1936.10.20 “Dance of Madness"
by Lucius Curtis “Lute” Pease, Jr. (1869 -1963)
16 x 18 in., crayon and ink on board
Coppola Collection
Pease was a cartoonist for the Newark Evening News from 1914 to 1954 and received the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. He was a miner in Alaska for 5 years before beginning a career in art. He was an illustrator for the Oregonian and famously interviewed Mark Twain. From his retirement in 1954 until his death in 1963, he devoted himself to fostering his skills as a painter of portraits and landscapes.
Spain is being torn apart by rival extremist ideologies, and Europe may explode as a result. This framing was common early in the Spanish Civil War, before positions hardened. Forced into a frantic, dangerous performance, the war’s outcome was uncertain, with Spain as a powder keg ready to be ignited by the flames of either of the radical faction.
On October 14, 1936, the first of some 60,000 foreign volunteers recruited, organized, and directed by the communist side, fought with the Republicans. Franco’s Nationalists drew support from the governments in Italy and Nazi Germany, despite both of those countries having signed a nonintervention pledge.
The revolution ignited trouble in Europe by becoming a bloody "dress rehearsal" for World War II, highlighting the ideological battle between fascism, communism, and democracy, drawing in foreign powers (Germany/Italy supporting Franco, USSR supporting Republicans), and intensifying European political divisions, ultimately previewing large-scale conflict and demonstrating new aerial warfare tactics. It revealed deep ideological rifts, testing the policy of appeasement and setting the stage for the larger global war, with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy testing military strategies and weapons.
The war pitted Franco's Nationalists (supported by fascist powers) against the Republicans (supported by the Soviet Union and international volunteers), showcasing the global struggle between fascism and communism.
By early 1937, Germany's Luftwaffe used Spanish cities to test bombing tactics, giving a preview of the Blitzkrieg, while Italy tested tanks and troops, making it a military laboratory for WWII. The conflict deepened existing ideological splits across Europe, as countries took sides, increasing tensions between fascist states and democratic/communist blocs.
The US joined Britain and France's non-intervention policy, highlighting the reluctance to confront fascism directly, emboldening Hitler and Mussolini and contributing to the climate leading to WWII. By 1938, American cartoons overwhelmingly portrayed fascism as the primary threat, with Franco as Hitler’s proxy.
