Discussion UsefulNotes / SpanishCivilWar

Chopped this thing from the Bomb-Throwing Anarchists entry - the wiki is not for having political debates.

• It should probably be noted here that the Anarchists had a rather good reason to want to see the churches burn. The Catholic church in Spain had long been a supporter of reactionary government, and in any struggle between "the people" and "the government" the church took the side of the government. It should be remembered that the majority of Anarchist power so-to-say laid in "the masses" of the working class, so most of the violent actions undertaken (such as the aforementioned mob violence) represented the wishes of the working class to rid themselves of capitalists, reactionaries, monarchists, clericalists and fascists, a struggle they found more than justified due to the ills that these groups supposedly had inflicted upon society. The Anarchists were first and foremost Socialists, specifically Anarcho-Syndicalists and Anarcho-Communists, so many of the same ideals and ethics that go for Socialists go for Anarchists as well.
  • Then again, the same anarchists worked for Stalin and the USSR, so presumably, had they won, they'd have replaced one tyranny with another. The Catholic Church also spoke out both against Capitalism and Socialism in Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum, and most of the rhetoric of the Church not helping the people comes from left-wing propagandists who oppose the Church on ideological grounds. Many Churchmen in both Spain and Latin America hated both American-style Capitalism and Socialist Communism, seeing them both as alien dogmas that have caused misery and suffering for the many while enriching a small few. The fact that many leftist Catholics were alienated by the atheistic republicans probably explains why the Church keeps siding with the government: the revolutionaries hate their guts either way, believing Marx when he says "religion is the opiate of the masses." So even when religious people want to pitch in for the working class, the revolutionaries shoot them, and they get forced to side with the fascists to save their skins. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
  • Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgement

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