Spain

The **Spanish People's Republic** (in Spanish: *República Popular Española*) is a socialist republic in south-west Europe

## History

### Spanish Civil War.

After years of incompetence and authoritarianism in Spain the **1936 economic crisis** threw everything out the window. The already unruly Spanish people saw themselves in economic ruin, and with the help of the French they rebelled against their oppressor. The **Republicans** rose up in the north and south and the **Socialists** in the east, but not even with the territorial advantage they were able to face the army, that had sided with the government.

In just one year *Sevilla,Oviedo* and *Zaragoza* had fallen and it looked like the war was lost. But the Republican and Socialists set aside their differences and decided to unite in the "**Popular Front**", due to this, luck and increased French support they managed to turn the tide and reconquer what they had lost and in 1939 Madrid fell.

The government didn't surrender and they fled to Portugal, where they are still trying to sabotage the republic.

### The CNT-FAI

The popular front never dissolved, though it was clear that the Anarchists were the ones that held true power, they had control of most of the government and the Republicans didn't even have influence in the pairlament, this angered the Republicans, but they couldn't do anything, at least then.

In January 1941 they decide to fulfill their Iberian ambitions and declare war on Neutral Portugal, they hoped that the war would be easy and that the Portuguese people would side with them, but the Portuguese society had consolidated earlier than expected and calmed down from the revolutionary mood of 1936 and no mass uprising occured.

### Revolutionary Movement of Spring 1942

The war was taking longer than expected with neither a collapse of the Portuguese military nor an expected mass workers rebellion to welcome the Spanish Army and its increasingly likely that Portugal would openly side with Germany and turn the conflict with Spain into a second front of the European War and threaten what is considered the "weak belly of Europe" by French military circles. With the situation deteroriating and unable to convince the CNT-FAI leadership as well the Jacobins inherent distrust of them, President Pierre Sermand gained the approval of Britain and decided to prevent this and started scheming against their own allies. In 1942, with the battle of the Mediterranean raging in the horizon, the Euro Bureau, ostensible a joint organ of the Third Workers International, which supposedly contains the CNT-FAI, presented the plan known as "Operation Jacqueline" to the French Government, it outlined a coordinated efforts to overthrow the present regime and asissit the formation of a more reliable one. Discontents and oppositions against the CNT-FAI have already been organising their own conspiracy and the problem of organising local elements to take the decisive lead in the coup was decided, with the Military-Apparatus of the USE at the center.

On April 2, the coup begun with the two most chief objectives being securing Madrid and Barcalonia, two strongholds of the CNT-FAI. The first is to be secured by the Division "Jarama" with assistances by elements of the 37th Tank Battalion (British Forces in Spain). With most of the military and professional officers having joined this action, in the first hours of the coup action, already 60% of cities in Spain fell under the Provisional Government of Revolutionary Spain's control with the anarchists militia offered feeble resistance. Major resistance was encountered in Catalonia and Aragon but was not enough, with Catalonia fell to the Eastern Army of Juan Modesto with assistance of the 2nd Garde Nationale Division of Pyrénées (FRA) as well as nationalist partisans and Aragon a day with the fiere resistance offered by the so-called "Battle of the Post Office" in Zaragoza preventing full capture of the city. However, by April 8th, the entire of Spain was in the hand of the Provisional Government.