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No idea what this is doing on HN. In addition to being off-topic, it's heavily biased, highlighting the (reprehensible) civilian casualties caused by the Natio

No idea what this is doing on HN. In addition to being off-topic, it's heavily biased, highlighting the (reprehensible) civilian casualties caused by the Nationalists, while remaining silent on the similar number of (also reprehensible) civilian deaths caused by the Republicans. It also describes the Nationalists as Fascists (which is true), while describing the anarchist and communist backed Republicans as "left-leaning" (which is biased understatement).

capableweb 6y ago
> No idea what this is doing on HN. Most likely because people found it interesting. Not everyone finds the same things interesting. > which is biased understatement Funny thing regarding biases in political leaning is that it's all based around context. The US, being very right-leaning, would describe one person as left-leaning while in many European countries that same person would be center or even slightly right. So it all depends. It's useful to outline where you're coming from before laying out your perspective, as it's also biased (just like mine).
- keiferski 6y ago
  > Funny thing regarding biases in political leaning is that it's all based around context Or it just highlights the complete uselessness of the right-left dichotomy.
  - aaron-lebo 6y ago
    They use right-left in political science departments, so I'm not sure it's "useless". It just requires context. We don't look at US and EU politics on the same scale, or at the very least, EU politics are just further to the left on the universal scale. But you know that...
    - keiferski 6y ago
      > EU politics are just further to the left on the universal scale. But I don't think this is actually true or a useful statement. Many aspects of American politics are more left-wing than their European counterparts; anarchism or libertarianism, for example, roughly defined as antipathy toward the state, is often considered left-wing and is far more prevalent in the US. Left-wing politics in contemporary Europe seems to almost always include a strong state role. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_anarchism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_anarchism As I said, I don't think any sort of universal right-left dichotomy is useful. It also doesn't factor in non-traditional political thinkers, like say, Nietzsche, who could not be accurately described as right, left, or anywhere in between.
- rumanator 6y ago
  > Funny thing regarding biases in political leaning is that it's all based around context. There is no context on which the Republican side was not comprised of communist and socialist groups supported by Stalin's Soviet Union.
nudpiedo 6y ago
I also found it highly biased, romanticizing one side and demonizing the other... falling in the false dichotomy of evil vs good. In Spain often people doesn't remember that in order to have a prolonged civil war there are two equally powered sides needed, both with equal social support and both with equal lack of will to negotiate. I think it is a major mistake to bring back to history the conclusions and ideas from the present, the "democracy" of the "republic" was also highly flawed and often the left sides would try and fail a coup d'etat wanting a communist revolution and it never achieved law and order. The country was just highly unstable politically and socially since the decadence by the loss of the oversea provinces and everything concluded in that war all together.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  It is generally recognized that negotiating with Fascists is a bad idea, as many in the Weimar Republic would indicate. Nationalist Spain also enjoyed extreme support by both capitalist Western Europe and the Soviet Union. If your theory of equal popularity being necessary for a protracted civil war, asymmetric foreign support indicates that the non-Nationalist side would have higher social support.
  - evgen 6y ago
    I am not sure where you are getting the delusional idea that the Soviet Union supported the Nationalists since they were the biggest backers of the Republicans and by the later stages of the war had complete control over the Republican leadership.
  - nudpiedo 6y ago
    when a side is superior to the other the conflict is solved in a few weeks/months at most. The national side didn't do the war alone, and the war almost stagnated during long periods of time because at times there was no easy conclusion on the horizon and no side wanted to give up. You cannot infinitely demonize one sided and picture the other as innocent/fighter of freedom when there was such a prolonged conflict and both sides committed selective mass murders against civilians (you can however argue that a side was even more evil than the other, but that's not the topic of today) P.D. The Soviet Union sided with the republicans until they unfairly appropriate (aka stole) the spanish national treasure.
Spooky23 6y ago
It's a feature story focused on an obscure and mostly unknown thread spinning out of the war, not a history of the Spanish Civil War. That conflict was an incredibly complex and tragic series of events... beyond the scope of what an article like this can cover. It wasn't a commies vs. nazis event, and this wasn't an article doing a survey view of the conflict.
Koshkin 6y ago
Fascism is national-socialism. Communism is international-fascism.

capableweb 6y ago

> No idea what this is doing on HN. Most likely because people found it interesting. Not everyone finds the same things interesting. > which is biased understatement Funny thing regarding biases in political leaning is that it's all based around context. The US, being very right-leaning, would describe one person as left-leaning while in many European countries that same person would be center or even slightly right. So it all depends. It's useful to outline where you're coming from before laying out your perspective, as it's also biased (just like mine).

keiferski 6y ago
> Funny thing regarding biases in political leaning is that it's all based around context Or it just highlights the complete uselessness of the right-left dichotomy.
- aaron-lebo 6y ago
  They use right-left in political science departments, so I'm not sure it's "useless". It just requires context. We don't look at US and EU politics on the same scale, or at the very least, EU politics are just further to the left on the universal scale. But you know that...
  - keiferski 6y ago
    > EU politics are just further to the left on the universal scale. But I don't think this is actually true or a useful statement. Many aspects of American politics are more left-wing than their European counterparts; anarchism or libertarianism, for example, roughly defined as antipathy toward the state, is often considered left-wing and is far more prevalent in the US. Left-wing politics in contemporary Europe seems to almost always include a strong state role. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_anarchism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_anarchism As I said, I don't think any sort of universal right-left dichotomy is useful. It also doesn't factor in non-traditional political thinkers, like say, Nietzsche, who could not be accurately described as right, left, or anywhere in between.
rumanator 6y ago
> Funny thing regarding biases in political leaning is that it's all based around context. There is no context on which the Republican side was not comprised of communist and socialist groups supported by Stalin's Soviet Union.

nudpiedo 6y ago

I also found it highly biased, romanticizing one side and demonizing the other... falling in the false dichotomy of evil vs good. In Spain often people doesn't remember that in order to have a prolonged civil war there are two equally powered sides needed, both with equal social support and both with equal lack of will to negotiate. I think it is a major mistake to bring back to history the conclusions and ideas from the present, the "democracy" of the "republic" was also highly flawed and often the left sides would try and fail a coup d'etat wanting a communist revolution and it never achieved law and order. The country was just highly unstable politically and socially since the decadence by the loss of the oversea provinces and everything concluded in that war all together.

sudosysgen 6y ago
It is generally recognized that negotiating with Fascists is a bad idea, as many in the Weimar Republic would indicate. Nationalist Spain also enjoyed extreme support by both capitalist Western Europe and the Soviet Union. If your theory of equal popularity being necessary for a protracted civil war, asymmetric foreign support indicates that the non-Nationalist side would have higher social support.
- evgen 6y ago
  I am not sure where you are getting the delusional idea that the Soviet Union supported the Nationalists since they were the biggest backers of the Republicans and by the later stages of the war had complete control over the Republican leadership.
- nudpiedo 6y ago
  when a side is superior to the other the conflict is solved in a few weeks/months at most. The national side didn't do the war alone, and the war almost stagnated during long periods of time because at times there was no easy conclusion on the horizon and no side wanted to give up. You cannot infinitely demonize one sided and picture the other as innocent/fighter of freedom when there was such a prolonged conflict and both sides committed selective mass murders against civilians (you can however argue that a side was even more evil than the other, but that's not the topic of today) P.D. The Soviet Union sided with the republicans until they unfairly appropriate (aka stole) the spanish national treasure.

Spooky23 6y ago

It's a feature story focused on an obscure and mostly unknown thread spinning out of the war, not a history of the Spanish Civil War. That conflict was an incredibly complex and tragic series of events... beyond the scope of what an article like this can cover. It wasn't a commies vs. nazis event, and this wasn't an article doing a survey view of the conflict.

Koshkin 6y ago

Fascism is national-socialism. Communism is international-fascism.