I get angry every time I read an effusive remark about the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Uninformed polemicists fawn about these self-proclaimed freedom fighters who were generally motivated by the dictates of Joesph Stalin. This group of persons had supporters in Tampa, Florida; among them Victoriano Mantiega the publisher of La Gaceta [a tri-lingual Ybor City publication]. Mantiega addressed the concerns of the Tampa Latinos when he supported those who chose to go to Spain and fight the Falangist rebellion. But when the Soviet Union invaded Finland, and earlier had signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact, Mantiega [the Lincoln Brigade supporter] criticized Stalin and the USSR for invading its much smaller neighbor. Mantiega came in for much criticism by "local Communists, who compared me to Adolf Hitler." You mentioned George Orwell. Orwell wrote a book called "Homage to Catalonia," where he is very critical of the Stalinist expeditionary force. Read it sometime. I could go on, but digest this for now. No response is required, but if you wish you can send me one. My four uncles served in World War II [not in Catalonia], but in the Pacific and one in Europe. My father, older than his brothers and brother-in-law, worked in a Navy Yard, on the side of the US by the way. He was scheduled to go to the Marines in the last year of the war, but as he put it, "suddenly the war ended." He did a lot better as a guitar player after the war [and for a time before it.]