The comparative economies of the Spanish Republicans and Nationalists are the subject of considerable debate, complicated hugely by the difficulty of calculating just how much external assistance each side received. A particularly interesting scholar in this regard is Michael Seidman, who posits that the Spanish Civil War was won or lost on the economic successes of each side – in particular, the Nationalists’ ability to prevent inflation and provide its subjects with basic economic necessities throughout the conflict. His work is controversial, but still quite influential.

In many ways, however, the Spanish Republic seemed to hold the economic trump cards at the start of the conflict. They retained the bulk of Spain’s gold reserves (which were quite considerable and could in theory be used to purchase whatever they needed overseas), and at the start of the war they managed to hold onto Spain’s most heavily populated and industrialised areas. This makes sense when you think about it – the Republican left was strongest in urban, industrialised areas, as was common throughout Europe, and it was in these places that government supporters had the best chance of resisting and defeating the initial military uprising.

The Republic had a couple of problems, however. First, they didn’t control enough of the countryside – in other words, how were they going to feed their large urban population centres? Over the course of the war, food on the Republican side grows more and more scarce, resulting in inflation, profiteering and so on, none of which was conducive to a stable economy. There are efforts internationally to alleviate what was a brewing humanitarian disaster – in Britain, for instance, money is collected to send about 15 ‘foodships’ to Spain as part of a broader series of solidarity campaigns to support the Spanish Republic. In Wales in particular, figures like ‘Potato’ Jones, who smuggled – you guessed it - potatoes to the Republican port of Bilbao, then under siege, are still folk heroes to this day. Such measures were piecemeal though, and were generally unofficial (ie not directly supported or enabled by the government) for reasons discussed further below. They could never hope to do enough to change the underlying situation – the Nationalists could feed their troops and civilians, while the Republic found this more and more difficult as the war went on, particularly as they lost territory.

The next problem the Republic faced was trade. The Non-Intervention Pact, orchestrated by Britain and signed by the major European powers, limited the ability of the Republic to trade with other nations. This agreement remains very controversial, and is attributed by some scholars as being the key reason for the Republic’s demise. It essentially meant denying the Republican Government’s status as the duly constituted government of Spain, rendering them unable to openly purchase arms or other war materiel internationally. The big problem with the agreement was that it only really restricted governments who respected diplomatic agreements, and Hitler and Mussolini proved happy to sign, then continue to intervene on the side of the Nationalists as much as they pleased. This meant that Franco’s lack of a domestic industrial base mattered less than it might have, as war materiel was much more readily available. The Germans and Italians also aided the Nationalists in blockading the Republic, restricting the Republic’s ability to import even non-military goods.

In comparison, the Soviet Union was also willing to ignore the Non-Intervention Pact, but faced considerable logistical problems in actually following through with it (Daniel Kowalsky’s work here is excellent). The Soviet Union simply couldn’t project itself to the other side of Europe at the time – they were a land power, not a naval power. They also required that the Spanish Republic pay for the goods received with the aforementioned gold reserves. There is again controversy about whether the Soviet Union cheated the Republic by selling at inflated prices, but either way it’s worth contrasting the Soviet insistence on payment compared to German or Italian willingness to let Franco run up large debts.

So, in short, the economy was certainly a factor in the Spanish Civil War, but it’s very debatable how far this was due to inherently superior economic management on the part of the Nationalists, or that Franco had allies who could alleviate his economic weaknesses, while the Republic didn’t.