Checa (Spanish Civil War)
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A Checa in Spain (named after the early Soviet secret police units) relates to any one of several unofficial or clandestine paramilitary police deployed during the Spanish Revolution of 1936 in Republican zones to detain, interrogate, torture, extrajudicially condemn and subsequently mutilate or murder those suspected or accused of sympathizing with any supposed enemy, whether genuine opponents or not.[1][2][3]
The historian Peter H. Wyden, in his work The Passionate War, The Narrative History of the Spanish Civil War 1936–39 describes the Checas in the following way:
The investigative bodies created by left-wing political parties and unions in the large cities of the republican rearguard when the military pronouncement of July 1936 failed, have historically been called Checas. The name came from the first Soviet political police. created in Russia in 1917. CHEKA is the Russian acronym for All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for the Suppression of Counterrevolution and Sabotage, precursor of the OGPV, NKVD and KGB[4]
The Checas were primarily organized by the rank-and-file members of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT; National Confederation of Labor) and the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI; Iberian Anarchist Federation). The socialist Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT; General Union of Workers)
Some of these units were independent local initiatives distinguished by the street where they were located, or by the name of their founder or leader, There were also similar groups of women known as blue Checas, such as the Checa Blue of Seville, was located in a Jesuit building located at building Nº 7 on the street known as calle de Jesús del Gran Poder.However, those related to official organizations that operated in a wider area used a semi-official name. One such was the Checa de Bellas Artes, an arm of the Provincial Public Investigation Committee Nº 5
See also[edit]
- Anarchism in Spain
- Confederal militias
- Horizontalidad
- Second Spanish Republic
- Spanish Civil War
- Spanish Coup of July 1936
References[edit]
- ^ Thomas 1976.
- ^ Preston 2011.
- ^ Alcalá 2007.
- ^ Wyden, Peter (1984). The Passionate War, The Narrative History of the Spanish Civil War 1936-39. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780671253318.
Sources[edit]
- Alcalá, César (2007). Las checas del terror. Madrid: LibrosLibres. ISBN 978-84-96088-59-7.
- Preston, Paul (2011). El holocausto español. Barcelona: Círculo de Lectores. ISBN 978-84-672-4533-2.
- Thomas, Hugh (1976). La Guerra Civil Española. Barcelona: Grijalbo Mondadori. p. 1164. ISBN 84-253-2767-9.
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