Book Review by Reiver Reads: Remember Me To My Comrades

Barnthorn Publishing 2026.

The Spanish Civil War, which began 90 years ago next month, remains a totemic issue for the left in the long and enduring struggle against fascism.

The conflict began on July 17, 1936, when right-wing generals led by Francisco Franco launched an uprising against the democratically elected Second Spanish Republic.

The coup rapidly escalated into a full-scale civil war that lasted until March 1939, with the victory of Franco’s nationalist forces, ushering in a military dictatorship that lasted until Franco’s death in November 1975.

Much like the Vietnam War some 30 years later, the causes of the civil war, its progress, and Franco's eventual victory remain a source of deep contention; and debate the subject of never-ending books, articles, and conferences, arguments without end which continue to this day in an age of misinformation, half-truths, and outright lies powered by tech oligarchs.

If Spain became a touchstone issue for the left, it also exposed the deep ideological fissures on the left between the Communist Party of Great Britain, the CPGB, who gave their support and backing to the International Brigades, and the Labour Party whose official policy was non-intervention due to their suspicions of communist influence within the Spanish Popular Front.

This policy would evolve as the brutality of the conflict became clear.

What is often overlooked is the human element of a conflict that pitted the often poorly equipped and chaotic leadership of the International Brigades against the might of Franco's forces, who were backed by the Condor Legions of Adolf Hitler, whose destruction of Guernica in 1937 remains a deep scar on the conscience of the Spanish people.

As the conflict fades into history, there is often a danger that, like WW1, its memories will become sanitised, its combatants remembered for their courage and heroism but without the human voices to authenticate their struggle and sacrifice, for if Spain was about anything it was a moral conflict between the forces of reaction and those of progress.

In Remember Me To My Comrades: Letters and Diaries of the International Brigade, author Michael Crowley and researcher Tony Fox give voice to the young people of the International Brigades, their occasional naivety as well as their idealism and their bravery.

Much like the late Lyn MacDonald’s seminal books of the First World War, Somme and They Called It Passchendaele, there were many reasons why people joined the International Brigades.

For many such as Maurice Levin, their commitment arose out of a deep ideological hostility to fascism.

The son of Lithuanian Jews who had fled a pogrom in 1895, Maurice had been born in the Cheetham area of Manchester in 1907.

As a young man growing up in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, he became aware of communist ideology after attending street meetings at Marshall Croft in Cheetham.

"I was then 14 and a working man, and if my friends and I had been asked to join the Young Communist League then, we would have done so."

After emigrating to Melbourne, where his brother was in the mackintosh trade, Maurice returned to England in 1931 just after the formation of the National Government under Ramsay MacDonald.

"Returning to England in 1931, I joined the Communist Party.

"The reputation of the Labour Party at that time was somewhat blemished, because of its collaboration in the National Government, which saw the defection of MacDonald, Snowden, Thomas and others to support the Conservative Party.

"For a lot of young people in the 20s and 30s, the Communist Party was the party to join.

"At the beginning of the 1930s it was only very tiny (around 3000 members), but then it started to grow very rapidly in Manchester and elsewhere.

"It had a great deal of attraction for Jewish youth in the Cheetham area; they set up their own premises in Hightown and in other parts of Cheetham later on.

"The rise of fascism also gave it its impetus."

As well as the ideological element, poverty, poor housing, and a chaotic childhood were factors that drove people into the IB.

Sam Wylde was typical of this background.

He had been born in Ardwick, Manchester in 1908.

His mother died when he was two years old in the infirmary of the Withington Workhouse and was buried in a pauper’s grave.

His father was left to bring up Sam and three other children on his own.

As the youngest child, Sam was given to an aunt who raised him, a woman with strong Irish Republican views which rubbed off on the young Sam.

Growing up in the Depression, Sam, like many of his generation, found a home in the IB.

For many, it was the first time in their life they had any form of structure.

The IB provided a purpose, a meaning, and a cause.

As Michael Crowley notes: “His narrative is akin to a Hemmingway character.

"In fighting for the Spanish Republic, he found a role in which he not only excelled, but also a place where he belonged, more so than in his life before and at times possibly afterwards He once said that the days of the IB were the happiest of his life”

There is a connection running throughout this book, between the grinding poverty of the Depression and the struggle against fascism, for fascism thrives on poverty, and a lack of hope, where easy solutions become soundbites.

We can learn a lot from the struggles our forebears went through in their youth, and this is something that the book highlights.

For many, the fighting in Spain became the prelude to a much wider struggle a few years later.

Many of the IB volunteers saw first-hand where fascism was going and their commitment to fighting its evil remains a source of deep pride.

Remember Me To My Comrades is at times emotive and moving, but above all it is a reminder that the tree of liberty must be watered regularly if freedom is to be maintained.

Both Michael Crowley and Tony Fox are to be congratulated for their efforts in reminding us of the evils of fascism and how it can be fought.

An outstanding tribute to the heroism and bravery of a generation.