When I first talked to fellow Sub-Stack blogger Clifford Thurlow about his important new novel, We Shall Pass, I was immediately struck by how few novels of quality there are on the subject of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War. This is particularly true since Hemmingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, which is also a love story set against the backdrop of anti-fascist struggle in Spain.
While most of us are familiar with George Orwell’s important memoir of his revolutionary experience in Spain, Orwell never repackaged what remains one of his best books, Homage to Catalonia, as a novel. This was in stark contrast to Down and Out in Paris and London and The Road to Wigan Pier. Orwell’s analysis of both fascism and Stalinism, that drew upon the theories of Max Schachman, was directly informed by his experiences in Spain. However, with Orwell’s propensity to borrow story-arcs from elsewhere, the novels that this process informed were Animal Farm and 1984, admittedly his best book, but nothing much to do with Spanish events from 1935 to Guernica in 1939. For a work of fiction inspired by Homage to Catalonia, we have to wait until Jim Allen’s screenplay for Land and Freedom, directed by Ken Loach and first screened in 1995.
As I began to read Clifford’s excellent novel, it occurred to me precisely why so few works of fiction about the civil war have actually been written. While all on the Left concur that the threat posed by the new fascism, in the 21st Century, make the lessons of Spain more important than ever before there is by no means any consensus as to how we fight fascism today.
To a very large extent this is bound up with how we interpret the lessons of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War and even what actually happened. For many, the Communist Party still pursued the correct strategy of a popular front with the Republican government and their tragic failure was largely the result of external factors. These included the complicity of a pro-appeasement British government and MI6, dominated by the Imperial Protection Group, in Franco’s seizure of power and the military superiority of the Italian and German fascists who backed him, thereby sealing the fate of Spanish democracy in 1939 at a cost of a million dead Spaniards.
On this aspect of the war, Clifford Thurlow’s excellent novel is spot on.
Collusion and Treachery
According to an alternative reading of Spanish events (and one to which I subscribe) the struggle against fascism in the country began in 1922 when British and Spanish industrialists started mobilising death squads (known as Pistoleros) to kill trade union leaders and activists. The anarcho-syndicalist CNT, which was still affiliated to the Commintern at the time, formed its own paramilitary arm to defend the trade union and labour movement and this is where the road to what became the Spanish Civil War really began. The Stalinist PSUC, who un critically supported the Republican government in the 1930s, were Johnny-come-lately’s when it came to the anti-fascist struggle. For the best account of what happened next, beyond Orwell’s highly personalised memoir, readers are advised to look up a special edition of Revolutionary History, edited by Bornstein and Richardson, titled: The Spanish Civil War: The View from the Left (Socialist Platform Books).
In this alternative view Britain’s MI6 (operating in collusion with Germany’s Admiral Solaris) may well have played a decisive and treacherous role in helping Franco back into the country in 1935. However, the Republican government that the PSUC supported was also too weak to defeat fascism, without seizing the means of production and implementing revolutionary land reform (which both the Republican government and PSUC opposed). The increased hostility between the PSUC and POUM, a former Trotskyist group aligned to Victor Serge’s London Bureau, found the PSUC denouncing the POUM (in their power-base in Barcelona) as “Trotsky-Fascists” as the POUM set about expropriating the capitalists and landlords. However, there were also divisions in the anarchist ranks and after the suspicious murder of Durriti (at close quarters) during the Battle of Madrid (also in 1935) CNT leader Jose Garcia Oliver also joined the Republican government.
By the time Orwell arrived back in Barcelona, an invalid (having been shot in the throat) the PSUC were moving armoured cars into the city with the intention of crushing the POUM. At first, the POUM leadership couldn’t believe that the PSUC would physically attack them and then that the Durruti Brigade would protect them from attack. However, the Durruti Brigade were tied down in the mountains fighting the fascists. With the POUM holed up in the telephone exchange, Jose Garcia Oliver turned up in the city to try and talk them down. They were having none of it and what followed was much as George Orwell described it in his account.
If there is a criticism to be made of Clifford Thurlow’s otherwise excellent and remarkable book it is that it fudges this issue by having its protagonist Robbie Gillan, an out of work docker from the Red Clyde, join the International Brigades rather than the POUM. This conveniently removes him from the controversy around what happened in Barcelona. However, it doesn’t detract from the need to read this remarkable book. Indeed, far from it.
Full Disclosure
As a former Trotskyist who still leans heavily on that tradition, as well as Frankfurt School Marxism and the theories of Guy De Bord, I will always have “skin in the game” when it comes to anything to do with the Spanish Civil War. My paternal grandfather fought in the James Connolly Battalion under Michael O’Riordan and was thus very much part of the International Brigade. Then again, he was also a complete Stalinist, at least till 1956, and like Robbie Gillan he was (fortunately) nowhere near Barcelona in 1937. When I saw the trenches where he was beleaguered by the Luftwaffe, I couldn’t imagine how a large Irishman ever got into them because I couldn’t. In the 1990s I attended a talk by Michael O’Riordan at the Teachers Club in Parnell Square, Dublin, and found him still steadfast in his Stalinist beliefs, dismissive of the POUM and CNT and still convinced that George Orwell was a British agent.
Perhaps a decade later I was introduced to veteran Scottish anarchist Stuart Christie who, when he was 18, tried to assassinate Franco and was later framed as a member of the Angry Brigade in the UK. I’d read his memoir, Granny Made me an Anarchist, and an impressive article he’d written in The London Review of Books defending direct action. I was introduced to Stuart by Robin Ramsay of Lobster magazine and we talked about adapting his memoir as a film script. Indeed, I produced a first draft, despite working on my PhD in English Literature at Queen’s University Belfast at the time. Then Ronan Bennett, who’d just written Public Enemies for Michael Mann, bought the rights to Stuart’s memoir and that was the end of that. However, as consolation, Stuart offered me the rights to the factual memoir of revolutionary Spain written by Farraq McHarg (The Pistoleros) that Stuart had published both to convert as a novel and a TV long form drama script. Again, nothing came of this. My PhD took precedent and then my parents died in West Cork within five weeks of each other. The project simply dropped off the agenda.
A Love Story
As Orwell tells us there are pitfalls in trying to turn political writing into an art form. This is particularly the case if you try and address issues rather than simply using historical events as a kind of backcloth, the way that Graham Greene does it, often producing very fine novels in the process, but with little to say of political importance. As I’ve discovered, struggling to find a balance and voice while avoiding info-dumps is tricky and there’s a lot to be said for Ronan Bennett’s approach of sticking to classical narrative formulas then conveying theme and frontline issues through them. Perhaps strangely, given that I write thrillers, my favourite movie is Casablanca, and I was particularly pleased to see Clifford convey his story as a love affair between Robbie and the aristocratic nurse Alice Sheridan.
This places Clifford’s novel firmly in the territory of Hemmingway and provides a compelling story and character arc for the reader, to be taken on a journey, through which the political themes of the novel are conveyed and opened up As someone who teaches creative writing, I think Clifford gets this balance as near perfect as possible and that all those years as a ghost writer have certainly paid off If I were asked to describe Clifford’s prose style (and even some of his female characterisation) I would compare him to William Boyd, a novelist I greatly admire despite his shameful signing of a petition accusing Jeremy Corbyn of Anti-Semitism.
A Convincing Protagonist
In contrast to Jim Allen’s protagonist in Land and Freedom, Robbie (a fiery rule breaker aged only 24) does not arrive in Spain a fully formed Marxist revolutionary and we do not meet him (as we might expect) at the Battle of Cable Street (perhaps because he arrives in Spain before Cable Street happened) fighting Moseley’s Blackshirt fascists in defiance of Pollitt and the Communist Party leadership. An out of work docker and victim of the prewar “gang” system, he is rather an embittered and out-of-work docker who has joined one of the hunger marches, with no little reluctance.
The initiating incident in Robbie’s subsequent journey is when his best friend, Jimmy, is killed by a blow from a police baton in Whitehall. Indeed, when Robbie first meets his love interest, 23 -year-old Alice Sheridan, it is in the morgue with Jimmy laid out on a mortuary slab. Alice is a society debutant working as an auxiliary nurse. When an altercation breaks out and the police are called it is Alice who helps Robbie escape through the labyrinth of corridors. Now wanted by the authorities, Robbie tells Alice that he would volunteer to go and fight in Spain if he had the money. Alice gives him £5 which was a tidy sum in 1935-36 and so the journey begins.
Making Alice the posh love interest of working-class Robbie could so easily have become a cliché or trope but, with echoes of Stephen Knight’s Peaky Blinders, it doesn’t. There is an important reason why Alice has to be an aristocrat, beyond the obvious reference to the class divide in 1930s Britain, because her father is a Senior Officer in MI6, Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. This link to the secret world is crucial to Clifford’s story although, in my view, he makes a mistake in describing General Sir Richard Sheridan as Chief of MI6. In real life, the Chief of MI6 during this period was Stewart Menzies, a member of Hugh De Courcey’s Imperial Protection Group whose ranks also included Neville Chamberlain, Lord Halifax and the Duke of Windsor. These supported the appeasement of both Franco and Hitler, up to and during the early part of World War II and there was certainly never any epiphany moment on Menzies part.
Having colluded with Admiral Solaris of Germany to get Franco into Spain from North Africa, MI6 provided intelligence to the fascists that enabled them to sink British aid ships, something of which even Orwell was unaware. Later, in 1938, and following Hitler’s invasion of Czechoslovakia, Solaris asked his old chums in MI6 to back a military coup against Hitler and was snubbed. Solaris may have established tentative links with the MI6 station in Gibraltar, during the war, but it was only after Operation Torch that MI6 agent Kopp Ustinov (the father of Peter Ustinov) met with Solaris in Portugal to lay the foundation for Operation Valkyrie, which found Solaris hanged at Auschwitz a week before it was liberated. After the war Menzies and his protégé, George Kennedy Young, defied the Clement Attlee government by continuing to work with Franco’s fascist regime, handing over Basques and Communists who’d helped the British forces escape network, while helping Otto Skorzeny (now a MOSSAD agent) to establish his Aginter Press network (linked to GLADIO) in Spain. They also conspired against both Attlee and Harold Wilson’s governments during this time.
Simon Sheriden in We Shall Pass
A criticism that is often made of some of Graham Greene’s novels, set in Africa in particular, is that the principal characters are always British and white. A similar argument could be made in relation to Clifford’s novel in that the three principal characters in this “love triangle” are also British. However, we’ve already established that Alice has to be both British and an aristocrat because her father has to be an officer in MI6. The third main character, Simon Sheridan, being Alice’s younger brother by three minutes, therefore has to be a British aristocrat, too, and this is vital for other reasons as we shall see.
If there was ever a flaw in George Orwell’s politics it was in his homophobia and questionable views e.g. on women’s reproductive rights. By making Alice a strong woman who inherits the blue-blooded confidence of her father, albeit in a revolutionary way, like a precursor to Bridget Rose Dugdale, and making Simon gay, Clifford introduces a dimension of sexual politics into his novel that would never have occurred to Orwell.
In the story, Simon revolts against his father’s support for Franco and storms off to Paris to make his way to Spain. This, we quickly discover, is not the Paris of Henry James so much as of Henry Miller and Orwell and, far from being streetwise, Simon narrowly escapes being stabbed in an alley. Where credibility is perhaps strained is in that the British stranger who saves him is Robbie, who has already met Simon’s sister in London. It is Robbie who persuades the underground network of trade union organisers and leftists, to smuggle both the “class enemy” Simon, and himself, into Spain, across the Pyrenees, to join the International Brigade.
If I were to adapt Clifford’s novel as a TV long drama there are certain minor changes that I would make to the characters of Alice and Simon Sheridan, as well as their father, General Sir Richard Sheridan. Essentially, he can’t be Chief of MI6 because the infamous role of Stewart Menzies and the Imperial Protection Group is simply too important to ignore. However, he could still be a very Senior figure in MI6 with particularly strong connections to Spain. As I previously pointed out, British mine owners and other executives were involved in arming the Pistoleros and, therefore, in the founding of Spanish fascism more than a decade before MI6 smuggled Franco back into the country.
Sir Richard could have been recruited to MI6, because of his business interests in Spain, perhaps with a Spanish wife, making the children of mixed heritage. Alice could therefore look Hispanic (the TV execs in Galatia would like that!) while Simon spoke the language like a native. Sir Richard could still have his epiphany moment but trying to oppose the appeasement of fascism inside MI6 would be a non-event. Rather, given his class background, Sir Richard could approach Churchill, warning of the dangers of appeasement, and influencing Churchill to establish Special Operations Executive because MI6 can’t be trusted.
Visual & Evocative
Clifford’s writing style, reminiscent of William Boyd, is visual and evocative and it’s for this reason that it’s already become a TV series in my head. Its authenticity and sense of place is first rate. Having read Farraq McHarg’s memoir I know that Clifford’s underground network in France is utterly convincing and can actually see them in my head, along with other well-rounded characters. Sadly, this was a network of leftists that was completely snubbed by MI6 in Gibraltar during World War II, who refused to work with left wing or anti-Franco forces, preferring instead to keep Franco neutral and out of the war.
It was also a network thoroughly infiltrated by Franco’s secret police as McHarg found out in the 1970s, when Franco was on his death bed, and Franco’s agents inside the network started murdering Spanish anarchist emigres in France. MI9 did work with the network to get escaped British POWs to Gibraltar but SOE were prevented from working with the anti-Franco resistance (and German Red Orchestra) the way they did with partisans in Greece, Italy and Yugoslavia. As previously stated, MI6 handed over the names of anti-Franco resistance fighters to Franco’s secret police after World War II.
The description of Robbie and Simon’s fraught journey, across the freezing Pyrenees, to join the fledgling British Battalion of the International Brigade is both visual and highly convincing. Equally authentic are the battle scenes both at Jamara and Brunete. The bond between Robbie and Simon, from opposing sides of the class divide, becomes very strong, suggesting that while the working-class struggle is the means to achieve socialist transformation its goal is the emancipation of all humanity. There is also just a hint of sexual ambiguity on Robbie’s part.
Alice’s Journey
As much as Robbie, Alice is a well-rounded figure whose good heart was revealed early when she helped Robbie escape the mortuary and gave him £5 to go and fight in Spain. Now, training as a Red Cross nurse amidst the grinding poverty of an East End hospital, this former debutante and “party girl” starts to see the banality and frivolity of “London society” for what it is. Increasingly feminist as well as socialist in her outlook, she ditches her flake of a boyfriend (straight out of PG Wodehouse) and infuriates her father by trying to raise funds from her family’s wealthy circle, to buy ambulances for the Republican side in Spain. This actually impresses her mother, who admires but does not entirely understand the convictions and ideas of her daughter. Simon, after all, is also in Spain fighting for democracy against Franco’s fascists.
Defying her husband, Lady Sheridan now secretly helps Alice raise money for an ambulance while Alice herself gathers together a group of medics to go with her to Spain. Indeed, she arrives in Spain just days before the British go into battle to resist a fascist assault across the River Jarama,
It is at this point that the novel fully develops into a love story. Alice arrives in search of her brother only to discover that he has befriended the young Scotsman she helped in the London mortuary. All is not well however and, with his newly found class conscious resolve, Robbie foolishly snubs the young woman who enabled him to travel to Spain in the first place. At one point, he cruelly describes her as “a socialite pretending to be a socialist.” Not surprisingly, this hurts Alice deeply, while indicating a degree of sexual confusion on Robbie’s part.
Fortunately, Robbie comes to his senses when he sees Alice selflessly nursing men with horrific wounds during the thick of battle. Realising what an idiot has been, he woos Alice and they end of making love beneath an olive tree. The course of true love seldom runs smooth, however, and certainly not in this novel.
Away Without Leave
People often forget how heavy the casualty rate was among members of the International Brigade. Clifford Thurlow reminds us that half of the British battalion’s 600 volunteers were either killed or wounded at Jamara. Simon is hit by a sniper and it is Robbie who saves his life. However, the trauma of battle draws a heavy toll and, suffering from what we now call PTSD, Robbie goes AWOL. Alice is also both ill and exhausted and, against her will, has to return to England to recuperate. It is at this point that the story slows slightly, with Simon recovering from his wounds and Robbie living for three months in the mountains with a goatherd, rebuilding his strength (and sanity) and learning Spanish.
On returning to barracks, Robbie expects to face a court martial for desertion. Instead, a shrewd Commanding Officer, Walter Lewin, sends him for officer training. By the time that Alice returns to Spain, the International Brigade are preparing for their first major offensive at Brunete. Vividly described in the novel this is in fact a catastrophe foreshadowing the defeat of the Republic.
This time it is Robbie who is wounded and Simon who dies saving his life. In his dying moment Simon reveals his homosexuality and declares that he has always loved Robbie. As previously stated, this is not something you’d see in a novel by Orwell. Robbie is captured and taken to a Gestapo run prison where he will face a firing squad.
Alice searches in vain for news of Robbie and her brother and returns to England pregnant and exhausted. It is at this point that her mother, Lady Sheridan, coaxes her husband to use his influence to discover the whereabouts of their son, and Robbie, and bring them both home. Sheridan goes to visit Count Von Ribbentrop, the former Nazi Ambassador to London and in Ribbentrop’s Schloss Fuschi in Vienna he meets Hitler and other members of the Nazi leadership. At the risk of a “spoiler alert” I can tell you that at the last minute, Robbie is reprieved and returns home to the arms of the woman he loves. Sir Richard Sheridan, meantime, having seen how victory in Spain has emboldened the Axis, has his own epiphany and returns to England resolved to oppose Nazi appeasement.
As I’ve stated previously, for this aspect of the story to actually work as a screenplay, Sir Richard can’t be the Chief of MI6 nor a fictionalised Stewart Menzies whose role as appeaser of fascism continued long after World War II. As a senior officer in MI6, opposed to Menzies, Kennedy-Young and the Imperial Protection Group, much like the real-life Maurice Oldfield in postwar MI6, Sir Richard could well warn Churchill what was going on and lay the foundation for what became Special Operations Executive from 1940. This also opens up the possibility of a sequel if Clifford Thurlow was so inclined. While Robbie would never be allowed to join MI6, or even want to, SOE is a different matter. For example, as a KGB double agent, Kim Philby concealed his Stalinism while helping, by way of the Garbo deception, to secure victory at Dunkirk. James Klugman, by contrast, made no secret of his Communist Party affiliation as an SOE Officer based in Heliopolis in Cairo. Here he helped secure a shift in Churchill’s support from the Yugoslav Cetniks to Tito and less gloriously (following Yalta in 1943) betrayed the Greek Partisans at the Lebanon Conference of 1946 and in the Greek Civil War to 1949.
With the new fascism raising its Medua’s head in Russia, North America and Europe, this is a timely novel. I myself am currently working on a novel about fascism based in Birmingham in the near future. However, We Shall Pass is also a human story about the moral strength of the human spirit and as compelling as a love story as it is a political statement. I recommend everybody to buy and read this wonderful book.
by Roger Cottrell, PhD
