‘Stalin and the Spanish Civil War, Eighty Years On’

On Tuesday, 30 October, 8 pm, at the Galway Mechanics Institute, Middle Street, Daniel Kowalsky will speak on ‘Stalin and the Spanish Civil War, Eighty Years On’

The event is co-organised by the Irish Centre for the Histories of Labour and Class (Moore Institute, NUI Galway) and the Galway Council of Trade Unions. Free, all welcome.

Dr Kowalsky writes: Moscow’s intervention in Spain went far beyond the dispatch to the besieged Republic of state-of-the-art Soviet war matériel. An accompanying agitprop campaign, a cinematic offensive, humanitarian relief, and diplomatic rapprochement marked the Spanish Civil War as the most significant projection of Russian power into the West, up to that moment.

Because of the unavailability of archives, Cold War bias, and grievous errors by historians, the participation of the Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War was the last great unresolved problem in modern European history. Today, over a quarter-century after the declassifications of Spanish and Russian archives, research in the field is booming, with new publications steadily fleshing out the improbable, epic drama. Dr Kowalsky’s talk will examine and probe the recent historiographic upsurge in this fascinating subject and reveal the full story of Stalin and the Spanish Civil War.

Daniel Kowalsky lecturer in European Studies at Queen’s University, Belfast, is the author of numerous books and articles on the civil war in Spain