Spain & Pride: A few days ago I watched online what was apparently the first full UK showing of Basilio Martín Patino’s 1974 film ‘Caudillo‘, produced in secret in Spain while Franco was still in power.
It’s a powerful documentary on the Spanish Civil War of 1936-9 and the rise of Franco, not surprisingly rather ragged around the edges, with some poor sound and seriously deficient subtitles but with an incredible amount of contemporary footage from both sides of the war.
It made me aware again of the terrible failure of Britain along with the other non-fascist powers to support the Spanish government and of the bravery of many thousands of individuals on the left here and elsewhere defy their governments and go to fight for freedom. Until 31st July 2026 you can still watch the Sands Films presentation of Caudillo here. There are some short sections from the over two hour-long film on You Tube.
Back on 4th July 2009 I attended the annual International Brigade Commemoration at Jubilee Gardens in London, rushing away from Pride London to so.
International Brigade Commemoration
Jubilee Gardens
This month, July 2026, is the 100th anniversary of the start of the Spanish Civil War and this commemoration in 2009 was 70 years after it ended. As I commented, “Every year there are fewer and fewer of those who went to Spain to fight or work in the medical services, all now in their 90s or older. And every year a list of those who have died in the past year. “
Sam Lesser remembers Jack Jones, one of the great men of the twentieth century who had died in the previous year.
Wreaths came from the Spanish Ambassador, the Catalonian representative and others
There were women who went as well as men. While our politicians stood to one side and let Germany and Italy join the fight against the elected government of Spain and much of the Spanish people, many ordinary working people supported the Republic, particularly the communists and anarchists. Over 40,000 went to fight, mainly in the International Brigades and a further 10,000 as civilians, mainly as nurses and other medical staff.
The only two nations to support the Republican cause were Mexico and the Soviet Union, with Stalin sending large amounts of weapons – though many promised failed to arrive and others were antiquated.
But it was Stalin and the communists his advisers controlled who scuppered the chances of a Republican victory by attacking, imprisoning and disbanding the other groups successfully opposing Franco’s forces, freeing the poor to take over the land. A real revolution was anathema to Stalin who feared it might give his peasants ideas.
The consequence of losing the war were dire for the Spanish people (except the Catholic Church and the wealthy) with many years of repression and dictatorship – and for much of the world as it led to the Second World War.
More at International Brigade Commemoration.
Pride London 2009
Baker St to Trafalgar Square
Earlier in the day I had photographed the 2009 Pride London March. I commented “Things have changed pretty dramatically over those 15 or more years [since I first attended], and Pride is largely a very different event, much more of a corporate than a personal or political one. Of course the LGBT community being what it is there is still plenty of room for the unusual, the eccentric,the flamboyant, the spectacle. And even, though perhaps rather more at the edges, the political.”
Here I’ll post a few of the more political, but I think the pictures on My London Diary cover the whole range described above.
And there was the usual small group of Christian bigots who had come to share their carefully selected texts
Many more pictures on My London Diary: Pride London.
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