This map, compiled by anti-fascist Spaniards, shows 143 naval
and air bases constructed or enlarged in Franc Spain with Ameri-
can aid and supervision since the end of the Second World War,

~ Guerillas still ©
_ fight in Spain -

By PAUL HOGARTH

‘

JHE reality of a Spain under fascism begins the .moment the visitor crosses the frontier, For every-

where, on every occasion, there are police and Civil guards.

Pistols in their belts, carbines or sub-

machine guns slung over their shoulders, they patrol the streets, country roads and villages, escort all
trains, guard public buildings, bridges and power stations. Franco’s power rests on their efficiency.

On my way to the Asturias, I
Passed through Guernica. Derelict
for many years after its destruc-
tion by the Luftwaffe’s Condor
Legion, the town has been par-
tially rebuilt.

A local Falange official noticed
my interest and gravely informed
me that the destruction of the
town had been caused by retreat-
ing Anarchist militiamen dyna-
miting the ‘buildings,and any other
version I might hear to the con-
trary was Marxist propaganda.

Oviedo — the principal city of
the Asturias, looked as if the
nerve that give it life had gone
dead, leaving only bare shells of
buildings devoid of life and mean-
ing. ‘

On the outskirts of the city,
where Republican and Fascist
forces were locked in conflict for
Over two years, whole areas are
still not cleared of debris. -

By the hotel is the grim Santa’
Clara barracks that the Asturian
miners so often stormed. The
great inclined walls, pitted with
shrapnel and bullet marks, tower
above the congested narrow
Streets of the working-class quar-
ters of the city. si iediiatcde

Blue-uniformed Assault Guards,
with tommy-guns at the ready,
Stare belligerently at passers-by.

‘ 4 aks

' Some few miles to the south of
Oviedo are the towns and villages”
of the Asturian mining basin.
Situated in deep valleys, flanked
by towering mountains, they are

very like their Welsh and Cum-

berland counterparts. fi

_ Housing conditions
ing — whole communities live in

half-ruined cottages and patched- |

up shacks. They have done so-
Since 1939, Everywhere on the
walls are black stencilled portraits _
ofa smiling Franco...)
’ In 1934, from these towns and
villages’ marched contingents of |

are appall-

one of the most heroic actions
ever taken by the Spanish people
to overthrow reaction — the
Asturian Revolt.

Never had such wanton sadism
been displayed as in the measures
that were taken to crush the
miners. Moors and Foreign Le-
gionaries undertook one of the
bloodiest repressions in Spanish
history, systematically burning
and looting every town and vil-
lage between Oviedo and the Can-

» tabrian passes.

And today? The Moors are back
occupying these same centers.
® . *

Murder, torture, an endless
series of executions without, trial.
This is how Franco wages war on

the mining communities and, in--

deed; every other community. The
miners fight back as best they can.

Guerilla units in. the mountains
are in close contact with groups
in the pits and factories. Their
fight is no mere exchange of
shots, but political activity of ma-
jor importance. For it gives the
people hope of eventually over-
throwing the regime.

I spent a day in a village well

known to International Brigaders.

In a blacksmith’s workshop a
large group of men and boys were
watching the blacksmith and a
carpenter at work on the repair
of a threshing machine. __ :

I talked with the blacksmith
about the war. The others gather-
ed round. “The front was here—
and still is,” said the blacksmith
quite openly before the others.

On the Ebro, as in other parts
of Spain, the fight‘goes on. From
Saragosa, to Lerida and farther
south to Belchite and Gandesa is
one of the most active guerilla
zones in the country. ;

From the Saragosa Tarragona

_ roads are to be seen the ruins of

farms and abandoned fields—this
is how friendly peasants pay for
supporting the guerillas.

The peasants remember with
characteristic tenacity the agrar
ian reforms of the Republic, when
the land was theirs. Loyal sup-
port from the peasants through-
out the country makes it possible
for the guerillas to continue the
fight. :

The struggle goes on—year in,
year out. “Ten years, just think
of it,” one man said sadly, and
added, “how can they live like
that in the mountains?”

But somehow they do, drawing
sustenance from the unanimous

hostility toward the Franco re-—

gime. Spain’s pattern of high
mountain ranges, which kept the

country clinging to feudalism so

late in the day, are now the bases
of tomorrow’s liberation. .

_ But the fact that Franco Spain
receives considerable political and
economic support from the West
causes serious difficulties for
Spain's National Liberation Move-

- ment. : Ve

‘ish Civil War as a member of

= Meanwhile,

_ Of the dues they are required to
Pay, penalties for failure to pay -

By DEREK KARTUN

AST week, Edmond Ma-

jr, president of the Mont-
real Cwic Liberties Union, sent
a protest to the Turkish em-
bassy at Ottawa against the
continued imprisonment of Na-
zim Hikmet, outstanding Turk-
ish poet who recently began a
hunger strike. The protest, cal-
ling for release of Hikmet, who
has been in prison for the past
13 years serving a 28-year sen-
tence illegally imposed by a
military court, deserves the sup-
wut of all democratic organi-
zations. :

[ .

| toe and half-starved, rotting
ina Turkish jail lies Nazim

Hikmet. He has been there

since 1938, and he has another

16 years of his sentence to

serve.

Is Nazim Hikmet a bandit
or a killer? He is not. He
is Turkey’s greatest poet.

In Turkey, of course, they
jail and kill their writers and
thinkers. The bandits go into
politics, '

Thus, Sabahhattin Ali, the
greatest novelist Turkey ever
had, was murdered by the po-
lice in the summer of 1948.
‘the Turkish
press discusses publicly the ad-
visability of dropping an atom

bomb in Siberia as a warning
to the Soviet Union to do as
she is told.

This is the country des-
cribed by President Truman as
a bulwark of democracy in the
Middle East. Today it is vir-
tually run by the U.S. embassy

and the big U.S. mission at-
tached to the Turkish general
staff.

Nazim Hikmet received his
first jail sentence in the. early
1920’s for writing poems in the
Socialist press about freedom.
He was in jail again in 1928
for the same offense.

Finally, a police frame-up in
1938 sent him to jail for 28
years.

For years now there has been
a protest movement trying to
get Hikmet freed.

In Turkey and abroad, writ-

ers and prominent intellectuals

- Turkey's poet
rots in jail

have been fighting against this

monstrous perversion of justice.

One hundred and fifty of
them, including world-famous
names, signed a petition to
UNESCO. But that body
was too busy defending “‘Wes-
tern” values and refused to take
any notice.

The Turkish government has
had protests from scores of or-
ganizations. But it has been
too busy asking Washington
for more tanks to defend “Wes-
tern” democracy, and has done
nothing.

Latest news from the infa-
mous Brousse prison where
Nazim Hikmet is held is that
he has been thrown, not for the
first time, into solitary confine-
ment. It is believed that the
police are planning to murder
him, as they murdered Saba-

_hattin Ali.

Here is one of his beautiful
poems, smuggled out of his jail
and published abroad. It men-
tions the heart disease from
which, it is believed, the police
intend to use as an ““explana-
tion” of his death.

If the half of my heart is here,

+ doctor, :

The other half is in China

With the army going down to-

wards the Yellow River.
And then, every morning,
doctor,
Every moming at dawn
My heart is sk 4 in Greece.
And then, when the prisoners
fall asleep,
When the last steps go away
from the infirmary
My heart goes off, doctor,
It goes off to a litile wooden

’ house, in Istanbul. ;

’ And then, for ten years, doctor,
! have had nothing in my hands

i! offer my poor people
Nothing else but an apple,
A red apple, my heart.
I Eo at night through the —

S-
And in spite of all these walls
" lying heavily on my chest
My heart beats with the farthest
star.
It’s because of all that, doctor,
And not because of arterio-
scelerosis, nicotine, and
prison
That I have this angina pectoris.

The steel fist

his district with another and de-

termine which of the district di-_

rectors of the consolidated dis-
tricts shall be the new director of
the single district (Article X, Sec-
tion 2). %

°

Fr

hes attitude of Steelworkers. .

Union officials towards the mem-
bership is nowhere more clearly
shown than in the constitution

‘governing: that body. One can

search through that entire docu-

‘ment in vain to find one word

conce: tning the rights and privi-

_leges of membership.

The sections of the constitution

\

Such dues, discipline to which
‘members can be subjected for

variety of reasons and an elabor.
ate spelling out of trial procedure. _

_ which contains the constitution of |
the international union has a 14

page supplement on “Trial, Dis-_

cipline and Expulsion of Mem- —
-bers” — a matter of seemingly
more importance to officials than _