«lished Ernest Capp’s first
‘Impressions of Spain as he
travelled from the Franco-
Spanish border to Barcelona.

n Spain,” he wrote,” peo-
Ple starve while food rots in
the sunshine.” Here he con-
tinues his story, telling how
he contacted leaders of the
anti-fascist underground and
€ard from them a stirring

_ account of the war against
Tanco,

" i, PARIS.
AC 8 O'CLOCK on a Wednesday

: Bacent in March, I walked
\ ae a small side street of Al-
ae I had managed to make
a ct with the underground
this evening I was to inter-

ond One of the leaders of the
Madrid district,

bey oy T fcund the room where I was
_ “0 Wait and at 8:15 an elderly

‘an walked in, shook my hand
and said: “Salud.” . f

pee ad not give me a name
4 didn’t ask mine. He looked
Bf He was shabby and used no
aS ures. Instead his hands rest-
ie Quietly in his lap. All his en-
a 8Y was in his words. He was
_ Yery, very tired.

ak © smiled at me and said:

hae better begin now. TI
,ven’'t too much time and I

have to p
e
have.” careful with what I

. T asked first about the location
Ree: activities and in the
nae €S8s of answering this ques-
_"n, he answered many others.

ao (centers. of activity,” he
eas are in the Asturias, all

= Ugh the North, in Toledo, the
ae °rial and in the mountains of
4oeR South —wherever there are

~Aountai z
rillag, ns, there are also guer

eae is difficult to estimate how
ae se It changes every day. Say
Ree 15 and 20 thousand.
ie ea an excellent liaison sys-
villa, etween all groups and the
: &es in the districts where
sees Operate. The country peo-
bia sae them with food and what
sane Can give to the sick and
Pacts. ed. Many soldiers have de-
prdoined Franco’s army and ‘have
_. _ US with their guns, There
_ “"® not many women,
igs
to:

Course we often need doc-
S and dentists. The Republi-
ade doctors are not able to work
tae fou They often go into the
Ag Pe and take care of our

j

ile have had trouble with ban-
The ae students who have used
eats Pe eenean name and cause
Peter; They try to mix with the
oH las and many are agents.”

.. °
HE laughed suddenly and said,
€ have a man, so old he is

a Vong Suspicion, who is one of
gg», Chief liaison officers. He is

We : above

” ns He
ae “SRE g
 &quanim
ts though
: Cannot

}

considerable dent in the
ity of the state and al-
we are very strong, we
Overthrow the regime.”

T asked then what was the
__—-*°st important effect that the
Bae *trilla movement had.
; am a the most important po-
p Cane : Symbol in Spain today. As
x as the Spanish people know
"at there are ten men and wo-
« Reo. are fighting Franco,
e wster do not give up hope com-
i a .These guerrillas express
, Pes and wishes of the Span:
eae Through them the
© express their hatred and
SPger at the Fascists.”

DAY, MAY 23, 1947 <=

N OUR last issue we pub-

continued, “The guerrillas:

By ERNEST CAPP

I asked him if underground
activity in the large cities was on
a large scale,

“There is a movement but it
is not so large nor is it as fully
coordinated as that of the moun-

_ tains. We are under constant sur-
veillance here and there are five

times the number of police to
watch us.”

He described’ the forces against
which the underground must op-
erate: ‘

“The major part of the budget,

77 percent, goes into the army

and the police. They are in-

structed in German methods of

spying and discipline; they
even wear the German uniforms.

’ They are the only ones in Spain
that have food and even they

don’t have too much except for

the top leaders, %

“phe Guardia Civil are utterly
prutalized as well as half crazy
with fear. They used to be

country patrols, but now they, —

like the carabinieri who used to
be customs men, are just part of
the army.”

_@

| HAD heard that the under-

ground kept in constant touch
with prisoners in the jails. Large
numbers of men and women who
were released have joined the

guerrillas. I asked him how this

was possible.

“We have worked out, after
many years, an excellent liaison
system, It’s the best there is and
we are proud of it. We are able
to get full information on con-
ditions in the jails We
know when strikes are
threatened. We know immedi-
ately if prisoners are released.
We are then able to contact them
and if they want, we put them
in touch with guerrilla forces.

“You have heard of the horror
of our prisons? Sometimes men
are afraid to fight because they
are terrified of returning to jail
but on most of those released it

_ has the opposite effect.

Even Orthodox Catholics, war-

haters, non-political people, hate
so much what Franco has done
to Spain, done to human beigs
--things they have felt and seen
themselves—that they are desper-
ate to join the guerrillas.”

He told me that his son, re-
cently released, had lost his mind
as a result of treatment he re-
ceived in prison. Both my in-
formant and his wife had spent
years in prison.

“We know what it is like,” he
said. “The women who fight with
the guerrillas have all spent time.
Some had to wait for their ‘trials’
for three years. It is all the same.
They are beaten black, starved,
exposed to terrible cold, left to
die on the grounds, You can
imagine what the effect of such
things has on an ordinary human

being. Franco has made many

Communists in Spain.”

WONDERED if guerrillas got
anye news from the outside
world,

“We used to get newspapers
from England and America but
that has become impossible now.
We have short wave radio sets
but there is so much interference
in the Moscow and French broad-
casts that we can barely hear.
The English broadcasts are very
clear. But they are nothing. The
Franco government has nothing
to fear from England. -

“Then of course, we have a
: good system of contact with the
Republican government in exile.
That is absolutely necessary.”

He asked me the time. It was
11:30. He rose and handed me
the last issue of Mundo Obrero,
underground publication of the
Communist Party and also a
mimeograph sheet put out by In-
tellectuals Section of the Socialist
Party.

“This is the January issue,”
he said. “The Fascists smashed
the presses after this was pub-
lished and killed the men who
worked on it but now it is being
mimeographed, They haven’t been
able to stop it and they won’t.”

We shook hands and for a mo-
ment, he stood and looked at me.

“Please tell them abroad what
is happening to us here. We need
help so desperately.”

Guide to good reading ~

NE can hardly avoid review-
ing. Maurice Hindus in at-
tempting to review a book he

‘has written. The field he has

chosen to write about, the Slavic
countries of Eastern Europe,
has always imposed on him the

need to deal with Communists

and the Communist parties of
those countries. I think that it
can be fairly said that after
years of observation and a ser
ies of books, some of which
were very good, he has not
achieved an illuminating grasp
or even a working understand-
ing of Marxism. |

' Why this is so is not the sub-
ject for this review. The fore-
going is by way of saying that

allowances must be made for

this when reading his books.
Having said that, his latest one,
The Bright Passage, must’ be
recognized as a book of the

greatest value and significance. ©

It is‘a book about present day
Czechoslovakia and the bright
passage is the rapid transition
to socialism which is being ef-
fected under a government of na-

~ tional unity led by the Commun-

ist Party.

Hindus, always a sincere and

able reporter, describes the far-
reaching developments which are

“occurring there, the nationaliza-

tion of the factories, the Two-
Year Plan, the high production
goals which are being aimed at.

On the reporting level it is a
vital document, for Czechoslova-
kia is behind the iron curtain
Churchill propped up and, ex-
cept for a few doctored dis-
patches, our press has main-
tained a complete blackout of
news from there.
; e
et aad aed will question many of
*“ Hindus’ interpretations of the
facts he reports, but one of his
points will be readily conced-
ed. The process of making so-
‘cialism a fact as well as a
theory already begun, and sav-
agely interrupted, in Russia is

now under way in Czechoslo-
vakia.

é

Its outcome in the next two
to five years will have a tre-
mendous impact on the whole
world. For, as Hindus points
out, Czechoslovakia begins from
a high level of industry and
technical skill comparable in
Many respects with our own.

The success of socialism there
will bear early fruit for the
Czechs to enjoy and the world,
in the event of a crisis, to
envy. :

As Hindus says, ‘the old, old
question’ of the superiority of
socialism may sooner be set-
tled there. There is another im-
portant aspect to this question.
‘No spokesman for the United
States or Britain can find any

ground to challenge the demo-
cratic forms under which the
‘bright passage’ is being made.

e
ieee CANADA in many ways,
Czechslovakia is a small
country, highly industrialized,

with a long tradition of democ-—

racy. It is unquestionably with-
in the sphere of that western cul- |

tural heritage the propagandists

of capitalism defend so desper-

ately against Marxist ideology.
It is a Protestant country

with a large Catholic majority. —

Other parallel features could be
explored which should add to

af.

the interest Canadians evince

in Czechoslovakia.

The Bright Passage is one of _

those books that a reviewer
feels everyone should read in
spite of any shortcomings, for
it offers a’ grasp of Czecho-

slovak history, the people, their _

leaders, their economic re-
sources and postwar problems.

The political problems faced by ~

a people who have voted for | ie

socialism are of vital interest to
us.—HAL MILLER.

——

RECOMMENDED BOOKS

The Bright Passage—by Maurice