Echoes of the Spanish Civil War

They're All Over the Ukraine Story

Salaria Kea. From the Tamiment-Wagner Collections, NYU.

Early in my historical reading I developed a special interest in the Spanish Civil War. It was such an obvious rehearsal for what was to come (perhaps you've heard of World War II). And as in a rehearsal, the performance was still seeking its final shape.

Later on, say in 1945, everybody seemed to agree, at least in public, that fascism was a very bad thing. And yet the surviving veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, when they came home from their war in Spain, were generally viewed with distrust and often had difficulty getting jobs. Then, when the conventional wisdom on fascism coalesced in their favor, they were called "premature anti-fascists."

In other words, we still don't like you, even though you were right. And we're still in charge.

I do love those little moments when the controlling narrative goes a bit sideways, and some of the seams appear hastily stitched.

I also thought the war produced some amazing books: George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, Andre Malraux and his monumental L'espoir, Ernest Hemingway and For Whom the Bell Tolls. 

I know I'm not supposed to like Hemingway, but reading him taught me a lot about how to write. I concede I didn't learn much useful about how to live (I've never been terribly interested in fishing). An English teacher did manage to coerce a sixteen-year-old boy into writing a paper on Hemingway's women. I did manage to come to the conclusion that his women weren't real.

Recently this brilliant insight came in handy while I was reading Sarah Watling's description of Hemingway's relationship with Martha Gelhorn, in Watling's new book on the Spanish Civil War, Tomorrow Perhaps the Future (2023). It struck me that Hemingway actually expected real women to be like the women in his books.

Watling's book focuses on foreign women who come to Spain to help the Republic survive an insurrection led by a dissident general who had backing from many of the country's traditional elites, and who also received crucial support from Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany, while the western democracies sat on the sidelines.

Her focus on women is a very happy angle of approach. Malraux's L'espoir (the word means hope in English) is basic to understanding the people who supported the Republic. But this hope was not an exclusive possession of the men, and Watling has some great stories to tell.

Some of the participants are or used to be famous - Gelhorn for instance. And then there's Salaria Kea, an African-American nurse who left a steady job at Harlem Hospital to serve in a medical unit that was attached, more or less, to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Later, when asked why she went, Kea said, "And why shouldn't I go and help the world?" (Watling, p. 197.)

My personal favorite is the story of the two photographers Robert Capa and Gerda Taro and their intense romantic and artistic collaboration. There is a sad ending along with a great many unforgettable photographs.

But the main thing Watling's book does for today's reader is point to the perils of getting it wrong in Ukraine.

The lesson here is simple: If we drop the ball in Ukraine we will very quickly find ourselves on the front lines of a much wider - and possibly nuclear - war. Do the right thing.

See also What Happened in Ferrara?