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The Abraham Lincoln Brigade: the Historiography of the American soldiers in the Spanish American War
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[[File:Abraham_Lincoln_Brigade.jpg|thumbnail|175px255px|left|<i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804722773/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0804722773&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=deb544037f6853d805f0f8cea67fedee The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade]</i>]]During the Spanish Civil War, approximately 2,800 American men and women answered the call from the Communist party to defend the Spanish republic from fascist aggression. These men and women served in the Fifteenth International Brigade and formed the Abraham Lincoln, Washington and MacKenzie-Papineau Battalions. These soldiers’ stories have been controversial, because 80 percent of these volunteers were Communists. Until recently, historians have not been able to fully tell the story of these men and women, but access to new archives of the American soldiers and Soviet archives have provided a much fuller picture of the story of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
During the Spanish Civil War, approximately 2,800 American men and women answered the call from the Communist party to defend the Spanish republic from fascist aggression. These men and women served in the Fifteenth International Brigade and formed the Abraham Lincoln, Washington and MacKenzie-Papineau Battalions. These soldiers’ stories have been controversial, because 80 percent of these volunteers were Communists. Until recently, historians have not been able to fully tell the story of these men and women, but access to new archives of the American soldiers and Soviet archives have provided a much fuller picture of the story of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
===The Abraham Lincoln Brigade ignored by general histories of the war===
Rosenstone faced just as many problems when he attempted to determine the ethnic makeup of the brigade. He estimated that Jews comprised approximately 25 percent of the brigade. Rosenstone deduced this number simply by looking at the surnames of the known volunteers. After reviewing the names he determined that approximately 20 percent “had obviously Jewish names.” He then simply rounded up to 25 percent. Rosenstone admitted that it would be difficult to accurately determine the percentage of Jewish Americans because a number of the volunteers adopted nom de guerres during the war. Just as Rosenstone estimated the number of Jews in the Brigade, he guessed that there were probably 50 African American volunteers. It is also clear from Rosenstone’s title that he is only concerned with the men of the Lincoln Brigade, ignored the 60 American women who volunteered in Spain.<ref>Rosenstone, 335, 337.</ref>
Rosenstone’s work suffers from a number of problems. First, Rosenstone did not have sufficient historical resources at his disposal to develop his themes. Second, Rosenstone clearly believes that the veterans were essentially noble. In order to make them sympathetic to an American audience he deemphasized the role the Communist party played in their participation in the Spanish Civil War. It is not clear whether or not this deception was intentional. Additionally, members of the Lincoln Brigade were less willing to talk or give their private materials to historians so soon after a number of them had been persecuted during the 1950s for their Communist affiliations.
Arthur Landis’s mammoth book, <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001QYPMBG/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B001QYPMBG&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=c731cc1b4eb06c69a57656bc514df4d The Abraham Lincoln Brigade]</i> is a comprehensive history of the American contingent in Spain. Robert F. Lucid both criticized and lauded Landis’s book by writing, “[t]hirty years after the war, Landis composes with a style and an enthusiasm which are ingenuous in their partisanship. It is impossible for anyone who is knowledgeable about the Spanish Civil War to be removed or unbiased…So one is likely to excuse Landis’ high regard for his comrades-in-arms although he will wish as I did, that the author had tempered his gusto.”<ref> Lucid, Robert, “In Our Time: The Abraham Lincoln Brigade and the Historians,” <i>American Quarterly</i>, vol. 22, no. 1, 1970, p. 116.</ref> Stanley Payne argued that while Landis’ work was reliable when he discussed the military affairs of the Lincoln Brigade, but he found that Landis was completely unreliable whenever he talked about politics.<ref>Payne, Stanley, “Review of The Abraham Lincoln Brigade,” <i>The American Historical Review</i>, vol 73, no. 1, 1967, p. 253-254.</ref> In addition to completely misunderstanding Spanish politics, Landis attempted to dismiss the idea that the Lincoln veterans were predominantly Communist. Payne assails Landis for failing to discuss the role played by the Soviet Communist party in the development of Spanish Communism.
