Red Terror (Spain) - Conclusion and Aftermath

Conclusion and Aftermath

With the total 1939 victory of the Nationalists over the Republicans in the Civil War in Spain, the Red Terror ended in that country, although individual terror attacks seem to have continued sporadically, carried out by remnant Communists and Socialists, hiding in French border regions, but without great results. Throughout the country, the Catholic Church held Te Deums to thank God for the outcome. Numerous left-wing personalities were tried for the Red Terror, not all of them were guilty. Others fled to the Soviet Union, where a number of them "disappeared" in Joseph Stalin's Gulags. Franco's victory was followed by thousands of summary executions (remains of 35,000 people are estimated by the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH) to still lie in mass graves) and imprisonments, while many were put to forced labour, building railways, drying out swamps, digging canals (La Corchuela, the Canal of the Bajo Guadalquivir), construction of the Valle de los Caídos monument, etc. The 1940 shooting of the president of the Catalan government, Lluís Companys, was one of the most notable cases of this early repression. Although leftists suffered from an important death-toll, the Spanish intelligentsia, atheists and military and government figures who had remained loyal to the Madrid government during the war were also targeted by the repression.

The new Pope Pius XII sent a radio message of congratulation to the Spanish Government, clerics and people on April 16, 1939. He referred to the denunciation of his predecessor, Pope Pius XI, who described past horrors and the need to defend and restore the rights of God and religion. The pope stated that the victims of terror died for Jesus Christ. He wished peace and prosperity upon the Spanish people, appealing to them to punish criminals but to exercise leniency and Spanish generosity against the many who were on the other side. He asked for their full participation in society and entrusted them to the compassion of the Church in Spain.

The Red Terror in Spain was from the Vatican perspective only one part of a "Terrible Triangle" of Red Terror, whose goal was the eradication of religion, involving Mexico and the Soviet Union as well. Pope Pius XI complained about a Conspiracy of Silence on all Church persecutions.