The ‘Premature Anti-fascists’? International Brigade Veterans’ Participation in the British War Effort, 1939–45

Abstract

After fighting in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–9, hundreds of Britons returned home to an uncertain future. While the anti-fascist left saw them as heroes, their Communist Party links met with official suspicion, complicated further by the advent of war in September 1939. Popular and scholarly narratives alike have concurred that International Brigade veterans were barred en masse from the armed forces, despite their experience and demonstrable hatred for fascism. This article complicates these narratives, exploring the extent and causes of discrimination, and placing these within the context of wartime anti-communist policy.