In 1937, the African American poet Langston Hughes--not a Communist but at the time close to the Party in his views--wrote the poem "Letter from Spain" which took the form of a letter from an African American soldier serving with the Lincoln Battalion to a "Brother at home":
***
Letter from Spain
Addressed to Alabama
Lincoln Battalion,
International Brigades,
November Something, 1937.
Dear Brother at home:
We captured a wounded Moor today.
He was just as dark as me.
I said, Boy, what you been doin' here
Fightin' against the free?
He answered something in a language
I couldn't understand.
But somebody told me he was sayin'
They nabbed him in his land
And made him join the fascist army
And come across to Spain.
And he said he had a feelin'
He'd never get back home again.
He said he had a feelin'
This whole thing wasn't right.
He said he didn't know
The folks he had to fight.
And as he lay there dying
In a village we had taken,
I looked across to Africa
And seed foundations shakin'.
Cause if a free Spain wins this war,
The colonies, too, are free--
Then something wonderful'll happen
To them Moors as dark as me.
I said, I guess that's why old England
And I reckon Italy, too,
Is afraid to let a workers' Spain
Be too good to me and you--
Cause they got slaves in Africa--
And they don't want 'em to be free.
Listen, Moorish prisoner, hell!
Here, shake hands with me!
I knelt down there beside him,
And I took his hand--
But the wounded Moor was dyin'
And he didn't understand.
Salud,
Johnny
http://www.poetrynook.com/poem/letter-spain
***
Incidentally, many of the African American volunteers in the Lincoln Battalion were well-educated, and were not happy about Hughes having the volunteer in the poem using "Negro dialect." A biographer has characterized this and similar poems by Hughes around that time as "proletarian doggerel."
https://books.google.com/books?id=ozgiGh5QAVEC&pg=PA351 However, I would like to concentrate here on the question Hughes' poem raises: what *would* the colonial policy of a victorious Spanish Republic be? There are all sorts of reasons to doubt a Loyalist victory would mean freedom for the colonies:
(1) "This article discusses the evolution of the Second Republic's colonial policies in Spanish Morocco from April 1931 to July 1936. It traces these through the administrations of three high commissioners: Luciano Lopez Ferrer, Juan Moles Ormello, and Manuel Rico Avello. It argues that despite the frequency of administrative and personnel changes in the protectorate during this period, the Second Republic's colonial policies remained fairly consistent. These included a commitment to the colonial ethos, the installation of a civil in place of a military administration, the introduction of administrative efficiencies and cost-cutting measures, especially the reduction of military personnel and expenditures, the funding of concrete developmental programs and public works, and on going efforts to seal the protectorate off from the political and social issues that prevailed in the Peninsula."
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09518969808569737 (Unfortunately, I have not been able to read the full article.)
(2) The Popular Front in France certainly didn't set the colonies free.
(3) Does the fact that Communists might have more influence than they did in pre-1936 Spain or in the French Popular Front make a difference? Not if the French Communist Party's record on Algeria is any indication:
"On February 9, 1956, the Socialist -led government of Guy Mollet introduced a bill giving the government 'special powers' to act in Algeria. It asked for powers 'enabling it to take all exceptional measures in view of establishing order, protecting persons and property, and safeguarding the territory.' In order to do this, it allowed for the call-up of reservists, the suspending of the guarantee of civil liberties in Algeria, and divided Algeria into three zones, in the third of which , 'the forbidden zone,' populations were put in settlement camps and placed under Army control. The motion passed on March 12 by a vote of 455-76, with the French Communist Party voting for it. Jacques Duclos’ speech in defense of this vote was issued as a flyer."
https://www.marxists.org/history/algeria/1956/duclos.htm
(4) Even if Franco's Moorish soldiers are seen as coerced or misled, their role is still going to lead to bitter memories on the part of the victorious Republic.
(5) Incidentally, things don't look too much better when it comes to Equatorial Guinea:
"when Alfonso XIII went into exile in Italy and the first Spanish Republic was declared on April 14th, 1931, there was great hope amongst some of the native population that certain laws might be repealed or that a new body would be set up which would serve better the interests of the native population.
"However, the Republican government in Spain which quickly embarked on a policy of granting greater autonomy to constituent parts of the Republic such as Cataluña and the Basque provinces did not extend this campaign to Fernando Poo and Río Muni and during the lifetime of the Second Republic, colonial rule was actually strengthened and the territory "pacified" in the official parlance.
[20]
"From May, 1931 onwards, there was a growing Spanish interest in the economic potential of Equatorial Guinea and under the supervision of successive governor-generals, namely Sostoa, Lemua and Manzaneque, the colony was turned into a giant factory with the native population working between twelve to fourteen hours daily in the large cacao plantations or lumberyards. Innovative and progressive social and economic programmes which were the hallmark of the Second republic in Spain were never extended to Equatorial Guinea and the only change of note in the Second Republic's colonial policy was its opposition to the power and influence of conservative, right-wing factions in the colony in order to transfer power and influence to those who had supported the establishment of the Second Republic. As such, the arrival of the Republic diluted the importance of the role of Claretian missionaries who had offered one of the few possibilities of social advancement for the native population
[21] and by the time Alcalá Zamora's personal confidante, Sanchez Guerra was installed as Governor-General in 1935, the native population was in a worse position than ever with laws forcing them to purchase their food and other products from their plantation masters in what amounted to little more than legalized slavery. The heady days of the Popular Front government in Spain in the first half of 1936 had aroused great expectations amongst the native population and their leaders and there were rumours that a "model colony" might be established under French influence but such rumours never became a reality. Laws were put in force which prohibited the sale of alcoholic drinks to natives, their purchase of property and most importantly, the native population still lacked any legal status or rights as Spanish citizens upon the outbreak of hostilities in Spain in July, 1936 and the onset of the Spanish Civil War..."
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/g/gefame/...ntury-spanish-colonial?rgn=main;view=fulltext