When Miguel Primo de Rivera was dictator of Spain from 1923 to 1930 many Spanish Leftist leaders cooperated with the dictatorship even though they fundamentally opposed it. Last week those opposed to Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s regime felt safest outside the country. Former Republican Premier Dr. Juan Negrin, Foreign Minister Julio Alvarez del Vayo, onetime Defense [...] »

Early this week Loyalist resistance in northern Catalonia collapsed, and in a swift advance northward from Gerona the Rebel Armies of Generalissimo Francisco Franco occupied Figueras, for eleven days the fourth capital of Loyalist Spain. As last as their transport could keep up with them, they bore down on the frontier towns of Port-Bou, La [...] »

The stockmarket fell last week three days before Barcelona. Stock prices had been weak since the first of the year and when last week’s break came they were already back at what Dow theorists call “resistance levels” (146 for Dow-Jones industrial averages, 28.8 for railroads) set by the previous reaction in November and December. Both [...] »

To drive home how enormously more horrible the next World War will be than its predecessor, Professor Haldane cited cold figures: “Between January 1917 and November 1918, German aeroplanes dropped 71 tons of bombs on England. These killed 837 people. . . . On March 16-19, 1938, 41 tons of bombs were dropped on Barcelona [...] »

Thrifty Joseph Stalin belatedly bet another blue chip on the Spanish Loyalists last week in the form of ten splendid Soviet warplanes. Tons of other Soviet war paraphernalia have reached the Leftists in the past month via France. Amid wild cheering in recently bombed Barcelona, Soviet war birds in mass formation darkened the sky and [...] »

Meanwhile, for the first time in modern history, a Spanish Government moved to Barcelona, the second move of the Leftist Government since the war started. Plenty of government bureaus remained in overcrowded Valencia. Signaling the move, Minister of the Interior Julian Zugazagoita made a radio speech containing two statements, neither of which would have been [...] »

Catalonian anarchists supporting the Leftist Government of Premier Dr. Juan Negrin asked leave to stage anti-Fascist rallies and parades on the first birthday of Spain’s civil war last week, but were sternly repressed. Catalonia’s President Luis Companys cared to risk no street riots among his Communist, Anarchist, Socialist and Republican supporters, and anyhow Leftist Spain [...] »

The entire effectiveness of the Leftist Government has been in the series of compromises making it possible for a mixed salad of political parties to work in some sort of harmony. Immediately behind last week’s Cabinet crisis was the brief Anarchist revolt in Barcelona of fortnight ago (TIME. May 17). Premier Largo Caballero and President [...] »

The Spanish spotlight, focused for the past month on the Basque capital at Bilbao, swung last week to Barcelona, greatest industrial city in Spain and chief port remaining in Leftist hands. »

That no simple civil war of two Spains, Leftists and Rightists, is being fought, made itself clear again last week as some other Spains became active afresh, notably the Basques and the Catalonians. These regions are violently separatist, even when Spain is at peace. The fact that today Catalonians and Basques are both classed as [...] »