1936 - 1939
¡NO PASARAN!

Billede fra Den Spanske Borgerkrig fra bogen "Der var bud efter dem" af Ole Sohn.

Hans og Karl - to tyske kammerater der før borgerkrigen boede hos mine bedsteforældre i Kastrup på Amager.
Victor - en tysk kammerat, som min familie også kendte. En kommunist til det sidste - trods hans årelange ophold i sovjetisk arbejdslejr.

Den spanske borgerkrig

Den spanske borgerkrig udbrød den 17. juli 1936 med et fascistisk kup imod den siddende regering. Krigen sluttede i marts 1939 med den fascistiske leder, General Francos sejr. Begge parter i krigen fik hjælp udefra, men af meget forskellig karakter. Franco fik omfattende hjælp fra Tyskland og Italien, både i form af mandskab og materiel, mens regeringen fik støtte fra frivillige verden over, der gik ind i den Internationale Brigade, og på eget initiativ bekæmpede fascismen. Omkring 40.000 deltog i den Internationale Brigade, da antallet var på sit højeste, mens omkring 7.000 tyske elitetropper og omkring 60.000 italienske tropper tilsvarende deltog på Francos side. For at inddæmme konflikten besluttede de øvrige europæiske magter at stoppe al våbensalg og anden militær bistand til de stridende parter. Dette forbud blev i realiteten en ensidig hjælp til Franco, idet Tyskland og Italien ikke rettede sig efter forbudet.

Spaniensfrivillige

Teksten stammer fra Socialdemokratiets Håndbog, Rigsdagssamlingen 1936-37, udgivet på Fremad, 1937.

Forbud mod Frivillige til Spanien

Som et Led i de Kontrolforanstaltninger, som den Internationale Ikke-indblandingskomité iværksatte omkring Slutningen af Februar 1937, har en Række europæiske Stater gennemført Forbud mod Frivilliges Deltagelse i den spanske Borgerkrig. Forslag herom blev fremsat i Folketinget den 23. Februar og gennemført i Løbet af de to efterfølgende dage. - Forslaget vedtoges enstemmigt.
Forbudet omfatter Udrejse og Gennemrejse for saavel danske som fremmede Statsborgere til Deltagelse i Borgerkrigen i Spanien og spansk Marokko. Tilladelsen til at rejse til de spanske Besiddelser kan gives af Justitsministeren eller dennes Bemyndigede ved en særlig Paategning paa Passet. Saadan Tilladelse kan kun gives, saafremt det godtgøres, at Formaalet med Rejsen ikke er Deltagelse i Borgerkrigen. Udlændinge, som ikke er bosat her i Landet, kan kun faa Tilladelse til at rejse herfra til Spanien, saafremt de af Hjemlandets Myndigheder har faaet Tilladelse dertil. Rejsebureauer maa ikke sælge Billetter til Spanien til Personer, der ikke har Rejsetilladelse, ligesom Førerne af danske Skibe, ikke maa transportere eller landsætte saadanne Personer i Spanien. For Overtrædelse fastsættes Hæftestraf indtil 3 Maaneder, eventuelt Bøder. Loven bortfalder af sig selv med Borgerkrigens ophør. dens Bortfald paa tidligere Tidspunkt kan bestemmes ved kgl. Anordning. (s. 180-181)
http://pladstilosalle.dk/baggrund/dokumentation/doku5.html

De danske spaniensfrivillige

Omkring 40.000 internationale frivillige deltog i den spanske borgerkrig på republikkens side - heraf omkring 500 danskere. Antallet er behæftet med en vis fejlmargin, da ikke alle er blevet identificerede.

Asociación de Amigos de las Brigadas Internacionales

Spanish Civil War Factbook

Internationale Brigader

Norman Bethune (1890-1939)
Writing Dr. Norman Bethune

 
The Bethune Institute
for Anti-Fascist Studies

In Memory of Norman Bethune

by
MAO TSE-TUNG
December, 1939 Note: Comrade Mao Tse-tung wrote "In Memory of Norman Bethune" on December 21, 1939. The above translation appears in the First Pocket Edition of Serve The People (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1966); it follows the Chinese text of the Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Volume II (Peking: People's Publishing House,1952).

Comrade Norman Bethune,[1] a member of the Communist Party of Canada, was around fifty when he was sent by the Communist Parties of Canada and the United States to China; he made light of travelling thousands of miles to help us in our War of Resistance Against Japan. He arrived in Yenan in the spring of last year, went to work in the Wutai Mountains, and to our great sorrow died a martyr at his post. What kind of spirit is this that makes a foreigner selflessly adopt the cause of the Chinese people's liberation as his own? It is the spirit of internationalism, the spirit of communism, from which every Chinese Communist must learn. Leninism teaches that the world revolution can only succeed if the proletariat of the capitalist countries supports the struggle for liberation of the colonial and semi-colonial peoples and if the proletariat of the colonies and semi-colonies supports the proletariat of the capitalist countries. Comrade Bethune put his Leninist line into practice. We Chinese Communists must also follow this line in our practice. We must unite with the proletariat of all the capitalist countries, with the proletariat of Japan, Britain, the United States, Germany, Italy and all other capitalist countries, for this is the only way to overthrow imperialism, to liberate our nation and people and to liberate the other nations and peoples of the world. This is our internationalism, the internationalism with which we oppose both narrow nationalism and narrow patriotism.

Comrade Bethune's spirit, his utter devotion to others without any thought of self, was shown in his great sense of responsibility in his work and his great warm-heartedness towards all comrades and the people. Every Communist must learn from him. There are not a few people who are irresponsible in their work, preferring the light and shirking the heavy, passing the burdensome tasks on to others and choosing the easy ones for themselves. At every turn they think of themselves before others. When they make some small contribution, they swell with pride and brag about it for fear that others will not know. They feel no warmth towards comrades and the people but are cold, indifferent and apathetic. In truth such people are not Communists, or at least cannot be counted as devoted Communists. No one who returned from the front failed to express admiration for Bethune whenever his name was mentioned, and none remained unmoved by his spirit. In the Shansi-Chahar-Hopei border area, no soldier or civilian was unmoved who had been treated by Dr. Bethune or had seen how he worked. Every Communist must learn this true communist spirit from Comrade Bethune.

Comrade Bethune was a doctor, the art of healing was his profession and he was constantly perfecting his skill, which stood very high in the Eighth Route Army's medical service. His example is an excellent lesson for those people who wish to change their work the moment they see something different and for those who despise technical work as of no consequence or as promising no future.

Comrade Bethune and I met only once. Afterwards he wrote me many letters. But I was busy, and I wrote him only one letter and do not even know if he ever received it. I am deeply grieved over his death. Now we are all commemorating him, which shows how profoundly his spirit inspires everyone. We must all learn the spirit of absolute selflessness from him. With this spirit everyone can be very useful to the people.

A man's ability may be great or small, but if he has this spirit, he is already noble-minded and pure, a man of moral integrity and above vulgar interests, a man who is of value to the people.

NOTES
1. The distinguished surgeon Norman Bethune was a member of the Canadian Communist Party. In 1936 when German and Italian fascist bandits invaded Spain, he went to the front and worked for the anti-fascist Spanish people. In order to help the Chinese people in their War of Resistance Against Japan, he came to China at the head of a medical team and arrived in Yenan in the spring of 1938. Soon after he went to the Shansi-Chahar-Hopei border area. Imbued with ardent internationalism and the great communist spirit, he served the army and the people of the Liberated Areas for nearly two years. He contracted blood poisoning while operating on wounded soldiers and died in Tanghsien, Hopei, on November 12, 1939.

THE MAIN EVENTS OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

The Spanish Civil War

Emanuel Hochberg
October 7, 1908 - April 28, 1998

"Spain the Forgotten War Remembered"

Spanska inbördeskriget

The Albert and Vera Weisbord Foundation
The Albert & Vera Weisbord Archives

Albert Weisbord was born in New York City on December 9 1900 of poor Russian Jewish parents. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the College of the City of New York in 1921. Upon graduation from CCNY he applied for the Harvard Law School ("not so much to study law, but to examine at close hand how law was the resultant of the action of social forces.") graduating with honors.

Albert joined the Brooklyn Branch of the Socialist Party, by 1920 he became an active organizer. In 1921 he was elected National Secretary of the Young Peoples Socialist League and later a member of the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party. In 1924 he was a delegate to the Convention of the Conference for Progressive Political Action. Soon he would resign from the Socialist Party to join the Workers (Communist) Party. He moved to Paterson N.J. where he formed the United Front Committee of Textile Workers, and involved himself in a strike of Silk Mill Workers in West New York, N.J. From there he was on to Passaic where he organized a strike of over 16,000 workers. In Passaic he met Vera Buch.

Vera Buch was born August 19, 1895 in Forestville, Conn. (See "A Radical Life" by Vera Buch Weisbord 1977 Indiana University Press). As a child, she survived poverty in the tenements of New York. Vera attended Hunter High School (Valedictorian) and Hunter College where she won three First Prizes in French competition among colleges in the USA and Canada.

In a tuberculosis sanatorium Vera first became interested in the class struggle. In 1919 she joined the left wing of the Socialist Party, beginning a long period of work as a labor activist. She soon joined the Industrial Workers of the World, and then the Communist Party when it first formed in 1920. In 1922 she joined the Workers (Communist) Party. In 1926 she was sent to Passaic to help in the strike, there she met Albert Weisbord, who like Vera was a committed revolutionist.

After Passaic Albert and Vera were involved with the miners in the coal fields of Penn. (United Mine Workers) and in 1929 the Gastonia Textile Strike, where Vera was arrested for murder. In 1930 Albert and Vera separated from the Communist party and were briefly associated with The Left Opposition that was led by James P. Cannon and Max Shachtman (Communist League of America). At one point Albert was a Trotskyist but by 1931 he had moved outside of The Left Opposition towards a policy and program of his own.

In 1931 "The Communist League of Struggle" was formed with its official organ "Class Struggle". During the entire publication of Class Struggle (1931-1937) Albert was the main contributor. In 1932 Albert visited with Leon Trotsky for three weeks in Turkey. Latter he traveled to Germany and Spain, of these visits articles can be found in the collections of Class Struggle.

In 1937 Albert finished his book, "Conquest of Power". In 1964 his book "Latin American Actuality" was published and his unpublished manuscripts of the 1958 depression and others are available in these archives. Vera's book "A Radical Life" was published in 1977 by Indiana University Press.

Albert Weisbord died in 1977

Vera Buch Weisbord died in 1989

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