What if the Republicans won the Spanish Civil War?

Would Spain still be closer with the West in the 50's? Would Franco be perceived more negatively than he is OTL?
 
I think that Franco wouldn't be as well known. The reason he was so well known is because he is the only Euro-fascist leader after the Second World War. If he gets defeated then he likely is remebered as a footnote in history.

In regards to Spain. It's likely that the Germans invade it in order to eliminate a pro-West govt. in Western Europe. During late 1944, early 1945 it likely gets liberated by the WAllies. Iniatlly the communists would be popular ( a la Italy) but with Marshall Plan Aid, NATO membership, and US military protection, the non-communists likely prevail and Spain is integrated into the NATO alliance structure in 1949-1955.
 
It depends on an awful lot:
- Who wins? The Republicans were a damn big tent where rival factions fought one another as readily as the Nationalists; among those you have Stalinist, Marxist, anarcho-collectivist and other parties.
- When do they win? Is the July coup crushed? Does Franco make it across the Strait of Gib? A Republican victory in 36 looks awful different to one in 37, and alien to one in (nigh-ASB) 38.
- How do they win? Anglo-French support, no embargo, no Axis support?

Just a few important PODs for you there.
 
Unless you consider Salazar a Fascist, Fascism completly dies out after 1945.

Otherwise they will try to remain neutral, but Nazis attack, they install a puppet, WAllies invade Spain and it maybe is TTL's DDAY.

As for internal government, it is very fractured, lots of factions. I wonder what a surviving Republican spain will have on anarchism.
 
It depends on an awful lot:
- Who wins? The Republicans were a damn big tent where rival factions fought one another as readily as the Nationalists; among those you have Stalinist, Marxist, anarcho-collectivist and other parties.
- When do they win? Is the July coup crushed? Does Franco make it across the Strait of Gib? A Republican victory in 36 looks awful different to one in 37, and alien to one in (nigh-ASB) 38.
- How do they win? Anglo-French support, no embargo, no Axis support?

Just a few important PODs for you there.

Hugh Thomas in *The Spanish Civil War*, p. 209, gives a very simple POD for a quick Republican victory (though as he notes a quick rebel victory was equally possible):

"Nearly everywhere, the civil governors followed the example of the government in Madrid, and refused to cooperate with the working-class organizations who were clamouring for arms. In many cases, this signed the death warrants of the civil governors themselves, along with local working-class leaders. Had the rebels risen in all the provinces in Spain on 18 July, they might have been everywhere triumphant by 22 July. *But had the government distributed arms, and ordered the civil governors to do so too, thus using the working class to defend the republic at the earliest opportunity, the rising might have been crushed.* [my emphasis--DT] https://books.google.com/books?id=4a5RAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA209
 
Hugh Thomas in *The Spanish Civil War*, p. 209, gives a very simple POD for a quick Republican victory (though as he notes a quick rebel victory was equally possible):

"Nearly everywhere, the civil governors followed the example of the government in Madrid, and refused to cooperate with the working-class organizations who were clamouring for arms. In many cases, this signed the death warrants of the civil governors themselves, along with local working-class leaders. Had the rebels risen in all the provinces in Spain on 18 July, they might have been everywhere triumphant by 22 July. *But had the government distributed arms, and ordered the civil governors to do so too, thus using the working class to defend the republic at the earliest opportunity, the rising might have been crushed.* [my emphasis--DT] https://books.google.com/books?id=4a5RAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA209

It's a difficult POD to achieve without changing the leadership of the government at the time of the coup. José Giral would need to be in power, rather than Santiago Casares Quiroga, in order for the distribution of arms to take place and then there'd be an urgent need to deal with the anarchists and communists that had been armed once the fighting had died down within a few weeks of the coup's beginning.

Revolution is the last thing that'll happen in that situation, but the idea that the revolutionary cat would be let out of the bag by the distribution of arms was taken very seriously - Giral probably doesn't last long and there's a good case that someone from the PSOE, like Francisco Largo Caballero, is chosen to negotiate the return of the militias' weapons.
 
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