The fight for the freedom of Loyalist Spain during the 1936-39 civil war pitted an International Brigade of 40,000 civilian soldiers from 51 nations against the well-equipped insurgents of Generalissimo Francisco Franco, leading fascist officers and troops from Spanish Morocco. Additional aid to Franco came via the Nazi Condor Legion of Junker bombers and Italian fighter planes from Mussolini, who wanted to try out his new weaponry in anticipation of the larger war to come.

Spurred by their government's failure to aid Spanish democracy, 3,200 American volunteers fought with distinction in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade within the international volunteer army. Lincoln veterans (over 1,000 were killed in Spain) returned home after the Loyalist defeat to encounter suspicion as "premature anti-fascists." Branded Communist sympathizers, blacklisted for years and unable to get work, many paid dearly for their good fight.

Narrated by Studs Terkel, The Good Fight explores a significant gap in our history through its use of archival footage, newsreels, still photographs, interviews with Lincoln veterans and other Depression-era artifacts. The eleven surviving veterans of the war who appear in this tough, ironical film share a common pride in their sacrifices of fifty years ago when the rise of world fascism crushed the spirit of democracy in a tragic rehearsal for World War II.