The Premature Antifascists. Edited by John Gerassi. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1986 275 pages; $14.95 While now overshadowed by World War II commemorative events, the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning Spanish Civil War did not go unnoticed by either the publishing or the wargaming industry. But if The Premature Antifascists is an example of such publishing efforts, any balanced, objective treatment will probably have to come from the wargaming community. A half century later, the Spanish Civil War is still able to inflame and incite proving that it remains the passionate war that aroused a generation. Based on interviews originally conducted in 1979 and 1980, The Premature Antifascists is an oral history of the experiences of surviving veterans of the US Abraham Lincoln and Canadian Mackenzie-Papineau Battalions which fought for the Spanish republic as part of the 15th International Brigade. Militarily, the republic's greatest achievement was turning this melange of party militias, foreign volunteers and remaining loyalist troops into a reasonably competent, effective battle force. Had this "People's" Army possessed arms and equipment even remotely equivalent to its adversaries the Spanish Civil War, and subsequent European history, might have taken a completely different course. Yet readers who are looking for detailed personal accounts of how this was done or what military service in Spain was like are in for a disappointment. Gerassi prefers partisan polemics to objective scholarship and his work does little to place the North American volunteers in historical perspective. Only the middle third of the book would be of possible interest to wargamers since it deals with recollections and events during the conflict. The remaining sections cover social conditions and the background of the participants before the war and the problems they faced in returning home to a country not prepared to accept or understand them. Gerassi has selectively chosen and edited his interviews to emphasize ideological motivations, yet the volunteers' views of the confusion, fear and boredom of war often interfere with the editor's own attempts to make certain points. Nevertheless, The Premature Anitfascists provides a reader with the patience to wade through a turgid introduction a few interesting insights: the minimal training received before going into battle [on the job training? - Ed.], the initial disorganization, the caustic views toward orders that had no relation to the battle currently being fought; and also of the espirit which sustained them in the face of continuos retreats and reversals. But for all its errors, harshness, petty and grand betrayals, poor leadership and individual cowardice, the war in Spain remained, as one volunteer said, "the most beautiful expression of the commitment to humanity ... that I have ever read or experienced." Once the United States entered the Second World War, a lot of American veterans either volunteered or were drafted into the armed forces, some sought combat assignments. Yet the majority were deliberately kept away from combat zones, and, if allowed to serve at all, performed menial tasks at Stateside bases. One of the few who actually served overseas was asked by one of his fellow soldiers why he had fought in Spain. "When you get to Germany you'll know the answer," came the reply. After their unit liberated Buchenwald, the questioner simply told the veteran -- "Now I understand." Gerassi conveniently overlooks certain aspects of reality he finds ideologically inappropriate (such as the accumulating historical evidence showing the pervasiveness of Stalinism in republican Spain). Yet while the volunteers fought for a government that was far from ideal, one cannot overlook the fact that at the time they had the support of the majority of the North American people. Regardless of their past or present political affiliation, the surviving veterans still have interesting story to tell. But Gerassi isn't the one to tell it. Until a better account does come along, you're better off reading The Grenadier's articles on the Spanish Civil War instead. Back to Cry Havoc #5 Table of Contents Back to Cry Havoc List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1993 by David W. Tschanz. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com