I went to Spain to kill as many fascists as possible; that’s all the less to kill when they get here.” – Fred Baxter, Canadian International Brigade veteran. From the endless stream of Avonlea Chronicles, Margaret Atwood novels and episodes of counterSPIN, you’d think Canada was a nation of limp, humorless, American wannabes. Well, for the most part it is, but The Militant Tradition celebrates men like Fred Baxter, and other Canadians who proudly went to other countries to kill so the rest of us didn’t have to. This issue looks at the Spanish Civil War, and the Canadian volunteer brigades (drawn largely from the ranks of the poor) who went to Spain to aid in the fight against Franco. As may be expected, the tone is strident and unforgiving. William Lyon Mackenzie King is painted as a anti-Semitic Nazi-sympathiser, who wanted to make Canada a home for the white race and turned back Jewish refugees from the border during the war. Strong stuff, for those who believe that sometimes, you just have to kill people. (SA)
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