Causes and Ambiguities
When I come across an article whose author is David Remnick of The New Yorker, I immediately hasten to read it, because I’m sure of finding intellectually stimulating fare (even when he writes about sports!). One may not always agree, but one is enriched by the contact.
For me another such author is Edward Rothstein of the New York Times.
In today’s Times, Rothstein dissects an exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York on Facing Fascism: New York and the Spanish Civil War. According to Rothstein the exhibit uncritically celebrates the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and “deviates little from what would have once been called the party line.”
Here is more of his reflection:
By 1937, after the show trials in Moscow, it was apparent to many
devoted idealists that the party’s high moral proclamations were not
what they seemed. This is what George Orwell fitfully recognizes in his
“Homage to Catalonia.” First he fights in an independent Marxist
division that was apparently kept deliberately undersupplied. Later he
fears for his life in Barcelona — Republican-held territory — as the
party begins a planned purge, including killings and torture. Some
recent research has suggested that even members of the Lincoln Brigade
— some of whom “disappeared” — were not immune.
“As for the
newspaper talk about this being a ‘war for democracy,’ ” Orwell wrote,
“it was plain eyewash. No one in his senses supposed that there was any
hope of democracy.”
None of this can be learned from the show,
and to all of it, our heroes of the Lincoln Brigade were blind — or
worse. The Hitler-Stalin pact, which followed Franco’s victory by a few
months, also hardly seemed to have affected their allegiances. Last
week, in The New York Sun, Ronald Radosh, author of “Spain Betrayed:
The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War,” quoted a speech by Milton
Wolff, one of the exhibition’s Lincoln fighters, made in 1941 while the
pact was still in effect. For Wolff, Franklin D. Roosevelt
had become the nascent fascist menace; no Lincoln Brigades would be
needed against Hitler. “We fight,” he proclaimed, “against the
involvement of our country in an imperialist war.”
Orwell said that no one could spend “more than a few weeks in Spain without being in some degree disillusioned.”
But even the fair-minded and judicious Rothstein makes no allusion to the thousands of priests and religious savagely murdered by elements of the left. For that I recommend turning to Michael Burleigh’s recent Sacred Causes.
Fr. Imbelli,
I know only what I have read in Tony Judt’s review in the NYT, but from his description Burleigh is an onesided as this exhibition on the Lincoln Brigade, except that his is the opposite side. I have no doubt that those who fought in the Abraham Loncoln Brigade were dupes at best, but those who could see no evil on the other side were also duped or worse.
Mr. Gannon,
My reference to Burleigh was to call attention to his recent discussion of the Civil War in Spain and for his highlighting of what is so often neglected: the ferocious and destructive anti-religious actions on the part of some on the left. These actions were certainly systematically pursued, both before and after, in the Soviet Union, and often ignored or denied by fellow travelers in the West who scrupulously adhered to “the party line” (as Rothstein indicates).
I suggest you form your own conclusions about whether Burleigh was “duped” with regard to “the other side.”
Tony Judt is one of the persons I read attentively, especially in The New York Review. But, in my opinion and that of others, he is tin-eared in matters concerning religion.
Fr. Imbelli,
I entirely agree that the atrocities perpetrated against the Cathoic Church in Spain under the Republic have rarely been properly acknowledged, especially by the blinkered visionaries of the left. But while they should be highlighted in any history of the period so should the atrocities perpetrated by the forces led by Franco. What one wants is evenhandedness and a fair minded condemnation of the villainies done under any banner. I gather you have read Burleigh’s book. Would you characterize it as fairminded and evenhanded? If so, Judt’s review was grossly misleading.
Dear JG,
I think we are in basic agreement.
My reference to Burleigh’s book was solely for the sake of providing a recent reference that details the anti-religious atrocities perpetrated in the Spanish Civil War.
I do not find Burleigh an apologist for Franco, nor unmindful of the terrible acts committed on the Falangist side. But I leave you to discern for yourself his evenhandedness.
Regarding the book as a whole, my assessment would probably fall between the celebratory review in First Things and the captious one in the Times. Whether that be a sign of my fair-mindedness or soft-headedness, I leave for others to judge.
“Facing Fascism” –the exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York and the book of essays I co-edited with Peter Carroll– actually pay a significant amount of attention to the catholic/religious aspects of how the Spanish Civil War played out in New York City. There’s an excellent essay in the catalog about pro-Franco sentiment in the city, with a good deal of attention paid to the city’s catholics. It was written by Patrick McNamara, the Assistant Archivist for the Diocese of Brooklyn. Unfortunately, our first two reviewers have seemed more interested in redbaiting than in informing their audience. Please read the book and visit the show for yourself.