Glad Reds

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The native Spanish Red militia also fighting to defend Madrid Mr. Cox has sketched and called the roll of their leaders, his friends, each an able Communist, including "slight, dark-haired Antonio Mije, formerly Commissar for War in the Madrid Defense Junta, and one of the leading members of the Communist Party executive." His heroes however are mainly the soldiers of the International Column: "Many of them died without ever having more than a glimpse of the city they fell to save [Madrid]. The troops were put straight into action. . . . The Thalmann Battalion,* attacking again and again with the fury of men who had suffered in concentration camps, added to the natural frontal tactic of the German, were amongst the heaviest sufferers. . . . Men like Hans Beimler, the former Communist deputy in the Reichstag, who had escaped from a Nazi concentration camp . . . killed in action in November. His body was taken to Moscow, for burial under the wall of the Kremlin. . . .

"British volunteers in the International Column . . . there was John Cornford, brilliant Cambridge graduate. ... He had been the leader of the Left Wing Movement in Cambridge. . . . His mother was Francis Cornford, the poet who wrote of her friend Rupert Brooke: A young Apollo, golden haired, stands dreaming on the verge of strife, magnificently unprepared for the long littleness of life. How alike were these two men, Rupert Brooke and John Cornford . . . yet what a difference in the causes for which they fell! "*

The first brigade of the International Column arrived 1,900 strong, according to Mr. Cox, the second brigade 1,500, the third 1,571 and the fourth 2,000. "There were few Americans. The only one I met was certainly not 'politically conscious.' He had joined up, he said, because he was broke and out of a job. But he was the only member of the column who gave this as a reason for enlisting. . . . What a body of men these were! They formed what must be one of the finest forces of troops the world has ever seen. . . . Had the Left Wing Movement had no history before November 1936, the International Column would by now have given it one of which any people might be proud. . . . Its organization, equipment, training and political direction are all fundamentally communist. It has been supported vigorously throughout by the communist parties of the World. . . . Whether the Spanish Government wins or loses, the men of the column will provide a force of propagandists and trained fighters who will have a great influence on the future of Europe."

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