Miners Against Fascism: Wales And The Spanish Civil War

That must be why this modern classic has been reissued for the second time since its original publication in 1984.

Back then, Hywel Francis was a dynamic labour historian and a Communist Party member sitting on the editorial board of Marxism Today. Since 2001, he has been the Labour MP for Aberavon.

His narrative describes the context and experiences of those who went from Wales to defend the Spanish Republic against General Franco and his fascist allies in the late 1930s.

It explains the connections between the fight against mass unemployment, company unionism, poverty and the British Union of Fascists at home on the one hand and the international struggle against capitalist reaction - fascism - on the other.

As the title suggests, the focus is on those from Wales - mainly unemployed miners organised by the Communist Party - who volunteered for military or auxiliary service in Spain with the International Brigades.

Thanks to the release of Special Branch records last year, we now know that the number of Welsh volunteers was nearer to 206 than the previous estimate of 174. The inclusion of a full list of these heroic sons and daughters of the working class is an excellent new feature of this superbly researched and produced work.

Among the names is that of a communist miner's daughter, Thora Silverthorne of Abertillery, who served in a medical unit on the Aragon front. Afterwards she helped found the National Association of Nurses and became that pioneering union's general secretary.

In a new preface, Hywel Francis takes a prominent academic to task for his treatment some important aspects of Welsh involvement in the Spanish anti-fascist war and its historiography.

The author finds it very gratifying to "return home" to Lawrence & Wishart as the publishers of this new edition. Morning Star readers too may find it gratifying that with this book and the recent biography of Bert Ramelson L&W are returning home also to the kind of projects that made them an internationally renowned publishers of working-class, left and communist literature.

That connection is manifest in one of the poignant letters which close Miners Against Fascism. Maerdy agent for the Daily Worker, Frank Owen - jailed three times for his political activities - wrote from Spain in July 1937 to his wife Charlotte and their two children: "You ask when I am coming home, I cannot say as no one knows, but please do not worry, as I have told you before, there is no need for it, be a little patient, as you say 'All will end well.'

"Yes, with a smashing victory for the Spanish Republic by the time you get this, you will have read of the big offensive ... our side will leave very little quarter to the fascists, for the murder of women and children has been their game at Malaga, Almeria, Guernica and Bilbao ..."

He died later that month in the Battle of Brunete, shortly before the birth of his third child.