  |
 |
| |
|
|
|
 Voices From the Spanish Civil WarPosted on May 1, 2007By Amy Goodman Clarence Kailin is 92 years old. He recently traveled to New York City to attend the annual reunion of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. The brigade was originally made up of roughly 3,000 U.S. citizens who volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War, which raged from 1936 to 1939. Seventy years later, Kailin recalled his reasons for leaving the comfort of Madison, Wis., to volunteer to fight in defense of Spain’s democratically elected government against a military coup led by Gen. Francisco Franco, backed by Adolf Hitler and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini: “It was fighting against Italian fascism and German Nazism. And we felt that if we lost the war, that World War II was pretty much inevitable, which is what happened. It happened because Britain and France and the United States refused to give us any help at all. And so, we fought barehanded at times.” Moe Fishman, a spry 91-year-old Lincoln Brigade veteran, seconds Kailin’s point about the U.S.: “If they had turned to fighting fascism, Hitler would not have attempted a two-front war. There would not have been World War II, where fascism almost won, and 60 million dead, with destruction beyond compare. And, no, there would have been no Holocaust if Hitler had been stopped in Spain in 1936-39.” The Spanish Civil War is little taught in the U.S. You might know of it from Pablo Picasso’s famous antiwar painting, “Guernica.” Hundreds from around the world gathered in that Basque city on April 26, 2007, for the 70th anniversary of the German bombing there, one of the first aerial bombardments of civilians. The painting has resonance today. A tapestry of the painting that hangs in the U.N. was shrouded in 2003, just before then-Secretary of State Colin Powell gave his famous push for war, so that the antiwar image would not form the backdrop to U.S. press statements. Or you might learn of the Spanish Civil War by reading George Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia” or Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” In our official history, World War II began for the U.S. with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, on Dec. 7, 1941. But Kailin and other veterans of the Spanish Civil War are living messengers of a different, authentic history, of the earlier fight against fascism and how World War II might have been prevented. When the veterans returned home, the U.S. government considered them communist sympathizers. Some were prevented from serving in World War II. The FBI actually labeled them “premature antifascists” (I am not making this up). Among the 3,000 volunteers were 80 American women. Most of them served in the medical corps. The documentary “Into the Fire: American Women in the Spanish Civil War” features the nurses and brave women writers, like Dorothy Parker of The New Yorker, New York Times writer Virginia Cowles and author Martha Gellhorn. Gellhorn was a close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, who opposed the U.S. arms embargo against Spain but failed to convince her husband, President Franklin Roosevelt, to end it. Gellhorn said: “I was in Germany in 1936, and could not avoid seeing these headlines about the Red Swine Dogs in Spain. I’d been in Spain, but I knew nothing about what had happened ... but all I needed was to read in a German paper that it was the Red Swine Dogs to know whose side I was on—theirs.” The Spanish people endured fascism until Franco’s death in 1975. They know war. So it is perhaps no surprise that Spain saw some of the largest antiwar protests before the invasion of Iraq, nor is it surprising that when their prime minister allied with Bush/Cheney, they voted him out of office. His replacement, Prime Minister Jose Zapatero, immediately withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq. In the United States, the surviving Spanish Civil War veterans are still working to pass on what they learned. They gathered at the Museum of the City of New York to celebrate its exhibit “Facing Fascism.” Like Clarence Kailin and Moe Fishman, Brigade veteran Matti Mattson, also in his 90s, preferred to look forward rather than look back. “We have to restore our democratic rights,” he said. “We have to get rid of this illegal war.” Let us learn from our elders. Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 500 stations in North America. © 2007 Amy Goodman; distributed by King Features Syndicate Previous item: My Democrat Can Whip Your Democrat Next item: After Thousands Have Died, Tenet Comes Clean Elsewhere: . CommentsAre you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig.
By Alan Bickley, June 11, 2007 at 10:48 am # Amy Goodman writes “When the veterans returned home. . .The FBI actually labeled them “premature antifascists” (I am not making this up).” True, Ms Goodman is not making up this charge, because it was made up by someone else—no one seems to know who—and the story was passed along in leftwing circles for the next 60 years. I once thoughtlessly included the story of premature antifascism in a lecture to a college class. It took two rightwing historians, John Haynes and Harvey Klehr, to nail the fact that there is no evidence for it. (See their article The Myth of Premature Antifascism in the Septmber 2002 New Criterion.)Some of what they writewill seem repugnant, but on this narrow point, they seem to be correct, while Amy is not. The sub-text is that Amy is often not correct and, more often, simply oblivious. Let no one responding to this comment be mistaken about my politics; I honor the veterans of the International Brigades, and I consider myself an unreconstructed, unrepentant leftist. But our side prospers to the extent that we honor evidence over faith and fantasy.
By Ashley, May 13, 2007 at 6:59 pm # I am currently doing a huge history internal on benito Mussolini and came upon this site by accident so I have to say, reading that article has kind of made things a lot clearer for me and I now know exactly what i am going to writeconcerning benito Mussolini and The Spanish Civil War. THANK YOU!
By Audrey A. Holmes Fatooh 6: 55 p.m., May 2, 200, May 2, 2007 at 7:02 pm # (See above) P.S. I pray that Falluja may rise again from the ashes, and that U.S. reparation funds will rebuild all of Iraq that we have helped to destroy—and that the Iraqis are right in their predictions that when we leave they will find a way (quite quickly, I pray) to settle their differences and build a peaceful, new Iraq.
By Eugene Whitney, May 2, 2007 at 1:43 pm # President Bush’s veto of the people’s bill to support our troops proves beyond doubt that he is not competent to lead our country, and our only alternative is to impeach Bush and Cheney NOW!
By Victor Berger, May 2, 2007 at 12:36 pm # What about the thousands of American volunteers that fought on the other side during the Spanish civil war? They fought to keep Spain from becoming a bastion of Communism and also helped create a Spain that refused to ally with Hitler during WWII. Why do blogs like yours always trumpet the possible accomplishments of losers and tear at actual achievements of the winners?
By John Lowell, May 2, 2007 at 12:12 pm # If I recall, last time Amy was complaining that the courts had just taken away her “right” to crush the skull of a baby some business woman felt at the last moment she didn’t feel like mothering. Today its fond memories of the International Brigades, that eternal monument to the stupifying naivety of the Western left in the 1930s. What Amy fails to tell you, of course, is how thoroughly the International Brigades were under the control of Soviet operatives as was her romanticized “Republican” government through most of Spanish Civil War. One wonders if she inquired of Moe Fishman what he thought of Stalin’s covert control of the Brigades and his “anti-fascism” at the time of the Ribbentrop Pact in 1939 or whether he’s had conversations with Arthur Koestler or George Orwell. What’s next, Amy, an ode to the Rosenbergs? John Lowell
By Oli Landwijt, May 2, 2007 at 10:57 am # Thank you, Amy Goodman.
By samuel burke, May 2, 2007 at 9:19 am # Although the spanish people “endured” the govt of gen franco, they were saved from the oppressive and murdering communist govts that fell across eastern europe. What these communist apologist are constantly doing is setting up the boogie man of adolf hitler and the dreaded fascist ideal as the most dreaded hateful form of oppression, all the while, neglecting to address the murderning bolshevik led communist movements that caused more deaths than humanity has ever had to suffer probably since the beginning of time. Socialist communism in russia alone murdered upwards of 50 million human souls and ruined and made hopeless the lives of untold million others that had to endure the oppression of that system for over 70 years in their beloved motherland ...in china mao and the cultural revolution murdered 100 million souls and oppressed the lives of millions others.....add to that cambodia...poland...hungary...rumania....bulgaria and all across latin america, and you will see that the history of this “glorious communism” painted by amy goodman is the most despicable form of govt foisted on humans since the beginning of time and yet all they can do is bring up adolf hitlers crimes and gen francos fascism as the end all of all crimes of humanity, all the while discounting the one hundred and fifty million plus of human souls whose lives were snuffed out in the name of the glorious form of govt that never was able to impose its murdering oppressive system in spain. miss goodman....one single human life is priceless, but unless you havent noticed 150 million human lives ought to offend you a lot more and should give you pause before you pretend like communism in spain was such a missed opportunity, and that the fascism of gen francisco franco was more to be feared than the despicable bolshevik communism of lenin and the hero of the neoconservatives of todays age..leon trotsky. the truth will always surface even in the age of revisionism.
By Jose, May 2, 2007 at 8:11 am # It’s good of you to highlight this. The Spanish Civil War gets brushed under the rug for a couple of ugly reasons. One of which is the Catholic Church’s support and complicity with the fascists. That’s an ugly moment in their history that people would rather forget. To their credit, they did start criticising Franco in the 70s. A bit late for the 300,000 people he executed but I suppose better later than never.
By anonymous, May 2, 2007 at 8:04 am # “...when their prime minister allied with Bush/Cheney, they voted him out of office.” The way I heard it, the Bush ally in Spain was expected to be reelected until he got caught lying about who bombed the trains. I don’t think remembering past conflicts is the difference. We can’t even remember what happened 40 years ago. I doubt Spanish voters hate war any more that we do. When it comes to winning, most people love it and when it comes to losing, most people hate it. Who’d be complaining if Chalabi had been welcomed & Fallujah had become a Mesopotamian Las Vegas?
By Gramma Concept, May 2, 2007 at 8:00 am # P.S......Regarding the holocaust in Fallujah......Ian Olds’ magnificant documentary....."Occupation: Dreamland”......made shortly before that event is deep, wide, and thought-provokingly informative.....
By Jaded Prole, May 2, 2007 at 7:51 am # Thank you for reminding people about the bravery of those who volunteered to fight fascism on the front lines before our country had decided it was a threat. I have had the honor of knowing some of those veterans including Al Amery who did last year. We should be humbled and inspired by the commitment and sacrifices made to defeat fascism—that struggle continues.
By Gramma Concept, May 2, 2007 at 7:49 am # Dear Friends, My father was in the Abrahim Lincoln Brigade......He told me, in his multi-dimensional and enlightened way, that the only thing he was Anti was fascism...(and the many faces thereof.....proper definitions are truly an amazing thing)....I have learned my father’s lessons well......... God Is (still) Love, (all) war is (still) hell.....Strive On..Strive On… With Love, and Warm Encouragement,
By Constitutional Patriot, May 2, 2007 at 7:36 am # Before WWII, HUAC investigated subversive activities conducted by both Fascists and Communists. After WWII, HUAC only investigated claims of subversive activity by “Communists” - including brave Americans who fought for democracy in Spain as “premature anti-Fasacists”. Clearly, the NAZIs won WWII and invaded the US government, manipulating the so-called Project Paper Clip to achieve politically what they could not achieve militarily. In this the NAZIs were clearly aided by their “investors”, who were led by various elements of the American Power Elite including that acolyte to the Harriman fortune, Prescott Bush, grandfather of our current President. In other words, it has been a Bush Family Value for at least 3 generations to commit treason for profit.
By THOMAS BILLIS, May 2, 2007 at 4:34 am # Thank you for the article and the comment .I never thought of the Spanish civil in those terms.Thank you again. Add Your Comment |
|
UN Envoy Heads to Burma with Urgent Relief Message
Email
Print
Share
Del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Ma.gnolia
Newsvine
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo
Jump to Comments
Bazaar|Podcast|About Us|Contact Us|User Agreement|Privacy Policy|Comment Policy
Copyright © 2008 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
COMMENT TOOLS:
Hide comments
Show comments
Comment on this article