Reclaiming the People’s War

Reclaiming the People’s War

Though it has recently become a byword for reactionary nostalgia, the Second World War was in certain crucial ways an extension of the ‘Red Decade’ of the 1930s. A modern anti-fascist Left must reclaim this inheritance — and avoid its shortcomings. The 'Artists Ambulance' on display at Palace Yard, London, before being sent to the civil war in Spain. (Photo by Reg Speller / Fox Photos / Getty Images) In the crisis-ridden autumn of 1936, the com…