'The Black Ball' and the controversy over Sebastián's character: how did recruitment work during the Civil War?

After the premiere of the acclaimed film La bola negra by los Javis, and, as might be expected regarding a film that talks about the Civil War –homosexuality included– opinions and debates arise, which end up boring even the most assiduous viewer of them: “The film focuses on Lorca's homosexuality” (What did they expect from a film that deals with a novel based on homosexuality?) or the, apparently problematic issue –pointed out by journalist Raúl Solís on X– of the alleged whitewashing that the film does of the character of Sebastián, the young soldier from the rebel side who guards Rafael and with whom he falls in love. 

Apparently, the fact that the character –fictional, by the way– played by Guitarricadelafuente, was shown as someone with feelings, empathy, and the capacity to love, would be problematic, it seems, for certain activists of who knows what, however, finding a hint of controversy in this matter is sincerely absurd, because suggesting that directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, “whitewash fascism” -even if not consciously through this character, can be due either to bad faith or ignorance. 

Being well-pressed, and nominating ignorance as the main hypothesis that leads to these opinions, I believe it is necessary, then, to explain how recruitments worked during the Spanish Civil War, because, for a village boy -presented in the film as someone without intellectual training- whose town has just been bombed and his mother murdered, to seek protection in the army that occupies his town, is a way of surviving in a war context. 

After the failure of the coup d'état of July 18, 1936, Spanish territory was divided into two zones, controlled by two different authorities: the republican zone, which had remained faithful to the constitutional order, and the rebel zone, whose authority fell, first to the National Defense Junta, and later in an omnipotent way to the figure of Franco.

The citizens who remained on one side or the other were claimed by the authorities who de facto controlled the territory. Many republicans and their relatives who were trapped in the rebel side were required to fight in the war supporting that side.

Likewise, many citizens opposed to the constitutional order were called to arms by the republican government, through the recruitment of men based on their birth year (the so-called "quintas"). 

To believe that foot soldiers, always and at all costs, defended the same ideological interests as their commanders is a serious conceptual error.

This could be said of the volunteers, those who enlisted to fight on one side or the other, based on their ideas and interests. Thus, it is obvious that the foreign volunteers who joined the International Brigades and fought on the side of the Republic did so to defend their ideas, out of an internationalist vocation of solidarity with a third country against the advance of fascism. 

The rebel side, in turn, applied from day one a strict military discipline and absolute control of the territory.

Franco applied forced recruitment by "quintas" implacably. Refusing to be recruited, or declaring oneself an objector for ideological reasons, was automatically considered a crime of military rebellion. 

For a young person of the left or without ideology, from Salamanca, Galicia, or Navarra, going to the front in the national uniform was, paradoxically, the only way to save his life and that of his family. If he fled or hid, the authorities sometimes exacted revenge against the family.

Therefore, a large part of the troops of both sides in the Civil War were made up of young people who had no other option but to join the ranks.

To think that humanizing the figure of one of these people, in this case from the rebel side, is to romanticize fascism or to exercise moral equidistance between one side or the other, either knows nothing about the Civil War, or perceives historical reality with a frightening simplicity, when historical reality is always extremely multifaceted.