International Brigades

International Red Terror in Spain

International Brigades (Spanish: Brigadas Internacionales) were military units, made up of volunteers from different countries, who traveled to Spain in order to fight for the leftist Republican side in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939).

History

Prisoners of the International Brigades in the hands of the Italians (probably in Alcañiz) in 1938

The International Brigades were proposed by the Communist Soviet Union and closely associated with Soviet Communism through Soviet controlled organizations such as the Comintern and the NKVD. Foreign pro-Soviet Communist Parties were used to recruit for volunteers. As a security measure, non-Communist volunteers would first be interviewed by an NKVD agent.

In Madrid and Barcelona, socialist, Communist and anarchist militias led a lawless reign of terror. General Lopez Ochoa, although himself a Republican and Freemason, had quashed the Revolution in Asturias alongside Franco two years earlier. He was decapitated in his hospital bed on 19 August. His severed head was then displayed in the streets of Madrid by a bloodthirsty Red mob in one of many scenes reminiscent of the French Revolution. Real or imagined political opponents and their families — indeed, anyone perceived as a “class enemy” — were fair game for the Red rabble. Torture, rape and executions, often in front of family members, were not uncommon. As always, the revolutionary hatred was primarily directed against the Church. What took place in Red Spain during the first six months of the Civil War was one of the worst religious persecutions in modern times. Thirteen bishops, and over 7,000 priests, monks and nuns were murdered, in many cases after having been cruelly tortured. Exactly how many Catholic lay men and women were martyred for their faith is difficult to estimate. In order to assist the Spanish Reds in their campaign of terror, Moscow sent some of their best, led by General Alexander Orlov of the NKVD, the Soviet secret police. His real name was Leiba Lazarevich Feldbin, but, like many other prominent Jewish Bolsheviks, he had changed it to a Russian name. In August, Moscowalso sent a new ambassador, Marcel (Moses) Rosenberg, to Madrid. The leading politician in the Republican camp was no longer the Freemason and liberal Manuel Azaña, but the Freemason and socialist radical Largo Caballero, who fancied himself as the “Spanish Lenin.” However, Rosenberg, and ultimately Stalin, now held the real power in Republican Spain. Those who still cling to the lie that the Republican side was really “democratic” would do well to consider what became of the Spanish gold reserve. On 14 September 1936, only two months after the outbreak of the war, it was shipped from Cartagena to Moscow (a smaller part was transferred to France) by order of the Republican authorities. It was, of course, never returned.

It is estimated that there were around 35,000 volunteers at any time, although other sources state 40,000 and 59,000. Jews were hugely over-represented with between 3,000 to 10,000 of the volunteers estimated to have been Jewish (see also: Jews and Communism). The anarchist CNT and the Trotskyist POUM were not part of the International Brigades but also had foreign volunteers (notably George Orwell). As payment for arms and supplies by the Soviet Union, the Republicans used a large part of the gold reserves of the Spanish nation (the world's fourth largest).

The largest single contingents came from France, Germany, Poland and Italy, though many also came from other European countries, including Britain and Ireland, Scandinavia, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Other volunteers endured long journeys from as far away as the USA (including a number of African-Americans), Canada, Mexico, Cuba, South America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. [...] The International Brigades were recruited and organised by the Communist International (the Comintern), which was quick to respond to the influx of foreign volunteers for the Republic. For Stalin, who was concerned at the extent of German and Italian help for the rebels and its potential severely to weaken France, the International Brigades offered an opportunity to support the Spanish Republican Army without intervening directly, and thus reducing the risk of further alienating Britain and France who had established an international non-intervention agreement to limit foreign involvement in the war. The recruitment of the International Brigades was coordinated by the Communist Party in Paris. The usual route for volunteers was to be smuggled in groups over the Pyrenees. From the border they would be taken the International Brigade headquarters at Albacete, where volunteers would be processed and divided up by nationality, into the different battalions comprising the Spanish Republican Army’s International Brigades.

Fighting for the NKVD

The membership of the International Brigades were fighting explicitly for the NKVD and Comintern (the Communist International). It was formed at the Comintern Executive Committee meeting of 18 September 1936 as part of an attempt by the Soviet Empire under the totalitarian communist dictatorship of Joseph Stalin to send in foreign mercenaries to cause chaos within the country and try to kill Spanish people. Many of the key military personalities sent were Communist emigres and NKVD agents in Russia. A prominent role was also played by the French Communist Party in organising this, illegally letting the mercenaries flood over the border.

The mercenaries were typically rectruited through various pro-Soviet Communist Parties and the ranks were crawling with Jews whose primary motivation was hatred of the true Spain for being a Catholic country, which their race could not get their greasy hands on. The anarchist CNT and the Trotskyist POUM (with whom George Orwell was associated) were not part of the International Brigades set-up: the former explicitly opposed having any foreign mercenaries, while the latter organised their own small band, outside of the NKVD-beholden PSOE/PCE bloc. As part of the International Brigades deal, the traitors Juan Negrín and Francisco Largo Caballero agreed to hand over the entire gold reserves of the Spanish nation to "Comrade" Stalin, which the Soviets, obviously, never returned.

Quotes

• "Behind them stand the Freemasons, the socialists, the communists, the Azañistas, the anarchists, all the Jewish leaders of the dark Marxism that has Russia for its mother and the destruction of European civilization for its motto. Spain has before and is again the theatre of an epic combat between Titans and apocalyptic monsters. The programme laid out in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are beginning to become reality." – Ramón Serrano Súñer

See also

• Stalinism
• Legion Condor
• Abraham Lincoln Brigade
• Franco’s International Brigades

External links

• The Spanish Civil War: A Successful Nationalist Revolution, Part 1
• The Spanish Civil War: A Successful Nationalist Revolution, Part 2
• The Untold Victors: The Spanish Civil As History Not Propaganda
• Jewish Murderers of the Spanish Civil War at Real Zionist News