USSR assistance in Spanish Civil War

Hi, does anybody know of any Russian/Soviet English-languaged books on the assistance given by the Soviet Union to the warring parties in Spain during the Civil War?

don't know any russian/english languaged books but ther are some books on the soviet involvment, this one is specific abut the soviet and communist role in the war might try it out

http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Spanish_Civil_War_the_Soviet_Union_a.html?id=xAolA_AgCG4C

NationalRus wrote:don't know any russian/english languaged books but ther are some books on the soviet involvment, this one is specific abut the soviet and communist role in the war might try it out

Thank you!

The Red Army played a crucial role in the Spanish Civil War, supplying over 1,000 aircraft, 900 tanks, 1,500 artillery pieces, 300 armored cars, hundreds of thousands of small arms and 30,000 tons of ammunition to the Republican cause.

Soviet participation in the Spanish Civil War was greatly influenced by the growing tension between Stalin and Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany and an avid supporter of the fascist forces of Francisco Franco. Nazi-Soviet relations were tempered by Hitler's personal hatred of the people of East Europe and by the longstanding ideological feud between fascism and communism.

More up to date figures:

"... the Soviet Union sent to the Spanish Government 806 military
aircraft, mainly fighters, 362 tanks, 120 armoured cars, 1,555
artillery pieces, about 500,000 rifles, 340 grenade launchers, 15,113
machine-guns, more than 110,000 aerial bombs, about 3.4 million
rounds of ammunition, 500,000 grenades, 862 million cartridges, 1,500
tons of gunpowder, torpedo boats, air defence searchlight
installations, motor vehicles, radio stations, torpedoes and fuel".

('International Solidarity'; op.cit.; p.329-30).

and under the new Soviet policy,

"... a little more than 2,000 Soviet volunteers fought and worked in
Spain on the side of the Republic throughout the whole war, including
772 airmen, 351 tank men, 222 army advisers and instructors, 77 naval
specialists, 100 artillery specialists, 52 other specialists, 130
aircraft factory workers and engineers, 156 radio operators and other
signals men, and 204 interpreters".

('International Solidarity': op.cit.; p.328).

Aristonicus wrote:More up to date figures:

"... the Soviet Union sent to the Spanish Government 806 military
aircraft, mainly fighters, 362 tanks, 120 armoured cars, 1,555
artillery pieces, about 500,000 rifles, 340 grenade launchers, 15,113
machine-guns, more than 110,000 aerial bombs, about 3.4 million
rounds of ammunition, 500,000 grenades, 862 million cartridges, 1,500
tons of gunpowder, torpedo boats, air defence searchlight
installations, motor vehicles, radio stations, torpedoes and fuel".

('International Solidarity'; op.cit.; p.329-30).

and under the new Soviet policy,

"... a little more than 2,000 Soviet volunteers fought and worked in
Spain on the side of the Republic throughout the whole war, including
772 airmen, 351 tank men, 222 army advisers and instructors, 77 naval
specialists, 100 artillery specialists, 52 other specialists, 130
aircraft factory workers and engineers, 156 radio operators and other
signals men, and 204 interpreters".

('International Solidarity': op.cit.; p.328).

They did get paid for the materiel, didn't they...?

Fred

They did get paid for the materiel, didn't they...?

Fred

Yes, in gold. See Arms for Spain: The Untold Story of the Spanish Civil War, By Gerald Howson, John Murray, 1998,

The Spanish gold reserves worth $518 million (1936 value) were sent to the Soviet Union for safekeeping - most of it was used for arms purchases. Howson calculates that Stalin defrauded the Republic by at least $51 million. Some of the armaments the USSR supplied were top of the line stuff, and some was not - e.g. seemingly whatever foreign made artillery the Red Army had in its' storage depots.

That being said, the Republic was defrauded by most of the gun runners they tried to use. The French didn't exactly supply much up to date equipment either. The Poles generously sold them perhaps 50 FT-17 tanks of which only 5 were in running condition. etc

To elaborate further on the above figures:

Tanks: 331

T-26 x 281 (received)

BT-5 x 50

(n.b. 16 x T-26 sunk with the Komsomol 14.12.36, 25 that failed to ship in 1937 and 40 that were shipped to France and freighted to Barcelona but were immediately returned in 1939 are not included)

Armoured Cars: 60

FA-I x 20

BA-3 x 3

BA-6 x 37

Aircraft

Polikarpov I-15 x 122
Polikarpov I-152 x 99
Polikarpov I-16 type 5 & 6 x 155
Polikarpov I-16 type 10 x 91-3
Polikarpov R-5 x 33
Polikarpov R-Z x 93
Tupolev SB-2 x 93

Ships

G-5 Type MTB x 4

Tks for all the info. Much the same equipment they supplied the Chinese with, then. Which of the two books you mention do you find gives the best information?

Fred

You are thanking them way too early.


Probably the best source of information on the Internet about the Soviet aid to the Republican Spain you can find here:

http://www.gutenberg-e.org/kod01/frames/fkodimg.html



I am surprised nobody has listed this link yet.


Poland was the second largest supplier of armaments to the Spanish Republic during the Civil War (after Soviet Union), despite the fact that Poland officially supported only the Franco rebels.

http://www.dws.org.pl/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=125868&st=0&sk=t&sd=a


Poland dispatched its shipments by sea from its own port of Gdynia, and the nearby Free City of Gdansk. Could the shipments from the latter port been pilfered and/or sabotaged by the local Germans? After all the Chinese pilfered the Soviet shipments to Vietnam during the Vietnam wars, so I think that was possible.


As for the Soviets keeping their gold, vast majority of it was plundered in the New World.

Hi Odin,

Thanks for those links. I had the link to Kowalsky's book years ago but lost it.

I have found this a good site for that information as well, in Spanish.

Main page:
http://www.sbhac.net/Memoria.htm


Weapons, aircraft, ships and equipment of the Armed Forces of the Republic

http://www.sbhac.net/Republica/Fuerzas/Armas/Armas.htm

For example there is an interesting article here: The Mortera-Salas polemic against Howson.
http://www.sbhac.net/Republica/Fuerzas/Armas/Polemica/Polemica.htm

and more. n.b. a lot of the text and images are copy protected.

Great links, Odin - tks for posting.

Fred

On this day 80 years ago - 26 September 1936 - began the first truly large-scale supply of Soviet arms abroad - in the form of military assistance to the Spanish Republican government.

From memos USSR People's Commissar of Defense KE Voroshilov:

.. "" 26 / IX 1936 15 h 45 m Called t C. [talin] C. with [eyes] and offered to discuss.:

1) Sale 80-100 "Vickers" system of tanks with sending the required number of staff. On tanks should be no signs of owls. [Etskih] plants.

2) Sell through Mexico 50-60 "SB" by arming their foreign guns.

Questions to discuss urgently. HF "

The next day, September 27, 1936 KE Voroshilov reported IV Stalin:

"Prepared to send 100 tanks, 387 professionals; send 30 aircraft without guns, 15 planes full crews, bombs steamer goes to Mexico and goes to Cartagena Tanks send 50 units...."

In fact, as already September 26, 1936 from Feodosia in Cartagena came the first vessel, which would then be specified by the transport Y-1 - Spanish tanker the Campeche, on board, in addition to oil in the cargo tanks, and was the first batch of weapons transferred by the Soviet side: six English 114 -mm howitzer Mk I and 6000 shells for them, 240 German 16-linear-propelled grenades and 100 thousand grenades to them, 350 heavy machine guns St. Etienne, Colt and Vickers, 200 light machine guns MG 08/15 and Hotchkiss, 21347 rifles (2000 German 7.92 mm Mauser, 6000 Austrian 8mm Manlicher, 13347 singly Italian 11-mm Vetterli), 16,5 million different rifle cartridges. The vessel arrived in Cartagena on October 4.

Loading tanker Campeche According to the military cargo was determined to send another 6 September 1936 IV Stalin a telegram from Sochi to Moscow LM Kaganovich:

"It would be good to sell 50 pieces of SB Mexico to Mexico immediately resold them to Spain. You could also pick up 20 people of our good pilots, so they performed in Spain fighting functions, and at the same time taught flights on the SAT Spanish pilots. Consider the case quickly. It would be the same way to sell 20 thousand rifles, machine guns and a thousand million 20 cartridge. It is only necessary to know the gauges.

Stalin. Number 34. 6 / 1H.36 city "

Transport Y-2 - Soviet ship "Komsomol" - with 50 T-26 tanks on board came from Theodosia October 4, 1936 and arrived in Cartagena 12 October.
September 29, 1936 at a meeting of the Politburo of the CPSU (b) adopted a formal decision to have surgery «X»:

"NGOs Question

a) approve the plan of operations for the delivery of personnel and special machines in the "X", the full implementation of entrusting operations to Comrades Uritskogo [Chief Intelligence Directorate of the NKO] and Sudyin [acting People's Commissar of Foreign Trade];

b) To conduct a special operation to release the Intelligence 1,910,000 Soviet rubles and 190 thousand dollars. "

http://bmpd.livejournal.com/2147365.html

Check these two Web pages:



Battle of Madrid

http://ww2.debello.ca/slippery/madrid/index.html



The International Brigades

http://ww2.debello.ca/last/brigades.html

Do you think larger Soviet involvement might have tipped the war in Republicans' favor? Soviet presence wasnt really large - less than 1000 military personel at any givn time.