From Warwickshire's on-line library catalogue, the bit of blurb regarding the book 'Spanish Holocaust' :-
"Paul Preston sheds crucial light on Spain's darkest period, when Franco and his supporters reconstructed an entire society through violence."
Not a bad entry; pithy, grammatically correct, a couple of reference points so you know it's about Spain and Franco. All fine and dandy. Except not.
During the Spanish Civil war atrocities were commited by both sides, Fascist and Socialist. I haven't read the book yet but I'd be willing to bet that at least so long as the Socialists were still in the running, they were as equally enthusiastic pracitioners as Franco's mob. Franco won in the end, so he had a longer window of opportunity to up his total; but that would only be half the story.
I know this, cos I spent 5 mins in Smith's having a look at the book and it says quite clearly on the back that Preston examines at the atrocities carried the Republican side as well as of the Fascists. You don't have to read the whole book to find that out. It's on the back. In quite big writing.
So, the catalogue entry is wrong. It does not accurately represent the content of the book. It is wrong, yet not incorrect. If the catalogue entry read along the lines of ".....Spain's darkest period, when Louis XIV bestrode the land, pelting random people with marrows", that would be incorrect. This entry is not incorrect, but it only tells part of the truth. It is biased.
I'm not detecting the Hand of Moscow behind this, or a cabal of shadowy Marxist assistant librarians, but I do object to the assumption that Socialists are always the good guys in history.They're not. Che Guevara for example, a big icon for the Left. Long hair, beard, beret. Looks like somebody you might have shared a spliff with on campus when you were doing your Sociology degree back the '70's. Nice guy, laid-back.
In real life, Che Guevara was a rabid homophobe. Shot a few himself, did Che. Point blank range, up close and personal, blammo: "Buenas noches, el Signor Battyboy!" That sort of behaviour wouldn't win him many friends at the Young Labour LGTB Annual Conference and Gala Ball. I also wonder what Cuba's record on gay rights is? That might be worth 5 mins on Google.
Lenin, there's another one. Plenty of Lefties describe themselves as 'Leninist' or 'Marxist-Leninist'. They do love giving themselves these kind of labels. Makes them feel cool and groovy, I suppose. As if anyone but them gave a toss. One New Labour apparachik's twitter name is "EllieTheBevanite". Nothing wrong with old Anuerin of course, the miner's friend and pillar of the NHS. But Lenin? Directly reponsible for millions of deaths through political pogroms, deliberately induced famines, etc etc etc. A monster, by any calculation. To tout his brand of political thought like a footballer with the name of a photocopying firm on his jersey front is surely to condone the human cost. And to sanction the airbrushing out of history of the human cost of the advance of Socialism is to start buggering around with the truth. The Left is not all that keen on the plain unvarnished, when it doesn't take their fancy. They are prone to bias. Juuuust a little bit. A smidgeon. Un peu.
Another example that irked me at the time was a verse by 'punk poet' and Red Wedge stalwart Attila the Stockbroker: "There's a hero of the Revolution, and his name is Enver Hoxa, he's a bit of a dictator but he's not a bad old codger." Fair play for knowing that 'Hoxa' is pronounced 'Hodja', and also for ryhming it with 'codger'. We all had a bit of a giggle over that. I don't know,but I'll bet Hoxa's Albania was not a very nice place to live. And I doubt that Attila the Stockbroker ever made any serious move to go and live there. Hypocrite.
So, it doesn't surprise me one whit that the catalogue entry for Preston's book in Worrick Library's catalogue does not read "......Spain's darkest period, when Anarchists, Marxists and Socialists ran amok raping nuns, chopping priests' heads off and shooting anyone they thought was uncool." But stap me vitals if I'm not going write a nicely measured and understated email to the County Librarian requesting that the entry more accurately reflect the contents of the book. Can't hurt, can it?
