The book argues two crucial propositions. First, that the wartime responses (and limitations) of the Spanish left -republicans, socialists, communists and anrachosyndicalists- can be understood only in relation to their pre-war experiences, worls views, organisational structures and the wider Spanish context of acute uneven development which had moulded their organizations over previous decades. Second, that the overarching influence that shaped the evolution of the Republic between 1936 and 1939 was the war itself.