Page Iouy;

PREOPLE’S ADVGCATE

July 30, 1337

‘The Dinamiteros by Mathieu Corman

SOMEWHERE IN SPAIN

ATE in the afternoon the

trenches before Rigotia

were spattered by machine-

gun fire from some twelve
pursuit planes. The Germans
did everything methodically :
this meant there would be an
attack in the morning.

The Rigotia lines were held by
Asturians who had arrived five
days before. Although little time
had yet passed, sober-faced men
were working with shoyels and
picks: to a greater degree than
the other militiamen, the miners
understood that this war had to
be fought as much with the shovel
as with the gun. You could recog-
nize their positions by the deep
trenches and the solid dugouts.

I was known to the men of the
Twenty-third Asturian Battalion.
Among them I found 2 friend, the
miner Aurelio Saurez, lieutenant
of the First Platoon, Third Com-
pany. I had gotten to know him
at Mieres, on October 19, 1934,
the last day of the miners’ upris-
ing, just before the city was occu-
pied by the Legionnaires of Lopez
Ocha. He had recognized me
while I was questioning his men,
who were entraining at the Bilbao
Railway Station to aid the Basque
capital.

The men in his trench knew
that the enemy “was up to some-

thing.” In their belts they had
hand grenades, their favorite
weapons. A young lad kicked

justily at the cover of a box, which
was held down by nails which
gave slowly. The box was filled
with little packages of a black,
greasy and Slightly moist sub-
stance: dynamite. The men tied
these litle packages to their de-
fense grenades with string. I
glanced questionably at Aurelio:

‘Tis more effective that way!”
he said.

He took me to a little farm
about a hundred and fifty yards
Hehind the lines; where a big cup
of “cafe con leche,” such as i had
not drunk for a long time, was
awaiting me.

Lieutenant Suarez is one of
those men who naturally mise over
their fellows as their leaders. He
reminds me of Durruti. But his
eyes are gentler and more dream-
ing. Durruti had the eyes of 2
unter. The whole of Aurelio, like
the whole of Durruti, reflects ab-
solute devotion to the men under
his command.

Aurelio looked worriedly up at
the sky: “Lousy. weather.”

Qutside the first beams of the
sun heralded a bright, sunny day.
There would be planes in the air;
the Loyalists had none- Hence,
“j,ousy weather.” é

SUSPICIOUS calm was in the
air. There was no firing,
which was in accord with their

An

MADRID

7AVHE neat invitation stated
that the undersigned
(A. Barral, brigade commis-
sar ,and A. Serrano, chief of
the brigade) would be
honored if the recipient ot
the invitation would attend
a festival organized by the
43rd Mixed Brigade at 10:30 am,
May 2. The event ‘would be a
dedication of the brigade’s Hogar
del Soldado (Soldier's Hearth), and
At the same time a panner would
be given to each of the battalions
composing the brigade.

It didn’t sound exciting, to tell
the truth, but for my part I was
anxious to find out just what these
new institutions were. This new
world. ..«

HE Hearth of the Soldiers of

the 48rd Brigade was not dedi-
eated at 10:30 am on May 2, 1937,
one hundred and twenty-ninth an-
niversary of the great Madrid
rising against Napoleon's invading
army. But anyone whose optimism
prought him there at 10:30 would
have been privileged to see the
43rd Brigade uniformly equipped
in new summer outfits, executing
smart movements in which one
noted that the prigade was proper-
ly supplied with stretcher-bearers,
sappers and miners, communica-
tion units, officers and non-com-
missioned officers.

‘Privileged,’ I say, because in
August there had been no brigades,
jn September no uniforms, in
October few arms, in November no
non-commissioned officers, and it
it only now thta a real army based
on universal conscription emerees.

Days in August and September
of heartbreaking disorder on the
Talavera road; one awful Sunday
in Toledo when under heavy shell-
jing assault guards reluctantly
abandoned the Hospital de Santa
Cruz because there was not an
officer, not a non-com, to say, “Do
this. Do that.”

May 2, 1937, a regular army
forged in the heat of war, welded
in the hard flame of a patriotism
that saved Madrid and turned back
Italian troops in the Alcarria.

ETER a while a group of of-

ficers from visiting brigades
entered the building where at 10:30
the dedication was to have taken
place. I joined them for a tour of
inspection, but soon found I could
move faster alone.

In the basement 4 neat dining
zoom with small tables, cloth-
covered and prightened by flowers,
oecupied one-half the floor space.
At the other side were the showers.
Jn the dressing room 2 hamper
in the corner was signalled out

habits. The enemy was getting set
for the attack, and the militiamen
were busy making ready to repel
them. A blackbird had set up
headquarters in a bush, while the
young cat from the abandoned
farm wandered about underneath,
his hungry eye fixed on the bird.
The blackbird was singing as loud
as it could in the morning mist.
A number of militiamen halted
their work to listen to him. I
asked Aurelio, “Whom do we have
facing us?”

“J say the djeballas of Moors!”

The militiamen on sentinel duty
scanned the fields and the wooded
gulleys at the bottom of the hill.
Far off the sound of a motor could
be heard. The first scouting plane
of the day. Flying low, it was
greeted by the bullets of the bat-
falion’s machine-gun. I recalled
suddenly that an airplane had
been brought down a few days
back by an Asturian battalion,
and I informed Aurelio of the
news.

“Ves, look at that white blotch
there,” he said.

His finger pointed to a hill
facing us.

As I was unable to pick out any-
thing, a militiaman pointed his
rifle. The gun’s sight was aimed
at a little plowed field halfway
up a hill behind the enemy posi-
tions. In the middle of the little
saucer of brown earth there was
a big white stain: 4 pile of alum-—
inum showed where the German
machine had fallen to the ground,

Tt bad been brought down by
the 2rd Battalion. I was surprised
that the men had not told me of
it of their own accord. This was
not the first time I was surprised
by the Asturians’ modesty.

A “Heinkel-51” flew back over
our heads and greeted the militia—
men who fired at it without letup
with a burst from its machine-

gun. The first exchange of
courtesies for the day.
“Tuisten! 22

ROM the bottom of the valley.
another sound came, louder
than that of the airplane motors,
put more muffled, more confused.
Hearts began to peat faster.

“Tanks? -. . ”

Wo one dared to say the word.
Still that was the only machine
{hat made that sound. There must
be several of them. The eyes of
the men about me became tense;
their faces paled. The militiamen
instinctively kept their eyes on the
grenades with a dynamite cart-
ridge added.

As supple as 4 eat, Aurelio
hoisted himself on to the parapet,
his body exposed, to see better.
He jumped down in one leap and
tan towards the clump where the
munitions were concealed. Return-
ing with a box of dynamite, he
placed it against the precarious
barricade built across the nearby
asphalt road. He nodded:

rmy

by a huge red sign: ‘Comrades,
throw your dirty clothes in this
corner. Small white cards, here
and there, admonished, “Soldiers,
take care of your personal cleanli-
ness as you take care of your
rifle.’

Qn the ground floor, besides the
auditorium ,were a rest reom, 2
library and a game room, Qn the
floor above, small dormitories.

HEN I ee the audi-
torium was filing up- The
building had been a convent. The
Gothic vault with its soft stained-
glass high wall-lights somehow
seemea a perfectly natural setting
for this gathering with its strong
red tones.

At the end the stage made a
little dark pocket in the rude scar-
jet drops reaching to the peak of
the vaults. On each side of the
room and in back, a red banner
spelling out 2 slogan. The church-
like sense of the setting should
have been shocking, OF jncongru-
ous, or funny. But it wasn’t. There
was a simple seriousness, not too
heavy, about the whole crowd and
the ceremony that made the mat-

ter very proper. Reverence may
have been lacking, but respect
was there.

The slogan running along the
back said: ‘Longs live General
Miaja; Viva Comrade Anton.’
Along one side a May 2 touch:
‘soldiers, today as 1n 1808 we must
throw out the foreig invader;
never forget, comrade soldier,

“There are two tanks on the
road. If they reach the barricade,
fire into the box!”

fhe sound came closer, as if in
a haze. The tanks were climbing
slowly up the road. Their turrets
showed slightly over the hedge
which masked them from our
yiew. Wou felt physically unconm-
fortable, you had a sickly desire
to run towards them, not to wait,
to get it over with at once... .-
Fear often makes men feel they
must expose themselves even
more. When, for instance, bombs
drop too close to the dugouts,
an instinctive reaction drives you
to run outside to put a rapid end
to an anguish worse than death.

Ese EUME CEMENT 5 Oey

They were still approaching.

They were not followed by in-
fantry. To regain his confidence;
someone muttered:

“Tt’s only an attempt to scare
us!”

Aurelio's eyes were hard, and
full of a heavy threat. The young-
est men in the section drew their
confidence from his eyes, watched
his movements as if they could
find in them the cure for their
fear.

Suddenly the of

sound the

motors became much louder. The -

turrets turned slowly, the enemy
machine-guns began to splatter
the sandbags on the parapet,
starting general fire. The two
tanks were going to pass under
the rocky hillside where fourteen
“dinamiteros” were waiting silent
ly, not even trying to look. The
sound would be enough to tell
them the exact moment to throw
their explosives. Three enemy
planes flew by overhead. They.
had the first loges for a rare spec-
tacle.

Rerrrrrrerirr - - -

The two monsters turned as if
they were trying to get a foothold
on the flanks of a feared enemy-
They were some fifteen yards off.
With brief movements all alike,
fourteen tigers sprung, fourteen
hands simultaneously threw their
explosives over the sandbags.

His explosions followed on
each other, crashed against
the tanks, filled the air with their
pitter fumes. One of the tanks
turned where it stood at once and
began to retreat. After a brief
moment of hesitation, the other
did likewise. Nevertheless their
turrets still sprayed the apertures
in the parapet with their machine-
guns. The militiamen in the deep
french strove te place their pre-
jectiles in the holes through which
the hidden enemy fired upon
them. Bullets ricocheted on the
armor and whined weirdly in their
deflected course.

The tanks retreated to an elbow
in the road. They seemed to be
expecting something. Soon the
militiamen could pick out the
vague forms of something moving

in the enemy positions. White
spots slid through the green fields
of spring. The yoice of the section
leader rose up:

“An infantry
Wels 2

The Moors, confident because of

the presence of two tanks in po-
sition before the militia trenches,
pushed forward, making use of
the gulleys and the uneven ter-
rain. Others hela back behind
bushes before sprinting out. A
leap and they fell flat on their
bellies in the thick prairie grass.
The tanks’ machine-guns fired
away without a stop, but the at-
tention of the militiamen was ab-
sorbed by the infantry move-
ments. The fourteen “dinamiteros”
alone kept an eye on the tanks
from their vantage point on the
hillside.
* The first Moors came within
200 yards. An Aurelio’s order, a
violent salvo rent the air. The
noise threw all the attackers to
the ground. Badly protected, they
sought to slip along the folds in
the terrain. They were pursued
by bullets: Occasionally one of
them would acknowledge the bul-
lets which hit him by a few brief
convulsions before becoming still
for all time.

The tanks returned to the at-
tack. But they had to halt pru-
dently before reaching the black
spots which showed where the ex-
plosives had been thrown in the
first attack.

Aurelio shouted to me: “Oh, if
we only had anti-tank guns!”

In the trench a man suddenly
slumped down. He slid down the
earth wall, dropping his rifle,
which remained hanging to his
loophole. The militiaman’s hands
seemed to caress the brown earth
in a supreme embrace. His body
dropped to earth face-down, with
a final groan. Aurelio sped to
him. He grasped his head by the
hair and turned it towards him.

“Cagundio! Martin! . - ap

Fis voice was harsh, hollow. It
bere a reproach. A reproach at
once of the slain man, the enemy
and fate.

In the middle of the forehead
a little hole. The militiamen were
so absorbed in the battle that they
hardly paid attention to the dead
man. They flung a rapid glance
at him and continued to fire.
Aurelio dragged his body to 2
dugout, covered it with. a blaniet,
and returned to his post.

Facing us, at the bottom of the
jittle hill, could be clearly seen
Moors crawling slowly to the rear.
So the enemy was not insisting.
In the rear a squadron of tri-
motors was dropping its load of
bombs on a Village. Perhaps this
was the sign that an anti-tank
car was on the road?

attack! Aim

His’ enemy infantry hurried its
retreat, making use of gulleys
and bushes. In the rear, two gov-

Of The Peop

that we are fighting for the in-
dependence of our country.”

At the foot of the stage a wall
newspaper caught my eye- T went
down to have a look at it. A very
good one, it was bright with news-
paper illustration and neatly ar-
ranged, but rich in original type-
written contributions.

A poem cut from a2 newspaper,
jn an inconspicuous comer, dom-
inated the board spiritually:
‘Aparte, Madre, y no impidas.’
(Step aside, mother, don’t hinder
your boy). A war forced on a Peo-
ple, but stil a war, and mothers
fee] . . . but if you had seen the
women of Madrid under fire for
six months you would wonder that
they need be reminded.

B* the time Saas back to
my seat the hall was packed,
and from the stained windows
above khaki figures of seventeen-
year-old yeterans and white-smock-
ed girl attendants of the pbuilding
eave a curious note to the Gothic
arch. On the stage sat the staff,
a very student-like type, and the
white-haired jieutenant-colonel
catching the eye. Behind them,

eight girls holding as many ban-’

ners.

Through a haze of speeches and
‘Vives, I caught my very first
hint of what the matter was about,
It arrived when the third of the
girls was introduced as a ‘Stakhan-
ovist’? from a given factory, £od-
mother of the third hattalion.
Each of the girls, it seemed, came

from an industrial plant, and had
won the honor of sponsoring the
presentation of a banner from the
plant to a given battalion; had
won it by voluntary extra labor or
self-sacrifice in the interest of
‘super-production.”

That wasn't exactly what gave
mie the clue. It was the fact that
factory workers were deliberately
establishing ties with one certain
unit of the army, making friends,

Noted Writer
Tells

Story of
Hogar del Soldado
(Soldiers’ Hearth)

and
more

perhaps
than a

and comrades
marriages. It
clue.

Was

It was the heart of the matter.
The Combatants’ Hearths are e€s-
tablished precisely for that pur-
pose, to give the army friends and

A Woman’s Diary

In these days
when organization
means so much to
the people in their
fight for higher wages and better
working conditions, it is a pleasure
to be able to shop in a big depart-
mental store and know that it is
one hundred per cent organized.

Store Fully
Organized.

JT was talking to one of the sales
sirls in Sears and Roebuck’s
Seattle store this week; a very
pleasant young lady who certainly
knew her job from A to Z.

She told me that the
been one of the first to

store had
be organ-

jzed and that within a month of
the union drive starting all the
workers were solid. They are now
working a full six-day week, but
with presentation of their demands
to the company’s head office in
Chicago, they expect soon to be on
a five-day week basi

The Tacoma store is on strike,

the pleasant youns lady told me,
warning to her subject, but she
thought the company would come
to terms befere lone.

“mMhey can’t break the
and they can’t afford to lose
of money by prolonging it,”
stated confidently.

These girls realize what
means to them,

strike
a lot
she

a union

no doubt
that Seattle is union
conscious, far more
so than Wancouver
Victoria, unfortunately, al-
the sentiment toward
anion organization now.
growing stronger in British Co-
lumbia holds high promise for
the future.
Byerywoere
you union
dows of stores

And those few

Union-
Conscious.

and
though
trade

you in Seattle
cards in the win-
and restaurants.
restaurants which

£0

see

eannot display a union card just
don’t get the patronage of the
sreat majority of Seattle citizens
who have seen reflected
own lives the many benefits of
trade union organization.

It certainly was 2 pleasure for
me to pick up goods in the stores
and find on them the label: ‘Manu-

factured under conditions fair to
labor=

I met in Vancouver this
Annie week one of Canada’s
Bulier most outstanding wom-

en leaders, known and
respected throughout the progres:
movement from one end of

sive

Canada to the other. IT mean, ot
course, Mrs. Annie Buller, west-
ern circulation manager for the

Clarion Weekly, national progres-
sive weekly published in Toronto,
and a central committee member
of the Communist party.

in their

‘Another volunteer for Franco, Herr Lieutenant

ernment cannon were barking.
The shells ripped into the soil
with a red-black flame even before
the shrill shriek of their flight
had filled*the air.

The tanks were also retiring.
The attack had failed. Worry was
replaced by a smile in the militia
men’s eyes. Aurelio ran to a
“q@inamitero’”’ and shook his hand,
then slapped the shoulders of each
man familiarly.

Several men from the neighbor-
jing company had slipped into 2
ravine. They had followed the
enemy and returned after a
quarter-hour with ‘four Moors.
Seized by fright, they had not fol-
lowed their fellows in the retreat,
and were easily taken by the mi-
litiamen. Their -appearance of
youth was astounding. They were
kids not even eighteen years old.
Two of them had been recruited
in French Morocco: Tsuls, from
Worth Taza.

To calm the nervous tension the
men in the trenches began to eat
their noonday meal: slice of bacon
and black bread. They drank a
heavy red wine which they
scooped up from 2 pail in their
aluminum canteens. It was only
11 o'clock.

comrades and wives from among
the workers! =

The Soldiers’ Hearth is a place
for him to rest and read and get
clean; but it is more than that. It
is a place for him to resume, in
part, and for moments, his place
as an ordinary citizen, communi-
eating with, inter-communicating
with, other civilians who have not
been in the trenches.

apes doesn’t seem a Very
world-shaking discovery? But
stop and think of the armies you
know. Do they encourage soldiers
to be citizens, or do they deny
them the right to vote? Do they
find ways of facilitating the fra-
ternization of soldiers and civilians,
or do they treat ecomradely rela-
tions between officers and men
as obvious evidence of ‘subversive
activity?’ Can you imagine what
would happen in Canada, Britain
or the United States if a given
regiment established permanent re-
lations with the workers of a
given factory ?

So my discovery of the purpose
of the Soldiers’ Hearth wasn’t in
itself world-shaking, but it was a
* discovery of a avyorld-shaking
chanze-

A regular army has grown up
in Spain out of that heterogeneous
mass that went to the Sierra in
July, but it is an army that main-
tains no life apart from the peo-
ple and can therefore never be
used as a weapon of a privileged

Cw o

She is in BC on a4 whirlwind
campaign to boost the sales of the
Clarion Weekly here—it already
has an impressive circulation in
this provinee— and she’s getting
results.

As a speaker she has a way of
getting her points over in simple.
direct language that leaves no
doubt in the minds of her hear-
ers. AS an organizer she always
manages to get things done, especi-
ally in those places where others
have reported that “people just
aren't interested. You ean’t do any-
thing there.”

She’s never too busy to listen
to anyone’s personal problems and
to offer advice, which probably,

is one of the secrets of her great
popularity.

*K

The story of her
eareer would fill
a book. Here I’ve
pniy room to men-

And Small
Son Jimmy.

{i shared their meal. Aurelio
spoke to me of death. “Both of us
were from Waredos-Labiana. The
hardest thing will be to announce
his death to his family. His wife
is expecting a baby. - - Oe

The conversation was inter-
rupted by the sound of nine tri-
motors flying directly over US:
Passing over our heads they
dropped bombs which made a long
plaintive whine and exploded on
the ground. They fell one after
the other. Each time the explo-
sions crept nearer to where We
were, The earth shook. You had
the impression that it leaped to-
ward the machine which was £07
ing to strike it. The last bomb
fell very near. A black smoke
carried by the wind flooded our
trench.

Another squadron appeared on
the left. Its bombs dug holes in
the ground three hundred yards
from us. A third squadron, of
seven  ‘tri-motors, reserved its
courtesies for the Basque nation-
alist battalion on the neighbor-
ing hill. The accumulated powder
and smoke soon formed a compact
cloud which overcast the sky-

Aurelio shouted to me, “I won-
der where these swine get so many

minority against the people. The
Hearth of the Soldier is one ot
the many devices for keeping sol-
diers just ‘people’ and elevating
the cultural level of that people.

Once this was clear, the speeches
hammered home the point. One
god-mother read her lines; another
recited them as fast as she could
go for fear of forgettinge-

But there was an imtense Con-
sciousness of the malignance of
the old-style army as an institu-
tion for use against the people. .
Biyery speech had something to
say about that, and you became
aware that the new soldiers and
their new sponsors were conscious-
ly dedicated to building an army
that could be used only for na-
tional defense, never for ‘police’
purposes.

*

VERYTHING didn’t move with

absolute smoothness. The very

rough edges added to the popular
character of the meeting.

One of the god-mothers, a blonde
girl of about sixteen yealrs, pro-
nounced her message, as she pre-
sented her banner, with fire and
conviction, but with such haste
that one recognized the strain of
memory involved. When she had
concluded she delivered her ‘Vivas’
without pausing to permit the au-
dience to respond to the separate
cheers.

‘Viva el General Miajat Viva
Bspana! Viva el Bjerecito Populart
A minute of silence for our dead.

by Victoria Post

She
up a job as a buyer at $125 a week

tion a few highlishts- pave

to throw her full energies into the
labor movement. She is 2 founda-

tion member of the Communist

party in Canada and was respon-
needie

the
this

sible for organizing

trades industry in

For her militancy in the Estevan,

Saskatchewan, miners’ strike in
1931, she was sentenced to a year
in jail—the only time since she

entered the labor movement when
she was not able to work night
and day for the cause of progress.

For those who are curious as
And she
who's
the apple of her eye and who will,
much
great a name
the people as

“to her age, well, she’s 40.

has a small son, Jimmy,
some day, unless [Tm very
mistaken, make as
for himself among
his mother,

ery,

long!

country.

bombs?”

the calm aiternoon the mili-

N
if tiamen carried Martin's body
to the farm. They buried it in the
garden under a2
further on, I surprised Aurelio on
his knees near the mound which
covered his comrade.
piling up a few stones.

tree. A little

He was

Their eyes peering into the los

fire, two militiamen were singing
a habanera. The sad song prought
a violent twitch to the heart. They
were certainly thinking of Mar-
tin’s mother:

“Wo llores, madre... -" (Don't
mother. - . -)

Tt was more than I could stand.

I walked off to the Morga road,
where a car was waiting for me-
I wanted to leave without Aurelio
seeing me-
not stand his look. .--

TI was afraid I could

But suddenly he stood up: “So
Greet all our French com-
rades for US... -”

I understood everything that
this warm and generous heart did
not say. I could not reply except
by a wave of the arm.

Why not admit it? That eve-
ning, alone in my room in Bilbao,
I cried like a baby. .- - -

e by James Hawthorne

Long live the People’s Front! Longs
live the Republic’

Someone of the staff whispered
to her with a significant touch
of his watch. Obviously he had
suggested that she now eall for
the aforementioned minute of si-
jence. ‘A minute of silence for our
dead" she cried, but then the lines
as memorized assumed control and
she went on without waiting:
‘Long live the People’s Front!
Long liye the Republic’

*

EIEN the last banner had been

delivered and accepted, a
signal from the stage to the band
called for the national anthem:
Riego’s Hymn. But before the
band could swing into action the
figure of a typically small Span-
ish soldier stood up in the front
row of the balcony.

‘Pido la palabra! (I ask for the
floor). He had quite obviously
never addressed an audience in
his life. It frightened him, but he
was deeply moved and felt he must
say something.

The minute of silence had been
no formality for him—there were
dead friends, dead members of his
family, to think of.

JT ask, he said simply, “that
with these new banners we leave
here and that we make the Fas-
cists pay for every drop of blood’

He floundered for a moment
while the hall waited quietly. Then
suddenly, “Lhat’s all.’
«
HERE is always something
more than clumsy—pathetic
—-about these meetings in New

Spain. People learning to speak,
to express their thoughts for the
first time. The old world had never
cared whether they thought or
not. The old world hired peopie
to think, and paid them to speak
the ‘rizht’ thoughts. The new one
sets up wall newspapers where
jlliterates are inspired to learn
their letters, and literate men ac-
quire the discipline of writing for
others.

Near the Hogar (the Hearth) is
the Glorieta de Bilbao. On one
corner of the Glorieta is a triple
wall newspaper set up by 2 Com-
munist section.

Across the street you look up
above the sign on the wall and
find three posters forgotten since
February, 1936. One of them shows
a velvety herald blowing 2 lone
trumpet. The girlish herald doesn’t
erope for words like the sturdy
little soldier in the balcony. He
speaks smoothly and easily. ‘Spain
calls us to save her. Vote for the
Monarchists and the Rightssts.”
Standing at the curb is an Italian
army truck, a Fiat, bearing the
canvas legend: ‘Captured from the
enemy.”

aren ere