Disillusionment Versus Loyalty in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, 1937-1938

The Abraham Lincoln Brigade is the unit of American volunteers fighting within the International Brigades and on the side of the Republic during the Spanish Civil War. Analysis of the Brigade and their role in Spain has led to greatly diverging views on why their service ended in defeat and who was to blame for it. While revisionist historians such as Ronald Radosh and Cecil Eby conclude that the Soviet Union was at fault for imposing political pressure on the Republic, sending incompetent officers to command the International Brigades, and using the volunteers to stall as they bled Spain’s gold reserve dry, the veterans predominantly reach a different conclusion. The Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade claim that the US and the other western democracies were at fault for failing to aid Spain at all and potentially stopping Fascism’s military advancements years before World War II even began. Both sides present convincing evidence, the revisionists presenting declassified documents, the veterans presenting first-hand accounts, but they present the fullest picture together, balancing out the biases inherent in the 1930s as well as the modern biases the revisionists hold today