The Spanish Civil War was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicansand the Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic, and consisted of various socialist, communist, separatist, anarchist, and republican parties, some of which had opposed the government in the pre-war period.
The opposing Nationalists were an alliance of Falangists, monarchists, conservatives, and traditionalists led by a military junta among whom General Francisco Franco quickly achieved a preponderant role. Due to the international political climate at the time, the war had many facets and was variously viewed as class struggle, religious struggle, a struggle between dictatorship and republican democracy, between revolution and counterrevolution, and between fascism and communism.
