Fighting Fascist Spain: Worker Protest from the Printing Press by Montse Feu (review)

Montse Feu's Fighting Fascist Spain: Worker Protest from the Printing Press offers an illuminating consideration of the Brooklyn-based Spanish-language periodical España Libre (Free Spain), published from 1939–1977 as the voice of the Sociedades Hispanas Confederadas (SHC, Confederation of Hispanic Societies). SHC was a coalition of about 200 Spanish cultural and mutual aid societies formed in the United States in 1936 as the Nationalist coalition in Spain, of which Francisco Franco would emerge as the leader, attempted the coup that started the Spanish Civil War. España Libre, Feu argues, proves essential to recovering the understudied story of the international network of Spanish exiles—many of whom were workers affiliated with the Spanish anarchist union (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo) and the Spanish socialist union (Unión General de Trabajadores)—that kept the antifascist cause alive through the decades-long struggle against the Franco dictatorship (1939–1975). Long overshadowed by the antifascist efforts produced in countries that housed greater numbers of Spanish exiles than the United States (including France and Mexico), España Libre finds its place in Feu's investigation as a "major collective grassroots political project" that "continued an antifascist, progressive, and radical legacy in the United States while Franco intended to destroy progressive and radical expressions in Spain" (2).

Feu's analysis brings alive the hopes and trials of the broad antifascist coalition mediated by this weekly publication that circulated between 1,500 and 4,000 copies per issue throughout the United States and around the world. In the pages of España Libre, contributors and readers developed a "participatory antifacism" while grappling with "tragic circumstances, such as poverty, undocumented refugee status, and the haunting memory of relatives and friends killed in the Spanish Civil War or tortured in Franco's prisons" (12). While the story told by España Libre centers on the coalition's efforts to fight fascism in Spain, Feu shows that the periodical also provided frequent reminders that its community faced oppression in the United States as well: exiles of the Franco regime never received official refugee status in the United States and "both the FBI and Spanish consular officials were surveilling them for their socialist and anarchist affiliations" (18). Despite these challenges, for decades España Libre persevered in telling the stories that many much larger publications would not print: "While the mainstream press celebrated the defeat of fascism in Europe, España Libre published about the fascist regime that persisted in Spain until 1977: unified national movement, the role of the Falange, the fascist conception of Spanish economy, the systematic social cleansing, the cult of the heroes of Movimiento, and the normalization of violence and state of terror in Spain" (21). Fighting Fascist Spain elucidates the courage, creativity, and endurance necessary to keep this publication, its community, and its cause alive through decades of setbacks for antifascist Spanish exiles, both in their adopted homes in the United States and in Spain—particularly as US relations warmed toward Franco as an ally against communism during the Cold War.

In this first book to devote sustained consideration to España Libre—as well as to Frente Popular, its predecessor as the publication of the SHC from 1936–1939—Feu demonstrates a thoughtful awareness of her study's likely role as a foundation for future work on España Libre and the US-based Spanish exile community it mobilized—starting with the book's organization. The book's analysis has two parts. The first links "Print Culture, Activism, and Solidarity" through explorations of España Libre's transnational networks, approach to antifascism, editorial practices, and efforts to prevent deportations and support political prisoners. The second looks at the role of literary writing in España Libre, with chapters devoted to genres including, theater, satire, and cartoons. A series of appendices catalogues the publication from various perspectives, including lists of organizations that made up...