Our fathers fought Franco
by Lisa Croft, Willy Maley, Jennie Renton and Tam Watters
Luath Press £12.99

THIS astonishing work of aural history combines research undertaken by the families of four veterans of the Spanish Civil War and is, quite simply, the best introduction to the experience of the International Brigades and the role of the Communist Party in their organisation that you could hope for.
 
It reads like a detective novel, slowly uncovering the traumatic experience that all four men were reluctant to describe in later life, namely: the horrific and brutal unfolding of the battle of Jarama from February 6-12 1937 in which they all fought in the No 2 Machine Gun Company on “Suicide Hill,” after which they were captured, faced firing squads, saw summary executions, and were subject to appalling prison conditions and sentenced to decades of captivity, before being exchanged in prisoner swaps and sent home.
 
The great advantage of aural history is that these events are set in the context of whole lives and the many details you can put together a picture of the kind of working-class men that volunteered, the politics that drove them and the means by which they were organised.
 
Through the lens of four lives you can read the bigger picture of working class organisation at the time of the General Strike (1926), the rise of fascism, appalling conditions of work and accommodation, and following Spain the subsequent political development of the men during WWII and thereafter.
 
Perhaps the most astonishing fact when viewed from the present da, is how they left school at 14 or earlier and subsequently took charge of their own political education, with the predecessor of this paper, the Daily Worker, playing a leading role in both education and political guidance.
 
And you get to experience what it must have been like to be young in the 1920s and 1930s.
 
The paths to the rendez-vous in Paris at CP headquarters on Place du Combat where the men come together prior to their deployment in Spain and learn one another’s names is extremely varied. It comes from the appallingly dangerous coalfields of Prestonpans in the case of Geordie Watters; from political commitment as an organiser of the NUWM (National Unemployed Workers Movement) in the case of Donald Renton; from a spell in the US and the Territorial Army in the case of James Maley; and for AC Williams from an extraordinary experience following a conviction for theft in the US as a freewheeling fur-trapper and railroad rider.
 
The common denominator, however, is membership of the Communist Party and a recognition that each man individually must play a part in the new front against fascism. It is profoundly moving to read the words with which this conviction is expressed as, in each case, it moves them to action:
 
“I knew that the working class in Spain had taken power. And if they held onto power long enough, they’d have made a hell of a difference to other countries round about them.”
 
Spain, in other words, was the revolution they wanted at home.
 
In later life each of the families finds their father or grandfather reluctant to speak about Spain, but as you read the four accounts names and connections recur and the details break through that fog of understandable reticence as though such history can only be told through collective effort.
 
And you can see why. All the men attempt to enlist in 1939, and all find themselves blacklisted as communists and veterans of Spain, a situation that doesn’t change until 1941 when the USSR became an ally. At least one, Donald Renton, obvious struggles with undiagnosed PTSD, and as, through the other accounts, the extent of trauma becomes apparent, you can see why. This it seems is not so much because of battle as the subsequent cruelties of captivity and their treatment at the hands of the Falangists.

But despite such sacrifice, all continue through long lives as political activists, playing leading roles in the NUM, the CP, and the Labour Party.
 
An extraordinary example, and an unforgettable, essential book.

Our Fathers Fought Franco book launch, with special guests The Wakes, takes place on Saturday February 4, 2.15pm -4pm, Townhead Village Hall, 60 Saint Mungo Avenue, Glasgow.