For anyone interested, George Orwell's account of his experiences during the civil war, "Homage to Catalonia" is a good english language read on the subject. Not an expert, but it seems pretty impartial. And its Orwell so its easy to read.
As opposed to what, lauding Franco?
Any communication of information will inevitably be limited, and the way that limitation manifests will be influenced by the subjectivity of the person communicating.
The documentaries may present the facts they choose to include in a more dispassionate style than other sources, but this should not be confused with objectivity.
I never said it is 100% objective, they just clearly avoid siding with any party in those documentaries.
Not more. And all the ugly things he saw, stealing, dirt, unprofessionalism, etc. he states very clearly.
Objectiveness is not treating each party equally -- it's calling a spade a spade!
Well, not much more than what western empires have been for their colonial subjects (who, in addition to slavery, forced labor, mass killings, political rule, torture and so on, they also considered inferior beings). So there's that. Of course another being wrong doesn't make one right -- but at least helps put things in perspective and reduce one-sided smugness.
The difference is that the USSR did so upon its own subjects (which is probably better for the rest of world -- if you weren't their subject).
USSR had a dictatorship of upper echelons of the party, which degenerated into full scale war against large parts of its own population (including ...the upper echelons of the party).
But there are some subtleties too: it's not like people weren't supportive of the regime, especially early on. (Of course Germans were also supportive of the Nazi regime, so there's that).
So, in a sense, they got what they wanted -- it just happened to turn to tyranny. That said, they also had many positive changes from the tsarism on its early days. And they also become a less tyrannical state after Stalin.
Having said that I fully concur with your recommendation of Homage to Catalonia. Amazing book about a pretty amazing time.
POUM had its differences with Moscow controlled Communists (the third International) - Moscow was for a broad coalition government that would postpone socialist reforms (that's called the 'Popular Front' approach, similar to what was done in France); while POUM was all for pressing on with socialist reforms right during the civil war (mostly within Catalonia). So POUM was more similar to the anarchists in its politics, but the anarchists were much larger movement than the Marxist POUM.
In any event POUM was a small local party that did not matter a lot, but its suppression (that went on with the persecution of the Anarchists) in later stages opened rifts within the Spanish Republic. All that happened once the Spanish government came under increasing control of Moscow - that came as a result of international isolation while the Soviet Union remained as the only backer.
Left wing politics is all very factional, so it gets complicated. I think the Popular Front approach would have been more productive, but Orwell for example did not think so; in any event it became quite bad once the NKVD came in.
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/spain/spain03...
It shows the true possibilities for social change and the dangerous forces that can undermine idealism.
But yes, he simply saw only parts of the whole picture, but what he saw, he gave an accurate review about.