"I am Spain"* ........ remembering the Spanish Civil War ...... today at Manchester's Central Ref

It is 86 years since the start of the Spanish Civil War, which many regard as a rehearsal for the Second World War.

On one side was a democratically elected popular Government, committed to sweeping away the power of the establishment, and challenging a system which had tolerated poverty and the exploitation of the many.  

And on the other a military uprising which was supported by the Church, the rich and all with a vested interested in maintaining the centuries old status quo.

To this can be added the intervention of Fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany on the side of the Nationalist uprising, using the war to try out tactics and weapons which would later be employed in the Second World War.

This in turn was set against the failure or unwillingness of the European democracies to assist the legitimate Government, who instead received a wave of volunteers who fought in the International Brigades, helped staff the hospitals, and organized convoys of food and medicine.

And so on the eve of the Battle of Jarama which started on February 6th, 1937 when Nationalist forces attacked the Republican lines east of Madrid but failed to make a final breakthrough there is a major event at Central Ref in Manchester to commemorate and explore the defence of democracy against the forces of totalitarianism.

Tom Mooney Company from the Lincoln Battalion. Jarama, c. 1937

The death toll was high with he British Battalion losing 225 of its 600 men and the Lincoln Battalion  125 out of 500.***

Leaving me just to add a reference to that song the Battle of Jarama, with its opening verse, 

“There's a valley in Spain called Jarama

It's a place that we all know so well

It was there that we fought against the fascists

We saw a peaceful valley turn to hell”**

Location; Central Reference Library, Manchester

Pictures; Poster of the events, and Tom Mooney Company from the Lincoln Battalion. Jarama, c. 1937, from the Lincoln Battalion, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Battalion

*Spain, W.H.Auden, 1937, 

**The Battle of Jarama, Woody Guthrie, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORP5-017gKM

And the version by Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI9XjWskM0w

***Beevor, Antony, The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939.