 The greatest anticlerical bloodletting was at the beginning of the civil war when large areas of the country fell under the control of local loyalists and militias.A large part of the terror consisted of a perceived revenge against bosses and clergy, as they lost their powerful position in the social revolution, and the move towards extremism that took place in the first months of the civil war.According to historian Antony Beevor, "In republican territory the worst of the violence was mainly a sudden and quickly spent reaction of suppressed fear, exacerbated by desires of revenge for the past" in contrast with
"the relentless purging of 'reds and atheists' in nationalist territory".