# Adolph The Great? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 19, 2009, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027 "2009-03-19T15:06:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2009, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/61 "2009-03-22T03:52:37Z")
> [@villa](#): > > There wouldn’t have been a civil war had the right wing not seen fascism as its savior and started one. And had the democratic government received full Western support to crush Franco at the start of the coup attempt, then there is no reason the Republic could not have survived. > > It’s only once we allowed the fascists to gain a foothold that any inevitability stepped in. Like with cockroaches. Sure, the Republic was just a bunch of “left-of-center” guys singing “kumbaya”. IT was Disneyland until Franco came. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2009, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/62 "2009-03-22T20:57:20Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Too bad it was already swinging from a meathook. Note: I know Mussolini was still alive at that point. I just couldn’t resist the _double entrendre_. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2009, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/63 "2009-03-23T03:30:20Z")
> [@](#): > > Sure, the Republic was just a bunch of “left-of-center” guys singing “kumbaya”. IT was Disneyland until Franco came. It wasn’t perfect. But it was at least a functioning democracy. Franco did not improve anything in Spain by forming a dictatorship. There were no foreign powers in Spain until Franco asked Germany and Italy in to help him take over. And don’t whitewash Franco’s crimes - in the first five years after he took power he had over 200,000 people executed and political prisoners continued to be killed throughout his administration. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2009, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/64 "2009-03-23T04:26:36Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It wasn’t perfect. But it was at least a functioning democracy. Franco did not improve anything in Spain by forming a dictatorship. There were no foreign powers in Spain until Franco asked Germany and Italy in to help him take over. . Well, it was a democracy, but hardly\* functioning.\* It was as stable as the current stock market. It lasted for almost 3 years,:rolleyes: with increasing violence and instability, hundreds of assassinations, armed rebellions, etc. Catalonia and the Basque people had already declared their independence from Spain, and with Andalucia, Aragón and Galicia seriously considering it before the breakout of the Civil War. In other words, the democracy was falling apart nto splinter groups and chaos. At the time of the start of the revolution, the Socialists, Communists & aliies had gained a slight majority in the second election. Some of the more radical members of those parties then advocated a socialist revolution. There is little doubt by most political savants that they would have at least tried to make this a reality had the Civil War not erupted. > **[Spanish Civil War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Civil_War)** > > 50,000–200,000 civilians killed inside the Nationalist zone > 38,000–110,965 civilians killed inside the Republican zone > The Spanish Civil War (Spanish: La guerra civil española)\[note 2\] was fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalist rebels. Republicans were loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic and included socialists, anarchists, communists, and separatists, supported by the Soviet Union. The opposing Nationalists were an ... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027.md?page=3)