THE re-publication of two historic books is set to re-ignite Gwent interest in the Spanish Civil War. Mike Buckingham reports

No other conflict, with the exception of the two world wars, has had such an impact upon the Welsh consciousness.

Sixty-five years after the British volunteers in the Spanish Civil War returned home, their cause defeated, the names of the battles at the Ebro, Brunete, Belchite, Jarama, and Teruel still have the ability to make the blood tingle.

The names are staccato, seeming to contain within them some of the harshness and the cruelties of the time. The Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 was a war as sharply drawn in its contrasts as the searing heat and numbing winter cold that the 2,000 British volunteers to the International Brigade were obliged to endure.

Alan Warren, social worker, bookseller, publisher and restorer of a former chapel in Abersychan, is one of those for whom the Spanish Civil War has a lasting fascination.

So much so, that together with his friend and colleague, Nigel Pell, he had re-published two classics generated by the conflict, with plans for yet more.

Towards the end of the conflict, bitter rivalry and bloodshed between the anarchist, socialist and communist factions was to deepen the wounds in the socialist world order that remain unhealed to this very day.

"If you ask me who I instinctively side with, I would say the anarcho-syndicalists. Having said that, it was the communists who had the organisation," Alan Warren says.

"I try to enact some of the syndicalist principles in my own life by being involved in credit unions, food co-operatives and other schemes in which people are encouraged to help themselves."

The first book to be re-published by Warren and Pell was the History of the 15th International Brigade, by Brigader Frank Graham, one of the volunteers who served in the brigade's British battalion.

There is in Wales only one International Brigader still living, but in the years 1936-1939 hundreds from North Wales and South, from the Valleys, Swansea, Cardiff and Newport made their way to Spain to join the International Brigades.

Although the brigades were organised and recruited by the Communist party, not all those who joined were communists, many being members of the Labour party.

Alan Warren says: "A lot of men brought up in the Welsh tradition of unions, the mines, the Workers' Educational Association and the sense of community you still find, identified instinctively with the people of Spain and their struggle."

For many, it was a fight between democracy and fascism. In 1936 rebel Spanish generals, disgruntled by the election of a left-wing government, secured a military toehold in southern Spain which they were able to exploit, ultimately to the point of victory.

Although the superior, the Republic, for which the 15th International Brigade fought, were dogged by poor organisation and infighting. General Francisco Franco's right-wing forces triumphed in 1939 and established a dictatorship which was to last until Franco's death in 1975. Of the hundreds of Brigaders from Wales, more than 30 were killed.