Spanish Civil War

[RebelDog]

I am very interested in hearing from those on this forum, stories of relatives who went to Spain to fight. I have always had the greatest admiration for those who went. They were real revolutionaries. However little you know please post it.

[Cheung Mo]

Both of my grandfathers are too young to have fought in WW1 or WW2.

They were pre-school aged during the Spanish Civil War...

[Alex S.]

My grandfather wasn't leftist, he farmed until 1942 when he joined the US Army.

You should check out a book called Comrades: Tales of a Brigadista in the Spanish Civil War. It's Harry Fisher's memoirs of his participation in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. I picked it up for about $4 on sale at my university bookstore.

[rebelworker]

I have two friend who are actie here in montreal whos grandparents were active in the CNT militias, one spent time in a concentration camp.

On a slightly different note NEFAC has a memebr who is a veteran of the Friends of Durutti Group. His parents were anarchist refugees from Russia, he was at the funeral of Nestor Mahkno in France and went to Spain to fight during the revolution in Spain.

We are bringing him from Atlanta, where he now lives, t speak at the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair this summer. Ill post details when I have them. He will be doing stops in Quebec and Sherbrooke aswell.

[Comrade-Z]

My grandfather was serving in the Spanish navy when the Spanish Civil War began (apparently he was an engineer on a ship). Most of his shipmates sided with Franco, but my grandfather was opposed to Franco and fascism. He also wanted to get himself away from his father who owned a small shipping business in northern Spain and who also supported Franco. In late 1936 my grandfather's ship stopped in New York for a short time. My grandfather took the opportunity to desert from the navy and ask for political asylum in the U.S. and the chance to immigrate here, which he was granted.

He never would talk much about Spain or Franco. He was always very quiet and bitter about those matters. One thing that he was sometimes vocal about was his hatred of the Catholic Church. When his wife wanted to enroll two of their daughters in a Catholic elementary school, the school wanted 10% of his income. According to my dad, my grandfather afterwards came storming into the house heatedly talking about how, "All the Catholic Church wants to do is plunder your pocketbook! Those greedy go-for-nothing bastards!" It is possible that this view was shaped by his experiences and knowledge about the Spanish Civil War and the role that the Catholic Church played in it.

I don't think my grandfather was a socialist, communist, or anarchist, (although it's hard to tell. According to my dad he wasn't much into politics, but he did have a thorough distrust of politicians and labor union leaders, so maybe he had a tinge of anarchist thought), but he definitely didn't like the fascists or the Catholic Church.

[Tickin' TimebOmb John]

Altho i have no relatives who fought in the Spanish Civil War, during some recent reasrch into the conflict, i met up with (i think) the last surviving Welsh International Brigader called Alun Menai Willaims, who lives near me in the Wlesh Valleys. It was fascinattin to meet up with him an see how he felt about the conflict from a personla perspective.

[Cheung Mo]

The overwhelming support for the bourgeois centre-left government of Zapatero's socially liberal reforms suggests that most Spaniards have come to the same conclusion of Comrade-Z's grandfather...It's still a fairly touchy issue in Spain though: There's a lot of Francoist deadwoord in the Partido Popular and a lot of Spaniards (sometimes even a plurality) who are willing to (often knowingly) support that deadwood.

Oddly enough, inconistentcies between support for Zapatero's government and support for social liberalism and secularism in Spain suggest that a good 40% of PP support is socially liberal and fairly anti-clerical...Is country club conservatism gaining a foothold in Spain?