Bill
Alexander, the son of a carpenter, was
born in Hampshire on 13th June, 1910. He studied at Reading University
where he obtained a chemistry degree. After graduating he became an
industrial chemist.
Alexander joined the Communist
Party and played an active role in the campaign against Oswald
Mosley and the
National
Union of Fascists
during the 1930s.
After the outbreak of the
Spanish Civil War Alexander decided
to join the International Brigades
fighting against the Nationalist
Army in Spain.
Alexander, a member of the British Battalion,
arrived at the battlefront early in 1937. He took part at the battle
at Brunete where after a fortnight the
battalion was down to 42 out of an original strength of 300.
Alexander, now a political
commissar, also played a prominant part in the fighting at Teruel
in January 1938. Two months later Alexander took over as commander
of the battalion, but shortly afterwards he was wounded in the shoulder
and invalidid back home.
In 1939 Alexander joined
the British
Army but
was refused a commission. The matter was raised in the House
of Commons and as a result he was sent to Sandhurst
Academy. During the Second World War he
served in North Africa, Italy
and Germany and reached the rank of captain.
After the war Alexander
became a full time organiser for the Communist
Party in Liverpool. Later he became
party district in Wales and in 1959 assistant general secretary of
the party. In the 1960s Alexander left party work to become a chemistry
teacher in a comprehensive school in South London.
In retirement Alexander
devoted a great deal of his time to the International Brigade Association.
In 1982 he published British Volunteers for
Liberty, an account of the International
Brigade in Spain. He was also co-author
of Memorials of the Spanish Civil War
(1996).
In 1996 Alexander led a
delegation of veterans back to Spain to visit the old battle grounds.
In recognition of his actions during the Spanish
Civil War the Spanish government awarded him citizenship of Spain.
Bill
Alexander died
on 11th July 2000.
(1)
Bill Alexander, Memorials of the Spanish Civil War (1996)
The character and fight against fascism moved centre stage when, in
1936, Franco attempted to overthrow by force the Popular Front Government
of Republican Spain. In Britain at the time there was little knowledge
of Spain, its people, life and politics. The brutal repression of
the striking Asturian miners in 1934 by the army commanded by Franco
aroused anger and solidarity here, especially in the mining communities.
The rebellion of the generals, the big landowners and industrialists
heightened concern and questioning about Spanish affairs. Would fascism
be able to score yet another victory? Would there be destruction of
the popular, democratic forces? Would all the dictatorships gain more
influence and strength? Spain was no longer a remote far-away country.
It was seen as the setting and focus of struggle against fascism and
reaction. The news of the open military help to Franco from Hitler
and Mussolini, and the heroic resistance of the people of Madrid,
Barcelona and the big cities fired a widespread wish to help the Republic
and its people.
An Aid Spain movement
developed in many towns, cities, coalfields and factories which drew
in wide groupings of people. Many thousands contributed and helped
to collect food, medical supplies and money for the Spanish people
who were short of everything. There was political activity stretching
across party lines, trying to change the Conservative
Government help for Franco by ending the Non-Intervention Agreement
which prevented the Popular Front Government buying arms for its defence.
Pressure was exerted on those in the Labour Party and trade unions
who supported Nonintervention.
(2)
Bill Alexander, British
Volunteers for Liberty (1992)
Eleven men in all commanded the British Battalion in actual battle:
Wilfred McCartney (writer, who had to return before
any fighting), Tom Wintringham (journalist), Jock Cunningham (labourer),
Fred Copeman (ex-navy), Joe Hinks (army reservist), Peter Daly (labourer),
Paddy O'Daire (labourer), Harold Fry (shoe repairer), Bill Alexander
(industrial chemist), Sam Wild (labourer), and George Fletcher (newspaper
canvasser). All except Wintringham had the opportunity of showing
their abilities in action before being given leadership. All of them
had been involved in working-class, anti-fascist activities at home,
and had been influenced by Communist ideas and activity, although
only Wintringham had held responsible positions in the Communist Party
itself. In Spain their beliefs were reinforced by struggle and experience.
The majority had been manual workers, having left school at fourteen
- the usual lot of most in those days, no matter how intelligent or
able. Only McCartney, Wintringham and Alexander had been to university;
all had experienced the difficulties and frustration of finding work
in a period of heavy unemployment. Their anti-fascism was anchored
in hatred of the class and social system in Britain.
(3)
Bill Alexander, Memorials of the Spanish Civil War (1996)
Around 2,400 volunteered from the British Isles and the then British
Empire. There can be no exact figure because the Conservative Government,
in its support for the Nonintervention Agreement, threatened to use
the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1875 which they declared made volunteering
illegal. Keeping records and lists of names was dangerous and difficult.
However, no-passport weekend trips to Paris provided a way round for
all who left these shores en route for Spain. In France active support
from French people opened the paths over the Pyrenees.
The British volunteers
came from all walks of life, all parts of the British Isles and the
then British Empire. The great majority were from the industrial areas,
especially those of heavy industry They were accustomed to the discipline
associated with working in factories and pits. They learnt
from the organization, democracy
and solidarity of trade unionism.
Intellectuals, academics,
writers and poets were an important force in the early groups of volunteers.
They had the means to get to Spain and were accustomed to travelling,
whereas very few workers had left British shores. They went because
of their growing alienation from a society that had failed miserably
to meet the needs of so many people and because of their deep repugnance
at the burning of books in Nazi Germany, the persecution of individuals,
the glorification of war and the whole philosophy of fascism.
The International Brigades
and the British volunteers were, numerically, only a small part of
the Republican forces, but nearly all had accepted the need for organization
and order in civilian life. Many already knew how to lead in the trade
unions, demonstrations and people's organizations, the need to set
an example and lead from the front if necessary They were united in
their aims and prepared to fight for them. The International Brigades
provided a shock force while the Republic trained and organized an
army from an assemblage of individuals. The Spanish people knew they
were not fighting alone.
(4)
Bill
Alexander, British
Volunteers for Liberty (1992)
Early in May 1937 news reached the front of the fighting in the streets
of Barcelona between supporters of the POUM aided by some Anarchists,
on the one hand, and Government forces on the other. The POUM, who
had always been hostile to unity, talked of "beginning the struggle
for working-class power."
The news of the fighting
was greeted with incredulity consternation and then extreme anger
by the International Brigaders. No supporters of the Popular Front
Government could conceive of raising the slogan of "socialist
revolution" when that Government was fighting for its life against
international fascism, the power of whose war-machine was a harsh
reality a couple of hundred yards across no-man's-land. The anger
in the Brigade against those who fought the Republic in the rear was
sharpened by reports of weapons, even tanks, being kept from the front
and hidden for treacherous
purposes.
(5)
The Times, Bill Alexander (July
2000)
A former commander of the British Battalion which fought as part of
the International Brigade against Franco's fascists during the Spanish
Civil War, Bill Alexander had spent the last 30 years keeping alive
the memory of those who perished in the Republican cause in that internecine
conflict. In a war which for so long seemed to be "hijacked"
by the poets, novelists and intellectuals - among them Orwell and
Hemingway - who wrote so movingly about it as to give the impression
that they and their type composed most of the brigade, Alexander,
demonstrated conclusively that most of the 2,000 British volunteers
were industrial workers from Scotland, Lancashire and Wales - most
of the last miners.
His experience and subsequent
researches showed that they were men motivated by the gut feeling
- sustained in the teeth of the Chamberlain Government's of the European
dictators - that the fight for against fascism in Spain was their
fight, and that if it was lost, Britain, which kept her head resolutely
in the sand for those terrible three years 1936-39, would find herself
fighting fascism much closer to home.
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
