La presencia soviética en Vizcaya durante la guerra de España (1936-1939). Una reinterpretación a partir de las fuentes rusas

Abstract

The internationalization of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was a phenomenon derived from the inability of both sides to sustain the armed conflict on their own. The Soviet Union, as the vanguard of the socialist movements, came to the aid of the Republic. Soviet personnel were distributed throughout the Peninsula along with their diplomatic headquarters. Their presence in Vizcaya has scarcely been studied by historiography. Until now, the memoirs of contemporaries who coincided with the Soviets and two documents of Russian origin are the only primary sources on which the story of Operation X in the north has been built. This article aims to address a renewal of the historiographic postulates based on a reinterpretation of the sources and new data from the research with the archives of the Military Archive of the Russian Federation (RGVA). The results obtained have allowed us to clarify the Soviet presence, personnel, actions and objectives in Vizcaya.