In a shocking ruling the other day, a Spanish court endorsed the tearing down of a recently erected memorial to the International Brigades in Madrid, after much outrage from right wingers.

This is an outrageous attack on those who sacrificed everything for democracy. The International Brigades volunteered to fight fascism at a time when British aristocrats fraternised with Hitler and Mussolini, and numerous governments were pursuing disastrous policies of appeasement.  They are some of the greatest heroes of democracy the last century saw.

Yet now the lawyer who pushed for the destruction of the memorial casually and ignorantly smears the International Brigades as a mercenary army of Stalin, whom he falsely claims “created and managed them”.

However, Spain is not alone in experiencing attempts to re-write the history of the antifascist struggle. Across Europe brave antifascist fighters have been smeared and attacked, and fascist collaborators have been politically rehabilitated.
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