The South Wales Miners’ Federation was affiliated to the Red International of Labour Unions, part of the Comintern, and was greatly interested in Spanish affairs. The strong Communist Party presence in South Wales led to heightened political understanding among people who were already class conscious. British Union of Fascist meetings in South Wales were disrupted and at one in Tonypandy, 36 Rhondda men were imprisoned for driving out the fascists.
The communist-led National Unemployed Workers’ Movement co-ordinated activity which led to massive hunger marches on London. He describes the Welsh situation at that time, showing how following the General Strike in 1926 life in the South Wales coalfields was marked by unemployment and semi-starvation which, coupled with political education and militant activism, led to clashes with the police and often imprisonment.īy 1932, almost a third of miners were unemployed and relief measures were poor and chaotic. To give a context to the Welsh brigaders, he begins with a clearly written background to the civil war, highlighting the complexities of the opposing forces, the class struggle between landless peasants and landlords, industrial workers and factory owners, regionalism versus nationalism and anti-clericalism.
#Eloquent in spanish full#
Despite a seemingly narrow focus on the Welsh men - and two women - who volunteered, the book gives a full account of the causes of the war and its events, while seamlessly weaving the personal stories of the Welsh volunteers into the general history of the brigades.
Graham Davies is the latest to speak of those men.
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