THE SPANISH PEOPLE
words - Anon, music - Samuel Pokrass

The Spanish people defend their right
For freedom and progress and truth they fight,
Now shall we delay while our comrades die
To strengthen our peace and our liberty?

Against the Hitlers, the Mussolinis!
Against the fascist enemy!
For peace and progress, for truth and freedom,
For people's true democracy!

Against the Hitlers, the Mussolinis!
Against the fascist enemy!
For peace and progress, for truth and freedom,
For people's true democracy!



Thank you to Clare Roberts for sending this song to me.
In her email she wrote
This song was taught to us by our mother, Hilda Richardson, who was 16 when the Spanish Civil War started and who was active with her mother, Beatrice Davis, in collecting for the republican cause on the streets of London, throughout the war.

As we travelled to our camping holidays during childhood we would sing it, along with a list of other songs, and thus learnt it off by heart.

The Richardson clan sung it last in public at the unveiling of the mosaic in Portobello Road.

http://www.kcc.ac.uk/news/art-and-design/echoes-spanish-civil-war    
               

Clare and her sister Zoe can be seen singing the chorus of the song in a film on YouTube made by Marshall Mateer of the recent walk across the Pyrenees to commemorate the brigaders who climbed the Pyrenees to cross into Spain. ( 9.05 minutes into the film)
http://www.youtube.com/user/IBMTnews?feature=guide

The song uses the tune of a Russian song from the period of the Russian Civil War called White Army, Black Baron which can be heard in this YouTube video
Here v=jRfYh_0mEdM">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRfYh_0mEdM

There is a Wikipedia entry for the song here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Army,_Black_Baron


As Wikipedia says, the Russian song was adopted by the Chapaev Battalion of the XIII International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War and that version of the song appeared in the International Brigades Songbook, Canciones de las Brigadas Internacionales which you can see entitled Tschapajew - Sturmbatallion if you scroll up to page 34 from this link http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QONMZ1p4ZJYC&pg=PA135&dq=canciones+de+las+brigadas+internacionales+34&hl=en&sa=X&ei=kBD-T-TXF
Here the tune is called Roter Armeemarsch an alternative name for the tune of White Army, Black Baron and the new words in German were written by the German poet Walter Fuchs, who later died on the Teruel front.

The song was also sung in this translated form by the British Battalion of the 15th Brigade

Many long years into history have passed,
Since red revolt was victorious ,
Then Lenin called and to victory led on,
" Forward Chapaev, the path is set".

CHORUS
And*we will Franco, his ranks demolish,
The great Miaja leads us on,
And on our rifles depends our freedom,
No pasaran, No pasaran.

Hitler and Franco your future is black,
Workers' battalions are driving you back,
Sons of the masses forever we'll be ,
Forward red soldiers to victory.

* On page 63 of his 1981 biographical book No Other Way about his grandfather Jack Russia ( John Roberts), Richard Felsted quotes the first line of the chorus slightly differently,
'Now we will Franco's ranks demolish, '
My words are from a tape I heard of brigaders singing the song.

The American volunteers also used the song as a marching song and the chorus is quoted in Alvah Bessie's 1957 novel The Un-Americans in this passage on page 229:

He recalled the song they used to sing when they were marching:
"And we will Franco ... his ranks demolish . . . the great Miaja
leads us on ... and on our rtfles . . . depends our freedom ... no
pasaran, no pasaran!"

This tune was also used for a Soviet era song called "The Red Army Is The Strongest" which can be heard in a Youtube video HERE