Vol. XVII, No. 2 Fall 1995 58th Anniversary Dinner in NY — A call to fight the GOP’s ‘Contract’

radition, inseparable from the media star, who had politics of current history, insisted on being desig- Tmarked the VALB 58th a n n i- nated chairperson rather versary dinner held April 30 at the than a speechmaker, Sheraton-New York Hotel. Co-spon- began the post-meal pro- sored by the Abraham Lincoln gram with a crescendo of Brigade Archives, the event was an one-liners blistering the inspiring occasion for its six hun- Republican attack on the dred guests, among whom were 48 arts and civil liberties. Lincoln veterans. Cary Nelson, Jubilee Tony Randall, truly a multi- Professor of English at the University of Illinois and ALBA co-chair, then Tony Randall Rep. Jerrold Nadler described the 600-plus Roster of Lincoln Vets page collection of Lincoln Brigaders’ important years of service on the at the East Coast Dinner wartime letters from Spain that he VA L B st a f f . April 30, 1995 and Jeff Hendricks have edited for The inevitable effective fund publication early next year under appeal was made by Henry Foner, Ernest Amatniek, Al Amery, the title M a d r i d : 1 9 3 7 : L e t t e r s retired president of the Fur and Moe Bailin, Jack Bjoze, from the Abraham Lincoln brigade Leather Workers Union. (When tabu- Louis Bortz, Joe Brandt, Morris Brier, George Cullinen, in the Spanish Civil War. When he lated the next day, it totalled over Jacob Epstein, Ruth Epstein, read several letters by Lincolns who $9 , 0 0 0 . ) Ralph Fassinella, Harry Fisher, had died in Spain, a reverent As the final speaker, Tony Moe Fishman, Saul Friedberg, silence settled over the audience. Randall welcomed Jerrold L. (Jerry) Ben Goldring, Sam Gonshak, Appropriately, Professor Nelson Lou Gordon, Ken Graeber, was followed by a roll call of the Continued on page 20 Clarence Kailin, Al Koslow, Lincoln veterans in Manny Lanser, Len Levenson, attendance (one-fourth of Joe Luftig, Matti Mattson, the VALB survivors’ ros- Arthur Munday, Blas Padrino, John Perrone, Bob Reed, ter). They stood to a trib- Herman Rosenstein, Sam Schiff, ute from the guests. Jack Shafron, Jack Shulman, Mimi Turque, a prin- John Simon, Dave Smith, cipal actor in the current Abe Smorodin, Leo Solodkin, Broadway production of George Sossenko, Sam Spiller, Kiss of the Spider John Stockwell, Bill Susman, W o m a n, movingly read Hy Tabb, Anthony Toney, poems by Edwin Rolfe Bill Van Felix, Harry Wallach, and Genevieve Taggard. Jesse Wallach, Sam Walters, Al Warren, Bill Wheeler She was followed by the presentation of a plaque Abe Smorodin with his award for years of service on the to Abe Smorodin for his VALB staff. Photos by Eric Levenson 2 THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995 Spain in the summer of ’95 by Gabriel Jackson eral very able ministers who could serve as Prime Minister, and it would be good for the health of Spanish pain, on May 28, 1995, held elections for its seven- democracy for the present Prime Minister to take politi- teen autonomous governments. There are three cal responsibility for the economic and police scandals Sseparate tiers of elections under the constitution: that directly involve persons whom he named to office. general elections for the national parliament, the As for the second reason, there are undoubtedly Cortes; autonomous elections for the regional govern- many nostalgic Franquistas in the PP, but there is a ments; and municipal elections.} The elections indicated majority, especially younger professional and business a continuing strong trend towards the replacement of people, and university students, who intend to prove the socialists by the Popular Party of Manuel Aznar as that the new democratic Spain has a conservative party the majority party. PP governs either alone or in coali- comparable to the conservative and Christian tion in all the autonomies except Andalusia and the Democratic parties of Europe since 1945. Basque provinces. The Andalusian victory illustrated the interesting en Loach’s movie, Land and Liberty, has been a fact that the PSOE has become the party of the rural box office hit in Spain, and with mild reserva- working class: in part because the technical moderniza- K tions I recommend it to all vets who are not still tion of agriculture in the south has really benefitted fighting the Stalinist/Trotskyite battles of the thirties. what used to be the poorest provinces of Spain, and in There are two particularly fine sequences, I think: the part because the illegal but widely tolerated collection of opening scenes, where the English volunteer, not yet unemployment benefits by people who are partly knowing a word of Spanish or Catalan, becomes a com- employed in the subterranean economy makes it decid- rade through gestures, embraces, exchanges of ciga- edly worthwhile for those citizens to continue voting rettes and sandwich goodies in the train from Port Bou socialist. The Basque victory indicates that the Basque to Barcelona; and the debate among the villagers, after nationalists prefer to cooperate with the socialists, and they have seized the town government, as to whether judge Aznar to be either too centralist, or simply not they should distribute the land to individual peasants, competent to be Prime Minister. or collectivize it. I’ve read dozens of essays about the Politically and psychologically the most dramatic land reform question, but never have seen such accurate aspect of all the post-electoral situation is the determi- dramatization of what it meant to Spanish villagers. My nation of Felipe Gonzalez to remain in office. The finan- main reservation is that the movie exploits the current cial scandals, the revelations of corruption by the former fad for blaming all sins on the Communists. You would Civil Guard chief, the revelations about state terrorism think it was Stalin, and not the appeasing democracies, in the fight against the ETA (the Basque separatist who killed the Spanish Republic. movement), and most recently the revelation that the information services of the Department of Defense (CESID) had been wiretapping numerous prominent personalities, including the King, have steadily reduced The Volunteer the credibility and the moral standing of the govern- Journal of the ment and the governing party. Veterans of the I think Gonzalez holds on for the following reasons: Abraham Lincoln Brigade • Like many political leaders he tends to consider him- self indispensable (le parti, le gouvernment, c’est moi). 799 Broadway, Rm 227 • The older generation, people fifty and over, contin- New York, NY 10003 ue to fear that the PP really represents a Franco type (212) 674-5552 restoration in democratic disguise, and the PSOE lead- ership certainly plays to this fear. Editor • Spain will hold the rotating presidency of the Leonard Levenson European Committee for the second half of 1995 and Editorial Board Felipe is determined not to leave office without serving Abe Smorodin • Bill Susman • Irving Weissman in that capacity. Of these reasons, the third is the best. Gonzalez real- Contributing Editor ly is the man who brought Spain into Europe after three Seymour Joseph centuries of isolation, and he is the first Spanish politi- Submission of Manuscripts cian since Juan Negrin to speak with authority, as an Please send manuscripts typewritten and double-spaced, if possible. equal, in European councils. On this point his personal If you wish your manuscripts returned, enclose a self-a d d r e s s e d , wishes coincide with the interests of Spain and Europe. stamped envelope. But the first two reasons are unfortunate. There are sev- THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995 3 Toronto honors the Mac-Paps by Irma Penn of friends and veterans of the nition is long overdue and I will n Toronto’s Queen’s Park, nes- Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion as never forget. From the bottom of my tled in a grove of trees, a boulder well as a substantial news-media heart, I thank you.” Ibrought from Gandesa was corps. Señor Jose Zorlia, Consul for unveiled on June 4. It bears a com- The ceremony, favored by the Spain in Toronto, praised and memorative plaque inscribed: weather of a beautiful Sunday thanked the veterans for their morning, began with the singing of efforts, saying, “You spoke the lan- The “Mac-Paps” were a unit “O, Canada” by the Shevchenko guage of love.” of the International Brigades, a Choir who then presented a stirring Albina Guarnieri, Parlia- volunteer force recruited world - rendition of the International mentary Secretary to the Ministry wide to oppose the fascist forces Brigade ballad, Viva La Quince of Canadian Heritage, who unveiled bent on overthrowing the govern - Brigada. the plaque, stressed its significance ment of Spain. Formed in 1937, In the speeches that followed, as a recognition by the Ontario the battalion was named for the members of the canadian provincial provincial government of the Mac- leaders of the 1837 rebellions in and federal governments all Paps’ historic role. Upper and Lower Canada. stressed the historic significance of Despite their government’s oppo - the Mac-Paps. ill Kardash, a disabled Mac-Pap sition, more than 1,500 Can- The Honorable David Warner, B veteran, who had served in the adians volunteered to fight with Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Manitoba Legislative Assembly for the Republican forces in the of Toronto, emphasized that the 15 years, recalled, “We were the Spanish Civil War. They fought Mac-Paps’ “valiant efforts in rising first to take up arms against fas- courageously for their ideals, suf - up against fascism goes to the heart cism. Half of us came back. We were fering heavy losses in major bat - and core of what our country is not conscripts. We went voluntarily. tles. About half survived to return about … to defend what is right.” We are proud that La Pasionaria home in 1939. He declared, “It was sad that called and the people responded.” the government of the day and suc- Kardash stressed that it took Invited by the Minister of cessive governments did not recog- fifty years to achieve the Toronto Canadian Heritage, Michael Dupuy, nize the courage to stand against the event was attended by hundreds fascism.” He concluded: “The recog- Continued on page 20

At the Mac-Pap dedication ceremony: (L-R) Jack Bjoze, VALB; Paul Skup, Mac-Pap; Mario Morales, Cuba; Bill Kardash, Mac-Pap; Morris Brier, VALB. 4 THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995

Culling the mail sack

A Renaissance woman Bob’s words whose vision was distorted and in what the distortion consisted. Michele D. Gibbs, daughter of veteran Ted Gibbs, For me, the distorted vision lay in the failure by whose panegyric poem to her late parents appears in the many to see that pact for what it was: the only possible centerfold, is an artist as well Soviet response to the refusal of the capitalist world to as poet. Born in Chicago in give up the strategy of using Hitler to carry out the capi- 1946, she was educated in his- talist world’s imperative of destroying Soviet commu- tory, literature and politics at nism. To me it is clear that if the Soviet Union had not the University of Southern obtained the two-year respite the pact gave it, Hitler’s California; Cambridge Univer- troops might have captured Moscow, not Soviet troops sity; Brown University Grad- Berlin, and with the entire continent of Europe under uate School; and the Institute the undisputed rule of his armies, Britain a defeated for Policy Studies, Washington, and impotent shell, and a substantial, if not the major D.C. parts of the capitalist ruling classes of britain and the Her early career was as United States being pro-Nazi, Hitler and his Japanese writer, teacher and curriculum partners might have ruled the world under the hegemo- innovator during which her ny of the thousand-year Reich. contributions to African Amer- Ted Gibbs in Madrid, In any event, my thanks to Bob Colodny. ican, Women’s and Workers’ 1937 Saul Friedberg Studies helped to lay the foun- dation for continuing efforts at creative diversification. Robert Colodny’s comments on “The Brownie Her work as a visual artist developed with no formal Pointer” in the last V o l u n t e e r , were, as usual for him, training but much practical experience acquired as a excellent, but a few additions are in order. graphic artist and muralist in Grenada, Jamaica and He refers to Poland as “a semi-fascist state that had the U.S.; and as a painter and sculptor in Mexico, her participated with the Nazis in the dismemberment of current home. Czechoslovakia.” As I have pointed out often, fascism is Tapping Roots/Telling Truths will be in a forthcom- an attempt in a country which has made some progress ing book: Riffin’ to a Maroon Tune; Broadside Press, toward democracy and industrialization, to re-establish Detroit, 1996. feudal (i.e. patron-client) social relations. Since Poland had made little progress in industrial- A review reviewed ization and none toward democratization it was not semi-fascist, but still semi-feudal. The eastern half or Copies of Robert Colodny’s review of Romerstein’s more of Poland had been taken from the Ukraine, Heroic Victims that appeared in the Spring issue of Th e Byelorussia and Lithuania by a French-led, French-sup- Vo l u n t e e r were mailed to some 200 academic historians plied Polish Army and was in a semi-feudal condition. by the VALB staff. None have yet commented adversely. And we may note that the present reactionary Pope The two responses below are from VALB members. was from the liberal wing of the Polish Church. Clifton Amsbury I can’t remember any article more outstanding than Bob Colodny’s review of Heroic Victims, filled as it is In honor of Jimmy Yates with vital information and passion, the passion being The Franklin, Maine, Molasses Pond Writers perhaps more important. Reading Bob’s account of the Retreat/Workshop has announced an annual award in villainy of the capitalist world in connection with the honor of the late Lincoln Brigade veteran, James Yates. Spanish War and World War II, and of the heroism of The $250 prize will be given each May to a writer who the fighters for what then appeared to be and what we has attended the Retreat and whose work has demon- can still hope will be humanity’s Communist future, strated unusual excellence and perseverance. especially the account in his last few paragraphs of “our Jimmy had attended the Retreat as a writer-in-resi- foreign brothers,” we must be stirred anew by the mem- dence at various times in the years 1987 to 1992. His ory of our youthful pride in our devotion to communism. published autobiography, From Mississippi to Madrid, I have a comment concerning Bob’s words: “There is told of his life as a sharecroppers’ son and his service in no question but that there was a certain degree of his- Spain. torical blindness that distorted the vision, not only of the Spanish Civil War veterans, but of large parts of the Further information may be obtained by writing: population of the western world” concerning the M o l a s s e s Pond Writers Retreat, RFD, Box 549, German-Soviet Pact of August 1939. It is not clear from Franklin, Maine 04634; phone: (207) 565-3652. THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995 5 ALBA has panel at the Socialist Scholars Conference by Sam Sills ordered by the Communist Party. to apologize for in their service to “The monolith was not operating at the Spanish Republic. They went to he enduring passions of the all times in Spain, either in the Spain as volunteers when there had Spanish Civil War surfaced worst cases or the least.” not been mass resistance elsewhere anew in the ALBA panel, Carroll conceded validity to to fascism. Inspired by the brave T some of the criticism. In Moscow he “New Books and Old Attacks,” at effort of the Spanish people, the the annual Socialist Scholars had met with Morris Cohen, a U.S. Lincolns rushed to their aid. Conference held in New York City’s veteran of the Lincoln Brigade who Borough of Manhattan Community had spied for the Soviet Union in eferring to his recently pub- College, April 9, 1995. the postwar period. While the Rlished novel, Another Hill, Wolff The panelists, authors all, were archives disclosed no evidence of quipped, “My book hasn’t received P e t e r Carroll, co-chair of ALBA; espionage by other Lincoln veter- any adverse reviews. In fact it Professor Robin D.G.Kelley, Pro- ans, several told him that they had hasn’t received many reviews.” He fessor William Watson, and Milton probably aided the Soviets in ways attributed the harsh treatment Wolff. that were illegal. some reviewers accorded Peter Peter Carroll, the first speaker, Citing an O d y s s e y review by Carroll and others as an effort to pointed out that the acclaim for his historian Richard Gid Powers in mitigate their personal guilt at not recent book The Odyssey of the The New York Times, Carroll said having been on the front lines. “All Abraham Lincoln Brigade, had that, while there is no excusing the this nitpicking about what hap- drawn several irrational attacks. McCarthyite persecution of the pened to Nin [the Anarchist leader, Lincoln veterans, the case of Morris Referring to a review by Ronald reputed assassinated].They were as Cohen suggests, perhaps, that FBI Radosh in the New Republic, Carroll aware as we were about the fascists surveillance was not entirely with- admitted that he was unprepared but they didn’t act.” out justification. for the critic’s “willingness to lie, Wolff recalled that after his cas- deceive and distort under the guise Historian Robin Kelley, author tigation of Hemingway, the writer of serious intellectual activity.” of Hammer and Hoe and of the responded, “I was a better Marxist introduction to African Americans than Freddie Keller [workingclass in the Spanish Civil War he rage of Radosh and several , following commissar of the Lincoln Battalion – Tothers, he argued, may have Carroll, made the point that much ed.]. I was a better Marxist than Milt arisen from their fruitless search of can be understood about anti-left Wolff!” Wolff said, “And I believe it. the Soviet IB archives without find- critics when one notes that they We weren’t Marxists at all, we were ing evidence that Stalin had consistently exclude the fundamen- YCLers. We only had to sign a book ordered any executions in tal aspects of history — race and and case out the women.” Republican Spain. While such docu- class. [The full text of Professor Wolff referred Watson to a let- ments were absent from the Soviet Kelley’s remarks is on page 10.] ter to the critic Bernard Berenson records, nowhere else was there val- MIT historian William B. in which Hemingway admitted that idation of a “reign of terror” or Watson followed, serving up new the description of Communist mas- Communist conspiracy within the factual morsels about Ernest sacres in a peasant village in his International Brigades or the Hemingway’s persistent wartime For Whom the Bell Tolls was purely Republican Army. support of the Republican side of a creation of his imagination. Carroll queried, “If in the end the SCW. [His paper appears in full The question-and-answer ses- we have discovered that there were starting on page 8.] sion after the panelists’ presenta- a lot of things wrong with the Soviet Milt Wolff concluded the speak- tions brought a lively interplay Union, and that the Soviet ers’ presentations. He praised Hem- between them and many in the Communist Party did have a role in ingway for shaping a perspective on audience, which numbered over Spain, perhaps that role was not as the war that other journalists eighty. Len Levenson moderated excessive and extreme as people adopted — one that forged a Gallup the event. originally thought.” poll consensus of 75 percent of Executions, Carroll learned Americans favoring the cause of the Sam Sills was a co-director of the from interviews, did occur. He Spanish Republic. acclaimed documentary film, The Good offered as an example one he Wolff’s main thrust was that F i g h t , about the veterans of the believes was “spontaneous” — not the Lincoln veterans have nothing Abraham Lincoln Brigade. 6 THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995

Added to Memory’s Roster

World War II. Stationed in Morris Cohen England, he serviced the heavy orris Cohen, a veteran of the bombers that did so much damage MAbraham Lincoln Brigade to Hitler’s ambitions. and of the U.S. Army in World “He was a kind, shrewd and War II, died in Moscow on June gentle man, scholar of history and 23. Born in New York City to a an astute student of baseball, and Bronx immigrant fruit-peddler he was so low key,” John Shy, a family, he went to local schools professor of history at the and attended Mississippi State University of Michigan, who College on an athletic scholarship, chaired Cummins’ doctoral disser- graduating in 1934. tation committee, said Bob had While working as a reporter gone to the U of M in quest of a for a Memphis paper, Morris vol- doctorate after retiring from the unteered for Spain in the Spring Ann Arbor News in 1976. of 1938. He suffered wounds to After Cummins’ WW II tour of both legs in his first action at duty, he took up a career in jour- Fuentes on October 13. He also nalism, working for a chain of served in the U.S. Army during suburban newspapers in Chicago, World War II. returning to the Ann Arbor News In 1961, Morris and his wife where, at his retirement in 1976, emigrated to London and were he was a copy editor. operating an antiquarian book- Toby Jensky (left) with Sara Goldblatt at The above story is based on a col - store when they were arrested Valencia on their way to the Teruel umn by Steven Cain that appeared in front, December 15, 1937. and convicted for conspiring to the Ann Arbor News on August 13. steal British submarine warfare Toby epitomized the profes- secrets for the Soviet Union. After sional excellence and anti-fascist serving nine years of a lengthy jail Toby Jensky commitment that the American sentence, in 1970 they were Medical Bureau demanded of its exchanged for a British subject [Teruel, January 8, 1938 — volunteers. Her letters reveal how doing a a 20-year hitch for dis- We nurses grab a few hours she organized solutions to prob- tributing illegal literature. sleep when we can, take these lems, how she adapted to danger shacks (with no water or toilets) and discomfort with common and turn them into hospitals sense and self-deprecatory humor Robert with operating rooms. We heat — but was generous in praising the place with kerosene stoves, others: carry water from the center of Cummins town, and empty the bed pans [September 1937 — I’ve been obert Cummins, a former in a ditch. We manage to get the put in charge of the convalescent R newspaperman, scholar and guys comfortable with plenty of hospital. All I have to do is see two-time warrior against fascism, blankets, hot water bags and that everyone is well-fed, clothed died at home in Ann Arbor, hot drinks.] — and happy — and do their Michigan, on August 8. A memori- work. In my spare time I help al service, led by his niece, the hus, Toby Jenski wrote of her arrange picnics for the 500 chil - Rev. Mary Higgins included a Texperiences nursing in Spain dren of the nearby village. … during the Civil War’s worst bat- remembrance from Leslie Kish There is a nice, comradely tles. Toby died at her Sandisfield, who served with him in the atmosphere. The patients and Massachusetts, home on April 25. Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the personnel work well together. She sailed for Spain on April lost struggle against Spain’s [Patients} volunteer and are 14, 1937, with Dr. Edward Francisco Franco and his Nazi given jobs they are fitted for …] backers. Barsky’s Fourth Medical Unit. Bob got a measure of revenge They had been colleagues at Beth Everything was shared, as following America’s entry into Israel Hospital in New York City. Toby writes, “I contributed half THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995 7

Added to Memory’s Roster the strudel to Salaria’s wedding in the base at Tara-zona, he listed sailed as deck officers all during last night. We had a good supper. his vocation as a “cultivator.” World War II. … But what the hell, it isn’t every Assigned to the machinegun com- We got a chance to swap sto- day we have a wedding.” pany of the Lincoln Battalion, he ries. We recalled the names of so She volunteered for the bitter received a severe arm wound at many friends and shipmates who Teruel front: Belchite but returned to action at were killed in the war. I learned Celadas, fighting through the from Bill Bailey, in whose [January 1938 — In this Teruel campaign and the Ebro machinegun company he had place it’s kind of hard. … We retreat. served, that he had gone to Spain were all frozen and hungry. It In World War II he served in and fought in the Abraham was setting up one hospital the U.S. Army. A political activist Lincoln Brigade with bravery and after another, working for a few throughout his life, in 1951 Pete distinction. days, and then evacuating resettled in Askov where he them, and on to the next. The During the McCarthy period, resided until his death. bombing and strafing was pret - Tommy Keenan was denied the ty heavy. My diet was mostly right to go to sea. He went to work bread and onions, but I seem to in the steel industry. When the thrive on it. I like that sort of Stanley Junas U.S. government finally lifted the work and life much better than blacklist, he returned to sea and in the base hospital.] Lincoln veteran Stanley Junas sailed until his health forced him died in Oakland, California, on to quit. He and his wife Rose Toby returned from Spain and June 9. In World War II he retired to their home in West nursed at Beth Israel in New York served in the U.S. Navy. Stanley, Palm Beach, Florida. He died sud- City until her retirement. For a longtime resident of Grand denly on March 17 of this year. years she helped Frederica Martin Rapids, Michigan, received the Tommy Keenan, like so many gather the primary sources docu- Michigan State ACLU award as others who participated in the menting the history of the Civil Libertarian of the Year in early struggles in the maritime American Medical Bureau. That 1974. industry, will be remembered as a collection (now at ALBA) memori- person who gave his all. He left alizes the contributions of Toby indelible footprints in the sands of and her comrades. Her 1937 Thomas time. words from Spain remain inspira- — Paul J. Jarvis tional: “Here’s hoping we beat hell Keenan out of the fascists soon.” — Frances Patai ommy was a quiet man who Victor Strukl Tkept to himself. I met him after the Rank and File Seaman’s t is with great sadness that I Hans strike of 1936-37 when I was an Iwrite this letter. My grandfa- under-paid (mostly un-paid) orga- ther Victor Strukl, who died on Jorgensen nizer of the seamen in the Port of July 14, 1994, was my inspiration Houston, Texas. and my hero. When things were he Veterans of the Abraham I remember the first time I tough in my life and I needed TLincoln Brigade lost their old- heard Tommy speak. It was not a inspiration, I spoke to my grand- est member, Hans Peder (Pete) long speech but every word he father or thought of the trying life Jorgensen, 94, who died at a nurs- uttered was to the point. I learned he lived. ing home in Minneapolis, then that Tom Keenan was a pro- Victor Strukl was born in Minnesota, on May 12. Pete was found thinker. Trieste, Austria-Hungary, in born in Denmark in 1901. At the I did not see Tommy again for 1903. His father died before his age of of 18, he emigrated with his ten years. This time we met in birth, and he was the only child parents to the United States. Baltimore just before the 1946 out of four children to survive Pete’s family settled in Askov, strike of the Masters, Mates and childhood. As a boy he fought with Minnestota, where he left for Pilots union. Both he and I had the Austrian Army, helping Spain in February 1937. Enrolling become ship captains. We had Continued on page 21 8 THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995

Hemingway in the He said that a writer’s job is to tell the truth, Spanish Civil War – only in war sometimes you have to take risks to New facts and facets get the truth. But the job is the same. by William B. Watson courage to get the truth, to get the facts for himself, to see with his own eyes and to hear with his own ow many of you have heard ears what was happening. That of the Emergency Ambu- rable than any piece of straight took guts, and he did not have to do lance Committee? H o w reporting could ever achieve. H it that way. Every side in this war many know that Hemingway wrote Arnold Gingrich, the editor to had press offices and press hand- an article for the Soviet newspaper whom Hemingway sent the story, outs. You could even stay in the Pravda in the summer of 1938? How said that he thought “these short French town of Hendaye just over many know that Hemingway made punches” as he called the story, “do the Spanish border, if you wanted to a secret trip behind fascist lines more good for the Loyalist cause and, as William Carney of The New with a guerrilla outfit to blow up an than thousands of words of straight York Times sometimes did, report enemy train? reporting.” I think he was right, the war in Spain from that pleasant Very few people do. and, more importantly, Hemingway haven while pretending that you I am going to tell you some thought so too. It was the last story were actually there. Hemingway did things about Ernest Hemingway’s Hemingway ever included in his col- not do it that way. involvement in the Spanish Civil lected short stories. No, Hemingway was a writer War that were certainly not widely who knew that a writer does not get known during the war and have o when I say that Hemingway anywhere without true facts back- only recently been discovered went to Spain as a writer, I ing him. Of course, Hemingway’s S through historical research. mean to say that he went as a reports from the Loyalist side Before that, let me emphasize writer of fiction. For a while he remained optimistic and hopeful something about Hemingway that wrote news dispatches, but his true that the Republic could somehow you do know. Ernest Hemingway craft, his real being, his soul lay in triumph, but they were never mis- was a writer. No matter what else the realm of his imagination, and leading, never mendacious, never Hemingway did in Spain and else- that is a truth he could not reveal in propagandistic, and certainly never where during the Spanish Civil his Carnegie Hall speech. The somebody else’s handouts. War, he was a writer, and a writer’s writer Ernest Hemingway was in If Hemingway, in 1937, had job in war, he told a jam-packed Spain not just because he loved been just a newspaper correspon- audience in Carnegie Hall in 1937, Spain as he loved no other country, dent, his Carnegie Hall maxim does not change. A writer’s job is to and because he supported the about a writer’s job not changing in tell the truth, only in war some- Republican government against the wartime would have fit him to a T. times you have to take risks to get fascist and military rebels, but also But I said Hemingway was a writer, the truth. But the job is the same. because he was in search of materi- not a newspaper writer. Yes, in That was a typical hemingway al for his next novel. Spain, over the course of a year, maxim — short and to the point. It As a writer, Hemingway was in from the Spring of 1937 through the concealed, however, as much about trouble in 1936 when the Spanish Spring of 1938, he wrote news dis- the man as it revealed, and it over Civil War broke out. He had not patches on the war. But, in his simplified what was often a very written a novel in seven years, and view, that was not writing. complex situation. Nonetheless, his the one he was working on — it main point is still valid: writers, good riting, for Hemingway, was eventually became To Have and writers, that is, don’t mess with the Wthe little piece he did about Have Not — was going badly. truth. Their job is to tell the truth, no the old man at the Amposta bridge He very much needed to write a matter what it takes to get it and no during the retreats in the spring of successful novel, for not only had he matter what it costs to tell it. 1938. That piece, scarcely 850 not written a novel in seven years, I think it fair to say that as a words long, was writing because it but the two books he had published writer — as a newspaper correspon- created a drama, a character, and a in the thirties — Death in the dent, that is — Hemingway on powerful moral dilemma for the Afternoon and Green Hills of Africa numerous occasions took consider- narrator at its end that made it – were critical and commercial dis- able risks and displayed exemplary much more powerful and memo- appointments. I have no doubt, THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995 9 therefore, that once it became I began with a few pieces of tan- • As for Hemingway’s trip apparent, in November 1936, that talizing information about his behind enemy lines, the fact that it the war in Spain was going to last involvement in the war that you was a secret trip and that for some time because the Franco may not have known before, so I’d Hemingway never wanted anybody forces could not take Madrid, better deliver on my promises. to know about it has made the trail Hemingway recognized this war • The Emergency Ambulance harder to follow. He kept it a secret would provide him with material Committee was set up by Hem- all his life because he liked every- that might just save his failing ingway, Martha Gelhorn and body to think that in writing his career. Tommy Shevlin in order to collect novels he invented everything out of This may seem opportunistic to money, mostly in Hollywood and the his own imagination. The truth those of you who went to Spain for West Coast, for the purchase of was, however, that he prepared idealistic reasons, but I want to ambulances for the Spanish himself to write his novels with a point out that there is one impor- Loyalists. About $24,000 was raised lot of careful research so that their tant difference between a combat in some six or seven weeks, primari- realism would be as accurate and soldier and a writer. A soldier can ly on the strength of Hemingway’s believable as possible. display great courage and initiative Since Hemingway knew that he in battle and win a medal or some would have to write his Spanish other commendation. That soldier Civil War novel right after the war, never has to prove his or her Every writer knows that and not years later as he had done courage again. It has been estab- once you are at the top, with A Farewell to Arms, his novel lished; it can’t be taken away. about the First World War, he had Reputation for a writer is a differ- it is damn hard to stay to do the research while the war in ent matter altogether. Writers who there. Unlike courage in Spain was still going on. So when win the praise of the public and of he and Martha Gelhorn and the critics the first time out, or any battle, nothing for writers Herbert Matthews of The New York time out for that matter, have to do is proven once; their rep- Times came upon this guerrilla out- it again the next time or else they fit just north of Teruel in late are not considered successes. Every utations must be September 1937 — they were on an writer knows that once you are at reestablished every time. official inspection tour of the Teruel the top, it is damn hard to stay front — he knew this was the oppor- there. Unlike courage in battle, tunity he had been waiting for. nothing for writers is proven once; their reputations must be reestab- fame and eloquence and/or Joris ive weeks later he returned to lished every time. Ivens‘ fine documentary film, T h e Fthe guerrillas with permission Spanish Earth. to take part in one of their opera- n the end, looking back over the • The Pravda article. I wish I tions. On the last night of October, I more than fifty years since F o r could tell the story about Charlie they walked over a mountain pass Whom the Bell Tolls was published, Scribner, Jr.’s, reaction to my dis- down into the next valley and blew I think we can now say that this covery of this unknown piece of up a rebel train heading for the city novel did save Hemingway’s reputa- Hemingway writing. Suffice it to of Teruel. They made it back to tion as a major American writer, say that Scribner was not too eager their base that night, had a big and it was the war, of course, that to have Hemingway’s name associ- meal of roast lamb and wine, and a provided him with material that ated with the Communists. “Publish few hours later Hemingway was off made it possible for him to write a it where it won’t be read by too to Valencia for a good night’s sleep successful novel. As he said at one many people,” he said, “like T h e before returning to Madrid. point as he was about to go to the Hemingway Review.” I, on the other I found all of this out through a war in Spain, there are only two hand, wanted to publicize it because story that the Polish leader of the great subjects for a writer: war and I thought it demonstrated, as well guerrilla outfit told to a fellow Pole love. Just to be safe, For Whom the as anything could, the broad reach in the late 1980s, a story that final- Bell Tolls had both. of the Popular Front that was mobi- ly got into print in the late 1930s What I have just said about lized for the defense of the Spanish thanks to the efforts of Belgium IB Hemingway the writer and his rela- Republic. I won that one. It was vet Jacques Grunblatt and his wife tionship to the Spanish Civil War as published in the Toronto Star a n d Hilda. At first I did not believe the a writer may or may not be news to then syndicated throughout North tale, but gradually I realized, thanks you, but they were certainly news to America. It is a fine piece of to some documents that were once me last year when I realized just Hemingway outrage against the in Hemingway’s possession (and how much his final reputation as a bombing and shelling of civilians in were then in the hands of a collec- writer was owed to that novel and Madrid — fascist barbarism was its to the war that made it possible. theme. Continued on page 20 10 THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995

rank-and-file troops) over internal The critics’ dilemma democracy in the midst of war. We must not lose sight of the incongru- ous nature of the aims of war and by Robin D. G. Kelley erner who discovered the Left in the war in-and-of-itself. There has New York and wound up in Spain. never been a war without authori- n the light of publication of (To add insult to injury, keep in tarianism, terror, deep psychologi- Peter Carroll’s remarkable book, mind that we are living in an age cal wounds – and Stalinism, as it IThe Odyssey of the Abraham when Black academics and ex-crim- were, simply acted as a catalyst to Lincoln Brigade, and the flurry of inals-turned-journalists can inevitable war-time tensions. What book reviews that followed, I want demand upwards of $25,000 for happened behind the lines was to say something about the current their life stories!). A f r i c a n undoubtedly painful precisely public discussion — and the public Americans in the Spanish Civil War because the volunteers came there silences — surrounding the history by Danny Duncan Collum and hoping to defend and ultimately of the International Brigades. As Victor Berch was only reviewed in a help build a different kind of soci- the critical responses to recent handful of obscure places. And in ety. This is why they fought tena- works on the Spanish Civil War reviews of my most recent book, ciously over the issue of governance reveal (Carroll’s work included), lib- Race Rebels: Culture Politics, and within the ranks, and why punish- eral and conservative reviewers still the Black Working Class, the essay ments, disciplinary actions, and suffer from incredible “tunnel on Spain is never mentioned. executions loom so much larger in vision” when it comes to the Lincoln the collective memory of those Battalion. Most reviewers zero-in on hy the silences? Because crit- involved. the damage caused by “Communist Wics persist in returning to the There is much more we need to domination,” the number of execu- same old debates about Stalinism understand about the war and the tions behind Republican lines, or and invariably treat people of color Lincolns’ role in it. Despite powerful other aspects of the story that con- and workers more generally as mar- films like The Good Fight and Peter tain an element of sensationalism. ginal to the real story. Furthermore, Carroll’s richly detailed survey, not Therefore, reviewers often miss despite the fact that at least 40 per- to mention accounts by Al Prago, the most interesting and complicat- cent of the U.S. volunteers were Alvah Bessie, Hugh Thomas, ed parts of the story. For example, industrial workers, the dominant Arthur Landis, George Watt, Milt the issue of race and the experi- actors in the story are usually tradi- Wolff, Marc Crawford and William ences of African-American, Puerto tional intellectuals (writers and stu- Loren Katz, and a host of others, we Rican, Cuban and other volunteers dents) or autodidacts with amazing can still use a more textured rank- never really figure into these talent for writing. They dominate and-file view of the daily experience debates despite the richly docu- the Spanish Civil War largely of volunteers whose political ties mented work on the subject by because they wrote the story. Yet, were less powerful and whose Carroll, Danny Collum and Victor the very presence of ordinary work- understanding of the situation less Berch, and Marc Crawford and ing people — people who, for the “official.” William Loren Katz, to name a few. most part, had never traveled out- We could use an American ver- When “race” is taken up as an issue, side the country — risking their sion of Ronald Fraser’s Blood of it is often reduced to a couple of sen- lives for the cause of liberty, made Spain — a deeply textured oral his- tences about the Brigades’ policies – the Lincoln Brigade much more tory of the Civil War in Spain from not what people of color did or expe- than another episode in Stalinist the perspective of Spaniards. John rienced. This is unfortunate, for the intrigue. It demonstrates that inter- Gerassi’s book, Premature Anti- current tensions between blacks nationalism is not the preserve of F a s c i s t s , was to do this but it fell and Jews (the latter comprising at those we call “intellectuals,” that short of the mark. least 30 percent of the Lincoln assembly line workers and even The sad truth of the matter is Brigade), these stories are of utmost sharecroppers are capable of seeing that in 1995, almost six decades significance. their own struggles tied to working after the Spanish Civil War and in Not surprisingly, then, when people throughout the world. the midst of a hostile conservative James Yates published From Miss - Besides, the very fact that working climate, it might be too late for such issippi to Madrid, it received very people, regardless of how they were a book to be written. little attention from either the recruited, volunteered to fight fas- mainstream press or academic pub- cism abroad, is an astonishing Robin D. G. Kelley is Professor of lications. And I’ve been trying to example for the current generation History at New York University. This is convince some university presses of activists. the text of his presentation at the that they ought to publish Vaughn The focus on Stalinism also Socialist Scholars Conference held at Love’s unpublished memoir about tends to submerge the struggle the Borough of Manhattan Community his experiences as a Black south- among volunteers themselves (as College, New York City, April 9, 1995. THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995 11

Rebels Without a Pause

From SARASOTA, Milt Felsen reports that he a picture frame company. Because the work wasn’t was reelected, unopposed and by acclamation, to the steady, he began working on the docks as a longshore- board of directors of the Directors Guild of America, a man in New York in the early 1930’s. It was at this time post he has held continuously since 1963. that Dutch’s opposition to fascism which was on the Milt is currently at work as executive producer of a rise, both here and abroad, led him to Spain where he TV documentary series (13 episodes at this point) fea- joined the International Brigade and fought Franco’s turing great film directors. As of now, the project troops during the Spanish Civil War. appears headed for HBO. Dutch first came to Washington when he joined the U.S. army and trained with the Tenth Mountain Charlie Nusser’s ashes were ceremoniously scat- Division at Fort Lewis and on Mount Ranier. Dutch tered at J A R A M A, last September, by Lou and Anne decided that Washington was where he wanted to live Gordon, and Tom Entwhistle. They later toured the and he settled there in the 1950’s. He continued his Aragon battlefields. career as a longshoreman until 1972, allowing him to In Madrid, Lou and Anne visited with Amaya Ruiz pursue his passion as a sculptor, which he continues at Ibarruri and Irene Falcon at the fundaçion Dolores his own shop in Fremont. Ibarruri. While there, after screening The Good Fight Dutch has always been interested in birds, but being a for two university classes of American students, one in climber wasn’t exactly conducive to study. “When I was Madrid, the other at Alcala de Henares, Lou talked climbing or about the SCW and fielded questions from the audience. b a c k p a c k i n g While in Madrid, he also met with the Scott paper- it was hard to workers union of the UGT who are sharing the same look at birds employer problems as the union members of the parent when hang- U.S. corporation. ing on a rope On a more personal note, Lou advises that Caldo or stuck in a Gallego as served in Madrid is the best soup in the rainstorm in world and addictive. He indicates that he and Anne will the Olym- soon return to Spain for a repeat engagement of lec- pics!” Over tures, more touring and “eating that soup.” the last fif- teen years, SEATTLE: Bob Reed sends an article from the he’s becoming July/August 1995 issue of Earthcare Northwest by David more and Buckley. It reads, in part: m o r e This summer there is an exhibition of wood sculp- involved in tures by Elias “Dutch” Schultz at the Nordic Heritage birding. “At Museum in Ballard. It’s a rare opportunity to witness first, I just the art of one of Seattle Audubon’s most interesting and went out and respected members. Dutch Schultz has been working looked at with wood for over seventy years, and his show reflects birds by a life full of history and personal experience. While each myself. Then sculpture is a unique piece of craftsmanship, the collec- a friend told tive show is powerful because is reveals Dutch’s history me to join the Dutch Schultz at work in his studio. across eight decades, two continents and two major Audubon society. There I met other people interested in wars, as well as here in the Northwest. birds and began to go out on field trips and going birding Dutch Schultz has been an active member of Seattle with them. … It’s difficult to get out on field trips as often Audubon for almost ten years. He began birding when as it was only a few years ago. …” health concerns limited his love for mountain climbing Dutch’s love for birds is evident in a sculpture enti- and backpacking. And in typical “Dutch” style, he tled The Lover. … The Lover depicts a man holding a immersed himself in birding, maintaining a vigorous kestrel in his hands. For Dutch an important aspect of level that for most of us in our seventies and eighties the piece is that the man holds the kestrel freely with- seems, at best, quite improbable. For Dutch, however, out jesses or ropes tied to the bird’s legs. “I love birds it’s another chapter in a remarkable life. and hate to see them tied up or trapped, just like I hate Dutch was born in 1910 in New York City. He was to see people trapped. It’s like having a ball and chain introduced to art and wood sculpture through a teacher on.” A moving statement by a man whose love of birds is in vocational high school. During his teens and early part of a lifetime commitment to the struggle for free- twenties, Dutch apprenticed as an ornamental carver in dom and dignity. 12 THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995

i am not cold fashion for herself tapping by nature the tools to give the lie but was forced to be to any that way again who regarded her a fool. roots / with an anger like dry ice when i heard my mother and, when in her teens at 72 she followed her elder sister Lillian’s lead telling shot and killed, and joined Chicago’s Young Communist League, her breath spliced no word of caution, danger, by an unknown youth might her mother, Fannie, plead who thought that my mom, Paula, would heed, truths whatever she resisted giving him she knew in her handbag was worth her life. what she was made to do.

as he fled so in 1930, too, she bled to death when she met my father Ted, by on the walkway to her home a Black man from Texas in a manner whose path had led from there across the nation Michele becoming normal to Seattle’s docks in the U.S.A. today. where the shock wave of a general strike D. Gibbs carried him into the Party’s ranks, he, too, lost in soul through organizers’ school to know and sent him to Chicago what she held fast to to pool his strength with others was not property – in the gruelling task but dignity – of mobilizing the Depression’s unemployed mass. hers, and his, too – they found each other in the fray everything he threw away, when work required holding cops at bay like the gun, to stay evictions – in his run for safety. the order of the day for millions who – then like now – turned gray only a week before at seeing their lives recovering from a stroke, dumped in the street that way. she spoke so: “Oh, you know me, dear, 1936 I’m a survivor.” The war in Spain. there was no way and Ted Gibbs, along with uncles, cousins, comra she would go from this earth enlisted in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. of her own free will; three years there was too much in which the women still to do. carried on alone at home.

as a Russian Jew the men returned her childhood knew life scarred inside and out; on the cindered sidewalks for the time of Chicago’s Halsted Street, unable to rout the Fascist terror the stopping place for those in flight, which grew in clout ’til it convulsed the world. from the terror of the Tzarist night. Paula, still knew what she was about. then, too, she married Ted her fight was for the right as profits fed the war machine to roam free, and Amerikan racism finish public school, kept nerves razor keen. THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995 13

no matter. this legacy he passed on to me. they weren’t invincible when, finally, he died, but knew no other way to live, from too much pressure, grieving, beatings than by their principles. which never did Red-baited, black-listed bend his back or tan his hide – they worked, struggled, loved, Paula continued on her own. kept faith. she didn’t mind, she said, existed. being alone. it gave her time to think. by my birth in ’46 post-war Amerika it was 1960 by then opened a new bag of tricks, and my turn to join the fight. called ’containment’ abroad, Paula would wink, and say: Chicago’s version “You know, you can get killed that way.” Paula Gibbs was the Red Squad. i’d laugh, agree, so livid were the police to see we three: and do just what their lives Ted, black had taught to me: Paula, white buoying me up and me and giving me eyes to see together and at liberty the connections between us they’d run their cars commitment weaves. right up on the curb and back us up against the wall well, she kept going and i did, too, when we refused for the next twenty years to be perturbed. we saw it through from Watts to Birmingham, Feds. at the door Detroit, Philadelphia, Viet Nam: and cops on the beat: years of uninterrupted war … that was the school until i chose a further shore of the streets we knew – and made that my home. risk everything, say nothing, and keep your cool. she saw me off, wished me well, Saying little in that Emmett Till time and remained my father worked: to battle barbarity’s swell electrician, carpenter, plumber, gardener, in the belly of the beast. cook, breadwinner – she said, ”Remember, Michele, guardian if it’s worth doing, against the beasts of degradation it’s worth doing well.” beating on our door. he’d take a storefront that’s how she was. and create a home. in death the same, carve a garden from an alley, refusing to give in, disdaining tame, coax grass up through the stone, standing firm, despite the cost. work his long-limned artist’s fingers to the bone so in these times of decay, so the leavings we were allowed to live in when it’s hard to see the light of day, shone with the light of love. not to mention victory, he was a painter of scenes may their spirits abide, his life a song always soar free, from a soul bound to take a stand and not be lost to history. to say this/ and that/ were wrong fashioned from a longing to be free. 14 THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995

News From Abroad

We ask your indulgence for our of French Volunteers of the Germany inability to retain our former style Spanish Republic, the IB veterans’ and quality in this communication. organization. He was the commissar BERLIN — We have this sad of the 14th International Brigade communication from the surviving Comrade Karl’s personal history and a hero of the underground German comrades of the IB, now uniquely interwove with that of the resistance movement in WW I I , united in a section of the IVVdN Lincoln Brigaders, collectively and during the Nazi occupation. It was e.V. – the organization of the vic- individually. That bond began after he who, in August 1944, as a com- tims of the Nazi regime. Karl was captured in 1937 in Spain mander of the Free French resis- where he shared harsh confinement tance army, alongside General Dear Comrades: We are grieved with the Lincoln Brigade prisoners. LeClerc, received the capitulation of to inform you that our comrade Karl In a story exceeding the wildest the German garrison in Paris. Kormes, vice-chair of our task force, fiction, he survived Franco’s jails, Comrade Rol-Tanguy briefly died on April 9, 1995. On March wound up in North Africa as the traced the history of the Spanish 16th, returning from a ceremony at Nazi forces were being driven out. Civil War as the prelude to WW II, the Seelower Heights Memorial, he He volunteered there for the U.S. emphasizing the role played by the sustained serious injuries in a traf - special forces (the OSS). He International Brigades in that con- fic accident and never regained con - received his training in North Italy flict and in the final defeat of the sciousness. His wife and the former in a school conducted by Lincoln fascist Axis. journalist Guenther Kertsche were veterans Irv Goff and Vince He was followed by Santiago also killed. Losowski. Alvarez, speaking for the CP of His death was a serious blow. Spain, who had been Political Comrade Kormes had spent many Commissar of the Army of the Ebro years under the most onerous condi - Sweden commanded by General Juan tions in Franco’s prison camps and As reported from Oslo, in the Modesto. Alvarez paid homage to during the ’50s was subjected to crit - Spring 1995 issue of The Volunteer, the Brigadistas, stressing that the icism, based on phony charges, by the Swedish IB veterans dissolved political, ethical and human values the leadership of the SED [the their organization earlier this year. of the 1936-39 anti-fascist struggle Socialist Unity Party of the former An unannounced, unanticipated serve today, far beyond the Spanish German Democratic Republic]. bank draft from them for 3,000 borders, to illuminate humanity . During the past ten years he krone, payable to the VALB, arrived The French CP building, contributed selflessly to the history, at our office in June. It increased designed by Courboisier, the late German Volunteers in the our available funds by $500. world-renowned architect, is on the International Brigades in The impetus and thoughtful- site once occupied by the ram- S p a i n. Through his extensive lan - ness of this gift invoke a gratitude shackle wooden group of offices and guage skills, he made outstanding that is truly beyond description. cafeteria that most Internationals contributions to relations with for - encountered in 1936-39. eign organizations of International They are memorialized by the Brigade veterans in many countries. France engraving on a monument dedicat- With his manifold activities and The Communist Party of ed by the notables at the end of the his political acumen, Karl played an France, in Paris on October 29, meeting. It reads: “In this place, important role in recent years in the 1994, paid tribute to the French vol- Mathurin Moreau, during the ’30s, successful work of our small collec - unteers of the International was housed the International Anti- tive of International Brigade veter - Brigades at a historic time and fascist Committee, serving the ans in the VdN where he was active place. The occasion was the 50th French and foreign Volunteers of in the executive. anniversary of the liberation of the International Brigades in We are aware that without him, France and the site was the great Spain.” it will be difficult to continue our meeting hall of the PCF headquar- At the conclusion of the com- former activities. We will miss him ters on the plaza Fabien, named for memoration, Rol-Tanguy directly as comrade, friend and soul brother. the IB lieutenant and French Army addressed the many Spanish In the coming months we will colonel who died in the liberation of notable and veterans who were pre- concentrate on preparations for the Alsace in World War II. sent, asking: “When are you going 60th anniversary of the formation of Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy, as to invite us to the inauguration of a the International Brigades. president, spoke for the association thoroughfare, in Barcelona or other THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995 15

News From Abroad great Spanish city, named the varied batch of Communists, work is well under way. It will defi- ’Avenue of the International Socialists, Anarchists, a few nitely be published by the 60th Brigades’”? Trotskyist sympathizers, union anniversary. The title, price and men, idealists, romantics, simple date of publication have yet to be democrats and a few flotsams. finally arranged. Paul Preston, the Switzerland Interestingly, the largest group eminent historian, has written a The Swiss Association of Inter- from the 24 Swiss cantons came long introduction. national Brigade Volunteers dis- from the italian-speaking canton. Bill Alexander has described solved itself in early 1994. The cere- They had been close to the realities the overall contribution of the mony took place in the Zurich City of Italian fascism across their bor- British Brigaders in Spain. Colin Hall. The group had been reduced to der. A high percentage were anar- Williams has supplied the story of some 30 people, 17 of whom between chists influenced by Italian anar- each memorial and the personalities 74 and 84 years old, were present. chism. High unemployment in this involved. John Gorman is supervis- There were 639 Swiss area contributed, as well as a long ing the graphics preparation. The Volunteers, 19 of them women, who tradition of leaving these narrow British Roll of Honour will be fought in the International Brigade. alpine valleys for better and differ- reprinted to cap the record of a In addition, 70 IBers of other ent opportunities. proud period of British history. nationalities went from Switz- The farewell affair displayed erland. They were refugees from photographs, books, magazines, Germany, Austria, Italy, etc. posters and featured a roll call of Czechoslovakia It is known also that some 34 the Volunteers who were present. PRAGUE — [translated from Swiss served in Franco’s army — I continue to read The Volunteer the Spanish]: Dear friends: My some in the Spanish Foreign Legion. with great nostalgia, passion and name is Milos Nekvasil (J. The remaining treasury of the love. Vondracek in Spain). During the Swiss IB association was turned over Gino Baumann anti-fascist war, I was the comman- to the Swiss Workers Aid Organ- Oficina de Correo, der of the Masaryk Battalion of the ization based on the trade unions and Barrio San Jose 129th International Brigade. the Social Democratic Party. Covol de Alajuel, Costa Rica After the war I was held [in The farewell ceremony featured France] in the St. Cyprien camp, addresses by veterans Hans Hutter Canada afterwards in the camp at Gurs of Winterthur and Paul Tross of and, at the end, in Argéles-sur-Mer. Zürich and a talk delivered by the Ted Allen, Mac-Pap veteran, a I escaped from the last named and mayor of the city. A highlight was a prominent author of books and fought in occupied France against speech by Frau Ruth Dreifuss of the media scripts died in Toronto on the Nazis. After the Nazi defeat I Federal Governing Council — its Thursday, June 29. He was best returned to my own country. second female and first Jewish known for his biography of famed I am married with two sons and member. She emphasized that the International Brigade doctor, four grandchildren. Today, my wife Volunteers had been a shining Norman Bethune, The Scalpel, the and I are pensioners. example of international solidarity Sword. We now have only few remain- and were morally exonerated from Ted won an Acadeny Award ing veterans of the Brigades. Our all guilt despite being sentenced to nomination for his 1976 adaptation activity as an organization is almost prison terms under Swiss law ban- of Jan Kadar’s Lies My Father Told nonexistent We also have little con- ning service in a foreign army. Me, a story about a Jewish boy and tact with the comrades in neighbor- There remain four memorial his family in Canada. ing countries and with the Spanish monuments in Switzerland: a comrades who were refugees in our plaque at the Maison du Peuple in country after World War II. Geneva; one at the “Volkhaus” in England For all these reasons, we always Zürich; a memorial granite stone on await The Volunteer which is a top of Monte Ceneri in the Italian LONDON — Bill Alexander’s unique periodical of the old veter- Swiss Canton of Ticino; and, an June 1995 International Brigade ans of the glorious war in Spain. artistic terrazo in the small indus- Newsletter reports on a pamphlet Thanks comrades and all the trial town of Biasca, engraved with being prepared on the 57 local IB best to you. the names of its three volunteers. memorials emplaced in Britain. With an antifascist Salud. The Swiss were a politically The preparation of this unique Milos Nekvasil 16 THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995

Book Reviews Overlooked but not forgotten

vertically at all levels of service and of the war. Marc Crawford and Bill THE LINCOLN BRIGADE: command. Katz were there and, as the book A Picture History makes clear, not as mere fellow By William Loren Katz Storywise, this book depicts the travelers. and Marc Crawford main campaigns in which the There’s not an occasion where it 1989, Atheneum, cloth, $14.95 Lincolns participated — Jarama, wouldn’t be appropriate for readers 84pp., illustrated. Brunete, Aragon, Teruel, and the Ebro, Gandesa and the Pandols. It of The Volunteer to use The Lincoln also gives a glimpse into the guerril- B r i g a d e as a significant gift. It’s n the 58 years since the Lincoln la activity of Irv Goff, Bill Aalto and available through the VALB office Brigaders returned from Spain Cecil Kunstlich. In its pages one for $15 (P&H included). they carried out many historic I meets the heroes and heroines Moe Fishman projects and promoted numerous behind the lines — the doctors, nurs- successful books on subjects near es, ambulance and truckdrivers who and dear to them. One of the latter, performed the rearguard tasks nec- The Lincoln Brigade: A Picture Biography essary to support each man in battle. H i s t o r y, despite being a bestseller The authors take the Lincolns at VALB affairs and adopted by of a ‘monster’ through the IB Barcelona farewell many school curricula, has some- parade in October 1938, where they how been overlooked in these pages. FRANCO heard the immortal Despedida This is an overdue rectification. A Biography (Farewell) delivered by La by Paul Preston: 1995 Marc Crawford, Adjunct Pro- Pasionaria. fessor at New York University, and HarperCollins, $ 37.50, cloth, The final section of the book 1,002pp. William Loren Katz, historian and deals briefly with the work of the editor, present in this slim volume a Friends of the Abraham Lincoln aul Preston, a leading English rare mix of comprehensive history Brigade, the homefront support and many unique photographs of Pscholar who has written exten- organization, and the Lincoln veter- sively on all aspects of Spanish life, the Lincoln Brigade at the battle- ans’ service in World War II. The front and the rearguard. has undertaken the formidable task concluding chapter describes the of presenting a detailed account of The reader learns what the war thrilling 1986 return to Spain to the life of Francisco Franco. This is was about, its unique role in the commemorate the 50th anniversary a massive volume and whatever fight against fascism; the protago- time the reader might want to nists both within Spain and exter- spend on El Caudillo, the pickings nally; the global scene and the war’s Peter Carroll are here. effect on the thinking of millions of people. Also traced is the origin of gets an award The book’s dedication none too the International Brigades — how Peter Carroll, at a ceremony subtly expresses Preston’s regard they were organized; the many on May 30 in Berkeley, was for his subject as he thanks his fam- countries from which these men and awarded a silver medal by the ily for allowing him to complete his women came; and the political and The Commonwealth Club of task speedily so that he “did not ethnic composition of the California for The Odyessy of the have to spend too much time in the Volunteers, particularly the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. company of this monster.” Americans. Peter’s citation read: “ T h i s Preston explodes the prevalent Crawford and Katz succinctly important study sets the involve- myth that the Franco regime pur- depict the Great Depression years ment of Americans in Spain at sued a benign neutrality during in which the Volunteers were the end of the 1930s into a larger World War II. In the early stages of formed by the politics and the historical context. The book pro- that war, when the fascists were struggles of the time. From these vides a vision of the era and a advancing in all directions, Franco experiences, it was natural that the record of individual lives grap- desperately strove to join the Axis Lincoln Brigade became the first pling with the historical forces powers in their drive to overrun U.S. military unit in history to be that shaped an era.” Europe. However, Hitler and fully integrated — horizontally and Mussolini in the first months of the THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995 17

revolt were wary of an alliance with Civil War and, therefore, there are cannot do full justice to Preston’s Spain’s rebels. The country was in a few references to the International work — but any serious reader will state of near-famine, besieged by a Brigades and none of the American surely join the myriad of historians strong guerrilla movement, and the volunteers. Preston, in previous who hail it as the definitive biogra- regular army, two years earlier, had works, has dealt with them. phy of one who shaped the darker performed poorly in suppressing a Obviously, this short review side of history. A.S. popular uprising. In the first stages of the war the fascist dictators were chary in their support of the rebels. Preston fur- Lifelong battle against racism thermore points out that there were clashing interests between Spain BLACK FIRE: infantryman in the Pacific theater and Italy in the Mediterranean and The Making of An American of the war. North Africa. The bulk of Peery’s tale is a Later in World War II, after the Revolutionary by Nelson Peery: 1995, nonstop melodramatic account of Nazi debacle on the Eastern front, his service in a WWII Black when the defeat of his Axis friends New Press; $22.95, cloth, 348 pp. infantry regiment from its training became inevitable, Franco assumed days in the jim-crow South through an open posture of neutrality. f Nelson Peery had been born a its bloody military campaigns in Preston tells the story of an I decade or so earlier, it’s almost New Guinea and the Philippines. Italian staff officer who witnessed certain that his name would be on Overriding the graphic drama of the execution of thousands of the roster of the African Americans Spanish villagers as the Franco warfare against the Japanese is the who served in the Abraham Lincoln endless battle against racism within forces advanced. When the Italian, Brigade. himself no stranger to brutality, is the military establishment. Peery’s appalled and questions the rebel This autobiography covers a tale of the U.S. suppression of the officer ordering the atrocities, he is lifelong battle against racism. It Hukbalahap struggle for Philippine told, “These are our future enemies began in a small Wisconsin rural independence is poignantly person- so it’s best to deal with them now.” town, continued in the schools and al. One must remember that this streets of Milwaukee and peaked Peery refers at times to “left” book is not a history of the Spanish during World War II service as an influences in his early family life, including a visit paid by Ned Sparks, a Communist Party orga- And what a scare it was nizer. He describes a rearguard lec- ture to the troops by Bob Thomp- Ranging the full spectrum of U.S. RED SCARE: son, who had just won his DSC in society, these are chilling as well as Memories of an American the New Guinea campaign. Bob’s heroic vignettes of persecution and Inquisition, An Oral History subject was the Soviet rout of the by Griffin Fariello: 1995 resistance. Among the three-score- and-ten are veterans of the Abraham Nazi armies in the battle of Kursk. W.W. Norton & Company Peery also pays a knowledge- $29.95, cloth, 575pp. Lincoln Brigade and their families: Steve Nelson, Ring Lardner, Jr., Carl able tribute to Herman Boettcher Marzani, Archie and Honey Brown whom he also encountered in the he title of this book is a precise (who earn double entries), Bill Bailey Papuan campaign. Tdescription of its contents. The and Bob Colodny. The front matter of the volume text is prefaced by a concise history Sylvia Thompson, Bob’s widow, carries an acknowledgement that is of the twenty mid-century years, receives a triple entry, including the a summary of Peery’s own life and a 1945-65, in which “McCarthyism” story of the dogged, successful tribute to Meridel LeSueur who “… undercut democracy in American life. struggle to inter him in Arlington as instilled in me a dialectic, a sense of Culled from taped interviews a U.S. war hero. Her first quoting history that led me to love America with over 150 women and men who — the book’s epigraph — is way out and her diverse people enough to were hounded by the official un- of context and should be corrected write about them, to fight them, to Americans, Fariello has chosen over if, hopefully, a paperback edition is fight with them — and to fight for 70 witnesses who tell it like it was. issued. L.L. them.” L.L. 18 THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995

Book Reviews An exceptional soldier of ‘the good fight’

I may not have contributed THE EDUCATION OF trained to join the IB. He writes: much to the Spanish Civil War. A RELUCTANT RADICAL; I went to war in the spirit of a But Barcelona and the Durruti BOOK 3 foreign correspondent. … Almost Spain, Munich and Dying from the beginning there were sub - column had contributed massive - Empires. An autobiography tle pressures to become a volunteer. ly to my understanding not only of politics and international by Carl Marzani: 1994 Step by small step I ended up at the affairs but of the complexity of Topical Books fr o n t . human beings. Despite all my $24.95, cloth, $14.95 paper; That “step by step” progress had immigrant travels, all my stints 575pp., illustrated. a Candide-like quality which as a worker, all my hitchhiking arl Marzani’s choice of peaked with Carl’s service for sever- and living off the land, I had Reluctant Radical for the title al colorful but noncombat weeks in basically led a sheltered life pro - C of this multi-volume autobiog- Durruti’s Anarchist column. It was tected by family, school and col - raphy has little to do with shyness or the time when George Orwell lege. In Spain I grew up, and my modesty. Rather, it accurately shared a similar experience but pro- life was altered forever. claimed quite different political describes how his unique and event- Carl returned to England as the views. These Carl sharply refuted ful life was shaped. It identifies, too, fateful years of 1938-1939 began — then and throughout his later life. the side of history where he chose to the dismal time that witnessed the serve. Carl’s military service ended Nazi takeover of Austria, the death This third volume opens with when he heeded a warning from his throes of the Spanish Republic and Carl’s rail journey in late December friendly commanding “officer” that the signing of the Munich Pact. 1936. He was among some thousand he was risking a death squad for his The book’s time span covers his volunteers, headed from France to un-Anarchist ideas. By mid- first marriage; completion of his Barcelona, to join the International January he had made his way back Oxford studies; joining the British Brigades. However, unlike his fel- to London. Summing up his Communist Party with his bride; a low passengers, Carl had not en- Spanish experience, he writes: mini-grand tour honeymoon; and finally, a 30,000 mile hitchhike home to the USA, across Europe and Asia. Great deal for VALB and friends Carl’s tale does not maintain a steady chronological progression. At Many readers of The Volunteer are aware of the enthusiastically times it reaches back to his child- received program presented last February at the Bay Area Annual hood and college days or peeks into Dinner in Oakland, CA. Postscript to a War paid tribute to the Lincoln later years These diversions range Brigaders through a dramatic reading of their own words from a wide from anecdotal to philosophical. range of source materials. They all enhance a perception of Responding to the many requests, the American Federation of Carl as an exceptional soldier of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) has graciously given us permis- “the good fight.” L .L. sion to make a limited number of videotaped copies of this program available to the Lincoln vets, Associates and their families, solely for personal, non-commercial use. Volume 4 of Marzani’s T h e In addition to the moving and eloquent reading by members of the Education of a Young Radical: San Francisco Mime Troupe, and the six-piece band who joined them in From Pentagon to Penitentiary string versions of Si Me Quieres Escribir, Venga Jaleo, and other was published within a few favorites, the hour-long color video tape includes introductory remarks weeks of Carl’s death earlier this by Milton Wolff, Bay Area Post Commander, and Peter Carroll, co-chair year. It will be reviewed in the of ALBA, the emcee for the event. next issue of The Volunteer. Any The VHF tape can now be purchased for $25, plus a $3.50 shipping or all of Volumes 1 through 4 may and handling fee. Checks should be made out to the Bay Area Post, and be obtained for $14 each (includ- sent to VALB, P.O. Box 884354, San Francisco, CA 94188. Please allow ing shipping) from the VALB two to three weeks for delivery. office. THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995 19

ALBA at Work By Bill Susman and Cary Nelson

anticipate that this tour will run Most of the through the next three years. Moscow Archives New Board have arrived members announced ix weeks ago a 40-pound con- S tainer of microfilm from the LBA has some new Board mem- Moscow Archives was delivered to A bers. Joining us are Andrew the ALBA Archives at Brandeis Lee, Director of the Tamiment University. This latest shipment Library at NYU; also at NYU, Robin contained the individual files of Kelley, Professor of History, author almost all the Americans who War and many activists will com- of the acclaimed preface to A f r i c a n fought in Spain, as well as thou- memorate the occasion. ALBA will Americans in the Spanish Civil War; sands of other precious documents: be shipping about thirty of its color- film producer Fredda Weiss (recruit- diaries of Lincoln Brigaders who ful Spanish Civil War posters on a ed by co-worker Julia Newman). died in Spain, many letters from nationwide tour. It will open in New Noted film director and writer family members, which for one rea- York at the Puffin Gallery on April John Sayles, an invaluable long- son or another (combat-casualty, 27, 1996, and run until May 27. term supporter of VALB and ALBA, incorrect address, etc.) never From mid-June to mid-August has also joined us. His tribute, “But reached the men and women in the it will be at Berkeley, California; What About the Guys in the Lincoln ranks. September to October at the Brigade,” that appeared in our 50th The August shipment also Museum of Albuquerque, New Anniversary brochure, has not been included hundreds of documents of Mexico; at Washington University, dimmed by time. military communications — inter- Seattle, from November through We also are happy to have and-intra-battalion, brigade, divi- December. added Barbara Dailey as our new sion and army corps communica- In 1997, the exhibit will be at executive secretary. She is proving tions. Centenary College in Shreveport, LA; a valuable addition to our staff. Among the archives still on from March to April at Texas A. & M. ALBA’s unfinished agenda are The posters will be accompanied thousands of frontline and rear by blow-ups of black and white pho- Responses on guard photographs for which copy tographs of the Lincolns during the negatives will be procured. SCW years. Each poster’s source will our SCW Also sought are the records of be identified and all Spanish and other international brigades, begin- Catalan text will have an accompa- essay contest ning with the English-speaking nying English translation. ones — Canadian, British and Where possible, ALBA will try his project is especially dear to Irish — and Palestinian. Another to organize at the exhibit halls con- TALBA because it honors the high priroity will be the records of tinuous showings of films such as memory of Board Member George the Cuban Volunteers, many of Spain Between the Wars, narrated Watt. In his name we were able to whom traveled from the USA. by Eric Sevareid; and The Good raise a $25,000 endowment, the F i g h t. Other events, including con- George Watt Memorial Fund, whose certs, are being planned. income will be used to award annual SCW posters We will ask Lincoln veterans who prizes for the best college student live near the exhibit locales to make essays about the Spanish Civil War to tour for 60th themselves available for participa- and the participation of the U.S. ti o n . Volunteers. Many outstanding essays Anniversary As contracts for the exhibits are have already been submitted. firmed-up, VALB and ALBA mem- The first winners will be an- ext year will mark the 60th bers and supporters will be notified of nounced in April 1996. George, if he Nanniversary of the Spanish Civil the scheduled dates and locales. We were with us, would feel proud. 20 THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995

Photos by Eric Levenson VALB’s 58th Anniversary Continued from page 1

Nadler, U.S. Representative of New York’s 8th Congressional District, (the storied “Upper West Side”). He presented a trenchant analysis of the Republican “Contract with America” and all it portends for the country. Cary Nelson Mimi Turque Henry Foner Nadler’s exposé of the real intent of the call to return power to the states was particularly pointed: “In areas like job safety and envi- Toronto honors Mac-Paps ronmental protection the actual aim is not to hand over the power to reg- Continued from page 3 Veterans and Friends of the ulate, but to end all such regulation. Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion If the states have to compete for monument and it was time for full (AVFM-PB). Its commitment is industrial investment by reducing legislative recognition by the f o u r f o l d : to consolidate, expand and the costs of workers’ safety and the Canadian national government. make available Mackenzie- prevention of environmental degra- Among the surviving half-a- Papineau archival material; to dation, the real result will be dead hundred Mac-Pap veterans who organize a speakers bureau for or injured workers and an environ- attended the celebration were schools; to prepare symposia and ment laid waste.” Frank Blackman, Lee Burke, exhibits; and, to promote social Nadler concluded: “The real Maurice Constant, Joe Glenn, events for members and the gener- transfer of power — one of historic Amedee Grenier, Hans Ibing, Bill al public. The noted authors proportions — is from Congress’s Kardash, Bill Matthews, Arden Margaret Atwood and Farley elected representatives to the large Nash, Jules Pavio, Marvin Penn, Mowat are among the sponsors. national and multinational corpora- Paul Skup, Harold Sparks. A high priority for the AVFM- tions.” In attendance were Veterans of PB is the successful outcome of a When the long round of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Jack campaign, long in progress, to erect applause for the Congessman’s Bjoze, Morris Brier and Saul an official Mac-Pap memorial on speech subsided, the guests, abuzz Wellman, alongside Cuban IB veter- Parliament Hill in the national with comment, headed out. Many an Mario Morales Mesa. capitol of Ottawa. stopped to browse and buy at the Although the Canadian VALB book display and the Veterans’ organization was dis- Irma Penn, a Canadian scholar, is Fassinella poster table where R a l p h solved a number of years ago, their a member of the Association of Veterans autographed lithocopies of his unfinished tasks are being pursued and Friends of the MacKenzie-Papineau work. by a recently formed Association of Battalion. Hemingway in the Spanish Civil War Continued from page 9 will undoubtedly be that way in the ery, interpretation and debate. And near future as well. New docu- that is how, too, our collective mem- tor), that this improbable story was ments, new stories, and new inter- ory of these critical events is kept very likely true. It certainly fit pretations to explain them will alive: by the stimulus of discoveries Hemingway’s character and his will- remain the basis for new under- and by the debates and discussions ingness to take risks for the sake of standings of the Spanish Civil War they provoke. his art, and he must have realized for some time to come. William B. Watson is professor of then that a story about guerrilla Some of these new interpreta- history at the Massachusetts Institute of operations behind enemy lines was tions will be resisted, and perhaps Technology. This is a slightly revised bound to be a good one. some of the documents will be dis- version of his talk in the ALBA panel of So what is new in Spanish Civil credited and the stories modified, the Socialist Scholars Conference at the War studies has been, for the most but that is how history continues to Borough of Manhattan Community part, the product of discovery, and it make progress — through discov- College, New York City, April 9, 1995. THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995 21

Added to Memory’s Roster

Continued from page 7 Furlani. Office of Strategic Services since He arrived in Spain in late Italian and German, along with defend his fatherland against the October/early November 1936. Slovene, were his native lan- Italians. From November 1936 to February guages, but he did not wish to When World War I ended, 1937 he was a member of the become a spy. He did receive his Trieste became part of Italy. As Spanish Republican Army, trans- citizenship and worked in war young man, Victor was in the ferring to the Abraham Lincoln industry. Communist Party of Trieste. Battalion in February 1937. In Victor married after Spain Among his friends was Vittorio September 1937 he was trans- and had one daughter, my moth- Vidali.* Mussolini was becoming ferred to the Garibaldi Battalion er. Since he had gone to Spain powerful and Victor fought where he fought until the under an alias, I think he success- against Italian fascism. When Internationals were sent home. fully avoided hassling by the FBI. Mussolini finally gained control of He then rejoined a Republican He did not want his family to suf- Italy, Victor left. He became an unit where he fought until the bit- fer because of his political beliefs engineer on a ship and traveled ter end. so he was not politically active around he world. When the war ended, he after Spain. For that reason also Victor settled in the United crossed the Pyrenees and was he did not contact the Veterans of states in 1926. His first job was as interned in a French concentra- the Abraham Lincoln Brigade a lumberjack in Oregon. He trav- tion camp. He finally escaped and until the early 1980s. eled in the United States, usually stowed away (with the help of a My grandfather was a very staying in Italian neighborhoods. French Communist sympathizer) strong and proud man. He had a He was living in New York when on a ship to America. Because he tough life and saw a lot of pain the Spanish Civil War started. was not a citizen, he had again to and suffering. Spain was his Victor and a group of other men sneak into the U.S. finest hour and I will forever be received funds from an Italian When the U.S. entered World proud of him for that. trade union to travel and fight in War II, Victor joined the U.S. — Anthony Strukl Alpert Spain. He used a forged Spanish army. He went through basic passport and left under the name training but was discharged * Vittorio Vidali, a Triestan, served under the nom de guerre of Commandante Carlos. He of Victor Friere Pozuelo. While in because of his age. He had been was the political commissar of the legendary 5th Spain he used the name Victor offered an assignment in the Regiment commanded by Enrique Lister.

An appeal

Yes! I believe that a contribution to the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade has a unique quality. It brings The Volunteer to its readers, free of charge, helps meet the expens- es of the office where the persisting Veteran staff carries on; and assures VALB support for causes consistent with its 60—year tradition. Here’s my contribution of $______Name ______Address ______City ______State ______Zip______

Mail to: Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, 799 Broadway, Rm. 227, New York, NY 10003 22 THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995 THE VOLUNTEER, FALL 1995 23 What they think of the book

There is no way to understand the present or chart the course For me, these letters constitute a remarkable and valuable his- of the future without understanding the past. Some would torical document. They are wonderfully innocent, truthful and keep the past in darkness. Others would illuminate it, putting strangely without self—consciousness. In this time, when us in touch with our past and thereby helping us design a bet- courage, nobility and honor have lost most of their meaning, ter future. Such a light comes from the Abraham Lincoln these letters should be read and understood — explained, I Brigade letters. Everybody should read them. mean — by as many and to as many as possible. Harry Belafonte Howard Fast These letters are the real thing: heroism and idealism from the This is a book I’ve been waiting for — the story of the Lincoln folks who volunteered to fight Hitler and Mussolini before it Brigade told through the letters of the Volunteers themselves was popular to do so. — poignant, powerful, unforgettable. Pete Seeger Howard Zinn The Lincoln Brigade was the only American fighting force in this century made up entirely of volunteers. These letters from As the son of someone who wanted to go to Spain but didn’t, I survivors and non—survivors reveal the fears and frustration think it is vital that these very moving letters be published. We and hardships, the surprises, the ironies and the heroics, of usually talk about war from the standpoint of generals, but any military front. They range from semiliteracy to the mas- these letters, written from the field by Lincoln Brigade mem- terly prose of a fine professional writer; what makes them spe- bers, show that the words of ordinary men and women who cial is that they are all written by men and women who had were actually involved are much more meaningful — both freely chosen to risk their lives in a cause they believed was emotionally and historically. worth it. Stephen Jay Gould Ring Lardner, Jr. The heroic valor of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade has been The letters that emerged from Spain at the hands of the mem- overshadowed in the history of the rest of World War II. This bers of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade illuminate the human book will help to give us the remainder of the story. dimension of the war against fascism that began with the con- Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis flict in Spain. Their joy, pain, fear and humanity is captured in these pages, providing an invaluable insight into the well- Collected from some of the most literate battalions ever mus- spring of hope that sent forth these Americans — a racially tered, these are the very personal dispatches from Somebody integrated cross—section of our nation — to prevent the onset Else’s War Against Fascism that was to become everybody’s. of a larger war that would, in time, engulf the world. Funny, sad and moving. Ronald V. Dellums, member of Congress John Sayles

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