Nationalist Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939): Appeals for International Support and the Western Fear of Communism
Humanities
HIS 194V
This research project focuses on Nationalist propaganda aimed at American and British citizens during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). The paper’s main argument are that Nationalist pamphlets, most printed by Catholic publishing houses, aimed to maintain American and British non-intervention in the Spanish Conflict. To do this, these pamphlets presented the Second Spanish Republic (1931-1939) and those that fought on its behalf as a threat to Western Civilization. Portraying the Republican forces as communists, atheists, and thus as anti-West served as a vital tool to foster hostility towards the Republic and sympathy for Francisco Franco’s forces by the American and British populace. This propaganda attempted to contribute to Republican difficulties in attaining sufficient military and economic aid to fight the Nationalist army. Most of the primary sources analyzed in this paper were found in the Spanish Civil War collections at University California, Los Angeles and Loyola Marymount University. To my knowledge, select pamphlets studied in this paper have been not been used in published works relating to the Spanish Civil War. Thus, this paper aims to fill a gap in the existing historiography on the War, a conflict that is largely overshadowed by the Second World War that followed it.
