Chapter 4

A year after the May Days revolt, the Russians were beginning to disengage from Spain. The Nationalists of Generalisimo Franco had gained the sea between Barcelona and Valencia, had that town under siege, and were cruising through Catalonia unchecked.

Franco had hammered together the factions of his Right Wing coalition, the CEDA, the Falange and the Carlists, to form the SED, the party through which he would exert his personal rule for the next 40 years.

Well over 100,000 people were killed by the Nationalists following their victory in March 1939. Statistics are understated and unreliable. Many more fled to France, where some fell into the hands of the Nazis when that country was invaded in 1940. Some were returned to Franco's justice and at least 1 former POUM member spent 5 years at Buchenwald concentration camp.

But Franco was no Hitler. Certainly, in his drive to restore unity and order, he rigourously censored the Press and banned political parties and Trade Unions. But, the Catholic Church never quite regained the ascendency it once had in Spanish society. Capitalism was again restored, but major enterprises had to accept a great deal of State control, and labour laws were introduced and enforced. He was bitterly anti-Communist, and anti-Syndicalist (as the FAI/CNT was described) and their commanders above a certain level, if caught, were given long prison sentences.

Franco's strength of personality, and his ability to conciliate between the rival factions in the SED ensured that some of the more extreme policies advocated by these groups were dropped. The Falangists never quite achieved the Fascist, pro-Hitler State they wanted. The Carlists didn't place Carlos de Borbon Palma on the Spanish throne, and the 'legitimate' Monarchist's King Alphonso remained in exile.

Internationally, Franco kept Spain grudgingly out of the World War, apart from some Blueshirt Volunteers to the Waffen SS. The Spanish 'Blue' Division was ground up in the mincer of the Eastern Front. He allowed German U boats to refuel in Cadiz and Italian 'miale' two man mini-subs to operate against Gibraltar. But at the same time, he kept reasonably cordial relations with the Allies, keeping covert Axis activity on Spanish territory to a minimum.

But the Spanish Civil War created a rich diaspora of art, literature and music as well as political theorists and radicals. Many of the emigres from the Republic were an amazingly talented bunch who seeded the World with the passion of their works. In addition many foreigners who served in the International Brigades and the Lenin Division of the POUM wrote movingly of their experiences. They described the inhuman conditions in the trenches, of the bitter conflicts between the various factions fighting for the Popular Front and of the extraordinary violence and passion.

40 years of close censorship in Spain produced a generation totally ignorant of the Civil War, except in a wholly one-sided way. Many of the participants, such as the Communist 'La Passionaria, ' were given to a romantic view in later years that ignored the somewhat venal activities of their particular faction while playing up the 'traitorous' actions of their adversaries. No-one smothered themselves in glory, yet their various agendas contained valid and logical arguments.

Euro-communist parties must share some of the responsibility for lionising Josef Stalin and the Soviet Union as the epitome of the Worker's State. It never was and, at worse, was a brutal dictatorship totally obsessed with its own self-interest. 'Uncle' Joe solidified his personal rule during the thirties by hounding opponents at home and abroad relentlessly.

Russia's desire for an 'anti-fascist alliance' only came to fruition when Hitler foolishly invaded in 1941. The Comintern was quietly wound up, but it hadn't been fostering World revolution since Stalin took over its running in the early thirties. Instead, he converted it to an instrument of Soviet foreign policy. Its swansong had been the creation of the International Brigades in 1936, the nearest it ever came to building an international army defending the rights of the working class. Ironically, the Brigades were composed of significant numbers of the hated bourgeoisie, the supposed 'class enemies' of the Workers.

The 'far left' were dispersed following the May days and their power in Catalonia destroyed. Disgruntled Anarchists and their allies in the POUM claimed they'd been sold out by their leaders. Certainly the CNT's leadership in Madrid had not countenanced the revolt nor authorised the use of the Anarchist Brigades in the Republican Army to assist the inhabitants of Barcelona. They said little when the PCE smashed the revolt.

Aprobrium fell on the POUM, who were categorised unfairly as the instigators. The POUM, in turn, blamed the 'Syndicalists' for hanging them out to dry, the ponderous decision-making process of the CNT and its huge bureaucracy.

But the Anarchists would never have held out for as long as four days if it hadn't been for the Lenin Division. Ill-armed and untrained with their best soldiers away with the army, the CNT proved to be poor street fighters.

Benin continued to see Signor Garcia twice, sometimes three times a week. She was afraid their little arrangement would be noticed but, if it was, no-one said anything.

It was not long before he suggested they had full sex. He offered her more and more money and presents until she found it hard to refuse.

At the appointed hour she would slip in his back door and through the kitchen. He waited for her in the parlour, sitting on the sofa in a dressing-gown. He sat, she thought, with a look of anticipation, but Benin grew contemptuous of his smiling face. What she at first took for kindness, she now considered lecherous and ugly. Although she scrubbed furiously in the tin bath afterwards, the feeling of his oily hands on her wouldn't wash away.

He was naked, as usual, under the dressing gown as if just going to take a bath. She had 'disturbed him unexpectedly;' skinny Benin, looking for her friend and finding the Signor all alone with his wife out visiting. For 20 pesetas it was so hot and stuffy she 'had' to get out of her skirt and parade around in her underpants. Often his dressing gown would come apart and she stared in 'disbelief' at his semi-flaccid sausage twitching between his legs.

For another 20 pesetas she would 'agree' to make his bed, bending so her cotton knickers would stretch over her small bottom. Benin could hear his rasping breath behind her, imagined he was pulling on his cock as his eyes were fixed on her arse. She could sense him moving closer until his sticky member nudged her. For 20 pesetas more she would 'agree' to kiss and suck it.

Often that would be enough and he would've coaxed his cock sufficiently that he couldn't delay his coming. Benin would sense when he was about to burst and pull her shirt open so he splattered her chest rather than leave stains on her clothing. Sometimes, however, he would lift her face gently off him and offer her 50 pesetas. That would mean he'd want her to take down her knickers and lie across his legs for being 'naughty.' Five or six lusty smacks later, with her fist around his cock, he might offer her another 50, if she wanted.

160 pesetas for a prostitute in 1930's Spain, even with inflation, was a reasonable amount of money. It was more than any poor female might expect as a domestic or seamstress. Benin clung to that thought as the Signor asked her to bend over the bed, knees spread and arse in the air.

She was always a little moist from the spanking, nevertheless his cock felt tight and uncomfortable inside her. Occasionally he hurt her, but not often, and he never lasted that long. His fingernails sometimes left marks as they dug into her flanks. Eventually he'd stop punching away at her and she felt relieved when she felt the faintly cool emissions splashing over her arse. At last she could go home for a bath, and a little richer.

She woke with a start and realised she'd been dreaming. She was nude and pressed up against John's back in bed at their little hotel room. Benin smiled to herself, reached over, and was satisfied his cock had the usual morning stiffness. She squeezed him gently until she was rewarded when he turned over and kissed her.

His kissing always released a flood of desire within Benin. Mouth working, she would hold his head, even as he rolled on top and between her waiting legs. Then she liked to feel the flexing of his arse as he eased gently inside her waiting vagina.

Making love in the morning was always slow and dreamy. They'd often pause and talk, while John slowly moved to keep his erection hard. After a while he would lay his cheek next to hers and his hands would move to hold her bottom. That was his signal, she learned, when he wanted to come.

A year later, Italian soldiers were moving up from Saragossa to new positions on the North bank of the Ebro. They were members of the 'Legiero, ' 'volunteers' from Fascist Italy gone to fight against 'Bolshevism' in Spain. Their Division was the 'Ariete', or 'Ram' Division, Fascist Blackshirts all and led by a regular Italian Army General called Riotta, part of Spanish Nationalist General Modesto's command.

Some build up of Republican Forces, whom the Italians contemptuously called 'Rojos, ' had been noted along the river. The Italians took up positions on an anonymous hill known as '621.'

To the Italians, the Republicans were all communists, and they were there as part of Adolf Hitler's 'Anti-Comintern Pact.' The Italian Blackshirts soon gained a reputation for excessive brutality and the routine torturing of prisoners. Consequently, the were bitterly despised by their Spanish opponents.

Across the river, the Republican Army was becoming increasingly a conscript one. Losses and desertion had sapped its strength over the previous two years and some of the new soldiers were poorly trained peasant kids. The best units had performed fairly well, but the Army's problem was there just wasn't enough good units, sufficiently equipped, to beat Franco's forces in the field.

It is often dangerous when politicians believe themselves to be Generals and a good example is the Republican Ebro campaign. Prime Minister Juan Negrin and his Russian advisors' plan was grandiose to the point of lunacy. Storm Franco's positions on the North bank of the Ebro and cut their way to the port of Bilbao, thereby relieving the siege of Madrid and taking back the North to the French Border. Realistically, the Republican army was not capable of such an operation in 1938.