HEROES IN A BAD CAUSE
to the exploited soldiers of the International Brigades
AT NOON on a warm, sunny morning, Saturday, 15 October 1985, Mr Michael Foot unveiled a memorial to the British members of the International Brigades who fell in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1938 — 526 of them, or about a quarter of those who went there to fight. Some 500 spectators, including ex- combatants of the Civil War, attended the ceremony.
A 'superb' site, the organisers told us, was provided on the South Bank by the GLC.
As one who had also fought in Spain, on the opposite side to the International Brigades, I was asked to attend and com- ment on the proceedings for this paper. Almost my first thought was that it was a pity our Polish allies murdered by Hitler's Soviet friends at Katyn in 1940 could not have been granted an equally superb site in central London for their memorial, instead of being exiled to Gunnersbury in the outer suburbs. The Poles had selected a plot of ground in St Luke's churchyard, Chelsea, but the then Bishop of London, under pressure from certain members of the Labour government, denied it to them for fear, naturally, of upsetting the Rus- sians.
Undeniably, the British dead of the International Brigade thoroughly deserve a fine memorial. 'Be men,' said Marshal de Lattre de Tassigny, French C-in-C in Indo- China, in an address to Vietnamese high school graduates in July 1951. 'If you are Communists, go and join the Viet-Minh. There are people there who fight well for a bad cause.' Those soldiers of the Interna- tional Brigades were certainly men; and they fought heroically for what I personally would consider a bad cause. But for them it was an inspiring ideal, however bitter, for many, the subsequent disillusion. That ideal was not communism, at least for most of the British, who went to fight in the belief that they were defending demo- cracy and freedom. Some of them with whom I spoke after the Civil War told me how quickly their enthusiasm waned as they came to realise the extent of Com- munist control over the International Bri- gades. Political commissars, attached to every unit, had more authority than the military officers, and the former were all reliable Party members. And there was the sinister figure of Andre Marty, veteran member of the French Communist Party and Chief Political Commissar of the Bri- gades, to eliminate suspected dissenters.
Captain Don Davidson, who comman- ded a company of the British Battalion, against which I fought and by whom I was wounded, told me later that he joined the Party, though he wasn't a Communist, simply because 'I didn't want to be stuck in the ranks digging trenches'. To get promo- tion you had to be a Party member.
The Soviet Union provided the arms and advisers on which the Republican forces depended — and it provided them exclu- sively to units under Communist leader- ship. The organisation, recruiting, equip- ment and financing of the International Brigades were achieved, most efficiently, by the Western Division of the Comintern.
Those ideals of freedom and democracy for which so many Britons fought would have been among the first casualties of a Republican victory, accompanied by a blood-bath at least as shocking as Franco's and a regime at least as oppressive — and, moreover, irreversible like all Communist regimes in power. The fate of the Anarch- ist FAI and the Trotskyist POUM in 1937 provided a warning: although allies — and brave ones — of the Republic, they were massacred by the Communists on Stalin's orders. After the Civil War I saw the torture chambers in Barcelona where thousands died — and I still wish I hadn't., Of course, this betrayal in no way detracts from the courage and nobility of those for whom this memorial was erected. But it does reflect most distastefully on the callous cynicism of the Communists, who cruelly exploited that courage and nobility for their own selfish and vile purpose — to seize power in Spain. It was a forerunner of the Nazi-Soviet pact three years later, of the treacherous Russian attack on Poland which led to the collapse of the Polish armies fighting the German invaders, and of all the brutal and cynical deception which has characterised Soviet, and conse- quently Communist, policies ever since. It was not surprising, therefore, to find in- cluded in the list of honourable and disting- uished sponsors of the memorial appeal the name of Arthur Scargill.
On a less sombre note, it was good to see Michael Foot, well turned out in a .dark suit, pulling aside the scarlet bunting veil- ing the memorial and giving us an impas- sioned and obviously sincere tribute to the Brigades — even if he did get his geogra- phy a bit mixed up. On a recent visit to Madrid, he told us, he accompanied the Spanish Prime Minister to the top of his office building, from where 'I could see the Ebro . . no farther away from me than the Thames is from us now.' Very dramatic indeed — except that the Ebro, at its closest point, must be at least 200 miles from Madrid.
I must say that, in my opinion at least, the design of the memorial does scant justice to the fallen. It might be called impressionist, but from where I stood my first impression was of an enormous pair of
testicles surmounted by an elongated and drooping penis. Closer inspection revealed them as — I think — a human head and an arm sprouting from a recumbent body.
Beside the sculpture stood a scarlet banner inscribed in letters of gold: 'XXXV Division British Battalion', followed by an impressive list of battle honours — Bel- chite, Jakama, Teruel and Caspe among them. In all those theatres I had also served, sometimes against International Brigades, who on two occasions gave me some of the most uncomfortable moments of my life.
Because I fought for the Nationalists I am often accused of fascism. On the contrary, as a radical Tory I hated both fascism and communism as two sides of one odious coin. When I went to Spain after leaving Cambridge, the Civil War was some three months old, and German and Italian help to the Nationalists was neither so evident nor so extensive as later — in contrast to the blatant help the Republi- cans were receiving from the first moments through the Comintern.
The fascist Falange, though invaluable to Republican propaganda, were insignifi- cant in numbers at that time, and had no influence on Nationalist policy. Apart from some skirmishing in the south, they did very little fighting in the war. The Carlist militia, in which I enlisted, were extreme traditionalist monarchists who detested the Falange almost as much as the Commun- ists; later, when I transferred to the Span- ish Foreign Legion I found the Falange regarded them with contempt.
I still carry my own personal memorial to that British Battalion — the scars of three wounds I received at their hands in 24 hours of the battle for Carpe in March, 1938. If, as I like to think, these are honourable scars, I am proud to remember they come from such honourable and gallant men.
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