Native name	''República Española''''República Espanyola''''Espainiako Errepublika''
Conventional long name	Spanish Republic
Common name	Spain
Continent	Europe
Country	Spain
Era	Interwar period
Government type	Parliamentary republic
Event start	Monarchy abolished
Year start	1931
Date start	April 14
Event end	Surrender to Franco
Year end	1939
Date end	April 1
Event1	Spanish Civil War
Date event1	1936–1939
Event end	Republic in exile dissolved
Year end	1939
Date end	July 15
P1	Spain under the Restoration
Flag p1	Flag of Spain (1785-1873 and 1875-1931).svg
S1	Francoist Spain
Flag s1	Flag of Spain under Franco 1938 1945.svg
S2	Spanish Republican government in Exile
Flag s2	Flag of Spain 1931 1939.svg
Flag	Flag of the Second Spanish Republic
Image coat	Coat of Arms of Spain (1931-1939)-Flag Variant.svg
Symbol	Coat of arms of the Second Spanish Republic
Image map caption	Territories and colonies of Spain during the Second Republic.Green: Integral constituent of the Spanish Republic(includes Spanish Sahara and Spanish Guinea)Lime: ProtectoratesOrange: International joint administrations
Capital	Madrid (1931 - 36)Valencia (1936 - 37)Barcelona (1937 - 39)
National motto	(Latin) "Further Beyond"
National anthem	''El Himno de Riego''
Common languages	Spanish (Catalan, Basque and Galician would gain formal officiality with the approvals of their Statutes of Autonomy)
Religion	Laicism
Currency	Spanish peseta
Leader1	Niceto Alcalá-Zamora
Year leader1	1931–1936
Leader2	Manuel Azaña
Year leader2	1936–1939
Title leader	President
Legislature	Congress of Deputies
Stat pop1	}}

The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14, 1931 and its destruction by a successful military rebellion led by General Francisco Franco.

The Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed when King Alfonso XIII left the country following municipal elections in which republican candidates won the majority of votes. Its government went into exile on April 1, 1939, when the last of the loyalist Republican forces surrendered to rebel forces (calling themselves ''nacionales'') led by ''Generalísimo'' Franco at the end of the Spanish Civil War. The government in exile of the Second Spanish Republic would have an embassy in Mexico City until 1976 and was formally dissolved the following year.

1931 Constitution

The Second Spanish Republic came to power in April 1931 in an attempt to build a modern Spain. Economic hardships led to the downfall of General Miguel Primo de Rivera's government on January 29, 1930, in the wake of the 1929 Wall Street Crash. Popular sympathy for the monarchy was greatly undermined following the king's support for Primo de Rivera's dictatorial regime.

Alfonso XIII was sidelined by the Spanish people. For the working class he was the symbol of oppression, the middle class would not forgive or forget the dictatorial Primo de Rivera, and even the nobility and ruling class considered that his continuity was not an option. General Damaso Berenguer, handpicked by general Primo de Rivera led a new government and tried unsuccessfully to return to the democratic landscape prior to the dictatorship, but popular support was impossible. In the summer of 1930 there was a pact between various sectors of the "new" Republicanism.

The municipal elections of 1931 that established the Second Republic brought to power a group of anticlerical politicians to the government. The constitution was based on the absence of religious involvement in government affairs, in order to build a secular society. Articles 26 and 27 of the constitution were meant to control Church property and to curtail the custom of religious orders from engaging in education. This was seen as explicitly hostile to religion by the traditionalist and conservative forces who had been used to enjoying power in Spain under former governments. Jose Ortega y Gasset, stated "the article in which the Constitution legislates the actions of the Church seems highly improper to me." Pope Pius XI condemned the Spanish Government's deprivation of the civil liberties of Catholics in the encyclical Dilectissima Nobis."

The "Pact of San Sebastián" was the key to the transition from monarchy to republic. The Republicans of all tendencies are committed to the "Pact of San Sebastian" in overthrowing the monarchy and establishing a republic. The restoration of the Bourbons was totally rejected and large sectors of the population were strongly against the King. The pact, signed by representatives of the main Republican forces allowed a joint anti-monarchy political campaign that ended with the suspension in the exercise of Royal power on April 17, 1931 self-proclaimed by the monarch who immediately exiled himself.

The king's departure led to a provisional government of the young republic under Niceto Alcalá-Zamora, and a constituent Cortes which drew up a new constitution, adopted on December 9, 1931.

The new constitution established freedom of speech and freedom of association, extended suffrage to women, allowed divorce and stripped the Spanish nobility of any special legal status. Initially it also largely disestablished the Catholic Church, a trend that was somewhat reversed in 1933.

The legislative branch was changed to a single chamber called the ''Congreso de los Diputados''.

The constitution established legal procedures for the nationalisation of public services such as land, banks and railways. The constitution provided generally accorded thorough civil liberties and representation, a major exception being the rights of Catholics.

The 1931 Constitution was formally effective from 1931 until 1939. In the summer of 1936, after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, it became a dead letter, as the authority of the Republic was superseded in many places by revolutionary socialist and anarchist juntas.

The Republican Constitution also changed the symbols of the country. The Himno de Riego was established as the National Anthem and the Tricolor, with three horizontal red-yellow-purple fields, became the new flag of Spain. Under the new Constitution, all of Spain's regions had the right to autonomy. Catalonia (1932) and the Basque Country (1936) exercised this right, with Andalucía, Aragón and Galicia in talks before the breakout of the Civil War. Overall, in spite of a wide range of liberties, the Constitution failed to agree in key areas with the conservative right, which was very rooted in rural areas, and the Roman Catholic Church, which was stripped of schools and public subsidies under the new Constitution. (''For the later constitution, see Spanish Constitution of 1978''.)

1934-1935 period and miners' uprising

The majority vote in the 1933 elections was won by CEDA, led by José María Gil Robles, a coalition of centre-right and far-right parties. CEDA set up a coalition with the Radical Republican Party led by Alejandro Lerroux, which had come second in the elections. The Socialists came third. With Lerroux as head of Government, the new coalition Executive suspended most of the reforms of the previous government.

The inclusion of three CEDA ministers in the government that took office on October 1, 1934 led to a general strike and a rebellion by socialists and anarchists in Asturias on October 6. Miners in Asturias occupied the capital, Oviedo, killing officials and clergymen and burning theatres and the University. This rebellion lasted for two weeks until it was crushed by the army, led by General Francisco Franco, who in the process destroyed large parts of the city. This operation earned Franco the nickname "Butcher of Asturias". Another rebellion by autonomists in Catalonia was also suppressed, and was followed by mass arrests and trials.

The suspension of the land reforms that had been attempted by the previous government, and the failure of the Asturias miners' uprising, led to a more radical turn by the parties of the left, especially in the PSOE (Socialist Party), where the moderate Indalecio Prieto lost ground to Francisco Largo Caballero, who advocated a socialist revolution. At the same time the involvement of the Centrist government party in the Straperlo scandal deeply weakened it, further polarising political differences between right and left. These differences became evident in the 1936 elections.

1936 elections

On January 7, 1936, new elections were called. Despite significant rivalries and disagreements the Socialists, Communists, and the Catalan and Madrid-based left-wing Republicans decided to work together under the name Popular Front. The Popular Front won the election on February 16 with 263 MPs against 156 right-wing MPs, grouped within a coalition of the ''National Front'' with CEDA, Carlists and Monarchists. The moderate centre parties virtually disappeared; between the elections, Lerroux's group fell from the 104 representatives it had in 1934 to just 9.

In the following months there was increasing violence between left and right. This helped development of the Fascist-inspired Falange Española, a National party led by José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the son of the former dictator, Miguel Primo de Rivera. Although it had only taken 0.7 per cent of the votes in the election, by July 1936 the Falange had 40,000 members.

Assassinations of political leaders and beginning of the war

On July 12, 1936, Lieutenant José Castillo, an important member of the anti-fascist military organisation Unión Militar Republicana Antifascista (UMRA), was shot by Falangist gunmen. In retaliation the following day, July 13, UMRA members assassinated José Calvo Sotelo, leader of the right-wing opposition and the most prominent Spanish monarchist who, describing the government's actions as Bolshevist and Anarchist, had been exhorting the army to violence, declaring that Spanish soldiers would save the country from Communism if "there are no politicians capable of doing so"

The Right blamed the government for Calvo Sotelo's assassination. Although it is sometimes considered the catalyst for the further political polarisation that ensued, the Falange and other right-wing conspirators, including Juan de la Cierva, had already been conspiring to launch a military coup d'état against the government, to be led by senior army officers. When the antifascist Castillo and the pro-Fascist Calvo Sotelo were buried on the same day July 14 in the same Madrid cemetery, fighting between the Police Assault Guard and Fascist militias broke out in the surrounding streets, resulting in four more deaths.

Three days later (July 17), the coup d'état began more or less as it had been planned, with an army uprising in Spanish Morocco which then spread to several regions of the country. Franco's move was intended to seize power immediately, but his army uprising met with serious resistance and great swathes of Spain, including most of the main cities, remained loyal to the legally established Republic of Spain. General Franco then, instead of declaring his coup a failure, initiated a slow and determined war of attrition against the elected government in Madrid. As a result, an estimated total of approximately 500,000 people would lose their lives in the war that followed.

Civil War

{|align=right | |} On July 17, 1936, General Franco led the Spanish Army of Africa from Morocco to attack the mainland, while another force from the north under General Emilio Mola moved south from Navarre. Military units were also mobilised elsewhere to take over government institutions. Before long the professional Army of Africa took much of the south and west under the control of the rebels. Bloody purges followed in each piece of captured "Nationalist" territory in order to consolidate Franco's future regime. Although both sides received foreign military aid, the help which Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany as part of German involvement in the Spanish Civil War, and neighbouring Portugal gave the rebels, was much greater than the assistance that the Republicans received from the USSR, Mexico, and the volunteers of the International Brigades. While the Axis powers wholeheartedly assisted General Franco's military campaign, the governments of France, England and other democratic European powers looked the other way and let the young Spanish Republic die, as the actions of the Non-Intervention Committee would show.

The Siege of the Alcázar at Toledo early in the war was a turning point, with the rebels winning after a long siege. The Republicans managed to hold out in Madrid, despite a National assault in November 1936, and frustrated subsequent offensives against the capital at Jarama and Guadalajara in 1937. Soon, though, the rebels began to erode their territory, starving Madrid and making inroads into the east. The north, including the Basque country, fell in late 1937, and the Aragon front collapsed shortly afterwards. The bombing of Guernica was probably the most infamous event of the war and inspired Picasso's painting. It was used as a testing ground for the German Luftwaffe's Condor Legion. The Battle of the Ebro in July–November 1938 was the final desperate attempt by the Republicans to turn the tide. When this failed and Barcelona fell to the rebels in early 1939, it was clear the war was over. The remaining Republican fronts collapsed and Madrid fell in March 1939.

Causes

The Second Republic was proclaimed during a period of worldwide economic depression. In spite of the high hopes, the Republican authorities had to struggle with rising unemployment and poverty. In the ensuing civil unrest, violence in the form of assassination, revolutionary general strikes, and mob actions increased dangerous levels in the eyes of the traditional centers of power, such as the landowners, the Church and the nobility. Thus it was easy for them to whip up dissatisfaction with the republican government

Nazism in Germany, Fascism in Italy and other forms of totalitarian government were on the rise in Europe. Right-wing political discourse became increasingly polarized, often as a form to check the threat of Communism, that was perceived to be expanding from the Soviet Union. Rather than working towards consensus between political forces, politicians on the right and the left leaned towards polarization and called openly for violence.

The murders of the leftist military leader José Castillo and the rightist politician José Calvo Sotelo opened the way to a rapidly increasing flood of violence between the political left and right.

Rightist elements in Spain still justify the military coup against the established Republic claiming that it was ungovernable and failed to respond adequately to the threats of communism, anarchism, anti-clericalism, and acts of random violence. At any rate there was great devastation caused by the three years of civil strife and the destructive war of attrition imposed by General Franco on the impoverished country.

See also

Spanish Republican government in Exile

Spanish Republican Air Force

Flag of the Second Spanish Republic

Coat of Arms of the Second Spanish Republic

Catholicism in the Second Spanish Republic

Battle of the Ebro

Further reading

Gerald Brenan, ''The Spanish Labyrinth: An Account of the Social and Political Background of the Spanish Civil War'' (1943)

Raymond Carr, ed. ''The Republic and the Civil War in Spain'' (1971)

Raymond Carr, ''Spain 1808-1975'' (1982)

References

External links

Constitución de la República Española (1931)

Second Spanish Republic National Anthem

Pro-Republic, 75th Anniversary Manifiesto

Original article from the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in "The Guardian" archives.

History of the republic and the victory of the Popular Front in elections

Video La II República Española

Category:Short-lived states Category:Anti-Catholicism in Spain Spanish Republic, Second * Category:Spanish Civil War Category:Republics Category:Republicanism in Spain Category:Socialist states Category:Political history of Spain Category:States and territories established in 1931

ar:الجمهورية الإسبانية الثانية an:Segunda Republica Espanyola ast:Segunda República Española bg:Втора испанска република ca:Segona República Espanyola cs:Druhá španělská republika da:Anden spanske republik de:Zweite Spanische Republik es:Segunda República Española eo:Dua Hispana Respubliko ext:Segundera Repúbrica Española eu:Espainiako Bigarren Errepublika fr:Seconde République espagnole ga:Dara Phoblacht na Spáinne gl:Segunda República Española ko:스페인 제2공화국 hr:Druga španjolska republika it:Seconda repubblica spagnola he:הרפובליקה הספרדית השנייה ka:ესპანეთის მეორე რესპუბლიკა kk:Испан Республикасы la:Res Publica Hispanica Secunda mk:Втора Шпанска Република arz:الجمهوريه الاسپانيه التانيه ms:Republik Sepanyol Kedua mwl:Segunda República Spanhola nl:Tweede Spaanse Republiek ja:スペイン第二共和政 no:Den andre spanske republikken oc:Segonda Republica Espanhòla pl:Druga Republika Hiszpańska pt:Segunda República Espanhola ro:A Doua Republică Spaniolă ru:Вторая Испанская Республика sk:Druhá španielska republika fi:Espanjan toinen tasavalta sv:Andra spanska republiken ta:இரண்டாவது எசுப்பானியக் குடியரசு vi:Đệ nhị Cộng hòa Tây Ban Nha zh:西班牙第二共和国

There have been two Spanish Republics:

First Spanish Republic (1873–1874)

Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939)

Spain is not currently a republic, but a constitutional monarchy. After the Second Republic's fall, General Franco declared Spain to be a monarchy, though he did not permit a monarch until his death in 1975.

Occasional embarrassing errors in regard to Spain's status may have been caused by the Spanish language title of the Prime Minister of Spain, ''Presidente del Gobierno'' (president of the government), as the title of "president" is usually associated with republics.

See also

History of Spain

es:República Española ko:스페인 공화국 nl:Spaanse Republiek pl:Republika Hiszpańska fi:Espanjan tasavalta ru:Испанская республика

bgcolour	#6495ED
name	Robert Motherwell
birth date	January 24, 1915
birth place	Aberdeen, Washington
death date	July 16, 1991
nationality	American
field	Painting, Printmaking
training	Stanford University, Harvard, Columbia University
movement	Abstract expressionism
awards	}}

Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) American painter, printmaker and editor. He was one of the youngest of the New York School (a phrase he coined), which also included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Philip Guston.

Early Life and Education

Robert Motherwell was born in Aberdeen, Washington, on January 24, 1915, the first child of Robert Burns Motherwell II and Margaret Hogan Motherwell. The family later moved to San Francisco, where Motherwell's father served as president of Wells Fargo Bank. Due to the artists’ asthmatic condition, Motherwell was reared largely on the Pacific Coast and spent most of his school years in California. There he developed a love for the broad spaces and bright colours that later emerged as essential characteristics of his abstract paintings (ultramarine blue of the sky and ochre yellow of Californian hills). His later concern with themes of mortality can likewise be traced to his frail health as a child.

Between 1932 and 1937 Motherwell briefly studied painting at California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco and received a BA in philosophy from Stanford University. At Stanford Motherwell was introduced to modernism through his extensive reading of symbolist literature, especially Mallarme, James Joyce, Edgar Allan Poe and Octavio Paz. This passion stayed with Motherwell for the rest of his life and became a major theme of his later paintings and drawings.

At the age of 20 Motherwell traveled to Europe with his father and sister. They made a Grand Tour starting in Paris, then going to Amalfi, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, The Netherlands, London and ended in Motherwell, Scotland.

From Motherwell's own words, the reason he went to Harvard was because he wanted to be a painter while his father urged him pursue a more secure career: "And finally after months of really a cold war he made a very generous agreement with me that if I would get a Ph.D. so that I would be equipped to teach in a college as an economic insurance, he would give me fifty dollars a week for the rest of my life to do whatever I wanted to do on the assumption that with fifty dollars I could not starve but it would be no inducement to last. So with that agreed on Harvard then — it was actually the last year--Harvard still had the best philosophy school in the world. And since I had taken my degree at Stanford in philosophy, and since he didn't care what the Ph.D. was in, I went on to Harvard."

In Harvard Motherwell studied under Arthur Oncken Lovejoy and David White Prall; he went to Paris for a year to work on Delacroix where he met an American composer Arthur Berger. In fact, it was Berger who advised Motherwell to continue his education in Columbia University under Meyer Shapiro.

The New York School and the Surrealists

In 1940 Motherwell moved to New York to study at Columbia University, where he was encouraged by Meyer Schapiro to devote himself to painting rather than scholarship. Shapiro introduced the young artist to a group of exiled Parisian Surrealists (Max Ernst, Duchamp, Masson) and arranged for Motherwell to study with Kurt Seligmann. The time that Motherwell spent with the Surrealists proved to be incredibly influential on his artistic process. After a 1941 voyage to Mexico — on the boat of which he met Maria, an actress and his future wife — with Roberto Matta, Motherwell decided to make painting his primary vocation. The sketches Motherwell made in Mexico later evolved into his first important paintings, such as Little Spanish Prison, 1941, and Pancho Villa, Dead and Alive, 1943 (both in MoMA collection).

It was Matta who introduced Motherwell to the concept of “automatic” drawings. The Surrealists often deployed the process of automatism, or abstract “automatic” doodling to tap into their unconscious. This concept had a lasting effect on Motherwell and on other American painters such as Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner and William Baziotes, whom he befriended in New York after a trip to Mexico.

Upon return from Mexico Motherwell spent time developing his creative principle based on automatism: "what I realized was that Americans potentially could paint like angels but that there was no creative principle around, so that everybody who liked modern art was copying it. Gorky was copying Picasso. Pollock was copying Picasso. De Kooning was copying Picasso. I mean I say this unqualifiedly. I was painting French intimate pictures or whatever. And all we needed was a creative principle, I mean something that would mobilize this capacity to paint in a creative way, and that's what Europe had that we hadn't had; we had always followed in their wake. And I thought of all the possibilities of free association — because I also had a psychoanalytic background and I understood the implications — might be the best chance to really make something entirely new which everybody agreed was the thing to do."

Thus, in the early 1940s Robert Motherwell played a significant role in lying the foundations for the new movement of Abstract Expressionism (or the New York School): "Matta wanted to start a revolution, a movement, within Surrealism. He asked me to find some other American artists that would help start a new movement. It was then that Baziotes and I went to see Pollock and de Kooning and Hofmann and Kamrowski and Busa and several other people. And if we could come with something. Peggy Guggenheim who liked us said that she would put on a show of this new business. And so I went around explaining the theory of automatism to everybody because the only way that you could have a movement was that it had some common principle. It sort of all began that way."

In 1942 Motherwell began to exhibit his work in New York and in 1944 he had his first one-man show at Peggy Guggenheim’s “Art of This Century” gallery; that same year the MoMA was the first museum to purchase one of his works. From the mid-1940s, Motherwell became the leading spokesman for avant-garde art in America. His circle came to include William Baziotes, David Hare, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko, with whom he eventually started the Subjects of the Artist School (1948–49). In 1949 Motherwell divorced Maria Emilia Ferreira y Moyeros and in 1950 he married Betty Little, with whom he had two daughters.

In 1948, he began to work with his celebrated Elegy to the Spanish Republic theme, which he continued to develop throughout his life. Motherwell intended his Elegies to the Spanish Republic (over 100 paintings, completed between 1948 and 1967) as a "lamentation or funeral song" after the Spanish Civil War. His recurring motif here is a rough black oval, repeated in varying sizes and degrees of compression and distortion. Instead of appearing as holes leading into a deeper space, these light-absorbent blots stand out against a ground of relatively even, predominantly white upright rectangles. They have various associations, but Motherwell himself related them to the display of the dead bull's testicles in the Spanish bullfighting ring.

Throughout the 1950s Motherwell also taught painting at Hunter College in New York and at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg and Kenneth Noland studied under and were influenced by Motherwell. At this time, he was a prolific writer and lecturer, and in addition to directing the influential Documents of Modern Art Series, he edited The Dada Painters and Poets: An Anthology, which was published in 1951.

From 1954 to 1958, during the break-up of his second marriage, he worked on a small series of paintings which incorporated the words Je t’aime, expressing his most intimate and private feelings. His collages began to incorporate material from his studio such as cigarette packets and labels becoming records of his daily life. He was married for the third time, from 1958 to 1971, to Helen Frankenthaler, a successful abstract painter.

Mature Years

In 1958–59, Motherwell was included in “The New American Painting” exhibition, initiated by the Museum of Modern Art, which traveled across Europe. That year he traveled in Spain and France, where he started his Iberia series. During the 1960s, Motherwell exhibited widely in both America and Europe and in 1965 he was given a major retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art; this show subsequently traveled to Amsterdam, London, Brussels, Essen, and Turin.

In 1962 Motherwell and Frankenthaler spent the summer at the artists’ colony at Provincetown, Massachusetts, where the coastline inspired the "Beside the Sea" series of 64 paintings, the oil paint splashed with full force against rag paper imitating the sea crashing on the shore in front of his studio.

In 1965 Motherwell worked on another prominent series called the The "Lyric Suite", named after Alban Berg’s string quartet, as Motherwell recalled, “I went to a Japanese store to buy a toy for a friend’s kid, and I saw this beautiful Japanese paper and I bought a thousand sheets. And made up my mind, this was in the beginning of April 1965, that I would do the thousand sheets without correction. I’d make an absolute rule for myself. And I got to 600 in April and May, when one night my wife and I were having dinner and the telephone rang. And it was Kenneth Noland in Vermont saying that I should come immediately. And I said, ‘what’s happened?’ And he said, ‘David Smith’s been in an accident’.” Smith, the sculptor, was Motherwell and Frankenthaler’s great friend. Jumping into their Mercedes they sped to Vermont but arrived 15 minutes after Smith had died. Motherwell stopped work on the series. He said of them: “And then one year I had them all framed, and I like them very much now. I should also say that I half painted them and they half painted themselves. I’d never used rice paper before except occasionally as an element in a collage. And most of these were made with very small, I mean very thin lines. And then I would look at amazement on the floor after I’d finished. It would spread like spots of oil and fill all kinds of strange dimensions.”

In 1967, Motherwell began to work on his Open series. Inspired by a chance juxtaposition of a large and small canvas, the Open paintings occupied Motherwell for nearly two decades. Intimate and meditative, the Opens consist of limited planes of colour, broken up by minimally rendered lines in loosely rectangular configurations. As the series progressed, the works became more complex and more obviously painterly, as Motherwell worked through the possible permutations of such reduced means.

In 1970, Motherwell moved to Greenwich, Connecticut. During the 1970s, he had important retrospective exhibitions in a number of European cities, including Düsseldorf, Stockholm, Vienna, Paris, Edinburgh, and London. In 1977, Motherwell was given a major mural commission for the new wing of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

In 1983, a major retrospective exhibition of Motherwell’s work was mounted at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York; this exhibition was subsequently shown in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and New York City. Another retrospective was shown in Mexico City, Monterey, and Fort Worth, Texas, in 1991.

Robert Motherwell died in Provincetown, Massachusetts on July 16, 1991. On Motherwell's death, Clement Greenberg, the great champion of the New York School, left in little doubt his esteem for the artist, commenting that, "although he is underrated today, in my opinion he was the very best of the Abstract Expressionist painters".

Motherwell was a member of the editorial board of the surrealist magazine ''VVV'' and a contributor of Wolfgang Paalens journal ''Dyn'', which was edited 1942-44 in six numbers. He also edited Paalens collected essays ''Form and Sense'' in 1945 as the first Number of ''Problems of Contemporary Art.''

Dedalus Foundation was set up by Robert Motherwell in 1981 to educate the public by fostering public understanding of modern art and modernism through its support of research, education, publications, and exhibitions in this field.

Selected Solo Exhibitions

Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada (2011); Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London (2009); Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany (2004–05); Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, Spain (1996–97, traveled); Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico (1991–92, traveled); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota (1985); Albright-Knox At Gallery, Buffalo, New York (1983, traveled); Fundación Juan March, Madrid, Spain (1980); The William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Storrs (1979); Royal Academy of Art, London, England (1978); Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris, France (1977); Stadtisches Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf, Germany (1976); Museo de Arte Moderna, Mexico City, Mexico (1975); Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey (1973); David Mirvish Gallery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (1973); The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas (1972–73, traveled); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1965); The Phillips Collection, Washignton, D.C. (1965); Smith College Museum of Art (1963); Pasadena Art Museum, California (1962); Galerie Heinz Berggruen, Paris, France (1961); Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont (1957); Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of this Century Gallery, New York (1944).

References

Books

Robert Motherwell, ''The Dada Painters and Poets'', R. Motherwell, New York, 1951.

Robert Motherwell, ''The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell'', University of California Press, 1999.

Robert Motherwell translated to English Paul Signac's book, ''D'Eugène Delacroix au néo-impressionisme'', 1938.

Arnason, H.H. ''Robert Motherwell''. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1977; revised edition 1982.

Engberg, Siri and Joan Banach. ''Robert Motherwell: The Complete Prints 1940–1991''. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2003.

Flam, Jack. ''Motherwell''. London: Phaidon, 1991

Marika Herskovic, ''American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey,'' (New York School Press, 2003.) ISBN 0-9677994-1-4. p. 238-241

Marika Herskovic, ''New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists,'' (New York School Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-9677994-0-6. p. 11; p. 16; p. 27; p. 38; p. 258-261

Robert Hobbs. "Robert Motherwell Retrospective." Düsseldorf: Städische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 1976.

Robert Hobbs, Matthew Collings, Mel Gooding and Robert Motherwell. "''Open.''" London: 21 Publishing Ltd., 2009.

Kingsley, April. ''The Turning Point: The Abstract Expressionists and the Transformation of American Art''. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.

Pleynet, Marcelin. ''Robert Motherwell''. Paris: Daniel Papierski, 1989.

Sources

Lifetime Honors - National Medal of Arts

The Dedalus Foundation

Robert Motherwell images: Bernard Jacobson Gallery

Robert Motherwell Biography: Hollis Taggart Galleries

The Archives of American Art: Interview with Robert Motherwell conducted by Paul Cummings, November 24, 1971

Category:1915 births Category:1991 deaths Category:Abstract expressionist artists Category:American painters Category:American printmakers Category:United States National Medal of Arts recipients Category:Artists from New York Category:People from New York City Category:People from Greenwich Village, New York Category:Artists from Massachusetts Category:Artists from Washington (state) Category:People from Aberdeen, Washington Category:Harvard Centennial Medal recipients Category:Columbia University alumni Category:Stanford University alumni Category:Hunter College faculty Category:People from Provincetown, Massachusetts Category:Black Mountain College faculty Category:Archives of American Art related

cs:Robert Motherwell de:Robert Motherwell es:Robert Motherwell fr:Robert Motherwell it:Robert Motherwell nl:Robert Motherwell pl:Robert Motherwell pt:Robert Motherwell ru:Мазервелл, Роберт sv:Robert Motherwell th:โรเบิร์ต มาเธอร์เวลล์

name	George Galloway
honorific-suffix	MP
birth date	August 16, 1954
birth place	Dundee
residence	London
office	Member of Parliament for Bradford West
majority	10,140 (16.7%)
term start	29 March 2012
predecessor	Marsha Singh
office1	Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow
term start1	5 May 2005
term end1	6 May 2010
predecessor1	Oona King
successor1	Rushanara Ali
majority1	823 (1.9%)
office2	Member of Parliament for Glasgow KelvinGlasgow Hillhead (1987–1997)
term start2	11 June 1987
term end2	5 May 2005
predecessor2	Roy Jenkins
successor2	Constituency abolished
majority2	7,260 (26.1%)
party	Respect (2004–present)Labour (1967–2003)
religion	Christian (Roman Catholicism)
citizenship	British
website	www.georgegalloway.com
footnotes	}}

George Galloway (born 16 August 1954) is a British Respect Party politician, author, journalist, and broadcaster, and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bradford West. He was previously an MP for the Labour Party, for Glasgow Hillhead and then its successor constituency Glasgow Kelvin from 1987 until his expulsion from the party in October 2003, the same year that he came to national attention for his opposition to the Iraq War. He subsequently became a founding member of the left-wing Respect Party, and was elected as the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005. In 2010, Galloway unsuccessfully contested the seat of Poplar and Limehouse, and in 2011 he unsuccessfully contested the Glasgow list for the Scottish Parliament, before being elected as an MP in the Bradford West by-election, 2012.

Galloway is well known for his campaigns in support of the Palestinians in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He attempted to both overturn economic sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s and early 2000s and to avert the 2003 invasion. Galloway testified to the United States Senate in 2005 over alleged illicit payments from the United Nations' Oil for Food Programme.

Early and personal life

Galloway was born in the Lochee area of Dundee to a Scottish trade unionist father and Irish republican mother. He describes himself as "born in an attic in a slum tenement in the Irish quarter of Dundee, which is known as Tipperary". He grew up in Charleston and attended Charleston Primary and then Harris Academy, a non-denominational school. During his school years at Charleston Primary and Harris Academy, he used to play football for the school team. As an amateur footballer, he went on to play for West End United U12s, Lochee Boys Club U16s and St Columbus U18s.

From 1979 to 1999, he was married to Elaine Fyffe, with whom he has a daughter, Lucy. In 1994, he married Amineh Abu-Zayyad as a second wife in a Muslim ceremony (later after his divorce from his first wife, he and Abu-Zayyad also undertook a civil ceremony); Zayyad filed for divorce in 2005. In 2005, Galloway married as his third wife Rima Husseini, a Lebanese woman and former researcher, also in a Muslim ceremony. She gave birth to their first son, Zein in May 2007 and to their second son Faris, in December 2011. His fourth and current wife is 27 year old Putri Gayatri Pertiwi, a Dutch born Indonesian researcher.

Galloway was raised as a Roman Catholic. He turned away from the Church as a young man, but returned in his mid-20s after a trip to Beirut in 1977, becoming a passionate supporter of Palestine stating "barely a week after my return I made a pledge to devote the rest of my life to the Palestinian and Arab cause". By his own account he decided, at the age of 18, never to drink alcohol. He disapproves of it and describes it as having a "very deleterious effect on people".

Galloway is a lifelong supporter of Celtic Football Club.

Labour Party organiser

Galloway joined the Labour Party at 13 years old and, within five years, was secretary of the Dundee West constituency party. His enthusiasm led him to become Vice-Chairman of the Labour Party in the City of Dundee and a member of the Scottish Executive Committee in 1975. On 5 May 1977, he contested his first election campaign in the Scottish district elections, but failed to hold the safe Labour seat at Gillburn, Dundee. He was defeated by the Independent candidate Bunty Turley, who was a trade unionist running on the campaign slogan "Enough is enough" after allegations were made about Galloway's personal and financial behaviour. Galloway became the secretary organiser of Dundee Labour Party—the youngest ever Scottish chairman—in March 1981 at 26 years old.

His support for the Palestinian cause began in 1974 when he met a Palestinian activist in Dundee; he supported the actions of Dundee City Council which flew the Palestinian flag inside the City Chambers. He was involved in the twinning of Dundee with Nablus in 1980, although he did not take part in the visit of Lord Provost Gowans, Ernie Ross MP and three City Councillors to Nablus and Kuwait in April 1981.

In 1981, Galloway wrote an article in ''Scottish Marxist'' supporting Communist Party affiliation with the Labour Party. In response, Denis Healey, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, tried and failed to remove Galloway from the list of Prospective Parliamentary Candidates. Galloway successfully argued that this was his own personal viewpoint, not that of the Labour Party. Healey lost his motion by 13 votes to 5. He once quipped that, in order to overcome a £1.5 million deficit which had arisen in the city budget, he, Ernie Ross and leading Councillors should be placed in the stocks in the city square: "we would allow people to throw buckets of water over us at 20p a time."

Galloway stood for a place on the Labour Party National Executive Committee in 1986; in a large field of candidates he finished second from the bottom. At the 1986 Labour Party Conference, he made a strong attack on the Labour Party's Deputy Leader and Shadow Chancellor Roy Hattersley for not favouring exchange controls.

War On Want

From November 1983 to 1987, Galloway was General Secretary of War On Want, a British charity that campaigns against poverty worldwide. In this post he was much travelled, writing eye-witness accounts of the famine in Eritrea in 1985 which were published in ''The Sunday Times'' and ''The Spectator''.

The ''Daily Mirror'' accused him of living luxuriously at the charity's expense. An independent auditor cleared him of misuse of funds, though he did repay £1,720 in contested expenses. He later reportedly won £155,000 from The ''Mirror'' in an unrelated libel lawsuit.

More than two years after Galloway stepped down to serve as a Labour MP, the UK Government investigated War on Want. It found accounting irregularities from 1985 to 1989, but little evidence that money was used for non-charitable purposes. Galloway had been General Secretary for the first three of those years. The commission said responsibility lay largely with auditors, and did not single out individuals for blame.

Parliamentary career

Member of Parliament for a Glasgow seat

In the 1987 election, Galloway won Glasgow Hillhead constituency for the Labour Party from Roy Jenkins of the Social Democratic Party (who had briefly led that Party earlier in the decade) with a majority of 3,251. Although known for his left-wing views, Galloway was never a member of Labour's leftist groupings of MPs, the Tribune Group or the Campaign Group. In 2008, Galloway stated "I am on the anti-imperialist left... If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union, yes I did. Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life."

Asked about a War on Want conference on Mykonos, Greece during his previous job, the new MP replied "I travelled to and spent lots of time with people in Greece, many of whom were women, some of whom were known carnally to me. I actually had sexual intercourse with some of the people in Greece." The statement put Galloway on the front pages of the tabloid press and in February 1988 the Executive Committee of his Constituency Labour Party passed a vote of no confidence in him.

He gained re-selection when challenged by Trish Godman (wife of fellow MP Norman Godman) in June 1989, but failed to get a majority of the electoral college on the first ballot. This was the worst result for any sitting Labour MP who was reselected; 13 of the 26 members of the Constituency Party's Executive Committee resigned that August, indicating their dissatisfaction with the result.

In 1990, a classified advertisement appeared in the Labour-Left weekly ''Tribune'' headed "Lost: MP who answers to the name of George", "balding and has been nicknamed gorgeous", claiming that the lost MP had been seen in Romania but had not been to a constituency meeting for a year. A telephone number was given which turned out to be for the Groucho Club in London, from which Galloway had recently been excluded (although subsequently readmitted). Galloway threatened legal action and pointed out that he had been to five constituency meetings. He eventually settled for an out-of-court payment by The ''Tribune''.

The leadership election of the Labour Party in 1992 saw Galloway voting for the eventual winners, John Smith for Leader and Margaret Beckett as Deputy Leader. In 1994, after Smith's death, Galloway declined to cast a vote in the leadership election (one of only three MPs to do so). In a debate with the Leader of the Scottish National Party Alex Salmond, Galloway responded to one of Salmond's jibes against the Labour Party by declaring "I don't give a fuck what Tony Blair thinks."

Although facing a challenge for the Labour nomination for the seat of Glasgow Kelvin in 1997, Galloway defeated Shiona Waldron. He was unchallenged for the nomination in 2001.

In the 1997 and 2001 elections Galloway was the Labour candidate for the seat of Glasgow Kelvin, winning with majorities of over 16,000 and 12,000 respectively. During the 2001 Parliament, he voted against the Whip 27 times. During the 2001–02 session he was the 9th most rebellious Labour MP.

Expulsion from the Labour Party

Galloway became the Vice President of the Stop the War Coalition in 2001. He is actively involved, often speaking on StWC platforms at anti-war demonstrations. From this position Galloway made many aggressive and controversial statements in opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. These were the formal reasons for his expulsion from the Labour Party. He reportedly said in a 28 March 2003 interview with Abu Dhabi TV that Tony Blair and George W. Bush had "lied to the British Air Force and Navy, when they said the battle of Iraq would be very quick and easy. They attacked Iraq like wolves...." and added, "... the best thing British troops can do is to refuse to obey illegal orders." He called the Labour Government "Tony Blair's lie machine." His most controversial statement from the interview may have been "Iraq is fighting for all the Arabs. Where are the Arab armies?". ''The Observer'' reported in 2003 that the Director of Public Prosecutions was considering a request to pursue Galloway under the Incitement to Disaffection Act, 1934, though no prosecution occurred.

On 18 April, ''The Sun'' published an interview with Tony Blair who said: "His comments were disgraceful and wrong. The National Executive will deal with it." The General Secretary of the Labour Party, citing Galloway's outspoken opinion of Blair and Bush in their pursuit of the Iraq war, suspended him from holding office in the party on 6 May 2003, pending a hearing on charges that he had violated the party's constitution by "bringing the Labour Party into disrepute through behaviour that is prejudicial or grossly detrimental to the Party". The National Constitutional Committee held a hearing on 22 October 2003, to consider the charges, taking evidence from Galloway himself, from other party witnesses, viewing media interviews, and hearing character testimony from Tony Benn, among others. The following day, the committee found the charge of bringing the party into disrepute proved, and so expelled Galloway from the Labour Party. Galloway called the Committee's hearing "a show trial" and "a kangaroo court".

2005 election

In January 2004, Galloway announced he would be working with members of the Socialist Alliance in England and Wales, and others, under the name Respect – The Unity Coalition, generally referred to simply as Respect. This was despite Galloway having a track record of antipathy toward Trotskyists, and the largest component of Respect being the Socialist Workers Party, which broadly identifies itself as part of the Trotskyist political tradition.

Some former members of the Socialist Alliance, including the Workers Liberty and Workers Power groups, objected to forming a coalition with Galloway, citing his political record, and his refusal to accept an average worker's wage, with Galloway claiming "I couldn’t live on three workers’ wages."

He stood as the Respect candidate in London in the 2004 European Parliament elections, but failed to win a seat after receiving 91,175 of the 115,000 votes he needed.

Galloway later announced that he would not force a by-election and intended not to contest the next general election in Glasgow. Galloway's Glasgow Kelvin seat was split between three neighbouring constituencies for the May 2005 general election. One of these, the redrawn Glasgow Central constituency, might have been his best chance to win, but had his long-time friend Mohammad Sarwar, the first Muslim Labour MP and a strong opponent of the Iraq War in place; Galloway did not wish to challenge him. After the European election results became known, Galloway announced that he would stand in Bethnal Green and Bow, the area where Respect had its strongest election results and where the sitting Labour MP, Oona King, supported the Iraq War. On 2 December, despite speculation that he might stand in Newham, he confirmed that he would be the candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow.

The ensuing electoral campaign in the seat proved to be a difficult one with heated rhetoric. The BBC reported that Galloway had himself been threatened with death by extreme Islamists from the banned organisation al-Ghurabaa. All the major candidates united in condemning the threats and violence. On 5 May, Galloway won the seat by 823 votes and made a fiery acceptance speech, saying that Tony Blair had the blood of 100,000 people on his hands and denouncing the returning officer over alleged discrepancies in the electoral process. When challenged in a subsequent televised interview by Jeremy Paxman as to whether he was happy to have removed one of the few black women in Parliament, Galloway replied "I don't believe that people get elected because of the colour of their skin. I believe people get elected because of their record and because of their policies." Jeremy Paxman during the same BBC interview accused Galloway of being a demagogue.

Oona King later told BBC Radio 4's ''Today'' programme that she found Paxman's line of question inappropriate. "He shouldn't be barred from running against me because I'm a black woman. ... I was not defined, or did not wish to be defined, by either my ethnicity or religious background."

"It's good to be back", Galloway said on being sworn in as MP for Bethnal Green after the May election. He pledged to represent "the people that New Labour has abandoned" and to "speak for those who have nobody else to speak for them."

Parliamentary participation statistics

After he was suspended and later expelled from the Labour Party, Galloway's participation in Parliamentary activity fell to minimal levels. After speaking in a debate on Iraq on 25 March 2003, Galloway did not intervene in any way in Parliamentary debates or ask any oral questions for the remainder of the Parliament and his participation in House of Commons divisions was among the lowest of any MP.

Following the 2005 election, his participation rate remained low, at the end of the year he had participated in only 15% of Divisions in the House of Commons since the general election, placing him 634th of 645 MPs – of the eleven MPs below him in the rankings, one is the former Prime Minister Tony Blair, five are Sinn Féin members who have an abstentionist policy toward taking their seats, three are the speaker and deputy speakers and therefore ineligible to vote, and two have died since the election. Galloway claims a record of unusual activity at a "grass roots" level. His own estimate is that he has made 1,100 public speeches between September 2001 and May 2005.

In September 2009, he still had one of the lowest voting participation records in parliament at 8.4% as a total of 93 votes out of a possible 1,113 divisions.

Suspension from the House of Commons

On 17 July 2007, following a four-year inquiry, the House of Commons Select Committee on Standards and Privileges published its sixth report. The Committee concluded that there was "no evidence" that Galloway gained any personal benefit from either the former Iraqi regime, or from the Oil-for-Food Programme. It did not examine the bank account of Galloway's former wife or their joint account.

}} However, it found that Galloway's use of parliamentary resources to support his work on the Mariam Appeal "went beyond what was reasonable."

}} In response, Galloway stated At a press conference following publication of the report, Galloway stated "To be deprived of the company for 18 days of the honourable ladies and gentleman behind me [in parliament] will be painful ... but I'm intending to struggle on regardless ... What really upset them [the committee] is that I always defend myself.

2010 election

On 10 August 2007, Galloway confirmed he would stand in newly created constituency of Poplar and Limehouse where the Labour Party had a notional majority of 3,942. The Labour candidate was the current Poplar and Canning Town MP Jim Fitzpatrick. Galloway said he had planned to stand down from Parliament at the next election, but was prompted to stay on and fight to win the neighbouring east London constituency after he felt he was unfairly suspended from Parliament for 18 days. In the election Galloway was defeated, coming third after the Labour and Conservative candidates. He received 8,460 votes.

2012 by-election

After the resignation of sitting Labour MP Marsha Singh due to ill health, Galloway returned to Parliament at the Bradford West by-election, 2012 in an unexpected landslide result, with Galloway calling it "the most sensational victory in British political history".

Political views

Galloway advocates greater spending on welfare benefits, and some nationalisation of large industries. Galloway is opposed to abortion, although he supports Respect's pro-choice stance. He opposes Scottish independence but supports the right of the people to vote on the matter via a referendum. He also supports the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. In the 2007 Scottish Parliament election, George Galloway supported Solidarity, despite not supporting all their policies, such as Scottish independence. Galloway has attracted most attention for his comments on foreign policy, taking a special interest in Libya, Pakistan, Iraq, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. According to the report "Preventing terrorism, where next for Britain?" from the counter-extremism think tank Quilliam, which receives private and public funding, Galloway is "Islamist backed". Inayat Bunglawala, chair of Muslims4Uk and a former MCB spokesperson, disagreed, saying: "This is just like something straight out of a Stasi manual. The advice from Quilliam is frankly appalling and incredibly self-serving."

Iraq and Saddam Hussein

Galloway opposed the 1991 Gulf War and was critical of the effect the subsequent sanctions had on the people of Iraq. He visited Iraq twice and met senior government officials. His involvement caused some critics to deride him as the "member for Baghdad North". In 1994, Galloway faced some of his strongest criticism on his return from a Middle-Eastern visit during which he had met Saddam Hussein "to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war". At the meeting, he reported the support given to Saddam by the people of the Gaza Strip and ended his speech in English with the statement "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability". In a January 2007 edition of the BBC's ''Hardtalk'' he stated that he was saluting the "Iraqi people". Galloway's speech was translated for Hussein. Anasal-Tikriti, a friend of Galloway's and a Respect candidate, spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain said: "I understand Arabic and it [Galloway's salutation] was taken completely out of context. When he said "you" he meant the Iraqi people, he was saluting their indefatigability, their resolve against sanctions. Even the interpreter got it right and, in Arabic, says salutes the stand of the Iraqi people'."

In 1999, Galloway was criticised for spending Christmas in Iraq with Tariq Aziz, who was Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister. In the 17 May 2005, hearing of the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Galloway stated that he had had many meetings with Aziz, and characterised their relationship as friendly. After the fall of Saddam, he continued to praise Aziz, calling him "an eminent diplomatic and intellectual person". In 2006 a video surfaced showing Galloway enthusiastically greeting Uday Hussein, Saddam's eldest son, with the title of "Excellency" at Uday's palace in 1999. "The two men also made unflattering comments about the United States and joked about losing weight, going bald and how difficult it is to give up smoking cigars," according to ''The Scotsman''.

In a House of Commons debate on 6 March 2002, Foreign Office Minister Ben Bradshaw said of Galloway that he was "not just an apologist, but a mouthpiece, for the Iraqi regime over many years." Galloway called the Minister a liar and refused to withdraw: "[Bradshaw's] imputation that I am a mouthpiece for a dictator is a clear imputation of dishonour" he said, and the sitting was suspended due to the dispute. Bradshaw later withdrew his allegation, and Galloway apologised for using unparliamentary language. In August 2002, Galloway returned to Iraq and met Saddam Hussein for a second time. According to Galloway, the intention of the trip was to persuade Saddam to re-admit Hans Blix, and the United Nations weapons inspectors into the country.

Giving evidence in his libel case against the ''Daily Telegraph'' newspaper in 2004, Galloway testified that he regarded Saddam as a "bestial dictator" and would have welcomed his removal from power, but not by means of a military attack on Iraq. Galloway also pointed that he was a prominent critic of Saddam Hussein's regime in the 1980s, as well as of the role of Margaret Thatcher's government in supporting arms sales to Iraq during the Iran/Iraq war. Labour MP Tam Dalyell said during the controversy over whether Galloway should be expelled from the Labour Party that "in the mid-1980s there was only one MP that I can recollect making speeches about human rights in Iraq and this was George Galloway." When the issue of Galloway's meetings with Saddam Hussein is raised, including before the US Senate, Galloway has argued that he had met Saddam "exactly the same number of times as US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns." He continued "I met him to try to bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war".

During a 9 March 2005 interview at the University of Dhaka campus Galloway called for a global alliance between Muslims and progressives: "Not only do I think it’s possible but I think it is vitally necessary and I think it is happening already. It is possible because the progressive movement around the world and the Muslims have the same enemies. Their enemies are the Zionist occupation, American occupation, British occupation of poor countries mainly Muslim countries."

Israel and Palestine

At a 22 July 2006 demonstration (and later in a ''Socialist Worker'' op-ed), Galloway stated "Hezbollah has never been a terrorist organisation!" The National Union of Students of the United Kingdom passed a motion condemning Galloway for this statement. In 2009, Galloway received a Palestinian passport from Hamas leader Ismail Haniya. Hamas are a considered a terrorist organisation by the European Union, and the US.

According to Al-Ahram, in a series of speeches broadcast on Arab television, Galloway described Jerusalem and Baghdad as being "raped" by "foreigners," referring to Israel's illegal annexation of East Jerusalem, and the war in Iraq.

In an interview with the American radio host Alex Jones, Galloway blamed Israel for creating "conditions in the Arab countries and in some European countries to stampede Jewish people ... into the Zionist state". Jones then alleged that the "Zionists" funded Hitler, to which Galloway replied that Zionists used the Jewish people "to create this little settler state on the Mediterranean," whose purpose was "to act as an advance guard for their own interests in the Arab world..."

Galloway was introduced as “a former member of the British Houses of Parliament” during a live interview with Qatari Al-Jazeera television, to which he responded: “I am still a member of parliament and was re-elected five times. On the last occasion I was re-elected despite all the efforts made by the British government, the Zionist movement and the newspapers and news media which are controlled by Zionism.”

Galloway expressed support for the Syrian presence in Lebanon five months before it ended, telling the ''Daily Star'' of Lebanon "Syrian troops in Lebanon maintain stability and protect the country from Israel". In the same article he expressed his opposition to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559, which urged the Lebanese Government to establish control over all its territory.

In an interview with the Hizbullah run Al-Manar TV, which aired on 26 July 2011 (as translated by MEMRI), Galloway accused Israel of being responsible for the assassination of Rafiq Al-Hariri, stating that "Israel was the only country with any interest and any benefit to gain from the assassination of the martyr Rafiq Al-Hariri. They are the ones who had the capability to do so, they are the ones who had the motive for doing so, and they are the ones who had the criminal record for doing so. How many hundreds of people has Israel killed in Lebanon? Assassination squads of people landing on the beach, and people planting bombs of one kind or another..." He further stated that "When this inquiry [the Special Tribunal for Lebanon] refused to lead in that direction, I knew it was a fake inquiry" and that "this process and all these individuals are completely discredited."

Several months earlier in a speech given in Edmonton, Alberta in November 2010, Galloway stated that

“I believe, and I don’t know anybody who is objective in this matter who does not believe, that Hezbollah are absolutely innocent of this crime, and it is time that the tribunal looked to the people who benefited from this crime..in Israel."

Blair and Bush

At the national conference of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, on 30 June 2003, Galloway apologised for describing George W. Bush as a "wolf", saying that to do so defamed wolves: "No wolf would commit the sort of crimes against humanity that George Bush committed against the people of Iraq."

On 20 November 2004, George Galloway gave an interview on Abu Dhabi TV in which he said:

On 20 June 2005, he appeared on Al Jazeera English to lambast these two leaders and others.

On 3 February 2006, Galloway was refused entry to Egypt at Cairo Airport and was detained "on grounds of national security", where he had been invited to 'give evidence' at a 'mock trial' of Bush and Blair. After being detained overnight, he said Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak "apologised on behalf of the Egyptian people", and he was allowed to enter the country. After initial derogatory comments from Galloway and a spokesman from his Respect party regarding Mubarak's pro-Western stance and ties to Bush and Blair, Galloway later commented: "It was a most gracious apology which I accept wholeheartedly. I consider the matter now closed."

Suicide bombings

In the House of Commons, on the day of the 7 July 2005 London bombings that killed 52 people and injured hundreds more, and following a visit to the Royal London Hospital in his constituency where many of the victims had been taken, Galloway condemned the attacks strongly, but argued that they could not be separated from the hatred and bitterness felt among Muslims because of injustices in Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan, including injustices, he said, suffered as a result of British foreign policy: }}

Winding up the debate for the government in the last moments allotted, Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram described Galloway's remarks as "disgraceful" and accused Galloway of "dipping his poisonous tongue in a pool of blood." No time remained for Galloway to intervene and he ran afoul of the Deputy Speaker when trying to make a point of order about Ingram's attack. He later went on to describe Ingram as a "thug" who had committed a "foul-mouthed, deliberately timed, last-10-seconds smear." The men had previously clashed over claims in Galloway's autobiography (see below).

In an interview with Piers Morgan for ''GQ Magazine'' in May 2006, Galloway was asked whether a suicide bomb attack on Tony Blair with "no other casualties" would be morally justifiable "as revenge for the war on Iraq?". He answered "Yes it would be morally justified. I am not calling for it, but if it happened it would be of a wholly different moral order to the events of 7/7. It would be entirely logical and explicable, and morally equivalent to ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq as Blair did." He further stated that if he knew about such a plan that he would inform the relevant authorities, saying: "I would [tell the police], because such an operation would be counterproductive because it would just generate a new wave of anti-Muslim, anti-Arab sentiment whipped up by the press. It would lead to new draconian anti-terror laws, and would probably strengthen the resolve of the British and American services in Iraq rather than weaken it. So yes, I would inform the authorities." Some news analysts, notably Christopher Hitchens, took this to be a call for an attack while appearing not to.

Pakistan coup of 1999

At the time of the 1999 Musharraf coup in Pakistan, he wrote, "In poor third world countries like Pakistan, politics is too important to be left to petty squabbling politicians. Pakistan is always on the brink of breaking apart into its widely disparate components. Only the armed forces can really be counted on to hold such a country together... Democracy is a means, not an end in itself and it has a bad name on the streets of Karachi and Lahore." Nonetheless, on his TalkSport talk radio show, Galloway has been outspoken in criticising the former Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf.

Record on LGBT issues

In 1994, Galloway voted in support of the equalisation of the age of consent for homosexuality (which was then 21 years) with that for heterosexuality at 16 years. He also voted against a reduction of the homosexual age of consent to 18. He voted in favour of permitting unmarried and gay couples to adopt children. Critics have claimed that his involvement in the leadership of Respect – which made no explicit mention of gay rights in its 2005 election manifesto and accepted donations from Islamic Party members – raise questions about commitment to those issues, as does his rather poor voting record in parliamentary divisions, 80% of which he missed, during the 2001-5 parliament while still a Glasgow MP. However, Respect's 2005 conference, in which Galloway took part, resolved that explicit defence of equal rights and calls for the end to all discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people would be made in all of its manifestos and principal election materials.

Galloway's assertion on ''The Wright Stuff'' chat show (13 March 2008) that the executed boyfriend of homosexual Iranian asylum seeker Mehdi Kazemi was executed for sex crimes rather than for being homosexual received criticism from Peter Tatchell, among others. Galloway also stated on ''The Wright Stuff'' that the case of gay rights in Iran was being used by supporters of war with Iran.

Humanitarian work

Mariam Appeal

In 1998 Galloway founded the Mariam Appeal, intended "to campaign against sanctions on Iraq which are having disastrous effects on the ordinary people of Iraq". The campaign was named after Mariam Hamza, a child flown by the fund from Iraq to Britain to receive treatment for leukaemia. The intention was to raise awareness of the suffering and death of hundreds of thousands of other Iraqi children due to poor health conditions and lack of suitable medicines and facilities, and to campaign for the lifting of the Iraq sanctions that many maintained were responsible for that situation.

The fund received scrutiny during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, after a complaint that Galloway used some of the donation money to pay his travel expenses. Galloway said that the expenses were incurred in his capacity as the Appeal's chairman. Although the Mariam Appeal was never a registered charity and never intended to be such, it was investigated by the Charity Commission. The report of this year-long inquiry, published in June 2004, found that the Mariam Appeal was doing charitable work (and so ought to have registered with them), but did not substantiate allegations that any funds had been misused.

A further Charity Commission Report published on 7 June 2007 found that the Appeal had received funds from Fawaz Zureikat that originated from the Oil For Food programme, and concluded that: "Although Mr Galloway, Mr Halford and Mr Al-Mukhtar have confirmed that they were unaware of the source of Mr Zureikat’s donations, the Commission has concluded that the charity trustees should have made further enquiries when accepting such large single and cumulative donations to satisfy themselves as to their origin and legitimacy. The Commission’s conclusion is that the charity trustees did not properly discharge their duty of care as trustees to the Appeal in respect of these donations." They added: "The Commission is also concerned, having considered the totality of the evidence before it, that Mr Galloway may also have known of the connection between the Appeal and the Programme". Galloway responded: "I've always disputed the Commission's retrospective view that a campaign to win a change in national and international policy—a political campaign—was, in fact, a charity."

Viva Palestina aid convoy

In response to the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict, in January 2009 Galloway instigated the ''Viva Palestina'' aid convoy to the Gaza Strip. On 14 February 2009, after raising over £1 million-worth of humanitarian aid in four weeks, Galloway and hundreds of volunteers launched the convoy comprising approximately 120 vehicles intended for use in the Strip, including a fire engine donated by the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), 12 ambulances, a boat and trucks full of medicines, tools, clothes, blankets and gifts for children. The 5,000-mile route passed through Belgium, France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.

On 20 February, Galloway condemned Lancashire Police after they arrested nine of the volunteers under the Terrorism Act a day before the convoy's launch. Galloway said: "The arrests were clearly deliberately timed for the eve of the departure of the convoy. Photographs of the high-profile snatch on the M65 were immediately fed to the press to maximise the newsworthiness of the smear that was being perpetrated on the convoy." ''Viva Palestina'' reported an 80% drop in donations following the broadcast of the arrests and the police allegations on the BBC.

The convoy arrived in Gaza on 9 March, accompanied by approximately 180 extra trucks of aid donated by Libya's Gaddafi Foundation. All the British aid was delivered with the exception of the fire engine and boat which were blocked by the Egyptian government. The boat is to be delivered later in a flotilla of craft which Viva Palestina! intends to take into Gaza harbour. On 10 March 2009, Galloway announced at a press conference in Gaza City attended by several senior Hamas officials: "We are giving you now 100 vehicles and all of their contents, and we make no apology for what I am about to say. We are giving them to the elected government of Palestine," adding he would personally donate three cars and 25,000 pounds to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya.

The Charity Commission opened a statutory inquiry into Viva Palestinia! on 23 March 2009, citing concerns over the finances, use of funds for non-charitable purposes, and the lack of "substantive response" to their repeated requests. George Galloway admitted that the appeal had not responded to the requests, but argued that a substantive response was anyway due to be passed to the Charity Commission only hours after they launched the inquiry. He argued that the Charity Commission's actions were suspicious, hinting that they might be politically motivated. On 8 April 2009, Galloway joined Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic to launch Viva Palestina US.

A third Viva Palestina convoy began at the end of 2009. On 8 January 2010, Galloway and his colleague Ron McKay were deported from Egypt immediately upon entry from Gaza. They had been attempting to help take about 200 aid trucks into the Gaza Strip. They were driven by the police to the airport and put on a plane to London. The previous day an Egyptian soldier had been killed during a clash at the border with Hamas loyalists. Several Palestinians were also injured.

The Foreign Ministry of Egypt released a statement reading: "George Galloway is considered persona non grata and will not be allowed to enter into Egypt again". Shortly after his deportation Galloway said, "It is a badge of honour to be deported by a dictatorship" and "I've been thrown out of better joints than that." He also vowed to go back to the Gaza strip. ''The Daily Record'' described his mood as "defiant".

Controversy

Oil for Food

''Daily Telegraph'' libel case

On 22 April 2003, the ''Daily Telegraph'' published news articles and comment describing documents found by its reporter David Blair in the ruins of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. The documents purported to be records of meetings between Galloway and Iraqi intelligence agents, and state that he had received £375,000 per year from the proceeds of the Oil-for-Food Programme. Galloway completely denied the story, and pointed to the nature of the discovery within an unguarded, bombed-out building as being questionable. He instigated legal action against the newspaper, which was heard in the High Court from 14 November 2004.

On 2 December, Justice David Eady ruled that the story had been "seriously defamatory", and that the ''Telegraph'' was "obliged to compensate Mr Galloway ... and to make an award for the purposes of restoring his reputation". Galloway was awarded damages of £150,000 plus, after a failed appeal in 2006, legal costs of about £2 million.

The libel case was regarded by both sides as an important test of the Reynolds qualified-privilege defence. The ''Daily Telegraph'' did not attempt to claim justification (where the defendant seeks to prove the truth of the defamatory reports): "It has never been the ''Telegraph's'' case to suggest that the allegations contained in these documents are true". Instead, the paper sought to argue that it acted responsibly because the allegations it reported were of sufficient public interest to outweigh the damage caused to Galloway's reputation. However the trial judge did not accept this defence saying the suggestion such as Galloway was guilty of "treason", "in Saddam's pay", and being "Saddam's little helper" caused him to conclude "the newspaper was not neutral but both embraced the allegations with relish and fervour and went on to embellish them". Additionally Galloway had not been given a fair or reasonable opportunity to make inquiries or meaningful comment upon the documents before they were published.

The issue of whether the documents were genuine was likewise not at issue at the trial. However, it later transpired that the expert hired by Galloway's lawyers, a forensic expert named Oliver Thorne, said "In my opinion the evidence found fully supports that the vast majority of the submitted documents are authentic." He added "It should be noted that I am unable to comment on the veracity of the information within the disputed ''Telegraph'' documents, whether or not they are authentic."

Others

The ''Christian Science Monitor'' also published a story on 25 April 2003, stating that they had documentary evidence that he had received "more than ten million dollars" from the Iraqi regime. However, on 20 June 2003, the ''Monitor'' reported that their own investigation had concluded the documents were sophisticated forgeries, and apologised. Galloway rejected the newspaper's apology, asserted that the affair was a conspiracy against him, and continued a libel claim against the paper.

The ''Christian Science Monitor'' settled the claim, paying him an undisclosed sum in damages, on 19 March 2004. It emerged that these documents had first been offered to the ''Daily Telegraph'', but they had rejected them. The documents' origin remains obscure.

In January 2004, a further set of allegations were made in ''Al-Mada'', a newspaper in Iraq. The newspaper claimed to have found documents in the Iraqi national oil corporation showing that Galloway received (through an intermediary) some of the profits arising from the sale of 19.5 million barrels (3,100,000 m³) of oil. Galloway acknowledged that money had been paid into the Mariam Appeal by Iraqi businessmen who had profited from the UN-run programme, but denied benefiting personally, and maintained that, in any case, there was nothing illicit about this:

The report of the Iraq Survey Group published in October 2004 claimed that Galloway was one of the recipients of a fund used by Iraq to buy influence among foreign politicians. Galloway denied receiving any money from Saddam Hussein's regime. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards had begun an investigation into George Galloway but suspended it when Galloway launched legal action. On 14 December, it was announced that this investigation would resume.

US Senate

Allegations

In May 2005, a US Senate committee report accused Galloway along with former French minister Charles Pasqua of receiving the right to buy oil under the UN's oil-for-food scheme. The report was issued by the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Senator Norm Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota. The report cited further documents from the Iraqi oil ministry and interviews with Iraqi officials.

Coleman's committee said Pasqua had received allocations worth from 1999 to 2000, and Galloway received allocations worth from 2000 to 2003. The allegations against Pasqua and Galloway, both outspoken opponents of U.N. sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s, have been made before, including in an October report by US arms inspector Charles Duelfer as well as in the various purported documents described earlier in this section. But Coleman's report provided several new details. It also included information from interrogations of former high-ranking officials in US custody, including former Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz and former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan. Among the claims is that there is new evidence to suggest that the Mariam Appeal, a children's leukaemia charity founded by Galloway, was in fact used to conceal oil payments. The report cites Ramadan as saying under interrogation that Galloway was allocated oil "because of his opinions about Iraq."

''Socialist Worker'' reported what they say is evidence that the key Iraqi oil ministry documents regarding oil allocations, in which Galloway's name appears six times (contracts M/08/35, M/09/23, M/10/38, M/11/04, M/12/14, M/13/48) have been tampered with. They published a copy of contract M/09/23 and allege that George Galloway's name appears to have been added in a different font and at a different angle to the rest of the text on that line. In these documents (relating to oil allocations 8–13), Galloway is among just a few people whose nationality is never identified, whilst Zureikat is the only one whose nationality is identified in one instance but not in others. Galloway combatively countered the charges by accusing Coleman and other pro-war politicians of covering up the "theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth... on your watch" that had occurred under a post-invasion Coalition Provisional Authority, committed by "Halliburton and other American corporations... with the connivance of your own government."

Galloway's response

On 17 May 2005, the committee held a hearing concerning specific allegations (of which Galloway was one part) relating to improprieties surrounding the Oil-for-Food programme. Attending Galloway's oral testimony and enquiring of him were two of the thirteen committee members: the chair (Coleman) and the ranking Democrat (Carl Levin).

Upon Galloway's arrival in the US, he told Reuters, "I have no expectation of justice from a group of Christian fundamentalist and Zionist activists under the chairmanship of a neo-con George Bush". Galloway described Coleman as a "pro-war, neo-con hawk and the lickspittle of George W. Bush", who, he said, sought revenge against anyone who did not support the invasion of Iraq.

In his testimony, Galloway made the following statements in response to the allegations against him:

He questioned the reliability of evidence given by former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, stating that the circumstances of his captivity by American forces call into question the authenticity of the remarks. Galloway also pointed out an error in the report, where documents by ''The Daily Telegraph'' were said to have covered an earlier period from those held by the Senate. In fact the report's documents referred to the same period as those used by ''The Daily Telegraph'', though Galloway pointed out that the presumed forgeries pertaining to the ''Christian Science Monitor'' report did refer to an earlier period.

Galloway also denounced the invasion of Iraq as having been based on "a pack of lies" in his Senate testimony. The US media, in reporting his appearance, emphasised his blunt remarks on the war. The British media gave generally more positive coverage; TV presenter Anne Robinson said Galloway "quite frankly put the pride back in British politics" when introducing him for a prime time talk show.

A report by the then-majority Republican Party staff of the United States Senate Committee on Investigations published in October 2005 asserted that Galloway had given false "or misleading" testimony under oath when appearing before them. The report exhibits bank statements it claims show that £85,000 of proceeds from the Oil-for-Food Programme had been paid to Galloway's then-wife Amineh Abu-Zayyad. Galloway reiterated his denial of the charges and challenged the US Senate committee to charge him with perjury. He claimed Coleman's motive was revenge over the embarrassment of his appearance before the committee in May.

Stance on the Islamic Republic of Iran

Galloway has attracted criticism from both the Left and the Right for his comments relating to the regime in Iran, and his work for the state-run satellite television channel, Press TV. Scott Long, writing in ''The Guardian'', criticised Galloway's claim that "homosexuals aren't executed in Iran, just rapists", pointing out that current law in the country stipulates that "Penetrative sex acts between men can bring death on the first conviction". Long-time Gay Rights activist Peter Tatchell, also writing in ''The Guardian'', accused Galloway of spouting "Iranian Propaganda", continuing: "His claim that lesbian and gay people are not at risk of execution in Iran is refuted by every reputable human rights organisation, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and the International Lesbian and Gay Association." Galloway argued that Western governments should accept the election of the conservative President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Trotskyist Workers' Liberty group also condemns Galloway, largely on the basis of his support and work for the current Iranian regime. In "No vote for Galloway – an open letter to the left", he is quoted from his Press TV interview with President Ahmadinejad as stating that he requires "police protection in London from the Iranian opposition because of my support for your election campaign. I mention this so you know where I’m coming from."

Controversies at university debating societies

On 2 November 2006, ''The Times'' reported that Galloway was in a fracas at the Oxford Union. He was there to discuss his book. () In his speech to the Union, Galloway claimed "that democracy in Cuba is more “free” than in the UK", and when questioned on this, he mentioned "that Oxford students are too privileged to understand what he was talking about". Three former state school students who met him afterwards and disputed this description, allege that Galloway said: "I don’t represent anyone’s views. I represent me. I don’t give a fuck what anyone else thinks." and: "You are confusing me with someone who gives a fuck". When the students tried to get Galloway to apologise, he asked for them to be removed from the room, but they left of their own accord. His assistant, Kevin Ovenden, alleged that the cause of Galloway's behaviour was that the students had carried offensive placards, although the students denied they they were the ones with placards. His comments were criticised by several MPs, including Boris Johnson, who said: "there’s no need to swear" and Stephen Pound said: "If he wishes to be respected by anyone other than Fidel Castro he should apologise." A response to the incident can be found on the Oxford Student website.

Clashes with the ''News of the World''

In March 2006 Galloway claimed in a statement that Mazher Mahmood, an undercover reporter for the ''News of the World'' who uses a disguise as a sheikh to frame celebrities, targeted him in an alleged sting operation. Galloway claims that Mahmood and an accomplice tried but failed to implicate him in illegal party funding, and to agree with anti-Semitic statements. Galloway wrote to the Metropolitan police commissioner and the Speaker of the House of Commons about the incident. He also released photographs of Mahmood and revealed other aspects of his activities. The ''News of the World'' lost a High Court action to prevent publication of photographs of Mahmood.

Galloway says that the Metropolitan Police Service told him they had evidence he was targeted by Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator working for the ''News of the World'' who was jailed for phone hacking in 2007. Galloway is now taking legal action for breach of privacy, and has issued proceedings against the ''NOTW'' and Mulcaire. Galloway claims he has been offered "substantial sums of money" by ''NOTW'' ahead of his court action.

Islamic Forum of Europe

Galloway has been recorded as saying that he owes "more than I can say, more than it would be wise for me to say, to the ''Islamic Forum of Europe'' ", a controversial Islamic group with a degree of pro-Sharia agenda.

Hamas

Respect MP George Galloway has been blocked from visiting Canada because of his support for ''Hamas'', a terrorist organisation banned in Canada, and has donated thousands of dollars and dozens of vehicles to the Hamas-run government in the Gaza Strip.

Forbidden to enter Canada

On 20 March 2009, Galloway was advised by the Canada Border Services Agency he was deemed inadmissible to Canada on "security grounds" due to his involvement in the ''Viva Palestina'' aid convoy to the Gaza Strip following the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict. The Gaza Strip is governed by Hamas, which is on Canada's list of terrorist organisations. This resulted from a personal donation of £25,000 made by Galloway ten days earlier. The Canadians ruled (and maintained on appeal) that this constituted explicit support for Hamas, although Galloway argued it was not the case as the money was intended to be used for aid purposes.

Galloway was on a lecture tour of North America, and was due to speak on war prevention and Gaza for a United Church congregation in Toronto, as well as for events in Mississauga, Ottawa and Montreal. Galloway was also described as an "infandous street-corner Cromwell" by Alykhan Velshi, communications director for Jason Kenney, Canada's Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. Galloway described the ban as "idiotic" and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney was accused by Jack Layton, leader of Canada's New Democratic Party (NDP), of being a "minister of censorship." Toronto Coalition to Stop the War, the group who invited Galloway to Canada, sought an emergency injunction to allow for his entry into Canada for the first speech in Toronto citing their rights to freedom of association and freedom of expression. On 30 March 2009, the Federal Court of Canada upheld the decision of the Canada Border Services Agency. Justice Luc Martineau cited non-citizens "do not have an unqualified right to enter in Canada. The admission of a foreign national to this country is a privilege determined by statute, regulation or otherwise, and not as a matter of right." The judge also noted "a proper factual record and the benefit of full legal argument...are lacking at the present time." Subsequently, Galloway cancelled his Canadian tour and instead, delivered his speech over video link from New York to his Canadian audiences.

Galloway was allowed entry into Canada in October 2010, after a judge concluded that the original ban had been undertaken for political reasons. He continued to criticise Jason Kenney, saying that the minister had "damaged Canada's reputation" and had used "anti-terrorism" as a means of suppressing political debate. Galloway has also threatened to sue the Canadian government for the banning incident.

Media activities

Autobiography

His autobiography, ''I'm Not The Only One'', was published on 28 April 2004. The book's title is a quotation from the song "Imagine" by John Lennon. Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram applied for an interim interdict to prevent the book's publication. Ingram asserted that Galloway's text, which stated that Ingram "played the flute in a sectarian, anti-Catholic, Protestant-supremacist Orange Order band", was in bad faith and defamatory, although Ingram's lawyers conceded that for a year as a teenager he had been a member of a junior Orange Lodge in Barlanark, Glasgow, and had attended three parades. The Judge, Lord Kingarth, decided to refuse an interim interdict, that the balance of the arguments favoured Galloway's publisher, and that the phrase "sectarian, anti-Catholic, Protestant-supremacist" was fair comment on that organisation. Although Ingram was not and never had been a flute-player, the defending advocate observed that "playing the flute carries no obvious defamatory imputation ... it is not to the discredit of anyone that he plays the flute." The judge ruled that Ingram should pay the full court costs of the hearing.

Other books

Galloway has also published the ''Fidel Castro Handbook'', a biography of the former Cuban President in 2006 (MQ Publications. ISBN 1-84072-688-1).

In August 2011, Galloway's book entitled ''Open Season: The Neil Lennon Story'' which explores anti-Irish and anti-Catholic racism and bigotry in Scotland and describes many of the related hardships which have befallen Celtic manager Neil Lennon throughout his footballing career. Galloway himself has claimed that he was the victim of a sectarian attack at Glasgow Airport on 10 June 2007. He believes that his attackers were on the way home from attending an Orange Order parade in London and that they attacked him because he is a Celtic fan. However, no arrest was made in connection with this incident.

Publishing ventures

Galloway has been involved in several publishing companies. He owned ''Asian Voice'', which published a newspaper called ''East'' from 1996. It later transpired that the Pakistan Government was funding Galloway's company Asian Voice with several hundred-thousand-pounds. "Documents show that the Pakistan government agreed an initial budget for the weekly newspaper of £547,000. According to a memorandum dated 2 January 1996, the Pakistan government proposed to "covertly sponsor" the publication, with money allocated to "the Secret Fund of the High Commissioner for Pakistan in the UK as a special grant for the project". The Commons Committee cleared Galloway of any wrongdoing in this matter.

In 2005 Galloway established Friction Books, an imprint for fiction and non-fiction, with longstanding associate Ron McKay. Friction claimed its purpose was to publish ''"books that burn, books that cause controversy and get people talking"''. it has released at least two books: Paco Ignacio Taibo II novel ''An Easy Thing'' and ''Topple the Mighty'' by Leon Kuhn and Colin Gile.

''Celebrity Big Brother''

In January 2006 Galloway appeared on the fourth series of the reality show for three weeks. During his time on the programme he appeared apparently licking milk, while pretending to be a cat, from the cupped hands of another housemate, actress Rula Lenska, an incident that drew a large amount of criticism and mockery of Galloway. This situation attracted further controversy as Galloway was a sitting member of parliament at the time leading to the allegation that he was bringing parliament into disrepute.

Galloway acted as the guest presenter for the E4 companion programme to the 2007 edition of Big Brother, ''Big Brother's Big Mouth'', from 5 to 8 June 2007.

talkSPORT

Show name	The Mother of All Talk Shows
Italic title	no
Format	Political discussion
Runtime	Friday 22:00–01:00Saturday 22:00–01:00
Country	UK
Language	English
Home station	talkSPORT
Syndicates	Talk 107
Presenter	George Galloway
Rec location	Central London
Opentheme	The theme from ''Top Cat''
Podcast	}}

On 11 March 2006, Galloway started broadcasting on Britain's commercial radio station, the UTV-owned talkSPORT, and two weeks later started a simultaneous broadcast on Talk 107, TalkSPORT's Edinburgh-based sister station.

Billed as "The Mother of All Talk Shows", Galloway began every broadcast by playing the theme from the ''Top Cat'' cartoon series. UTV said that Galloway was pulling in record call numbers and the highest ever ratings for its weekend slots, even pulling in more than the station's ''Football First'' programme.

On 3 January 2009, after Galloway was manhandled by riot police in London at the demonstration in protest over the Israeli offensive in the Gaza strip, the director of programming replaced Galloway with Ian Collins, saying that this would allow for more balanced reporting of the situation.

Galloway ceased presenting the show on 27 March 2010, due to campaign commitments in the 2010 UK General Election. During this time, he was replaced by Mike Graham.

In August 2010, Galloway returned to the radio station with a new show bearing a similar format to his original, but this time titled ''The Week with George Galloway'', described by the station as a "No-holds barred review of the past seven days around the world". The show is broadcast during the 10pm-1am slot on Friday nights. It was announced in March 2012 that Galloway's programme is to end as TalkSport plans to drop the non-sport elements of its schedule.

Connection to Press TV

Galloway began presenting a programme titled ''The Real Deal'' on 21 May 2007. Originally on Raj TV, a satellite channel primarily aimed at the British Asian community, the show was resurrected, following a short break, on 10 February 2008 by Press TV, a London-based news channel controlled by the government of Iran. The series was still running in late 2011.

Galloway hosts a 45-minute weekly current affairs show ''Comment'' on Press TV. This programme invites the viewers to engage in lively debate on international political issues.

In 2009, the British telecommunications regulator Ofcom criticised Galloway for breaching their broadcasting code by "breaking impartiality rules" in several of his Press TV programmes on the war in Gaza in which Israeli opinion failed to be "'adequately represented'".

Journalism

As of 25 June 2007, Galloway has contributed a weekly column in the ''Daily Record'' giving his views on politics and popular culture. He used this column to reveal he was considering running for a seat in the Scottish Parliament in the May 2011 election. Galloway is an occasional contributor to ''The Guardian'' newspaper and website.

As an orator

''The Times'' finds that he has "the gift of the Glasgow gab, a love of the stage and an inexhaustible fund of self-belief." ''The Guardian'' finds him "renowned for his colourful rhetoric and combative debating style" and the ''Spectator'' once awarded him Debater of the Year.

References

External links

GeorgeGalloway.com Official website

www.debretts.co.uk

''The Scotsman''. ''Indefatigably yours''. Personal interview, 19 May 2003.

{{s-ttl | title = Member of Parliament for Bradford West | years = 2012 – present }} Category:1954 births Category:Anti-poverty advocates Category:Anti-Zionism in the United Kingdom Category:British anti–Iraq War activists Category:British anti-war activists Category:Celebrity Big Brother UK contestants Category:Living people Category:Members of the United Kingdom Parliament for English constituencies Category:Members of the United Kingdom Parliament for Glasgow constituencies Category:People deported from Egypt Category:People educated at Harris Academy Category:People from Dundee Category:Personae non gratae Category:Respect Party politicians Category:Scottish activists Category:Scottish columnists Category:Scottish Labour Party MPs Category:Scottish people of Irish descent Category:Scottish political writers Category:Scottish radio personalities Category:Scottish socialists Category:UK MPs 1987–1992 Category:UK MPs 1992–1997 Category:UK MPs 1997–2001 Category:UK MPs 2001–2005 Category:UK MPs 2005–2010 Category:UK MPs 2010– Category:United Nations Oil-for-Food scandal

ar:جورج غالوي cy:George Galloway de:George Galloway eo:George Galloway fa:جورج گالوی fr:George Galloway he:ג'ורג' גאלאוויי la:Georgius Galloway no:George Galloway nn:George Galloway pl:George Galloway ru:Галлоуэй, Джордж fi:George Galloway sv:George Galloway tl:George Galloway uk:Джордж Галловей

Conflict	Spanish Civil War
Date	17 July 1936  – 1 April 1939
Place	Continental Spain, Spanish Morocco, Spanish Sahara, Canary Islands, Balearic Islands, Spanish Guinea, Mediterranean, North Sea
Result	Nationalist (rebel) victory Dissolution of the Second Spanish Republic Beginning of Franco's dictatorship
Combatant1	Republican Popular Front CNT/FAI UGT ERC Basque Army (1936–1937) ---- Supported by: International Brigades (1936–1938)
Combatant2	National Falange Carlists (1936–1937) CEDA (1936–1937) Alfonsists (1936–1937) Army of Africa Supported by: (CTV) (Condor Legion) Portugal (Viriatos) Foreign volunteers
Commander1	Manuel Azaña Julián Besteiro Francisco Largo Caballero Juan Negrín Indalecio Prieto Vicente Rojo Lluch José Miaja Juan Modesto Juan Hernández Saravia Buenaventura Durruti Lluís Companys José Antonio Aguirre * Manfred Stern "Kléber"
Commander2	José Sanjurjo Emilio Mola Francisco Franco Miguel Cabanellas Manuel Goded Llopis Gonzalo Queipo de Llano Juan Yagüe Manuel Hedilla Manuel Fal Conde José María Gil-Robles y Quiñones
Strength1	450,000 infantry350 aircraft200 batteries(1938)
Strength2	600,000 infantry600 aircraft290 batteries(1938)
Casualties3	~500,000 killed :450,000 fled
Notes	}}

The Spanish Civil War was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939. The war began after a ''pronunciamiento'' (declaration of opposition) by a group of conservative generals under the leadership of José Sanjurjo against the Government of the Second Spanish Republic, at the time under the leadership of President Manuel Azaña. The rebel coup was supported by a number of conservative groups including the Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right, monarchists such as the Carlists, and the Fascist Falange.

Following the only partially successful coup, Spain was left militarily and politically divided. From that moment onwards Mola's successor, General Franco, began a protracted war with the established government, as loyalist supporters of the centre-left Republican Government fought the rebel forces for control of the country. The conservative generals (''nacionales'') received the support of Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy, as well as neighbouring Portugal, while the Soviet Union and Mexico intervened in support of the Republican government.

Bloody purges occurred in pieces of territory conquered from the republic in order to consolidate Franco's future regime, while similar killings took place in areas taken by the Republicans. The Civil War became notable for the passion and political division it inspired. Many civilians on both sides were killed for their political or religious views, and after the War's conclusion in 1939, those associated with the losing Republicans were persecuted by the victorious Nationalists.

The war ended with the victory of the rebel Nationalists, the overthrow of the Republican Government, and the exile of thousands of Spanish Republicans, many of whom fled to refugee camps in Southern France. With the establishment of a conservative dictatorship led by General Francisco Franco in the aftermath of the Civil War, all right-wing parties were fused into the structure of the Franco regime.

Background

Constitutional monarchy

The century preceding Spain's Civil War was a turbulent time for the nation, which underwent several internal conflicts and revolts among the reformists and conservatives who jockeyed for control. A liberal tradition that first ascended politically with the Spanish Constitution of 1812 sought to abolish the monarchy of the old regime and to establish a more ideologically compatible state. Between 1812 and the Civil War more than a century later, Liberalism's reformists attempted to realign the political system in a way that would accurately reflect Spain's societal realities.

The increasing power of liberals was felt strongly between 1868 and 1874, when a popular uprising led to the overthrowing of Isabella II. Her replacement, King Amadeo I, met a similar fate when he abdicated in 1873 as the monarchy faced mounting political pressure. The First Spanish Republic was soon proclaimed, but the restoration of the Bourbons came in December 1874 while the military quelled demonstrations. While universal male suffrage was introduced in 1890, the resulting elections were dominated by ''caciques'', local political bosses. Carlists – supporters of Infante Carlos and his descendants – opposed all liberal measures, while Anarchism became popular among the Spanish working class to a degree not seen anywhere else in Europe.

In the first two decades of the twentieth century, the industrial working class grew in number. There was a growing discontent amongst Basque and Catalonian people, where much of Spain's industry was based, that the government failed to represent their interests. Spain's socialist party, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and its associated trade union, the ''Unión General de Trabajadores'' (UGT), gained support. A related anti-clericalism arose that was influenced by men such as republican Reformist Party founder Alejandro Lerroux, who argued that the church was inseparable from the systematic oppression felt by Spaniards.

The military was keen to avoid the fracture of the state, and frowned upon regional nationalism. Resentment of the military and conscription grew with the disastrous Rif War, and culminated in the confrontations of Tragic Week that followed on Barcelona's streets. Animosity directed toward the military and government led to the establishment of the National Confederation of Labour (CNT), an anarchist-controlled trade union. After the formation of Comintern in 1919, a growing fear of Communism emerged, and the ideology was repressed by the government through military means. The Socialist PSOE split, with more radical members founding the Communist Party in 1921.

In 1923, Miguel Primo de Rivera seized power in a military coup, and governed Spain as a military dictatorship. He instituted new polices, including a sweeping programme of public works, and attempted to defend the agrarian-industrial monarchist coalition formed during the First World War. His support faded, but following Rivera's resignation in January 1930, there was little support for a return to the pre-1923 system, and the monarchy's backing of the military government caused it to forfeit democratic credibility.

The municipal elections of April 12, 1931 were supported little in major cities, and large numbers of people gathered in the streets of Madrid. King Alfonso XIII abdicated, lest he become then cause of an ensuing "fratricidal civil war." The Second Spanish Republic was formed.

Second Republic

The Second Republic had the broad support of all segments of society. Republican Niceto Alcalá-Zamora was made the Prime Minister of the republic. Elections to a constituent Cortes in June 1931 returned a large majority of Republicans and Socialists who formed a coalition of members with differing goals. The state's financial position was poor, and an opposition composed of Catholic movements such as the Asociación Católica de Propagandistas, catastrophic monarchists including Carlists and the Renovación Española, and Fascist organisations fought republican and socialist measures.

Those parts of the CNT willing to cooperate with the republic were forced out while it continued to mount opposition to the government. The opposition gained the support of the church and military, which felt alienated by increasing regional autonomy granted by the central government, and saw governmental reforms aimed at boosting army efficiency as a direct attack. The General Military Academy in Zaragoza, directed by Francisco Franco, was closed by Minister of War Manuel Azaña.

On December 9, 1931, a new constitution, the Spanish Constitution of 1931, was declared. The document was reformist, liberal and democratic in nature, and welcomed by the Republican-Socialist coalition. It appalled landowners, industrialists, the organised church, and army officers. The 1931 constitution removed any special Catholic rights, as the new government believed it was necessary to break the control the church had over Spanish affairs.

On 18 October 1931, Gil Robles the leading spokesman of the parliamentary opposition, called for a crusade against the republic. In October, both Alcalá Zamora and his interior minister, Miguel Maura, resigned, and Manuel Azaña became Prime Minister. Reformist Party founder Alejandro Lerroux, who had sought Azaña's position, felt alienated and led his Radicals to join the opposition, leaving the Prime Minister dependent only on the socialists.

By the end of 1931, King Alfonso, in exile, ceased attempting to prevent an armed insurrection of monarchists in Spain. Azaña declared that Spain had 'ceased to be Catholic'; although statistically justifiable, his remarks were politically unwise. Spanish Catholics enlisted in the opposition.

In August 1932, an unsuccessful uprising by General José Sanjurjo quickly disintegrated, and while Socialists stood by Azaña, the left as a whole fractured, while the right coalesced. Gil Robles set up a new party, the tacitly Fascist Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (, CEDA) to contest the 1933 election. The poll resulted in an overwhelming victory for the right, with the CEDA and Radicals together winning 219 seats, and outspending the Socialists, who campaigned alone.

Between 1934 and 1936, Spain entered a period deemed the "black two years" due to the rising tension and violence before the start of the war. Radicals became more aggressive, and conservatives turned to paramilitary and vigilante actions. The Socialist opposition began to propagate a revolutionary ideal. President Niceto Alcalá-Zamora declined to invite the leader of the CEDA, Gil Robles, to form a government and instead invited the Radical Republican Party's Lerroux to do so. The government set about removing price controls, selling state favours and monopolies, and removing the land reforms, which resulted in growing malnourishment in the south of Spain. The agrarian reforms went largely unenforced.

The first anarchist protests came on 8 December 1933, and were crushed by force easily in most of Spain. Both Carlists and Alfonsist monarchists prepared for fighting, the former undergoing military drills in Navarre. Open violence occurred in the streets of Spanish cities. Lerroux resigned in April 1934. Parts of the Socialist Party attempted to prevent the move towards Bolshevism they saw in the movement, leading to ruptures within the party's structure.

In September, Gil Robles' CEDA announced it would no longer support the Radicals' minority government; it was replaced by a Radical Party cabinet that included three members of his CEDA. A mostly unsuccessful UGT Socialist worker strike was followed by months of retaliation, repression and torture of political prisoners. Robles once again prompted a cabinet collapse, and five members of Lerroux's new government were conceded to CEDA. Farm workers' wages were halved, and the military was purged of Republican members and reformed; those loyal to Robles were promoted – Francisco Franco was made Chief of Staff.

In 1935, Azaña and Indalecio Prieto started to unify the left,staging large, popular rallies, in what would become the Popular Front. Lerroux's Radical government collapsed after two large scandals, including the Straperlo affair. However, Zamora did not allow the CEDA to form a government, and called elections, which were narrowly won by the under-financed Popular Front. Figures on the right began planning to overthrow of the republic. The republicans were left to govern alone; Azaña led a minority government. Acts of violence and reprisals spiralled, and in April parliament replaced Zamora with Azaña by appealing to a constitutional technicality.

CEDA turned its campaign chest over to Emilio Mola, whose organizational skills made him a formidable planner. The Fascist Falange expanded massively. Prieto did his best to avoid revolution, but Communists quickly took over the ranks of socialist organisations, which scared the middle classes. Several generals determined that the government had to be replaced if the dissolution of Spain was to be prevented. Their actions would lead to the military coup that started the Spanish Civil War.

Military coup

Preparations

The republican government had been attempting to remove suspect generals from their posts, and so Franco was sacked as chief of staff and transferred to command of the Canary islands. Goded was sacked as Inspector General and made general of the Balearic islands; Emilio Mola was moved from head of the Army of Africa to be military commander of Pamplona in Navarre. However, this allowed Mola to direct the mainland uprising. General José Sanjurjo became the figurehead of the operation, and helped to come to an agreement with the Carlists. Mola was chief planner and second in command. José Antonio Primo de Rivera was put in prison in mid-March in order to restrict the Falange. However, government actions were not as thorough as they might have been: warnings by the Director of Security and other figures were not acted upon.

On 12 June, Prime Minister Casares Quiroga met General Juan Yagüe, but Yagüe managed to convince Casares of his loyalty to the Republic. Mola began serious planning in the spring. Franco was a key player because of his prestige as a former director of the military academy and as the man who suppressed the Socialist uprising of 1934. He was well respected in the Army of Africa, Spain's toughest military force. He wrote a cryptic letter to Casares on 23 June, suggesting that the military was disloyal, but could be restrained if he were put in charge; Casares did nothing, failing to arrest or buy off Franco. On July 5, an aircraft was chartered to take Franco from the Canary Islands to Morocco. It arrived on July 14.

On 12 July 1936, in Madrid, members of the Falange murdered Lieutenant José Castillo of the Assault Guards police force. Castillo was a member of the Socialist party. The next day, members of the Assault Guards arrested José Calvo Sotelo, a leading Spanish monarchist and a prominent parliamentary conservative. Calvo Sotelo was shot by the Guards without trial. The killing of Sotelo, a prominent member of Parliament, with involvement of the police, aroused suspicions and strong reactions among the government's opponents on the right. Massive reprisals followed. Although the conservative Nationalist generals were already in advanced stages of a planned uprising, the event provided a catalyst and convenient public justification for their coup. The Socialists and Communists (lead by Prieto) demanded that arms be distributed to the people, before the military took over. The Prime Minister was hesitant. Franco's plane landed in Gran Canaria on July 14.

Beginning of the coup

[[File:Guerra Civil Española.svg|thumb|350px|General map of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). 10px Main Nationalist centres 10px Main Republican centres 25px Land battles 25px Naval battles 25px Bombed cities 25px Concentration camps 25px Massacres 10px Refugee camps ]] The uprising's timing was fixed at 17 July, at 5:00 p.m.; this was agreed to by the leader of the Carlists, Manuel Fal Conde. However, the timing was changed: the men in Spanish Morocco were to rise up at 5:00 a.m. and those in Spain itself starting exactly a day later, so control of Spanish Morocco could be achieved and forces sent to Iberia from Morocco to coincide with the risings there. The rising was intended to be a swift coup d'état, but the government retained control of most of the country.

Control in Spanish Morocco was all but certain. The plan was discovered in Morocco during 17 July, which prompted it to be enacted immediately. Little resistance was encountered; in total, 189 people were shot by the rebels. Goded and Franco immediately took control of the islands to which they were assigned. On 18 July, Casares Quiroga refused an offer of help from the CNT and UGT, leading the groups to proclaim a general strike, in effect mobilising. They open weapons caches, some buried since the 1934 risings. The paramilitary forces often waited to see the outcome of militia action before either joining or suppressing the rebellion. Quick action by either the rebels or anarchist militias was often enough to decide the fate of a town. General Queipo de Llano managed to secure Seville for the rebels, arresting a number of other officers.

Outcome

The rebels failed to take any major cities with the critical exception of Seville which provided a landing point for Franco’s African troops. The primarily conservative and Catholic areas of Old Castile and León fell quickly. The government retained control of Málaga, Jaén and Almería. Cadiz was taken for the rebels with the help of the first troops from the Army of Africa. In Madrid they were hemmed into the Montaña barracks, with fell with much bloodshed. Republican leader Santiago Casares Quiroga was replaced by José Giral who ordered the distribution of weapons among the civilian population. This facilitated the defeat of the army insurrection in the main industrial centres, including Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia, but it allowed the anarchists to take control of Barcelona and large swathes of Aragon and Catalonia. General Goded surrendered in Barcelona and was later condemned to death.

The Republican Government ended up with controlling almost all of the east coast and central area around Madrid, as well as Asturias, Cantabria and part of the Basque Country in the north. Mola was keen to create a sense of fear within Nationalist-controlled areas.The rebels termed themselves "Nacionales", normally translated as "Nationalists", although the former implies "true Spaniards" rather than a pure nationalistic cause.

The result of the coup was a nationalist area of control containing 11 million of Spain's population of 25 million. The Nationalists had secured the support of around half of Spain's territorial army, some 60,000 men, joined by the Army of Africa, made up of 35,000 men, and a little under half of Spain's militaristic police forces, the Assault Guards, the Civil Guards, and the Carabineers. Republicans controlled under half of rifles, and about a third of both machine guns and artillery pieces. The Spanish Army had just 18 tanks of a sufficiently modern design, and the Republicans retained 10. Naval capacity was fairly even, with the Republicans retaining a numerical advantage but with the Navy's top ships in Nationalist hands. The Republican navy suffered from the same problems as the army: many officers had defected or had been killed after trying to do so. Two-thirds of air capability was retained by the government – however, the whole of the air service was very outdated.

Combatants

The war was cast by Republican sympathizers as a struggle between "tyranny and democracy", and by Nationalist supporters as between communist and anarchist "red hordes" and "Christian civilization". Nationalists also claimed to be protecting the establishment and bringing security and direction to an ungoverned and lawless society.

Spanish politics, especially on the left, were quite fragmented, as socialists and radicals supported democracy, while communists and anarchists opposed the institution of the republic as much as monarchists. There were internal divisions even among the socialists: a group that adhered to classical Marxism, and a more progressive Marxist group. The Conservatives, by contrast, were united by their fervent opposition to the Republican government, and presented a more unified front.

Republicans

The Republicans (also known as Spanish loyalists) received weapons and volunteers from the Soviet Union, Mexico, the international Marxists movement and International Brigades. Their supporters ranged from centrists who supported a moderately capitalist liberal democracy to revolutionary anarchists; their base was primarily secular and urban, but also included landless peasants, and was particularly strong in industrial regions like Asturias and Catalonia.

This faction was called variously the "loyalists" by its supporters; the "Republicans", "the Popular Front" or "the Government" by all parties, while its enemies referred to Republicans as "the reds". Republicans were supported by most urban workers, a large share of peasants, and much of the educated middle class.

The conservative, strongly Catholic Basque country, along with Galicia and the more left-leaning Catalonia, sought autonomy or even independence from the central government of Madrid. The Republican government allowed for the possibility of self-government for the two regions, whose forces were gathered under the People's Republican Army (''Ejército Popular Republicano'', or EPR).

Nationalists

The Nationalists (''nacionales''), (also called "insurgents", "rebels" or by opponents "Francoists" or "Fascists") fearing national fragmentation, opposed the separatist movements, and were chiefly defined by their anti-communism, which galvanized diverse or opposed movements like falangists and monarchists. Their leaders had a generally wealthier, more conservative, monarchist, landowning background.

The Nationalist side included the Carlists and Alfonsist monarchists, Spanish nationalists, the fascist Falange, and most conservatives and monarchist liberals. Virtually all Nationalist groups had strong Catholic convictions and supported the native Spanish clergy. The Nationals included the majority of the Catholic clergy and practitioners (outside of the Basque region), important elements of the army, most large landowners, and many businessmen.

One of the rightists' principal stated motives was to confront the anti-clericalism of the Republican regime and to defend the Church, which had been the targeted by opponents, including Republicans who blamed the institution for the country's ills. Prior to the war, in the Asturias uprising of 1934, religious buildings were burnt and at least one hundred clergy, religious civilians, and police were killed by revolutionaries against whom the president and the radicals prevented the implementation of serious sanctions or punishment.

Articles 24 and 26 of the Constitution of Spain's Republic had banned the Jesuits, which deeply offended many within the conservative fold. The revolution in the Republican zone at the outset of the war, killing 7,000 clergy and thousands of lay people, drove many Catholics to the Nationalist faction.

Other factions

Catalan and Basque nationalists were not univocal. Left-wing Catalan nationalists sided with the Republicans, while Conservative Catalan nationalists were far less vocal supporting the government due to anti-clericalism and confiscations occurring in areas within its control. Basque nationalists, heralded by the conservative Basque Nationalist Party, were mildly supportive of the Republican government, even though some in Navarre sided with the uprising for the same reasons influencing conservative Catalans. Notwithstanding religious matters, Basque nationalists, who were for the most part Catholic, generally sided with the Republicans.

Foreign involvement

The Spanish Civil War involved large numbers of non-Spanish citizens who participated in combat and advisory positions. Germany and Italy contributed large amounts of financial assistance and military aid to forces led by Franco. Forces fighting on behalf of the Republican faction also received support, but the Republic's allies were seriously hampered by the non-intervention proclaimed by France and the United Kingdom. The attempted suppression of imported materials was largely ineffective, however, and France especially was accused of allowing large shipments to Republican troops. The clandestine actions of the various European powers were at the time considered to be risking another 'Great War'.

The League of Nations' reaction to the war was mostly neutral and insufficient to contain the massive importation by fighting factions of arms and other war resources. Although a Non-Intervention Committee was formed, its policies accomplished little, and its directives were dismantled due to the policies of appeasement practised by European states; the official Spanish government of Juan Negrín was gradually abandoned within the organization during this period.

Support for the Nationalists

Germany

Despite the German signing of a non-intervention agreement in September 1936, various forms of aid and military help from Germany found their way to both sides of the Spanish conflict, largely in support of the Nationalist faction. Nazi actions included the formation of the multitasking Condor Legion, while German efforts to move the Army of Africa to mainland Spain proved successful in the war's early stages. German operations slowly expanded to include strike targets, most notably —and controversially— the bombing of Guernica, which on 26 April 1937 killed 200 to 300 civilians.

German involvement was further manifested through undertakings such as Operation Ursula, a U-boat undertaking, and contributions from the Kriegsmarine. The Legion spearheaded many Nationalist victories, particularly in aerial combat, while Spain further provided a proving ground for German tank tactics. The training German units provided to Nationalist force would prove valuable; by the War's end, perhaps fifty-six thousand Nationalist soldiers encompassing infantry, artillery, aerial and naval forces had been trained by German detachments.

Probably a total of 16,000 German citizens fought in the War, including approximately 300 killed, though no more than ten thousand participated at any one time. German aid to the Nationalists amounted to approximately £43,000,000 ($215,000,000) in 1939 prices, 15.5% of which was used for salaries and expenses and 21.9% for direct delivery of supplies to Spain, while 62.6% was expended on the Condor Legion.

Italy

After Francisco Franco’s request and encouragement by Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini joined the war. While the conquest of Abyssinia had made Italy's delirious of power, a Spanish ally would help secure Italian control of the Mediterranean. The Royal Italian Navy (''Regia Marina Italiana'') played a substantial role in the Mediterranean blockade and ultimately Italy supplied machine guns, artillery, aircraft, tankettes, the Legionary Air Force (), and the Corps of Volunteer Troops (, or CTV) to the Nationalist cause. The Italian CTV would at its peak supply the Nationalists with 50,000 men.

Portugal

António de Oliveira Salazar's Estado Novo played an important role in supplying Franco’s forces with ammunition and logistical help. Despite its discreet direct military involvement — restrained to a somewhat "semi-official" endorsement, by its authoritarian regime, of a volunteer force of up to 20,000, so-called "Viriatos" — for the whole duration of the conflict, Portugal was instrumental in providing the Nationalists with a organizational skills and reassurance from the Spanish neighbor to Franco and his allies that no interference would hinder the supply traffic directed to the Nationalist cause.

Others

Despite the Irish government's prohibition against participating in the war, around six hundred Irishmen, followers of Eoin O'Duffy known as the "Irish Brigade", went to Spain to fight alongside Franco. Romanian volunteers were led by Ion I Moţa, deputy-leader of the Legion of the Archangel Michael (or Iron Guard), whose group of seven Legionaries visited Spain in December 1936 to ally their movement with the Nationalists.

Support for the Republicans

International Brigades

Many non-Spaniards, often affiliated with radical communist or socialist entities, joined the International Brigades, believing that the Spanish Republic was a front line in the war against fascism. The units' represented the largest foreign contingent of those fighting for the Republicans. Roughly forty thousand foreign nationals fought with the Brigades, though no more than 18,000 were entered into the conflict at any given time; they claimed to represent 53 states.

Significant numbers of volunteers originated in France (10,000), Germany and Austria (5,000) and Italy (3,350). More than 1,000 came from the USSR, United States, United Kingdom, Yugoslavia, Hungary and Canada. The Thälmann Battalion, a group of Germans, distinguished their unit during the Siege of Madrid. Americans fought in units such as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, while Canadians joined the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion.

Over five hundred Romanians fought on the Republican side, including Romanian Communist Party members Petre Borilă and Valter Roman. About 80 volunteers from Ireland formed the Connolly Column. Some Chinese joined the Brigades, the majority of which returned to China, while some went to prison or French refugee camps, and a handful remained in Spain.

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union primarily provided material assistance to the Republican forces. In total the USSR provided the leftists with 806 planes, 362 tanks, and 1,555 artillery pieces. The Soviet Union ignored the League of Nations embargo and sold arms to the Republic when few other nations would do so; it was therefore the Republic's only source of major weapons. Stalin had signed the Non-Intervention Agreement but decided to break the pact, though he tried doing so secretly, unlike Hitler and Mussolini.

The Soviet premier created a section X of the Soviet Union military to head the weapons shipment operation, coined Operation X. Despite Stalin's interest in aiding the Republicans, however, most of the weapons and artillery sent to Spain were relics, some captured from past conflicts. Occasionally, modern weapons such as BT-5 tanks were sent.

Many of the Soviet deliveries were lost, due to short notice on orders, or arrived only partially matching what Stalin had authorised. When the ships left with supplies for the Republican cause, their journeys were extremely slow. Stalin ordered the builders to include false decks in the original designs of boats. Furthermore, once the sea vessels left shore, the Soviets were required to change flags and boat colors to minimize capture by the Nationalists. Such manoeuvres become unnecessary in 1938, however, when Stalin withdrew his troops and tanks as government ranks floundered. The Republican-Soviet alliance was an uneasy affair, and had the Spanish leftists had the opportunity to buy transport and weapons from alternative sources, they may have cut ties with Moscow.

The Republic was obligated to pay for Soviet arms with official Bank of Spain gold reserves, in an affair that would become a frequent subject of Francoist propaganda, under the term "Moscow Gold". The cost to the Republic of Soviet arms was more than US $500 million (in 1936 prices); the entire of Spain's gold reserve, the fourth-largest in the world. 176 tonnes was transferred through France.

The USSR further sent a number of military advisers to Spain (2,000–3,000), and while Soviet troops amounted to no more than 500 men at a time, Soviet volunteers often operated Soviet-made Republican tanks and aircraft, particularly at the beginning of the war. In addition, the Soviet Union directed Communist parties around the world to organize and recruit the International Brigades. Another significant Soviet involvement were the pervasive activities of the NKVD spanning the Republican rearguard. Communist figures like Vittorio Vidali ("Comandante Contreras"), Iosif Grigulevich and, most prominently, Alexander Orlov led "secret" operations that included murders like those of Andreu Nin and José Robles.

Mexico

Unlike the United States and major Latin American governments such as the ABC Powers and Peru, the Mexican government supported the Republicans. Mexico refused to follow the French-British non-intervention proposals, furnishing $2,000,000 in aid and material assistance, which included 20,000 rifles and 20 million cartridges.

Mexico's most important contributions to the Spanish Republic were its diplomatic help, as well as the sanctuary the nation arranged for Republican refugees, including Spanish intellectuals and orphaned children from Republican families. Some 50,000 took refuge, primarily in Mexico City, accompanied by $300 million in various treasures still owned by the Left.

Course of the war

1936

[[File:Map of the Spanish Civil War in September 1936.png|right|thumb|Map showing Spain in September 1936: ]]

A large air and sea-lift of Nationalist troops in Spanish Morocco was organised to the south-west of Spain. Coup leader Sanjurjo was killed in a plane crash on 20 July, leaving an effective command split between Mola in the North and Franco in the South. This period also saw the worst actions of the so-called "Red" and "White" "Terrors" in Spain. On 21 July, the fifth day of the rebellion, the Nationalists captured the central Spanish naval base, located in Ferrol in north-western Spain.

A rebel force under Colonel Beorlegui Canet, sent by General Mola, undertook the Campaign of Guipúzcoa from July to September. The capture of Guipúzcoa isolated the Republican provinces in the north. On 5 September, after heavy fighting the force took Irún, closing the French border to the Republicans. On 15 September, San Sebastián, home to a divided Republican force of anarchists and Basque nationalists, was taken by Nationalist soldiers. The Nationalists then advanced toward their capital, Bilbao, but were halted by Republican militias on the border of Vizcaya at the end of September.

The Republican government under Giral resigned on 4 September, unable to cope with the situation in which it found itself, and was replaced by a mostly Socialist organization under Largo Caballero. The new leadership began to unify central command in the republican zone. On the Nationalist side, Franco was chosen as chief military commander at a meeting of ranking generals at Salamanca on 21 September, now called by the title ''Generalísimo''. Franco won another victory on 27 September when his troops relieved the Alcázar in Toledo that had been held by a Nationalist garrison under Colonel Moscardo since the beginning of the rebellion, resisting thousands of Republican troops who totally surrounded the isolated building. Two days after relieving the siege, Franco proclaimed himself ''Caudillo'' ("chieftain"), while forcibly unifying the various and diverse Falangist, Royalist and other elements within the Nationalist cause. The diversion to Toledo gave Madrid time to prepare a defense, but was hailed as a major propaganda victory and personal success for Franco.

In October, the Francoist troops launched a major offensive toward Madrid, reaching it in early November and launching a major assault on the city on 8 November. The Republican government was forced to shift from Madrid to Valencia, outside the combat zone, on 6 November. However, the Nationalists' attack on the capital was repulsed in fierce fighting between 8 November and 23 November. A contributory factor in the successful Republican defense was the arrival of the International Brigades, though only an approximate three thousand foreign volunteers participated in the battle. Having failed to take the capital, Franco bombarded it from the air and, in the following two years, mounted several offensives to try to encircle Madrid. The battle of the Corunna Road, a Nationalist offensive to the north-west, pushed Republican forces back, but failed to isolate Madrid. The city lasted into January.

1937

[[File:Map of the Spanish Civil War in October 1937.png|right|thumb|Map showing Spain in October 1937: ]]

With his ranks swelled by Italian troops and Spanish colonial soldiers from Morocco, Franco made another attempt to capture Madrid in January and February 1937, but was again unsuccessful. The Battle of Málaga started in mid-January; this Nationalist offensive in Spain's south-east would turn into a disaster for the Republicans, who were poorly organised and armed. The city was taken by Franco on 8 February. The consolidation of various militias into the Republican Army had started in December 1936. The main Nationalist advance, to cross the Jarama river and cut the supply of Madrid by the Valencia road, termed the Battle of Jarama, led to heavy casualties (6–20,000) on both sides. The operation's main objective was not met, though Nationalists gained a modest amount of territory. A similar Nationalist offensive, the Battle of Guadalajara, was a more significant defeat for Franco and his armies; it proved the only publicised Republican victory of the war. Italian troops and blitzkrieg tactics were used by Franco, and while many strategists blamed the latter for the rightists' defeat, the Germans believed it was the former at fault for the Nationalists' 5,000 casualties and loss of valuable equipment. The German strategists successfully argued that the Nationalists needed to concentrate on vulnerable areas first.

thumb|right|Ruins of [[Guernica (town)|Guernica ]] The "War in the North" began in mid-March, with Vizcaya as a first target. The Basques suffered most from the lack of a suitable air force; on 26 April, the Condor Legion bombed the town of Guernica, killing two to three hundred. The destruction had a significant effect on international opinion. The Basques retreated.

April and May saw infighting among Republican groups in Catalonia. The dispute was between an ultimately victorious government–Communist force and the anarchist CNT. The disturbance pleased Nationalist command, but little was done to exploit Republican divisions. After the fall of Guernica, the Republican government began to fight back with increasing effectiveness. In July, it made a move to recapture Segovia, forcing Franco to delay his advance on the Bilbao front, but for only two weeks. A similar Republican attack on Huesca failed similarly. Mola, Franco's second-in-command, was killed on 3 June. In early July, despite the earlier fall in June of Bilbao, the government launched a strong counter-offensive to the west of Madrid, focusing on Brunete. The Battle of Brunete, however, was a significant defeat for the Republic, which lost many of its most accomplished troops. The offensive had led to an advance of , and left 25,000 Republican casualties.

A Republican offensive against Zaragoza was also a failure. Despite having land and aerial advantages, the Battle of Belchite resulted in an advance of only ten kilometres and the loss of much equipment. Franco invaded Aragón in August and then took the city of Santander. With the surrender of the Republican army in the Basque territory came the Santoña Agreement; Gijón finally fell in late October. Franco had effectively won in the north. At November's end, with Franco's troops closing in on Valencia, the government had to move again, this time to Barcelona.

1938

[[File:Map of the Spanish Civil War in July 1938.png|thumb|right|Map showing Spain in July 1938: ]] The Battle of Teruel was an important confrontation. The city, which had formerly belonged to the Nationalists, was conquered by Republicans in January. The Francoist troops launched an offensive and recovered the city by 22 February, but Franco was forced to rely heavily on German and Italian air support.

On 7 March, Nationalists launched the Aragon Offensive, and by 14 April, they had pushed through to the Mediterranean, cutting the Republican-held portion of Spain in two. The Republican government attempted suing for peace in May, but Franco demanded unconditional surrender; the war raged on. In July, the Nationalist army pressed southward from Teruel and south along the coast toward the capital of the Republic at Valencia, but was halted in heavy fighting along the XYZ Line, a system of fortifications defending Valencia.

The Republican government then launched an all-out campaign to reconnect their territory in the Battle of the Ebro, from 24 July until 26 November. The campaign was unsuccessful, and was undermined by the Franco-British appeasement of Hitler in Munich. The agreement with Britain effectively destroyed Republican morale by ending hope of an anti-fascist alliance with Western powers. The retreat from the Ebro all but determined the final outcome of the war. Eight days before the new year, Franco threw massive forces into an invasion of Catalonia.

1939

[[File:Map of the Spanish Civil War in February 1939.png|thumb|right|Map showing Spain in February 1939: ]] Franco's troops conquered Catalonia in a whirlwind campaign during the first two months of 1939. Tarragona fell on 15 January, followed by Barcelona on 26 January and Gerona on 2 February. On 27 February, the United Kingdom and France recognized the Franco regime.

Only Madrid and a few other strongholds remained for the Republican forces. On 28 March, with the help of pro-Franco forces inside the city, Madrid fell to the Nationalists. The next day, Valencia, which had held out from Nationalists for close to two years, also surrendered. Franco proclaimed victory in a radio speech aired on 1 April, when the last of the Republican forces surrendered.

After the end of the War, there were harsh reprisals against Franco's former enemies; thousands of Republicans were imprisoned and at least 30,000 executed. Other calculations of these deaths range from 50,000 to 200,000 depending on which killings are included.Many others were put to forced labour, building railways, drying out swamps, and digging canals.

Hundreds of thousands of Republicans fled abroad, some 500,000 to France. Refugees were confined in internment camps of the French Third Republic, such as Camp Gurs or Camp Vernet, where twelve thousand Republicans were housed in squalid conditions. Of the 17,000 refugees housed in Gurs, farmers and others who could not find relations in France were encouraged by the Third Republic, in agreement with the Francoist government, to return to Spain. The great majority did so and were turned over to the Francoist authorities in Irún. From there they were transferred to the Miranda de Ebro camp for "purification" according to the Law of Political Responsibilities. After the proclamation by Marshal Philippe Pétain of the Vichy regime, the refugees became political prisoners, and the French police attempted to round up those who had been liberated from the camp. Along with other "undesirables", the Spaniards were sent to the Drancy internment camp before being deported to Nazi Germany. About 5,000 Spaniards thus died in the Mauthausen concentration camp.

After the official end of the war, guerrilla war was waged on an irregular basis by the Spanish Maquis well into the 1950s, being gradually reduced by military defeats and scant support from the exhausted population. In 1944, a group of republican veterans, who also fought in the French resistance against the Nazis, invaded the Val d'Aran in northwest Catalonia, but were defeated after ten days.

Evacuation of children

The Republicans oversaw the evacuation of 30–35,000 children from their zone. This started with Basque areas, from which 20,000 were evacuated. Their destinations included the United Kingdom and the USSR, and many other locations in Europe, along with Mexico. Around 4,000 were taken to the UK against initial opposition from both the government and charitable groups who saw the removal of children from their native country as potentially harmful. The upper age limit was initially set at 12 but raised to 15.

Atrocities

Death totals remain debated. Antony Beevor writes in his history of the Civil War that Franco's ensuing 'white terror' resulted in the deaths of 200,000 people and that the 'red terror' killed 38,000. Julius Ruiz contends that "although the figures remain disputed, a minimum of 37,843 executions were carried out in the Republican zone with a maximum of 150,000 executions (including 50,000 after the war) in Nationalist Spain". In 2008 a Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón, opened an investigation into the executions and disappearances of 114,266 people between 17 July 1936 and December 1951 (Garzón has since been indicted for violating a 1977 amnesty law through his actions). Among the executions investigated was that of the poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca; mention of his death was forbidden during Franco's regime.

Nationalists

Atrocities of the Nationalists, frequently ordered by authorities in order to eradicate any trace of leftism in Spain, were common. According to historian Paul Preston, the minimum number of those executed by the rebels is 130,000, and is likely to have been far higher. The violence carried out in the rebel zone was carried out by the military, the Civil Guard and the Falange in the name of the regime and legitimized by the Catholic Church.

Many such acts were committed by reactionary groups during the first weeks of the war. This included the execution of school teachers, because the efforts of the Second Spanish Republic to promote laicism and displace the Church from schools by closing religious educational institutions were considered by the Nationalists as an attack on the Roman Catholic Church. Extensive killings of civilians were carried out in the cities Nationalists captured, along with the execution of unwanted individuals. These included non-combatants such as trade-unionists, Popular Front politicians, suspected Freemasons, Basque, Catalan, Andalusian and Galician Nationalists, Republican intellectuals, relatives of known Republicans and those suspected of voting for the Popular Front.

Nationalist forces massacred civilians in Seville, where some 8,000 people were shot; ten thousand were killed in Córdoba. 6–12,000 were killed in Badajoz. In Granada, at least 2000 people were murdered. In February 1937, over seven thousand were killed after the capture of Málaga. When Bilbao was conquered thousands of people were sent to prison; there were fewer executions than usual, however, because of the effect Guernica left on Nationalists' reputations internationally. The numbers killed as the successful columns of the Army of Africa devastated and pillaged their way between Seville and Madrid are particularly difficult to calculate.

Nationalists also murdered Catholic clerics. In one particular incident, following the capture of Bilbao, hundreds of people, including 16 priests who had served as chaplains for the Republican forces, were taken to the countryside or graveyards to be murdered.

Franco's forces also persecuted Protestants, including the murder of twenty Protestant ministers. Franco's forces were determined to remove the "Protestant heresy" from Spain. The Nationalists also persecuted Basques, as they strived to eradicate Basque culture. According to Basque sources, some 22,000 Basques were murdered by Nationalists immediately after the Civil War.

The Nationalist side also conducted aerial bombing of cities in Republican territory, carried out mainly by the ''Luftwaffe'' volunteers of the ''Condor Legion'' and the ''Italian air force'' volunteers of the ''Corpo Truppe Volontarie'', Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Guernica, Durango and other cities were targeted, the Bombing of Guernica was among the most controversial.

Republicans

According to the Nationalists, an estimated 55,000 civilians died in Republican-held territories. This is considered excessive by Antony Beevor; however, it was much less than the half a million claimed during the war. The deaths would form the prevailing outside opinion of the Republic up until the bombing of Guernica. The Republican government was anticlerical, and supporters attacked and murdered Roman Catholic clergy in reaction to news of military revolt. In Republican held territories, Roman Catholic churches were desecrated. Through the war, nearly all segments of the Republicans, Basques being a notable exception, took part in semi-organized anti-Roman Catholic killing of 6,832 members of Catholic clergy and religious orders (including 13 bishops, 4,184 priests, 2,365 monks and friars, and 283 nuns). The "Execution" of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Communist militiamen at Cerro de los Ángeles near Madrid, on 7 August 1936, was the most infamous of widespread desecration of religious property. It was justified by reference to the Church's political role in the Civil War, which was considerable. By the conflict's end 20 percent of the nation's clergy had been killed, though some argue the totals were lower.

Like clergy, civilians were executed in Republican territories. Some civilians were executed as suspected Falangists. Others died in acts of revenge after Republicans heard of massacres carried out in the Nationalist zone. Air raids committed against Republican cities were another driving factor. Republican authorities did not order such measures to be taken. Shopkeepers and industrialists, if rightist collaborators, were shot; if they were well regarded for their attitude to the poor, they were usually spared. Fake justice was sought though commission, known by its name in Russia as ''checas''. As pressure mounted with increasing success of the Nationalists, many civilians were executed by councils and tribunals controlled by competing Communist and Anarchist groups. Some members of the latter were executed by Soviet-advised communist functionaries in Catalonia, as described by George Orwell's description of the purges in Barcelona in 1937 in ''Homage to Catalonia'', which followed a period of increasing tension between Competing elements of the Catalan political scene. Some individuals fled to friendly embassies, which would house up to 8,500 people during the war.

In the Andalusian town of Ronda, 512 alleged Nationalists were executed in the first month of the war. Communist Santiago Carrillo Solares has been accused of the killing of Nationalists in the Paracuellos massacre near Paracuellos del Jarama. Pro-Soviet Communists committed numerous atrocities against fellow Republicans, including other Marxists: André Marty, known as the Butcher of Albacete, was responsible for the deaths of some 500 members of the International Brigades. Andreu Nin, leader of the POUM (Workers' Party of Marxist Unification), and many other prominent POUM members, were murdered by the Communists, with the help of the USSR's NKVD.

Thirty eight thousand people were killed in the Republican zone during the war, 17,000 of whom were killed in Madrid or Catalonia within a month of the coup. Whilst the Communists were forthright in their support of extrajudicial killings, much of the Republican side was appalled by the murders. Azaña came close to resigning. He, alongside other members of parliament and a great number of other local officials, attempted to prevent Nationalist supporters being lynched. Some of those in positions of power intervened personally to stop the killings.

Social revolution

In the anarchist-controlled areas, Aragón and Catalonia, in addition to the temporary military success, there was a vast social revolution in which the workers and peasants collectivised land and industry, and set up councils parallel to the paralyzed Republican government. This revolution was opposed by both the Soviet-supported communists who, perhaps surprisingly, campaigned against the loss of civil property rights. The agrarian collectives had considerable success despite opposition and lack of resources.

As the war progressed, the government and the communists were able to leverage their access to Soviet arms to restore government control over the war effort, through both diplomacy and force. Anarchists and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (''Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista'', POUM) were integrated into the regular army, albeit with resistance; the POUM was outlawed and falsely denounced as an instrument of the fascists. In the ''May Days'' of 1937, many thousands of anarchist and communist Republican soldiers fought for control of strategic points in Barcelona.

The pre-war Falange was a small party of some 30–40,000 members. It also called for a social revolution that would have seen Spanish society transformed by National Syndicalism. Following the execution of its leader, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, by the Republicans, the party swelled in size to several hundred thousand members. The leadership of the Falange suffered 60% casualties in the early days of the civil war and the party was transformed by new members and rising new leaders, called ''camisas nuevas'' ("new shirts"), who were less interested in the revolutionary aspects of National Syndicalism. Subsequently, Franco united all rightist parties into the Traditionalist Spanish Falange and the National Syndicalist Offensive Juntas (, FET y de las JONS).

The 1930s also saw Spain become a focus for pacifist organizations including the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the War Resisters League and the War Resisters' International. Many people including, as they are now called, the 'insumisos' ('defiant ones', conscientious objectors) argued and worked for non-violent strategies. Prominent Spanish pacifists such as Amparo Poch y Gascón and José Brocca supported the Republicans. Brocca argued that Spanish pacifists had no alternative but to make a stand against fascism. He put this stand into practice by various means including organizing agricultural workers to maintain food supplies and through humanitarian work with war refugees.

People

Figures identified with the Nationalist side :''Military''

Francisco Franco (Spain)

Miguel Cabanellas (Spain)

José Sanjurjo (Spain)

Emilio Mola (Spain)

Gonzalo Queipo de Llano (Spain)

Juan Yagüe (Spain)

Hugo Sperrle (Germany)

Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma (Germany)

Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen (Germany)

Mario Roatta (Italy)

Ettore Bastico (Italy)

:''Non-military''

Salvador Dalí

Pedro Muñoz Seca (assassinated)

Ramón Serrano Súñer

Miguel Delibes

Figures identified with the Republican side :''Politicians or military''

Manuel Azaña (Republican)

Santiago Carrillo (Communist)

Valentin González (''"El Campesino"'') (Communist)

Dolores Ibarruri (''"La Pasionaria"'') (Communist)

Francisco Largo Caballero (Socialist)

Diego Martínez Barrio (Republican)

Juan Negrín (Socialist)

Andrés Nin (Communist)

Indalecio Prieto (Socialist)

:''Others (including volunteers)''

W. H. Auden

Federico García Lorca (assassinated)

Pablo Picasso

Ernest Hemingway

Laurie Lee

George Orwell

Political parties and organizations

See also

List of foreign ships wrecked or lost in the Spanish Civil War

Catholicism in the Second Spanish Republic

''Guernica'' (painting)

''The Falling Soldier''

List of war films and TV specials#Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)

List of foreign correspondents in the Spanish Civil War

Polish volunteers in the Spanish Civil War

Jewish volunteers in the Spanish Civil War

European Civil War

Spain in World War II

Surviving veterans of the Spanish Civil War

SS ''Cantabria''

Nationalist Foreign Volunteers

Pacifism in Spain

Spanish Republican Air Force

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography and books by noted authors

First published as ''The Spanish Civil War''.

Further reading

External links

Primary documents

Magazines and journals published during the war, an online exhibit maintained by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (English, Spanish)

A collection of essays by Albert and Vera Weisbord with about a dozen essays written during and about the Spanish Civil War.

La Cucaracha, The Spanish Civil War Diary, a detailed chronicle of the events of the war

Ronald Hilton, ''Spain, 1931–36, From Monarchy to Civil War, An Eyewitness Account''

Mary Low and Juan Breá: ''Red Spanish Book''. A testimony by two surrealists and trotskytes

Spanish Civil War and Revolution text archive in the libcom.org library

Southworth Spanish Civil War Collection, books and other literature housed at Mandeville Special Collection Library, University of California, San Diego

Images and films

Spain in Revolt, newsreel documentary (Video Stream) (Part 1, 2)

Imperial War Museum Collection of Spanish Civil War Posters hosted online by Visual Arts Data Service (VADS)

Posters of the Spanish Civil War from UCSD's Southworth collection

Civil War Documentaries made by the CNT

Spanish Civil War and Revolution image gallery – photographs and posters from the conflict

Aircraft of the Spanish Civil War

Battle of Rio Segre Photographs Capa, Robert (1938) International Center of Photography.

Academics and governments

A History of the Spanish Civil War, excerpted from a U.S. government country study.

''Dutch Involvement in the Spanish Civil War''. Columbia Historical Review.

"The Spanish Civil War – causes and legacy" on BBC Radio 4's ''In Our Time'' featuring Paul Preston, Helen Graham and Dr Mary Vincent

Other

Original war reports from ''The Times''

The Anarcho-Statists of Spain, a different view of the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War, George Mason University

Spanish Civil War information from Spartacus Educational

American Jews in Spanish Civil War, by Martin Sugarman

The Spanish Revolution, 1936–39 articles and links, from Anarchy Now!

The Revolutionary Institutions: The Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias, by Juan García Oliver

Warships of the Spanish Civil War

¡No Pasarán! Speech Dolores Ibárruri's famous rousing address for the defense of the Second Republic

New Zealand and the Spanish Civil War

Category:Carlism Category:Civil wars involving the states and peoples of Europe Category:Civil wars post-1945 Category:1930s conflicts Category:1930s in Spain Category:Francoist Spain Category:Succession-based civil wars Category:Wars involving Spain Category:Wars involving the states and peoples of Europe

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