ILP Contingent

The British Independent Labour Party sent a small contingent to fight in the Spanish Civil War. The contingent fought with the POUM and included George Orwell, who subsequently wrote about his experiences in his widely-read account "Homage to Catalonia".

Contingent membership

The main body of the ILP contingent consisting of about 25 men departed from England on 1 January 1937, under the leadership of Bob Edwards, later an MP for the Labour Party.

The initial group of twenty-five was sent to the front at Monte Oscuro, within sight of Zaragoza, some 12 miles to the south west, and joined by a number of others who had arrived at the front a few weeks earlier, including Eric Blair, then not using his pen name George Orwell. Along with Blair, came Bob Williams, a Welshman married to a Spanish woman who joined up with his brother-in-law, Ramon and Bob Smillie, later killed in Valencia, the grandson of the famous Scottish miners' leader of the same name. Smillie had been working with John McNair as the representative Youth section of the International Bureau for Revolutionary Socialist Unity. However, he quickly became convinced that he would be of most service at the front and persuaded McNair to agree to him signing up when the ILP contingent came over. With these, and other, additions the ILP contingent numbered somewhere between thirty and thirty-five. They left the front, with the POUM militia, in mid-February 1937 to take part in the seige of Huesca, some 50 miles away.

Eric Blair's background, prep school and Eton and his experience in India as police officer, are well known. The backgrounds of the other members of the contingent were diverse. Members were recorded as coming from Belfast, Chorley, Larkhall, Glasgow, Anglesey, Manchester, Bristol, Dartford, Bingley, Twickenham and Golders Green. Three had fought in the First World War: Charles Doran of Glasgow, Harry Thomas of London and Arthur Chambers, who died in 1938 after transferring to a CNT unit. Few others, apart from Harry Webb the stretcher-bearer and Paddy O'Hara, from Belfast, who had some training in first aid, had either military or medical experience.

War experiences

On arrival on 10 January at the Lenin Barracks in Barcelona, where they were initially stationed, a discussion circle was formed. Whilst the discussion group centred on political issues the group was not solely concerned with such topics. A social secretary was also appointed to 'arrange concerts and entertainments' and a sports secretary was elected with a hasty football match organised between the ILPers and a team of Spanish militia-men.

The training received at the Barracks was notoriously short and at the end of January the ILP contingent, as the British section of the POUM militia, began their journey, stopping off at Lerida, where they were visited by the ILP's Spanish representative John McNair before leaving for the area surrounding Huesca on the Aragon Front on 2 February. At the front the contingent took over three advanced posts, about 100 yards distant from the others, joined by communication trenches. The outposts, on the slope of the hills looking west, were about two hundred yards from the nearest Fascist lines on the opposite slopes looking east.

Bob Edwards, reporting in the "New Leader", the ILP's weekly paper, was keen to stress the most 'exciting' aspects of the unit's work. He wrote about scouting within hearing distance along the fascist lines with Blair, of holding their position and dealing with the desertion of fascists. The main descriptions of fighting against the fascists which appears both in "Homage to Catalonia" and in the "New Leader", concerned a night attack in which some of the contingent took part resulting in injuries to Reg Hiddlestone, Paddy Thomas and Douglas Thompson. Injuries were also sustained at other times, Blair himself was famously shot through the throat by a sniper. However, the reality of the contingent's activity was famously more mundane. It largely consisted of building roads from their dug-out to the nearest Spanish position and creating a dug-out for community purposes where they could meet to talk and receive instructions. In terms of fighting the fascists the contingent saw relatively little action. As Orwell later put it::"Meanwhile nothing happened, nothing ever happened. The English had got into the habit of saying that this wasn't a war it was a bloody pantomime."

uppression of POUM

Although the ILP contingent did not play a major part in the military side of the Spanish Civil War it was famously and controversially involved in the events surrounding the battles between rival anti-fascist groups in Barcelona, known as the Barcelona May Days.

The ILP contingent, although on leave in Barcelona, were split into groups during this fighting and none of the ILP contingent were drawn into the fighting in any extended way. However, the significance of the Barcelona for the ILP lay not so much in the events themselves as in the reaction to the situation. Immediately after the events the Communist press began to attack POUM, claiming they were solely responsible for the fighting and were in league with the fascists in doing so. These accusations were quickly published in the "Daily Worker", appearing in the 11 May issue. The "New Leader" of 21 May carried extensive comment on the 'Counter-Revolution in Spain'. ILP General Secretary Fenner Brockway argued that the Communists were on the wrong side of the barricades and were now 'committed to the defence of property', suggesting that the Communist Parties not only in Spain, but everywhere, had ceased to be revolutionary parties. The response from the Communist Party responded by accusing the ILP of 'taking part in the fascist rising'.

The situation for the members of the ILP contingent in Spain was made extremely uncomfortable by the attacks on POUM and it became more so as the Communists banned the ILP's Spanish 'brother party'. The Party made considerable efforts to get its members home safely and several of the ILP contingent made furtive returns home escaping police arrest. For example Stafford Cottmann, John McNair, Eric Blair and his wife Eileen O'Shaughnessy made an escape across the border by train after posing as wealthy English businessmen. Other were not so lucky, many members of POUM were arrested and some assassinated. Of those closely associated with the ILP contingment, the arrest of Georges Kopp, the unit commander, and Harry Milton, one of the American members of the contingent, were of particular concern. However, both were eventually released. Milton did not spend long in jail, as McNair ensured his release. Kopp on the other hand, despite attempted intervention on his behalf by the ILP, remained in prison for a further eighteen months. However, most attention both at the time and since, has focused on the case of Bob Smillie who died in jail in Valencia. Smillie's death has been surrounded in mystery, and has been the subject of much speculation, focussing on accusations that he was 'done to death' by the Communists. Although the issue remains controversial recent scholarship tends to concur with the contemporary findings of the official ILP report into the investigation, conducted by David Murray of Motherwell ILP, found that the authorities were guilty of carelessness rather than violence or direct malice.

Despite the suppression of POUM, not all of the ILP contingent returned home immediately. Arthur Chambers, Bob Williams and Reg Hiddlestone all stayed on to fight in Spain. Williams returned home in December 1938 after being injured three times, Hiddleston was the final member of the contingent left in Spain, returning home in February 1939, leaving Barcelona only hours before the fascists entered. However, Chambers was not so lucky, being the only member of the ILP contingent to be killed in combat in Spain when he was shot by a fascist sniper in August 1938 after transferring to a CNT unit.

References

*Fenner Brockway, "Inside the Left", 1942
*Tom Buchanan, "The Death of Bob Smillie, the Spanish Civil War and the Eclipse of the Independent Labour Party", "The Historical Journal", 1997
*Tom Buchanan, 'The Death of Bob Smillie: a reply', "The Historical Journal", 2000
*Gidon Cohen, "The Failure of a Dream; The Independent Labour Party from disaffiliation to World War II", 2007
*Bernard Crick, "George Orwell: A Life", 1980
*John Newsinger, "The Death of Bob Smillie", "The Historical Journal", 1998
*George Orwell, "Homage to Catalonia"
*Peter Thwaits, "The Independent Labour Party Contingent in the Spanish Civil War", "Imperial War Museum Review", 1987