Okay. One point of clarity-- They didn't torture the Spanish PM. They replaced him. It was the rest of the leftist parties they hunted, tortured and killed.
If you claim this is "highly contested"--Please send me the source of your information. If you have evidence or information please share it
Consider this book:
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Here is a wikipedia article on Nin. Do you have any contrary articles or books?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreu_Nin
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If you cant be bothered to click a link.....
Arrest and disappearance
Plaque to Nin on the public library on La Rambla, Barcelona
Following the violent May Days of Barcelona, on 16 June 1937, the government, under PCE pressure, declared POUM illegal. On the orders of Alexander Orlov, Nin and most of the POUM leadership were arrested and sent to a camp at Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid.[2][4] Nin was tortured for several days under the supervision of the NKVD. Jesús Hernández Tomás, then a member of the Communist Party, and Minister of Education in the Popular Front government, later wrote:
Nin was not giving in. He was resisting until he fainted. His inquisitors were getting impatient. They decided to abandon the dry method. Then the blood flowed, the skin peeled off, muscles torn, physical suffering pushed to the limits of human endurance. Nin resisted the cruel pain of the most refined tortures. In a few days his face was a shapeless mass of flesh.[2]
He was finally executed on 20 June 1937.[2]
The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939, by Antony Beevor.
I agree. Italy's performance up until that point, in both Ethiopia and the Spanish Civil War, made it pretty clear they weren't ready for war. The point I was making is that Mussolini has aspirations for a sphere in the Balkans, an area that Stalin also wanted in his sphere, and in fact that division led to a chilling of Soviet-Axis relations after late 1940. The idea that we would see the Wehrmacht and Stalin's troops fighting side-by-side is nonsensical.
Sources: Beevor's The Battle for Spain and Pearce's Prevail.
It's a great book! Very detailed and extensive though.
I recommend this book on the spanish revolution:
That's bullshit. The reason ww2 didn't start sooner was because of Hitlers slow rise witch was directly an result of the versailles threaty. Hitler had to kickstart a dead economy, clandenstinely build up his millitary force including the gigantic task of getting the luftwaffe up and running, and secure resources for both the buildup and the coming war. He didn't have power because he burned down a stupid building and made some draconian laws. He accumulated power by securing resources, most importantly oil, coal and liqudified coal, shaping a millitary force under everyones eyes and geopolitical manuvering.
How do you even see that happening without the distracting utter chaos that was the spanish civil war? Francos and Mussolinis efforts where also a big factor in the rise. But ofcource most of what made it possible was the communist russians that where helpfull in being an adversary with clear exspansion plans.
I'm not saying there is a simple direct correlation, but seen as a whole what happened in Spain gave Hitler geopolitical allies and distraction.
Now. If your not an history professor that will rape me with facts I don't have time to reasearch and subsequently construct an refutation. A book that lead me on to this thinking was "The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939" by one of my favorite war writers Anthony Beevor https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Spain-Spanish-Civil-1936-1939/dp/014303765X?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-ffab-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=014303765X
Start here if you want arguably the best book about the complexities of the Spanish War, written by Antony Beevor, a well regarded historian.
https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Spain-Spanish-Civil-1936-1939/dp/014303765X/ref=nodl_