Antifa...
The International Brigades: Fighting Fascism in Spain
"Hemingway, Orwell and a host of others have written gainfully on the International Brigades’ resistance to Spanish Fascism. The book under review, based on extensive interviews and deep research, is considered by the reviewer to be the masterwork."
October 8, 2020 Dan Hancox
The Guardian
Excerpt:
"It is true the brigades drew an astonishing array of international literary figures – Orwell, Hemingway, Spender, Auden – and also great photographers, artists, and politicians in the making. But above all, it attracted working-class men and women from across Europe and beyond: many of them already refugees, those fleeing or fearing persecution, unemployment and degradation. There were French, Poles, Germans and Italians in their thousands, but also brigaders from Ethiopia, Argentina, Indonesia, Japan and Pakistan. A good half of those who volunteered were communists, and they did so alongside socialists, anarchists, liberals, democrats, people of all faiths and none, even a few conservatives and politically agnostic adventurers, from 65 countries, with only one thing uniting them: anti-fascism. Remarkable individual lives fly past in a single tantalising line: the three Jewish tailors from Stepney who had “arrived by bicycle”, for example.
"In one of many unforgettable vignettes, a trainload of new volunteers from “all the nations in Europe, and some from outside Europe as well” crossing the border into Spain with no common language, join together to sing the “Internationale”, but each doing so in their own tongue. “I find it extremely difficult to explain how exhilarating this was,” recalls a British volunteer. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt the same feeling at any other time in my life.”
Full review:
https://portside.org/2020-10-08/international-brigades-fighting-fascism-spain