Don Watson reviews two books from Luath Press: Willy Maley (editor), Our Fathers Fought Franco and Daniel Gray, Homage to Caledonia: Scotland and the Spanish Civil War .
Our Fathers Fought Franco is a unique contribution to the steadily growing field of International Brigade and Spanish Civil war studies. It presents accounts of four Brigade volunteers from Scotland – Donald Renton, Geordie Watters, Jimmy Maley, and Archie (‘AC’) Williams – provided by in two cases their sons, in another by a daughter, and the fourth by a grand-daughter. One of the sons is the editor, Willy Maley.
All four men served at the Battle of Jarama in February 1937, at which the British and Irish volunteers suffered devastating losses. They were held for several months in horrific conditions and under a constant fear of execution; groups of their Spanish fellow prisoners of war were shot by the Fascists on a regular basis. Eventually the British were released as part of a prisoner exchange. This common experience is one link between the four; others are their similar backgrounds as working-class men, with little formal education but well-read, active in trade unions, the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement (NUWM).
It seems that the children and grand-children often knew little of their relatives’ time in Spain and so to expand and build on the interviews the family members have drawn on a range of sources to piece together their contributions. As Willy Maley says, ‘having to read as a scholar, not as a son’. They include some surviving letters, material from the International Brigade Memorial Trust, the Marx Memorial Library, Facebook pages and internet sites, YouTube newsreels, and sometimes the Comintern archive of International Brigade records, now freely available online. MI5 maintained surveillance on the four long after Spain and some of their records are included too.
The authors describe growing up as the children of locally well- known political activists, with the pride, strength and issues this could involve. As is not uncommon with the children of male activists of the 1950s and 1960s, Jennie Renton confesses that ‘what I secretly yearned
for was a Dad who was at home more’.
These volunteers’ families did not know if they were alive after Jarama and confirmation only came when they saw footage of them herded as prisoners on a cinema newsreel. Watching the same newsreel for the first time on YouTube was an emotional experience for Tam Watters, realising that this was the sole photographic record of his father as a young man. The perspective of family members adds something lacking from the available interviews, and not just the amount of additional information about their backgrounds and lives after Spain. There is the sense of the personalities, the lives lived and the impact their service in Spain exerted and the meanings it had for their families.
Daniel Gray’s Homage to Caledonia: Scotland and the Spanish Civil War was originally published by Luath Press in 2008 and it was the first study of the Scottish contribution to solidarity with Republican Spain. It is one of those books on Britain and the Spanish Civil War to take a more comprehensive approach than dealing solely with the volunteers for the International Brigades. Thus it also includes the fund raising for food ships, the support for Basque refugee children, and the role played by volunteers with the medical services and the Scottish Ambulance Unit.
It has been re-issued to accompany Our Fathers Fought Franco and it provides an essential context for the companion book. Though broadly celebratory in tone (rather than having an analytical focus), it is an extensive and well-researched study which makes use of the full range of Scottish sources, and with a narrative often based on the words of the participants themselves.
There is an interesting section on Scottish opposition to the Republic and support for Franco. Apart from the attempts by the Catholic Church to influence working-class opinion there was explicit support for Franco from British Union of Fascists branches, and from establishment figures who formed links with the Friends of Nationalist Spain. Neither organisation was able to build popular support, due in no small part to the opposition they encountered from anti-fascists.
There’s also consideration of what Gray terms Scotland’s ‘other left’ in solidarity campaigns, particularly the Independent Labour Party (ILP), showing that the author does not shy away from contentious issues when this is appropriate: the ILP’s David Murray had a role in negotiating the release of POUM prisoners after the Republican purge (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista / Workers Party of Marxist Unification). His most notorious case was that of ILP member Bob Smillie, who was arrested whilst leaving Spain because of incorrect documentation during the POUM suppression; his death from peritonitis in gaol was alleged to have been the consequence of politically motivated neglect. Homage to Caledonia offers a clear summary of the evidence, argument and rumour that was provided at the time and subsequently about this death, ending with Murray’s own conclusion – still contested – that it was the result of unfortunate circumstances.
Daniel Gray’s Preface to his new edition lists the events, memorials and cultural productions commemorating Scotland and the Spanish Civil War which have been held since 2008. These two books – and both are copiously illustrated - make a valuable contribution to the continuous process of education, commemoration and discussion of an iconic episode in Scottish and working-class history.
A substantially longer version of this review will appear in a future issue of Socialist History. We would like to thank the journal’s editors for agreeing that we can carry the piece: this permission does not necessarily imply any endorsement or support for Democratic Left Scotland and its positions by Socialist History or the reviewer.