Bringing down the curtain on Professor Preston, Anarchism ad the Spanish Civil War

Professor Preston reveals his true colours in Prologue: In Extremis in his book  'Comrades'.   He refers to an act of  'thoughtless cruelty' carried out by FAI  militiamen.    There is an anecdote recounted to Preston by the Catalan politician Miquel  Roca Junyent.   It relates to his maternal grandfather Miquel  Junyent I Rovira - a prominent figure in the Catalan Carlist movement ( ultra-conservative monarchists).    On 22 July 1936 FAI militiamen arrived at Junyents house.   There was no doubt they had hostile intentions.    He had actually died of a heart attack one day previously.   The milicianos insisted on seeing the body.   The housekeeper led them to the open coffin.   On viewing the body one militiaman turned to the others and said 'Bollocks, I told you we should have come yesterday'.   

Preston on the following page juxtaposes anarcho-syndicalists and beyond to perpetrators of anti-clerical atrocities and common criminals.    An association which he repeated at a meeting in Manchester at the Peoples History Museum.    Incidentally in the same book which was lavishly praised by ex Tory Cabinet Minister Michael Portillo in the Sunday Telegraph, Preston described the communist apparatchik Dolores Ibarruri as an "extraordinary woman".    Perhaps Preston should devote his investigative skills to a forensic examination of the muder and torture of POUM and Anarchist militants carried out by the communist dominated Popular Front government of Negrin.

Finally Prestons book 'A Concise History of the Spanish Civil War' is described by the Communist paper the Morning Star in glowing terms.   'It  is an important and valuable contribution to the estimation of the anti fascist war in Spain.'    Prestons books are thus praised by communists and conservatives.    A prime example of a Popular Front if there ever was one!