Pio Moa's "The Myths of the Civil War"

[BrankoB.]

I came across this title "Los mitos de la guerra civil" by Pio Moa in Helen Graham's "The Spanish Civil War; A Very Short Introduction". It is described as "anachronistic Francoist propaganda". It is also stated that it's one of the bestselling books dealing with the Spanish Civil War.
Anyway, can someone who read the book be so kind and give me a sort of review and a personal opinion about this Moa's work?
Thanks in advance,
Branko Babic

[Maribel-bel]

Less Than Zero

[Fern]

I read ait few years ago and found it surprisingly interesting. He uses lots of direct documents from the PSOE archives and the direct works and memoirs of many political figures of the time. You may disagree with the author overall viewpoints or not, and I think he goes too far away on his statements most of the time, but the info provided is interesting anyway and may help you to form your own idea if you complete it with other readings about the subject. Regarding the Spanish Civil War I would advice you to read books from authors from several political tendences then form an idea about the subject yourself.

However, it is true that Moa isd on the right side of the historical spectrum.

[BrankoB.]

Most of the books available to me are very pro-Republican, especially those published in former Yugoslavia, and that's why I'm actually looking for books written by the "other side". Though I'm actually reading Osprey's Man-At-Arms series "The Spanish Civil War" by Patrick Turnbull, and the first couple of pages seem a bit pro-Rightist (at least compare to the other books I have read on the subject).Unfortunately, it is too short and deals just with the military like other books of the series.
That's why works like Moa's are just what I need right now.
Anyway, thank you,
Cheers,
Branko Babic

P.S. Just finished reading the book "The Spanish Civil War" by Patrick Turnbull- I must say, it's totally Pro-Francoist.

[Vulkan]

I agree with Fern. There is a lot of data available, some of it new, for you to draw your own conclusions. In general, avoid the author's conclusions because, in my opinion, they are rather far-fetched and not very objective, to put it on the mild side.

[Maribel-bel]

I fully disagree.
1st : He isn't an historian but a far-right advertiser (not to mention here his personal biographical past) .
2nd.- As a researcher, he doesn't research anything, he just copy what others have previously found. There is not any original data in his books.
3rd.- His historical conclussions are just sub-scientific personal viewpoints with the only purpose of selling books to far-right readers and Franco fans. Indeed, he isn't original on that, because even in such field, he acts as a copier of what the old Francoist advertisers wrote in the forties and fifties. He hasn't any recognition whithin the community of the SCW specialists and historians. He is systematically depised by that community, and only accepted within some extreme right political circles and media.
Concerning the SCW subject, he and his works are for me the most evident example of word-after-word rubbish (excuse me! )

[sopas]

Pio Moa was born in 1948.

When he was young, during Franco's regime, he was a militant of the PCE (Spain's Communist Party) and was also one of the founders of the Spanish Anti-Fascist terrorist group GRAPO.

Once, democracy was restored in Spain his political ideas became more conservative as he started to research the period of history of the II Republic and the Spanish Civil War. His books are controversial but nevertheless are real best-sellers in Spain.

Here is a review of Pio Moa's Los mitos de la Guerra Civil by Stanley Payne:

http://wais.stanford.edu/Spain/spain_pi ... r7803.html

[iwh]

Here is a review of Pio Moa's Los mitos de la Guerra Civil by Stanley Payne:

http://wais.stanford.edu/Spain/spain_pi ... r7803.html

...and here are some other articles commenting on Pio Moa's work.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articl ... 36,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article ... 67,00.html

I particularly like the quote:

Winston Churchill was crueller than General Francisco Franco

[iwh]

Here is what Francisco Espinosa has to say about Pio Moa's work:

Using de-contextualized quotations from other historians, blatantly manipulating data in favour of his thesis or presupposing whatever interests him, Pío Moa constructs a historiographic story without any kind of scientific rigour using scarcely documented half-truths and, above all, any number of value judgements and clearly tendentious interpretations. If in Los orígenes de la guerra civil (The Origins of the Civil War), he blamed the Republic for the military insurrection of 1936,in a recently published work Franco, un balance histórico (Franco, an historical balance) he directly vindicates Franco's policies: "the greatest political character in Spanish history of the last two centuries".

and

"Pío Moa is not an historian, but a spreader of propaganda; he does not carry out archive research but rather interprets, reproduces and manipulates secondary texts on the Second Republic and the Civil War, hiding in the majority of cases the real sources of the data used". He fills his texts with insults (Espinosa himself has been called a neo-Stalinist) as well as phrases inappropriate in the language of historical studies, such as "seemingly", "it is just conjecture but in no way disdainful"…

It is interesting to not that it wasn't until quite recently that another self professed "historian" called David Irving had his works pulled apart. For many years, his works had been taken at face value. It wasn't until the Irving trial that professional historians such as Richard Evans looked in greater detail at Irving's works and sources. The manipulation, quotations out of context, deliberate alterations in translation etc showed Irving's works for what they really were...works of fiction. To most historians of the SCW, Moa is just not worth the effort. However, you never know....One day.

[sopas]

I dont want to justify Moa or being his advocate but one has to read the whole context of those sentences. Of course the people who critizice him are from the left.

When he saids: "Winston Churchill was crueller than General Francisco Franco", how is he measuring the level of cruelty?

When he saids about Franco: "the greatest political character in Spanish history of the last two centuries". How do we measure the political character of a person? I dont know if Franco was the greatest political character or not, but he certainly was the greatest political figure of the last 200 years in Spain, like it or not. What are the exact words of Moa in Spanish?

Comparing Pio Moa with David Irving is too much. As far as I know Pio Moa has never been at neo-nazi or Falange meetings and neither he goes to the Valle de los Caidos to pay tribute to Franco on 20 November every year. Pio Moa has never denied the repression or crimes that ocurred during Franco's regime and neither he has glorified that. Irving at some point in his life denied the Holocaust!!!!!

It would be interesting to learn how Moa reached his current ideas, especially when he was actually a communist anti-fascist that "fought" against Franco before 1975.

La España de Franco - Pío Moa on TV:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=s9FMmgurReI

http://youtube.com/watch?v=VyJjId3ev00

[Hoss]

When he saids: "Winston Churchill was crueller than General Francisco Franco", how is he measuring the level of cruelty?

Does it matter?

Maybe Winnie had a sharper tongue than Franquito? Maybe he offended more subordinates?

At least they didn't end up slumped up against a masonry wall full of firing squad bullets.

If cruelty is measured in levels or degrees of violence the winner of this historical competition is clear - and here's a hint - it isn't possibly the greatest statesman of the 20th century.

[Fern]

Just an example:

Some people should look at Moa's "1934: Comienza la Guerra Civil. El PSOE y la Esquerra emprenden la contienda" ("1934: The beginning of the Civil War. The PSOE -Socialist Party- and the Esquerra -Catalan Nationalists- start the conflict).

You can throw tpages 1 to 222 to the trash bin if you want. They are Moa's opinions, but from page 223 onwards (up to page 375) there is a documentary appendix which are just newspaper cuttings, transcribed speechs of some Socialist leaders, party meetings minutes etc. All of them come from the Socialist party archives or are taken from leftist newpapers like the following ones:

The Socialist (the Socialist party newspaper)
Renovación (the newspaper of the Socialist youth)
La Humanitat (Catalan Nationalist newspaper)

They are party newspapers, so they reflected the party official line (or lines if there were more than one, and there were indeed). No one, even Moa, can manipulate them.

I had more than enough after reading just those newspaper cuttings to change my mind after long years of believing just the opposite. Now I am much more skeptical about what the left and the right say than I was before. At present there are no offical leftist newspaper who would tolerate the level of belicism and revolutionary agression of those cuttings (including speeches of some Socialist leaders like Largo Caballero for example) taken from the Socialist newspapers. It was really surprising to me.

Iwh and Maribel, please borrow the book from a friend if you don't want to spent a dime in it, but read JUST the documental appendix. There are no Moa comments there, but just the plain text of some newspaper articles and speechs. I am sure you will be really surprised. It is true that it is Moa the man who selected the texts, so he was able take the better ones for confirming his opinion about the subject but the task would had not been possible if no Socialist or catalan nationalist had written and published those texts nor had published them in party newspapers.

[Fern]

I fully disagree.
1st : He isn't an historian but a far-right advertiser (not to mention here his personal biographical past)

I have an Universitarian degree in Modern History, but it doesn't convert me in a "historian". The oposite is also true for me.

The past of Moa is that of a LEFTIST extremist. He was a member of the leadership of a far-left terrorist group (GRAPO, Grupos de resistencia Antifascista Primero de Octubre) in the 70's. The GRAPO was the "military" branch of the PCEr (Partido Comunista de España reconstituido, Reconstituted Spanish Communist party) which was a really small far left party different from the PCE (the Sp. Communist Party). It was a ideological motivated group. It does mean that Moa is familiarized himself with the classic far-left postulates. He was one of them.
.

2nd.- As a researcher, he doesn't research anything, he just copy what others have previously found. There is not any original data in his books.

Before he was known for his rightist tesis about the subject he was able to freely dig into the Socialist Party archives.

3rd.- His historical conclussions are just sub-scientific personal viewpoints with the only purpose of selling books to far-right readers and Franco fans.

I don't agree with most of Moa's conclussions, but it doesn't mean he writes just for the far-right. The far right market is not as large as many leftists like thinking. In fact it is ridiculous small in nowasdays Spain.

Indeed, he isn't original on that, because even in such field, he acts as a copier of what the old Francoist advertisers wrote in the forties and fifties.

I don't know because I have not read those Francoist historians. AFAIK very few people have done it.

He hasn't any recognition whithin the community of the SCW specialists and historians. He is systematically depised by that community, and only accepted within some extreme right political circles and media.

I am afraid that NOT all people who disagree with leftist conclusions are rightist extremists. However there is a STRONG tendence in the left to discredit the opinions they don't like as "far right or francoist" ones. Those arguments "ad hominem" are not the way to debunk opinions. Unfortunately most leftist opinions, even historian ones, are just "ad hominem" attacks. The fact is that many facts told by MOa are CORRECT. Moa may take abusive conclusions from them, and he does it most of the time, but the facts he uses are correct most of the time. If for example you uses the words of Azaña written by him about the anarchy suffered by the country after the 1936 elections (with almost all violence done by the left), you may disagree with Moa conclusions (the left were almost in a prerevolutionary stance and ready to crush the right to the last man), but the Azaña words are still true and no historian can debunk what Azaña said because, as we say in Spain, they were put in black over white (= they were printed). It makes debunking Moa difficult because most of the facts used by him are correct though their tesis may not be. That is the thing that interests me of Moa work: He shows what others hide.

That's the goog thing about Pio Moa. He "shakes" the historian panorama about the Sp. Civil War providing you with a needed vision from the right.

Concerning the SCW subject, he and his works are for me the most evident example of word-after-word rubbish (excuse me! )

Have you ever read a book from Moa?

[iwh]

I dont want to justify Moa or being his advocate but one has to read the whole context of those sentences. Of course the people who critizice him are from the left.

Oh come now. He is criticised by most members of the academic community, certainly those who are experts on that time period. It isn't just those "on the left". This excuse is now becoming quite boring.

Comparing Pio Moa with David Irving is too much.

You are jumping in far too quickly and are not reading exactly what I am trying to say here. Yet again my comments get taken out of context in an attempt to ignore what I am really saying.

As far as I know Pio Moa has never been at neo-nazi or Falange meetings and neither he goes to the Valle de los Caidos to pay tribute to Franco on 20 November every year. Pio Moa has never denied the repression or crimes that ocurred during Franco's regime and neither he has glorified that. Irving at some point in his life denied the Holocaust!!!!!

I never commented at all on Moa's ideology, just as I never commented on Irving's either! My comparison between Moa and Irving lay in their METHODOLOGY. Irving, like Moa was seen as "a breath of fresh air", someone to give a different perspective on history just as Moa is. However, when Irving's work was actually studied, it was seen to be riddled with lies, distortion, mistranslation and facts taken out of context. It appears that Moa is being seen in the same light by real historians of the period.

For all Spanish speakers here is an example of someone who has analyzed Moa's work in some detail.

http://www.nodulo.org/ec/2003/n015p11.htm

It would be interesting to learn how Moa reached his current ideas, especially when he was actually a communist anti-fascist that "fought" against Franco before 1975.

Who knows? It does happen though. Paul Rassinier, the "father of Holocaust Denial" was during WW2 a member of the French Resistance and ex Concentration camp prisoner.

[iwh]

Iwh and Maribel, please borrow the book from a friend if you don't want to spent a dime in it, but read JUST the documental appendix. There are no Moa comments there, but just the plain text of some newspaper articles and speechs. I am sure you will be really surprised. It is true that it is Moa the man who selected the texts, so he was able take the better ones for confirming his opinion about the subject but the task would had not been possible if no Socialist or catalan nationalist had written and published those texts nor had published them in party newspapers.

The comparison between Irving and Moa gets even better. Irving himself was praised (even at the libel trial) for his skill in tracking down primary sources. The problem was how he used those sources.

We have to ask ourselves a question here. Is Moa telling us anything new? The answer is no, not really. Historians of the period are well aware of the radicalism of the Left during the early 1930s. It is not new. Hugh Thomas mentions it in his book written in the 1960s. Moa of course takes this radicalism in isolation and uses it to blame the Left for "forcing" Franco to get onto his glorious white horse to come to the rescue of Spain. He does not mention the equal amount of radicalism on the Right of Spanish politics, and the complex social issues which forced both sides to act as they did.