged. There was tacit approval in this silence as the young republic was cut apart by fascist bayonets. However, people from all over the world came to the aid of Spain. Artists were in the forefront of this international outpouring of sympathy. Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell, Paul Robeson, Pablo Picasso and Joan Miro are but a few of those who lent their talents to the Republican cause. Volunteer brigades came from every corner of the globe to defend Spain as combatants, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade from the U.S. being the most well known of these (members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade would later be persecuted in the U.S. for being ‘premature antifascists’ and pro-communist).

It is within this context of war and revolution that the posters from that time must be seen. They became important weapons in the battle for a free Spain. Political parties, people’s organizations and trade unions used the posters to communicate with the people, large segments of which were illiterate. The posters were present everywhere, they spoke from the battalion stations and trenches to the home and office. They were put up on telephone polls and every available space in the city.

Some of the posters were created anonymously and many were produced by the Spanish Artist’s Union, who infused the most vigorous experiments of the time (expressionism and the constructivism of Soviet artists) with the simplicity and directness that are the traditions of the revolutionary message. The artists, printers, lithographers and those who distributed the works labored under the perilous conditions of air raids and artillery fire. Faced with shortages of materials and an inadequate supply of electricity for light and printing presses, they nevertheless managed to create powerful works that still reverberate in our time. The internal pressures of disparate ideologies working together in coalition, the vicious onslaught of the fascist armies, plus the blockade imposed upon the young republic by the west, led to the demise of the revolution. Yet even in defeat, the posters we present here continue to tell the implacable fight for true freedom and democracy.

Slogans and Posters
  1. Poster which emphasizing the heroic role of the C.N.T. / F.A.I. in fighting the fascist armies [poster]
  2. ‘Anti-fascists! Think of those who are fighting!’ (Issued by Communist International's International Red Help (S.R.I.)) [poster]
  3. ‘Workers! Peasants! Unite for victory!’ [poster]
  4. ‘Peasants, the land is yours!’ [poster]
  5. ‘For a free humanity! For anarchy!’ (Poster of the anarchist Iron Colum in Fighting Brigade) [poster]
  6. ‘Illiteracy blinds the spirit. Study, soldier!’ (Anti-illiteracy poster from the C.N.T.) [poster]
  7. ‘They shall not pass! (No Pasaran!)’ (Espert and J. Briones. Issued by the Madrid Ministry of Propaganda.) [poster]
  8. ‘Workers! Fascism is exploitation, and slavery. 100,000 volunteers needed.’ (original in Catalan). (Bardasano. Issued by the Popular Front of Catalonia.) [poster]
  9. ‘Farmer! Yesterday you could only work the land. Today, under the republic you can become an agricultural engineer.’ (Pedrazo Blanco, 1938) [poster]
  10. ‘Homage to the International Brigades.’ (Issued by the International Brigades.) [poster]
  11. ‘The Popular Front of Madrid to the Popular Front of the world. Homage to the International Brigades.’ (Parrilla. Issued by the International Brigades.) [poster]
  12. ‘The Internationals - United with the Spaniards. We fight the invader.’ (Parrilla. Issued by the International Brigades.) [poster]
  13. ‘All the people of the world are in the International Brigades at the side of the Spanish people.’ (Parrilla. Issued by the International Brigades.) [poster]
  14. ‘The unity of the people's army will be the weapon of victory.’ (Parrilla, 1937. Issued by the International Brigades.) [poster]
  15. ‘Without discipline there is no victory.’ (Arturo Ballester. Issued by the Socialist Party.) [poster]
  16. ‘Farmer, this is your post!’ (Issued by the National Confederation of Workers (C.N.T.).) [poster]
  17. ‘Greed, Militarism, War - this is fascism! Unite to destroy it!’ (Issued by the National Confederation of Workers (C.N.T.).) [poster]
  18. ‘All the youth united for Spain.’ (Issued by the United Socialist Youth. (J.S.U.).) [poster]
  19. ‘Women, work more for the men who fight!’ [poster]
  20. ‘They shall not pass! We shall pass!’ (Puyol, 1937.) [poster]
  21. ‘The fascist hordes are trying to invade our land. Antifascists! Block their path, bar them forever from our soil!’ (Toledo. Issued by the Syndicalist Youth.) [poster]
  22. ‘Catalans! September 11, 1714 - 1938.’ (original in Catalan). (Poster celebrating the autonomy of Catalonia.) [poster]
  23. ‘No Pasaran, Pasaremos! (They shall not pass, we shall pass!) Sie Kommen nicht durch! Wir kommen durch!’ (Poster in solidarity with the people of Spain created by the German antifascist artist John Heartfield, 1936.) [poster]
  24. P.O.U.M. recruiting poster. [poster]
  25. More C.N.T. / F.A.I. posters [posters]
  26. Nationalist Flag [flag]
  27. Republican Flag [flag]

“Who” were involved:
  • Comité Central de las Milicias antifascistas
  • Consejo de la Generalidad
  • Comité de Guerra
  • C.N.T. - Confederación Nacional de Trabajadores
  • C.G.T.U. - Central sindical aparte
  • F.A.I. - Federación Anarquista Ibérica
  • F.O.I. - Frente Obrero Internacional Contra la Guerra
  • F.O.U.S. - Federación Obrera de Unidad Sindical
  • F.S.I. - Federación Sindical Internacional
  • GPU - Gosudarstvennoe Politicheskoe Upravlenie (State Political Directorate); formed in 1922 (USSR Comité).
  • I.L.P. - Independent Labour Party
  • J.S.U. - United Socialist Youth
  • KPO - Oposición Comunista
  • NKVD - Narodnijj Komessarijat Vnutrennykh Del (People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs); formed from the OGPU in 1934 (USSR Comité).
  • OGPU - Objedinennoe Gosudarstvennoe Politicheskoe Upravlennie (Combined State Political Directorate); formed from the GPU in 1923; incorporated into the NKVD in July 1934 (USSR Comité).
  • P.C. - Partido Comunista
  • P.O.U.M. - Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista
  • P.S.O.P. - Parti Socialiste Ouvrier et Paysan
  • P.S.U.C. - Partido Socialista Unificado de Cataluña
  • P.S. - Partido Socialista
  • P.U.P. - Parti d'Unité Prolétarienne
  • R.S.A.P. - Partido Obrero Socialista Revolucionario
  • S.R.I. - Communist International's International Red Help
  • U.G.T. - Unión General de Trabajadores
  • URSS - Union des Républiques Socialistes Soviétiques

2002

THE END

____BD____
D. Murphy: ‘Spanish War in Slogans and Posters’
Published: 2002.

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Machine-readable version: O. Dag
Last modified on: 2019-12-29


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