[[link removed]]

PORTSIDE CULTURE

BRAVERY ON THE FRONT LINES IN THE FACE OF FASCISM  
[[link removed]]


 

Paul Von Blum
October 15, 2025
The Progressive
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ A new comics collection from Raymond Tyler and Paul Buhle tells the
stories of unsung partisan heroes who fought fascism across Europe. We
have no alternative. Time is short. We should admire the heroes of
Partisans and proceed to blaze our own path _

A comic by Daniel Selig in ‘Partisans.’, Partisans: A Graphic
History of Anti-Fascist Resistance; Between The Lines

 

I am writing this review from the Czech Republic, where I am visiting
for the fall semester at Masaryk University. In the months before
leaving for my trip, I attended weekly protests in Los Angeles and
Culver City, California, against the encroach of fascism in the United
States, as led by President Donald Trump and abetted by his absurd and
obsequious cabinet and advisors, the United States Supreme Court,
billionaire industrialists and speculators, and right-wing media
figures. Now, I find myself in the proximity of a number of
fascist-minded dictators, including Viktor Orban in Hungary, Recep
Erdogan in Turkey, Ilham Aliyev in Azerbaijan, and above all, Vladimir
Putin in Russia. 

What guidance, if any, can the legacy of the many partisan military
groups who resisted occupation forces in their nations during World
War II offer us at this uncertain moment? History does not repeat
itself, as many scholars have noted, but disconcerting similarities
may sometimes emerge. Still, it is clear that past eras of partisan
warfare lack tactical application in the United States, where left
resistance cannot prevail militarily due to the right’s near-total
monopoly on weaponry.

Partisans: A Graphic History of Anti-Fascist Resistance
[[link removed]]
Edited by Raymond Tyler and Paul Buhle
Between The Lines; 148 pages
August, 2025
Paperback:   $34.95;  E-book:  $33.99
ISBN 9781771136525 and ISBN 9781771136983

 
Between The Lines
But as radical historian Paul Buhle and comics writer Raymond Tyler
demonstrate with their new comic art collection, _Partisans_: _A
Graphic History of Anti-Fascist Resistance_
[[link removed]], stories of partisan resistance
can offer inspiration for those opposing fascism even when their
military tactics are not directly replicable. Like their many
distinguished predecessors—including World War II-era comic artists
such as Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Davis, and Wally Wood, whose influence
the editors cite in the book’s afterword—_Partisans_’s
contributors craft striking visual art alongside their insightful
commentary about the bravery and courage of women and men who fought
and died fighting fascism throughout World War II. 

Buhle and Tyler have selected outstanding visual artists and
storytellers to chronicle the resisters who fought the Nazi invaders
in Europe. The artistic styles are diverse, but will prove engaging
for any reader who wants to learn more about the hidden histories of
anti-fascist struggle.

_Partisans _is uniquely valuable in part because this history has
been tragically overlooked. Many older progressives, for example, may
know a great deal about the brigades of heroic foreign citizens who
volunteered to fight against fascist takeover in Spain in the late
1930s—particularly the American battalions, known collectively as
the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. But as I can attest from my experience
teaching at the University of California Los Angeles for more than
forty years, younger generations are mostly unaware of that story.
Very few of my students have even heard of the Spanish Civil War, much
less the unsuccessful armed resistance to Francisco Franco’s fascist
rebellion against the Spanish Republic. Artist Sharon Rudahl brings
the anti-fascists’s story to life in _Partisans _with her
colorful, engaging two-page illustrations, depicting their grit and
determination as members of the International Brigade moved on from
their defeat in 1939 to fight the Nazis in France, Italy, Greece,
Yugoslavia, and elsewhere in Europe. 

Many of the collection’s other stories will be new to a wide variety
of readers—even longtime progressives who, like me, study and teach
about the history of resistance. Writer Sander Feinberg and artist
Summer McClinton, for example, have collaborated on a revealing
capsule history of those who resisted Nazi occupiers in Hungary. Their
efforts to protect Hungarian Jews from capture took many forms,
including forged
[[link removed]] documents and underground
hiding places to harbor people as they attempted to flee the country.
Despite their efforts, more than 400,000
[[link removed]] Hungarian
Jews were captured and deported to Auschwitz, where most were
murdered. Even so, a few brave resisters continued to forge documents
and bribe Nazi and Hungarian collaborationist officials to remove some
people from danger. 

Although the history of the French Resistance during World War II is
comparatively well known, Daniel Selig’s chapter, “Freedom or
Death,” highlights the underrecognized role of the French Communist
Party
[[link removed]] in
the years of struggle against Nazi domination. Many veterans of the
International Brigades in Spain helped form one of the nuclei of the
French armed resistance, a communist group called the Special
Organization (or “OS”) that later merged
[[link removed].] with
other partisans to form the Francs-tireurs et Partisans. Their
collective efforts to hinder
[[link removed]] the German
occupiers included audacious military actions such as blowing up
trains and bridges, sabotage operations, and intellectual work such as
underground newspapers and anti-fascist art, cinema, and music. The
expertise of the former Spanish Civil War fighters, many of them
communists, proved instrumental in these efforts.

But alongside their successes, Selig also depicts the divisions that
arose within the French Resistance. Despite their heroic and effective
efforts, many communist French Resistance members were shunned and
even persecuted after the war’s end, as they fought for postwar
reforms such as women’s suffrage, social security, and the
nationalization of key economic institutions. This chapter of history
is rarely taught in U.S. institutions. The clarity with which
Selig’s black-and-white art style conveys the narrative validates
Buhle and Tyler’s decision to include a diversity of visual styles
in the collection, including those with color panels, highly detailed
imagery, and greater focus on text than a traditional comic-strip
format.

Another chapter by veteran political artist Seth Tobocman combines
vibrant visual imagery with powerful historical text to tell the story
of Yugoslav Communist Party leader Josip Broz Tito, who organized the
most effective anti-Nazi resistance
[[link removed]] in
Europe. He depicts how Tito unified a region made up of vastly
different nationalities and cultures under one banner—a vision
of multiculturalism
[[link removed].] that
lasted through his long reign in Yugoslavia, which ended with his
death in 1980. This strikingly illustrated chapter also includes
scenes of the Nazis’s retaliation against partisan successes,
including graphic images of mass executions of innocent civilians,
which were common throughout Europe. Tobocman ends his chapter by
considering the aftermath of Tito’s death, during which Yugoslavia
split into seven separate nations
[[link removed]] through
a period of nationalistic violence
[[link removed]] and
ethnic cleansing. The partisans helped defeat the Nazis, Tobocman
grants—but was the multicultural tolerance Tito fostered in
Yugoslavia real, or a fleeting illusion?

Subsequent chapters provide readers and viewers a window into partisan
activities in Italy, Greece, Holland, and parts of Eastern Europe, as
well as in the Soviet Union. Across the occupied nations, partisan
resistance efforts included sabotage, strikes, and targeted
assassinations of Nazis and their collaborators. Alongside these
actions, the collection also depicts the many cruel atrocities
perpetrated by the Nazis against civilians. 

Across its vivid storytelling and illustrations, _Partisans _centers
the individual heroism of the everyday people, including many young
women and Jews, who engaged in anti-fascist resistance throughout
Europe—and who, in too many cases, died in their struggles for
liberation. _Partisans_ gives them each a human face, reminding us
that resistance against oppression requires both personal and communal
bravery and commitment—qualities that the majority of Europeans
failed to evince in the moment. Their stories offer both a lesson and
a warning for us in the present:  It highlights the need for
resistance against fascism in whatever ways our circumstances allow
us. In the United States, that means something very different from
wartime Spain, Italy, Hungary, Yugoslavia, France, and the other
occupied nations.

We have no alternative. And time is short. We should admire the heroes
of _Partisans _and proceed to blaze our own path to silence and then
defeat the march of fascism in the twenty-first century. How we do so
is our urgent challenge.

_[PAUL VON BLUM is senior lecturer in African American Studies and
Communication at UCLA. He is a longtime civil rights and political
activist and the author of many books and articles on political art,
expressive culture, education, and law.]_

* Fascism
[[link removed]]
* Anti-Fascism
[[link removed]]
* antifa
[[link removed]]
* World War II
[[link removed]]
* nazism
[[link removed]]
* Anti-Nazis
[[link removed]]
* resistance
[[link removed]]
* partisans
[[link removed]]
* Activism
[[link removed]]
* dissent
[[link removed]]
* History
[[link removed]]
* Europe
[[link removed]]
* comics
[[link removed]]
* World War II comics
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit portside.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 



########################################################################

[link removed]

To unsubscribe from the xxxxxx list, click the following link:
[link removed]