Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 1936. THE SPANISH UPHEAVAL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 245, 29 July 1936, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 1936. THE SPANISH UPHEAVAL.

The latest news regarding the revolt ir Spain is as conflicting as any yet received. Both sides claim to have achieved important successes, while engagements of a vital nature are pending. The striking feature of the latest developments in the struggle is the savagery displayed on both sides, refugees giving terrible accounts of atrocities, looting and unrestrained violence. The pent-up passions of months and years are being expressed in a manner that is characteristically Spanish, the reprisals rendering the internecine conflict more frightful in some respects than international war. ihe comparative strengths and disposition of the rival forces point to a protracted struggle and it can only be hoped that the very intensity of the passions that led to burning adversaries alive will consume itself, with restoration to a sane condition of mind. The bitterness, that has marked the conflict is long-standing. When the Monarchy was overthrown in 1931, the Republic came into being by an alliance of the middle classes and the Socialists. The two sections were united in only one respect —dislike of the monarchial system —for while the more moderate desired a bourgeois State after the pattern of that of France, the Socialists, and still more the Syndicalists and Communists, had as their ideal a Soviet modelled on that of Russia. The balance of power oscillated, with a decided swing to the Left as a result of the elections last February. If reports do not misrepresent the position, active propaganda by Soviet Russia may fairly be charged with having had something to do with the growth of extreme socialism, for a few months ago the Madrid Government found it necessary to make representations on the subject. In this lies the explanation of the statement by General Franco, one of the leaders of the rebels, that the revolution is a nationalist movement to save Spain from Russian domination and that victory for the Government would mean red terror. It is this aspect of the conflict that explains the attitude of those Germans and Italians who,' while their countries have taken no official stand, are actively assisting the rebels, with the assurance that the Fascist Powers are behind them. It is this aspect, also, that invests the rising with a graver international significance than would attach to it were the provocation to rebellion based on matters ot purely internal concern.