As a young Mancunian socialist and trade unionist I was fascinated by the involvement of women and men from the British labour movement in the Spanish civil war.
Soon before I left Manchester to go to Ruskin College Ruth and Eddie Frow opened the Working Class Movement Library in Salford (in 1987) and this aided the development of my fledgling knowledge both of the background to the war itself, but in particular the contribution played by the International Brigades.
The Library still carries on its vital work of championing the cultural history of the working class, but needs your support: http://www.wcml.org.uk/. Please also pay a visit to the Marx Memorial library if you too have a fascination with the war in Spain, as this library is a leading international repository: http://www.marx-memorial-library.org/
This is just a brief post to thank the International Brigades Memorial Trust (IBMT) for choosing Ruskin as the host of its 2014 annual general meeting (AGM) on 6th Sept - 2014 marks the 75th anniversary of the war. The AGM is part of a weekend series of events designed in part to raise funds for a permanent memorial (to be unveiled during the weekend) to the women and men of Oxfordshire who fought in the Brigades.
If you can join us in Oxford for these events please do come along: http://www.international-brigades.org.uk/content/notice-ibmt-annual-general-meeting-2014
I had hoped to work closely with Ruskin colleagues Keiron Winters and Paul di Felice on delivering a presentation during the AGM on Ruskin's link to the Brigades, but other workload stopped me from making a full effort in tracking historical material down. And so it has been left to Keiron to unearth some fascinating archival material.
For example, here is a recorded interview with Ruskin student Jim Brewer, a miner from South Wales, who fought in the war: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80009746?nomobi=true
The title for this post is taken from the famous speech of Dolores Ibárruri, leader of the Communist Party of Spain, given to the Brigades as they assembled to leave Spain in November 1938.
Maxine Peake, herself a patron of the IBMT, delivers the speech in full - one of my most enjoyable YouTube clips. I encourage you to listen to this short video, not least to get some sense of the occasion, and how it must have felt to feel the war concluding, and to reflect on the role of the Brigades: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Xfm3o45iIE
If you can make the weekend of the IBMT AGM that would be great, but if not perhaps you can make a donation to the work of the IBMT and/or the WCML and MML - all of whom play a phenomenally important part in chronicling and championing the historical political, economic and social lives of working class men and women.
In Solidarity
Ian
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