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Title: To Live Author: Kevin Doyle Date: 2005 Language: en Topics: book review, Red & Black Revolution, Spanish Civil War Source: Retrieved on 9th August 2021 from http://struggle.ws/wsm/rbr/rbr9/parkin.html Notes: This article is from Red & Black Revolution (no 9, Spring 2005)
For many people the âcivil warâ within the Civil War that occurred in
Spain between 1936â39 is a difficult business to understand. Not only
were many different organisations involved, but it was set against the
background of an even larger conflict that in itself was rife with
brutality and betrayal. Although it appears at times to be an impossible
quagmire to make sense of, Mick Parkin has succeeded admirably in his
short novel To Live.
Mick Parkin will be known to some that read these pages as the one-time
publisher of Sinews, the English-language publication which played a
valuable role in publishing articles on the split in the CNT in the 80s.
Parkin is a fluent Spanish speaker and has lived for many years in
Spain. He now resides in Scotland where he is a member of the Scottish
Socialist Party.
To Live begins with the theft of twelve tanks from the production line
at a metal works plant operated by POUM aligned workers in April 1937.
The CNT, the anarchist aligned general union of workers, appoints two of
its members, Ramon Alvares and Vicente Rossell, to investigate what has
happened. Ramon is recently returned from Zaragossa Front while Vicente
is a worker in the Co-operitiva Vigor, a worker-run factory. As the
story follows the movements and discoveries of these two comrades we get
a wider picture of balance of views and ideas at the crucial time in the
course of the Spanish Revolution.
To Live does not waste a lot of time with detail â an achievement in
itself given the large amount of information that is still conveyed to
the reader through dialogue and descriptions about situations and
places. It moves swiftly between the main charactersâ investigative work
and their personal lives, giving the book the quality of a good,
fast-moving read. One of Parkinâs strengths is dialogue, and this is
cleverly used to convey a sense of the debate that is raging about the
future course of the revolution.
The story begins in late April 1937 and closes just as the main
Telephone Exchange in Barcelona is attacked by the Guardia Civil at the
behest of Stalinist PSUC â an event that was to mark the end of
revolution in Spain. In the interval we catch a glimpse of what life
might possibly have been like for the many participants who struggle
admirably during those days to change the course of history. What
emerges is a world under siege, where the more far-sighted are able to
see the dangers that are approaching but are unable to do what is needed
to affect the necessary change. The story of the Spanish Civil War?
Hardly so, but in some respects we do see another dimension to the
struggle here, and that is useful.
I wasnât too happy with the end â nothing to do with the politics as
such â but this doesnât distract from what is a good book about a time
we rarely see represented in fiction. Contact the author by email
(mickmcparkin@aol.com) to get a copy of this book.