Jim Higgins defied Canadian law to fight for democracy in the Spanish Civil War. On return, he was branded a communist, hounded by the RCMP, and welcomed by Lincoln Battalion comrades when he sought refuge in New York.
Jim was born in London in 1907, schooled in Manchester and Bristol, and sailed to Canada at twenty-one. During the Great Depression, employers blacklisted him for union organizing, the RCMP added him to their radical files for relief camp “agitating,” and he was jailed briefly when the Regina Riot ended the On-To-Ottawa Trek.
By 1937, he was with the International Brigades in Spain; a machine gunner in the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion—the Mac-Paps. Forty years later, he was found by Manuel Alvarez, a boy whose life he’d saved during the bombing of Corbera d’Ebre. Manuel’s 1980 book, The Tall Soldier (El Soldado Alto), paid tribute.
The RCMP saw Jim Higgins as a radical, people whose lives he saved saw him as a hero, and for one of his actions in Spain he was described as “extraordinarily brave.”
Jim Higgins saw himself as an anti-fascist, a social democrat, and an independent thinker. Readers will form their own opinions.
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When writing his manuscript, Jim Higgins wrote a short aside about rescuing a boy from the torrent of a bombed-out water tank in Corbera d’Ebre, ending with, “I don’t suppose the lad could have survived. Incredibly, that “lad” not only survived, but, decades later, through an amazing fluke, he found his anonymous saviour. It had been Jim Higgins. (More info here.)
The Spanish boy’s name was Manuel Alvarez, and his 1978 reunion with Jim Higgins attracted international media attention. Manuel went on to write, The Tall Soldier, My 40-year Search for the Man who Saved My Life, which was published in 1980. It was later translated into Spanish as El Soldado Alto.
The Globe and Mail’s eminent William French, ended his favourable review with the words, “Jimmy Higgins, the soldier, remains a mystery. Why did he go to Spain? What has happened to him? Heroes deserve histories, too.”
William French didn’t know it, but Jim Higgins drafted part of his manuscript in 1939 and part in 1977. It’s taken many decades, but the hero’s history is finally published. His story reflects all the significant events of 1930s Canadian history, and will resonate with anyone who believes in democracy, acting on their principles, and speaking truth to power.
Fighting for Democracy: The True Story of Jim Higgins (1907-1982), A Canadian Activist in Spain’s Civil War, by Jim Higgins with Janette Higgins (2020)
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Fighting for Democracy by Jim Higgins is the latest book about the Mac-Paps, Canadians who fought in the Mackenzie Papineau Battalion, which was part of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War.
The most recent books about Canadians in the Spanish Civil War include: Not For King or Country by Tyler Wentzell, Mac-Pap by Ronald Liversedge with David Yorke, A Chance to Fight Hitler by David Goutor, and Renegades: Canadians in the Spanish Civil War by Michael Petrou.
Mark Zuehlke wrote The Gallant Cause: Canadians in the Spanish Civil War. It was published in 1996, so a bit hard to track down. Easier to find is Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War (2017) by Adam Hochschild. It’s a favourite not least because Jim Higgins’ chapter, Capture and Escape, is strikingly reminiscent of Hochschild’s dramatic opening paragraph.