Tolkien and the Spanish Civil War

I have always found it amusing that Tolkien has so many fans on the Left.  Tolkien’s politics, and I think he didn’t give a whole lot of time to that often dismal aspect of our lives, were idiosyncratic but clearly he had no love of the Left.  In reference to the Spanish Civil War, it was not so much that he had any great love of Franco, but that he detested the Left, and abhorred the effort of the Left internationally to enlist writers in support of the Republic.  Tolkien kept his opinions on the Spanish Civil War private, only revealing them to friends, as was his practice on any controversial issue, a practice that might be beneficial to many of us in an age when we are all expected to have an opinion on everything, and bellow it at the top of our lungs.