UKIP makes me want to vomit, although the BNP is worse. Reading again Hugh Thomas’s gripping history, I was more moved than I expected to be by the great tragedy which befell Spain in the late 30s and which the liberal democracies allowed to happen by their fear of provoking fascist Italy and Germany.Putting ones country first whatever the circumstances is a peculiar thing to do. To put ones own vision of what that country means before any other considerations crosses the borders of mental illness. There can be fewer more ridiculous figures than the childish and poisonous, maimed and bizarre, general Millan Astray shouting the Spanish Legionaries nonsensical motto – ‘long live death!’ (When, in the great hall of the University of Salamanca, the philosopher Miguel de Unamuno pointed out how stupid this was, he could vary – ‘death to intellectuals, long live death!’ he cried.)The republic was not innocent, there were bad men, and bad things were done; but these were not policy. For Franco and the nationalists murder was policy. But the right was disciplined: anarchist units were handicapped by the necessity of holding meetings before going into action. Squabbling on the left was rife and sometimes murderous.Thomas’s book is long, at over a thousand pages, but is so worth reading again. I was gripped enough to suspend disbelief (or do I mean belief) and to hope as I turned the pages, that the ending would be other than that which I knew it to be. Seventy years is a long time and the right all over Europe still hopes that the rest of us will forget.The International Brigades are rightly famous and this month Spain will give the elderly survivors Spanish passports. These people fought for what they believed in rather than for their country. The Garibaldi battalion fought much better than the regular Italian units on the nationalists’ side did. (Germans, of course, were different and the Condor Legion made a major contribution to the nationalist victory: Spain was the Wehrmacht’s training ground for Poland, France and Russia.). Largely by the influence of McCarthy and his henchmen, the Abraham Lincoln battalion was declared subversive in 1946. European democracy did not behave like that, (we should not forget Greece however). Those of us who believe that Europe is more important than its individual states should read this book. Read it, and vote against UKIP and its ludicrous identification with a nationalist pseudo-history and false Churchillian imagery.
Unfortunately it has a predictably status quo left liberal slant. " for some curious reason, has acquired the reputation of being a definitive history of the conflict - is pretentious, superficial, and factually unreliable. For a devastating critique, the reader should consult Vernon Richard's "July 19, 1936: Republic or Revolution?" in Anarchy, No.5 (July, 1961)' and Richard's introductory remarks to Gaston Leval's "Collectives in the Spanish Revolution " ( London, 1975). " - Murray Bookchin' p. 299 "The Spanish Anarchists".There is liitle on the popular revolution which ocurred in Spain duing the war, a glaring ideologically based omission.Chomsky, "Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship" : "obviously the historian's account must be selective; from the left liberal point of view (like Hugh Thomas and Gabriel Jackson) the liquidation of the revolution in Catalonia was a minor event, as the revolution itself was merely kind of irrelevant nuisance, a minor irritant diverting energy fom the struggle to save the bourgeois government...Thomas' extensive study barely refers to the popular revolution, and some of the major events are not mentioned at all."How can so much work be done and such honours bestowed on such a 'major work', with such glaring omissions? An honest study of the Spanish Civil War MUST be accompanied by histories such as The Spanish Anarchists (Murray Bookchin), Homage to Catalonia (George Orwell) and On Anarchism (Noam Chomsky). But above all, Pierre Broue and Emile and Emile Temime's 'The Revolution and the Civil War in Spain'. Which is infinitely preferable as a general account of the Spanish Civil War. According to Chomsky, the best general history of the war.In his favor, Hugh Thomas does give excellent suggestions on further study of the role of Anarchism in the bibliography. I can only assume the curious omissions are due to it being too risky in elite academic circles to focus too much (or at all) on the most 'dangerously' liberating democratic idea in history: anarchism, or if you prefer, libertarian socialism.
What do You think about The Spanish Civil War (2003)?
Hugh Thomas account of the Spanish Civil War is the most thorough version of the events written to date. His writing style makes the reader believe the entire account could be fiction. It is very easy to read and you hardly feel like you are reading history at all. The Spanish Civil War is one of the most devastating conflicts of the 20th century. It is the precursor to World War II and showcased as well as trained some of Germany, Italy and Russia's top talent. The sheer devastation of tactics involved bullied a civilian population and decimated a country. The rise of Francisco Franco and his victory over the communists was made possible by fascist intervention. The democracies of the world worked hard to try and effect a peace but they were unsuccessful against the determination of the fascists and the communists to prolong the conflict. This is a complicated conflict to understand but Hugh Thomas tries to simplify it as much as he can. This is the best start to understanding the Spanish Civil War and for those who want to understand how World War II began.
—Brian
