I Think That's Valid...
To make matters worse, one can add the assassination of King Juan Carlos I, sparking a Yugoslavia-style ultra-nationalist civil war...
If anything, this sounds pretty valid as a point. If people are so dead-set on creating a left-wing Stalinist dictatorship, maybe it comes as a combinationation of Francoist regime and its aftermath. Consider the idea of a Soviet style "people's revolution" taking place in Madrid immediately after the death General Franco in 1976. In the ATL, he has a hand-picked successor, who is overthrown in a coup in 1981. Starting in 1981, one could throw in support and training bases for Libyan, Syrian, and Lebanese terrorists, which would garner heated response from the White House by 1986, as a "state-supporter" of terrorism...No doubt the germans would have invaded Spain in 1940, after France. Then they would have taken Gibraltar, and that maybe would have meant the fall of all the Med. Doubt the UK would have surrendered, but the nazis would get the Middle east oil and have a better chance against the soviets.
But anyway, if the Allies win, they would not allow a communist Spain, as they did not in Italy. So, the stalinist republic has no real chances in AH...
Unless, now that i think of it, that the spanish republic is allied to the USSR, so Hitler does not attack it after France falls (in order to avoid premature war with the soviets). Then, maybe the spanish communists are able to stay neutral.
What a mess!
To make matters worse, one can add the assassination of King Juan Carlos I, sparking a Yugoslavia-style ultra-nationalist civil war...