Talk:Land and Freedom (film)

Nice cinema, shame about the facts!

Ken Loach’s Land And Freedom seems to be the first major film about the Spanish Civil War since Hollywood made For Whom The Bell Tolls. Which would have been good, if it hadn't chosen to bang the Trotskyist drum and ignore the real fighters.

It starts with an historic blunder—the rising was not led by General Franco. It was organised by General Mola, with General Sanjurjo as the acknowledged leader until his mysterious death in a plane crash. General Franco sat on the fence till the last minute. But the Military-Rightists—not all fascists—had the sense to rally round him as their most successful leader.

The important front was Madrid, which held off the enemy till the very end. POUM, whose tale is told in this film, were a small force on a front that barely moved throughout the war.

The film has a member of the Communist Party member accidentally join POUM, which is ridiculous. The Communist Party had a well-organised network taking members and sympathisers to the International Brigades. POUM had a smaller network, which in Britain was linked to a body called the Independent Labour Party—that’s how George Orwell got there. The hero's adventures in Spain shadow Orwell's, but have been reinvented to make a more likeable character than the upper-class ex-policeman.

Most of those who saw the war or study the war see POUM as an irrelevance. Most of them blame them for the fighting in Barcelona. Hemmingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls has the following:

The POUM was never serious. It was a heresy of crackpots and wild men and it was really just an infantilism. There were some honest misguided people. There was one fairly good brain and there was a little fascist money. Not much. The poor POUM. They were very silly people."

--GwydionM 19:24, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

The above comments on the POUM should be ignored. It is based on typical Stalinist slanders of the revolutionaries, such as the POUMists. The POUM had 30,000 men and women under arms and fought continously against the Fascists in Aragon. George Orwell himself MEANT to fight in the Stalinist organized International Brigades but like *many* people travelling over the Pyranees from France, got mixed up in outfits other than the ones they had been originally trying to join. This was not uncommon and had the writer of the above comments done actually any research he or she would of seen this to be the case.

Additionally the POUM was not so irrelevant that the Stalinist in the PCE (Spanish Communist Party) wasted tons of paper trying to stir up a campaign against them! To the point of getting the right-Socialist left Republican gov't to try to ban them.

ALL historians place the cause of the fighting in Barcalona in May of 1937 at the hands of the PSUC, the mostly small-property owner/petty capitalist dominated Stalinist party who attacked the anarchist lead and run telephone exchange. Troops that should of been at the front instead of roaming Barcalona looking for revolutionaries to arrest.

Most fighting was done in and around Madrid, the obvious Fascist target. Thus, most of the troops of the Republic were located there. Openly armed detachments from the PCE and PSOE participated as did thousands of members of the CNT and POUM. The CNT claims that 1 out of 3 civilian militia members in Madrid held CNT cards.

David

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As to the above user at the top, erm I believe your mistaken. The international brigades were not set up till later which is what Ken Loach explains along with the spanish civil war historian Andy Durgan (who was an advisor for the film) say on the director's commentary.

Also the POUM being fools? That smacks to me of fasisct and Stalinist propaganda but its possible. However its still _that person's opinion_.

82.29.115.82 18:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)Futurecast

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I agree, the POUM was initially a more popular and more active group than the PCE, Stalinist Communism was not popular in Spain before the civil war. Although it is true that the rising was masterminded by General Sanjurjo, not by Franco. If you look, you will notice also that many of the POUM characters such as Blanca wear red and black CNT scarves, showing the crossover between the anarchist trades unions and socialist political parties.

On the contrary to the above user at the top, i would say Hemingway was the very silly person, who was extensively courted by government officials, and lived in luxury in Madrid whilst the fighters died at the front. The "upper class ex-policeman" Orwell fought and was badly injured, Hemingway slept in silk sheets in an expensive Madrid hotel. It shows in the aforementioned film, For Whom the Bell Tolls, possibly the least political or accurate film ever made about the period, not to mention tedious.

Minarelli, 4/3/07

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A correction:

"Gene" the American who argues in the village debate scene against collectivizing the village, is NOT a POUM member. It becomes clear as the story unfolds that he is a Communist Party member, a hardline "party-liner" type, and that basically everything he says and does is under Party direction. The Party opposed the setting up of collectives because they thought it would weaken middle-class support for the anti-fascist cause(officially)and probably also opposed it becaused they disliked the decentralized and democratic nature these sorts of collectives would have had, as opposed to Soviet-style kolhozes with "five-year plans" and all that.

Also, the film strongly suggests that the Party didn't actually WANT Franco defeated, since this would deny them their chance to be the slayers of fascism on Soviet soil later. Does anyone know if this is actually accurate?

Ken Burch 12:18 am 5/30/2007

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I didn't get that from the movie and it's most certainly not accurate. The USSR didn't want to fight Nazi Germany alone which is why they were courting France and the other liberal-imperialist countries up to Munich. In 1939, they (arguably wisely) even chose to make a deal with the Nazis and to supply them with strategic materials instead of joining France and Great Britiain in the war... this was obviously a PR disaster and goes to show that looking good was not exactly the top priority for those threatened by German invasion. --AC, 6/2/07

"Other family members..."

I've just edited "Afterwards she and the other family members perform a raised fist salute, honoring his beliefs and suggesting that his family might also hold them" to read "Afterwards she performs a raised fist salute, honouring his beliefs". My rationale for this edit is that we don't know that the two men who join her in the clenched-fist salute are family members; I'd always assumed that they were old comrades. Secondly, we don't that members of her family did hold David's beliefs; again, I'd always assumed that she was inspired by her discovery, after his death, to adopt his beliefs. My assumptions are clearly WP:OR, but no less original research that the old text. I hope the new text is neutral and avoids original research.

Cheers, TFOWR^{This flag once was red} 18:01, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

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