Stanley Payne on Spanish Civil War and Franco

Chronicles Magazine Podcast episode 18

As I regret not having the time (or more specifically, the mental bandwidth) to complete several half-done essays of late, I do feel compelled to share a conversation I had with the great historian of twentieth century Spain: Professor Stanley Payne. Professor Payne is the foremost living expert on the Spanish Civil War and is a friend of Paul Gottfried. He is also contributing an essay to the festschrift I am editing for Paul.

I was delighted to talk to him about some of the themes in his studies of the clash between the “republican” revolutionaries and the counter-revolutionary nationalists in 1930s Spain. Payne argues that what happened in Spain was the most important conflict of the twentieth century inasmuch as it anticipated and foreshadowed the greater conflict in Europe in the following twenty years.

Many Americans—except, as he points out— American Catholics, have instinctively followed the framing of their government, siding with the anti-nationalist coalitions. Payne has much more of an even-handed perspective on the ordeal, which has been an influence on Gottfried in his own sympathies with the nationalists.

Interestingly, Gottfried and Payne both seem to be sympathetic to Franco as, if not a Great Man, then at least someone who correctly read what was happening in Europe at the time with the spread of Communism. However, after the war, Gottfried is much more critical of Franco than Payne seems to be. He has trouble with Franco’s purges of his political enemies that was done in a spirit of vengeance. This somewhat surprises me, as he seems to be of the opinion that the revolutionaries and their sympathizers could have been brought into line after Franco seized power. I am of mixed opinion here.

I do however agree with both of them that Franco’s regime was unable to outlive the spirit of his youth and after Allied Victory, Franco basically capitulated to the liberal-imperial interests of NATO.

The most fascinating excerpt from the conversation was his observation that the Spanish experience in the early and mid twentieth century was one of contradiction:

Franco was a Neo-Traditionalist seeking to reinstate Spain’s great Catholic tradition. And yet at the same time, he sought a holistic economic modernization project. Because sociological and true cultural conservatism is at odds with economic liberalization (at least in its revolutionary forms), he was only able to achieve economic modernization. But he lost Traditional Spain.

And as Paul echos, Spain has since gone completely woke to an even more egregious extent than the United States.

In any case, the entire conversation is here.