a testimony to internationalism
TRANSCRIPT
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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.
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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
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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
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One Man's Education
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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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