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155 3 Cynicism At the end of 1937, the Republic came to resemble the Confederacy in its final stage. Rojo observed a “defeatism” behind the lines, largely caused by high prices or shortages of food, clothing, and transportation (cited in Salas Larraz ábal 1973:1540; see also Cervera 1999:130). The scarcity of fertilizers and means to ship them lowered crop yields. To avoid price controls and their accompanying bureaucracy, those with a salable surplus bartered with each other.1 The legal measures that the Republic used to halt barter, which had begun to replace purchase, had only a marginal effect. Swapping favored those with access to real goods and dramatically reduced what was available in urban markets. The deepening of the material crisis turned opportunism into cynicism . Personal interests reigned supreme. Shortages divided the Republic into at least three conflicting social groups: peasants who demanded higher prices for their products; urban workers and rural proletarians who needed price controls ; and soldiers who, like workers, wanted cheap food and clothing but, unlike the other groups, were more able to take what they coveted. In February, a seventeen year old from the province of Alicante wrote to his brother who was serving in the army that “in the rearguard hunger is busting our balls [pica en los cojones].”2 Without massive purchases from abroad, he had no faith that civilians could be supplied. The plight of urban residents was most perilous. In the winter of 1937–38, lack of transportation prevented fulfillment of promises to provide Madrid with more meat and bread.3 Females grumbled their defeatism in food lines (Cervera 1999:195, 208). In larger stores shoplifting became common. A Nationalist physician reported that in Madrid, normal rationing provided civilians with only five hundred calories per day instead of the recommended twenty-three to thirty-three hundred (Carro 1938:6). Defectors from the Republican zone showed significant weight loss. In February a Republican lieutenant colonel reported from Barcelona that workers could not afford to feed or clothe themselves and blamed the situation on the devaluation of Republican money (Martínez Bande 1974a:321). Everyone in Barcelona believed that if hidden wheat, oil, and oranges emerged there would be enough food to go around. Although the costs of rent and electricity were effectively stabilized and, in most cases, reduced, many still could not afford food. Long lines demoralized housewives and the elderly. By dropping loaves of bread from airplanes on the major urban centers, Nationalists added a bit to the diet but more to the despair of residents (Aragón 1940:240). More sinister strategic bombing disrupted the urban economy and terrorized the population. In January, the Italians acted on their own and launched air raids on Barcelona, killing hundreds (Thomas 1961:513; Jackson 1965:408. Villarroya i Font 1981:118, 158).4 From 16 to 18 March, Barcelona suffered numerous air assaults that killed nearly one thousand and injured many more. Neither the January nor the March attacks targeted strictly military objectives but rather aimed to intimidate civilians, including women and children. They were only partially successful since they eliminated fewer than expected.5 Starvation and financial ruin remained greater dangers for urban residents than bombardments (Mira 1939:4093). Furthermore, the destruction enraged large portions of the city’s youth who, to retaliate, became perhaps the last enthusiastic recruits of the Popular Army. These early 1938 raids were much more destructive than previous ones on Madrid and Alicante where, as has been mentioned , nearly half the bombs failed to explode. Ciano, the Italian foreign minister and the son-in-law of the Duce, was perversely proud of the devastation and terror that his bombers sowed. Western powers, including the usually cautious Cordell Hull, the U.S. secretary of state, protested what would become the fate of civilian populations in World War II. The terror bombings revealed cracks in Nationalist unity. Generals Yagüe and Moscardó protested the indiscriminate killing and destruction, thereby reinforcing their reputation for nonconformist courage. Even Franco was unhappy with the attacks and asked Mussolini to suspend them (Coverdale 1975:349). Privately, though, certain Nationalist agents, whose attitudes could clearly be regarded as fascist, had no second thoughts about the activities of their Italian allies. Nationalist emissaries expressed the desire that working-class districts in Barcelona be reduced to rubble.6 The destruction would serve both social and hygienic needs.7 They expected that it would eliminate the gentuza responsible for the “misfortunes of Spain” and, at...

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