Wales and the Spanish Civil War

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Wales and the Spanish Civil War

There were many reasons for the men of south Wales joining the Spanish

civil war most of which can be divided up in to the following

categories; Political, Economic, Social, Cultural and Religious. The

most important of which I feel is Political as I think you can find

that all these other problems stemmed from the political reasons. It

was these political reasons that had the most impact on the miners and

ultimately more than any of the others encouraged them to actively

join the war Spanish Civil war, which was being fought over the

political division between the right wing nationalists and the left

wing republicans. Although all the world powers had signed an

agreement of non-involvement Nazi troops from Germany and soldiers

from Italy were sent to help the nationalists. A total of 174 welsh

men joined the international brigade to help the republicans along

with Scots, Mexicans and Russians in order to fight for their

communist beliefs and in an attempt to stop the spread of fascism

across the world. 118 of the welsh men that went to Spain were from

the mining valleys of South Wales.

Religiously almost all people in South Wales in this time would have

attended chapel, and although communism, which is what the miners were

fighting for in Spain, is anti religion, as Marx aid "Religion is the

opiate of the people". If you break down the basic principles of

non-conformist Christianity, as that of South Wales, they are very

similar to those of communism. Teachings such as all are equal

therefore it was an easy and seemingly natural progression for the

working class of South Wales. Also it may have given the men an extra

incentive to help free the people of Spain from the Religious tyranny

of the Catholic Church that they had never experienced living in

relative religious freedom in South Wales.

Although I personally feel that this was a minor factor relating to

why the men from south Wales went to help with the Spanish civil war.

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