The ‘International Brigades Memorial Trust’ (IBMT) is a UK-based entity administered by ‘White’, middle-class individuals – supposedly in the names of the thousands of British and Irish working-class men and women who ‘volunteered’ to fight in support of the democratically elected ‘Socialist’ government of the Spanish Republic between 1936-1939. The opponent at the time was General Franco – a far-right agent of the Catholic Church who was supported militarily by Hitler and Mussolini. It was the Soviet Union (under its ‘elected’ leader Joseph Stalin) which administered the worldwide defence of Socialist Spain – primarily through the agency of the Communist-inspired ‘International’. The ‘International’ is the Socialist principle that ALL working-class people are inherently ‘united’ in the face of bourgeois oppression. Furthermore, this principle was manifested in the ‘Third International’ declared by VI Lenin during 1919 (it would be dissolved by the USSR in 1943 – when a large portion of the same working-class people of the world – had formed the murderous soldiers of the numerous enemy armies attacking the Soviet State at the time) and manifested this ‘Internationalist’ spirit through the various Communist Parties spread throughout the globe.
These various Communist Parties – through their connections with the labour unions and other working-class entities – put-out the call for a worldwide body of dedicated men and women to voluntarily come together to ‘assist’ the democratically elected government of Republican Spain against the fascist aggression it was experiencing. This ‘Internationalist’ effort was financed and armed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union – an effort mediated through all the various Communist Parties of the world (which acted as ‘branches’ of the central Soviet entity). This was the ideological and material backbone of the ‘International Brigades’ that were formed. This had NOTHING to do with the bourgeoisie – essentially the class ‘enemy’ responsible for fascism and the religiosity that supported it – which now administers the so-called ‘International Brigades Association’ in the UK! The middle-class (White) authors who continuously get their books published pursue an anti-Communist, anti-Soviet, anti-Stalin and anti-working-class line. Their agenda is to acquire monetary donations through a bourgeois sympathy for the ‘hopeless’ task the pathetic working-class continuously set itself whilst excluded from political power! Any such contemporary book on the subject will present exactly the same message.
Do not become mired in this deceptive bourgeois thinking that hides in plain sight and behind material facts. Khrushchev was a bourgeois liar (see the work of Grover Furr, Alexander Werth, EH Carr, Joseph McCabe and others). The 1956 ‘Uprising’ in Hungary was comprised of thousands of former soldiers from the (fascist) Hungarian Army that had brutally invaded the USSR between 1941-1945 as part of the Nazi German onslaught (and their ‘groomed’ teenage recruits)! These soldiers had committed untold ‘atrocities’ during their incursion into the USSR on behalf of the Catholic Church! Just eleven years after these fascist atrocities – the same (unpunished) Hungarian men rallied once again in the name of Hitler, and they yet again committed ‘atrocities’ against ‘Socialist’ Hungarians – outrages that were photographed and filmed (and which are available to see on the Russian language internet)! This was a ‘Neo-Nazi’ uprising that is rhetorically supported by the likes of the ‘Holocaust Denier’ David Irving today! Of course, due to the Cold War started by the US (see the work of Andrew Alexander and his book entitled ‘America and the Imperialism of Ignorance’) – the spin placed on this Neo-Nazi Uprising in Hungary is much like the current US support for Neo-Nazi Ukraine – as it is erroneously viewed as a ‘Freedom Fight’! The famous Boxer Joe Bugner was resettled in the UK (alongside his Neo-Nazi-supporting family) following the 1956 ‘Uprising’ – but the British people were not told this about his background. Just like today, we in the UK are being forced to live next to Neo-Nazi ‘guests’ – as Ukrainians strut around UK streets sporting all the free goods and resources taken off our poor and redistributed to them – just because the US has told our British government what to do!
Richard Baxell is a typical bourgeois author who likes to think he is a mouthpiece for the working-class. He is wrong – and I only have to give just one page of his missive discussing the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) to prove this point! The International Brigades Memorial Trust is wrong. My family, as patriots of the Communist Movement did join the IBMT – but we found that its regular magazine is nothing but a ‘fetish’ rag for the middle-class to watch the working-class and marvel at its stupidity in its support for lost causes and defunct (alien) political ideologies! Although the IBMT uses our working-class symbols of the clenched fist, red star and hammer and sickle, etc. it does so only from a position of ‘appropriation’. The bourgeois IBMT (and its numerous ‘Communist-denying’ authors) generates finance from what it considers to be a lost historical cause with no contemporary relevance. This arrogant and derogatory attitude (which distorts Soviets history and demeans Comrade Stalin) is typical of a middle-class that we MUST overthrow if our genuine, working-class history is to be recorded and genuinely passed on! If you are working-class – do not be afraid of the bourgeoisie or its economic power – this changes nothing! Joseph Stalin was one of the greatest ‘elected’ leaders the working-class has ever known in the world (he was continuously voted into power through the auspices of ‘Central Democracy’)! He won WWII for us (through the sacrifices the Soviet people and the magnificent Soviet Red Army) – an outstanding achievement which allowed our British Army to prevail in Western Europe! Do NOT allow the bourgeoisie to put words in the mouths of the working-class – no one in their right mind would have supported the Yugoslavians in 1948, the Hungarians in 1956, or the Czechs in 1968 (all Neo-Nazi uprisings!
Indeed, Richard Baxell has NOTHING to say whatsoever about NATO blanket-bombing exactly the same Yugoslavia in 1998 (for 78-days non-stop) for the crime of ‘wanting to remain Socialist’! He has no pithy working-class anecdotes about ‘John Smith’ (the average man on the street) wanting to come to the aid of the 1998 descendants of those 1948 dissidents! No. We – the working-class – remain ‘oppressed’ and this oppression extends to organisations such as the ‘International Brigades ’ (IBMT) which uses our symbology to increase its coffers – and authors such as Richard Baxell – an author who misrepresents and distorts working-class history (whilst getting paid to do this job) – as he faithfully pursues a subtle bourgeois agenda of appropriation, sleight of hand and damn right historical falsification! To this end, Richard Baxell is NO different to David Irving – although the former still awaits a trial for ‘Proletariat Holocaust Denial’! Alas, this trial will only happen when the working-class seizes the means of production – then we can hold all these ‘liars’ accountable for the false propaganda they have been spreading the decades! Getting some of our history correct – whilst deliberately falsifying other aspects will NOT be a viable defence! People like Baxell (and organisations like the IBMT) are guilty of denying the ‘Working-Class Holocaust’! Once we realised that the IBA was a ‘White’, bourgeois establishment catering toward ahistorical revisionism and fascistic apology – we left pretty smartish! The Chinese members of my family were made to feel uncomfortable with the manner they were ‘starred’ at when we turned-up for commemorations. Imagine that – one of the greatest anti-fascist (working-class) movements in British history being infiltrated by the very racist attitudes the British heroes of the past were fighting to put a stop to! Finally, the likes of the IBMT (and authors like Richard Baxell) have absolutely NOTHING to say about the thousands of brave (British) working-class men and women who have volunteered to fight in the ‘People’s Militias’ – raised by the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in the face of the Western-backed aggression from Neo-Nazi Ukraine! Again, the bourgeois agenda is clear for all to see!
THE GENUINE WORKING-CLASS WILL NOT BE SILENCED!
LONG LIVE THE SPIRIT OF THE INTERNATIONAL BRIGADES – WE LOVE YOU ALL!
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 