Remembering Spain - Essays, Memoirs and Poems on the International Brigades and the Spanish Civil War
Edited by Joshua Newmark, The Clapton Press, £17

BETWEEN 1936 and 1939 approximately 2,500 men and women from Britain and Northern Ireland served in the International Brigades, a force made up of anti-fascist volunteers who fought for the Spanish Second Republic during the Spanish Civil War, in an expression of international solidarity with the Spanish people’s struggle and a supreme effort to stop the spread of fascism. 

The majority of British volunteers came from working-class backgrounds and had taken part in hunger marches, protests like the Kinder Scout Trespass, and activities aimed at bringing about political and social change. This was a Britain where for many the living conditions were grim, poverty rampant, and unemployment the norm. 

The Brigade was truly international, with 35,000 volunteers heading for Spain from 52 countries. With Hitler and Mussolini already in power in Germany and Italy, they feared the fall of Spain would threaten the future of democracy in Europe and lead to another world war. 

Hitler, on taking power, immediately outlawed and smashed all working-class organisations, trade unions, political parties and democratic forms of expression, and launched genocidal policies which led to the Holocaust. In the United States, Roosevelt was unable to convince Congress it should support the Spanish Republic, and in Europe, 27 countries signed a non-intervention policy. 

What a farce this was, with Hitler and Mussolini, who were signatories, continuing to supply aircraft and thousands of troops to support Franco. 

At his request, in 1937, the Basque town of Guernica was bombed by German and Italian air forces, a testing ground for a new Nazi military tactic – blanket-bombing a civilian population to demoralise the enemy. 

Yet the British government introduced a law stating that any British subject who volunteered and went to Spain would be prosecuted, minimum penalty £100, which was equal to 40 weeks’ pay for a manual worker, plus a possible two years’ imprisonment.

I was privileged to know several International Brigade volunteers, including Jimmy Jump, Jimmy Moon and Frank Deegan. Poetry and politics drew us together, but I never tired of listening to their stories of time spent in Spain, an experience that remained life-long.

In 1990, at Jimmy Jump’s funeral, a contingent from Spain suddenly arrived. Dressed in black, they circled round the open grave, sang sorrowful songs in Spanish, dropped red roses into the space where Jimmy’s coffin lay. For all of us there, it was an utterly moving moment, one where past and present merged. 

History is not simply about dates and events cast in the mists of time. Told by those who experienced it, real history is also about the yesterdays that still live on in many hearts and minds.

Taken from the archives of the International Brigade Memorial Trust, Remembering Spain brings together first-hand accounts and contributions from nearly 50 writers — including veterans — in a brilliant anthology of memoirs, essays, and poems extracted from the Memorial Trust’s magazine over the past 20 years. 

Generously illustrated with photos and artwork, it covers all aspects of the Civil War — the legacy of the volunteers, solidarity, courage, sacrifice, events on and off the battlefield, the fall of Madrid, plus aftermaths and reflections. 

The International Brigades left a legacy of confronting rapacious power in whatever form it existed. 

In the book, John Pilger writes an essay entitled Fighting Fascism Then and Now. He reminds us that the history of the Spanish Civil War is “a warning about messianic politicians apparently touched by God, and about appeasement and truth.” 

This book explores different aspects of British and Irish solidarity with Spanish democracy along with the legacy of that struggle right up to today. It tells the story of the Spanish Civil War in a deep and powerful way, a story that will have relevance for many years to come. 

The many first-hand accounts from those who acted confirms something that deep down we all know. If we are to overcome the forces of greed, intolerance, and oppression that deny so many people across the globe justice and freedom, it is important we once again focus our efforts on social cohesion and solidarity. It is deeds, not just words, that will bring about change. 

Read the stories in this important book. Reflect on the aftermath.