[.ca] Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War (ISBN 0300089813)

The bitter taste of Soviet bureaucracy:
The facts speak for themselves. But in this case the casual student of history might nod off during the lecture. The numerous translated documents lose their novelty appeal rather quickly. I recommend it only to the hardcore SCW scholar who can use it for citing references or teaching college courses. It really is a huge, valuable piece of the puzzle. However I would not take it as total vindication for the Republic's detractors: the Popular Front had some support from the Comintern, but it is a slippery-slope fallacy to claim that its decline into Stalinism was therefore inevitable. Its decline was greatly helped along by the war, a condition that always tends to centralize authority and rationalize police-state tactics, and by European & American isolationism. France also elected a Popular Front coalition which, like Spain's, had all the left factions from moderate liberal to communist. Despite the fragmentation of this multiparty system, France managed not to have a civil war over it, and was not undermined by Stalinism. Conspiracies can only do so much; if you look at the documents, the Soviets in Spain had their hands full dealing with the chaos. One could just as easily argue that quick intervention by France, the UK & USA could've saved the Republic from Stalin AND Franco. FDR later admitted to US Ambassador Bowers that he had been right on this point all along.

Important documentary evidence of Stalin's criminality:
This is another wonderful volume in the very important Annals of Communism series published by Yale University Press. I can't praise this series enough for the service they have provided us in every one of these volumes. This book provides, in English translation, 81 important documents of the true Soviet actions in its participation in the Spanish Civil War. Historians will have to make the final judgments and assessments of this material. But I am glad to have the myth of the idealistic Soviet exposed for the lie it always was. Just as an example of what we learn, we now understand Stalin's desire and success at basically stealing the $50,000,000 Spain had in gold reserves. by shipping Spain outdated and non-functioning military junk as arms. We also know that the French, in effect, supported the Nazi's by interdicting other Soviet arms shipments to the Republic. There is much more valuable information between the covers of this wonderful book. It reads shorter than its five-hundred plus pages because the documents can be read quickly and the commentary on them is completely fascinating.

Accurate, descriptive, and unfortunate:
I saw this book as I was browsing one day and I had to get it. The Spanish Civil War has always intrigued me because I think if the Republicans had won, World War II may not have happened. So to see a book that describes how Stalin used Spain as his own little playground and piggy bank was very intriguing to me. Ordinarily, I would not have bought a book this long with these types of sources. I would have dismissed a book like this as untrue propaganda. But in this case, there is no way that any of the things in here are lies. The anti-Stalinist feelings of the authors are definitely dominant in the tone of the beginning of each section. But, I mean, it's STALIN we're talking about here, not some two bit amateur sociopath. So I respect the bias of the book. I like the fact that the telegrams and cables in the book are actually REAL, so the reader could see what Stalin and his comrades in crime were doing to the people of Spain. The idea that Stalin could profit off of falsifications of exchange rates in money froom the Republic makes me hate him even more than I did before I read "Spain Betrayed". This book is amazing, very very well researched and documented, and if you are at all interested in Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Uinion, the Spanish Civil War, or all of the above, then you need to read Spain Betrayed. Overall, this book really shows that two dictators were victorious in the Spanish Civil War: Joseph Stalin and Francisco Franco.

A poor work:
This work contains many false statements, poor use of evidence, and just plain incompetence. Far from showing Soviet "betrayal," these 81 documents make the Comintern, the International Brigades, and the massive Soviet aid to Spain appear in an extremely positive light. Reading the documents alone, and ignoring Radosh's "commentary," any objective person will come away with tremendous respect for the communist effort in the Spanish Civil War, not only by the Comintern and the justly famed International Brigades, but of the Soviet Union -- or, as Radosh says it, in his crude demonizing synecdoche, of "Moscow" and "Stalin." I've written a longer review of this book at http://eserver.org/clogic/2002/furr.html In short, the documents are of great interest, but Radosh's commentary is incompetent and dishonest.

A model of scholarly historical analysis:
The scholarly nature of this book belies its explosive content. In common with other volumes in the 'Annals of Communism' series, the book comprises primary historical source material extracted from the Soviet archives, a succint and incisive introduction, and unobtrusive annotation. But the findings are original and remarkable. Whereas the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War has for 60 years inhabited a cocoon of veneration, immune to sceptical analysis, the documentary record shows that it was dominated by, and run from, the Comintern, which itself was the creature of Stalin. Much the most poignant aspect of this record was the brutality visited upon, and the twisting of the idealism expended by, the international volunteers, such as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. The authors sensibly do not overstate their findings, which are damning enough in themselves. The cumulative effect, however, is to demonstrate that the War was not a struggle between good and evil, but a clash of competing totalitarian ideologies. The western democracies have been attacked for supposedly standing aside from the struggle against fascism; in reality, with inconsistencies and irresolution, British and American statesmen still did immeasurably more to make the world safe for democracy than the ill-trained battalions in Spain. Here, at last, in a book that is a credit to its authors and its publisher, is the definitive evidence.