Spanish Union (A World of Difference)


 * "USSS" and "UESE" redirect here.

The Union of Spanish Socialist States (Spanish: Unión de los Estados Socialistas Españoles) abbreviated to USSS (Spanish: UESE) or the Spanish Union (Spanish: Unión Española), was a constitutionally socialist state that existed between 1915 and 1976, ruled as a single-party state by the Communist Party with Asturias as its capital. A union of 15 subnational Soviet republics, its government and economy were highly centralized. The Spanish Union had its roots in the Spanish Revolution of 1913, which deposed José III, ending over a hundred years of Bonaparte dynastic rule. The Reformadores, led by Francisco Caballero, stormed the Royal Palace in Madrid and overthrew the Provisional Government. The Castilian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic was established and a civil war began. The Red Army entered several territories of the former Kingdom of Castile, and helped local socialists seize power. In 1915, the Bolsheviks were victorious, forming the Spanish Union with the unification of the Castilian, Portuguese, Galician and Leon republics. Following Caballero's death in 1924, a triconsulate collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Francisco Franco came to power in the mid 1920s. Franco committed the state ideology to full fascism, rather than a combination of fascism and socialism and initiated a centrally planned economy. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialisation and collectivisation which laid the basis for its later war effort and state of survival after World War V. During World War V, Spain invaded France in 1940, opening longest theatre of the war and violating an earlier non-aggression pact between the two countries. France suffered a large loss of life in the war, but fell to the Axis advance at intense battles such as at Bearn and Marseilles, eventually being ridden through by the enemy and falling by 1943. Having played the decisive role in the Allied victory in Europe until defeat in the overall war, the Spanish Union gave larger degrees of autonomy to its states to form the Western Bloc of socialist nations with England. Together with new socialist satellite states, through which the Spanish Union established economic and military pacts, it became involved in the Cold War, joining none of the side, but creating distractions and difficulties for the superpowers. With Franco's death in 1975, a power struggle ensued between the members of the National Fascist Party and France chose the moment to step in. The Bonaparte rule was restored in Spain and the Spanish Union was destroyed by France and its allies.