The Abraham Lincoln Brigade - A Profile in Courage, Honor and Hope - by Stephen Lendman
The Abraham Lincoln Brigade was an American contingent of about 2800 volunteers who fought on the side of the Second Spanish Republic during the country's 1936 - 1939 Civil War against the fascist Nationalist rebellion under General Francisco Franco. From 1937 through 1938, it aimed to stop international fascism under Hitler and Mussolini that led to WW II. This essay explains who the "Lincolns" were, why they're important, and what their relevance is to America today under George Bush. First a look at the Spanish Civil War and why these Americans fought in it.
The war began when Franco's troops invaded Spain in July, 1936 to unseat an unstable Republic that developed from the social dislocations after WW I. Post-war saw a wave of revolutionary unrest that led to the military dictatorship of General Primo de Rivera in 1923. Rapid decline followed under him after the boom years of the 1920s. It weakened Spain's monarchy, returned the country to republican rule, but things weakened when a liberal-Socialist coalition tried addressing agrarian problems that beleaguered all Spanish governments for generations. Reforms failed and so did the coalition. It came apart after an attempted military coup on the right and an anarchosyndicalist insurrection on the left that culminated in the Casas Viejas massacre of Andalulsian peasants in January, 1933.
By summer, Spain's many parties and organizations began regrouping and polarizing. In November, the Spanish Confederation of Right Groups (CEDA) coalition replaced the liberal-Socialists. Positions then hardened on the left and right leading to the 1934 "October Revolution" when Asturian miners in northern Spain became the epicenter of a general uprising throughout the country. It brought "Army of Africa" commander Francisco Franco from Spanish Morocco to the mainland for the first time in five centuries to defend "Christian Civilization" from "red barbarism." It was the start of class and regional conflict that became the Spanish Civil War two years later.
It pitted an alliance of Nationalist forces on the right under Franco against a "Popular Front" Republican/Loyalist coalition consisting of trade unionists and their political organizations:
-- the General Confederation of Workers (UGT), a labor federation of the Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), and an anarchosyndicalist General Confederation of Labor (CNT);
-- they, in turn, were allied with the Workers Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) coalition of Spanish Trotskyists, Communist Left (ICE), and Workers and Peasants Bloc; the United Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC); and the small Communist Party (PCE).
Few in America remember the Spanish Civil War, its significance or even that it happened which says a lot about the state of education in the richest country in the world. It should be the best anywhere but instead opts for mediocrity, ignorance and an effort to produce good citizens, most barely literate, to serve the nation's ruling class and not the greater good. That, however, is a topic for another time.
The Spanish Civil War - July 17, 1936 - April 1, 1939
Like all extended wars, this one was ugly. Before it ended in April, 1939, hundreds of thousands died and many by mass killings that included Hitler's infamous fire-bombing of Guernica on April 26, 1937 that destroyed the town and killed an estimated 1650 people. An eye witness described it as follows: "The only things left standing were a church, a sacred tree, the symbol of the Basque people....There hadn't been a single anti-aircraft gun in the town. It had been mainly a fire raid....A sight that haunted me for weeks was the charred bodies of several women and children huddled together in what had been the cellar of a house. It had been a refugio." The same scene was repeated throughout the town. Guernica was in flames, but it was just a warmup, a prelude for what lay ahead.
April 1, 1939 marked the end of the Spanish Civil War. Five months later in September, Hitler invaded Poland, and the world again was at war with Spain staying out of it this time. Franco instead concentrated on solidifying power at home while nominally supporting his fascist allies. He imprisoned and slaughtered tens of thousands of his opponents in a post-war bloodbath/reign of terror. The Spanish war, while it lasted, however, was an historic revolution, and how different things might have been had the other side won. A radical working class movement, never seen before or since, lost out to a fascist alliance that became dominant and is now resurgent in America.
Back then, it was a rare time when oppressed workers, peasants and leftist intellectuals stood on one side and were aided by Soviet Russia, the international Socialist movement and the International Brigades. Against them were centralized state power elitists that included monarchists, the Catholic church, and the landowning and industrial fascist right supported by Germany, Italy and Portugal. Workers wanted a classless, stateless social democracy with implications far beyond a civil conflict in Spain.
They were attracted to it when Franco invaded and threatened their vision. Spontaneously they seized factories and other workplaces, collectivized the land, formed workers' militias throughout the country, dismantled the pro-fascist Catholic church, confiscated its property, and established political institutions run by workers' committees. It was a remarkable event for a short-lived social transformation toward a genuinely autonomous, free and democratic society until Franco finally prevailed.
In a decade of economic depression, disillusion, the rise of fascism, torment and turmoil up to WW II, the Spanish revolution was a sign of hope for working-class emancipation across the world, including in the US. It inspired intellectuals, trade unionists, and others as well as freedom-fighting men and women of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. They went Spain to support the type government they wanted at home and hoped would emerge if the "Popular Front" prevailed.
The Abraham Lincoln Brigade
They were around 2800 American volunteers who fought alongside the "Popular Front" Republican Loyalists as the American contingent of the International Brigades. From 1937 to 1938, they joined with 35,000 others from 52 countries to defend the free Spanish Republic against Franco's Nationalist fascist alliance.
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
Surely, the Spanish Civil war was a rehearsal to WWII. But not many wrote about it because all the powers failed and only the people stayed firm. Maybe out of all the contemporary writers Hemingway with his ' To whom the bell tolls' and Norman Lewis with his fabulous ' The Day of the Fox' are the ones who figured out a lot. Of ccourse, there are numerous Spanish, French and Russian sources but we .. we don not know...
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Mark Sashine (42 articles, 19 quicklinks, 226 diaries, 3212 comments)
on Wednesday, December 26, 2007 at 6:52:31 AM
It's too bad the citizenry of today resembles a bunch of herded sheep following wherever the master takes them..However if anyone ever stands up to the destruction of the once respected country the US..Ron paul will be proud to lead us freedom fighters..
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Bill Huffy (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Wednesday, December 26, 2007 at 12:14:28 PM
Ron Paul--"An Overt Racist in the GOP Field" -- Daily KOS
Sorry, ChangeAgent, but Ron Paul is an unreconstructed racial supremacist. See today's (12/26/07) Daily KOS quoting extensively from Paul's newsletter articles after his initial congressional terms. Nasty and pathetically small-town anti-black nonsense.
Unlike Ron Paul, the many US, British and other pro-democratic volunteers of the Lincoln Brigade championed freedom and struggled valiantly against fascism, which always contains a strong element of racism and racial/national superiority.
So, Viva La Quinte Brigada!.......but only a loud "boo" for Ron Paul.
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R. Queisser (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 54 comments)
on Wednesday, December 26, 2007 at 11:21:51 PM
WeLL SOMBODY DIDN'T DO THERE HOME WORK, JUST( GOOGLE DAILY KOS AND THE FORD FOUNDATION), AND YOU SEE THE GLOBALIST AT WORK SEAMERING RON PAUL. A LITTLE MORE MASS MEDIA DECEPTION, THE FORD FOUNDATION IS THE FUNDING FOR DAILY KOS, ALSO FUNDS LA RAZA, TO HELP KEEP OUR BORDERS OPEN, THIS IS JUST HOW THE GLOBALIST GOT CONTROL OF OUR GOVERNMENT, BY MEDIA DECEPTION AND SOME PEOPLE FALL FOR IT.
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RICHARD SHADE (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 459 comments)
on Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 2:25:50 AM
that article conjured up 712 comments and counting.................Nice try, however, we all know that Jews are Kosher, Muslims don't eat pork and Blacks love fried chicken...........................
Ron Paul, at that time in reference, was reporting alarming statistcs to say the least. By nature of his personality, he seems to speak his mind for all to make judgement..............
As far as being an "Overt Racist", I don't think he deserves that comment......................however, some will reach down to toilet depths to sling mud at times like these................
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Ernest (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 129 comments)
on Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 4:30:46 AM
Nice synopsis, Mr Lendman. My Dad talked often about the Lincoln Brigade. It was one of the disappointments in his life that he had been too young to join them. So many of his generation worked endlessly and without reward to make our world a better place. I'm glad he didn't live to see what America has become under the bootheel of Bush and the corporatist rulers of our country today.
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Karl Moore (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 15 comments)
on Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 9:37:29 AM
Ron Paul is a wolf in sheep's clothing. He may or may not be a racist but he's definitely a corporate stooge. He promotes free market capitalism and equates free market capitalism with freedom. He also opposes separation of church and state and wants government promoting religion. Paul also supports subsidies for big oil, wants to build a fence on the Mexican border, and supports wasting billions on the missile defense system. Paul also supported the bankruptcy "reform" bill.
