Zelensky’s Call For An ‘International Legion of Territorial Defense’ In Ukraine Harkens Back To The ‘International Brigades’ Of The Spanish Civil War

Above: An American recruiting poster during the Spanish Civil War.

Update to 1939 Redux: Putin Is Following Hitler’s Playbook, And Risking World War III.

I was a bit remiss in recounting Hitler’s pre-war encroachments on his neighbors in Europe. Before this, Hitler’s military machine engaged in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39).

I saw this reported the other day: French volunteers rally to Zelenskyy’s call to join war in Ukraine:

They speak neither Russian nor Ukrainian, and have no contacts on Ukrainian soil. Some had never even heard of the country itself until war broke out there last week.

But a growing number of French nationals are heeding Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call to form an “international legion of territorial defense” and join Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion.

“Zelensky’s call inspired us to leave,” said Joe, a 48-year-old driver who showed up with five other men at the Ukrainian Embassy in Paris on Tuesday. “I don’t really have any animosity against the Russians … I’m going there to defend human beings, and because I have an 8-year-old child … for him, I just can’t let this happen so close to us.”

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last week, French authorities have not said publicly how many people have responded to Ukraine’s call to arms. But one government adviser said it was only “a limited number,” including “a dozen” who had already entered Ukraine. The adviser suggested that some of these men could be members of “the ultra-left,” a term used in France to describe a volatile group of anti-communists and anti-fascists.

UPDATE: Soldiers from French army’s foreign legion detained for trying to flee to Ukraine:

Soldiers from the French army’s foreign legion were detained in Paris for allegedly attempting to join the Ukraine war to fight Russian forces, French news broadcaster BFMTV reported Wednesday.

Fourteen legionnaires of Ukrainian origin were arrested March 1 aboard a bus leaving for Poland.

Some of the passengers were suspected to have materials suggesting that they were possibly going to join the war, military sources told BFMTV news.

Nine soldiers had permission to leave but were not authorized to exit French territory. Five were in a situation of “irregular absence.”

They were all handed to the Commanding Officer of the Foreign Legion group.

The army is yet to determine if the 14 soldiers intended to join the war or travel to Poland to help their families fleeing Ukraine.

Gen. Alain Lardet, commander of the Foreign Legion, estimated around 25 soldiers of Ukrainian origin from the legion have presumably deserted to fight the Russians. “The Legion has cut ties. They are committed to a cause that I do not judge,” he said, according to BFMTV.

He added that legionnaires are permitted special leave upon request to travel to Ukraine’s neighboring countries to assist their families but are prohibited from crossing the border.

The legion includes an estimated 710 soldiers of Ukrainian origin and 450 of Russian origin.

[C]urrently, the force includes 9,000 soldiers from 140 nations who are commanded by French officers and deployed across five continents.

Following Zelensky’s call for outsiders to “join the defense of Ukraine, Europe and the world,” Ukraine temporarily lifted visa requirements for foreign volunteers. Nationals from other European countries have also responded enthusiastically to Zelenskyy’s announcement, prompting Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen to permit her citizens to join the ranks of the Ukrainian army if “they think they can contribute directly to the conflict.”

The rush to volunteer, despite the obvious risks to life and limb, recall similar movements in Europe, such as the International Brigades that were set up to support the Soviet-backed Republican cause during the Spanish Civil War in 1936-39.

History Channel explains, Why So Many Foreigners Volunteered to Fight in the Spanish Civil War:

In July of 1936, a failed military coup plunged Spain into civil war. The conflict pitted the leftist Republican government against fascist-backed Nationalists led by General Francisco Franco. With Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini already in power in Germany and Italy, anti-fascists around the world feared that Spain would be the next to fall, threatening the future of European democracy.

When world powers like the United States and the United Kingdom refused to intervene in the Spanish Civil War, more than 35,000 anti-fascist volunteers poured into Spain from 52 countries to take up arms against the Nationalists. They included Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, idealist intellectuals like a young George Orwell and communists committed to crushing an ideological enemy.

Ernest Hemmingway covered the Spanish Civil War as a journalist, which served as the basis for his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940).

[T]he foreign volunteers who fought in the “International Brigades” of the Spanish Civil War hoped to stop the march of fascism in Europe to avoid a much larger war. It didn’t work out that way.

[In] the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt failed to convince Congress to support the Spanish Republic. Instead, lawmakers passed a series of Neutrality Acts that cemented America’s isolationist stance in the 1930s.

In Europe, leaders from the U.K. and France called for all European nations to sign a non-intervention pact vowing to stay out of the civil war in Spain. All told, 27 countries signed the neutrality agreement, including Germany, Italy and the USSR. Hitler and Mussolini quickly violated the pact by sending arms and soldiers to assist Franco, and the Soviets eventually sent supplies and military advisors to aid the Republic.

As Franco’s Nationalists marched toward the Spanish capital Madrid in August of 1936, it was clear that no allies were coming to the defense of the Spanish Republic. That’s when the first foreign volunteers began to arrive in significant numbers, to fight alongside the Republicans under attack in Madrid.

Volunteers came from Poland, France, Britain, Ireland, Germany, Latin America, Canada and dozens of other countries, organizing themselves into ad-hoc columns that spoke the same language. Women came, too, mainly volunteering as nurses in military hospitals. Baxell says that roughly 70 percent of the volunteers were communists, since the communist party at the time was the “loudest and biggest organization that was battling fascism.”

By the fall of 1936, the Communist International or “Comintern”—a Soviet-led association of international communist parties—actively recruited foreign fighters who were organized into International Brigades like the Garibaldi Brigade (Italy), the Commune de Paris (France) and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (USA).

More: The Abraham Lincoln Battalion:

The Abraham Lincoln Battalion was a force of volunteers from the United States who served on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War from January 1937 until November 1938 … Like the European battalions, the American one was composed largely of communists; but, unlike the Europeans, the majority of Americans were students, and none had previously seen military service. Briefly in 1937 there was a second American force, the George Washington Battalion, but the casualties of both were so heavy that in mid-year the two were merged. As time went on, other nationalities were admitted to the Lincoln Battalion so that, by late 1938, Spaniards outnumbered Americans in the battalion three to one.

[Of] the total of about 2,800 American volunteers, about 900 were killed in action.

History Channel continues:

The International Brigades fought bravely to help repel the Nationalists from Madrid, including Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, who often led the charge as “shock troops.”

“They were astonishingly brave,” says Baxell. “They went to where the fight was hottest and did everything they could to hold their ground. Many had experienced what was going on in Germany and knew they couldn’t go home. Better to die in Spain than in Germany.”

Black and Jewish Americans Join the Fight

More than 2,800 Americans, many who were members of the American Communist Party, crossed the Atlantic to volunteer as part of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Around a third of the volunteers were Jewish, spurred by a desire to combat the spread of anti-semitic fascist regimes in Europe.

One of them was Milton Wolff, a young communist from New York City who went on to serve as a commander of the Lincoln Brigade. When asked by a Congressional committee in 1939 why he joined the Spanish Civil War, Wolff testified, “I am Jewish, and knowing that as a Jew we are the first to suffer when fascism does come, I went to Spain to fight against it.”

At least 90 members of the Lincoln Brigade were Black Americans who saw fascist oppression in Europe as an extension of racial oppression experienced at home in the United States. Many of the Black volunteers were also communists drawn to the American Communist Party’s vow to stand up for workers of all races. Black Americans bristled at Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia and knew that Hitler’s twisted aryan ideology had no room for people of color.

Vaughn Love, a Black volunteer, later said that “we didn’t know too much about the Spaniards, but we knew that they were fighting against fascism, and that fascism was the enemy of all Black aspirations.”

Foreign Fighters Give Their Lives for Ultimately a Lost Cause

Of the roughly 35,000 foreign volunteers who fought in the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939, an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 were killed and thousands more were recorded as missing. They paid the ultimate sacrifice for their ideals, but in the end it wasn’t enough. Franco and the Nationalists, with help from Hitler and Mussolini, overpowered the Republicans, took Madrid and won the war.

While some historians view the International Brigades as naive idealists or expendable pawns for the communist regime in the USSR, Baxell sees the volunteers in a more positive light.

“At the time, they showed the Spanish Republic and people around the world that Spain was not fighting fascism alone,” says Baxell. “Given what was going on in the world, that was a powerful message.”

In her farewell address to what remained of the beleaguered International Brigades in 1938, the Spanish Republican leader Dolores Ibarruri, known as “La Pasionaria,” praised the foreign volunteers:

“Communists, Socialists, Anarchists, Republicans—men of different colors, differing ideology, antagonistic religions, yet all profoundly loving liberty and justice, they came and offered themselves to us unconditionally… You are history. You are legend. You are the heroic example of democracy’s solidarity and universality.”

It was the Communist International or “Comintern” — a Soviet-led association of international communist parties — that organized the International Bridages against European Fascism in the Spansh Civil War. In an ironic twist, individuals from democratic countries are now volunteering to fight against a former Soviet KGB agent, Vladimir Putin, and his authoritarian represson in Ukraine.

The Washington Post reports, Zelensky says 16,000 foreigners have volunteered to fight for Ukraine against Russian invasion:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday said that 16,000 foreigners have volunteered to fight for Ukraine against the Russian invasion.

In an emotional video posted to his Telegram channel, Zelensky referred to the “international legion” of 16,000 foreign volunteers he has sought to “join the defense of Ukraine, Europe and the world.” The country earlier this week temporarily lifted visa requirements for foreign volunteers who wish to enter the country and join the fight against Russian forces.

“We have nothing to lose but our own freedom,” Zelensky said, noting that Ukraine’s international allies are sending the country arms supplies each day.

While foreign citizens have been fighting in Ukraine since 2014, when Russia-backed separatists seized parts of the Donbas region, experts who track foreign fighters say this push is a step far beyond that in ambition. Experts have warned that traveling to Ukraine with no military training is dangerous.

It remains unclear where 16,000 volunteers would be coming from, and Zelensky did not expand on the topic in his video. So far, most of the foreign fighters in Ukraine are from other post-Soviet states including Georgia and Belarus. But media reports suggest they’re from countries such as Japan, Britain and the United States.

See Reuters, Volunteers flock to fight for Ukraine in pacifist Japan (excerpt):

As of Tuesday, 70 Japanese men – including 50 former members of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces and two veterans of the French Foreign Legion – had applied to be volunteers, the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper said, quoting a Tokyo company handling the volunteers.

A spokesperson for the Ukrainian Embassy acknowledged receiving calls from people “wanting to fight for Ukraine,” but declined to give further details.

A Feb. 28 social media post from the embassy thanked Japanese for their many inquiries about volunteering but added a proviso.

“Any candidates for this must have experience in Japan’s Self-Defence Forces or have undergone specialised training,” it said.

See also, the New York Times, ‘I Just Can’t Stand By’: American Veterans Join the Fight in Ukraine (excerpt):

Hector is one of a surge of American veterans who say they are now preparing to join the fight in Ukraine, emboldened by the invitation of the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who earlier this week announced he was creating an “international legion” and asked volunteers from around the world to help defend his nation against Russia.

He said he hoped to train Ukrainians in his expertise: armored vehicles and heavy weapons.

“A lot of veterans, we have a calling to serve, and we trained our whole career for this kind of war,” he said. “Sitting by and doing nothing? I had to do that when Afghanistan fell apart, and it weighed heavily on me. I had to act.”

All across the United States, small groups of military veterans are gathering, planning and getting passports in order. After years of serving in smoldering occupations, trying to spread democracy in places that had only a tepid interest in it, many are hungry for what they see as a righteous fight to defend freedom against an autocratic aggressor with a conventional and target-rich army.

“It’s a conflict that has a clear good and bad side, and maybe that stands apart from other recent conflicts,” said David Ribardo, a former Army officer who now owns a property management business in Allentown, Pa. “A lot of us are watching what is happening and just want to grab a rifle and go over there.”

[A] number of mainstream media outlets, including Military Times and Newsweek, have published step-by-step guides on joining the military in Ukraine. The Ukrainian government instructed interested volunteers to contact its consulates this week. [See also, The Kyiv Independent.]

[On] Thursday, Mr. Zelensky claimed in a video on Telegram that 16,000 volunteers had joined the international brigade, though it is unclear what the true number is. The New York Times was not able to identify any veterans actively fighting in Ukraine.

The outpouring of support is driven, veterans said, by past experiences. Some want to try to recapture the intense clarity and purpose they felt in war, which is often missing in modern suburban life. Others want a chance to make amends for failed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and see the fight to defend a democracy against a totalitarian invader as the reason they joined the military.

I would suggest that you vets may be needed to fight a rearguard action right here at home against Putin’s “fifth column” of “fellow travelers” and domestic terrorists in the Party of Trump, aka the Party of Putin. Their slow-motion insurrection against American democracy is ongoing and a continuing national security threat.

[Of] course, war is rarely as straightforward as the deeply felt idealism that drives people to enlist. And volunteers risk not only their own lives, but also drawing the United States into a direct conflict with Russia. [It’s a different world today than in the Spanish Civil War.]

“War is an unpredictable animal, and once you let it out, no one — no one — knows what will happen,” said Daniel Gade, who lost a leg in Iraq before going on to teach leadership for several years at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and retiring as a lieutenant colonel. He said he understood the urge to fight but said the risk of escalation resulting in nuclear war was too great.

“I just feel heartsick,” he said. “War is terrible and the innocent always suffer most.”

The risk of unintended escalation has led the U.S. federal government to try to keep citizens from becoming freelance fighters, not just in this conflict, but for centuries.

* * *

The civil war in Spain just before the start of World War II is the best-known example. More than 3,000 Americans joined what became know as the Lincoln-Washington Battalion, to fight with the elected leftist government against fascist forces.

At the time, the United States wanted to avoid war with Europe, and stayed neutral, but the Young Communist League rented billboards to recruit fighters, and members of the establishment held fund-raisers to send young men overseas.

That effort, now often romanticized as a valiant prelude to the fight against the Nazis, ended badly. The poorly trained and equipped brigades made a disastrous assault of a fortified ridge in 1937 and three-quarters of the men were killed or wounded. Others faced near starvation in captivity. Their leader, a former math professor who was the inspiration for the protagonist in Ernest Hemingway’s novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls” was later captured and most likely executed.

On Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, Igor Konashenkov, told the Russian News Agency that foreign fighters would not be considered soldiers, but mercenaries, and would not be protected under humanitarian rules regarding the treatment of prisoners of war.

“At best, they can expect to be prosecuted as criminals,” Mr. Konashenkov said. “We are urging all foreign citizens who may have plans to go and fight for Kyiv’s nationalist regime to think a dozen times before getting on the way.”

Despite the risks — both individual and strategic — the United States government has so far been measured in its warnings. Asked during a news conference this week what he would tell Americans who want to fight in Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken pointed to official statements, first issued weeks ago, imploring U.S. citizens in the country to depart immediately.

He said: “For those who want to help Ukraine and help its people, there are many ways to do that, including by supporting and helping the many NGOs that are working to provide humanitarian assistance; providing resources themselves to groups that are trying to help Ukraine by being advocates for Ukraine and for peaceful resolution to this crisis that was created by Russia.”

The Post adds: “While it is legal for U.S. citizens to join foreign militaries in certain conditions, the State Department has advised that American citizens would be in violation if they were “recruited or hired” while still in the United States, under a Supreme Court decision.”

Like the Jewish soldiers who fought Hitler in the Spanish Civil War warning that fascism must be defeated there to avoid a wider war in Europe, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is warning that the world must stop Russia in Ukraine or face a wider war in Europe. He argues that the time to act is now and in this place, do not wait for Russia to later attack a NATO country to begin World War III. That war has already begun, and needs to be joined in Ukraine.

I can’t really fault his logic. The risk of nuclear confrontation has always existed during my lifetime. The confrontation between nuclear superpowers has always seemed inevitable. It should be the reason we cower from confronting evil.