Hemingway’s hugely successful novel, For Whom The Bell Tolls, was based on his experiences in the Spanish Civil War. Published in 1940, the novel was read extensively by Fidel Castro as he hid in the mountains of Cuba during his civil war to overthrow the dictator Batista.

Various internal and external factors allowed the regime of General Franciso Franco to last as long as it did. The Franco regime managed to last longer than the two regimes that allowed it to win the Spanish Civil War, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The Franco regime lasted longer than the other fascist and authoritarian right-wing regimes of Central and Eastern Europe such as those of Hungary and Romania.