IN-PERSON TALK AT THE SCRSS IN BRIXTON, LONDON SW9 6AB. Please note: this talk is not online and will not be recorded. Book in advance here to reserve a seat or tickets available on the door from 13.30 on the day.

'The Cause of All Progressive and Advanced Mankind': Soviet Policy and the Spanish Civil War

This year marks the 90th anniversary of the start of the Spanish Civil War, a defining event in the build-up to the Second World War. Though called a civil war, it was in fact a highly internationalised conflict, in which the Soviet Union gave military assistance to the Spanish Republic, and Hitler and Mussolini supported the rebel forces led by General Franco. While the Comintern helped organise the International Brigades, the USSR made considerable diplomatic efforts to persuade Britain and France to abandon appeasement and support Spain's cause. Soviet policy towards the Spanish Civil War is to this day often misunderstood and distorted, being viewed through a Cold War prism rather than as a genuine attempt to counter the threat of European Fascism.

Jim Jump is the Chair of the International Brigade Memorial Trust and the author and editor of several books on the Spanish Civil War. These include 'Antifascistas: British and Irish Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War' (2010, with Richard Baxell and Angela Jackson), 'Poems from Spain: British and Irish International Brigaders on the Spanish Civil War' (2006), 'Looking Back at the Spanish Civil War' (2010) and 'A Spanish Civil War Scrapbook' (2015). His father, James R Jump, was a British International Brigader and his mother, Cayetana Lozano Díaz, was a refugee from Franco. In 2021 Jim Jump edited his father's posthumous memoir of the war, 'The Fighter Fell in Love', which was published in Spain ('El brigadista que se enamoró') in 2024.

This talk is a joint SCRSS - Marx Memorial Library event.

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