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SPAIN AND PEACE 



By HOWARD J FAST 












The- cover drawing is from an original executed 
especially for this pamphlet by Pablo Picasso. 



Library 

University of Texas 



Austin 



First Edition, March 1952 
Second Edition, April 1952 



Spain and Peace 



By Howard Fast 



PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. 



Published by the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee 
23 West 26th Street, New York 10, N. Y. 



20ii 



HOW will people describe Spain when the story of our 
time is told? Are there cold facts, figures, statistics to 
measure the heart of the Spanish people, to define their 
passionate love for freedom, to measure their dignity, to 
weigh their strength? It is such a long time since the Span- 
ish struggle began that sometimes it seems as if all our lives 
have been lived against the background of their unending 
resistance. And as so many here in America surrender their 
consciences, the role of the Spanish people becomes even 
more glorious and more accusing of those who abandoned 
them. 

Spain fights on t and in those three words there is a mir- 
acle. It is my purpose here to tell something about this 
miracle and what it means to us; for there is no question 
but that it has meaning. There is no Spanish worker, pro- 
fessional, intellectual or peasant who strikes a blow for 
freedom without our being intimately concerned. We must 
understand this. g-1 JLQ-J 2 



On the 12th of March, in 1951, an event occurred in Spain 
that was without precedent in our era. That is a good 
point to begin any story about Spain today. 

Yet there must be a background. 

You cannot simply say that on the 12th of March, 300,000 
Spanish workers downed their tools in one of the strangest, 
most militant and most glorious strikes of modern times. 
It wasn't simply a strike in the terms we know and under- 
stand. It was a strike in a land where strikes had been out- 
lawed for years, a land of terror, fascist dictatorship, a land 
of the firing squad, the whip and the concentration camp. 

Yet in this land for two days and for two nights, begin- 
ning in the early morning of March 12th, 300,000 strikers 
paralyzed the industrial and commercial life of Barcelona, 
Badalona, Sabadel, Tarrassa, Mataro, Pueblo Nuevo, and 
other Catalonian cities. 

Anyone who has ever participated in a strike knows that 
such things cannot arise spontaneously. They must be 
planned, calculated, deliberated upon, organized down to the 
last detail. How does one plan, deliberate, organize, and 
lead such a mighty movement as this in a land which has 
lived under the official hood of fascist darkness for twelve 
years ? The answer is contained in the great heart and soul 
and the indomitable spirit of the Spanish people. 

THE SPANISH PEOPLE AND AMERICA 

One cannot write, even in passing, about Spain and the 
Spanish struggle without linking it with America. There is 
a mighty interconnection in man's struggle for freedom, a 
singleness of purpose and endeavor which binds together 
those who struggle for human liberation, whatever land 
they live in, whatever tongue they speak, whatever race 
bears them, But particularly is this true of the Spanish 



;:; 



■ -,.m 




struggle and the place it occupies 
in the hearts of the American peo- 
ple. The Lincoln Brigade, enlisted 
here in the United States, and 
which went to fight on the soil of 
Spain — so many of them to die on 
the soil of Spain in the cause of 
Spanish freedom — was not an acci- 
dent of history. Quite to the con- 
trary: the Lincoln Brigade was 
part of the deepest and the most 

splendid logic of the history of the United States. It was 
proof apparent and proof absolute that the heritage of 
American freedom was part of the heritage of all free men, 
and this proof was spelled out in blood and signed with 
the death of many gallant young Americans. 

There is hardly a town or hamlet in all of our land that 
did not give one of its sons to this unforgettable group. 
And when Franco, like a bloated spider who feasts on hu- 
man blood and human hopes, took over with the aid of Hitler 
and Mussolini the whole of Spain, the cause of the Spanish 
people was not forgotten here in America. When the mon- 
strous hoax of "non-intervention" was invented by the gov- 
ernments of the West, including our own, to prevent the 
Spanish Republic from buying arms to defend itself against 
this aggression of fascism, the cause of Spain had become 
woven into the fabric of our lives. It was deeply understood 
by the simplest and most isolated of Americans — because it 
was a cause akin to that for which their own ancestors 
had fought and died in their own struggles for liberation. 

In the years that followed, a national organization was 
created to bring aid and relief to the hundreds of thousands 
of Spanish fighters, workers and intellectuals and mothers 
and children too, who had never laid down their arms, never 
surrendered, but had fled across the Pyrenees into southern 
France — so that at some future time they might fight again 
in the cause of freedom. This organization became known 
as the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, and for a full 
decade it has occupied a singular and fine place in American 
history. It was an organization which involved in its work 
tens of thousands of the best Americans. It built hospitals ; 



8 




^■M 



it sent an unending flow of 
medical supplies, food and 
clothing to the Spanish Re- 
publican exiles. But more 
importantly even than these 
very important things, it 
has kept alive in the hearts 
of the American people the 
glory and the wonder of 
Spanish resistance to tyr- 
anny. 

For many years I had the 
honor to be associated with 
the executive board of this 
committee. To them as to 
me, it was no surprise when in 1946 the Government insti- 
tuted its present terror with an attack against the board 
members of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee. In 
the years that followed, our case became internationally 
known, and many thousands of the American people came 
to our support. In spite of this, we were sentenced to prison ; 
and thirteen of us served prison terms because we had per- 
sisted in the cause of Spain's freedom. 

I mention this in terms of the continuity I spoke of be- 
fore. The Spanish struggle and the American struggle are 
inseparable. Since the first moves of the House Committee 
on Un-American Activities against the Joint Anti-Fascist 
Refugee Committee, a whole series of actions — calculated 
actions — have been instituted by the Truman government 
to build and cement an alliance between Franco Spain and 
the United States of America, 

Today as I write, this alliance is quite complete. Ameri- 
can military and economic missions are swarming all over 
Spain, checking on bases, reviewing Falangist troop maneu- 
vers, studying plants, mines, statistics. Airfields have been 
built in every corner of the land and ports on all coasts have 
been widened and modernized — under U.S. military direc- 
tion. American money pours into Spain in an endless stream 
so that Franco and his satraps may live in ease and com- 



fort, regardless of how their people suffer. And through 
the less direct labyrinth of high finance, American cor- 
porations have won commanding positions in the Spanish 
fields of petroleum, the production and distribution of elec- 
tric power, the communications and transportation sys- 
tems and the production of strategic metals — tungsten, 
zinc, wolfram, mercury and aluminum. Before World War 
II the Nazis controlled the chemical, pharmaceutical and 
metallurgical industries of Spain; today control of these 
industries has passed to their conquerors, the Americans. 
Slowly, the British and French beneficiaries of the Marshall 
Plan are being pushed out of their monopolist positions in 
Spain. 

Today the American people are told that this unspeak- 
able, and once unthinkable, alliance is for the benefit of 
America, Today the American people are assured that turn- 
ing Franco Spain into one vast fortress is a defense against 
war; that Franco, the vile creature of fascism who knows 
only how to war against his people and their freedoms, has 
become a custodian of world peace. 

Twelve years, however, is not long enough for the Ameri- 
can people to forget. The butcher Franco survived his two 
allies, Hitler and Musso- 
lini, but who can forget 
the aid and comfort he 
gave them during the 
second world war when 
the Spanish Blue Division 
fought in the ranks of the 
Nazi army? Who can for- 
get how he was the eyes 
and ears of the Naai Luft- 
waffe and submarines that 
sank our ships and our men 
in the Mediterranean, or 
how he supplied the Nazi 
war machine with vital ma- 
terials during history's 
greatest war? The memo- 
ries of men are not so 
short. 




When Spain's despot is enlisted to aid our country de- 
fend freedom in the fastnesses of the Pyrenees, we must 
ask, insistently and endlessly, what kind of freedom and for 
whom? For our own sake, we must know with certainty 
the aim of this American scheme to outdo the British and 
make of all Spain a Gibraltar. We must know why Franco 
is so accommodating and why Washington is so willing to 
"let bygones be bygones." 

The Spanish people are not disposed to let bygones be 
bygones. A cry of pain, a cry of suffering comes unbear- 
ably from the Spanish soil. But above it comes a fierce shout 
of resistance, and we would be fools and traitors to the 
cause of human freedom if we did not hear this too. 

A LAND OF MISERY AND POVERTY 

What is the situation in Spain itself? It is important that 
we know, for the truth of Spain is the most naked truth 
in all the world, and Spanish fascism is the symbol of fas- 
cism everywhere. The story of the Spanish struggle thereby 
becomes a symbolic story for all people who hate fascism 
and love freedom. 

I spoke before of the great general strike that began in 




Barcelona and spread from there 
to the other important cities in 
Spain. This strike was touched 
off by a streetcar fare increase in 
Barcelona, But behind that are 
many years of slow starvation 
and indescribable misery. Pov- 
erty in Spain has been cumula- 
tive, and not only is the poverty 
of the average Spaniard greater, 
but there are more poor, pro- 
portionately, in Spain than in 
any other European country. 
This is the result of 12 years of 
looting on the part of Franco 
and his henchmen. The damage 
of their bombs during the civil 
war has not been repaired even 
to this day. There are not enough 
hospitals in Spain even for one- 
tenth of its population. The rate 
of tuberculosis is the highest, 
and illiteracy is more prevalent 
than anywhere in Europe, 

Travelers in Spain are at a 
loss to describe the misery and 
the suffering of the people. Two- 
thirds of the Spanish population 
has neither plumbing nor elec- 
tricity. And in many parts of 
Spain, children are denied even 
the most minimum clothing. 

In Barcelona, for example, an 
unskilled worker pays half of his 
day's wages for a loaf of bread. 
To buy two pounds of average 
beef he must work 14 hours, 
but since meat can be bought 
only in the black market, it is 
beyond the reach of most Span- 
iards. The official prices quoted 




fWllf 




-v. 



by the government have gone up 700 per cent since 1945, and 
had already gone up perhaps as much as that during the war 
years; for the black market prices, you can double the 
quoted one. After 12 years of fascist rule, the Spanish 
people still live under a system of food rationing, including 
bread, that sanctifies starvation. 

During the early years of his regime, Franco waged a 
savage campaign to smash the working class of Spain and 
its organizations. There was never a day, never a night 
when the firing squad was not active somewhere in Spain. 
The best and the finest leaders of the Spanish working 
class were driven into exile or put to death. At one point 
some five years ago, there were literally hundreds of thou- 
sands of workers and peasants in the jails and concentra- 
tion camps of Spain. Free trade unions became unlawful, 
strikes were outlawed, membership in all opposition political 
parties and the Masonic Order was punishable by death, 
and the public practice of religion, other than Catholic, was 
forbidden. 

Within this context one understands that the Spanish 
struggle is a miracle of human resistance and valor. The 
horror of Spain and the bestiality of Franco become a back- 

8 



ground for the courage and glory of the Spanish people. 

Four years before, on May 1, 1947, a strike was called 
in Bilbao which involved 50,000 workers. This strike was 
crushed with the fiercest repressive measures, and dozens 
of the workers involved were put to death. But the lessons 
of this strike were carefully learned. While the workers 
faced torture and firing squads, the guerrilla movement in 
other sections of the country struck again and again at the 
Franco civil guards. 

Bit by bit the partisan bands in the countryside, in the 
mountains, increased their strength. For the next two years 
Spanish partisan groups carried out raids in Galicia, Exstre- 
madura, Andalucia, Santander, Valencia and Catalonia. 

In the cities, the workers set out to build a solid front 
which would include every section of the Spanish popula- 
tion except those within the Franco dictatorship. At the 
end of 1949 more than 3,000 taxi drivers in Madrid went on 
strike. During the 12 months preceding the great general 
strike of Barcelona, small, isolated strikes broke out in city 
after city throughout Spain. 

The Barcelona general strike began with a boycott of 
streetcars, an action that forced cancellation of the fare 
increase* On underground presses, tens of thousands of 
leaflets were printed and distributed. Posters denouncing 
the Franco regime appeared on walls all over the city. 

Patiently, tirelessly, . the united front had been welded 
together. It included students, intellectuals, professionals, 
shopkeepers, and small business men — grouped around the 
core of workers. After four years of work and preparation, 
the Spanish people were ready to engage in the mighty 
demonstration of March, 1951. 

THE GENERAL STRIKE MOVEMENT 

Consider that even in those countries where trade unions 
are legal and have the fullest freedom of operation, a gen- 
eral strike is the most difficult operation for workers to carry 
through. 

Nevertheless, all accounts of the great general strike move- 
ment of 1951 in Spain agree that it was complete from the 
start The machinery of life ground to a halt. The Cata- 
lonian people went out on the streets, 

9 




But the morning of the second day after the strike had 
started, Franco began to mobilize* Four warships arrived 
in the Barcelona harbor, landing marines to reinforce the 
police and the elite civil guards. Three thousand civil 
guards were brought in by train from Madrid. Five thou- 
sand additional police and troops had already been brought 
into the city during the streetcar boycott. Barcelona was an 
armed camp. Everywhere were troops, bayonets, guns, ar- 
mored cars. 

Thousands of strikers were arrested. Some of them, sus- 
pected of being key leaders, were put to torture. Corrupt and 
renegade fascist trade union leaders warned employers that 
if any workers on strike were paid, the employer would be 
punished. The fascist government instructed employers that 
any striker arrested must be immediately discharged. 

For all of this, the strike held firm and ended as it had be- 
gun—with discipline, with order and with firmness. On 
Wednesday, the third day, the workers began to return to 
work. They had carried through successfully their greatest 
demonstration of strength and unity since 1939. They had 
maintained a united front with almost every section of the 
population, and they had demonstrated to the rest of Spain 
that it is possible, even under fascist terror, to fight against 
Franco. The mobilization had been so powerful and so 
massive that the threats and the reprisals were nullified, Vir- 
10 



tually all prisoners were released, the strikers kept their 
jobs and won pay for the time on strike. 

They had put forth their demands and made all Spain 
aware of them. Cheaper food and clothing were the main 
basis of their demands. But beyond that they never allowed 
themselves to be diverted from their purpose of uniting the 
Spanish people against the Franco dictatorship. Showers 
of leaflets fell, even on the helmets of the guards patrolling 
Plaza Catalonia. The leaflets appealed to the police and sol- 
diers, telling them, "You are all sons of the people. Frater- 
nize with your brothers. Don't be partners of the hangmen. 
Down with the murderers! Long live the Republic !" This 
was the great Barcelona strike that set off the wave of gen- 
eral strikes and demonstrations in the next two months. 

On April 23rd ? more than 250,000 seasoned workers in 
the Bilbao area shut down this great industrial port for the 
same ominous 48 hours; the arms plants, the metal fac- 
tories, the iron and steel mills, the textile plants ground to a 
halt. From Guipuzcoa to Alava to Navarre — from one end 
of the Basque provinces to the other, the weeks that fol- 
lowed were in the same pattern. And everywhere there was 
the same widespread support. 

In Pamplona, the strikers stormed the Falange party 
headquarters. In Tolosa, the women marched through the 
streets holding aloft empty bottles of olive oil to display 
not only their hunger but their will to struggle. And in 
Madrid, on May 22nd, the nerve-center of the fascist re- 
gime, the trolleys, the trains, the buses and the taxis rode 
empty. The people of Madrid struck with their feet, walk- 
ing to work and walking home from work. It was a boy- 
cott demonstration against which all the ruthless display of 
Franco was powerless to act. 

Here was the challenge of more than a million and a half 
people of Spain, a challenge more acute than Franco had 
ever faced. And it was not the end ; clearly it was only the 
beginning. Franco was not alone in concern over his fate. 
Those who would present Franco as a reliable ally were 
concerned, too. Indeed there are some who say that the 
flight to Madrid of the late Admiral Sherman, represent- 
ing the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, was hastened by the 
need to mend the fortunes of the Spanish dictator. And 

11 



the Madrid announcement of a U.S. military pact with the 
Caudillo was made on the very anniversary — the fifteenth 
— of the start of the fascist revolt against the Republic. 
Franco had been handed another victory in the nick of time. 

TERROE, PRISON AND EXILE 

Yet the Barcelona story is only one side of the Spanish 
story. It is easy to fall into a mood of apathy and say, "Yes, 
the Spanish people are a great people. They will conquer 
this thing themselves." 

There would be warrant enough for this feeling. The 
Spanish people have long since seen washed away that shin- 
ing, World War II pledge of the Western powers to wipe 
out the last vestiges of fascism. They watched the victorious 
men gather in San Francisco to build the same United Na- 
tions coalition for peace that had proved so powerful in war. 
When that session ended, one of the first entries on the UN 
books was a condemnation of Franco "as a fascist regime, 
patterned on, and established largely as a result of aid re- 
ceived from Hitler's Nazi Germany and Mussolini's fascist 
Italy/' That was in 1945, and a year later a diplomatic 
ban was imposed on Franco Spain. But this was the limit 
of righteous distaste President Truman would permit, and 
from which he has ever since retreated, Year by year, the 
deference to anti-fascist sentiment yielded to the design of 
the cold war. In 1948 the U.S. began campaigning for re- 
peal of the ban. In 1949, to hasten the campaign, the U.S. 
delegation introduced the gentle art of "arm-twisting" into 
the General Assembly, and in November, 1950, the art bore 
fruit. The ban against Fran- 
co was lifted and Washing- 
ton was the first of the ma- 
jor powers of the West to 
return an ambassador to 
Franco's Madrid. 

The people of Spain were 
on their own, their bright 
hopes in the UN coalition 
gone. In Barcelona, 300,000 
Spanish workers, made 
strong by their disillusion, 
began the march back. 

12 



Library 
University of Tex*? 




But we live in a world today where no man and no country 
can exist as an island. The Spanish people struggle for all 
that is best and finest in our world, and against all that is vile 
and destructive. Do you imagine that the price of such a 
struggle is a small one? 

Suppose we take the experiences of one month in a few 
areas of Spain simply in terms of peasant resistance. From 
Franco sources, published during the month of December, 
1949, we learn that in Levante, seven peasants were ar- 
rested by civil guards. Two of them were assassinated in 
that time-honored fascist manner, "shot while trying to es- 
cape." We learn that in the first part of November, mass 
arrests were carried out. Dozens of peasants suffered brutal 
tortures. In the course of these tortures many were killed. 
The official reports include 12 who died in this manner. 

We find that on October 15th, a peasant was killed by 
civil guards on the outskirts of Ejulve, We discover that 
during October, in Andalucia, a number of peasants were ar- 
rested, accused of aiding guerrillas. One of them was trans- 
shipped by train. He was murdered while "trying to es- 
cape." On November 13th, two peasants were killed while 
"trying to escape" near Villa del Rio. On November 17th, 
Francisco Lopez Pinto was killed, murdered by Franco's 
police. On the same day, also in Andalucia, Francisco Ar- 
royo Aguilar was killed. 

This is a very incomplete report. It deals with only a few 
areas of Spain, and it is gleaned from Franco sources. The 
lull record makes one wonder how any people can be bled 
in this fashion and yet continue to resist 
For example, we have these statistics, from 
Franco sources, of anti-fascists murdered 
during a four-year period— shot either by 
order of military tribunals, or while "try- 
ing to escape": in 1945, 590; in 1946, 160; 
in 1947, 562; and in 1948, 300. In 1950 we 
had reliable information concerning 200,- 
000 political prisoners held in prisons and 
in 16 concentration camps- Of this num- 
ber, 22,000 were women, and in the camps 
were many thousands of children born in 
prison or concentration camp, who had 

814912 

13 




reached the ages of six, seven 
and eight and had known no 
other life. 

Such is the land of Franco, 
and such is the cross which the 
Spanish people bear. Such too 
is the ally, the "noble" ally, 
which our foreign policy has 
chosen to defend the American way of life and to help keep 
the peace throughout the world. We have allied ourselves 
with a regime which has driven into exile almost half a 
million workers, over 2,000 teachers, 350 doctors, 350 pro- 
fessors, 100 writers and poets, 50 scientists, composers, 
sculptors, artists, painters. 

How often do we read in our press of the "free world" 
which we are defending! I have told you something about 
the part of the "free world" which exists under the en^ 
lightened rule of Francisco Franco. How would you like to 
live there? How would it feel? It has been said by many a 
whimpering German that he or she knew nothing of the 
death camps. But there is no human being in Spain who 
does not know the details of the hell on earth Francisco 
Franco, with the help of Hitler and Mussolini, has created 
and which now Truman and Acheson help perpetuate. 

Of 3,700,000 farm workers and peasants in Spain, accord- 
ing to Franco's own statistics, only 500,000 are more or less 
steadily employed. The rest, seasonal workers employed 
a few months each year, live on roots and wild plants and 
whatever else they can find to fill their aching bellies. The 
500,000 work for the two per cent of Spanish landlords who 
possess 60 per cent of all arable land. Most of the re- 
maining arable land is controlled by the Catholic Church. 
Here is a land which has the highest infant mortality rate 
in Europe. Here is a land where 75 per cent of all children 
suffer from tuberculosis. In this land, on the outskirts of 
Madrid, 400,000 people live literally in caves and mud 
huts. In Barcelona almost 150,000 live in caves, and it is 
estimated that six million people have no place to live but 
the open fields, the streets or the bitter protection of arch- 
ways and bridges. 

The monsters who made this are now our ally. With this 
evil our government has joined forces, so that we may carry 
14 



on a crusade against Communism, the same 
that Francisco Franco proclaimed in 1936. 



k Yriis;i(lt'" 



A CENTER OF WORLD STRATEGY 

The Spanish struggle is not always dramatic. It is not 
easy to be dramatic in a land ruled by hangmen and mur- 
derers, but the struggle is continuous and unending. 

Can we separate ourselves from this struggle? Can we 
ignore the new era of struggle that the general strikes in 
the spring of 1951 have ushered in? I don't think so. For 
once again, as in 1936, Spain has become a center in the 
strategy of world war or world peace. Once again aid goes 
to Franco and a policy of "non-intervention" is imposed upon 
the democratic forces of Spain. Once again the plea is made 
that this is the way to prevent a world war and strengthen 
the forces of peace. 

But this time there is a greater peril for the American 
people. Each day, inside Spain, there is less and less bewild- 
erment about the sudden way in which the Stars and Stripes 
has appeared to rescue their tyrant from doom. The Span- 
ish people may be told that this is all for their own good 
and ours. But one must face it: it's an impossible task to 
convince them. All they can see is intervention to strengthen 
their oppressor. The modern "Made in U.S.A." weapons 
for Franco's Falangist army won't bring any closer to 
Spaniards the freedom to speak, to worship, to assemble 
or to organize into free trade 
unions. The naval and air 
bases soon to fly the Ameri- 
can flag will lend no peace- 
ful aspect to the Spanish 
landscape. Neither will 
these things nourish in 
the hearts of the people of 
Spain a pride in the 
proud possession of their own 
land. 

The bitter truth they are 
learning is that these are 
steps to war, just as surely as 
they know that the despotism 




15 



against which they fight is a system based wholly on war- 
ring against their living standards, their right to be free 
and to live in peace with the other peoples of the world. 
The people of Europe — East and West — know this too. 
This is why the Truman policy of arming and aiding Franco 
is meeting the bitterest opposition of the people of France, 
England, Italy, Belgium. They know that propping up fas- 
cist dictators — anywhere — brings war closer to them. They 
also have learned the lesson of American support to Chiang 
Kai-shek, which has produced not peace but war, not friend- 
ship but the hostility of the people of an entire continent. 

These truths are matters of life or death for the Ameri- 
can people as well. Hysteria and hypnosis lie heavily on our 
people today; revulsion against the once unthinkable alli- 
ance with Franco is stilled, and admiration for Spain's 
noble struggle becomes a forlorn secret in the corner of the 
mind. The slyly planted notion grows that Franco fascism, 
standing guard in the Pyrenees, can in some mysterious, 
satanic fashion prevent war's horror from reaching our 
shores and exhaust the terror of atom bombs before they 
obliterate our own cities and people. This is the great, 
cruel fraud of our day. 

Building fortresses for fascism in Spain, or anywhere 
else, is an invitation to bring war upon ourselves. It can 
never be otherwise and neither can the nature of fascism 
be otherwise. And an alliance with fascism increases the 
danger of contamination. Has some special dispensation 
made our people and our land immune from this danger of 
contagion ? Indeed, it could be argued that the danger is al- 
ready upon us. The price of dissent is even now too high for 
some Americans. It is a fact of history that Senator Mc- 
Carran, the most ardent advocate of a Franco alliance, 
is author of the Internal Security Act which establishes 
a rule of political orthodoxy entirely alien to America's 
democratic traditions, but congenial to fascism. 

War or peace, freedom or fascist tyranny — these can no 
longer be decided separately by the American people and the 
people of Spain. We must understand in the fullest sense 
16 



that if the cause of Spain goes down, the cause of America 
goes down with it. 

THE ALLIANCE MUST BE BROKEN 

When one looks back over the years upon the Spanish 
suffering, one can think only of a mighty passion, the re- 
sponsibility for which no man on earth can deny or avoid. 
Long, long ago, so long ago that it seems to have been in 
another world and another life, American troops fighting 
in the suburbs of Madrid called out a brave, proud slogan: 

"Madrid," they said, "will be the tomb of fascism." 

In its own awful and ironic way, history has given sub- 
stance and meaning and historic truth to their words. Mad- 
rid can and must be the tomb of fascism, for unless Spanish 
fascism is destroyed, this malignant seed will destroy us. 
As Americans we must each of us, singly and with grave 
conscience, bear the responsibility for the bloody and im- 
moral compact which our government has made with the 
butcher Franco. We have no choice concerning this com- 
pact. It must be denounced and broken, or else it will surely 
destroy us. 

It is 12 years since the Spanish Republic fell. But the 
cause of Spain has not become a lost cause. It can never 
become a lost cause so long as the people of Spain continue 
to struggle and so long as Americans cherish freedom and 
honor democracy and strive to live in a world at peace. 



!S:-&asaraN :! . 




An Appeal to Readers . . . 

For 16 years the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Com- 
mittee and its predecessor organizations have carried 
on a tradition of support for the cause of democratic 
Spain. It has provided aid for the exiled victims of the 
Franco regime. It has ceaselessly espoused a public pol- 
icy that would place our government on the side of the 
heroic Spanish people. 

Today, the greatest contribution Americans can make 
toward the cause of the Spanish people, victimized 
equally in exile and inside Spain, is to prevent the real- 
ization of a military and economic pact with their op- 
pressor, Franco. 

We urge every reader of this pamphlet to protest to 
the President, to the State Department, and to members 
of Congress. 

Arming Franco will bolster his despotic, insecure 
rule, and will hasten us down the road to war. Oppos- 
ing a Franco alliance is not a matter of decency and 
conscience alone; our basic self interest demands it. 



JOINT ANTI-FASCIST REFUGEE 'COMMITTEE 
23 West 26th Street 
New York 10, N. Y. 

Please send "me regularly your bulletin FREE SPAIN, re- 
porting and analyzing current developments in Spain and 
U.S. -Spanish relations. 



Name. 



Address. 



City Zone. 



State