This week marks the 75th anniversary of the 'Barcelona Maydays' an uprising in response to the Republican Government's attempt to seize power in revolutionary Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. Tensions had been building over several months between the anarcho-syndicalist CNT membership and the Soviet controlled Republican army which centred on the questions of militarisation and 'War or Revolution'? When armed 'Communist Party' units attacked the Telephone exchange in Barcelona, thousands […]
A couple of years ago, at a gathering of the International Brigade Memorial Trust, Professor Paul Preston, describing George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, said: 'It is not a bad book but the trouble is, it is the only book many people read on the Spanish Civil War' or words to that effect. Pro. Preston suggested that 'Homage to Catalonia' was a book written about the Spanish War from the narrow perspective of someone who had only spent six or seven months involved in the conflict on a quiet […]
Remember the Spanish Brigaders
The memorial to the four Bristol volunteers who joined the International Brigades to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War in Castle Park is to be surrounded by a vivid mosiac border in Republican colours and will be unveiled at 12 noon on 14th April - the anniversary of the day the Republic was declared in 1931. BRISTOL BRIGADERS William G. Boyce Jan. 20th 1938 Teruel William J. Burton Feb. 1937 Jarama Leslie Huson May 1938 Pneumonia, died in hospital. Terence Edward Stephens July 1938 Died in […]
