The memoir of Sam Russell (1915-2010), a communist journalist and a British volunteer with the anti-fascist Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War. First-hand accounts of significant historical events, from the formerly occupied Channel Islands at the end of World War II to the show trials of communists in Eastern Europe in the 1950s. Fascinating insight into the Spanish Civil War, the history of communism, and British radical history.

Right-Wing Spain in the Civil War Era explores the lives of the leading Spanish conservatives in the turbulent period 1914-1945. The volume is a collection of biographies of the most important figures of the Spanish Right during the last years of the Restoration (1914-1923), the Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923-1930), the Second Republic (1931-1936), the Civil War (1936-39) and the early years of the Franco regime (1939-45). This book brings together a number of leading historians of twentieth-century Spain. By adopting a biographical approach, the volume aims at providing a new insight of the origins, development and aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. Contrary to the traditional view, Right-Wing Spain in the Civil War Era shows a diverse and fragmented Spanish right which, far from being isolated, was profoundly influenced by German Nazism, Italian Fascism and French Traditionalism. This remarkable and innovative collection of essays will be welcomed by students and lecturers of Spanish history alike.

Incorporating local, national and international dimensions of the conflict, Gibraltar and the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39 provides the first detailed account of the British enclave Gibraltar's role during and after the Spanish Civil War. The neutral stance adopted by democratic powers upon the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War is well-known. The Non-Intervention Committee played a key role in this strategy, with Great Britain a key player in what became known as the "London Committee". British interests in the Iberian Peninsula, however, meant that events in Spain were of crucial importance to the Foreign Office and the victory of the Popular Front in February, 1936 was deemed a potential threat that could drive the country towards instability. This book explores how British authorities in Gibraltar ostensibly initiated a formal policy of neutrality when the uprising took place, only for the Gibraltarian authorities to provide real support for the Nationalists under the surface. The book draws on a wealth of primary source material,some of it little-known before now, to deliver a significant contribution to our knowledge of the part played by democratic powers in the 1930s' confrontation between Communism and Fascism. It is essential reading for anyone seeking a complete understanding of the Spanish Civil War.

Volume 11 of The Complete Works of George Orwell These years saw the publication of The Road to Wigan Pier, Homage to Catalonia, and Coming Up for Air. The most important document that has come to light regarding Orwell's Spanish experiences is the deposition charging him and Eileen with espionage and high treason, a charge unknown to them. This is fully analysed and can now be read in the context of the disputes that then divided the Left, well illustrated by the letters and documents printed here, notably his bitter response to Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War. The correspondence includes that with Yvonne Davet, who undertook the translation of Orwell's books into French; George Kopp, Orwell's commandent in Spain; and a number of Eileen's letters; Orwell's 'Diary of Events Leading Up to the War' (2 July - 1 September 1939); his Domestic Diary (9 August 1938 - 29 April 1940), which records in detail his attempts at running a smallholding; his extracts from Daily Worker and News Chronicle reports on the Spanish Civil War; and his Marrakech Notebook with illustrations are reproduced. Many letters not previously published are included, and there is a large number of reviews. This volume also includes a sequence of letters that throws a completely new light on Orwell's personal relationships.

Pitting fascists and communists in a showdown for supremacy, the Spanish Civil War has long been seen as a grim dress rehearsal for World War II. Francisco Franco's Nationalists prevailed with German and Italian military assistance-a clear instance, it seemed, of like-minded regimes joining forces in the fight against global Bolshevism. In Hitler's Shadow Empire Pierpaolo Barbieri revises this standard account of Axis intervention in the Spanish Civil War, arguing that economic ambitions-not ideology-drove Hitler's Iberian intervention. The Nazis hoped to establish an economic empire in Europe, and in Spain they tested the tactics intended for future subject territories. "The Spanish Civil War is among the 20th-century military conflicts about which the most continues to be published...Hitler's Shadow Empire is one of few recent studies offering fresh information, specifically describing German trade in the Franco-controlled zone. While it is typically assumed that Nazi Germany, like Stalinist Russia, became involved in the Spanish Civil War for ideological reasons, Pierpaolo Barbieri, an economic analyst, shows that the motives of the two main powers were quite different. -Stephen Schwartz, Weekly Standard

'A real treasure that we can't stop exploring' - La Republica Felicia Browne decided it was time to put down her paintbrushes and pick up a rifle. Jimmy Yates left Chicago with three books in his bindle, sacrificing them all on the gruelling trek across the Pyrenees. Salaria Kea worked at the front as a nurse, judged by her skill rather than her skin colour... In 1936 something extraordinary happened. As the threat of fascism swept across the Iberian peninsula, thousands of people from all over the world left their families and jobs to heed the call - No Pasaran! History has never seen a wave of solidarity like it. The Spanish Civil War ended in 1939 with the Republic crushed, but the revolutionary dream of the International Brigades has never burnt out. Through these 60 illustrated profiles, Brigadistes embroiders an epic story of political struggle with the everyday bravery, sorrow and love of those who lived it.

This interdisciplinary edited collection establishes a new dialogue between translation, conflict and memory studies focusing on fictional texts, reports from war zones and audiovisual representations of the Spanish Civil War and the Franco Dictatorship. It explores the significant role of translation in transmitting a recent past that continues to resonate within current debates on how to memorialize this inconclusive historical episode. The volume combines a detailed analysis of well-known authors such as Langston Hughes and John Dos Passos, with an investigation into the challenges found in translating novels such as The Group by Mary McCarthy (considered a threat to the policies established by the dictatorial regime), and includes more recent works such as El tiempo entre costuras by Maria Duenas. Further, it examines the reception of the translations and whether the narratives cross over effectively in various contexts. In doing so it provides an analysis of the landscape of the Spanish conflict and dictatorship in translation that allows for an intergenerational and transcultural dialogue. It will appeal to students and scholars of translation, history, literature and cultural studies.

This interdisciplinary collection of essays examines contemporary public history's engagement with the Spanish Civil War. The chapters discuss the history and mission of the main institutional archives of the war, contemporary and forensic archaeology of the conflict, burial sites, the affordances of digital culture in the sphere of war memory, the teaching of the conflict in Spanish school curricula, and the place of war memory within human rights initiatives. Adopting a strongly comparative focus, the authors argue for greater public visibility and more nuanced discussion of the Civil War's legacy, positing a virtual museum as one means to foster dialogue.

Tartan Angels sheds light on the work of the Scottish Ambulance Unit (SAU) and the crucial part it played in British medical and humanitarian aid to Spain. In the eighty-five years since the outbreak of the civil war an immense historiography has developed. A steady widening of focus has seen the inclusion of studies that address the intense and prolonged suffering of a civilian population affected by political repression, relentless military bombardment, deprivation, and disease. Likewise, focus has shifted to those who provided assistance to victims during and after the conflict. To date, academic emphasis has been on the left-wing politics behind such endeavours, with too little attention given to the humanitarian responses themselves. Tartan Angels embraces this argument in its focus on the Scottish Ambulance Unit, an enterprise that was arguably apolitical in nature and comprised of individuals inspired, above all, by compassionate and unselfish motives. However, the reputation of the Unit suffered irreparable damage as a result of a series of incidents and events that still remain not fully explained or understood. Furthermore, there were those who used controversy and rumour to deliberately undermine the fundraising efforts of the Units patron and supporters. There is much still to be learned about the creation and the functioning of the SAU an outstanding but largely overlooked humanitarian gesture on behalf of the people of Scotland to those suffering the effects of a brutal civil war in Spain.

As they trudged over the Pyrenees, the Spanish republicans became one of the most iconoclastic groups of refugees to have sought refuge in twentieth-century France. This book explores the array of opportunities, constraints, choices and motivations that characterised their lives. Using a wide range of empirical material, it presents a compelling case for rethinking exile in relation to refugees' lived experiences and memory activities. The major historical events of the period are covered: the development of refugees' rights and the 'concentration' camps of the Third Republic, the para-military labour formations of the Second World War, the dynamics shaping resistance activities, and the role of memory in the campaign to return to Spain. This study additionally analyses how these experiences have shaped homes and France's memorial landscape, thereby offering an unparalleled exploration of the long-term effects of exile from the mass exodus of 1939 through to the seventieth-anniversary commemorations in 2009. -- .

On October 1, 2017, the Spanish police assault on Catalans voting in a peaceful referendum shot Catalonia's struggle for independence onto the world's front pages. Today, those two million-plus voters have neither forgiven nor forgotten: the struggle continues. Catalonia's national consciousness has deep roots. A People's History of Catalonia tells this small country's history, from below, in all its richness and complexity. Catalonia's struggles for freedom have, for centuries, been violently resisted; and its language and rights, suppressed. Since the nineteenth century, the fight for national sovereignty has often intertwined with working-class mobilisation for social justice. Barcelona became known as the Rose of Fire. In 1936 Catalonia saw one of history's most profound workers' revolutions. From the peasant revolts of the 15th century and the siege of Barcelona in 1714, through the explosive workers' movement led by anarchists, the defeat in the Spanish Civil War, to the anti-Franco resistance in the grim years that followed, the author tells a compelling story whose ending has yet to be written.

This work covers the international importance of the War in Spain through the two organizations that marked the multilateral action towards the conflict: The League of Nations and the Non-Intervention Committee. France and the United Kingdom diverted both deliberations as well as decision-making processes and mechanisms from Geneva. Non-intervention was appeasement's specific variable applied to Spain. Despite its name, it meant an intervention, depriving the Spanish government from its own defense while the fascist governments provided massive and regular support to the rebels. The League was damaged in its authority through the violation of its Covenant in Manchuria and Abyssinia. Once the War in Spain began, non-intervention was articulated with the main objective to confine the conflict to the Spanish borders. To this end, the designation of the conflict as a civil war (not a mere nominal nor anecdotal issue) in both London and Geneva was essential. By abandoning the Spanish democracy and foreclosing the collective security system, European democracies were also removing all that stood between their own societies and another world war. The failure of the collective security system that the League was supposed to safeguard, prompted by the impossibility of reconciling the British-led policy of appeasement with active anti-fascism, led to a climate of collective insecurity, during which arose a Second World War. This was precisely the main objective to avoid in the international order established in 1919 after the major collective catastrophe on a worldwide scale - soon to be overcome as that. The scholarship herein will prove essential for scholars of the interwar years' crisis, twentieth-century Spanish history and international relations.

As they trudged over the Pyrenees, the Spanish republicans became one of the most iconoclastic groups of refugees to have sought refuge in twentieth-century France. This book explores the array of opportunities, constraints, choices and motivations that characterised their lives. Using a wide range of empirical material, it presents a compelling case for rethinking exile in relation to refugees' lived experiences and memory activities. The major historical events of the period are covered: the development of refugees' rights and the 'concentration' camps of the Third Republic, the para-military labour formations of the Second World War, the dynamics shaping resistance activities, and the role of memory in the campaign to return to Spain. This study additionally analyses how these experiences have shaped homes and France's memorial landscape, thereby offering an unparalleled exploration of the long-term effects of exile from the mass exodus of 1939 through to the seventieth-anniversary commemorations in 2009. -- .

The memoir of Sam Russell (1915-2010), a communist journalist and a British volunteer with the anti-fascist Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War. First-hand accounts of significant historical events, from the formerly occupied Channel Islands at the end of World War II to the show trials of communists in Eastern Europe in the 1950s. Fascinating insight into the Spanish Civil War, the history of communism, and British radical history.

At the end of the Spanish Civil War the Nationalist government instigated mass repression against anyone suspected of loyalty to the defeated Republican side. Around 200,000 people were imprisoned for political crimes, including thousands of women who were charged with offences ranging from directing the home front to supporting their loved ones engaged in combat. Many women wrote and published texts about their experiences, seeking to make their voices heard and to counteract the dehumanising master narrative of the right-wing victors that had criminalised their existence. The memoirs of Communist women, such as Tomasa Cuevas and Juana Dona, have heavily influenced our understanding of life in prison for women under franquismo, while texts by non-Communist women have largely been ignored. Narratives of Resistance and Survival offers a comparative study of the life writing of female political prisoners in Spain, focusing on six texts in particular: the two volumes of Carcel de mujeres by Tomasa Cuevas; Desde la noche y la niebla by Juana Dona; Requiem por la libertad by Angeles Garcia Madrid; Abajo las dictaduras by Josefa Garcia Segret; and Aquello sucedio asi by Angeles Malonda. All the texts share common themes, such as the hunger and repression that political prisoners suffered. However, the ideologically-driven narratives of Communist women often foreground representations of resistance at the expense of exploring the emotional and intellectual struggle for survival that many women political prisoners faced in the aftermath of the war. This study nuances our understanding of imprisoned women as individuals and as a collective, analysing how they sought recognition and justice in the face of a vindictive dictatorship. It also explores their response to the spirit of convivencia during the transition to democracy, which once again threatened to silence them. Published in association with the Canada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies

During the first few days of the Spanish Civil War, women played an integral role in the spontaneous uprising that prevented the immediate success of the Nationalist coup. Around one thousand of these women went on to join the militias who fought at the front. Women also played an important role in the defense of cities, with another several thousand forming sections of the armed rearguard. Indeed, women's participation in the anti-fascist resistance constituted one of the greatest mass political mobilizations of women in Spain's history. Milicianas provides a comprehensive picture of what life was like for the women who fought during the first year of the civil war, focusing on how the women themselves viewed this experience. It demonstrates that the significance of the miliciana phenomenon lies in the fact that these women took up arms in relatively large numbers, were self-motivated, participated in combat equally with their male comrades, and played an extensive and sophisticated military role. By late 1936, attitudes towards women in combat began to change drastically, and by March 1937, the majority of milicianas had been removed from their combat positions. Though there existed a consensus around this issue among the male leadership of both the Republican government and left-wing political groups, female combatants viewed this turn of events differently. The majority of the milicianas had deep reservations about their recall from the front, and saw it as a retreat from the gains women had made during the war and revolution. Indeed, while the political leadership within the Republic presented numerous arguments for why it was necessary to remove women from combat, this book argues that the reason it was initially considered acceptable for women to fight, and then seen as undesirable eight months later, was connected to the course of the social revolution.

The July 1936 coup detat against the Spanish Second Republic brought together a diversity of anti-Republican political and social groups under the leadership of rebel Africanista military officers. In the ensuing Civil War this coalition gradually came under the rule of Generalissimo Franco. This volume explores the hypothesis that the violence and combat experiences of the war were the fundamental ideological crucible for the Francoist regime. The rebels were a group of reactionary and anti-liberal forces with little ideological or political coherence, but they emerged from the conflict not only victorious but ideologically united under the dictators power. Key to understanding this transition are the different political cultures of the rebel army, how the combatants war experiences contributed to the transformation of diverse rebel groups, and the role of foreign armed intervention. The contributors examine not only the endogenous Spanish political and military cultures of the Francoist coalition, but also the transnational influence of foreign groups. The roots of Francoist political culture are found in the Falangist and Carlist militias, and Civil Guard units, that lent their support to the military rebellion. The war experiences of conscripts, colonial troops, and junior officers forged the Francoist ideology. It was reinforced by fascist influences and assistance from Germany and Italy, and the lesser-known contributions of Swiss and White Russian volunteers. At the beginning of the conflict the rebel side was not homogeneous. But it weaved together a complex, transnational web of political and military interests in the midst of a bloody and destructive war, transforming itself in the process to a political and dictatorial platform that was to rule Spain for many years.

With a focus on the relationship between Orwell and Kopp during the Spanish Civil War, 'George Orwell's Commander in Spain: The is a biography of a fascinating figure: double spy, fraud, brilliant inventor and stout-hearted commander.

With a foreword by Jon Snow. In July 1936 insurgent Spanish troops organized a military coup to oust the elected Republican government in Madrid. The rebel generals expected to force a quick, clean regime change but they failed. The botched uprising turned into a bloody civil war. Hundreds of thousands died in a bitter conflict which tore the country apart and rapidly turned into the prelude for an even greater conflict yet to com--the Second World War. The siege of Madrid was the key battle of the war. The world watched and waited for the city to surrender as General Franco's Nationalist army, backed by Hitler and Mussolini, closed in on the Spanish capital. But Madrid did not fall. Madrilenos fought tooth and nail to defend their city. Helped by volunteers from fifty other countries--the International Brigades--they held out against all the odds until the end of the conflict in 1939. Despite its central role in twentieth-century history, the siege of Madrid is an episode largely hidden from today's visitor. There is no guide to the war sites and few clues for the inquisitive traveller who wants to know more. Frontline Madrid fills that gap. This unique guide book explains what life was like in the city under siege and what happened in the battlefield dramas. The simple to follow maps and diagrams make it easy to visit the frontline sites. The vividly written descriptions bring events and people compellingly to life. The role of prominent individuals, British and American--Orwell, Hemingway, John Cornford - is explored. Off the beaten track, from the University district in the city centre to the mountains of Guadarrama less than an hour away, the remains of the war in Madrid can still be found--gun emplacements, bunkers, trenches and occasional debris. Frontline Madrid retraces the footsteps of those who lived through the conflict to take the reader on a tour in time. The usual tourist traps are left far behind to enter the gripping world of a war which shaped modern European history.

For two decades after the civil war the Franco regime applied systematic historical propaganda and imposed relentless repression of history professionals. In the 1960s and 1970s, however, the balance shifted from all-pervading propaganda to structural but flexible censorship. Gradually and reluctantly, the regime had to give back the initiative for explaining the recent past to where it belonged: to the professional historians, but not without oversee and livelihood threat. In its efforts to keep control, the regime could count on historians who were willing to censor their more adventurous colleagues. But the outcome of this process was biased and uncertain. The main issue was always whether an author could be considered a friend of the regime. Personal interventions by Franco himself regularly played a decisive role. Historians fully loyal to the regime and its aims were published without difficulty; others took a reformist path, albeit without endangering the dominant interpretation that favoured the tropes of inevitability and positive consequences of Francos rebellion. Reformist historians avoided criticism of the personal integrity of the dictator and the army, and did not address the issue of systematically planned terror in Francos National Zone during the Civil War. Historians who dared to embrace these topics were condemned to write from abroad. Historical works dealing with the Spanish Civil War (19361939) have been regularly studied in-depth. Dutch historian Jan van Muilekom provides a wider perspective by viewing the Franco historiography from the time of the preceding Second Republic (1931-1936). His analysis recognizes the crucial 1939-1952 period where Franco consolidated his seizure of power. The research is based on a wealth of published censored books, unpublished manuscripts, censorship archives and historical propaganda material. The book is an important complement to earlier studies that mainly dealt with the regimes dealing with the press, the film industry and literature. Over a span of four decades, Franco never lost his grip on how recent Spanish history should be read. Exploring the historiography of the regime provides multiple insights into the links between authoritarianism and censorship.

The Spanish Civil War left a legacy of destruction, resentment and deep ideological divisions in a country that was attempting to recover from economic stagnation and social inequality. After Franco's victory, the repression and purge that ensued immersed Spain in a spiral of fear and silence which continued long after the dictator's death, through 'the pact of oblivion' that was observed during the transition to democracy. Memories of the Spanish Civil War: Conflict and Community in Rural Spain attempts to break this silence by recovering the local memories of survivors of the Civil War and the early years of Franco's dictatorship. Combining oral testimony gathered in one Andalusian village, with archival research, this ethnographic study approaches the expression of memory as an important site of socio-political struggle.

The British governments policy of non-intervention in response to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War sought primarily to prevent the conflict escalating into a wider European war but also to ensure that it could maintain or establish cordial relations with whichever side emerged victorious. Due to General Francos military successes, the support he received from Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, and the geostrategic importance of the Iberian Peninsula in Britains Mediterranean strategy, non-intervention evolved into a policy of appeasing Franco. This sustained strategic programme remained in place beyond the Civil War and throughout the Second World War. It aimed to drive a wedge between Franco and the Axis Powers to prevent Spains incorporation into the Rome-Berlin Axis and thereby ensure the neutrality of the Iberian Peninsula. The British governments diplomatic recognition of Franco and simultaneous abandonment of the Spanish Republic in February 1939 formed a concession comparable to British policy towards Abyssinia and Czechoslovakia. Negotiating Neutrality uses appeasement as an analytical framework to show how appeasement policies alter power dynamics in diplomatic relationships. As a beneficiary of appeasement, Franco, like Hitler and Mussolini, intuitively understood how to use this policy to his regimes advantage and it formed an important part of his development as a statesman alongside his German and Italian counterparts. For its part, the British government increasingly encountered difficulties when trying to re-assert itself as the dominant power in Anglo-Spanish relations. In this sense, the author challenges the dominant view within the existing historiography that British policy makers harboured ideological prejudices towards the Spanish Republic, or sympathy for the military rebels, and allowed these to cloud their judgement when formulating a policy towards the Civil War to show that Francos victory was far from the preferred outcome for the British government. Published in association with the Canada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies, LSE

At the end of the Spanish Civil War the Nationalist government instigated mass repression against anyone suspected of loyalty to the defeated Republican side. Around 200,000 people were imprisoned for political crimes in the weeks and months following 1st April 1939, including thousands of women who were charged with offences ranging from directing the home front to supporting their loved ones engaged in combat. Many women wrote and published texts about their experiences, seeking to make their voices heard and to counteract the dehumanising master narrative of the right-wing victors that had criminalised their existence. The memoirs of Communist women, such as Tomasa Cuevas and Juana Dona, have heavily influenced our understanding of life in prison for women under franquismo, while texts by non-Communist women have largely been ignored. This monograph offers a comparative study of the life writing of female political prisoners in Spain, focusing on six texts in particular: the two volumes of Carcel de mujeres by Tomasa Cuevas; Desde la noche y la niebla by Juana Dona; Requiem por la libertad by Angeles Garcia Madrid; Abajo las dictaduras by Josefa Garcia Segret; and Aquello sucedio asi by Angeles Malonda. All the texts share common themes, such as describing the hunger and repression that all political prisoners suffered. However, the ideologically-driven narratives of Communist women often foreground representations of resistance at the expense of exploring the emotional and intellectual struggle for survival that many women political prisoners faced in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. This study nuances our understanding of imprisoned women as individuals and as a collective, analysing how women political prisoners sought recognition and justice in the face of a vindictive dictatorship. It also explores the womens response to the spirit of convivencia during the transition to democracy, which once again threatened to silence them.