WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE
The city of Bilbao, one of the main industrial centers of Spain, fell to the fascist military forces of General Francisco Franco on June 19, 1937. A week earlier Republican forces had fallen back within the city’s boundaries when the line of defense known as Bilbao’s “iron ring” was breached by Nationalist troops. On June 18, General Ulibarri pulled out the remaining Republican soldiers.
Bilbao and its surrounding industrial towns and coal and iron mines of the Basque region formed an important industrial center with a large and militant working class. However, the Basque ruling class, hand in hand with the Stalinists of the Spanish Communist Party, failed to develop a plan to withstand a Nationalist siege such as that implemented in Madrid, and the Republican government failed to send reinforcements to defend Bilbao until mid-June when the fate of the city was already sealed.
Hours prior to the entry of Nationalist forces into the city, militiamen who had previously served in the regular Spanish army disarmed the Asturian and Santander Republican militias, dismantled their barricades, and drove them from Bilbao. They also released fascist prisoners. The Minister of Justice in the Basque government, Leisola, remained to supervise the betrayal.
The local bourgeoisie sought to leave behind undamaged industry and urban infrastructure to return to once they had reached an agreement with Franco. Consequently the city of Bilbao was delivered more or less intact to Spanish fascism.
In his book Revolution and Counter Revolution in Spain, Felix Morrow describes how the keys to the city were handed over to the Nationalist army: “It is an elementary axiom of military science that no large city can be captured until its massive buildings—veritable fortifications—have been razed to the point they offer no further protection to beleaguered troops. The process of razing buildings by shelling and bombing required enormous equipment such as the Fascists did not have.” Morrow adds: “But the bourgeoisie did not wait for the shelling of Bilbao at all! On June 19 they surrendered the city, as they had San Sebastian the previous September. The uniform Basque policy of giving up cities intact has no parallel in any modern war, let alone a civil war!”
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