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Volunteers for the Revolution. The International Militia of the POUM in the Spanish Civil War

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Published Nov 2025

Andy Durgan

Author: Andy Durgan
That thousands of members of the International Brigades fought heroically against fascism during the Spanish Civil War is well known. Far less known—aside from the notable exception of George Orwell—is the presence of five hundred foreign combatants in the militias of the anti-Stalinist Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (POUM). This book provides, for the first time, an exhaustive study of these volunteers: their socio-political background, their participation in the Civil War and revolution, their role as victims of Stalinist slander and repression, and their fate during the Second World War and beyond.

Biographical Note

Andy Durgan has published extensively about the Spanish Civil War and its origins, including The Spanish Civil War (2007), Comunismo, revolución y movimiento obrero en Cataluña 1920-1936. Los origines del POUM (2016), and POUM. República, revolución y contrarrevolución (2025).

Readership

This book is especially relevant to specialists in the Spanish Civil War, as well as readers interested in working-class internationalism, fascism and anti-fascism, revolutionary warfare, social revolution, interwar Europe, the experiences of antifascist refugees, and the histories of communism, socialism, Stalinism, and Trotskyism.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
List of Maps and Tables
Abbreviations
Maps

Introduction

1 ‘Between the Bullet and the Lie’
1 The Popular Front and the Civil War
2 The POUM and the Revolution
3 In Stalin’s Shadow
4 Homage to Catalonia in Perspective

2 The International Brigades
1 Birth of a Legend
2 Comintern Army?
3 The Role of the International Brigades
4 ‘Long Live the Russians!’

3 Neither Brussels nor Moscow
1 Dissident Communists
2 Left-Wing Socialists
3 Communists and Jews
4 Fleeing Hitler
5 Italian Anti-fascists
6 From Other Lands

4 Into Combat
1 To the Barricades
2 The Militias
3 To the Front
4 ‘Fighters for Freedom’
5 John Cornford and the Attack on Perdiguera

5 The International Column
1 The Formation of the International Lenin Group
2 The International Lenin Group at the Front
3 More Recruits for the International Column
4 Full Moon at Tierz
5 The Fall of Estrecho Quinto and Montearagón

6 The Siege of Huesca
1 The Fall of Leciñena
2 The POUM and Militarisation
3 The International Lenin Group in Crisis
4 Huesca: October 1936
5 The Failed Offensive
6 The Arrival of an Enigma: Georges Kopp

7 The International Labyrinth
1 The Tower of Babel
2 The IBRSU and the Civil War
3 The SAPD
4 The KPD(O)
5 Real Trotskyists
6 Trotskyist Militiamen

8 Mika Etchebéhère and the Defence of Madrid
1 Sigüenza
2 The Joaquín Maurín Column
3 The Lenin Battalion
4 The Capitana
5 ‘Unlike Other Women’

9 ‘The Prototype of the Revolutionary Woman’
1 Women and Revolution
2 Militia Women
3 International Women Volunteers
4 The Martyrdom of Margarete Zimbal
5 Rearguard

10 The POUM and the Military Question
1 ‘War at the Front and Socialist Revolution in the Rear’
2 Military Democracy
3 The Lenin Division
4 The Composition of the Lenin Division
5 Neither Arms, nor Offensive

11 Consolidation of the International Militia of the POUM
1 Composition and Presence of the International Volunteers
2 New Recruits
3 Changing Units
4 The Josep Rovira Shock Battalion
5 ‘Fighting Spirit, Self-Sacrifice and Tenacity’

12 ‘Fight to the Death’
1 The Reconquest of Arascués Ridge
2 The Failed Attempt to Retake Vivel del Río
3 The Assault on Loma del Manicomio
4 Counterattack and Retreat

13 The ILP Contingent
1 The Organisation of the Contingent
2 The Volunteers
3 The Arrival of Eric Blair
4 Torre Francesa
5 Ermita de Salas

14 The May Events
1 ‘Franco’s Accomplices
2 International POUM Volunteers During the May Events
3 The May Events At The Front
4 The Death of Bob Smillie

15 The June Offensive
1 The 29th Division
2 New Assault on Huesca
3 The Loma Verde
4 The Conquest of Loma de las Mártires
5 A ‘Dantesque Spectacle’

16 The End of the 29th Division
1 The Suppression of the POUM
2 The Dissolution of the 29th Division
3 The Fate of International Volunteers
4 To the International Brigades
5 The Hunt for ‘Trotskyists’ in the International Brigades
6 The Persecution of Former POUM Volunteers in the Brigades

17 ‘Capable of Any Crime’
1 The Witch-Hunt
2 Counterespionage
3 The Detainees
4 Interrogation and Ill-Treatment
5 Resistance

18 Spies, Traitors, and Other Suspects
1 Real Spies
2 Spying on the Blairs
3 The Arrest of Georges Kopp
4 ‘Tonight We Are Going to Shoot You!’

19 No Moscow Trials in Barcelona
1 Chaotic Repression
2 Political Assassination
3 Freedom
4 1938: Deportations Continue
5 The End of the Civil War
6 Survivors and Missing Persons

20 Between Hell and Freedom
1 In the French Concentration Camps
2 Towards Exile
3 Prisoners of Fascist Italy
4 In the Clutches of the Nazis

21 Another War
1 With the Resistance
2 With the Allied Armies
3 Georges Kopp: Secret Agent?
4 Hans Reiter and La Nueve

22 Epilogue
1 Into the Political Desert
2 Survivors of the Third Reich
3 Other Lives
4 George Orwell and the Cold War
5 Bob Edwards and the KGB

Conclusions

Tables
Biographical Appendix
Glossary
Sources
Index