By the end of 1938 the Spanish socialist movement was irremediably split. There were simply no grounds for compromise between the advocates of resistance to the last and those who favoured a negotiated peace. By 1938 the PSOE contained fervent groups of both. In the last analysis, socialist unity was finally shipwrecked on the bitterest controversy of the civil war. To each camp, the other represented the worst kind of traitor. For those who were in favour of what they believed was a feasible mediated peace, the resisters were wantonly irresponsible, in bondage to the siren voice of the Communist Party and its advisers. To those who championed resistance, theirs was the only road open to a peace settlement with guarantees. The mediators were either treasonous capitulators or guilty of criminal naivety because they did not understand Franco's desire for an unconditional surrender, to be followed by a victory of vengeance. Hence the paradox, tirelessly proclaimed by its most eloquent exponent, Negrín, that the only true road to peace was via continued resistance. Without political guarantees, the civilian populace of the loyalist zone would suffer as much if not much more from the ‘peace of Franco’ as from the maintenance of the war effort.