Thankyou for your comment on the Spanish Civil War. You are absolutely correct that there were those in the Western Democracies who tried to help the elected legitimate Spanish government. Tho it should be added that their election victory was very narrow, and neither side of the political divide in Spain was much in favor of any sort of compromise. When I made the comment about the failure of Western democracies...i was talking about their governments...then with regard to Spain, and now. Surely you are well aware that even the popular Front government of Leon Blum in France felt constrained to not do much to aid the Spanish Republic. Sadly, the only aid the Spanish Republic received was from Stalin, who exacted quite the price, actively went after other political groupings who did not toe his party line, and who knows what kind of government would have resulted if the Stalin-backed side had won.  History does not show any Stalin backed governments in Europe to be good to the people.