Stalin, Spain and the Making of a Warlord: The Sources of Soviet Intervention in the Spanish Civil War
Socialist History - ISSN 0969-4331
Volume 2023 Number 63
Stalin, Spain and the Making of a Warlord: The Sources of Soviet Intervention in the Spanish Civil War
Geoffrey Roberts pages 33-49
Abstract
Stalin was central to the Soviet intervention in the Spanish civil war: no foreign cause was closer to his heart or more strategically important. The Soviets’ covert programme of military aid to Republican Spain began at his behest. Hundreds of documents in Russian archives detail Moscow’s political advice and practical aid to Republican Spain and provide abundant evidence of Stalin’s sustained attention to the progress of the civil war. All the threads of the Soviet war effort in relation to Spain – military, economic, political, social and cultural – were held together by Stalin. It was Stalin who decided what arms were sent to Spain, in what quantities and at what price. All decisions of any significance in relation to Spain – and a good many not-so-important ones – were taken by Stalin or by his Politburo. Together with the Russian Civil War, the Spanish conflict shaped Stalin’s early formation as a warlord.
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To cite this article
Geoffrey Roberts (2023) Stalin, Spain and the Making of a Warlord: The Sources of Soviet Intervention in the Spanish Civil War, Socialist History, 2023(63), 33-49