Page 139 - The Chief Culprit

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promotion. Spain was their last test. e majority of them quickly rose in rank after their
return from Spain. Here are the heights reached by some of these military advisors in just a
few years: R. Y. Malinovsky became a marshal and minister of defense of the USSR; K. A.
Meretskov became a marshal and chief of the General Staff; G. I. Kulik became a marshal and
the Deputy People’s Commissar of Defense of the USSR; N. G. Kuznetsov became admiral of
the Soviet fleet, minister of the navy, and for the duration of the entire war he was a member
of the Supreme High Command.
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And in addition to over twenty future Marshals, Generals of the Army, and Colonel
Generals, over forty of those who fought in Spain later became lieutenant generals, vice ad-
mirals, major generals, and rear admirals.
Despite all the efforts put forth by Stalin, Communist victory in Spain was impos-
sible. ere were many reasons for this. First of all, over 80 percent of Spanish soldiers and
officers fought on the side of the uprising. Even the Communists acknowledge this. And this
speaks to the fact that the uprising was not just purely originating from the generals. Spanish
soldiers and generals had a choice, and the majority of them fought against the Republic.
is, in turn, signals that not everything was all right in the Spanish Republic. Secondly,
Spain is a long way from Russia. Stalin could not send to Spain any of his divisions. Even
if he did, it would have been impossible to supply an entire division. e third reason for
defeat was that the Communist party in Spain was extremely weak. It was forced to make
alliances with other parties. e Communists’ main allies were the anarchists. In regions
where they managed to take control, they abolished currency and made all private property
public. e general secretary of the Communist Party of Spain, Dolores Ibárruri, describes
her allies in the war in the following manner: “ e anarchists organized something like a
reign of thieves.” Marshal of the Soviet Union Meretskov, who fought in Spain, calls the
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anarchists “jolly butchers.” Even if Communists themselves had been angels, they were still
destined for defeat with such allies.
It is impossible to win without allies, but with allies like those winning was even more
impossible. On March 28, 1939, Madrid fell—the last bastion of the Republic. As a result
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of an almost three-year-long war, General Franco had won. Soviet military advisors were
evacuated.
I have always been concerned about the coincidences in timing in this whole history.
e war in Spain was a sort of prologue of World War II. e battles in Spain ended, and five
months later a new war began, which spread throughout all of Europe and then throughout
the world. Was there a link between the war in Spain and World War II? And if yes, what
was it?
When I was sixteen years old, studying military history at a military boarding school,
we students were urged to read a book by Chief Marshal of Artillery N. N. Voronov. e
book is very interesting. Voronov commanded the entire artillery of the Red Army during
World War II. He was one of the first to interrogate General Field Marshal F. Paulus in the
ruins of Stalingrad. In all of German history, field marshals had never been taken prisoner.
Paulus was the first. Even aside from this one episode, there are a lot of interesting moments
in Voronov’s book. e book is written in a simple and lively fashion. Voronov had fought in
Spain as well. Suddenly, one phrase in this book not only touched me, it wounded me: “ e
events in Spain deeply upset the Soviet people. Very crowded meetings and gatherings of
workers took place in Moscow and other cities. [ e] Soviet people expressed their brotherly