Tens of thousands of international volunteers stood against the tyranny of fascism during the Spanish Civil War, Jim Higgins among them. Most volunteers had already acted against tyranny more than once. For Jim, the first time was at school in England when he was no older than thirteen. 

Jim had been orphaned during the Great War, and around the age of eight, after a short stay on a country estate with caring staff in an orphanage for eight boys, he was taken to the Ardwick Industrial School in Manchester. He studied there for several years before going on to a small secondary school in Bristol.

Jim’s  experiences at Ardwick were largely positive; the students even got in free to see Manchester United games. Occasionally, though, he got the “blues,” especially when he saw fathers out with their sons, having lost his to a bomb dropped over London from a German Zeppelin.

Jim chose carpentry as his trade and participated in many extra-curricular activities. Despite being a self-described “rebel at times,” he did well in academics, and excelled in boxing and swimming.

Besides being in on a prank to teach one of their masters a lesson (it worked), Jim also took a lone stand against a tyrannical teacher. Here is how he tells it in this excerpt from the first chapter of his book:

There was one master who had been in the school for only three months, a pure sadist named Mr. Dunbar, who used the cane for minor offences. Everybody was afraid of him. One day, he heard me whispering, reached for his cane, and ordered me to the front. He lectured us on the need for discipline, then asked me why I had been talking. I told him I was not talking, I was whispering. He got riled and shouted, “When I ask a question, I want you to say ‘sir’!”

He held up the cane, and with all his force, started hitting my hands, cutting them. After every two hits, he demanded that I say, “sir.” I remained silent—no whimpering—as he gave me twelve whacks, six on each hand. Finally, he gave up and ordered me to the infirmary. The ten boys were very quiet. As I left, he said, “The next time you will say ‘sir,’ or else you can expect the same treatment.”

I promised myself that before he caned me again, I would take that cane and hit him across the face, regardless of the consequences. I felt completely degraded. I went to the nurse who immediately took me to the school office. Without saying a word, she lifted up my bloody hands. Mr. Kelly, the superintendent, demanded to know who was responsible. I replied, “Mr. Dunbar, sir.”

We never saw that sadist teacher again, and I became a hero to the boys. To this day, I am one of those guys who will not be pushed around.

Excerpt from Fighting for Democracy by Jim Higgins, 2020

For Jim, and thousands of others in the International Brigades, their mettle was truly tested when they fought in the Spanish Civil War. It took guts to take an unequivocal stand against fascism while at the same time the leaders of the western democracies were currying favour with Hitler and Mussolini.

There is a term that floats around about these volunteers: that they were “premature anti-fascists.” It doesn’t make sense, until you know that its origin was with the FBI in the early 1940s. They used it to identify communists, and probably other left-wing Americans, who fought in Spain, and who were now volunteering to fight the very same enemy in the Second World War.

In 2001, Spanish Civil War veteran, Bernard Knox, wrote about this curious term in an article for the Los Angeles Times, The Confessions of a ‘Premature Anti-Fascist.’ Knox relates that some thought it would be more accurate to say that the leaders of the western democracies were “last-minute anti-fascists.”

So were they unusually prescient, these “premature” anti-fascist volunteers for Spain Maybe; though if you were paying attention in the 1930s, it didn’t take much to figure it out.

Inspiration for today? Without doubt. As Timothy Snyder says in his best-selling book, On Tyranny, “Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die under tyranny.”

The International volunteers who fought and died for democracy in Spain did no less.

Thanks to Stuart Walsh for sending me the photo from the Working Class Movement Library in Salford.

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Fighting for Democracy: The True Story of Jim Higgins (1907-1982), A Canadian Activist in Spain’s Civil War can be ordered here.

Fighting for Democracy by Jim Higgins is the latest book about the Mac-Paps, Canadians in the Mackenzie Papineau Battalion, which was part of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. Other 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 and Renegades by Michael Petrou.