In response to the recent stoush over Tolkien, race and conservatism, I did a little more research on Tolkien’s racial theories and their similarities to other eugenic and racial theories floating about in the interwar period. I don’t have my primary or secondary sources with me, because my Tolkien Bestiary is in a box in Australia, I returned the MERP books to my mate, and I don’t have copies of the original books, but there are two online resources – the Tolkien Gateway and the Encyclopaedia of Arda – which I am going to use to provide some context and better research to my theories. In this post I am going to give more detail about the human races in Middle Earth, describe Tolkien’s racial mixing theories in more detail, compare them to the Aryan Invasion Theory of history, which was still popular when he wrote, and draw a few conclusions, some of which aren’t so pretty.
It’s my thesis that, independent of Tolkien’s actual political views, his books are a model of interwar racial theory, which holds that whites are superior to blacks, that when whites interbreed with blacks they civilise them but dilute the “good qualities” of whites, and that in general race determines psychological as well as physical traits, and racial mixing is bad. This doesn’t change the significance of Tolkien’s work, but it has ramifications for the political position of the genre it spawned.
Tolkien’s races
Noisms at Monsters and Manuals suggested in comments that a “formalist” reading of Tolkien is necessary to properly understand how the races in Middle Earth might reflect real racial differences. Others online have suggested that Tolkien didn’t give any formal characteristics to his races – that he never said elves are white and Haradrim are black – and that subsequent racially-specified images of them reflect the readers’ prejudices. But reading Tolkien doesn’t support the view that his races weren’t racialised. For example, here is the first Haradrim we meet:
“…a man fell, crashing through the slender trees, nearly on top of them. He came to rest in the fern a few feet away, face downward, green arrow-feathers sticking from his neck below a golden collar. His scarlet robes were tattered, his corslet of overlapping brazen plates was rent and hewn, his black plaits of hair braided with gold were drenched with blood. His brown hand still clutched the hilt of a broken sword…“
We’re talking here about a race with brown skin and black braided hair, which lives in the Jungles and deserts of a hot Southern land, and which rides elephants. I don’t think the racial symbolism of this accidental. They were in the thrall of Sauron and fought for him, so also therefore presumably evil.
There is very little about the physical nature of Easterlings in the descriptions in the novels, because they don’t play a big part; but their most famous contingent are the Wainriders, who pretty clearly represent the mongol hordes. The Easterlings are clearly also allied with Sauron, and are evil. As we will see in the next section, Easterlings were of a different racial stock to the Men of the West. Whether they were physically distinguishable, they were clearly racially distinct.
Tolkien himself described the Orcs as
…squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes; in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types
and some Orcs are black-skinned. They are clearly racially distinct from humans and elves, and by definition evil. He also clearly associated the Dwarves with Jews in one of his letters. Details of this controversy over race in LoTR are given a very balanced exposition at the Tolkien Gateway.
Tolkien’s racial theories
Tolkien obviously construed the Elves as superior to Men and Dwarves. He also clearly constructed a racially deterministic world, where some races (Orcs, Haradrim and Easterlings) were evil and some (Mixed and High Men, Elves and Dwarves) were good but flawed. While his good races were capable of doing evil, his evil races were incapable of doing good, or at the very least were so vulnerable to the thrall of evil that they were for all intents and purposes racially evil. But of particular interest here is his division of humans into two racial kinds – Wild Men and Middle or High Men. Wild Men are explicitly under the thrall of evil – they were corrupted from their genesis. On the other hand, the Edain escaped from Morkoth and were contacted by the elves, who gave them special gifts (of long life and magic) which ennobled them. They then returned to Beleriand, and settled in the western half where they slowly intermingled with the Middle Men, and diluted their special gifts. Some of these Middle Men (such as the Dunlendings) are described as swarthy, and were oppressed by the Edain.
The strongest and most obvious example of this racial theory in action in the books is Aragorn. Racially pure, he has retained the gifts of High Men and so has special rights to command his undead ancestors, to use the special magical devices of his old people, and to use magic no-one else knows. Some of these properties are drawn from his noble lineage, but some are a consequence of his racial purity. Noble lineage in the third age is, of course, associated with racial purity, and with nobler traits.
Aryan Racial Theory
The Aryan Invasion Theory is a theory of classical history, used to describe the civilisations of the Indus valley particularly, which posits that a bunch of horse-riding nomads destroyed or captured the peaceful civilisations of the Indus Valley and subsequently learnt the culture of the Indus valley, before writing the greatest religious texts of India. The original theory is mildly neutral or pro-Indian, suggesting that the Aryans were barbarians who were civilised through contact with the Indus valley; but subsequent incarnations of this theory in the interwar period held the Aryans to be a superior Norse race who civilised the Indians. There is no evidence that any of this history ever really happened, and the theory is roundly hated by Indians for its obvious racist overtones.
There is evidence in Tolkien’s letters that he at least knew of Aryan racial theory, and subscribed to it, because he had the singular misfortune of having to argue with Nazi publishers over his books, which would not be published in German unless he could prove he was Aryan. He appeared to subscribe to elements of this theory:
I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware noone (sic) of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects.
though his letters make it pretty clear he doesn’t like Nazi racial theory, at least as it pertains to Jews. Like most scholars of his time, he probably believed the then-mainstream theories about racial history which pervaded the academy, but whether he extended this to his perceptions of the relative superiority of whites over blacks or asians at the time is not known, nor to be assumed.
Tolkien’s novels seem to contain a kernel of this racial theory, in that the most superior race ennobles the Edain, who then ennoble the mixed men they encounter, but are in turn brought low by interbreeding with them. It’s clear that the most noble races are white and the least noble (Orcs and Haradrim) are swarthy or black – there is a colour spectrum here. This pattern follows the pattern of the more racist incarnations of Aryan theory extant when he wrote – particularly those of Abbe Dubois, which were translated in 1897, and the archaeologists who uncovered “evidence” of western influence in the Indus in the early 20th century. It also follows some other theories floating about then about the influence of Nordic culture on the “inferior” slavic and Eastern races, the development of which can be read about in any good (or bad!) text about the antecedents of Nazi racial theory. While these theories are discredited today, they were not at all unpopular or disputed at the time that Tolkien wrote.
Aryan Racial Theory and Fascism
Hitler loved Aryan Racial Theory, which became the cornerstone of Nazi demography, social science, biology and history. Some of the theories on racial mixing – particularly about Jews – propounded by the Nazis can be read online at the Calvin University Nazi Propaganda archive, which is a fascinating way to pass an afternoon. Hitler also took up the Aryan Invasion Theory and ran with it, as part of his two-pronged mission of retaking Europe and founding Nazi colonies overseas. The Nazis believed that Western culture owed all its best properties to the Nordic races, and all its worst properties to the “untermenschen” of the East and South. Any model of racial history which supported this belief was imported and adapted, particularly if it supported any claim to lost homelands in the East or overseas.
Aryan Racial Theory is also very popular with modern Nazis. David Duke (to whom I will not put a link) has a very telling essay on his webpage about the Aryan invasion of India and the effects of inter-breeding with the locals on the morality of the paler Aryan overlords. Modern and WW2-era Nazis both believe strongly that races shouldn’t mix – the Nazis presented the Japanese as racially superior because their island nation had prevented “mixing” with degenerated mongols, for example, while the whites of the US were degenerate through association with Jews and blacks.
Tolkien’s politics
Tolkien clearly objected to the Nazis’ anti-semitism, and plainly thought their race laws silly. He opposed apartheid and didn’t believe language and literature should be held apart. He didn’t like the treatment of colour in South Africa, though it’s possible he did think that blacks were degenerate, or at least that white South Africans were persuasive:
The treatment of colour nearly always horrifies anyone going out from Britain, & not only in South Africa. Unfort[unately], not many retain that generous sentiment for long.”[1]
Tolkien was willing for his books not to be published in Germany rather than be subjected to silly German laws about racial purity, but he also strongly and openly believed that Nordic society had done much good for the world, but had been ruined by the Nazis:
Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light.
This quote again suggests an Aryan racial theory for Europe, which has been ennobled by the “supreme contribution” of the Nordic races.
Tolkien is also known to have supported Franco, on the basis of some rumours about Republican atrocities in Spanish churches[2]. His letters and stated opinions suggest a man with politics very similar to most upper class white members of the Commonwealth at the time – racial isolationism, tinged with a strong hatred of Nazism drawn from a class bias against National Socialism (“that ruddy ignoramus”, Hitler) and a conservative distrust of radical politics. But like most members of that class at the time, he didn’t necessarily strongly oppose or even disagree with the racial and political theories at the heart of apartheid or Nazism. In the 30s, particularly, Hitler’s theories were much admired in the West, and their philosophical basis had not yet been discredited. Though we don’t have clear evidence either way in the case of Tolkien, it’s difficult to read his letters and get a clear indication of a man swimming against the current of his time.
Tolkien and British Nationalism
Tolkien ended up required reading for the Youth Wing of the BNP, on the basis of its raical theory and lauding of western ideals over eastern savagery. His inclusion may have been subsequent to the movies, which are rather popular amongst people who like watching dark-skinned people getting butchered; but it is no coincidence that the far right associates his work with their message on racial identity. Fascism and racialist nationalism hasn’t moved its racial theories on from the 30s when Tolkien wrote, and there is a lot of concordance between the racial essentialism of his world and the kind of racially segregated world that the modern BNP would like to see.
What this does and doesn’t mean
It’s unsurprising that an upper class academic from South Africa, writing in the 30s and 40s, should subscribe to a racial model for the creation of his imaginary world. It’s also not surprising that his racial theories would be consistent with Nazi-era racial theories or modern nationalist writing, since all three are drawn from the same source and people at that time were generally supportive of some portion of racial theories of history.
This has obvious consequences for that stream of “High Fantasy” which is highly derivative of Tolkien’s work. Tolkien’s worlds aren’t necessarily popular because of this racial essentialism, but much of the derivative work carries these ideas with it. Some of these notions are comforting for modern writers, some are just easy, and some are fun to play with. But copied whole, they project into the modern literary world a view of race relations which is anachronistic and highly consistent with mainstream conservative views of 60 years ago. They are also congruent with modern fascist politics, which of course holds racial essentialism at its core.
This doesn’t mean that Tolkien’s work is more or less admirable. The timeless appeal of Tolkien’s work as a whole is not due to its political-racial content, but the powerful story elements, the myth-making and the characters. For these elements to maintain Tolkien’s popularity even as the politics underlying the stories becomes anachronistic, they must indeed be very well crafted. This is the miracle of literature – a story whose fundamental social and political basis is no longer valid can still appeal to us, as Shakespeare does, through the power of its non-political elements.
It also doesn’t mean that Tolkien was a fascist or a racist, at least no more than any other upper class man of his time. But most people alive today would consider the politics of an upper class man writing in the 40s to be quite repulsive, and its no surprise that some of Tolkien’s racial theories fit this category. But being a racial isolationist or believing that mongols were inherently inferior doesn’t make Tolkien a fascist, nor does it invalidate his work or even make him a bad person. However, it also doesn’t liberate his work from the obvious criticisms : it promotes a divisive vision of racial separatism and essentialism; and as an influential work in the genre, it has been essential in the reproduction of conservatism in High Fantasy. Critical reinterpretation of this work can liberate modern High Fantasy from the racialist and fascist origins of the genre, without necessarily leading to its political debasement or politically correct caricatures. Just as Tolkien can write an inspiring and great novel with odious racial politics, modern genre writers should be able to liberate the genre from this type of conservatism and still write inspiring and great novels.
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fn1: A lot of people quote the first half of this sentence approvingly as evidence that Tolkien was opposed to apartheid. The second part makes me think that, while he opposed apartheid, he didn’t necessarily oppose the racial stereotypes underlying it.
fn2: which were certainly known to have occurred, but also exaggerated in a viciously anti-Republican western press. See, for example, Antony Beevor’s work on the Spanish Civil War.
June 6, 2009 at 6:40 pm
One thing that has been left out of the whole post-noisms-fracas is Tolkien’s more-or-less-explicit-attempts-to-channel-pre-Shakespearean-English-lit when he writes.
I mean, he would often say that the kind of writing he liked was Beowulf, Sagas etc. and that LOTR was a kind of attempt to remake this kind of writing. I feel like this works both for and against the idea of “conservatism” in Tolkien.
On the one hand, he often states he’s rejecting modern (and modernist) prose in favor of an earlier model, which is, in the strict sense, conservative.
On the other hand, it suggests that the views that COULD be seen as political in his work are more the result of the model of literature he was attempting to evoke than his own views. You can’t do a pastiche of “mythic” literature without lone male heroes and kings. I mean, you can screw with the formula, but at a certain point it’ll stop feeling like a myth. And part of the point of Middle -Earth was to make it seem kind of like a myth from our own past.
Obviously, JRR’s own views were in there, too, and he’s said as much about WWI “We [the british] are Hobbits” etc. etc.
But I also think part of the sociopolitical (and storytelling) structures in LOTR represent an attempt to make it feel genuinely medieval.
June 6, 2009 at 7:22 pm
An interesting point, and I think it’s true that you can’t write in that mythical style honestly without retaining that conservative feel. Stories which play with the political assumptions of that writing style but maintain its mythic feel would be an interesting idea but fiendishly difficult. In the end though, although this theory would explain the cause of his conservatism it doesn’t change the result – that the genre and style is conservative.
June 6, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Well, it’s conservative in many, many ways–storytelling conventions, political assumptions, etc. But it was also radical in that it was something new in literature. I mean, that’s why JRRT’s such a big deal. The depth and thoroughness of the world-building, I suppose. I think The Hobbit was the most radical in some ways–the wordplay and the riddles in the dark had a concreteness and a modern sensibility that was new.
June 8, 2009 at 8:42 am
Interesting points. Nothing I can really argue with though. Thanks for drawing my attention to that excellent article on the Tolkein Gateway.
June 8, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Tolkien’s Races
As I pointed out in the comments to your earlier entry, many races are corrupted by Sauron or Saruman, including the Dunlendings, various Northern races, and prior to the LOTR the Numenoreans (and hence their descendants, the Corsairs and Black Numenoreans, both of whom are also white). The fact that Easterlings and Haradrim are the main “evil human” races in LOTR is a function of the fact that Sauron happens to be in Mordor at that time, which is near where they live. Previously he was in Mirkwood and Numenor – and of course the ultimate evil of Middle Earth (Melkior) makes his home in the North. So did the Witch-King of Angmar. You have to remember that The Lord of the Rings has a context and that it is really just a vehicle for popularising the Silmarillion.
For example, orcs are corruptions of elves; this is made explicit in the Simarillion. Your cited quote merely shows that Tolkien was well aware of his society’s own attitudes towards “Mongol-types”.
Aryan Racial Theory
I think you’ve missed what Tolkien was getting at with that quote. “Indo-Aryan” is a language group, a sub-group of what is now called the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family. Hindi and Roma/Sindi belong to it, and are related by assocation to Iranian languages like Farsi (Persian). Therefore “Aryan” is a better descriptor of Hindustanis, Roma and even Persians than it is blonde-haired/blue-eyed types. Tolkien was clearly poking fun at Nazi notions of what “Aryan” meant in that letter, by pointing out that he (of German extraction) was not as Aryan as gypsies were, just like the Nazis were not in fact truly Aryan either.
That entire letter is a complete piss-take of Nazi theories about ethnicity and a pleasure to read. Tolkien was many things, but he was not poorly educated. He was a reknowned linguistic expert and knew more about ethno-linguistics than you give him credit for.
Tolkien’s Politics
Tolkien was a devout Catholic, so of course he decried Republican massacres in Spanish churches. I should hardly have to point out that elements of the Republican cause in Spain were just as odious and pernicious as the fascist in their own way.
I don’t see anything wrong with Tolkien’s attitudes about Nordic races; is it wrong to be proud of your own ethnicity? I’m very proud of my Scottish, Irish and Jewish roots – does that make me somehow racist?
Tolkien and British Nationalism
The BNP also uses images of Spitfires on its propaganda. Does that make the pilots of those Spitfires card-carrying supporters of the BNP? Guilt by association is hardly fair.
Footnote 1
The fact that Tolkien uses the word “unfortunately” makes your assertion completely unfounded!
Generally
I’ve said this to you before, but a lot of people don’t see “conservatism” as something to be liberated from, and I find it weird that you seem to think fantasy writers should have liberation from conservatism as an explicit goal, separate from just, you know, writing good fantasy stories.
If anything I’d much rather be liberated from the cloying, unthinking, banal soft-leftism that so many supposedly educated people espouse and which dominates not only the fantasy genre but European intellectual life in general. Speaking as somebody who couldn’t care less about labels and thinks politics should mostly be about empiricism and common sense.
June 8, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Noisms I think you misunderstand my purpose in writing this, I don’t have much time now to respond but here’s a few quick points.
Regarding Tolkien’s races
I think you also aren’t engaging in what you call a “formalist” reading of Tolkien. The haradrim are wild men – they were corrupted by Morkoth not Sauron. Only the white Numenoreans escaped from this event, which occurred at their creation. It’s as if evil marked the others to look swarthy.
Also, the issue is not so much that the Numenoreans can also do evil as that the Haradrim etc. cannot do good at all. Morkoth is evil – he can corrupt anyone. But the Numenoreans are not continually under his influence, they have “human” will. The other races, like animals, are essentially evil.
Tolkien’s letter
I’m aware this was a piss-take (as I said, I’m not trying to suggest Tolkien was a nazi). But it suggests he was familiar with this racial theory. At the time it would have been very unusual for a scholar in Oxford to know of this Aryan theory and disagree with it – it was received wisdom. No-one in academia any longer accepts this theory, or even the notion of Aryans as a race.
Tolkien’s politics
Regarding the spanish republicans, as I said: read Beevor. The accounts at the time were exaggerated and often false. But again, I’m not trying to say anything here except to present a context for his views. I’m not suggesting that it’s bad he was proud of his race (as you say, most people are), just setting a context.
Tolkien and british nationalism
Since I wrote this section I discovered that the Stormfront forums have a whole, permanent section devoted to “Tolkien and High Fantasy”, and there is a permanent stickie there devoted to building a Lord of the Rings study guide to use it as a way of teaching their racial theories. This is not a coincidence – this movement subscribes to a model of racial theory that hasn’t moved on from the 30s, and their ideas match what was written in the LoTR. This is not “guilt by association”. It is evidence of a shared worldview.
I could turn your question around to ask: is it coincidence that the BNP use nazi propaganda to teach racial theory? No, they use it because they share a racial view. It’s also not a coincidence that they use spitfire images (actually I think they don’t, but anyway). The Spitfire is a symbol of British military prowess and staunch independence, and that is what the BNP like. Thus they used the image.
Footnote 1
I read that “unfortunately” as meaning that he sees these races as inferior, and understands why people take the view they do. Alternatively he could be so enlightened as to recognise that his fellows are racist, but he is not… however, this would require the assumption that he was not a man of his time.
Resucing anyone from conservatism
Unless you think 30s racial theory is apt for today’s world, then it is good to rescue High Fantasy from this. In my view any genre which aims to reproduce interwar social ideals from whole cloth needs rescuing. If you think this is the sort of conservatism the modern world needs, you’re about 60 years behind the times.
I don’t know how many times I need to say this about High Fantasy and the purpose of this (and other) criticism of it. I don’t think writers need to be liberated from conservatism; but I do think the genre could have a wider political context. That is all.
Also, I think you should put up a post on your blog defending this claim of “cloying, unthinking, banal soft-leftism ” that dominates the fantasy genre (we can agree to leave European intellectual life out, in the interests of finishing the argument before Judgement Day). I think you will be hard pressed to find examples. Obviously we’ll never be able to quantify exactly what there’s more of, but I reckon we can give it a damn good going over, to no good purpose…
June 8, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Regarding conservatism and the High Fantasy genre, I’ll just add that the issue taken up by people like Mieville (and, I suppose, me) is not so much that High Fantasy writers are or aren’t conservative themselves. But when High Fantasy as a genre requires certain characteristics in order to be defined as High Fantasy, and when those characteristics are common to conservative politics, then High Fantasy as a genre becomes restrictively conservative.
This is as opposed to, for example, Space Opera as a genre, which is widely enough defined to enable such diversity of political (or apolitical) work as Asimov, Simmons, Banks and Scott Card.
A genre which allows writers to be political in a variety of ways, or apolitical, as it suits them, is good. A genre whose outline structure forces a political view (be it marxist or conservative) is restrictive; and in this case High Fantasy appears strongly inclined towards a restrictive conservative politics. This is what Mieville wants to rescue it from, so that people of all political persuasions can enjoy writing in or reading it.
June 8, 2009 at 11:39 pm
Keep this brief too, because it’s nearly bed time.
Tolkien’s Races: I direct you to the first encounter with Haradrim in the Lord of the Rings, where a dead warrior is very sympathetically dealt with; after reading that I don’t believe it’s possible to argue that the Haradrim are any more inherently evil than any other race. They were unfortunately corrupted and are portrayed more as slaves to Sauron than willing servants.
Tolkien’s Letter: I’m not really sure I understand what your point is, then. Whichever way you cut it, the letter expresses pretty progressive views on race for a man of Tolkien’s era and background.
The whole Aryan theory hasn’t been so much discredited as updated, by the way. The terminology has changed (the people in question are no longer called Aryans, but Proto-Indo-Europeans) but the core idea of a horse-and-chariot riding group expanding from the Pontic steppe into India in one direction and Europe the other is fairly mainstream. Look up the Kurgan Hypothesis or the Kurgan Theory for details.
Tolkien’s Politics: Is Beevor definitive? In any case, exaggerated or not, there is no doubt that tens of thousands of people (from both sides) were massacred by Republicans, especially Communists, during the war. Thousands of clerics were among them.
British Nationalism
The BNP do use Spitfires – got a leaflet through the door the other day. Idiotically they used clipart of a Polish Spitfire, but the point remains!
I really don’t see this shared worldview you’re talking about. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that British Nationalists also read their own interpretations into everything from Shakespeare to Kipling but that doesn’t point to a shared world view so much as an indication that people can read anything into anything if they’re lunatic enough.
Footnote 1
Come on now, he clearly means that lots of people going out from Britain to the colonies (not just South Africa) is horrified by the treatment of colour (e.g. Apartheid, which he loathed) but unfortunately said generous attitude (i.e. being horrified) dissipates over time in many of those people, but not him.
Conservatism
Fair enough, I misread that last paragraph and thought you were talking about “conservatism” in general, rather than the specific 1930s racial kind.
I’ll think about writing that entry.
June 8, 2009 at 11:51 pm
It is indeed bedtime and I must rush too.
If Tolkien didn’t treat even evil men with some sympathy, his storywriting talents would be nil, would they not – look at gollum. It doesn’t change his racial thesis.
Re: Tolkien’s letter, do you want him to be progressive or not? I think he shows hints of that style of enlightened nobleman who sees the other races as inferior but believes they should be treated gently. I agree it’s not clear from his letters but I’m happy not to argue against the general sentiment of his time if I don’t have clear proof. But he’s clearly not some kind of racist bastard, either. Even if he were, it’s irrelevant – his books put forward the theory they put forward.
Of course the BNP use Polish immigrant labour! Which lower middle class Briton doesn’t? That’s hilarious.
If you want to see the link, put on some rubber gloves and go to the stormfront forums. But prepare some disinfectant, you’ll need it for your eyes. You’re right, nationalists read their own interpretations into many things but LoTR isn’t just interpreted – it’s used as a racial teaching tool.
Re: Spain, I think you’re vulnerable to some one-sided accounts of this. Franco started a civil war against a democratically elected government and in the chaos that followed some peasants exacted retribution on the priest class which dispossessed them of their lands. Beevor has a good description of this.
I’m no expert on the aryan racial theory but the links I found suggested it has no meaning anymore except for a linguistic link, and there is no evidence of a conquering race (read the link I gave above).
Off to bed. Don’t think about writing that entry – DO IT.
June 9, 2009 at 11:42 am
We’re getting way off topic but I just can’t let your Spanish Civil War comments lie. Of course the Nationalist cause committed more atrocities, but the Republican massacres were not just a few peasants taking revenge on priests. Even according to Beevor 38,000 people were killed in the red terror, which is called a “minimum” figure by other historians – other estimates put the figure at 100,000 or more. All this is available in the “Republican Atrocities” section of the wikipedia entry, if you’re interested.
I wouldn’t want to whitewash the Nationalists but neither side in that war covered itself in glory. People in this country have a romantic view of the Republicans because of Orwell and the International Brigades, just like they have a romantic view of people like Che Guevara, forgetting that extreme leftists are just as bloodthirsty and just as dismissive of the value of human life as extreme rightists.
June 13, 2009 at 2:43 pm
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