No, "No Pasarán" Is Not a Pro-Communist Blog and Never Was; On the Contrary, Its Mission Is to Denounce Anti-Americans of All Stripes

As the blogosphere rallies in support of ¡No Pasarán!'s restoration to the Internet, some commenters have misunderstood the very title of the blog, going as far as to wonder whether, based on its title (“They shall not pass” or "None shall pass", aligned with the Left during the Spanish Civil War), ¡No Pasarán! isn't a pro-communist blog or even a communist blog.

The short answer is No (or, in Spanish, "¡No!") — not at all. On the contrary: thumbing its nose at leftists — by appropriating their battle cry — the blog's raison d'être is to denounce anti-Americans of all stripes — domestic as well as foreign.

Certainly, if you are familiar with the blog's banner, you would agree that it is highly unlikely that a (pro-)communist would ridicule the famous photo of Che Guevara by having El Che (or, as we called the Dissident Frogman's doctored photo, Mi-Che) wear Mickey Mouse ears on the top of his noggin. 

In keeping with the cheeky and irreverent element, recall that "None shall pass" is also the motto of the black knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (although we hope to have been more successful than John Cleese).

The blog was born in 2004 — when a number of ex-pats living in France (mainly Paris), most of them on the right, one single left-leaning member, grew increasingly outraged over the amount of anti-Americanism in French media and French society rising in spite of (or because of) the horrendous attacks on 911; and continuing with the George W Bush decision to invade Iraq in order to remove Saddam Hussein. They adopted the slogan: This (i.e., this anti-Americanism, French or other) will not go unanswered. 

Having said that, here is some historical background: Although best remembered as the war cry of the Spanish republicans (sic — a misnomer if there ever was one; actually a mix of socialists and communists) against Franco’s army during the Civil War in the 1930s, the origin of “They shall not pass” or "None shall pass" actually has nothing to do with communism or any political leaning.

It was purely military, originating a generation earlier when the French poilus in World War I made a vow regarding the German invaders, notably at Verdun: “Ils ne passeront pas!”

And No Pasarán has never shied from telling the atrocious truth about leftists, in Spain, in France, in America, or anywhere else. (Indeed, that is (was?) the blog's raison d'être.) As Paul Johnson put it, 

Throughout the Spanish war, Stalinism was assisted not only by superb public relations but by naivety, gullibility and, it must also be said, the mendacity and corruption of Western intellectuals.

That was from a No Pasarán post on Victims of Communism (!) Day (May 1) in 2024, "In Spain in 1937 and 1938, many thousands of Leftists of all descriptions, were executed or tortured to death in Communist prisons (one who escaped was George Orwell)."