Friends of the Spanish Republic

From the outbreak of the Civil War, the events in Spain filled the front pages of the entire press, hours of radio broadcasts, and innumerable articles in illustrated magazines that divided Argentinian society. Unwilling to limit themselves to the information provided by the international news agencies, major newspapers of all political stripes sent their own correspondents to cover the conflict. 

The great solidarity with the Second Republic manifested itself in campaigns to raise money and donations of food and clothing. In relation to its population, Argentina was one of the countries from which the largest amounts of money and medical equipment such as ambulances, operating theatres and medicines were sent. There were numerous mass meetings and festivals across the country, and the Republican cause had the support of a heterogeneous movement that included unions, university organizations, and liberal, democratic, socialist and anarchist groups that shared a rejection of the assault on Republican legality and antifascism. Although various committees and organizations of friends of the Republic, like the one in Rosario that produced this flyer showing the results of its latest campaign, were soon created, as time went on, each group began to send its aid directly to its favoured recipient: the International Red Cross, political parties or workers’ organizations. 

Those Argentinians who supported the rebels were a minority, but a sizeable one. The associations that brought together the economically and socially most successful immigrants, which stood apart from those that supported political autonomy, demonstrated their ability to mobilize. Meetings, masses, and fund raisers brought together already existing monarchist and traditionalist institutions while new ones, such as the Legionnaires of Franco and the Argentinian branch of the Falange, which had a network that reached into the interior of the country, were created. 

Government officials alternated between tolerance for public events they considered “the simple expression of tendencies” to refusing municipal or provincial authorizations and banning the most tendentious radio commentaries. Parallel to the military operations in Spain, Buenos Aires’ grand Avenida de Mayo became the scene of wild fights among Spaniards in which impassioned Argentinians joined. There were also conflicts among theatre companies in the capital. Some, like the Catalan Margarita Xirgu, began their performances of the works of García Lorca with a minute of silence to remember the playwright who had been murdered by the Francoists. 

Most of the Catholic Church refused to consider a Republic that had allowed the repression of clergy and the destruction of religious buildings legitimate, and sought to repair that sacrilege by send religious objects to comfort “the faithful of the peninsula”. For their part, the intellectuals were divided. Some published petitions seeking to save the lives of writer Ramiro de Maeztu or Falange founder José Antonio Primo de Rivera, who they considered to be colleagues while others, like the poet and journalist Raúl González Tuñón, wrote Death in Madrid to reflect the tragedy of the struggle against Francoist fascism.