A Testimony to Internationalism

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APA (American Psychological Assoc.)

References

Bailey, B. (1985). One Man's Education: A Testimony to Internationalism. Harvard Educational

Review, 55(1), 101-108.

Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date Reference List

Bailey, Bill. 1985. "One Man's Education: A Testimony to Internationalism." Harvard Educational

Review 55, no. 1: 101-108. Historical Abstracts, EBSCOhost (accessed November 4, 2011).

Chicago/Turabian: Humanities Bibliography

Bailey, Bill. "One Man's Education: A Testimony to Internationalism." Harvard Educational Review 55,no. 1 (February 1985): 101-108. Historical Abstracts, EBSCOhost (accessed November 4, 2011).

Harvard References

Bailey, B 1985, 'One Man's Education: A Testimony to Internationalism', Harvard Educational Review,55, 1, pp. 101-108, Historical Abstracts, EBSCOhost , viewed 4 November 2011.

MLA (Modern Language Assoc.)

Works Cited

Bailey, Bill. "One Man's Education: A Testimony To Internationalism." Harvard Educational Review 55.1 (1985): 101-108. Historical Abstracts. Web. 4 Nov. 2011.



One Man's Education:

A Testimony to Internationalism

BILL BAILEY

San Francisco, California

Bill Bailey was working as a union organizer in Hawaii in 1936 when the Spanish CivilWar broke out. Fascist troops led by Franco rebelled against Spain's democratically elected

Republican government. The U.S. government declared a policy of nonintervention that

prohibited the shipment of arms to the Republican Loyalists and banned travel to Spain.

This policy contributed to the Fascist cause and outraged many Americans, including

Bailey. Early in 1937, Baileyjoined a group ofAmerican volunteers forming the Abraham

Lincoln Battalion, an unpaid and nonprofessional troop of men and women who chose to

fight with the International Brigade alongside the Republican Loyalists. In this article, thecomplexity of internationalism is expressed through Bailey's commitment to support the

Spanish democracy, a decision in which he places the international cause of fightingfascism

above his nation's choice not to participate. Bailey shares his memories of that period and

describes his reasons for choosing the path that led him to Spain.

The Spanish Civil War, which broke out in July 1936, ended in March 1939 with

the defeat of the democratically elected Republican government, after whichFranco and his Spanish brand of fascism would rule Spain for over forty years.

During that war, over 40,000 men and women from all continents traveled to

Spain to form the International Brigade, joining the mass of Spaniards in an

armed struggle to save their Republic. Of the 40,000 volunteers who went to

Spain, some 3,200 were Americans; of that number half would die. The rest of

us returned home to a country that during the McCarthy period would use our

commitment to fight fascism in Spain as grounds for harassment and persecutionby the Committee on Un-American Activities.

Scholars have often wondered what 40,000 men and women had in common

that would make them travel around the world to risk their lives in a war on Span

ish soil. What did this segment of humanity learn in Spain that they might not

have learned elsewhere? This is the story of the Americans who traveled across the



Harvard Educational Review

peror Haile Selassie pleaded for help before the League of Nations, but his pleas

fell on deaf ears. Meanwhile, Hitler was inflicting his brand of fascism on the Ger

man people, outlawing all political parties of the opposition and arresting and

sending to concentration camps Communists, Socialists, and trade unionists. His

denunciation of the "Jewish capitalists and Bolsheviks" as the source of problems

that afflicted Germany was only a harbinger of the impending holocaust.

By 1936 Haile Selassie had taken refuge in England as Mussolini's Black Shirts

paraded down the main streets of Addis Ababa, secure in the belief that Ethiopiawas theirs. Hitler's Gestapo was busy inflicting terror across Germany as more

concentration camps were built to imprison the opposition.

Some European countries stood by and did nothing to stem the advance of

fascism; others encouraged Hitler to direct his military sights eastward against

Russia. The Soviet Union, recognizing the Fascist danger, called upon the peoples

of the world to build a united front against war and fascism. France and England,

the two countries that could have halted Hitler's rapid advance, refused to graspthe opportunity to do so and offered him no resistance. It became obvious that no

government in Europe would stand up against the evils and encroachments of

fascism and that fascism would be allowed to consume one country after another

throughout Europe without resistance.

The United States in the early thirties was a country suffering all the ills of a

prolonged depression. Massive unemployment left men, women, and youngsters

without means of a livelihood. Soup lines in every major city and town becamethe only source of food for the hungry. Although our country was a huge, over

stuffed warehouse with an abundance of surplus goods, the majority of working

people had little purchasing power.

I joined with other progressive citizens in the United States to put life into the

idea of a united front against war and fascism. With the country deep in depres

sion and the future uncertain, we acted against insidious elements like the Ku

Klux Klan, the Silver Shirts, the American Nazi Bund, Father Coughlin, and lotsof other Fascist and semi-Fascist outfits existing at the time in this country, who

believed the United States' only way out of its economic problems was through war

and adoption of the same Fascist methods being used then in Italy and Germany.

While we of the Left struggled in our own country to build a strong anti-Fascist

movement, many Americans considered themselves safe and immune from the

agony of the European peoples, either because of the sea that separated Europe

from the United States or because "fascism was a European problem." Yet the Pro

gressives viewed with sorrow the gains fascism had made and was continuing to

make in Europe and Africa.

Meanwhile, as the world witnessed the rise of fascism in Europe, an inspiring

development took place in Spain. An event occured that would alter the course

of history: on April 14, 1931, King Alphonse XIII of Spain was forced to abdicate,

d h il d t f C t th t d I th S i h l ti f F b



One Man's Education

BILL BAILEY

jobless. It was a joyous event for the mass of working people and farmers but a

sad day for those who hated democracy and feared participation in government

by trade unions and working people. They smarted from the defeat and plotted

for its destruction.

On July 18, 1936, General Franco, with the blessings and support of Hitler and

Mussolini, led his army in a revolt against the democratically elected Spanish gov

ernment. The uprising commenced in North Africa and quickly spread to major

areas on the Spanish mainland. Confused at first, some members of the Republican government vacillated in securing arms to crush the rebellion and maneuvered

against the strong demand of the people, as represented by the trade unions and

political parties that supported the Popular Front. By the time government leaders

acceded to the people's demand for arms, Franco's forces had seized a sizable

chunk of Spain. Hitler and Mussolini flew in planes loaded with bombs for

Franco. Ships from Germany and Italy discharged heavy tanks, munitions, and

long range cannons in several ports controlled by Franco. Shipload after shiploadof mercenaries, mostly Moors, landed in Spain from North Africa.

It was now up to Republican Spain to put together a disciplined and trained

army to fight against professionally trained troops composed of Moors from the

Army of Africa, Italians of the Black Arrow Divisions, Germans of the Condor

Legion, and Spanish Army officers and men who had sided with Franco. Against

this array of professionals with their unlimited amount of military equipment was

pitted an untrained, untried, badly equipped, undisciplined people's militia thathad but one aim— to save the Republic at any cost.

The Republican government felt certain that its close neighbor, France, under

Socialist premier Leon Blum, would rise to the occasion and answer their plea for

arms. The Republic was also confident that the United States would stand by a

fellow democratic nation in time of need. But Spain soon learned that yesterday's

friends would not necessarily stand by her and that nations born in struggle do

not always lend a sympathetic hand to other democratic countries in trouble.This lesson came as the Tory government of Great Britain quickly convinced

Blum that the ceiling would cave in on France if she supported Spain with weap

ons. French support, it was feared, would provoke Hitler and Mussolini. The

Tory government urged France to call for a "nonintervention" policy and supply

no arms to either side.

Blum accepted this insane reasoning, and France clamped down on the borders

leading into Spain. The Republican Loyalists, trying to recover from this shock,

looked to the United States, but President Roosevelt was under the influence of

Great Britain as well as under pressure from the Catholic hierarchy in our own

country. He also agreed to a policy of nonintervention. The United States even

went so far as to pressure Mexico against sending arms to the Republic. While

the democratic nations would not sell so much as a Band-aid to the Republic, non

i i did h G I li hi d k f d li i




ber of ships torpedoed and seamen killed as they were dogged through the Medi

terranean Sea in their efforts to deliver their military cargo.

In the late weeks of 1936, members of the French trade unions and members

of the Communist and Socialist parties, disgusted with Blum's decision to follow

a course of nonintervention, rode across the French-Spanish border in taxis,

buses, and trucks. They were "tourists," they told the border guards, and because

they carried no weapons they were permitted to cross. Thus they became the first

international volunteers to enter Spain and join in the fighting against the Fascists.

Soon word spread through Europe that the Spanish Republic was permitting vol

unteers to assist in the fight.

I had sailed into and out of Spain as a merchant seaman in 1935, only a year

before the Civil War began. I had great admiration for the Spanish worker and

farmer and for the good fight they were waging to change their lives. Back in the

United States in 1936, as the life of the Republic was being tested on the battle

field, I read every bit of news I could find on events there. As a Communist, Iwas convinced beyond doubt that what was happening in Spain would have a pro

found impact upon on the struggle against fascism. I felt that a defeat of the Fas

cists in Spain would be the best inducement for the Italian people to dispose of

their country's Fascists. Would the German people, seeing the defeat of fascism

in Spain, fail to dispose of their Nazi leaders? These were questions that the strug

gle in Spain could answer. In the following months, men and women sympathetic

to Loyalist Spain overcame many obstacles as they found their way across oceansand continents and wound up and down deer paths across the Pyrenees to the

Spanish trenches.

I was in Honolulu when I received word that an International Brigade had been

formed in Spain and that it had already given a good account of itself in repelling

Fascist attacks. As part of this brigade, the Americans had organized their own

group and called it the Abraham Lincoln Battalion. By May of 1937 I started to

read about the Fascists making fewer and fewer gains; yet, at the same time, theRepublicans were barely holding their own. I left the Hawaiian Islands for the

mainland and, with the help of the Communist party, was on my way via Grey

hound bus to New York. After a few days in New York, I was assigned to a group

of twenty-five people boarding an ocean liner bound for France. Although the

Democratic party, the Republican party, or any other party or organization in the

United States professing a love of democracy could have solicited donations to fi

nance the passage of volunteers to Spain, none did. These organizations and the

government contradicted the majority of the American public which favored a Re

publican Loyalist victory over the Fascists. It should be noted that it was the Com

munist party that bore the brunt of channeling the volunteers, both Communist

and non-Communist, and saw them safely across the country and onto ships. All

this was done in secrecy, with the knowledge that our passports were not valid for



One Man's Education

BILL BAILEY

in the hope that the rebellion would be short-lived and end in victory for the Re

public. But once it changed its character from that of a rebellion to a war of inva

sion by thousands of Moorish, German, and Italian troops, I felt that "shaking a

can" for donations or getting a petition signed was no longer strong enough for me.

Once the Republic had opened its arms and accepted the International Brigade

to defend its cause, all other things seemed to fade into the background. A serious

wrong had to be corrected. Aside from the need to halt the Fascist drive across

Europe and Northern Africa, we were repelled by our own country's inaction in

refusing to help the embattled Loyalists and by its appalling attempts to prevent

other countries from going to Spain's aid as well. What better way than fighting

alongside Spanish Loyalists to tell the politicians in our country how wrong they

were, and what better way to tell the Spanish people that all Americans did not

agree with Roosevelt's Neutrality Act?

In fact, the common bond that brought the 40,000 internationals to Spain was

a desire to fight fascism on the field of battle. Whatever individual considerations

or personal motives there might have been, these were, above all, politically moti

vated combatants. In the beginning I think I assumed that was true, but in the

end I knew it as fact, tested and confirmed by the trials of combat.

I do not know now whether I was aware that I was placing my life on the line,

as, of course, I was. But I, and others like me, believed it was this type of strug

gle that we were committed to. For the Italian and German workers, it was far

too late for the ballot box to do them any good. The Spanish had tried the ballotbox, but the Fascists chose to reverse the people's will with bullets. The issues

would have to be resolved with bullets before ballots would ever again have

meaning.

We were warned before departing across the Atlantic that British, French, and

U.S. intelligence were intensifying their efforts to prevent volunteers from reach

ing Republican Spain. Thus we were cautioned to stay alert. On shipboard, we

minimized our association with each other as a group for reasons of secrecy andsecurity and maintained a low profile as passengers and tourists. We were none

theless greeted on arrival in France by a notice placed prominently on a bulletin

board. It acknowledged, in effect, that there were people on board whose destina

tion was Spain. Because travel to Spain was both illegal and dangerous, the notice

advised those passengers that they would do well to change their minds and accept

the offer of a free trip home on board the same vessel.

Once in France, we relied on friends of Republican Spain to take care of ourneeds and guide us safely across their country to the Spanish border. Nazi and

Fascist leaders had agents throughout France that made traveling to Spain both

difficult and dangerous. Groups detected by pro-Franco sympathizers in the

French police department had been jailed, some for thirty days or more. At the

border we relied on experienced mountain men who led our group across streams




in. Numerous anti-Fascist German members of the Thaelmann Brigade told me

how some had escaped from concentration camps and traveled with forged papers

to Spain.1 To me, that was a lesson in commitment. There were other groups with

similar experiences of dodging hostile border guards and overcoming language

barriers to arrive in Spain, where, like the Germans, they could continue the fight

against fascism. These men had already lived among and fought the Fascists in

their own countries. They knew fascism firsthand. It was now their time to settle

a score for what the Fascists had done to them and to their countries. Aside from

their firsthand knowledge of the enemy, they were far more experienced than

many of us Americans in the use of weapons. At times I could not help but feel

awed by their presence. We Americans had traveled with safety, ease, and comfort

compared to most of the Europeans. They taught me a lesson that, if commitment

is strong enough, barriers will be overcome. They had proven that fact.

It was also remarkable to see the learning that took place in mutual relation

ships. Everywhere the internationals went the Spanish people celebrated their arrival. They wanted to talk to us, to give us small insights into their lives, to tell

us how much they appreciated our presence in their country and how much they

hoped to accomplish when the war was over. Our volunteers were a disciplined

group of people, and the Spaniards recognized this asset and quickly picked up

the idea that if discipline helped the volunteers to fight better, it would also assist

the Spanish.

As soldiers we learned that the most important thing was to stay alive so thatwe could continue destroying the enemy. We were somewhat handicapped, how

ever, when it came to training. Most of our instructors had been at the front lines

for only a short time; the most they could teach us was how to dig a machine gun

pit or a trench, how to throw a grenade, or how to take cover when we heard the

sound of an airplane. We had two important weapons, the Maxim water-cooled

heavy machine gun and our bolt-action, single-shot rifle, and, like most of the

other Americans, I had never fired anything other than a BB gun. With only acouple of weeks of training, we had to learn how to survive at the front while up

holding our end of responsibility. In a couple of weeks of training, we mastered

the art of breaking down the gun, putting it back together again, aiming it, and

loading it, but ammunition was not easy to come by, so we did all this without

firing one live round of ammunition. The lack of good training resulted in big cas

ualties for our side in the early stages of the war.

If anyone earned our respect and admiration during this struggle, it was theRussians. The Republican government had sufficient gold reserves to buy large

amounts of defense weapons, but only the Russians were willing to sell them arms

and risk the lives of their seamen in transporting the cargoes to Spanish ports.

Aside from the Maxim machine guns, they also sent Spain their rifles. Engraved

on each rifle was the hammer and sickle and the date the rifle was made—mine



One Man's Education

BILL BAILEY

prominently. While it proved to be clumsy and difficult to haul over rough terrain,it was the Maxim that stymied many a Fascist attack. Without their help we might

have been reduced to throwing stones at the Fascists. That's why we spoke highly

of the Russians. From this I learned that "internationalism" was at its best when

it contributed where it would do the most good, which in this case was supplying

arms for the fight. This was the kind of action that surpassed all the rhetorical plat

itudes that so many were giving to Spain. At that time, rhetoric was no substitute

for bullets.It was a shocker for me when I learned of serious political disagreements among

some of the groups that constituted the Popular Front. My belief that everyone

supposedly commited to the Republic had submerged their differences to win the

war was not so. The young Republic had to face many challenges, from the front

and from the rear. In the population of the Republican ranks were many people

who would have been more at home had they crawled over to the Fascist lines.

Some were opportunists and wavering volunteers whose constant sniping againstthe Republican government was designed to destroy morale and undermine the

war effort. Damaging, too, were some groups of Spanish anarchists who insisted

that the government first proclaim Catalonia an autonomous nation before they

would take on the job of waging war against Franco. With the threat of fascism

breathing down their necks and almost half of Spain under Franco's control, this

sizable group insisted, "You guarantee us our revolution, then we'll join you in

yours." Thankfully, other groups with unsolved political problems subjugatedtheir special interests for the good of the whole. In addition, the membership and

leadership of trade unions were actively taking part in every level of government

and industry and in the direction and administration of the war. This was an un

usual phenomenon. Where else would the working-class trade unions have so

strong a part in running the government?

But what of the personal relationships one builds in time of stress and anger?

Here were thousands of men and women in a foreign country. Most of us had to

adapt to a new language and a new culture, but, most importantly, we had to deal

with each other in the open with full trust. We ate the same food, used the same

military equipment, slept in the same trenches and foxholes, and had the same en

emy. I saw the Spaniards at first questioningwhy Americans, whom they assumed

to live lives of plenty, would suddenly give up everything to come to Spain to help

defeat Franco and give the Spaniard back his Republic. We explained to them that

the Hollywood version of life in the United States was not our way of life, that

many of us lived in poverty, and that the enemy was not just Franco, the local

villain, but fascism— an international sickness that we were attacking and trying

to defeat in Spain. Once the Spanish recognized this, they felt a new upsurge in

pride, knowing that they were making not just a local contribution but a global

one as well.

W i i l b h S i h h ifl b Th i




off on many of the Spanish soldiers, as did our conviction that it was better to stay

protected in foxholes and trenches if we were to tackle the enemy again and again.

The Spanish saw that we cared about them enough to come many miles across

many barriers to assist in defeating our common enemy. It was this facet of our

relationship that inspired the Spanish people to accept us as true brothers and sis

ters.

On September 21, 1938, Juan Negrin, the premier of Republican Spain, spoke

before the League of Nations and submitted a petition calling for a commissionto supervise the withdrawal of all foreign volunteers. It was Negrin's hope that

such a move would force Franco to remove his foreign troops from Spain. Franco

never did follow suit, nor did the League of Nations demand he do so. Negrin or

dered the internationals to leave. A couple of weeks after we were ordered out of

the trenches to be sent home — that is, those who still had a home country to go

to— a parade such as Spain will never see again took place in the city of Barcelona.

Thousands of Spanish men, women, and children lined the streets to say thankyou and farewell as we paraded by. They showered us with flowers and hugs and

kisses. On their faces I could see the expression of their love for us, but I also knew

that unless a miracle occurred quickly they were doomed. Many of us marched

with tears in our eyes.

So many lessons remain with me from my eighteen months in Spain. Lessons

pop up in my daily life, but I guess the one that I want to conclude with is that

the struggle, the "good fight," still goes on. At no time must any of my Comradesor I forget that when Franco conducted his "holy crusade" in Spain he did so to

"save Spain from Communism." Six months after the war ended in Spain, Hitler

commenced his bloodbath in Europe. In the years that he prepared his murderous

aggression, he proclaimed that his goal was to save the world from Bolshevism.

Before his crusade against Bolshevism was brought to an end, tens of millions were

slaughtered.

Today our nerves are being rattled with similar themes. The youth of the

United States and the people of Central America are slowly being edged toward

invasion and war in that impoverished region of the world— in order "to save Cen

tral America from Communism." Thus speaks our president. For me, the lesson

from the Spanish Civi l War has to be that now is the time for all those who will

no longer accept the logic of Franco and Hitler to become committed to preserving

our planet from those who are forever chasing phantoms and who one day may

believe their own propaganda and press the button that will turn our world into

one fiery ball. It will be too late then to do anything.



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A Testimony to Internationalism

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