The 1930s global wars drew Blacks to fight both for and against fascism.

Evidence

Obviously, James was in conflict. But by early 1936, the situation had resolved itself for the moment: the occupation of Ethiopia was an accomplished fact, and the emperor was in exile in Britain. By the end of the year, however, the Spanish Civil War had begun. Now the entire international Left was at war. And Blacks from Africa, the Caribbean, and America joined the International Brigades to fight against the fascist forces of Spain, Germany, and Italy. (And some Blacks fought for fascism: the Moroccan soldiers, General Franco’s “storm-troopers”) But even before the International Brigades were withdrawn from Spain in 1938–39, the West Indies exploded into strikes and brutal repression. The world seemed enveloped in struggle and Blacks and the Black struggle were a part of that world. For many radicals, an unavoidable lesson of the era was the necessity for armed resistance to oppression and exploitation. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1271