Historical revisionism: The International Brigades and the rewriting of anti-fascist history

Abstract

The Marx Memorial Library holds one of the world’s most important archives on the men and women who fought fascism in Spain from 1936 to 1939 and on responses to the Spanish Civil War in general. The history of the war and its place in the lead-up to the Second World War have long been argued about. During the cold war, the communist-led International Brigades in particular were routinely denigrated. This century, an anti-left historical revisionist movement with roots in eastern Europe has sought to ignore the contribution of the communist left to the long war against fascism from 1936 to 1945, and to erase the memory of the International Brigades.