Anti Nazis - Spain

Spain

Large-scale anti-fascist movements were first seen in the 1930s, during the Spanish Civil War. The Republican Government and army, the Communist Party(PCE) the International Brigades, the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) and Spanish anarchist militias such as the Iron Column fought the rise of Francisco Franco with military force. The Friends of Durruti were a particularly militant group, associated with the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI). Thousands of people from many countries went to Spain in support of the anti-fascist cause, joining units such as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the British Battalion, the Dabrowski Battalion, the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion and the Naftali Botwin Company. Notable anti-fascists who worked internationally against Franco included: George Orwell (who fought in the POUM militia and wrote Homage to Catalonia about this experience), Ernest Hemingway (a supporter of the International Brigades who wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls about this experience), and radical journalist Martha Gellhorn.

Spanish anarchist guerrilla Francesc Sabaté Llopart fought against Franco's regime until the 1960s, from a base in France. The Spanish Maquis linked to the Communist Party (PCE) also fought the Franco regime from a base in France, long after the Spanish Civil war had ended.