From “Class against Class” to the Hitler-Stalin Pact: Some Reflections on the Unwavering Line

1. 1939-41: It’s probably all right reallyAnd No Man’s Wit, Rose Macaulay’s 1940 novel set in the post-Civil War confusion of Franco’s Spain in late 1939, depicts a middle-class English family searching for a son who has disappeared after serving with the International Brigade. On a precisely dated 24 August 1939, the family and their Spanish host, a right-wing aristocrat who despises Franco as an upstart, hear the first incredible news of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. The family’s younger son, Hugh,...