the volunteer, june 2003

8/14/2019 The Volunteer, June 2003

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...and that government of the people,by the people, and for the people,shall not perish from the earth.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

TheVolunteerJOURNAL OF THE VETERANS OF THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN BRIGADE

TheVolunteerVol. XXV, No. 2 June 2003

The Vets take the stage while the band plays songs of struggle and protest at the New York annual reunion, April 27,2003. See page 3 for story.Photos by Richard Bermack


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THE VOLUNTEER June 2003 3

Bill Susman1915-2003By Cary NelsonPhotos by Richard Bermack

There really were only twooptionsgetting wounded or gettingkilled. This a young lieutenant in theLincoln Battalion realized as he start-ed up a steep hill in the Ebro valleynear Gandesa. The Americans andtheir Spanish comrades were caughtin a crossfire between two machinegun emplacements above them. Theidea that you could pass throughthat ricocheting rain of bulletsunscathed was not worth entertain-ing. But the Republic needed the

high ground. The effort had to bemade whether or not it was realistic.

As Bill Susman would learn overand over again in Spain, occupyingthe high ground morally did notguarantee possession of the equiva-lent geographical or political terrain.Like so many of his lifetime com-rades on the Left, he would learn thelesson repeatedly in the years tocome. But he did indeed live to scaleother mountains. On that day in 1938

he was wounded in the elbow andcrawled behind a terrace to avoidbeing shot again. Carried out ofaction, he would live to win and losemany future battles, bearing withhim at once the knowledge that youare never wholly in control of yourown fate and that the only compen-satory leverage you have is never toexercise less than a maximum effort.

Those of us who worked withBill over the years would come tofeel a certain awe at what a maxi-

mum effort meant for him. Whenyou were in the crossfire between hiswill and his affection you were notlikely to forget the experience.

He began life as a red diaperbaby, born Samuel Susman toCharles and Anna Susman in NewHaven, Connecticut, on September25, 1915. They returned to their homein Bridgeport, Connecticut, where

Bill spent his first years. The house-hold was a transit point for radicalspassing through the area. Both par-ents worked in clothing factories.Anna was active in the ILGWU, as

was Bills great aunt Sarah, wholived for some time in the household.Charles was a Socialist Party mem-ber when his son was born, and hebecame a charter member of the newCommunist Party. The marriage col-lapsed when Bill was about six yearsold; in 1929 Bill and his father movedto the Bronx. Bill was an honors stu-dent in high school, but nonethelessfelt restless.

Susman entered the partysjunior Groups of America at age ten,

then became a Young Pioneer. Theysent him to Chicago to attend thefirst national UnemploymentCouncils convention; immediatelyafter that he graduated into theYoung Communist League. By thattime, in a Bronx high school, he wassimultaneously taking courses at thePartys Worker School. He was eagerfor adventure, for travel, and Leftpolitics had become central to hislife. He undertook some special

work under the name WilliamDorno. The new first name stuck,and he became William Susman. Hedropped out of school and in 1934was assigned to help the strikingMaritime Workers Industrial Union.When the strike ended, he decided togo to sea.

On the New York docks heshowed a skill he would employ suc-cessfully the rest of his lifechoosing just the right words to tipan interaction his way. From on

board ship they called out to the menbelow looking for work to say theyneeded a chefs assistant. Never skip-ping a beat then or thereafter, Billproclaimed himself well seasoned.Where have you worked? TheHotel Edison, the Roosevelt, theWaldorf. It was the third claim, thetopper,that got him in trouble a fewdays out to sea, when the captain

called down for a Waldorf salad. Billhadnt a clue. In recompense theykept him at the job without quarter.

He never quite got out of hisclothes, but when the captain camedown for a visit a few days later hetook a liking to the ships young

scullery scoundrel and invited himon deck to learn something aboutbeing a sailor. He had a steering les-son and adapted obliquely toanother task. Directed by a seamanwith a heavy Brooklyn accent to callout The lights are bright, sir, wheneight bells rang, thereby assuring allthat the running lights were on, Billheard the command through hisYiddish ears and for a time bellowedLitza Britza.

After passing through the

Panama Canal and disembarking onshore leave at San Francisco, he wasready to become involved in a WestCoast strike by way of the waterfrontYCL. Back in New York in 1936, hewent to sea again, joining the eastcoast strike when the ship docked inBaltimore. By then, a young CPmember, he was ready for a still

Continued on page 18

End of An Era


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4 THE VOLUNTEER June 2003

By Mark Jenkins

Until the middle of February,the large urban campus of theUniversity of Washington in

Seattle was quiet as a mouse. The35,000 students and nearly 3,000 fac-ulty members seemed to be asleep asfar as the looming war in Iraq wasconcerned.

A few miles north of the campus,87 year-old Brigade vet, AbeOsheroff, heard the snoring. He

became very upset. While in themidst of excruciating pain from aherniated spinal disc, followed bydelicate and dangerous surgery torepair his spine, and a challengingrecovery period, he doggedly contin-ued even escalated his activismserving as the catalyst, mentor,strategist, and taskmaster for whathas become one of the largest anti-war efforts on any college campus inthe nation.

Osheroff brought together pro-fessors, students and staff he knowsfrom the university. He admonishedthem. He cajoled them. Sometimeshe scolded them. When friends cameto offer comfort during his healthordeal, he turned the conversationsto the impending war in Iraq, chal-lenging them to get somethinggoing on campus. He asked toughquestions, he openly despaired aboutthe silence on campus due to thenearly total lack of activism and

leadership from faculty.Within a few weeks his determi-

nation paid off. He inspired and,when necessary, shamed his UWfriends into taking action. First asmall group met at his home to forman action plan. Soon more peoplefrom the university showed up in hisliving room. (He was confined to sit-ting upright in a chair 24 hours a day

at that time, still recov-ering from surgery).Before long there was asecond meeting withover a hundred peopleon campus.

The next week acold but very success-ful rally took overRed Square, thelargest open space onthe UW campus.

Twelve hundred peo-ple, mostly universitypersonnel, gathered inthe wind and rain.Representatives fromfaculty, students, andstaff declared theywere breaking thesilence and beganspeaking out againstthe war. A smallCessna plane towed a

banner declaringCampus4Peace.net.Guess who arranged for that?

Abe Osheroff, a man who, back inthe 1930s, once raised money tohire a horse and wagon to paradethrough Brownsville in Brooklyn tocall attention to a rally earlier in hiscareer.

On this most recent, cold day inearly March, Abe, still barely ableto walk, climbed the seven steps tothe microphone and spoke to the

crowd for five minutes, personallydeclaring war on a tyrannicaladministration determined to be theworlds policemen and challenging allthose present to make a difference.

The immediate purpose of therally was to demand that the UWadministration respond to the com-ing war in Iraq by declaring a daydevoted to examining the present

world crisis for students, faculty,staff, and the wider community. Thenext day the Provost met with theUW organizers and agreed to call forsuch a day and further, to provideongoing discussions, panels, anddebates to take place throughout thespring term. The following day theFaculty Senate passed a resolutioncalling for a Time of Reflection: TheWar in Iraq. A new group called

Campus For Peace was formed tokeep these efforts going.

Abe Osheroff is definitely backon his feet, proving once again thatone person can make a difference.This is the legacy of the XV brigade:looking forward: Viva la BrigadaLincoln!

Mark Jenkins teaches in the School ofDrama at the University of Washington

Fighting for PeaceLegacy of theLincoln Brigade

Abe Osheroff, photo by Jose Moreno.


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By Anne TaiblesonPhotos by Richard Bermack

A

t midday on Sunday, April 27the skies were sunny, thebreezes warm. It was a beauti-

ful day to honor the Lincoln Brigadeat the 67th Reunion held at theTribeca Performing Art Center of theBorough of Manhattan CommunityCollege in downtown New YorkCity. It was great to be back homeagain, and though hearts are heavythis year, we had much to celebrate.

Henry Foner, for the 27th year,played an important part in thereunion as emcee and good willambassador. His participation wasacknowledged in a surprise tribute.

ALBA Chair Peter Carroll andLincoln vet Moe Fishman presentedHenry with a beautiful engravedplaque, honoring his unfailing ser-vice to the cause. Henry was quitemoved, but did not miss a beat, andcontinued his emcee responsibilitieswith grace.

Moe Fishman was in especiallyfine form. He told the audience,numbering 800-plus that he and vetsLen Levenson and Harry Fisher were

amazed by the reception theyreceived from young activists duringthe anti-war demonstration held in

New York in March. With theVeterans of the Abraham LincolnBrigadebanner flying high, the

cheers and hugs and kissesbestowed upon them by hundredsof young people passing by wasunbelievable. It looks like theALBA website (www.alba-valb.org)is catching on, he said.

Fifteen vets graced the stage thisyear, and each had something to say,whether about the present outrage inthe Middle East or their own life-changing experiences fightingagainst fascism in Spain. Every vet-eran there, in some way, salved all

our weary souls, rallying againstU.S. aggression overseas.

Fredda Weiss, ALBA ExecutiveCommittee member, introduced thekeynote speakeractor, activist, andred-diaper baby, Richard Dreyfuss.Born in Bayside, NY and son of amother proud never to have votedDemocrat, this highly talented and

NYNYC HC H onors the Bronors the Br igadeigade

Continued on page 6

Richard Dreyfuss

Moe Fishman and Peter Carroll present a plaque to Henry Foner

In the neighborhood

I grew up in, you

either went to Spain

or you had a good

excuse.

Richard Dreyfuss


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modest gentleman told stories aboutpassionate activism in his family thatbegan in 19th century Russia; abouthis grandmother who was privatesecretary to Eugene V. Debs; about

coming of age on 218th Street,Queens, with stories of what theLincolns accomplished and how theyknew the truth before the rest of theworld did, and how they set the stan-

dard for activism andcommitment.

The songs of resistanceand protest, put together byBruce Barthol, musical direc-tor of the San Francisco MimeTroupe, closed the program.Developed by Bruce andALBAs Peter Glazer, the pro-grams rendition of theWobbly doxology was hilariousand protest songs from thelikes of Country Joe and the

Fish brought back lots ofmemories.

It was another happyand emotional tribute to theveterans of the AbrahamLincoln Brigade. As Richard

Dreyfuss said, As long as weremember what the men and women

of the Lincoln Brigade stand for, wecan work through this present andfuture chaos. No truer words

Anne Taibleson is a member of theALBA Board of Governors.


NYC Honors BrigadeContinued from page 5

Saul Wellman and Sylvia Thompson

Harry Randall

Documentary film producer C M Hardt (left) screened her moving film Death in El Valle, about her investigation ofthe murder of her grandfather. ALBA Chair Peter Carroll and Moe Fishman honor Spain's Consul General of NewYork, Emilio Casaniello at the King Juan Carlos Center for his support of ALBAs work.

ALBAs April Events in NYC


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By Dan Lynn Watt with Molly

Lynn Watt

This is May 21st and excellentfighting weather. Cold wind and hotsun. By the time you get this the news-

papers will probably be reporting greatvictories for Loyalist Spain. Almost two

years of war and still the spirit is thesame even higher. All of Spain issinging songs of struggle and victory.

Just listen to us.(Excerpt from a post card written

on May 21, 1938 by George Watt,Political Commissar of the AbrahamLincoln Battalion, to his wife, Ruth

Rosenthal Watt in New York.)New England audiences have

been singing along with those spirit-ed songs from Spain, and listening toexcerpts of letters exchangedbetween George and Ruth Watt, aspart of a program called Songs andLetters of the Spanish Civil War.Folksinger Tony Saletan performsthe songs with banjo, guitar, andpiano, accompanied by SylviaMiskoe on accordion. I read my

fathers letters, while my wife Mollyreads Ruths. The show attracts audi-ences that include Spanish Civil Waraficionados as well as folks whoknow little about it.

We introduced Songs andLetters as a one-hour presentationto liven up a daylong conference onthe Spanish Civil War held inConcord, New Hampshire inFebruary 2002. When George Wattdied in 1994 at age 80, he left behinda collection of letters he had written

to his first wife, Ruth. She kept themin a scrapbook with post cards, pho-tos, leaflets and memorabilia Georgesent home from Spain.

Three weeks before the NewHampshire conference, Molly and Imade an astounding discovery whenwe opened a box containing myfathers letters that had been storedin my parents basement. In the box

was a two-inch stack of yellowedtypewritten pages, carbon copies of

letters written by Ruth in New Yorkto George in Spain. Ruth died inApril 1940, 15 months after Georgereturned from Spain and five weeksafter I was born. (In June 1941George married Margie Wechsler,his wife of 53 years, my dearlybeloved stepmother, and mother tomy brother Steve.) Ruths belongingswere put into a box that was neveropened until we found it last year.

Except for a few photos, the let-ters are the only personal effects I

have ever had to tell me about theperson my mother was, and my par-ents love for each other. Thiswonderful treasurethe nearly com-plete set of letters exchangedbetween George and Ruth giving ustwo sides of an extraordinary con-versation became the basis forSongs and Letters of the SpanishCivil War.

The program opens with LosCuatro Generales and closes with

Jarama. In between, we weave manysongs from and about Spain withexcerpts weve selected and editedfrom the letters. They tell the story ofthese two young lovers, idealists andpolitical activists, separated by war.Set against the backdrop of interna-tional efforts to prevent a World Warin 1937 and 1938, the story evokesparallels with todays internationaltragedy:

George wrote about learning tobe a soldier, operating a machine

gun, dodging bulletsand gettingwounded, about the horrors of warand its effects, and about the interna-tionalism he experienced in Spain.Ruth wrote about her political workorganizing a boycott of silk stockingsimported from Japan, seeing themovies Blockade, Snow White and theSeven Dwarfs and Paul Muni in Zola,

Continued on page 8

Songs and Letters of theSpanish Civil War

Sylvia Miskoe, Tony Saletan, Molly Lynn Watt and Dan Lynn Watt performSongs and Letters of the Spanish Civil War.


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and the support at home for theLincolns. She canvassed friends towrite and send packages of necessi-tiescoffee, cigarettes, gum, tinnedsalmon and warm sweatersto the

boys in Spain.Many of the songs woven

among the letters are familiar toreaders of The Volunteer: TheInternationale, Freiheit, Peat BogSoldiers, Viva La Quince Brigada,Venga Jaleo, and othersrecorded during or shortlyafter the war and popular-ized later by Paul Robeson,Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbertand The Weavers amongothers. Tony Saletan has

also found lesser-knownsongs of the time. WoodyGuthriesMr. Tom Mooney isFree complements Ruthsletter about a Free TomMooney rally at whichFiorello LaGuardia and

Heywood Broun wereamong the speakers.Dont Buy Anything

Japanese was a topicalsong, sung to the tune

of Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn,and connects withRuths boycott of silkstockings. Tony foundverses in Yiddish toViva La Quince Brigada and theSong of the United Front, andtwo songs by Lewis Allanabout the Spanish Civil War,

Abraham Lincoln Walks Againand Beloved Comrade, widelysung at the time.

Our program has evolved

from a one-hour performanceto an evening with two actsand an intermission. By July2003 we will have given sevenperformances in a variety ofvenus. We are working on aCD, and hope to develop aradio show and a historicalpresentation suitable forschools and libraries.

Eventually I plan to edit and publisha book of George and Ruths corre-spondence.

For information about upcomingperformances and materials, check

out the ALBA web site, www.alba-valb.org. To sponsor a performancecontact Dan or Molly Lynn Watt,617-354-8242, 603 588-6734,[email protected] [email protected].

LettersContinued from page 7

Ruth writes to George,Nov. 26, 1937

George, Do you realize we have a

celebration coming soon? Our first

Anniversary! Remember? So on

January 15, just imagine when you

go to sleep that I say, push over, and I

crawl in next to you and you say, brr

youre cold, and I say, my youre love-

ly and warm. Later youre dying to go

to sleep, but I wont let you because of

the way I keep kissing the corner of

your eye, and rubbing my nose in

your cheek, and fiddling with your

hair and murmuring silly things. And

then you just turn around and go to

sleep and even then I rub my face in

your back and am so happy I fall

asleep, too.

George writes to Ruth,September 16, 1937

Dear Muchachkele, At long last I got

your letter. I had grapes, lemonade and your

letter for dessert. I had lamb stew, Frenchfried potatoes and your letter for my main

dish. Well theres hardly any need to say

what difference your letter made. Its much

easier now facing artillery and machine

guns than it was before. I was really worried

that I wouldnt hear from you before we

went into action. Well, Im happy, thats all,

very, very happy. You write about my new

vitality and depth of experience. Well, my

new vitality consists in infiltration (running

and flopping towards the enemy usually

done on very thorny, rocky ground) and mydepth of experience comes from digging

foxholes.

Yesterday our entire section was trans-

ferred into a Spanish company. This was

done to strengthen the Spanish group. This

is just the chance that most of us have been

waiting for. Now we are doing the job the

International Brigade was really meant to

do. That is to teach.


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By Helen Graham

This article is an abridged version ofthe 2003 Len Crome Memorial Lecture

presented on March 8 at the ImperialWar Museum in London, under the aus-

pices of the International BrigadeMemorial Trust. Len Crome served inSpain as a doctor and Brigade Chief

Medical Officer.

In this years memorial lecture Ihave chosen to focus on the returnof Republican memory, since it is

a subject of extraordinary impor-tance now in Spain.

In 1989, the North Americanraised son of the Spanish Republican

novelist, Ramn Sender, publishedan account of his own and his sisterssearch for the remains of their moth-er, Amparo Barayn and for thetruth about her imprisonment andextra-judicial murder. She was killedat the age of thirty two, in rebel-heldZamora in northwest Spain, theCatholic heartland of Old Castile, inthe early months of Spains civil war.

The book, called simplyA Deathin Zamora, charts an extraordinary

odyssey in time, space and memory.On his return to Spain, in the 1980s,the son, also called Ramn, discovershe has a whole extended Spanishfamily, which emerges like a lostcontinent, bearing with it the history,the traces, the unquiet ghost of hismother Amparo. He meetsAmparos niece, Magadalena Maes,who in 1942 at the age of 17 had inan act of tremendous courage, physi-cally with her own hands removedher beloved aunts remains from the

common grave where they lay,reburying them in the family tomb.The bad thing [Magdalena tellsRamn] was that they [had] putquicklime in with her. There was nocoffin or anything, just the body andthe quicklime. For this act oftemerity, even though Amparosniece had sought and received therequisite official authorization, she

and her family received anonymousdeath threats.

Ive begun with this snapshotfromA Death in Zamorabecause it isan extraordinary book that deservesto be more widely known and read.

And it does so precisely because ittells in microcosm almost every pro-found thing one could want to sayabout the civil war in Spain, as a civilwar; its complex social and culturalcauses and its tremendous costs inthe long aftermath of uncivil peace,up to and well beyond the death ofFranco in 1975. Above all its narra-tive paves the way for the long, slow,

and painful recuperation ofRepublican memory, the memory ofthe defeated, which is only nowexploding in Spain. The most wellknown examples are probably thecampaign to open common graves to

identify the remains of those extra-judicially murdered by the Francoistforces both during and after the war;the campaign for recognition andcompensation by those used asforced labor by the regime; and mostrecently as documented by the recenttelevision documentary about thelost children of Francoism, those


Republican Memory Returnsto Spain

Ramn J. Sender and Amparo Barayn


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who were notoriously taken fromtheir mothers, Republican womenprisoners, and forcibly adopted byFrancoist familieswhich for usnow immediately recalls the shades

of later violationsin VidelasArgentina or Pinochets Chile.

In the title of this memoir,ADeath in Zamora, one death stands forthe many. For the tens of thousandsof people killed in the Francoistrepression had one thing over-whelmingly in common with eachother: they had benefited in someway from the redistribution of powerunder the Republic. Local studies ofthe repression demonstrate quiteclearly that those who targeted the

length and breadth of rebel Spainwere precisely those constituencieson whom the Republics reforminglegislation had conferred social andpolitical rights for the first time intheir lives. Conversely, the manywho supported Spains militaryrebels (whether we take this manyas individuals or as entire social con-stituencies) had in common a fear ofwhere change was leadingwhethertheir fears were of material or psy-

chological loss (wealth, professionalstatus, established social and politi-cal hierarchies, religious or sexual, i.e.gendered, certainties) or a mixture ofthese things.

The assuaging of this over-whelming sense of fear was a veryimportant element driving theFrancoist repression. Why do I saythis? Well, because horrifying repres-sion took place everywhere inrebel-held territory. That is to say, ittook place in many placesof which

Zamora was onewhere the mili-tary rebels were in control from theoutset, where there was no militaryor armed resistance, no politicalresistance to speak of either, in short,where one would be hard-pressed tofind a war-situation at all (at leastaccording to a conventional defini-tion of war). Nor is it feasible toargue that the initial violence

stemmed, as it did in the Republicanzone, from uncontrollable groups.In Republican Spain the militarycoup provoked the total collapse ofthe state apparatus. But in the rebelzone there was no collapse of publicorder. The fascist Falangist or clericalCarlist militia and other volunteersof the right, could at any time have

been disciplined by the militaryauthorities that underwrote publicorder from the beginning. Not onlydid this not happen, but instead, asthe research of the past decade hasmade clear, the military activelyrecruited thousands of civilian vigi-lantes to carry out a dirty war. Thusmilitary and civilian-instigated

repression existed in a complemen-tary relationship. This was thebeginning of the fellowship of

blood, of the complicity of wholesectors of Spanish society, ordinarySpaniards who became enmeshed inthe murder of their compatriots.

Who was targeted by this repres-sion? Well, as Ive already suggested,all sorts of peoplewhether or notthey were active combatantstherural landless, but also many ruralsmall holders and above all lease-

holding farmers who had achievednew tenancy rights under theRepublic; urban workers, progres-sive teachers, trade unionists; thenew woman. The military rebelsand their civilian supporters werethus redefining the enemy asentire sectors of society that wereperceived as out of control because

they were beyond the control of tra-ditional forms of discipline andorder.

And I mention here the newwoman because a pathological fearand loathing of emancipated womenwas a very powerful motive forceamong the rebels. Amparo Baraynwasnt just killed in lieu of her hus-band the famous Republican writer,Ramn Sender, as many commenta-tors have previously claimed. No,she was killed, as it were, in her own

right. For Amparo was a modernwoman. In 1930, as Spains monarchscrumbled, Amparo had, aged 26, leftthe conservative provincial backwa-ter of Zamora and gone to Madrid,the big city, to become indepen-dent. She found work as a telephoneswitchboard operatora newemployment opportunity that wasitself an indicator of Spains bur-geoning modernity. In Madrid shesupported herself, lived indepen-

dently, educating herself bothpolitically and culturally, and shemet Ramn Sender and began livingwith himwhich was quite some-thing for those times, even in urbanmetropolitan Spainfor Madrid wasnot Berlin or Paris.

Although back in Zamora theywouldnt have know about Sender,nevertheless the very fact thatAmparo had spread her wingsinspired horror among the pillars ofprovincial society and also among

conservative members of her ownfamily who saw her as on the road todamnation. And it would be some ofthese family members, determined toensure the fulfillment of their ownbigotry masquerading as prophecy,who were responsible for denounc-ing her to the military authorities inZamora. This happened in the late


MemoryContinued from page 9

Amparo, approximately 16 year old


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summer of 1936, after Amparo hadfled back to her hometown with hertwo young children in the aftermathof the military rising. She did thiswith the mistaken assumption thathome would mean safetya mistakeshe shared with the poet FedericoGarcia Lorca and also with manythousands and thousands of anony-

mous victims of the repression.As a result of the denunciation,

Amparo was imprisoned in lateAugust 1936. What happened to herthen takes us to the heart of what therebel repression sought to achieve.She was interrogated with the expressintention of making her recant.

In her case the objective was thatshe make a formal denunciation ofher husband, Ramn Sender (herhusband by a Republican civil mar-riage ceremony, even though

Amparo herself was a practicingCatholic). She was subjected toextraordinary pressure by a priest,who subjected her to a torrent ofabuse and, after she made her finalconfession, refused her absolution.

In other words Amparo Baraynwas subject to a form of sustainedpsychological torture, the objective ofwhich was to humiliate her. So eventhough she had avoided the publicforms of violent humiliation com-

monly visited upon Republicanwomen in the length and breadth ofrebel-held Spainthe head shaving,the purging with castor oil and publicparading; and though AmparoBarayn was not physically torturedand raped, as many other femaleRepublican prisoners were in thecourse of police interrogationstheobject was the same: to break her.

Then one day her name appearedon a list of those that the deathsquads came by night to take out of

jail in the deadly sacas. On 11 October1936, nearly 3 months after the mili-tary coup against the Republic,Amparo Barayn was taken from thetown jail to the cemetery. There, bylantern light, they shot her and buriedher, where she fell, in a commongrave .

We know of Amparos fate fromseveral specific sources, including

the priest in question who gave anaccount to members of her familydays after she had been killed. Butmost notably, in the 1980s Amparosson Ramn tracked down two of thewomen who were jailed with hismother. One of them, Pilar Fidalgo,who was saved from execution by aprisoner exchange, wrote her own

contemporary account of her impris-onment which was published in1939, outside Spain.

Before the exchange could hap-pen, however, Pilar Fidalgos ownbaby, who had been imprisonedwith her, had succumbed to illnessand died. As many Republicanwomen were imprisoned with theirbabies or young children during andafter the war in massively over-crowded and unsanitary conditionssuch deaths were not an unusual

occurrence (whether inside jails or inthe transportation to or betweenjails). Indeed this seems to have beenpart of the punishment for their gen-der transgression.

One prison official remarked toFidalgo that red women had for-feited their right to nourish theiryoung. There are many accounts ofpolice interrogators remarking thatred women should have had moresense than to have had children

because reds are without rights.There were also cases of womenimprisoned in an advanced state ofpregnancy whose executions weredelayed until after their confinement.For the older child survivors too, theprice of nourishment (via Francoistsocial welfare organizations) ofteninvolved what Fidalgo herselfdescribed (in the 1939 memoir) asmoral suffering: obliging orphans tosing the songs of the murderers oftheir father; to wear the uniform of

those who have executed him; and tocurse the dead and blaspheme hismemory.

If we can think past the sheerhorror of these events, as historians,eventually, always have to do, wemust ask what was going on here,what did these things mean? Toanswer that question we clearly needto focus on the purpose of the habit-

ual physical and psychological tor-ture. Why was there such a need tohumiliate or to break the enemy,publicly or otherwise?

Well, all these forms of violence(in which I include the humiliationand moral suffering inflicted onRepublican children who cameunder the tutelage of the Francoist

state) were functioning as ritualsthrough which social and politicalcontrol could be re-enacted. And sig-nificant here too is the manner inwhich the enemy so often met hisor her death at rebel hands: at thestart of the civil war, the mass publicexecutions were followed by theexhibition of corpses in the streets;the mass burning of bodies, the quasiauto da fe of a socialist deputy in thePlaza Mayor of Salamanca in July1936, or the fact that executions in

the center-north of the rebel zoneoften took place on established saintsand feast days; or the uncanny mix-ture of terror and fiesta (executionsfollowed by village ftes and dances,both of which the local populationwas obliged to attend).

This violence served to exorcisethe underlying fear of loss of controlwhich was the subconscious linkuniting the military rebels with theirvarious groups of civilian support-

ers. When they murder the enemy,theyre murdering change, or thethreat of change. And there was anassumption, again which united thevarious civilian and military compo-nents of the rising, that Spain couldonly be reborn through a blood sacri-fice. In the same way, the widespreadcomplicity of priests throughoutSpain in the mass process of denunci-ation, killing and torture of thosedeemed opponents has to be under-stood in these terms, as a reassertion

of control, rather than solely as anavenging response to the phe-nomenon of popular anticlericalviolence in Republican territory.

Helen Graham teaches history atRoyal Holloway, University ofLondon. She is the author of TheSpanish Republic at War (Cambridge).


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The Spanish Republic at War, 1936-1939. By Helen Graham,Cambridge University Press, 2002.

By Pamela Radcliff

Helen Graham frames her newsynthesis of the Spanish CivilWar around the much-debat-

ed question of why the Republic lostthe war. Far from re-hashing old ter-ritory, the book provides a fresh andprovocative reading on the tragedy

of the Second Republic that will inturn stimulate a new generation ofdebates, both within academic circlesand among the broader public.

Grahams basic contention is thatthe blame for defeat can be laidsquarely at the feet of the Non-Intervention Pact and itsconsequences on the Republican wareffort. What the pact meant in mili-tary terms is that the Republic wasnever able to mount an effective

offensive campaign, even from theoutset, while its defensive actionswere increasingly restricted.

Equally important was non-interventions indirect impact on thehome front. The need to pour vitalresources into the procurement ofarms from pricey black-marketsources forced the Republic toneglect civilian needs and made itimpossible for them to provide socialwelfare programs that might havehelped close the gap between the lib-

eral and revolutionary left.The book makes the parallel

point that the Francoists could nothave won without the extensiveGermany and Italy aid, from theplanes which saved a flounderingcoup in July 1936 by airlifting 10,000troops to the mainland, to the stale-mate broken after the March 1937Republican victory at Guadalajara by

the massive escalation in foreign aidto the rebels. The centrality of interna-tional aid (or the lack of it) is not anew claim, although Grahams bookdemonstrates the impact of non-inter-vention in concrete terms and theway in which the war itself, as sheputs it, was central to the deteriorat-ing legitimacy of the Republic.

Following from her central claim,Graham argues that the Republic didnot auto-destruct through the force ofits own ideological tensions; that is,

the revolutionaries vs. the liberals, orthe debate over revolution vs.war. While not ignoring these divi-sions (the book spends a lot of timereviewing party infighting), Grahamargues that these divisions onlybecame unmanageable as a result ofthe tensions caused by the war andthe deteriorating conditions itbrought. As she says, Preciselybecause of the overwhelming materi-al lack of everything in Republican

Spain by 1938 it is deeply problemat-ic even to pose further questionsabout how far its political shortcom-ings explain its collapse. Insteadof viewing the Republic as a mass ofcontradictions waiting to collapse,Graham argues that it started out thewar with a viable political projectthat could have developed into a sta-ble basis for a democratic Republic.

The most polemical and there-fore stimulating part of Grahamscontention is that the group that

articulated and pursued this projectmost effectively was the Communistparty. As the only loyalist partywith a vision of an interclass, nation-al mobilization in defense of theRepublic (through the framework ofthe Popular Front), the PCE offeredboth a strategy for victory and a newkind of politics that could transcendthe limitations of the peacetime

Republic. With this claim, the bookoffers a wholly revisionist interpreta-tion of the role of the PCE, which

stands in direct contrast to the classicanti-communist reading of Bollotenand other critics, who have blamedthe party for destabilizing theRepublic through its Stalinist-direct-ed power politics.

Graham argues that the PCEoperated with much greater inde-pendence than has been assumed.Thus, the much-vilified Soviet mili-tary advisers, she says, were all putin subordinate, usually technicalpositions. Key decisions, like the des-

titution of Largo Caballero, theSocialist Prime Minister, wereagainst the wishes of Stalin, whowanted to see the Popular Frontcoalition afloat.

When Soviet orders wereimplemented, she argues, they oftenagreed with the judgments of themajor Spanish parties, as in the cam-paign against the POUM, in whichcase they were not a good test ofSoviet influence. All in all, communi-

cation was too slow and irregular tohave sustained the kind of controlthe Comintern allegedly had. Shedraws on the work of scholars usingthe newly opened Soviet archives(She doesnt engage directly with thepolemical collection of documentsedited by Ronald Radosh, whichdraws the opposite conclusion).

From a position of relative inde-pendence, the Spanish communistparty embarked on a strategy thatwas, as Graham argues, the best one

suited for the defense of theRepublic. The partys clear-headedanalysis, combined with its uniquecombination of mobilizing skills andcross-class rhetoric explain itsimmense appeal. It was this force ofattraction, rather than aMachiavellian conspiracy, thataccounts for the dramatic rise in thePCs profile. While she doesnt deny

Book Reviews

Spain at War


13/24


that party ambitions played a role,she tries to normalize this ambitionas part of the jockeying for position

within the Republican camp that wasmore organizational than ideologi-cal. What torpedoed the PopularFront was not its overbearing ambi-tion but progressive defeats of 1938that pulled it apart.

The vilification of the PC inCivil War historiography is rootedless in the real actions and behaviorof the party than in a post-hoc ColdWar reading of them, which infect-ed not only historians like Bollotenbut also memoirs taken to be pri-

mary sources. The realanti-communism on the ground,which developed within Republicanterritory after the spring of 1938,was more the expression of frustra-tion and war weariness than areflection of ideological warfare.

The book begins with the back-ground necessary to understand whythe political space filled by the PCwas not occupied by other parties.The context in which the PC

emerged as the strongest proponentof the liberal nation reflected thefragmentation of social groups thatprevented a coherent bourgeoisnational project from taking root inthe nineteenth and early twentiethcenturies. The Republicans are dis-missed as rooted in an old elitistpolitical culture that made themirrelevant to the challenges of thenew democratic nation. Drawing onher earlier monograph of theSocialist party, Graham presents a

critical view of its internal divisions.She is especially critical of left social-ists, the Caballeristas, who werepowerful enough to stir up thepartys constituency with revolution-ary rhetoric but who lacked a viableplan of mobilization. Graham alsodismisses the CNT, despite its mobi-lizing powers, because its rejection ofparliamentary politics limited a

coherent political project. In hertelling, the story of the May 1937events in Barcelona, when the CNTs

control of the streets was curbed,revealed more about the hollownessof CNT power than it did about adubious Communist conspiracy.

The failure of national republi-can mobilization was demonstratednot only by the 1936 coup but also bythe variety of local responses to it. Inone of the most interesting chaptersin the book, Graham draws on exist-ing local studies to sketch out aheterogeneous republican landscapein the summer of 1936, where the

combination of pre-war political cul-tures and the proximity of the frontcreated islands of resistance. Shecontrasts this republican hybriditywith what she describes as the total-izing project of the Francoist army,that embarked, as she argues force-fully, on a war of internalcolonization to purge the nation ofits diseased elements and to reinstatesocial and political order. She makesa clear distinction between republi-

can and nationalist violence, theformer arises as a result of the col-lapse of state power, the latter formeda coherent part of the new state. Sucha distinction reinforces her broaderpoint, the need for re-buildingRepublican state authority as the onlyviable home front strategy, given theoverwhelming military odds.

In hammering this point home,the book sets out to demystify theCivil War, to strip it of the romanti-cism typified in Ken Loachs film

Land and Freedom, that was basedon OrwellsHomage to Catalonia. TheRepublic was not swept away bygrand passions but by military reali-ties. And those realities were grimenough that they required the cold,calculating, unflinching policiesassociated with the PCE, even if theymake comfortable armchair liberalssqueamish. For example, she tries to

put the harsh military and homefront discipline imposed in the lastmonths of the war in the context of a

desperate situation which requiredtough measures to control fifth col-umn activity, rather than as the resultof a Soviet-style reign of terror. Shecites in skeptical terms recentInternational Brigade memoirs thatassert that the Brigades were subjectto such terror from the moment theyarrived in Spain. While there mayhave been terror in the last chaoticmonths, most of it was unofficial, shesays, while Negrin tried to channel themilitarized justice through the courts.

Much of this realpolitik readingof the Civil War is persuasive.Grahams effort to bring the warback in, the defense of centraliza-tion and militarization, the impact ofNon-Intervention, and even thedemotion of the Comintern, arepoints not simply asserted but prodi-giously documented with anunusual number of footnotes for anarrative synthesis. There is sometension between the effort to provide

a narrative overview of the war andthe focus on making specific argu-ments about why the Republic wasdefeated. Such a tension may intimi-date readers unable to follow theintricacies of inter-party struggles,but others will welcome the passionof the polemical argumentationwhich makes for an excellent read.

The book will also incite apolemical response, in terms of itshighly positive evaluation of thePCEs role in the war and its claims

for the PCEs potential to mobilizethe nation. While debunking some ofthe Cold War myths is a good correc-tive, it has perhaps gone too far inthe other direction of accepting thepartys own realpolitik logic that theends justified the means.

Pamela Radcliff teaches Spanish Civil

War history at the University ofCalifornia, San Diego.

Book Reviews


14/24


Fighting Fascism in Europe: TheWorld War II Letters of an American

Veteran of the Spanish Civil War, by

Lawrence Cane, Ed. by David E. Cane,Judy Barrett Litoff, and David C. Smith.

Fordham University Press, 2003.

By Michael Nash

Of the 400 Abraham LincolnBrigade veterans who foughtduring Word War II,

Lawrence Cane was the only one to

participate in the D Day Normandyinvasion. This book is a collection ofhis letters to his wife Grace SingerCane describing his wartime experi-ences from the time he began basictraining on August 28, 1942, until hereturned home on October 29, 1945.

The letters are moving, wellwritten, and historically significant.They capture Canes political com-mitment, and his determination tofight fascism and create a better

world. While many of the Lincolnveterans were labeled prematureanti-fascists and were denied com-missions, promotions, and assignedto noncombatant duties duringWorld War II, Cane appears to haveescaped such discrimination. He waspromoted to 2nd lieutenant, volun-teered for combat duty, and becamepart of an engineering unit that par-ticipated in the D-Day assault onUtah Beach. He was awarded aSilver Star for bravery.

As one reads Canes letters itappears that in several cases hissuperior officers viewed his SpanishCivil War experience as an asset andrelied on his military expertise in thetraining of other soldiers. This maybe an exceptional story as the lettersfrom other World War II veterans inthe Abraham Lincoln BrigadeArchives present a very different pic-

ture, one of discrimination, promo-tions and opportunities for combatdenied. Assessing this situation in allits complexities will clearly requirefurther research.

Whether or not Canes experi-ences were typical, his letters aremoving and informative. Hisdescriptions of the Normandy inva-sion provide a rare view of D-Dayfrom the perspective of a front linesoldier. As late as November 26, 1944Cane would write: the Krauts are

fighting for every foot viciously, des-peratelybut the Americanpowerhouse shoves on.

Canes idealism comes throughloud and clear in the letters. OnJanuary 27, 1945 writing fromSomewhere in Belgium, at a timewhen American policy makers wereseriously considering destroying allGerman industry, Cane declared Iwant to see Germany handled so thatsome daynot tomorrow or maybe

even ten years but, certainly in a gen-erationGermany will be able totake her place in the family ofnations. Her position not one ofsword-rattler, but a country in whicha mans fundamental dignity is rec-ognized, and which has passed fromthe category of criminal to reformedmember of society.

There are many other movingpassages in this book. One thatmakes a particular impression isCanes description of his meeting

with two former functionaries ofthe German Communist Party, whospent twelve years in the infamousconcentration camp for politicals atBuchenwald. Cane was surprised tofind that they were still sane, in fairphysical condition. And most impor-tant of allthe fire still burnedbright within them. There is muchmore in this book that will reward

the reader. Of particular interest isCanes reaction to the explosion ofthe first atomic bomb, his interest inthe Jacques Duclos letter that manyhistorians believe signaled the begin-ning of the Cold War, descriptions ofrace relations in the Army, andCanes efforts to fight racial discrimi-nation. Finally, there is the humandimension, a young husband andfather committed to fighting fascism,but yearning to return home to hiswife and child.

Michael Nash is Director of the

Tamiment Library, New York University.

The Second War Against Fascism

Book Reviews

Red BessieA Radical Odyssey

A new play with songs

by Jack Gilhooley and

Daniel Czitrom

Presented by the EdinburghFringe Festival, August 1-August 25, 1:15pm dailyAt the Gilded Balloon, Cave I

(S. Niddry St, off Cowgate)Edinburgh SCOTLANDwww.gildedballoon.co.uk

Loosely based on the letters,family, and experiences ofLincoln vets Joe and Leo

Gordon, Red Bessie tells thestory of two troubadours

who bravely battled fascismfrom the Spanish Civil Warthrough the Cold War.

"Red Bessie" is partially funded

by the Puffin Foundation


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Exile and Cultural Hegemony:Spanish Intellectuals in Mexico,

1939-1975. By Sebastiaan Faber,

Vanderbilt University Press, $39.95.

By Hugo Hiriart

(Translated by Christopher

Winks)

Iencountered Spanish exiles veryearly in life. Before I was three,my best friend in kindergarten

was Marcelo Estrada, the son of

Lolita and Colonel Estrada of theSpanish Republican Army.

The Colonel, whom I met inshort order, was a mild-mannered,ironical, intelligent man, not at allimperious and short-tempered, asmy childish mind had imagined acolonel to be. However, the Spanishpoet scared me: he was tall andvociferous, and wore spectacles ofthe kind that made his alreadyintense eyes seem even larger. I saw

him from a distance in a caf I usedto go to with my grandfather. Hisname was Len Felipe.

The Spanish exodus to Mexicoinvolved an enormous variety ofintellectuals in all fields: lawyers,painters, chemists, biologists, doc-tors, philosophers, historians, poets,writers and critics, musicians, physi-cists, economists, and theologians.Don Pedro Urbino Gonzlez de laCalle, who taught Sanskrit at theUniversity, was a Spaniard. This

exile lacked nothing! These Spanishembodiments of universal culturegenerously applied themselves tomove Mexican culture forward, free-ing it from the backwardness andvacillation still in evidence. Since lib-eration is the opposite of conquest,this enthusiastic action was the com-plete antithesis of Corts militaryconquest which, centuries earlier, had

shaken these same lands.I grew up immersed in the cul-

ture of the Spanish exile community:my friends from childhood andyouth, my first girlfriends, and manyof my teachers at theuniversityGallegos Rocafull, Gaos,Nicol, Roces, Snchez Vzquez,among otherswere native Spaniards.And very early on, I began to under-stand the paradox of exile: there inthe distance was luminous Spain, thatbloodthirsty Medea who killed her

children, but which at the same timewas worthy of great love.

Exile is a well of nostalgia: itsrightful home is memory, andpainful memory at that. Attitudestowards this drama among the widerange of exiles I knew varied greatly:from my friend Rafa Cordero, whosefather was Isaac Cordero, a distin-guished pathologist, adaptedquickly, became a Mexican citizen,and raised his children as Mexicans,

to those who clung to the hope ofreturning to Spain sooner or later,and who never managed to adapt in

the slightest to the new and oftenquite adverse reality.

This variegated catalogue of pos-sible attitudes, reflecting the greatdiversity of the intellectual exilecommunity, is what makes it so diffi-cult, if not impossible, to formulateany kind of general theory on theexperience of exile.

Fabers book, however, exploresthis possibility. Its merit lies in itsbroad historical sweep and itsdetailed analysis of a large number

of individual examples, which can beread with profit. Its weakness lies,perhaps, in its partiality: it dealsabove all with the reactions of writ-ers who have left testimonialsbehind, and is less concerned with,for example, scientists, technicians,engineers, economists, and business-men, of whom there were many, andquite successful ones.

Hugo Hiriart is Director of the MexicanCultural Institute in New York.

Book Reviews

Spanish Exiles in Mexico

A Memoir of the Spanish Civil War:

An Armenian-Canadian in the

Lincoln Battalion. By D.P. (Pat)Stephens. Ed. by Rick Rennie. St. JohnsNewfoundland: Canadian Committee

on Labour History

By Larry Hannant

Pat Stephens memoir is a lumi-nous cameo portrait of thelives of volunteers from

Canada and the United States whofought as anti-fascists in theSpanish Civil War. By turns caustic,tender, emotional, matter-of-fact,frank and coy, the memoir was dic-tated to his wife, Phyllis, just a few

years before his death in 1987.In many ways, Stephens pre-

war situation was typical of theapproximately 1400 volunteers fromCanadayoung, unemployed orsemi-employed, often born outsideof Canada, politically left wing. Hisexperience was slightly different in

that he was active with the Co-oper-ative Commonwealth Federation, thesocial democratic party of Canada,even though he did work jointlywith the Young Communist Leaguein strikes and demonstrations.

While his experience in Spainwas also typical of other volunteers,his intelligence and range of experi-

A Canadian in the Lincolns



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Added to Memorys Roster

Harry Fisher

(1911-2003)Harry Fisher, 92, soldier, paci-

fist, writer, and lifelong activist,died on March 22, after participat-ing in an antiwar demonstration inNew York City.

After a childhood in the HebrewNational Orphan Home and a youthspent as a labor activist and mer-chant marine, he volunteered to fightfascism in Spain with the AbrahamLincoln Brigade. During World War

II, he served as a B-26 bomber turretgunner in Europe. Married to RuthGoldstein in 1939, they workedtogether for nearly 50 years at theSoviet News Agency Tass, he intelecommunications, she as aresearch librarian and office manag-er. They shared an office, a dailywalk to work, and a passion for life.They dedicated their lives to eachother, their children and grandchil-

dren, and to making theworld a better place. Ruthdied in 1993 after convincingHarry to write a book about

his experiences in theSpanish Civil War and help-ing get the project started.Published in 1998, his mem-oir Comrades led to speakingtours in the U.S., as well asSpain and Germany. Theenthusiastic response to thebook prompted the publica-tion of Spanish and Germaneditions of the book. Just aweek before his death, Harryfinished the manuscript for

his second book, Legacy, to bereleased in Germany thisJune. Negotiations are underway for the U.S. edition. He issurvived by his son, John, anddaughter, Wendy, and theirfamilies, including threegrandchildren, and a still-growing number of fellowactivists and loving comrades.

After collapsing at the antiwardemonstration Saturday, he was

taken to St. Vincents Hospital,where he briefly regained conscious-ness and recalled being in the samehospital 70 years earlier to receivestitches after being beaten by policeon a union picket line.

Harry was truly an inspiration toeveryone he met. He will be sorelymissed by his family and the incredi-ble number of people he touched inhis short 92 years.

Fraser Ottanelli

William Sennett(1914-2003)

William Sennett, an early mem-ber of the Abraham Lincoln BrigadeArchives and former CEO of twomajor American trucking companies,died of complications of Alzheimersdisease on March 30 in San Franciscoat age 88.

The story of his life fromCommunist functionary to corporateexecutive is told in detail in his oralhistory on file in the Bancroft Library

at the University of California atBerkeley.

Born in Chicago of Russianimmigrant parents, Sennetts earlylife was one of poverty. His first lan-guage was Yiddish, but he quicklylearned English in Chicago grammarschools. Growing up during the

Great Depression, he developed alifelong dedication to the needs ofpoor people. Although his formal

schooling stopped at ninth grade, hewas well-read, and had a lifelongpassion for learning.

As a youth he was outragedwhen he saw families who couldntpay rent forced from their homes, thedoors padlocked, and their furnituremoved onto the sidewalk. He discov-ered that the Communist Party had astrategy to help them. YoungCommunists would break the pad-

PHOTO BY EMILIA ITHEN


17/24


locks and move the furniture backinto the houses before the policearrived. Under the law the landlordhad to go back to court and file for

another eviction notice. In the inter-im, the Communists would get thetenants on welfare. Impressed,Sennett joined the YoungCommunist League, and later theCommunist Party.

In 1937 he volunteered to go toSpain to fight in the InternationalBrigades. He arrived just as theRepublic received new trucks, andwas assigned as a driver. For theremainder of the war he worked intransportation, moving supplies to

the front.After Spain, Sennett married,

had a child, and went to work in thedefense industry. This gave him adraft deferment. But he volunteeredfor military service in 1943 and wasassigned to the Army Air Corps atKeesler Field, Mississippi. He wasslated for advanced training whenthe FBI advised his commandingofficer of his Communist back-ground. He was then put in charge

of teaching illiterates reading, writ-ing and mathematics.After the war, the McCarran Act

ushered in a period of repression ofCommunists, and Sennett wentunderground. He was alreadybecoming disillusioned withCommunism when Khrushchevmade his famous anti-Stalin speech1956. Sennett left the party, andsought a new life. He found it in thetransportation industry.

His administrative and negotiat-

ing skills led him to a job with theStrick company, at that time a part ofFruehauf Corporation. The companymanufactured and leased truck trail-ers for heavy freight. Through manycompany mergers, Sennett rose inthe corporate hierarchy. Eventuallyhe became the president of TransportInternational Pool (TIP). He built thecompany into a multi-million-dollarcorporation headquartered in San

Francisco with 66 branches nation-wide and 26 in ten foreign countries.

Convinced that socialism waspossible if it was strictly democratic,

he became publisher of the Chicago-based, left-leaning weekly In TheseTimes. He also supported many orga-nizations dedicated to the eliminationof poverty and racism. He helpedorganize the San Francisco tenantsorganizations and the passage of rentcontrol legislation.

Sennett is survived by his wife of28 years, Rosalie, and from an earliermarriage two daughters, BarbaraGilkey and Sara Sennet.

Marshall Windmiller

George Cullinen(1912-2003)

George Cullinen, Lincoln vet,anti-nuclear activist, and founder ofthe Vermont Film Festival died onMarch 3 while vacationing inFlorida. He was 88.

Born in San Francisco, Georgebecame a maritime captain and had alifelong interest in sailing. Togetherwith his wife Sonia, they operated a

progressive elementary school inQueens, N.Y. After retiring toVermont, they collaborated in found-ing the annual film festival inBurlington. George made a few doc-umentary films, includingWashington to Moscow about thenuclear freeze protests of the early1980s. The film won the UNESCOPrize at a peace film festival inHiroshima, Japan.

Sidney Linn(1913-2003)

Our father Sidney Linn died onJanuary 27. He was 89 and, asidefrom his family, he was most proudof having fought in Spain. Sid volun-teered to be an ambulance driver and

spent 18 months on the southernfront. Upon his return home to




18/24


more specific role. He jumped shipin Puerto Rico to become a Partyorganizer. There he learnedSpanish, organized a Puerto Ricanstudents union, and helped form aunion on a pine plantation in thecenter of the island.

Then history intervened in theform of a civil war in Spain. HisSpanish was about to become stillmore useful. He began to recruitPuerto Ricans for the International

Brigades. Assigned to help set uparrangements in Paris for LatinAmerican volunteers, he returned toNew York and sailed for Europe inservice of Spain in 1937. This time hetraveled as William Robert Ellis. Onboard with him were a score of his

Puerto Rican volunteers.After a little over three months

in Paris, Susman was delayed yet abit longer in his effort to cross the

border into Spain. He was asked tomake a small purchase first. AGerman civilian aircraft had landedin Paris and was up for sale. Bill wasgiven $50,000 in cash, along with anancient and utterly unreliablerevolver for self-protection, and sentoff to the airport to close the deal.The plane would be especially usefulin Spain, since its German markingsreduced the chance it would be firedupon by fascist troops.

Then, at last, Bill did cross theSpanish border. Thereafter heremembered more vividly the timein trenches, the time with comrades.All that flooded over him forty yearslater, after Franco had died, when hefinally returned to Spain. As he

wrote in the Volunteer, he sat silentlyon a bench in the Plaza de Catalunain Barcelona in 1977 and wept with-out knowing why.

There would be many reasons toweep over the years. Among themwould be the stupidity of theAmerican military when he enlistedin the army shortly after PearlHarbor. Repeatedly refused promo-tion and denied formal officertraining, he found himself an instruc-tor in hand-to-hand combat, settingmines, and defusing booby traps,skills he had acquired in an earlierlife. Every officer who recommendedBill for promotion would himself be

transferred out. When he finally gota chance to see his file he found itmarked Promotion Deniedfoughtwith Reds in Spain. Meanwhile,anticipating a weeks furlough fromFort Bragg, he wrote to his girlfriend(and native New Yorker) HeleneShemel: Take your Wassermanntest. Im coming up. That was hisproposal; they were married onApril 17, 1942. Then he did get to theEuropean theater, where other

ironies abounded: Bill discovered theonly way he could question Germanprisoners was to use his Yiddish.

When the war in Europe ended,Sergeant Susman was shipped off tothe Philippines. His outfit wasassigned to block any effort by thePhilippine liberation fighters, whohad long fought the Japanese, to taketheir rightful place in national poli-tics. His fellow soldiers had theireyes opened after they broke therules and fraternized with the Huk.

Conversations about equality,democracy, and freedom ensued,conversations Bill had once engagedin under the dappled shade of olivetrees. The Huk would subsequentlymount a Communist-led peasantrebellion (1946-54), but were defeatedwith the help of U.S supplied arms.

Bill was back home early in 1946;

Bill Susman on CommitmentWhen I speak to younger people they cannot grasp why 2800

Americans would leave home and go to fight in another country. Alltheir questions are about commitment. History doesnt move them, butthey are enthralled by commitment. I was at a party hosted by theSpanish Ambassadorthis was after Francos deathand a young cou-ple approached me. We just wanted to meet the man who gave thespeech that changed our daughters life, they said to me. Their daughterwas a freshman and she told her parents that she was going to changeher life, making it a life of meaning and commitment. They had to look

up the Spanish Civil War to find out what she was talking about.Young people are amazed that you can have a group of people who

were involved in a struggle of life and death 65 years ago, with peopledying all around them. And we were fighting under the most difficultconditions, not like where you are clothed and fed like we were in theAmerican army in World War II. I know, having fought in the infantryin both wars. We must have had casualties of 150 percent in Spain,because people would get wounded and then return to get woundedagain. Yet that struggle still resonates.

To keep the legacy alive we formed the Abraham Lincoln BrigadeArchives so that we could recruit young people to take over the organi-zation, people who could continue to tell the story. Bill Susman,

Interview with Richard Bermack, September 1998.


SusmanContinued from page 3



19/24


the following year his daughterSusan was born. Meanwhile, anarmy buddy had called to ask whathe knew about broilers. Whats toknow? Bill replied, a chickens achicken. But the friend had a differ-ent broiler in mind, than thecountertop appliance. Signed on tomanage a Manhattan factory assem-bling kitchen broilers, he did so untila return stint to Puerto Rico. Therewere tax incentives to manufacturingon the island, so Bill found himself

commuting to manage a womensglove factory. The enterprise floun-dered after the boss was caughtembezzling from the firm. Then Billbegan representing other mainlandmanufacturers. Plexiglas. B.V.D.s. Hehated selling, disliked the traveling,and found work under capitalisminherently contradictory as a pro-gressive. But he had a family tosupport, a family that moved toFresh Meadows, Queens in 1951 and

finally to Great Neck in 1959. InQueens Bill was elected a DemocraticAssemblyman. His son Paul wasborn in 1950.

Then the shadow ofMcCarthyism fell over the land. Likeso many Spanish vets, Susman foundemployment still more fragile. TheFBI kept calling employers, andevery time he was out of a job.Ironically, the FBI assault occurredjust as Susman had drifted awayfrom the Party. The final psychologi-

cal break would come with theKhrushchev revelations of 1956, butBill was already disengaged beforethen. For one thing neither his recentnor his future employment left muchtime for work in mass organizations.

The job scene changed dramati-cally when a break came in themid-1950s. There was an opening atMPO, a New York film production

house with nine stages and an officein L.A. They were doing industrialand educational shorts. When televi-sion took off, they became one of the

countrys largest producers of com-mercials. Marvin Rothenberg, aprogressive member of the MPOBoard, had helped get Bill a job. Itwas, as they say, an opening at thebottom. Bill started by delivering cof-fee and carrying cans of film. But hestudied to become an assistant direc-tor, passed an exam, moved up tostage manager, and ended asExecutive Vice President.

Suddenly capitalism and Leftpolitics coalesced, at least in Bills

own practice. He successfully hiredBlack workers when other firmswould not, and he and Marvinhelped them form their own union.Confronted with that fait accompli,the main union was then compelledto accept Black members. Bill alsobuilt relationships with politicalfilmmakers from Algeria, Argentina,and Mexico. He was able to get them

film, and he was able to get their filmdeveloped. He assisted distributorsof political films.

The closest relationship was with

Raymundo Gleyzer, the Argentineandirector whose films included TheFrozen Revolution (1971), made afterstudents were slaughtered in Mexicoin 1968 and which Bill produced. Aphotograph by Gleyzer hangs intheir living room. Their son Paulwent to Argentina in the fall of 1972to work as an assistant cameramanon Gleyzers The Traitors, also pro-duced by Bill.

The following year night fellagain. Back in the U.S., Gleyzer was

about to board a plane to Argentinawhen word came warning him not toreturn. The Susman argued withhim, but he decided to take the risk.He was never heard from again. Billhelped organize a huge worldwideeffort to save Raymundo and otherLatin American filmmakers, but itwas to no avail. Swept up in the gen-




Academy Award winning filmmaker Barbara Kopple speaking at Bill Susmansmemorial.


20/24


Detroit he continued his dedication

to social justice, working for civilrights, and union organizing in thelate 1940s and 50s. He met his wife-to-be, our mother Anne, who wasalso an activist, when he was speak-ing about Spain at a fundraisingevent in 1938.

When World War II began hetried enlisting in every branch of theservice, but a bad arm and healthproblems exacerbated by his time inSpain kept him out. He worked as acivilian for the army. As the story

goes, when his commanding officerreceived a letter from J. EdgarHoover informing him that Sid was aCommunist and should be fired, thecommander erupted, If Sid Linn is aCommunist we need more damnCommies in this army and maybewed win the war faster!

After the war, Sid worked in thehome improvement industry and athis funeral a longtime colleaguesaid, Your dad was a straight

shooter. In a tough business he wasan honest guy.Our father had a difficult child-

hoodno childhood at all, really. Hewas orphaned at an early age andlearned survival skills on the streetsof New York. He and our motherraised us to value integrity, honesty,peace, and justice. He wasnt alwaysan easy guy to live with, but wereproud to be his daughters.

Nancy Pearl and Susan Linn

Sana Goldblatt(1915-2003)

After living a full, exciting, andindependent life, Sana Goldblattpassed away peacefully at her homein San Francisco. A volunteer nurseduring the Spanish Civil War, shewas also a founder of the Bay Area

Post of the Veterans of the AbrahamLincoln Brigade.

Throughout her life, Sana was anadvocate for peace and justice. Born

and raised in New York, she put her-self through college and Beth Israel

Nursing School. At age 21, she vol-unteered to serve as a nurse in Spain,where she was stationed at Villa Paz,Alcorisa, and Cordoba.

Sana returned to New York in1939 and resumed her schooling asan occupational therapist. She andher daughter, Susan, moved to SanFrancisco in the late 1940s. In theearly 1960s, she helped reestablishthe Bay Area Post and served as its

treasurer. Sana was not one to callattention to herself or her deeds; toher, she did what she did because itneeded to be done. She will be great-ly missed by all.

Susan Saiz


Added to Memorys RosterLinnContinued from page 17

erals nightmare, Gleyzer was one of

the disappeared, apparently killed in1976. Juana Sapire, Raymundoswife, fled Argentina with their two-year-old son, Diego, and took refugein the Susman home while theyestablished a new life.

The most enduring relationshipwith an American filmmaker waswith the academy award winningdocumentarian Barbara Kopple.Susman took on the job of interna-tionally distributingHarlan County,USA (1976), promoting it at the

Cannes Film Festival and elsewhere.It became a family affair afterHelene, who had earlier taught gui-tar, apprenticed at MPO and becamean assistant sound editor and pro-ducer for KopplesAmerican Dream(1990). Kopples work mixed the his-tory of unionization withcontemporary labor struggles.Gleyzer too had mixed footage ofthe 1910-17 Mexican Revolutionwith contemporary footage. It was a

combination that spoke to Billswhole life. Commemoration waspart of contemporary intervention.

Memory and action, Bill Susmanrealized, could not be severed. Theyshould sustain one another. A life onthe Left was always a life of lessonsrelearned, new battles waged on oldprinciples. Continuities, with theirtruths and their ironies, can sustain us,educate us, inspire us. Knowledge ofthe past was the foundation of a stead-fast politics in the present. And so in

1979 Susman took on one last greatproject, the creation of the AbrahamLincoln Brigade Archives.

Thanks to Paul, Susan, and HeleneSusman, Peter Carroll, and FraserOttanelli for their help.


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Dear, Dear ALBA,Harry Fisher was an idealist and

yet, at the same time, utterly realist -what you can say a dreamer too

active to dream too much.Humorous and ironical and yet

serious when one has to be serious.Straight, tireless, honest, utterlyincorruptible and yet sensitive andgentle and haunted by the thou-sands images of horror which hewas forced to see. I cannot call himan hero because, as his friend EdwinRolfe put it, hero is a word forpeacetime and for Harry there wasnot such a thing peacetime. Hefought all his life along he fought

when he was at the Jewish orphan-ages and when he was a youngmember of YCLA in the years of theDepression; when he was in Spainand during W.W.II; when he workedfor Tass, and when he retired (fromwork, not from life). And he never,never failed to protest against arbi-trariness and injustice.

There is an old Jewish dictum:In a place where there are nothuman beings, fight to be a human

being. Thus was Harry - a humanbeing even in moments and timeswhere human beings were difficultto find. A perennial searcher of jus-tice and truth. Harry, communistwith a little c, plain soldier inSpain because he didnt accept tobe upgraded before leaving forhome, Harry caring and selfdemanding, who made in histwenties from an American flag astorn as the dresses of destitute peo-ple his own banner and never

betrayed it, passed away, not sur-prising, demonstrating for peace.

He was my friend. I was one ofthe many who had this privilege.

Rajel SperberHebrew University,Jerusalem

LettersContinued from page 2

ences introduce a unique perspec-tive. As editor Rick Rennie pointsout, Stephens Armenian heritage,the fact that he was a Canadian serv-

ing in a primarily Americanbattalion, and the variety of posts heheld in Spain, combine to give him aspecial insight into the war and theinternational brigades.

One of those insights is into theintensely partisan political condi-tions in Spain. Even 50 years afterthe war, when he was telling hisstory, Stephens feels compelled to siton the fence on some matters ofpolitical controversy.

One example was his experience

with Oliver Law. Theres been agreat deal of debate about Lawsleadership. A Communist Partyorganizer from Chicago, Law arrivedin Spain in January 1937 and the nextmonth became the first African-American to lead a white militaryunit, taking over command of theLincoln Machine Gun Company.Later that year he would become theLincoln battalion commander beforebeing shot and killed at Mosquito

Ridge near Brunete on July 9. Theresbeen a long-running and intensedebate about Laws competence andabout whether his own men celebrat-ed at his death.

Stephens had not been centrallyinvolved with the Communist Partybefore the war, and would becomeapolitical after returning from Spain,but he recognized how importantparty politics were, and this is evi-dent in recounting his time with themachine gun company under Laws

command. In one engagement,Laws instructions apparently con-tribute to the death of one of themachine gunners. The boys werefurious. Oliver Law was not wellliked in the machine gun company,especially in my section. He was tooauthoritarian and incompetent.Fellow machine gunners Jim Katz

and Ray Steele suggest laying acharge of incompetence against Law.Stephens advises them to keep quiet:Oliver Law was a strong

Communist, and had powerfulfriends at Brigade Headquarters. Iknew what the results would beHe would be absolved, and theywould become targets of petty incon-veniences. But Katz and Steelepersist, and an inquiry is called. Atit, Stephens testifies, I did notattribute the death of Comrade Perezto the incompetence of ComradeLaw. In war, I reminded them, someof us will be killed. The inquirysresult confirms his fears: As always

in the Army, the status quo pre-vailed. Comrade Law wasexonerated, but Comrades Steele andKatz were reprimanded for layingmischievous charges, and cautionedagainst bad behavior in the unit.

On small details here, Stephensmemory is faulty. Law was not fromMichigan and did in fact have mili-tary experience before going toSpain. But the lesson he seems todraw from the experience rings true:

Keeping ones head downbureau-cratically speakingseemed to be asimportant to survival in an army ofinternational anti-fascist volunteersas it was in any state military.

Stephens memoir also tellsmuch about interactions betweenInternational Brigaders andSpaniards and the spirit of revolu-tion and solidarity that infused theSpanish people. Filled with vignettesof Stephens memoirs, this bookmakes for a lively and informative

exploration of the personal side ofthe Spanish Civil War.

Larry Hannant is an historian atthe University of Victoria andCamosun College in BritishColumbia and the editor of ThePolitics of Passion: Norman BethunesWriting and Art.

The Canadian LincolnContinued from page 15


22/24


In Memory of a Veteran

Phyllis J. Hatfield in memory of Sidney Linn

$50

Polly Perlman in memory of Normal Perlman

$50

Polly (Nusser) Dubetz in memory of Charles

Nusser $50

Dr. Jane Simon in memory of John (Doc)

Simon $50

Mary OMalley in memory of Tom OMalley

$25

Matti Mattson in memory of Joe Hautaniemi$50

Ronald Perrone in memory of John Perrone

$50

Jeanette Dean in memory of Wilfred

Mendelsohn and Bill Susman $50

Laura & Roger Goodman in memory of Bill

Susman $25

Anne Kaufman in memory of Henry Giler $50

Lisa Halpern in memory of Curley Mende $50

Sylvia P. Marro in memory of Joe Gordon

$100

Eleanor & Lenore Rody in memory of JohnRody $100

Eleanor & Lenore Rody in memory of MarvinNelson, Bob DeFaut, Walter Sorenson, EddieMitchell, all from Racine, Wisconsin $100

Thelma Mielke in memory of Ken Bridenthal,

Sam Spiller & Bill Wheeler $100Ellen Gradenwitz in memory of Dick & Gene

Fein and Jimmy Yates $100

Betty Roland in memory of Harry Fisher $25

Louise & Milton Becker in memory of Harry

Fisher $100

Jack Winocur in memory of Bill Bailey $50

Martha Weisman in memory of Harry Fisher

$100

Progressive Student Alliance of Camden, NJ, in

memory of Harry and Ruth Fisher $100

Phillip Morrison in memory of Dave Doran

$100

Edna Whitehouse in memory of Bill Sennett

$25

Muriel Goldring in memory of Ben Goldring

$100

Lauren & Ricky Greene in memory of Rebecca

Durem $50

Gabe Jackson in memory of Harry Fisher &

Irving Weissman $50

Blanche J. Bebe in memory of Bill Sennett

$100

Norman Berkowitz in memory of Harry Fisher

$100

Ulrich Kolbe in memory of Harry Fisher $100

In Memory ofAbby London-Crawford in memory of MarcCrawford & Harry Fisher $100

ContributionsMax Gerchik, M.D. $25

Contributions

The ALBA Listserv . Readers of the

Volunteer are invited to continue thedebate on the ALBA sponsored Internet

Discussion List. To become a member

simply send a blank e-mail message to

the address: [email protected]

or go to the ALBA website:

www.alba-valb.org and click on the

Dialog button.


23/24

THE VOLUNTEER March 2003 23

ALBA BOOKS, VIDEOS AND POSTERS

ALBA EXPANDS WEB BOOKSTOREBuy Spanish Civil War books on the WEB.ALBA members receive a discount!

WWWWWW.ALBA-V.ALBA-VALB.ORGALB.ORGBOOKS ABOUT THE LINCOLN BRIGADEFighting Fascism in Europe: The World War II Lettersof an American Veteran of the Spanish Civil Warby Lawrence Cane

Exile and Cultural Hegemony: Spanish Intellectualsin Mexico, 1939-1975.By Sebastiaan Faber

The Spanish Republic at War, 1936-1939.By Helen Graham

The Selected Poems of Miguel Hernndez

Edited by Ted GenowaysThe Wound and the Dream: Sixty Years of AmericanPoems about the Spanish Civil Warby Cary Nelson

Passing the Torch: The Abraham Lincoln Brigade andits Legacy of Hopeby Anthony Geist and Jose Moreno

Another Hillby Milton Wolff

Our FightWritings by Veterans of theAbraham Lincoln Brigade: Spain 1936-1939

Edited by Alvah Bessie & Albert Prago

Spains Cause Was Mineby Hank Rubin

Comradesby Harry Fisher

The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigadeby Peter Carroll

The Lincoln Brigade, a Picture Historyby William Katz and Marc Crawford

EXHIBIT CATALOGS

The Aura of the Cause, a photo albumEdited by Cary Nelson

VIDEOSInto the Fire: Women and the Spanish Civil War

Julia Newman

Art in the Struggle for FreedomAbe Osheroff

Dreams and NightmaresAbe Osheroff

The Good FightSills/Dore/Bruckner

Forever ActivistsJudith Montell

You Are History, You Are LegendJudith Montell

Yes, I wish to become an ALBA Associate, and I

enclose a check for $25 made out to ALBA.

Please send me The Volunteer.

Name _______________________________________

Address ______________________________________

City________________ State ___Zip_________

Ive enclosed an additional donation of____________. I wish do not wish to have thisdonation acknowledged in The Volunteer.Please mail to: ALBA, 799 Broadway, Room 227,New York, NY 10003

ALBAS TRAVELING EXHIBITION

THE AURA OF THE CAUSE

ALBAs photographic exhibit, The Aura of theCause, has been shown at the Puffin Room in NewYork City, the University of California-San Diego,the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, FL, theFonda Del Sol Visual Center in Washington DC, andthe University of Illinois. This exhibit, curated byProfessor Cary Nelson of the University of Illinois,

consists of hundreds of photographs of the LincolnBrigaders, other international volunteers and theirSpanish comrades, in training and at rest, among theSpanish villages and in battle.

For further information about The Aura of the

Cause exhibit, contact ALBAs executive secretary,

Diane Fraher, 212-598-0968; Fax: 212-529-4603; e-mail

[email protected] . The exhibit is available

for museum and art gallery showings

BRING THIS EXHIBIT TO YOUR LOCALITY.


24/24

The Volunteerc/o Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives799 Broadway, Rm. 227New York, NY 10003

NON-PROFIT

U.S. POSTAGE

PAID

PERMIT NO. 1430

HACKENSACK, N.J.

They Still Draw Pictures

They Still Draw Pictures:Childrens Art in Wartime from theSpanish Civil War to Kosovois atraveling exhibition that was curat-ed by ALBAs Tony Geist and PeterCarroll. The exhibit consists of 78color drawings created by Spanishrefugee children and 22 childrensdrawings from other wars.

April 5, 2003-June 15, 2003Hood Museum

Dartmouth CollegeHanover, NHFor information, 603-646-3646

August 13, 2003-October 24, 2003University Art MuseumSouthern Illinois UniversityCarbondale, IL 62901For information, 618-453-5388

February-March 2004:AXA Gallery

New York City

the volunteer, june 2003

Documents