ON THE night of July 17 1936, the fascists declared war on Spain. Ninety years ago, Franco launched his putsch and the Spanish people’s resistance began.

After three days of hesitation, Spain’s Republican government armed the workers, who crushed the fascists in Madrid, Barcelona, Asturias and most of mainland Spain. The failed putsch then became a protracted, brutal civil war lasting over two-and-a-half years until the Republic’s final defeat in April 1939.

As soon as news of the attempted coup was known in Britain, Communist Party general secretary Harry Pollitt appealed with passion “as never before in my life” to British workers to aid the Spanish people “who are defending democracy not only for themselves, but for all peoples.”

In a Communist Party pamphlet, Spain and the TUC, which was reprinted three times, Pollitt exposed Franco’s coup attempt, backed by German and Italian fascism with approval of powerful ruling-class factions in Britain. He exposed the false claims in the Tory press of “red atrocities” as attempted justifications for the mass fascist executions of government supporters, such as those at Badajoz in Extremadura in August 1936.

Responding to the Spanish government’s appeal for medical aid in July 1936, Pollitt appointed Isabel Brown, a dedicated Tyneside communist and a powerful speaker who worked for the Committee for Relief of Victims of Fascism, to lead the party’s work.

Brown was so successful that the first British Medical Unit left for Spain three weeks later with four doctors, six trained nurses, eight dressers, medicines to the value of £500 and equipment for a 30-bed field hospital.

The first British front-line volunteers were communists already in Barcelona when the fascist coup attempt took place. They promptly joined the people’s militias. Two London tailors, Nat Cohen and Sam Masters, were immediately involved in an unsuccessful Republican attempt to seize Mallorca.

Young British artist, sculptor and communist Felicia Browne, killed on the Aragon front on August 22 1936 became the first British casualty.

On September 18 1936, the executive committee of the Communist International ordered the creation of the International Brigades. The Spanish Republican government recognised the International Brigades with a base at Albacete in La Mancha.

In Britain, the Communist Party put out the call for volunteers. Pollitt appointed one of his best organisers, RW Robson, to interview volunteers and warn them of the dangers and difficulties ahead.

The first British volunteers arriving in Spain were attached to the German Thalmann Battalion and to a French Battalion fighting to defend Madrid in November 1936 and on the Cordoba front in December.

With the steady increase in numbers, Pollitt proposed the formation of a British Battalion in January 1937, by which time four companies of volunteers were in training. Together with the French, Belgians, Slavs and the American Abraham Lincoln Battalion, these formed the XV International Brigade.

All told, around 35,000 volunteers from 52 countries, including 2,500 British and Irish volunteers, of whom more than 500 lost their lives, came to defend the Spanish Republic.

Pollitt went to Spain five times during 1937 and 1938, visiting training camps, the front, hospitals, “watching, listening and noting experiences, to sense the opinions and feelings not only of the leaders, but also of the people.”

When the British Battalion was in the line Pollitt went “right into the trenches,” talking to individual volunteers and taking messages for their relatives.

Sam Wild, British Battalion commander at the Ebro wrote: “…other leading communists were respected and admired by the Britons in Spain. Pollitt was loved. I knew men who would give up their leave because they wanted to meet him.”

Pollitt regarded the International Brigade volunteers as the absolute best of their class. He wrote: “The British Battalion has retrieved the honour of the British labour movement. General Kleber declared that when the British are in a tight corner calling for coolness and courage, what they are defending will be held to the last.”

He went on: “These comrades are flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood, bound to us by a thousand ties. We have the right to be proud of them and to shout their bravery to the skies, so that it shall be a power in the movement towards the People’s Front.”

On this 90th anniversary of their sacrifice, the Communist Party of Britain salutes the memory of the International Brigade volunteers and all those who fought and continue to fight to defend democracy against fascism.

Alex Gordon is general secretary of the Communist Party of Britain.