Anarcho-Vandals Vs. Stalinist Shills

I was going to post something about the anarcho-vandal attack on the International Brigade memorial in San Francisco but Roland and Bob beat me to it. Plenty of comments by yours truly in Roland’s comment thread.

Here is Roland:

This is surely going to make for some interesting fights amongst the various leftist communities in the Bay Area. You have those who deem the Brigade a true expression of international solidarity in the face of totalitarianism, and others who see them as an extension of the Soviet Union that would betray the anarchists in Spain.

I don’t support vandalism, and this case is no exception. I do however think that the ALB has been lionized by some on the left without considering exactly what they fought for and why, and it looks like these “activists” may very well get an exchange on that subject. But who am I kidding! We will have a week long shouting match between the two sides, and then return to the state they have been for the last 100 years.

Bob adds:

My grandparents were CPUSA members. My grandmother was a nurse, and wanted to volunteer to go to Spain. My grandfather ultimately did not want to fight in a war, and they did not go. Many of their friends went; many did not return. Partly because they always felt they should have gone, they continued to idolise the ALB until their deaths.

They left the Party, I am pretty sure, when the Non-Aggression Pact was signed. Like many Jewish CP members, for whom the Party’s absolute “anti-fascism” was its core feature, they just couldn’t stomach it. As Anon says, I am sure some actual vets of the ALB likewise left at this point.

Now that would be an interesting research project, ALB vets who left the CPUSA for its flippant anti-fascism.