Many, however, ultimately came to see that they could continue the good fight against fascism in World War II.
They were especially angry with the French for incarcerating Spanish refugees in detention camps, a sentiment clearly voiced by nurse Ave Bruzzichesi. They were convinced that the arms embargo of the United States and the Western allies was in good measure responsible for the defeat of the Republican government. Many were convinced they would change the world by fighting fascism in Spain.Ĭoming home in defeat was a searing experience that left many consumed by a sense of tragedy for the rest of their lives. This ideology is what drove young Americans to go off to war on a foreign battlefield and in defiance of their own government’s neutrality laws. The volunteers saw the war in Spain as both the front lines of the class war and an attempt to halt the spread of fascism and Nazism. Men and women of the Left knew that if fascism triumphed, the labor and progressive movements would be destroyed. At a time when most radicals supported the Popular Front against Hitler and Mussolini, many like Canute Frankson saw the connection between social change and opposition to fascism abroad. As many as 70 percent were members of the Communist party or one of its affiliated organizations but there were also significant numbers of Socialists, anarchists, and adventurous antifascists who volunteered. Of the twenty-eight hundred volunteers who went to Spain, at least 1,250 were Jewish, around three hundred were Italian, over eighty were African Americans and fifty-four were women. The vast majority of Lincoln Brigade volunteers came from working-class families. During the 1930s they became involved in the labor movement and radical politics through the industrial union movement, civil rights activities, efforts to organize the unemployed, and participation in hunger marches that were often led by the Communist party. The Lincoln Brigade volunteers were for the most part members of the generation that came of age during the Great Depression. Others came from the personal collections of individuals and their families that can be found in the ALBA collection or in other depositories.
Most of the letters in this volume were selected from thousands more that may be found in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA) collection in New York University’s Tamiment Library. After World War II, they were among the first victims of the Red Scare. Despite their heroism in the second war against fascism, the Lincolns never overcame the stigma of having been “premature antifascists.” By going to Spain, they marked themselves as radicals whose loyalty to the government was suspect. Wherever they served, individual Lincoln veterans won innumerable awards for bravery and sacrifice. army, maintained their commitments to destroy the fascist beast and when finally given the chance to fight, they proved to be exceptional soldiers. African American volunteers, who after serving in the integrated Lincoln brigade were forced into second-class duties in the segregated U.S. military authorities, who were concerned about the brigaders’ ties to the Communist party, attempted to thwart their ambitions by blocking officer’s commissions and overseas combat assignments, the Lincolns remained doggedly loyal to the struggle. Although many brigaders reluctantly hewed to the Communist party’s non-interventionist line in 19, after Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, they became enthusiastic about the second chance to achieve victory over fascism. Six months later, the same German air forces that bombed the Basque village of Guernica in 1937 were flying over Poland launching the war that the Lincolns thought could have been prevented. neutrality in the Spanish Civil War had been a mistake. After nearly three years of bitter, cruel warfare, General Francisco Franco’s armies defeated the Republican forces in March 1939. veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, a volunteer army of about twenty-eight hundred men and women who sailed to Europe to fight against fascism in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). There was, however, one group of Americans who had already confronted the fascist enemy on the battlefield and had first-hand experience of the political stakes. But except for what the public could glimpse through newspapers, newsreels, and radio, few Americans had faced the horror of modern warfare. Roosevelt, DecemPrefaceĮurope had been at war for twenty-seven months before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, drawing the United States into World War II. “We who fought the Fascist Axis in Spain proudly volunteer to march shoulder to shoulder with our fellow Americans for the final crushing of this menace to the independence and democracy of America and all peoples.”