The 'Red Terror': Repression in Republican Madrid during the Spanish Civil War

在西班牙内战期间，有两种截然不同的马德里形象。第一个可能是最熟悉的，那就是反法西斯的城市‘诺帕萨兰！’这幅画作强调了该市居民在1936年7月击败军事叛乱，并在那年11月在城门第二次挑战国际法西斯主义势力的英勇事迹。我的研究集中在第二个马德里：红色恐怖之城马德里。报告显示，在共和制的西班牙，估计有50,000人被处决，其中至少有8,500人于1936年在马德里被处决。在英文中几乎找不到有关马德里共和党镇压的著作。在对内战的一般描述中，如保罗·普雷斯顿和海伦·格雷厄姆写的那些，这座城市的恐怖被归入对共和党暴力的一般分析，强调这在很大程度上是无组织的“不可控的人”所做的工作，当共和党的国家权力因军事叛乱而崩溃时，他们蓬勃发展。这种方法强调，大屠杀在1936-37年冬季恢复国家权威后结束，并声称自1937年以来，恐怖活动主要针对的不是右翼，而是革命左翼，例如反斯大林主义的人民运动。这类争论的一个重要特点是，将1936年恐怖事件的肇事者描述为社会边缘分子(罪犯)或匿名集体实体；相反，人们关注的是那些谴责暴力的共和党领导人，如曼努埃尔·阿萨尼亚总统。我的研究重新发现了所谓“无法控制的人”的身份。事实上，我在2007年1月发表在《当代史杂志》上的一篇文章就是关于马德里最臭名昭著的无法控制的人：阿加皮托·加西亚·阿塔德尔。这篇文章证明了阿塔德尔是一位杰出的社会党领袖，他的杀人旅由技术熟练的工会工人组成。它还表明，阿塔德尔在社会党内和普通共和党人中非常受欢迎，因为他被认为是在保卫这座城市不受第五纵队的攻击(这个词是由国民党领袖莫拉将军在1936年创造的，用来描述马德里的秘密国民党支持者)。我对其他肇事者的研究表明，阿塔德尔和他的手下也不例外；针对“法西斯主义者”的恐怖活动是在许多“普通”共和党人的认可和合作下组织和实施的。重要的是要强调，我的工作并不是试图恢复弗朗索瓦的论点，即恐怖反映了一个‘共产主义’灭绝计划。在对1936年使用的暴力形式进行审查时，委员会质疑通常使用“契卡”一词来描述判处受害者死刑的革命法庭的做法。1936年，这些法庭很少被称为“查卡”，而是“民众调查委员会”或“公共安全委员会”，它们更多地让人想起1792-94年的恐怖事件，而不是1917年后的苏联恐怖事件。同样，受害者经常被处决的方式--被人带去兜风(Paseo)--让人想起20世纪30年代初的好莱坞黑帮电影(内战前和内战期间在马德里非常流行)，而不是苏联共产主义的良性影响。我的工作并没有否认1936年的杀戮“武断”镇压和1937年以来对真正的和可疑的共和党敌人的“制度化”迫害之间的重要区别。但它感兴趣的是研究这两个时期之间的连续性。例如，它显示了1936年的肇事者被招募到重新组建的共和国警察部队的程度。最后，由于这个项目是在我对1939年后马德里法兰克福主义镇压的博士研究之后进行的，我的手稿将以重新评估‘有组织的’弗朗索瓦主义和‘自发的’共和党暴力之间的共同区别来结束。

There are two very different representations of Madrid during the Spanish civil war. The first, which is probably the most familiar, is the anti-fascist city of 'no pasarán!'. This representation emphasises the heroism of the city's inhabitants in defeating the military rebellion in July 1936 and defying the forces of international fascism for a second time at the gates of the city that November. My research concentrates on the second Madrid: the city of the 'red terror' Madrid. It indicates that out of an estimated 50,000 executions in Republican Spain, a minimum of 8,500 took place in Madrid in 1936. Very little work on the Republican repression in Madrid can be found in English. In general accounts of the civil war, such as those written by Paul Preston and Helen Graham, the terror in the city is subsumed in a general analysis of Republican violence that stresses that it was largely the work of unorganised 'uncontrollables' who flourished when Republican state authority collapsed as a result of the military rebellion. Such an approach emphasises that mass murder came to an end following the restoration of state authority in the winter of 1936-37 and claims that from 1937, terror is mainly directed not at the right but at the revolutionary left, such as the anti-Stalinist POUM. An important feature of such arguments is the depiction of the perpetrators of terror in 1936 as either marginal elements of society ('criminals') or anonymous collective entities; attention is paid instead to those Republican leaders, such as the President Manuel Azaña, who condemned the violence.My research rediscovers the identities of the so-called 'uncontrollables'. Indeed, my article published by the Journal of Contemporary History in January 2007 dealt with the most infamous 'uncontrollable' in Madrid: Agapito García Atadell. This article demonstrates that Atadell was a prominent Socialist leader whose murderous brigade consisted of skilled unionised workers. It also shows that Atadell was enormously popular within the Socialist Party and among 'ordinary' Republicans because he was perceived to be defending the city from the 'fifth column' (this term was coined by the Nationalist leader General Mola in 1936 to describe clandestine Nationalist supporters in Madrid). My research on other perpetrators suggests that Atadell and his men were not exceptional; terror against 'fascists' was organised and took place with the approval and cooperation of many 'ordinary' Republicans. It is important to stress that my work is not an attempt to revive the Francoist thesis that the terror reflected a 'communist' programme of extermination. In its examination of the forms of violence employed in 1936, it questions the common use of the term 'cheka' to describe the revolutionary tribunals that sentenced victims to their deaths. In 1936, these tribunals were rarely, if ever, called 'chekas' but 'popular investigation committees' or 'committees of public safety', recalling more the Terror of 1792-94 than Soviet terror after 1917. Similarly, the way in which victims were often executed- the 'paseo' (being 'taken for a ride') - evokes the Hollywood gangster films of the early 1930s (extremely popular in Madrid before and during the civil war) rather than the benign influence of Soviet communism. My work does not deny the important distinction between the murderous 'arbitrary' repression of 1936 and the 'institutionalised' persecution of real and suspected Republican enemies from 1937. But it is interested in examining the continuities between the two periods. For example, it shows the extent to which the perpetrators of 1936 were recruited into the re-constituted Republican police force. Finally, since this project followed my doctoral research on the Francoist repression in Madrid after 1939, my manuscript will conclude with a re-assessment of the common distinctions made between 'organised' Francoist and 'spontaneous' Republican violence.