In Focus - Discover Spain: Experience the Best of Spain - page 582

The International Brigades
The International Brigades never numbered more than 20,000 and couldn't turn the tide
against the better armed and organised Nationalist forces. Nazi Germany and Fascist
Italy supported the Nationalists with planes, weapons and men (75,000 from Italy and
17,000 from Germany), turning the war into a testing ground for WWII. The Republicans
had some Soviet planes, tanks, artillery and advisers, but the rest of the international
community refused to become involved (although some 25,000 French fought on the Re-
publican side).
At a social level, Spaniards embraced democracy with all the zeal of an ex-con-
vent schoolgirl. Contraceptives, homosexuality and divorce were legalised, and the
Madrid party and arts scene known as la movida formed the epicentre of a newly
unleashed hedonism that still looms large in Spanish life. Despite challenges such
as the brutal campaign by ETA, which killed hundreds in the 1980s, and an unsuc-
cessful coup attempt by renegade Civil Guards in 1981, Spain's democratic, semi-
federal constitution and multiparty system have proved at once robust and durable.
ETA - A Snapshot
The first underground cells of ETA appeared in 1959 at the height of Franco's repression.
ETA's founders called for independence, but their primary goal was the promotion of the
outlawed Basque language, Euskera. In 1967 the old guard of leaders was ousted during
an internal crisis over strategy, and a younger, more militant leadership emerged. On 7
June 1968, ETA killed a Spanish civil guardsman near San Sebastián. According to the
Spanish government, more than 800 people have been killed by ETA terrorism in the dec-
ades since, two-thirds of these in the Basque Country.
Spain Grows up
The 1980s in particular saw Spain pass a succession of milestones along the road
to becoming a mature European democracy. That they took these steps so quickly