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The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction
By Helen Graham
Oxford University Press, 2005
175 pages
$11.95

The Very Short Introduction series published by Oxford University Press is a wonderful way to get readers acquainted with various subjects ranging from Marx to Christianity, but be forewarned that these small tomes with their tiny print are nothing like the Dummy or Idiots books. Each of these short books pack a hell of a wallop and, hopefully, they will tempt readers to learn more about a specific subject.

In this case, it’s the Spanish Civil War written by Helen Graham, a professor of Spanish History at Royal Halloway, University of London. She is also the author of The Spanish Republic at War 1936-1939, which was published in 2002. Paul Preston, another historian on the subject, sums up Dr. Graham’s book, “This is far and away the best short introduction to the Spanish Civil War that I have read in any language.”  And there you have it. Graham takes a very complex subject whose history can turn any sane person into a raving lunatic–and that’s after finally figuring out all the acronyms for all the political parties—and puts it all into a context that everyone can understand and, hopefully transition to Preston’s or to Hugh Thomas’ much longer accounts of the war.

To fully understand the implications of the war, readers need to have a pretty solid foundation of what led to Spain becoming a Republic and Graham provides succinct historical background. A Very Short Introduction is divided into seven concise chapters. In the second chapter, “Rebellion, Revolution, and Repression” Graham provides a concise narrative of the violence on both sides, from anti-clerical to the executions of poet Garcia Lorca and Amparo Bayaron, the wife of Republican novelist Ramon Sender. Graham writes:

“Those who did the killing in rebel Spain during the first few months were mainly vigilantes. What occurred was a massacre of civilians by other civilians. Mostly this took the form of death squads abducting people from their homes or else taking them out of prison. In a majority of cases the assassins had close links rightist political organizations that had backed the coup, in particular the fascist Falnge. But the military authorities made no attempt to reign in this terror. In fact the killers were often with the connivance of the authorities, otherwise the death squads who came for Amparo Barayon and thousands of her compatriots would never have been able to take their victims out of gaol at will.”

One of the strongest chapter, “The Making of Rebel Spain” Graham provides tight summary of how Franco came to power through skill, but also with some luck thanks to a few “fortuitous deaths” of some serious rivals—either by accident as in the case of General Sanjurjo or through Republican execution. However, Graham points out that Franco’s great advantage at war’s start was his command over the Army of Africa, and aid from Hitler and Mussolini.

The only drawback to Graham’s tight presentation of the Spanish Civil is that her subject–which rouses strong opinions from both sides of the political spectrum—is written a fairly dry manner and rarely interjects any of the passions of the war. However, for readers who want a short  overview on a vast and difficult war, The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction is a good place to start.

Readers of this site know that I have a mild obsession concerning the Spanish Civil War. This month marks the 73rd anniversary of the start of the war. If you don’t know much about it (and confuse it with the Spanish-American War) and its importance in history, then come visit and read all the book reviews that will be posted for the next 31 days and beyond.

Once you start to read about the SCW–and there’s a lot of reading, more than 15,000 books have been written on the subject; a Google search will come up with 3.4 million entries—you’ll understand the fascination.

Why am I so passionate about it? My mother was from the Asturias–located in Northern Spain and known as “Zona Roja”—and I grew up listening to all the horrors of the war. Sadly, after several years of hearing the same old stories over and over, I tuned my mother out. However, my personal interest wasn’t sparked until a few years ago when I started writing my novel Julius. It started with one sentence, some research and then BANG! I was hooked.

Although there are thousands of books on the topic, if you visit your local bookstore (chain or independent) you’ll discover that many of these don’t carry any of the titles at all. I have recreated my mother’s collection (they were damaged in storage) via Amazon and combing through used bookstores.

If you want to familiarize yourself with the subject before you go and spend a small fortune,  below are some websites that hopefully will inspire you to learn more about the subject:

• Wikipedia.  This is a good start. There’s so much information and it can be overwhelming, but spend a few hours with it and you’ll have a decent introduction.
• Spartacus Educational. Another good source. The opening page is broken down by subtopics or chapters.
• About the Spanish Civil War. This site is compiled by Cary Nelson, a professor at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.
• La Cucaracha. This site has a lot of fun stuff, music of the Spanish Civil War, links to just about anything related to the war.
• Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives. This is a great site for readers interested in the volunteers who went to Spain (including this site’s namesake and my hero, Alvah Bessie, but you all knew that, right?)

Not interested in reading and spending your entire day clicking links? This month, I have a special treat and I might do this more often if readers drop me a comment and tell me if they liked it or not.  Thanks to the folks at Viddler and embedding technology, I’ll be posting Granada’s The Spanish Civil War series. You’ll be able to watch all six parts.

Salut!

The Inquisition in Hollywood
by Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund

Reviewed by Alvah Bessie

In These Times, April 23-29, 1980

Thirty years after HUAC’s “investigation of the motion picture industry and the incarceration of the Hollywood 10(1950), their case has finally been recognized for what it was: a frontal attack on thought-control in the U.S. A case that was “lost,” it initiated the so-called McCarthy Era.

Following The 10, hundreds of workers in film, theater, radio and TV, in education and medicine, on newspapers and magazines, in federal, state and local administrations followed them into blacklist ostracism and unemployment, although they escaped prison terms by invoking the Fifth Amendment instead of the First.

The First was the considered choice of The 10 — or rather the 19 motion picture writers, directors, producers and actors who received the original subpoenas in 1947. They and their attorneys decided that the correct way to attack the House Committee on Un-American Activities was to strike at its right to exist at all.

If Congress, they argued, can make no law about opinion or association, neither can it investigate those areas. Their position was supported by the Supreme Court itself in a notable decision: West Virginia State Board of Education vs. Barnette (1943).

In ringing language upholding the First Amendment as a shield against any attempt by the state to force a citizen to declare his “loyalty” or punish him for remaining silent, Justice Jackson’s majority opinion seemed to have “destroyed the whole super-patriotic cable. . . including the proponents of the House Un-American Activities Committee.” (Charles Katz, one of the lawyers for The 10.)

The very same Justice Jckson was still on the high court and concurred with his colleagues when they refused in 1950 to grant a hearing to the case of The 10.

What had happened between 1942 and 1950? The Cold War, carried in the womb of World War II, was born and flourished mightily. Our glorious ally, the USSR, became our enemy; our enemies — Germany, Italy and Japan — became our client states and shortly our allies. And — irony of fate — two liberal justices — Murphy and Rutledge — who would most certainly have voted for certiorari — died within two months of each other in 1949.

Yet the 1947-1950 fight of The 10 was a major factor in giving the quietus to HUAC and its Senate counterpart in 1975.

There have been a handful of books devoted to the case, or touching on it. The late Gordon Kahn, one of the original 19, was a journalist who practically wrote Hollywood on Trial (1948) as the 1947 hearings were in process. There are three smart-ass books: Walter Goodman’s The Committee (1969), Eric Bentley’s shameless paste-up of HUAC testimony called Thirty Years of Treason (1971) and Stefan Kanfer’s A Journal of the Plague Years (1973) which share a common point of view: the Committee was disgusting but so were those who fought it. Serious books like The American Inquisition (1973) and my Inquisition in Eden (1965) achieved no circulation at all.

But this new book by Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund is the most ambitious and the most successful to date. It is a definitive study of the case and the period that gave it birth, and the story will probably not have to be told again.

Both young writers have benefitted by training in sociology and history. There is scarcely a detail of the elaborate and complicated scene from 1930 to 1960 that has escaped their meticulous and exhaustive attention and their solid analysis.

Their examination of the subject is based soundly in an understanding of the political history of World War II, both abroad and at home. They start even earlier, in the Depression that created labor and radical militancy in our country. That period also saw the development of the first American “Popular Front,” which was almost destroyed by the original Dies Committee and its unremitting attack on the reforms of Roosevelt’s four administrations.

The case of the Hollywood 10, Englund and Ceplair make plain, was something more than a successful attempt to control the content of film and dictate who could and who could not work in the industry. it was a flanking attack on the American people and it sparked a nationwide assault on progressive ideas and organizations.

We have not yet recovered from the McCarthy period, which could be repeated any time Peanut Carter and those who run him decide that they will brook no opposition to their endless maximization of profits and their drive toward World War III.

The Ceplair-Englund book is therefore crucial to our time. It has already created resentment in certain literary and industrial circles, notably in Hollywood, because it puts the finger on who, what, when, where and why. It displays uncommon objectivity that can both praise the role of the Communist Party during that period, and point out the errors of judgement committed by Communists, The 10 and the liberal organizations that supported them.

If it misses a point, it cannot be faulted for that fact. The decision in West Virginia etc. vs. Barnette on which The 10 had relied, had been brought by parents who belonged to Jehovah’s Witness and had told their young son not to salute the flag because it was a “graven image.”

In New Hampshire a few years ago another member of that contentious sect was arrested for covering the state slogan on his car license plate: “Life Free or Die.” He didn’t object to the slogan, but saw no reason to advertise New Hampshire on his car.

He took his case to the Supreme Court, which in April 1977handed down its decision, written by Nixon’s Chief Justice Burger. He said that the First Amendment “includes the right to speak freely and the right to refrain from speaking at all . . . [both are] complementary components of the broader concept of ‘individual freedom of mind.’.”

This decision made a two-paragraph item in some newspapers but the ever-alert Carey McWilliams, writing in The Nation (July 23, 1977) said: “That, of course, was precisely the contention of the Hollywood 10 . . . now, nearly three decades later, a majority of the Court has confirmed their contention. . . The experiences suggests that New Hampshire’s motto. . . should, in pragmatic terms, be interpreted to mean “live free or somehow manage to survive until the Supreme Court, in the fullness of time, changes its mind.”

Perhaps Ceplair and Englund will add this victory as a footnote in the next edition of their invaluable book.

Inquisition in Eden
By Alvah Bessie
Seven Seas Books, 1967
308 pages

Part screenplay and parrt narrative, Inquisition in Eden opens with a Cast of Characters, The book’s leading man, the narrator is, of course, Alvah Bessie; his leading lady is his second wife, Helen Clare. Supporting characters are the other nine blacklisted writers, producers and directors, Mr. McDonald, the warden of U.S. Federal Correctional Institute in Texarkana, Texas; a slew of cameos by actors including Gary Cooper, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn and Lee J. Cobb; and bit players from inmates to guards, FBI agents, Ayn Rand, Richard M. Nixon, Jack Warner, Ernest Hemingway and “various varieties of ass kissers”.

Fade in. The reader is placed right at Texarkana. It’s July 1950. And Bessie writes in a straightforward manner with enough detail to put the reader right into the scene. We learn that Bessie is in prison to serve a year’s sentence “for a misdemeanor called contempt of Congress,” and is sitting with his parole official’s office. The conversation is as follows:

Huber: This where I get your side of the story; why you think you’re here.

Huber pauses, lights a cigarette, nods when the inmate gestures toward the pocket of his blue-denim shirt. Inmate, seated in a chair across from Huber, lights his own cigarette.

Huber (continuing): But before you start, let me tell you that in twenty years of custodial work, I have yet to meet an inmates who wasn’t here on a bum rap.

Narrator (all officers are “sir”): Sir, in my opinion, I’m a political prisoner.

Huber (deadpan): Bessie, we don’t have any political prisoners in the United States.

(glances at dossier on his desk, points with finger)

You’re here for violation of Section 192, Title 2, U.S. Code, which means refusal to testify before a duly constituted committee of Congress . . .

The likelihood that these sections of dialogue are remembered verbatim almost 20 years after the fact really doesn’t matter because Bessie has a natural ear for dialogue and he’s written several scenes that are very funny and biting,  but Inquisition is not entirely a prison memoir.  Bessie writes about his early acting ambitions as a young man on the New York stage, life in during the Depression in Vermont, struggling to survive with his first wife Mary Burnett and their children Dan and David, his first novel Dwell in the Wilderness and Spain.

It’s after his return from Spain that he writes (and which was endorsed by Hemingway) Men in Battle. Well-reviewed in Time, Bessie writes, “…it never sold. For it appeared the week that Hitler invaded Poland, and people had other things to read—the newspapers.” But his luck changed when he was offered the drama critic position at the New Masses, where he remained for four years as the drama, book, film critic and feature writer until Hollywood beckoned.

Gossip-mongers of old Hollywood will be disappointed because Bessie doesn’t dish any dirt. He writes of the studio politics, the haggling with producers and studio executives over stories and scripts. He cuts these scenes with life in prison and his friendships with some of the inmates. Yet it’s the road to HUAC, that Bessie documents so well. And when the pink subpeona comes and the jobs peter out, Bessie writes of his financial problems. Determined to not borrow money to survive and feed his family, writes of how he pitched a modern-day version of Don Quixote to Charlie Chaplin with no success. After his meeting with Chaplin, Bessie leaves with no job offer, but with a handshake and a $100 bill slipped in his hand.

As for the charges agaisnt the Hollywood ten Bessie provides a reader-friendly legal explanation of why the Hollywood Ten chose to plead the first amendment rather than the fifth. Although the book’s pace slows down at this juncture, it immediately picks up after his release from prison and life as a blacklisted writer.

Of all the books and articles written on the Hollywood Blacklist, Inquisition in Eden is one of the most honest accounts of a terrible time in this country’s history, and Bessie tells his story with wry wit of his life before, during, and after the blacklist.

For those who don’t follow me on Twitter (and shame on you, if you don’t) that’s my handle. However, this post isn’t about Twitter or me (well, a little about me, but really more about books). It’s all about that favorite pastime that many bibliophiles have and that’s the beach read or the pool read, or the cabin read. We’re five days away from the Summer Solstice and it’s time to do some thinking of what might be good reads for the summer.

For yours truly, I have an esoteric list that might make some eyes glaze over or maybe roll up to the ceiling–that’s what my husband does accompanied by a muttered, “Fun stuff, Boo.” But then again HE’s reading a book about the Romany (which does seem fascinating).

For  the next three months, my reading will focus on the Spanish Civil War, the history of Communism and two classics, but don’t fret I do have some “fun stuff” thrown in between the serious subjects. So here’s a rundown of my Beach Reads:

June (fun stuff in italics)

Men in Battle, Alvah Bessie

The Un-Americans, Alvah Bessie

A World I Never Made, James LePore

If the Buddha Came to Dinner, Hale Sofia Schatz

July

The Spanish Civil War, Hugh Thomas

A Passionate War, Peter Wyden

The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction, Helen Graham

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

From Where the Rivers Come, Terin Tashi Miller

The Last Dickens, Matthew Pearl

August/September

The Rise and Fall of Communism, Archie Brown

The Roots of Amercan Communism, Theodore Draper

The Communist Party of the United States, Fraser M. Ottanelli

Black Boy, Richard Wright

Stardust, Joseph Kanon

Fun stuff,eh? I think so…