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Using [[Moscow]]'s [[Comintern]] archives, Romerstein documented that approximately 80 percent of the American volunteers were [[CPUSA|Communist Party]] members,<ref>Daniel J. Flynn, "[http://spectator.org/archives/2008/04/04/the-lefts-good-warriors The Left's Good Warriors]," ''The American Spectator'', April 4, 2008</ref> the remainder made up of [[Fellow traveller|fellow-traveler]]s from the [[Socialist]] Party of America and the Socialist Labor Party. Promised they were signing up for only a seven-month hitch, the volunteers were later informed that they were in for the duration of the war.<ref>[http://www.iwp.edu/news/bookID.20/book_detail.asp Heroic Victims: Stalin's Foreign Legion in the Spanish Civil War], The Institute of World Politics</ref> Those who complained were imprisoned or shot<ref>Michael J. Waller, "[http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-59624679.html Heroic Victims: Stalin's Foreign Legion in the Spanish Civil War. (Review)], ''Demokratizatsiya'', June 22, 1999</ref> —and listed as casualties.<ref>Malcolm A. Kline, "[http://www.academia.org/tolling-the-red-bell/ Tolling the Red Bell]," Accuracy in Academia, June 9, 2008</ref>
Using [[Moscow]]'s [[Comintern]] archives, Romerstein documented that approximately 80 percent of the American volunteers were [[CPUSA|Communist Party]] members,<ref>Daniel J. Flynn, "[http://spectator.org/archives/2008/04/04/the-lefts-good-warriors The Left's Good Warriors]," ''The American Spectator'', April 4, 2008</ref> the remainder made up of [[Fellow traveller|fellow-traveler]]s from the [[Socialist]] Party of America and the Socialist Labor Party. Promised they were signing up for only a seven-month hitch, the volunteers were later informed that they were in for the duration of the war.<ref>[http://www.iwp.edu/news/bookID.20/book_detail.asp Heroic Victims: Stalin's Foreign Legion in the Spanish Civil War], The Institute of World Politics</ref> Those who complained were imprisoned or shot<ref>Michael J. Waller, "[http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-59624679.html Heroic Victims: Stalin's Foreign Legion in the Spanish Civil War. (Review)], ''Demokratizatsiya'', June 22, 1999</ref> —and listed as casualties.<ref>Malcolm A. Kline, "[http://www.academia.org/tolling-the-red-bell/ Tolling the Red Bell]," Accuracy in Academia, June 9, 2008</ref>
Before the Spanish Civil War, the [[Communist]] line was that war was a capitalist racket. But with the outbreak of war in [[Spain]], "the Soviets could aspire to control the eastern end of the [[Mediterranean]] and had hopes of eventually controlling the western end as well, thus giving them control of the entire Mediterranean."<ref>William B. Dunham, "[http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mfdip:@field%28DOCID+mfdip2004dun03%29 How Did You Get Here from There?: Memoir of a Diplomatic Career]," Foreign Affairs Series, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, 1996 (Library of Congress)</ref> Overnight, the party line flip-flopped: "Well, the same people who in 1933 sniggered pityingly if you said that in certain circumstances you would fight for your country, in 1937 were denouncing you as a [[Trotsky]]-[[Fascist]] if you suggested that the stories in ''[[New Masses]]'' about freshly wounded men clamouring to get back into the fighting might be exaggerated," wrote [[George Orwell]]. "And the [[Left]] intelligenstsia made their swing-over from 'War is hell' to 'War is glorious' not only with no sense of incongruity but almost without any intervening stage."<ref>George Orwell, "Looking Back on the Spanish War," reprinted in George Packer, ed., ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=WREtVBBT9lEC Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays'', (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008) ISBN 0151013616, p. 145]</ref> Orwell, a socialist, fought in Spain for the Red cause, and was shot through the neck.<ref>Peter Stansky and William Miller Abrahams, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=dh_aqAZk-UQC The Unknown Orwell: Orwell, The Transformation]'' (Stanford University Press, 1994) ISBN 0804723427, p. 276</ref> Yet he was forced to flee Spain in fear of his life from Soviet-backed communists who were suppressing revolutionary socialist dissenters.<ref>[http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/orwell_george.shtml George Orwell (1903 - 1950)], Historic Figures (BBC)</ref>
Before the Spanish Civil War, the [[Communist]] line was that war was a capitalist racket. But with the outbreak of war in [[Spain]], "the Soviets could aspire to control the eastern end of the [[Mediterranean]] and had hopes of eventually controlling the western end as well, thus giving them control of the entire Mediterranean."<ref>William B. Dunham, "[http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mfdip:@field%28DOCID+mfdip2004dun03%29 How Did You Get Here from There?: Memoir of a Diplomatic Career]," Foreign Affairs Series, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, 1996 (Library of Congress)</ref> Overnight, the party line flip-flopped: "Well, the same people who in 1933 sniggered pityingly if you said that in certain circumstances you would fight for your country, in 1937 were denouncing you as a [[Trotsky]]-[[Fascist]] if you suggested that the stories in ''[[New Masses]]'' about freshly wounded men clamouring to get back into the fighting might be exaggerated," wrote [[George Orwell]]. "And the [[Left]] intelligenstsia made their swing-over from 'War is hell' to 'War is glorious' not only with no sense of incongruity but almost without any intervening stage."<ref>George Orwell, "Looking Back on the Spanish War," reprinted in George Packer, ed., ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=WREtVBBT9lEC Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays'', (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008) ISBN 0151013616, p. 145]</ref> Orwell, a socialist, fought in Spain for the Red cause, and was shot through the neck.<ref>Peter Stansky and William Miller Abrahams, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=dh_aqAZk-UQC The Unknown Orwell: Orwell, The Transformation]'' (Stanford University Press, 1994) ISBN 0804723427, p. 276</ref> Yet he was forced to flee Spain in fear of his life from Soviet-backed communists who were suppressing revolutionary socialist dissenters.<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/orwell_george.shtml George Orwell (1903 - 1950)], Historic Figures (BBC)</ref>
Though supposedly formed to fight [[fascism]], in the wake of the [[Nazi-Soviet Pact]] the International Brigades reversed course yet again, largely hewing to the [[Communist Party]]'s new allegedly "non-interventionist"<ref>[http://www.alba-valb.org/resources/lessons/world-war-ii-letters-from-the-abraham-lincoln-brigade/preface Preface], World War II Letters from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Abraham Lincoln Brigades Archives, 2008</ref> line, opposing Allied efforts to resist the [[Nazi]]s or interfere in [[Hitler]] and Stalin's division of Europe. “The American people look upon the veterans as the foremost champions of democracy and anti-fascism,” said Lincoln Brigade veteran Milton Wolff in May 1941. “We must utilize this prestige in the boldest fashion to explain the fundamental difference between their imperialist war—which we vigorously oppose—and the Spanish people’s defense of democracy which we just as vigorously supported.”<ref>Malcolm A. Kline, "[http://www.academia.org/tolling-the-red-bell/ Tolling the Red Bell]," Accuracy in Academia, June 9, 2008</ref>
Though supposedly formed to fight [[fascism]], in the wake of the [[Nazi-Soviet Pact]] the International Brigades reversed course yet again, largely hewing to the [[Communist Party]]'s new allegedly "non-interventionist"<ref>[http://www.alba-valb.org/resources/lessons/world-war-ii-letters-from-the-abraham-lincoln-brigade/preface Preface], World War II Letters from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Abraham Lincoln Brigades Archives, 2008</ref> line, opposing Allied efforts to resist the [[Nazi]]s or interfere in [[Hitler]] and Stalin's division of Europe. “The American people look upon the veterans as the foremost champions of democracy and anti-fascism,” said Lincoln Brigade veteran Milton Wolff in May 1941. “We must utilize this prestige in the boldest fashion to explain the fundamental difference between their imperialist war—which we vigorously oppose—and the Spanish people’s defense of democracy which we just as vigorously supported.”<ref>Malcolm A. Kline, "[http://www.academia.org/tolling-the-red-bell/ Tolling the Red Bell]," Accuracy in Academia, June 9, 2008</ref>