Politics & Power Quote by Bill Alexander

Alexander is quietly rescuing the International Brigades from two rival myths: the romantic fantasy of pure, spontaneous heroism and the hostile caricature of foreign meddlers. By stressing that they were “numerically, only a small part,” he punctures the idea that outsiders drove the Spanish Republic’s war effort. The volunteers matter not because they were many, but because they embodied a particular political temperament the Republic badly needed: discipline.

The loaded phrase here is “accepted the need.” It implies an argument already fought and, in Alexander’s view, settled. This is less battlefield history than a commentary on the internal crisis of the Republican side, where ideological diversity often translated into chaos: militias suspicious of hierarchy, factions competing for control, revolutionary improvisation colliding with the demands of supply lines, command structures, and governance. “Organization and order in civilian life” is a pointed expansion. He isn’t only praising military coordination; he’s taking sides in a debate about what a left-wing project must look like if it wants to survive: not perpetual uprising, but administration.

As a politician, Alexander is also crafting a usable lesson for his own time. He frames the Brigades as proof that commitment to radical change doesn’t have to mean contempt for rules. In one sentence, international solidarity becomes an argument for institutions: the paradoxical claim that you can’t defend a republic on passion alone, and you can’t build one while treating order as betrayal.