Abstracts issue 15

Susanna Moscardini, L’anarcosindacalista Joan Peiró: un profilo biografico(1887-1942)

Little is known about Juan Peiró’s character, a leader of the Catalan anar­cho-syndicalism who had on the contrary a very important role within CNT, the Spanish anarchist union. He was one of the chief characters of the said union split and, most of all, one of the four anarchist who entered, as Industry’s Minister, the Spanish Republic’s government during the Civil War. The article is mainly biographical and tries to show the anarchist’s politica1 educa­tion and his role within the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo.

Enric Ucelay-Da Cal, La imagen internacional de España en el periodo de entreguerras: reminiscencias, estereotipos y dramatizacón neorromántica

Images have prearranged cultural circuits, conditioning the reception of new information. Based on these premises the essay, studying mainly the period between the two World wars, takes into consideration Spain’s diverse images, which also previously have had a deep and lasting influence within the country or deriving from outer bias: from the new Spanish monarchy seen as a Counter Reformation power to the identifying of Spain with Andalucía, born during the Peninsular War, consolidated in the Romantic age, and finally reaching its peak in the Twenties, under Primo de Rivera.

The Author studies the images’ changing with the 1931 Second Republic’s success, but he specially looks into the Civil War for the Spanish reality ima­ges’ freezing. Leaving aside the Francoist interpretation he concentrates on two Republican images: the madrileñista one and the barcelonista.

Josep Puigsech Farràs, Las relaciones entre la Internacional comunista y el PSUC durante el conflicto de 1936-39.

The article, based on the unpublished documents from the Russian archives, studies the relationships between the Communist International and the PSUC (Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya) during the Civil War of 1936-1939. It looks into the motives and the sense of the PSUC bound with the International, but also tells the initial reserve and distrust of the International towards the PSUC, and how later the International tried to convert the PSUC into a Communist Party. The paper also informs about the conditioning factours of the relationships between the PSUC and the Spanish Communist Party (Partido Comunista de España) within the International’s common frame.

Gennaro Carotenuto, La carta spagnola. Mussolini e la Spagna durante la Seconda guerra mondiale (1939-1943)

After the costly participation to the Spanish Civil War, Mussolini enters the World War’s adventure, which shall mark his régime’s end. In few months time Franco’s Spain status changed from one of a supposedly yielding satellite of Fascist Italy to one of a country trying to separate its destinies from the Axis powers. What really made the difference was not the Caudillo’s will to follow an impossible dream of imperial achievement, but the appalling Spanish military situation and the hunger of a people exhausted by three years of civil war and, nonetheless, not yet totally tamed.

Paola Olla Brundu, Europa y Estados Unidos frente al problema de la integra­ción de España en el sistema de seguridad occidental (1945-1953)

After WWII ended Franco’s régime succeeded in surviving the defeat of the Axis, which had been his success’ determining factor, and little by little to get into the new political and economical international reality. The essay studies the essential passages of this comeback in the crucial period 1945-1953.

Many aspects are studied, and the Author shows how a serious analysis of these events cannot be reduced to the bilateral relationship Washington-Madrid nor to the concluding year of 1953. There was in fact a much richer dialectics, where a determining role was played by the choices, both made and not made, of France and United Kingdom.