298

p A most important condition for carrying out the grandiose programme of building a socialist society in the USSR was peace. Anxious to ensure a stable and lasting peace, the Soviet Government sought to establish normal relations with all countries. By 1936 diplomatic relations had been set up with thirty-two states.

p After the end of the civil war and foreign intervention the numerical strength of the Soviet Armed Forces was reduced annually and by the early thirties it had fallen to 586,000 men. Soviet society was pervaded by the atmosphere of peaceful work.

p In the first half of the thirties, however, there was a sharp deterioration in the international situation. The world economic crisis of 1929-33 exacerbated in the extreme the contradictions between and within the imperialist states. Imperialist circles saw the unleashing of aggression as a solution to these contradictions.

p In 1931 the Japanese militarists occupied Manchuria which bordered on the USSR. Four years later, in 1935, fascist Italy began a colonial war against Abyssinia and invaded it. In the middle of Europe German fascism came to power and cruelly repressed working-class and democratic movements, proclaiming the cult of force in relations between peoples and not concealing its main aim—to win “Lebensraum” in Europe. Thus, the danger of war presented itself in both East and West, threatening not only the Soviet Union but the peace of the whole world.

p The Soviet Government took all possible measures to rally the peace-loving forces of Europe and avert a new world war. In 1934, the USSR joined the League of Nations and put forward a plan for establishing a European collective security system. Nonaggression pacts were concluded with a number of states, and in 1935 mutual aid alliances with France and Czechoslovakia.

p At the same time measures were taken to increase the country’s defence capacity. Equipment, tanks and aviation were modernised.

p The peace-loving foreign policy of the Soviet Government and the measures to strengthen the country’s defence were supported 299 by the whole people. Hundreds of thousands of Komsomols helped to build up the Navy. Young people joined flying clubs and parachute schools, and passed the “Ready for Work and Defence" tests.

p The spirit of proletarian solidarity and internationalism was instilled and strengthened in the Soviet people by the whole order of life in socialist society. Soviet people took a keen interest in the class collisions in capitalist countries and the working people’s struggle against reaction and fascism, sympathising with their setbacks and rejoicing at their victories.

p Moscow became a second homeland for those who had been persecuted by the black shirts in Italy and the nazis in Germany, for revolutionaries forced to leave Bulgaria, Poland, Greece and countries with fascist regimes. At the beginning of 1934, the soldiers of the Austrian Schutzbund, who had taken part in antifascist fighting in Vienna, were given a brotherly welcome in the USSR and found refuge there. In October of the same year, when the Spanish reactionaries cruelly suppressed the armed rising of Asturian miners who were fighting against the fascist threat, a wave of solidarity with the miners spread over the Soviet land. On the initiative of the women workers at the Dzerzhinsky Tryokhgornaya Manufaktura textile works, who gave up half-a-day’s pay to the fund to aid the Asturian miners, the Soviet working people collected 3 million pesetas for the families of victims of fascist terror.  [299•1  Many participants in the uprising, belonging to various parties, were offered political asylum in the USSR.

p In the spring of 1936, after the majority of the Spanish people voted for the Popular Front at the elections to the Cortes, the Asturian miners returned home. They wrote in their farewell letter to the Soviet people: “We, the Spanish revolutionaries who had emigrated to the USSR, are about to leave this country. Our stay here has enriched us with experience and knowledge owing to the brotherly hospitality of the Soviet proletariat who did their best to make us forget the bitterness of our emigration.”

p But six months had not passed before the reactionary forces in Spain presented an armed challenge to the Republic.

p The military-fascist revolt in Spain, which began on July 18, 1936, and the complicity of the fascist states with the insurgents aroused angry protest in the Soviet Union. Meetings of solidarity with the Spanish people were held at many factories on August 2. “Our fraternal greetings to the working people of Spain, who are struggling heroically under the guidance of their government for freedom and a democratic republic, against the fascists, insurgents and betrayers of their country,” said a resolution passed at a meeting of Orjonikidze electrical engineering factory workers in 300 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1975/ISSR389/20070209/373.tx"

A delegation of Spanish Republicans at a Moscow factory. Autumn 1936
Moscow “Down with fascism! Long live the victory of the Spanish people!”  [300•1 

p Next day Moscow’s Red Square and the adjoining streets were packed with people. The demonstrators carried posters saying: “The Spanish people’s cause is our sacred cause!”, “Let us give a helping hand to the Spanish people!”, “Down with the fascist insurgents and their instigators!”

p The meeting was opened by the Secretary of the Ail-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, N. Shvernik. He and other speakers—P. Makarov a worker from the Serp i Molot (Hammer and Sickle) factory, E. Bystrova, a worker from the Krasnava Zarya (Red Dawn) factory, the writer A. Fadeyev, and Academician A. Fersman—spoke of the Soviet people’s solidarity with the just struggle of the Spanish Republic against the insurgents Those present at the meeting, which was attended by more than 120 000 people sent an address to the President of the Spanish Republic Manuel Azana, and the Prime Minister, Jose Giral, and called on the people of the Soviet Union to send contributions to the lund in aid ot the Spanish Republic. On the same day a 100,000- strong meeting of solidarity with the Spanish anti-fascists was 301 held in Palace Square in Leningrad, and later similar-sized demonstrations of solidarity took place in Rostov-on-Don, Dnepropetrovsk, Kiev, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Ivanovo, Odessa, the Donbass and many other places. Everywhere the working people unanimously resolved to collect money, clothing and food for the fund in aid of the Spanish anti-fascists.

p In September the newspapers published a letter from Tryokhgornaya Manufaktura workers to women workers, peasants and housewives suggesting that they should organise food supplies to the women and children of Spain.  [301•1  This appeal evoked a response among all sections of the Soviet public—factory and office workers, collective-farm workers and intellectuals. Famous figures in the world of science, the arts and literature made large financial contributions to the fund. “I welcome the splendid initiative of the workers,” wrote People’s Artist of the USSR V. I. Kachalov. “I am contributing a thousand rubles to the fund to aid the heroic Spanish people and call on all my comrades in the arts to follow the example of Moscow’s leading factories."  [301•2  The artists I. Grabar and A. Gerasimov and the sculptor M. Manizer presented their works to the Aid to Spain Fund.

p “Each day begins with the thought ’what’s happening in Spain?’,” wrote the poet Nikolai Tikhonov in the newspaper Leningradskaya Pravda. “In these hard days we follow with great affection the struggle of heroes fighting for a new mankind and wish them a full and speedy victory."  [301•3 

p The famous Spanish writer Rafael Alberti wrote an article entitled “My Moscow" after a visit to the USSR at the beginning of 1937 in which he said: “Go into any home and you will find a map of Spain on the wall. Moscow, the Muscovites, are living our country’s life, entirely at one with it. Moscow, 1937, is a town of brotherly love for my native land."  [301•4 

p Even the children joined in this universal outburst of solidarity. “My mummy and daddy told me that little children are starving in Spain...,” wrote Anyuta Sosnina from far-away Daghestan. “I have decided to give the money I collected in my money-box— 16 rubles 20 kopecks—to help the children of the Spanish people. I was saving this money to buy myself a present, but I have decided to put that off for a bit."  [301•5  Children’s and young people’s newspapers received thousands of letters like this one.

p By August 6, 1936, there was already 12,145,000 rubles  [301•6  in the open current account of the All-Union Central Council of Trade 302

Spanish children arrive in the Soviet Union. 1937
Union’s Fund of Aid to Republican Spain, and by the end of October this sum had risen to 47,595,000 rubles.  [302•1 

p Food and clothing were purchased and sent to Spain with the money collected by Soviet people. On September 18, 1936, the first ship, the Neva, set sail for Spain with food; it was followed by the Cuban and Zyryanin, then the Neva again and the "Turksib. They transported to Spain about 1,000 tons of butter, more than 4,200 tons of sugar, 300 tons of margarine, 250 tons of confectionery, 4,130 tons of wheat, 3,500 tons of flour, 2,600 tons of smoked fish, 300 tons of lard and smoked foods, about two million tins of food, 125,000 tins of condensed milk, coffee and cocoa, 1,000 crates of eggs and also 10,000 sets of clothes, mainly children’s clothing.  [302•2  These transport ships were followed by many others.

p The material help and moral support of the Soviet people to the people of Spain continued throughout the war. Thus, in July 1938 the second anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish people’s anti-fascist war was celebrated all over the country by meetings of workers and intensified raising of funds for Spain.

p In December of the same year it was reported that the trade unions and other organisations had raised another 14 million 303 rubles, with which food had been purchased for sending to Spain.  [303•1 

p Press, radio, cinema and theatre all played an active part in the solidarity movement. The radio broadcast daily communiques from the Spanish Command on the situation at the front, and the papers published reports on military operations. The reporting of I. Ehrenburg, O. Savich and particularly Mikhail Koltsov, and the documentaries of R. Karmen and B. Makaseyev from Spain helped the public to feel the atmosphere of life in the Spanish Republic and the struggle of its defenders.

p Thousands of factories and various public organisations, and famous workers, such as the miner Alexei Stakhanov, the collective-farm worker Maria Demchenko, the tractor driver Pasha Angelina, writers and actors, veterans of the revolution and school-children wrote friendly letters to Spain. Many of these letters and the replies to them were published in the Soviet and Spanish press.

p The visits to the Soviet Union by delegations of Spanish working people and soldiers of the Republican Army and their meetings with Soviet working people developed into moving manifestations of solidarity.

p With true maternal care the Soviet country took Spanish children under its wing. The first ship arrived in spring 1937 with a cargo of young Spanish children, boys and girls between the ages of three and sixteen from Asturias, which was now cut off from the rest of the Republic. By November 1938 there were 2,848 Spanish children in the Soviet Union. Special boarding schools were set up for them with the teaching in Spanish. All the Spanish children who came to the Soviet Union received a general and professional education, and many a higher education. Many volunteered to join the Soviet Army in the Second World War and, together with their older comrades who had received political asylum in the Soviet Union, took up arms in the defence of their second homeland.

p The Soviet public, trade unions, women’s and young people’s organisations, Red Cross, International Red Aid, scientists and people connected with the arts took part in organising and holding international congresses and meetings aimed at combatting war and the fascist danger and helping the Spanish people.

p The international authority of the Soviet state and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the example of the Soviet people’s aid to Spain helped to promote a world-wide movement of solidarity with the Spanish Republic. The words of a telegram from the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the AilUnion Communist Party (Bolsheviks), J. V. Stalin, to the General 304

A recruitment notice inviting volunteers to join the Voroshilov Battalion of the
People’s Militia. 1936
Secretary of the Central Committee of the Spanish Communist Party, Jose Diaz: "The liberation of Spain from the yoke of the fascist reactionaries is not the private concern of Spaniards alone, but the common cause of all progressive humanity" served, as it were, as the motto for the world’s progressive forces and an appeal to help the Spanish people.

p The brotherly aid of the Land of Soviets produced striking manifestations of friendship for the Soviet people among the Spanish masses. On October 14, 1936, when the Zyryanin sailed into Barcelona almost the whole of the town’s population came out into the streets. More than 200,000 people gathered at the port. Similar manifestations took place in other ports: Cartagena, Valencia and Alicante.

p Subsequent events and years of hard fighting strengthened the Spanish working people’s trust and respect for the Soviet country and their gratitude to it for its unfailing, all-round help. "The people ... ascribed their salvation to the Soviet State,” wrote the Spanish historian A. Ramos Oliveira.  [304•1 

p The famous poets Antonio Machado and Miguel Hernandez wrote some inspired lines on the Soviet country. In a poem on 305 the twentieth anniversary of the Red Army, Rafael Alberti wrote:

p Oh, how far you are and yet how near to me now,
Soldiers of the great land, guarding over labour.
The people turn to you, that the whole world may hear
Tonight and I join my voice to theirs:
“Let the heart of Spain beat in your breast!"

p The feeling of special affinity between these two peoples was enhanced by the similarity between the Spanish people’s military and political situation and the position of the Soviet working people during the years of armed conflict with the whiteguards and foreign interventionists. The Soviet people’s victory in the civil war served as an inspiring example for the defenders of the Spanish Republic and strengthened their faith in victory.

p On October 20, 1936, on the eve of decisive fighting for the Spanish capital, Jose Diaz stressed the resemblance between the war in Spain and the civil war in Russia, between the defence of Madrid and the defence of Petrograd in 1918, and proclaimed the following slogan: "Turn Madrid into a Spanish Petrograd!" The soldiers of the Republican Army learnt revolutionary fortitude from such Soviet films as Chapayev, We Are From Kronstadt, The Deputy of the Baltic and Battleship Potemkin. The famous 5th Regiment of the People’s Militia included the Leningrad and Kronstadt Sailors units.

p Associations of friends of the Soviet Union sprang up everywhere. Streets and schools in Spain were named after Lenin. In spite of the difficulties of wartime the Republic made widespread use of the Soviet Union’s experience in the sphere of public education; setting up workers’ departments, evening universities, etc. Labour emulation and the Stakhanovite movement became widespread among industrial workers.

p Communists, Socialists and even anarchists spoke and wrote about the Soviet Union as the Spanish Republic’s best friend and a model worthy of emulation. "As Socialists and Spaniards,” wrote the Adelante, a Socialist Party newspaper, "we admire and are grateful to this great people who has turned our dreams into reality. Russia is the older sister, showing the way to the proletariat of the whole world.”

p In a speech in Moscow, Professor A. Esbert of Barcelona University who was leading a Spanish delegation said: “The Soviet Union has extended the hand of solidarity to us, because it realises that our struggle is the cause of all progressive humanity. . . . We declare that we shall follow your example and, in doing so, we shall win.”

p One of the anarchist leaders, Buenaventura Durruti, wrote a letter to the proletariat of the Soviet Union which read: “Today 306 we charge you, the working people of the USSR, with the defence of our revolution, not trusting any so-called ’democratic or antifascist’ politicians. We believe in our class brothers, for only the working people can defend the Spanish revolution.”

p The military fascist revolt and the intervention of the fascist states put the Spanish Republic in an extremely difficult position.

p When the revolt broke out, the government of the Republic was certain that the “Western democracies"—Britain, the United States, and particularly France—would give it the necessary assistance to restore Republican law and order.

p This was not the case. Under pressure from the Conservative government in Britain and French reactionary circles working for an alliance with fascism, the French Government refused to sell the Spanish Republic aircraft and other weapons and even put a ban on war material which had already been purchased and was about to be shipped to Spain. At the same time the French Prime Minister, the Socialist Leon Blum, proposed that the governments of the European states, including the Soviet Union, should sign an agreement to refrain from giving military assistance to either side in the Spanish war.

p No diplomatic relations existed between the USSR and the Spanish Republic at that time. The foreign policy negotiations begun in 1933 had been broken off by the reactionary government of Lerroux, which came to power in the autumn of that year, and had not been renewed later by the democratic governments of Azana and Quiroga.

p However, the Soviet Union determined its attitude towards the non-intervention proposal by proceeding from the interests of the Spanish people and its lawful government. The Soviet Government constantly stressed that any approach to the problem of the Spanish war which restricted the sovereign rights of Spain’s lawful government and placed it on the same footing as the insurgents, was wrong. At the same time the interests of defending Spanish democracy and world peace demanded that the Soviet Union should not refuse to be party to the agreement, which had been adhered to by 27 European states, supported by the Spanish Government itself, and welcomed by broad democratic circles in many countries who still believed that Leon Blum was sincerely intending to stop Italo-German intervention.

p In adhering to the Non-intervention Agreement, the Soviet Government put forward two essential conditions: (1) that Portugal should also be party to the agreement and (2) that the assistance given to the insurgents by certain states should immediately be stopped.  [306•1  These conditions determined the policy of support adopted by Soviet diplomacy for the cause of the Spanish 307

The Golden Book with a message of greeting from workers of a Madrid
factory on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Great October Socialist
Revolution
308

“Long Live Russia!" reads this inscription on a wall
Republic subsequently when the Non-intervention Committee was set up in London with the participation of all countries which had signed the agreement.

p The Soviet representatives on the London Committee tirelessly revealed the true nature and hidden main springs of the hypocritical policy of “non-intervention”, the organisers of which publicly advocated neutrality, but privately helped the fascist invaders. From the platform of the London Committee the Soviet side made public and informed the world of the true facts about the aggression of the fascist states in Spain and about the crimes they were committing against the Spanish people. Thus, the work of Soviet diplomacy in the London Committee, which was represented by the Soviet Ambassador to Britain, I. M. Maisky, was one of the sectors of the international solidarity front with the Spanish people.

p Almost at the same time as the London Committee began operating, diplomatic relations were established between Spain and the Soviet Union. On August 29, 1936, the Soviet Ambassador M. I. Rosenberg presented his credentials to the President of the Spanish Republic, Manuel Azana; V. A. Antonov-Ovseyenko was appointed Soviet Consul General in Barcelona. This was important for the subsequent course of the Spanish people’s liberation struggle and thwarted the plans of the fascist states to isolate the Spanish Republic.

p The population of Madrid gave a joyous welcome to the first envoys of the Soviet country. "It is hard to convey the excitement 309 and enthusiasm which the arrival of Soviet representatives produced among Spanish anti-fascists of the most varying convictions. They were living proof that Spain was not alone, that the great Soviet people was at her side, that the Soviet Union was declaring its active solidarity with her."  [309•1 

p The Soviet Union took advantage of every opportunity to support the just cause of the Spanish people. From the rostrum of the League of Nations, at international conferences and through the normal diplomatic channels, the Soviet Government proclaimed the lawful right of the Spanish people to decide its own fate independently, without foreign intervention. When the open armed intervention of the fascist powers threatened to destroy the Republic and led the Spanish Government to request assistance of a military nature from the Soviet Union, it gave the Spanish people this aid as well.

p The Soviet side on the Non-intervention Committee, after constant futile attempts to induce it to pass measures against the increasing Italo-German intervention, declared at the meetings on October 7, 23 and 30, 1936, that the Soviet state could see only one solution to the situation—to restore the Spanish Government’s right to purchase arms abroad—and did not consider itself bound by the agreement to a greater extent than the governments who were supplying the insurgents in defiance of the agreement.

p Progressive people the whole world over welcomed the Soviet Union’s firm, high-principled stand. On October 10, 1936 Remain Rolland, Pablo Picasso, Louis Aragon and the famous physicist Paul Langevin sent a letter to the Soviet Foreign Commissar M. M. Litvinov in which they wrote that on the two important occasions when the fate of justice and the right of the people had been at stake, in Geneva and in London, with regard to Abyssinia and Spain, the USSR made the oppressed voice of the world’s conscience heard. The intellectuals, they wrote, wished to express their gratitude to the USSR for having safeguarded the indestructible principles of justice, dignity and peace in the present reign of chaos and obscurantism. Many intellectuals in Europe and America associated themselves with this letter.

p The Spanish public welcomed the firm stand adopted by the Soviet Union. Commenting on the Soviet statement at the meeting of the London Committee on October 7, the Socialist Claridad said that the Soviet Government was tearing the mask off the fascist states and that the Soviet Union, with its 170 million people, had sided resolutely with Spain. "The farce is over. Russia has publicly announced that it does not consider itself bound. The Soviet Union’s position is full of dignity. The USSR has 310 o cowan i HCIWHHHI

A meeting of solidarity with the Spanish Republic in Moscow’s Red
Square, August 3, 1936
taught the other countries a well-deserved lesson,” declared the anarchist Solidaridad Obrera. “This is the first voice which has sounded beyond our country’s borders in defence of the Spanish freedoms which are threatened by fascism,” stressed the newspaper El Liberal.

p It was then too that the following declaration was made by the anarcho-syndicalist leader Garcia Oliver: “If the fascists ever attack the Soviet Union I will go and defend it. I am an anarchist. I shall leave aside all programmes and go there as a fighter, as a soldier, as a Red Army man.”

p Throughout the war Soviet diplomacy tirelessly defended the interests of the Spanish Republic. Of special importance among the numerous episodes in this bloodless battle was the struggle to stop piracy by Italian submarines and planes in the Mediterranean and Soviet opposition to recognising General Franco’s insurgent “government” as possessing belligerent rights.

p Relations between the governments of the Soviet Union and Spain were based on the most heartfelt friendship and collaboration. The exchange of correspondence between the Soviet leadership (K. Y. Voroshilov, V. M. Molotov and J. V. Stalin) and the Spanish Prime Minister Largo Caballero in December 1936- January 1937 is full of sincerity and trust.

p A letter from the Soviet leaders read, in part, as follows: “We considered and still consider it our duty, within the limits of the opportunities at our disposal, to come to the aid of the Spanish Government, that is leading the struggle of all the working people, 311 all Spanish democracy, against the military-fascist clique which is the agent of international fascist forces.

p “The Spanish revolution is blazing its own trail, different in many respects from the path traversed by Russia. ... For all that, we believe that our experience, in particular the experience of our civil war, correspondingly applied to the special conditions of the Spanish revolutionary struggle, can be of positive significance for Spain. Proceeding on this basis, we have agreed, in compliance with your numerous requests conveyed to us through the person of Comrade Rosenberg, to put at your disposal a number of military specialists. These specialists have been instructed by us to give advice in the military sphere to those Spanish military leaders to help whom they are to be sent by you.

p “They have been instructed on no account to lose sight of the fact that for all the feeling of solidarity with which the Spanish people and the peoples of the USSR are imbued at the present time, a Soviet specialist, as a foreigner in Spain, can be of real use only if he keeps strictly within the limits of an adviser and an adviser alone.

p “We believe that you will make use of our military comrades in precisely this way.

p “We would request you kindly to inform us of the extent to which our military comrades carry out the tasks entrusted to them by you, for, naturally, only a favourable attitude on your part towards their work would make their continued stay in Spain advisable.”

p The Soviet leaders went on to recommend the implementation of certain measures in the interests of the peasantry and the petty and middle bourgeoisie, and also measures to protect the property of citizens of states which did not support the insurgents.  [311•1 

p In his reply dated January 12, 1937, Largo Caballero wrote: “The help which you are giving to the Spanish people ... has been and remains very useful to us. I can assure you that we appreciate it greatly.

p “In the name of Spain and, first and foremost, in the name of the working people, we thank you with all our heart and trust that we shall be able to count on your aid and your advice in the future too.. . .

p “The comrades whom you sent us in reply to our request are rendering us a great service. Their considerable experience is extremely useful to us and is an effective contribution to the defence of Spain against fascism. I can assure you, that they are carrying out their duties with true enthusiasm and exemplary courage. ... I am most grateful to you for the friendly advice 312

M. Litvinov talks to Julio Alvarez del Vayo, Foreign Minister of Spain.
Geneva, 1936
contained at the end of your letter. I value it as proof of your cordial friendship and the desire to see a successful end to our struggle.” In conclusion Largo Caballero described the measures that were being taken by the Republican Government in the interests of national unity.  [312•1 

p Soviet-Spanish relations remained invariably friendly until the end of the national-revolutionary war. After the resignation of Largo Caballero’s government in May 1937 the new Spanish Prime Minister, the Socialist Juan Negrin, told the Soviet ambassador that he was "an ardent supporter of an all-round drawing together between Spain and the USSR, in the economic as well as the political and military sphere".

p The Soviet Union helped the Spanish Republic to break the economic and financial blockade. In 1937 the USSR supplied Republican Spain with 457,904 tons of various goods at a total value of 92,444,000 rubles. The shipment of these cargoes was very different from usual commercial transportation.

p Any vessel flying the Soviet or Republican flag was liable to be attacked by fascist submarines or aircraft and be sunk or captured by Franco. Between the beginning of the war and May 4, 1937, 313 86 attacks were made on Soviet ships, the Komsomol, Timiryazev and Elagoyev were sunk, and the Petrovsky, Vtoraya Pyatiletka, Soyuz Uodnikov and Smidovich were captured and taken into ports held by the insurgents. The fascists attacked and sank vessels regardless of the flag they were flying if they were suspected of carrying cargoes from Soviet ports to Republican Spain. According to the statistics of the semi-official Italian Stefani Press Agency, Italian military aircraft hit 224 ships of various nations between 1936 and 1938.  [313•1  In this situation the commodity circulation between the USSR and Spain in the first seven months of 1938 dropped to half in terms of tonnage and a third in terms of value compared with the first half of 1937.

p Seeking to evade the financial blockade (the French authorities had sequestered Spanish gold deposited in Paris), the Spanish Government placed part of its gold reserves in the State Bank of the USSR, from which it paid for purchases made both in the Soviet Union and in other countries. When these reserves were exhausted the Soviet Government allowed Spain credit to the value of $ 85 million in the autumn of 1938. The last supplies of Soviet arms were also made on credit. General Ignacio Hidalgo de Cisneros who concluded the agreement on these supplies on behalf of the Spanish Government in Moscow, wrote: “I can confirm before the whole world that the Soviet aid was entirely unselfish, to say nothing of the fact that this aid cost the Soviet people many sacrifices... ."  [313•2 

p From the very beginning of the fascist revolt a flood of applications from Soviet citizens who wanted to go to Spain to fight on the side of the people poured into Soviet public and governmental organisations. The Non-intervention Agreement did not forbid the departure of volunteers, and in September 1936 several of them managed to leave. These were fighter pilots I. I. Kopets, Y. Y. Yerlykin, and A. V. Kovalevsky, bomber pilots and navigators E. G. Shakht, Z. S. Zakhariyev (Garanov), G. N. Tupikov, G. I. Tkhor, V. S. Kholzunov, P. A. Djibelli, I. I. Proskurov, G. M. Prokofiev, and A. A. Kheveshi, and engineers Z. L. loffe and Y. P. Zalessky.

p Upon arrival in Spain they and volunteers from other countries joined the international aircraft units commanded by Spanish officers. These units were equipped with a small number of obsolete types of aircraft, which could not be compared to the Italian and German machines supporting the insurgents. In spite of this inequality of forces, the Republican pilots, Russian volunteers included, bravely joined battle with enemy aircraft and bombed enemy aerodromes, equipment and positions. After a few weeks 314 of combat and after endless repairs the Republican Nieuports, Breguets, etc., were ready for the scrap heap.

p The enemy’s superior aviation paved the way for the fascist divisions’ advance on the capital. The nucleus of these divisions was the well-armed and well-trained Foreign Legion and some fanatical mercenaries from Moroccan tribes. They could not be withstood in open battle by the government’s troops which consisted of units of autonomous volunteer detachments of the People’s Militia, poorly armed and almost without any military training. By the end of October the front line had moved almost right up to Madrid.

p The government and the parties of the Popular Front, the Communist Party in particular, were doing their utmost to form regular military units from the separate detachments of the People’s Militia. But the solution of this problem required two things: time and arms. Time was supplied by the heroic defenders of Madrid who stopped the enemy at the city gates. The arms came from the Soviet Union. They formed the material basis of the defence of the capital, the selfless exploit of its defenders—Spanish patriots and their friends, the internationalist volunteers.

Transport ships with war material obtained from the Soviet Union began to arrive in Spanish ports in the middle of October. The Komsomol, Stary Bolshevik, KIM, Volgoles, Lenin and Andreyev supplied 50 tanks and 100 planes, as well as armoured cars, rifles, cannon, mounted and light machine-guns, grenade launchers and various types of ammunition  [314•1 .

The badge issued in Spain in honour of the Soviet S. S. Komsomol
315

p Soviet volunteers of a fighter squadron. Madrid, November 1936. Pilots (the front row, left to right): A. I. Tarasov (first), F. K. Zamashansky (third), I. A. Lakeyev (fourth), A. V. Minayev (fifth); mechanics (second row): I. T. Fomenko (first), G. Y. Konkov (second), T. I. Krupenin (third), S. I. Mikhailovsky (fourth)

p Without delay the Republican Command with the help of Soviet volunteers put these arms and equipment to use in the battle of Madrid in late October-early November. The war entered a new phase.

p In the autumn and winter of 1936/37 twenty-three transport ships with military equipment, arms and ammunition left the Black Sea ports for Spain  [315•1 . This made it possible to form and arm regular brigades and divisions of the People’s Army, to save Madrid, to win the battle of the Jarama and to rout the Italian expeditionary force at Guadalajara in March 1937. At the same time several groups of volunteers arrived from the Soviet Union with military equipment: pilots, tank men and other military specialists.

p The appearance in the sky above Madrid of Republican 1-15 and 1-16 fighter planes which had arrived from the Soviet Union and were piloted by Soviet volunteers was one of the most impressive moments in the whole saga of the defence of Madrid. Let us quote the following extract from the memoirs of the Republican Air Force Commander, Hidalgo de Cisneros:

p “In those critical days in Madrid the enemy aviation, both on the front and over the capital, flew completely unchecked. It bombed the town with impunity, since our air force was practically destroyed... .

p “On the morning of November 6 German Junkers bombers appeared, as usual, accompanied by squadrons of Italian Fiat fighter planes.... The sirens were still sounding over the town, giving the air warning, when a group of planes with the red 316 emblems of the Republican Air Force appeared in the Madrid sky. Fast, powerful and agile they sped towards the fascist aircraft.

p “It is impossible to describe my emotions at this sight. I was so excited that afterwards I was surprised not to have had a heart attack.

p “No one will ever forget what the Madrilenos saw that wonderful morning... . Leaving their shelters, forgetting about the danger, people poured into the streets, people who had been living in fear, suffering day in day out, powerless to defend themselves and their town against the enemy’s heavy bombing. Now they were watching with indescribable delight the first air combat over their previously defenceless city. In the aerobatics of the piloting, in the chandelles, in the rattle of the machine-gun fire the Madrilenos saw the Republican pilots shoot down nine enemy planes one after another, while the others turned and fled, pursued by Republican fighters.

p “With tears in their eyes the Madrilenos cheered the Republican Air Force. I was particularly struck by the fact that these cheers were addressed to the Soviet Union with an enthusiasm and jubilation impossible to describe. For I was sure that we had kept the arrival of Soviet planes secret.

p “From that day the alignment of forces in the air changed for some time to come.. .”  [316•1 

p Throughout the months of bitter fighting for Madrid, almost every day, and often several times a day, there were aerial combats which did not die down even when there was a short lull in the military operations on the ground.

p The Soviet Military Attache in Madrid, V. Y. Gorev, wrote this about the Soviet volunteers: “It is impossible to describe the heroism of the pilots who joined combat with a superior enemy, lost men and machines, and went into the next battle with even more heroism and persistence.... The fighter force, although it was numerically weaker than that of the enemy, succeeded in protecting the town."  [316•2 

p The scope of this article does not enable us to mention the names of all the Soviet volunteers who took part in these heroic battles, or the engineers, technicians and workmen who assembled the planes at record speed when they arrived from the Soviet Union and ensured that they were always combat-worthy. From the total of 160 Soviet pilots who took part in the defence of Madrid we shall mention only the senior leaders and officers. 317 Y. V. Smushkevich (Douglas) was senior air force instructor P. I. Pumpur was fighter group instructor, S. P. Denisov, P. V. Rychagov, S. F. Tarkhov and K. I. Kolesnikov were squadron leaders and N. F. Balanov, V. M. Bocharov, G. N. Zakharov, I. I. Kopets’, I. A. Lakeyev and S. A. Chernykh were flight commanders.

p At the beginning of November the Soviet high-speed SB bombers went into action, at that time the most up-to-date and advanced planes in that class. Faster than all the fascist fighters, the SBs carried out their combat missions without fighter cover. Under the general command of A. Y. Zlatotsvetov the squadrons of I. I. Proskurov, V. S. Kholzunov and E. G. Shakht bombed aerodromes and strategic targets both far behind enemy lines in the areas of Burgos, Salamanca, Seville, Cadiz, etc. and at the front.

p The third type of Republican aircraft was the group of SSS bombers under the command of K. M. Gusev.

p The Soviet volunteer pilots lost 21 comrades in the battle of Madrid, including Heroes of the Soviet Union V. M. Bocharov, P. A. Djibelli, K. I. Kovtun, S. F. Tarkhov and I. A. Khovansky. The interventionist losses were incomparably heavier. In November and December Republican pilots brought down 70 fascist planes. But the main result of the air battle for Madrid was that it put an end to Italo-German air superiority. This in turn foiled the fascist plan to storm the capital using the tactics of the aircraft removing all obstacles and the infantry occupying cleared territory. The fascist pilots vented their spite in night raids, destroying residential areas in the town and killing women and children.

p All attempts by Franco’s generals to break into the capital were resolutely repulsed by its defenders. Franco was forced to give up the idea of a frontal attack on the city and seek to take it by encirclement. After replenishing his troops and receiving abundant reinforcements from the interventionists, he launched an offensive on the northwest of the capital (in January 1937), then in the southeast, on the River Jarama (in February) and, finally, in the northeast along the Zaragoza-Guadalajara-Madrid highway (in March). But these three offensives were also unsuccessful.

p The fascist command’s hopes that the defenders of the Republic would prove less combat-worthy and staunch in open battle than behind the walls of Madrid were vain ones. Now, at the beginning of 1937, the fascists were no longer confronted by separate detachments of the People’s Militia as they had been in SeptemberOctober 1936, but with regular brigades and divisions of government troops, subject to a single command and supported by tanks, artillery and an air force which the Spanish patriots proudly called La Gloriosa.

p During the February fighting in 1937 on the Jarama, some big air battles took place involving as many as eighty planes at a time. 318

The bomber wing under the Command of A. S. Senatorov. Standing right to
left: gunner S. I. Ivanov (first), pilot G. K. Starodumov (second),
navigator V. M. Lavsky (third), navigator V. P. Baryshpol (fourth), navigator
A. P. Ignatenko (fifth), Spanish gunner Matias (sixth), navigator P. I.
Simonyan (eighth); sitting right to left: pilot P. P. Arkhangelsky (first),
gunner Y. I. Torbeyev (second), pilot S. A. Doyar (third), navigator G. A.
Sbytov (fifth), navigator Y. V. Suslov (sixth). September 1937
But the Republican pilots invariably won the day. General Rojo, at that time Chief of Staff of the Madrid Front, had this to say in his book Espana Heroica about the air force on the Jarama Front: “The aviation collaborated with the ground troops in such a way that at some moments it was decisive. . .. The courage with which our pilots attacked and shot down enemy planes encouraged those on the ground to emulate them. The combat operations of our pilots exceeded all standards: they frequently did up to seven flights a day and each time engaged in combat. These conditions demanded a tremendous effort from the airmen.  [318•1  In quoting these words Hidalgo de Cisneros notes in his memoirs: “... I must stress that at that time the Republican air force consisted mostly of Soviet airmen."  [318•2 

p The fascists felt the strength of the Republican air force even more on the Guadalajara sector where, at the beginning of March, 319 only eight days after the battle of the Jarama, a fifty-thousand strong Italian expeditionary corps suddenly launched an offensive against Madrid, breaking through the weakly fortified line of government troops.

p The Republican Command put all its existing aircraft into the attack on the interventionists’ motorised columns spread over ten kilometres of highway. The aerial assault dispersed or demoralised a considerable section of the enemy forces while they were still approaching the field of battle. The advance guard of the Italian corps, which had advanced thirty kilometres, was stopped by reserve detachments of the Central Front, and a counter-attack launched by Republican infantry and tanks put the blackshirts to flight.

p The French military journal Revue de I’armee de I’air had this to say about the rout of the Italian aggressors. "The skill of the governmental air units was indisputable in this engagement. These squadrons proved that they were manoeuvrable, energetically commanded, and well trained for attack in flight. The air command has profited greatly from the incredible impudence of the enemy command which one would be tempted to think inferior, if it were not more likely that certain successes in the Abyssinian war—against an adversary completely deprived of aircraft— have inspired it with too much boldness."  [319•1 

p To complete the picture it must be added that the bad weather in the Guadalajara area (rain, sleet and low clouds) was so unfit for flying that the aircraft supporting the Italian force (about 100 planes) did not risk leaving the ground during the fighting.

p The tactical skill of the Republican Air Force Command and the Soviet volunteers was also brilliantly demonstrated during the Zaragoza operation on the Aragon Front in the summer and autumn of 1937. One outstanding episode was the attack by Republican fighters on the fascist air base widely reported in international military literature of the day. At dawn on September 25 A. K. Serov’s squadron, supported by those of A. I. Gusev, G. P. Pleshchenko, and B. A. Smirnov under the general command of I. T. Yeryomenko, bombed the aerodrome at Garapinillos near Zaragoza where there were more than sixty planes. The attack was unexpected and not a single fascist plane had time to leave the ground. The anti-aircraft batteries were put out of action by fighter fire. Eight loaded bombers exploded and nearly all the enemy aircraft were burnt by incendiary bombs.

p Taking into account the losses on the Jarama and at Guadalajara, the Italo-German interventionists increased supplies of war materials, particularly aircraft and anti-aircraft artillery to the insurgents. New units of the Italian regular air force and the 320 German Condor Legion also arrived in Spain. “Mussolini and Hitler have sent full-strength units to Spain,” wrote the French journal Revue militaire generate.  [320•1 

p At the same time the supply of Soviet equipment became increasingly more difficult. Several transport ships from the Soviet Union carrying arms, planes and tanks were sunk by Italian submarines.

p The interventionists sought to surpass the Republican Air Force technically as well. From the middle of 1937 the latest German planes—the Messerschmitt-109 fighter and the Heinkel-111 bomber—and also the Italian bomber Savoia-79 appeared in Spain. In some respects they not only equalled the Soviet planes but excelled them. In these conditions the personal qualities of the Soviet airmen and all the Republican pilots came to the fore even more vividly in the second and third years of the war, qualities which the fascists were never able to excel.

p Foreign military specialists noted that the Republican Air Force possessed a factor which counterbalanced the numerical and even technical inferiority of their machines—a high morale. “It has happened that a single squadron of Moskas  [320•2  has forced three Italian Fiat squadrons to stop attacking,” wrote the French General Armengaud after a visit to the fronts in Spain. “The Moskas, which do 450 kilometres an hour, give an idea of the importance of speed for the fighter plane, both by the fear which they inspire in their adversaries and by the daring of the pilots who fly them.. . . The importance of manoeuvrability for a fighter plane is clearly demonstrated by the Chato. The pilots have such confidence in the manipulability of their machine that they... are not afraid of any faster enemy planes. They have brought down Messerschmitts."  [320•3  The writer gives examples of Chatos shooting down fascist bombers raiding Republican towns at night.  [320•4 

p The boldness and courage of the Republic’s defenders, be they Soviet airmen, Spanish pilots or their internationalist friends, were born of the faith in the justice of their cause. Fighting a numerically superior enemy was the rule rather than the exception for Soviet volunteers and the whole Republican Air Force throughout the war. Yet the fascists almost invariably suffered heavier losses than the Republicans. Let us quote two examples.

p On July 18, 1937, the whole of Madrid watched 40 Fiats, which had appeared at the height of the battle of Brunete over 321 the University City, being counter-attacked by 20 Republican fighters. The battle was on. Another 8 Messerschmitts joined in. The enemy lost six planes in this engagement, and all the Soviet aircraft returned safely to base.  [321•1 

p A year later, in August 1938 and the following months, when the largest offensive for the last two years was taking place on the right bank of the Ebro, Republican pilots fought several successful battles against superior enemy forces. Thus, on August 14 they brought down 19 enemy planes and lost one, on August 24 they destroyed 7 planes, losing two of their own. A report from the French Havas News Agency on August 29 said that in twentyfive days of fighting on the Ebro Front Republican pilots had brought down 93 enemy planes, losing 18 of their own.  [321•2  These figures reflect the superiority of the Republican airmen over the fascist mercenaries. It is important to stress that by the time of the battle of the Ebro there was a completely new set of Soviet volunteers, yet the new airmen of the squadrons commanded by P. T. Korobkov, S. I. Gritsevets and N. S. Gerasimov fought just as bravely and selflessly as the first air defenders of Madrid.

p By now most of the Republican Air Force was made up of young Spanish patriots under the command of squadron leaders Arias, Bravo, Morquillas, Pereiro, Zarauz and others who had received their training in Soviet flying schools and gained experience fighting side by side with their Soviet friends.

p However, neither the high degree of military skill, nor the bravery and courage of the Republican pilots, or their tactical victories in air combats with the enemy could retain Republican supremacy in the air. Already by the Teruel operation (December 1937- February 1938) the interventionists and insurgents had five to six times more planes than the Republicans. The gap widened in 1938. In giving cover to their bombers or repulsing enemy raids, the Republican pilots dealt telling blows to the Fiats, Messerschmitts and Heinkels, but were unable through lack of planes to clear the skies of them altogether. In the meantime planes from the Soviet Union, packed in containers, were gathering dust in French ports or railway warehouses in the name of “non-intervention”.

p The Republican Army had practically no tank units at the beginning of the war. The first group of Soviet tank men arrived with T-26 tanks acquired by the Spanish Government from the Soviet Union. It consisted of eighty volunteers led by S. M. Krivoshein. The first task was to train Spaniards for the formation of Republican tank units. With this aim in mind the War Ministry set up a training centre in Archena under Colonel Paredes. The situation 322

The War Minister of the Spanish Republic, Largo Caballero, meets Soviet volunteer tank men. December 1936
at the front demanded, however, that the tanks should be used in combat and that the Soviet volunteers should join in the defence of Madrid before the Spanish tank crews had been trained.  [322•1 

p In the first engagement at the southern approaches to Madrid on October 29, 1936 in the area of Sesena the tank men in the company commanded by Captain Paul Armand (15 tanks, 34 Soviet and 11 Spanish tank men) showed extraordinary courage, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy and checking its advance in the sector in question. From that day onwards for several weeks during which the fate of the capital was in the balance, Spanish and Soviet tank men in T-26s never left the front. They were the only mobile striking force, always ready on orders from the Madrid Front Command to attack the enemy in a threatened sector and support the infantry. “The tank men were in constant combat,” recalls Dolores Ibarruri, “and most of the time without the support of the infantry.... The Republican tanks would surprise the enemy, destroying its artillery batteries and spreading panic in its ranks. From dawn to dusk the tank men cleared the enemy from the approaches to the town, returned when it was dark, spent the 323 night repairing their machines and, against all technical norms and all standards of human stamina—for both people and machines can only work up to a certain limit—returned to battle the following morning. Many of these heroes were Soviet tank men... "  [323•1 

p By the end of November 1936 as a result of intense military action most of the machines were out of action and in need of basic repairs. The ranks of the tank men were depleted. N. A. Selitsky, S. M. Bystrov, D. P. Mozylev and P. Y. Kupriyanov had been killed in action and S. K. Osadchy had been mortally wounded. A. I. Klimov, I. M. Lobach and driver-mechanic P. V. Mikolich had been killed fighting behind enemy lines. Many tank men had been wounded.

p The casualties were made good at the end of November 1936 by the arrival of a second group of volunteer tank men. Their leader, D. G. Pavlov, was appointed commander of the 1st Tank Brigade by the Spanish Government. It was equipped with newly arrived T-26 tanks and continued to receive reinforcements of this type of tank acquired from the Soviet Union. Another type of tank, the BT (a fast model), which arrived in Spain in the summer of 1937, was used to form an international tank regiment commanded by S. I. Kondratyev.

p Soviet volunteer tank men took part in all the important battles from autumn 1936 to spring 1938. No offensive or defensive operation by the Republican troops would have been conceivable without tank support. The Soviet Union supplied the Republic with the best gunned tanks of the day, which were used by the Red Army. The tactical and technical qualities of these tanks remained unexcelled right up to the end of the Spanish war. In 1938 the French journal Revue militaire generate acknowledged “the defeat of the German and Italian tanks used in Spain".  [323•2  Military specialists in other countries also reached the same conclusion.  [323•3 

p The Republican tanks’ worst enemy, particularly during offensives, was not the insurgents’ tanks but the artillery with which the interventionists so lavishly supplied General Franco. Yet in active defence and counter-attack the blows of the Republican tanks were deadly. This was the case on the front to the northwest of Madrid in January 1937 and particularly in the bloody threeweek battle of the Jarama, where, to quote General Rojo, “the tanks played an exceptionally important role.. .".  [323•4  Under battalion commanders M. P. Petrov and I. F. Urban and company commanders G. M. Skleznyov, D. D. Pogodin and V. I. Baranov the tank men saved the day on many occasions, rolling back and 324

Soviet volunteer tank men. January 1937
destroying groups of Moroccans and Legionaries who were advancing on the Madrid-Valencia road.

p The experience acquired by Soviet volunteers and their Spanish comrades-in-arms during this fighting was put to good use in the battles of Guadalajara and Brunete and all subsequent operations. At Guadalajara a company of seven tanks, which had been dispatched against the motorised forward troops of the Italian corps when the news had first arrived of the interventionists’ offensive, bravely attacked them and halted their advance for a whole day, March 8, 1937, together with an infantry battalion. Later, when the reserves of the Central Front arrived, the whole of Pavlov’s tank brigade took part in a victorious counter-offensive by the Republican troops against the Italian fascists, paving the way for the infantry. In the Brunete offensive the tank men inflicted heavy losses, attacking Quijorna, Villanueva and Los Llanos, fortified centres of fascist defence, helping the advancing Republican brigades to capture them and then hold the new line.

p Here are a few of the numerous examples of the Soviet volunteers’ high morale. At the Jarama Vasily Novikov, tank commander, held the enemy at bay for a whole day in a tank which had been damaged by an enemy shell between Republican and enemy positions. The commander and the driver-mechanic were wounded 325 and the gunner was killed. Novikov did not leave the machine until help arrived at nightfall and the tank was towed out of the danger zone. In hospital it was discovered that Novikov had thirteen wounds.

p Tank Company Commander P. A. Tsaplin showed similar fortitude in the battle of Teruel in January 1937. Wounded and in a damaged tank he kept the enemy at bay for eight hours, then managed to get back to his unit. In the same battle Tank Commander K. Y. Bilibin got out of his machine under artillery and machine-gun fire, repaired a damaged track and drove his tank into action. He was killed later on the Jarama, saving the crew of a damaged tank.

p Soviet and Spanish tank men vied with each other in their heroism. At Guadalajara Ernesto Ferrero’s tank platoon ambushed and destroyed up to 20 Italian Ansaldos and a column of lorries with infantry. There too the volunteer A. G. Abramovich and his platoon raised a Republican infantry company into attack, capturing four guns, machine-guns and many rifles. He was killed on July 10 in the attack on Brunete. In a battle at Majadahonda (northwest of Madrid) Tank Company Commander G. M. Skleznyov crawled up to a burning tank which had been abandoned by its wounded crew and drove it out of range of enemy fire. In February 1937, he and his company counter-attacked Moroccan troops who had crossed the Pindoque Bridge on the Jarama and made them retreat. The next day he was killed in a counter-attack. Skleznyov’s brave feat was repeated by N.C.O. Viktor Novikov. On October 13, 1937, at Fuentes del Ebro in an offensive which was the bitterest and most bloody of the whole war for tank men, Novikov rescued a burning tank, in spite of wounds and severe burns. Many other Soviet volunteer tank men and their comradesin-arms, the Spaniards and members of the International Brigades, displayed exceptional courage and stamina that day. Encircled by the enemy tank commanders S. Y. Laputin and P. A. Semyonov fought to the last bullet and managed to get their wounded teammates back to Republican positions. Sixteen Soviet tank men laid down their lives at Fuentes del Ebro.

p The training of Spanish tank men at the centre in Archena under the guidance of Soviet instructors was going ahead successfully. By autumn 1937 all T-26 crews, and by summer 1938 all BT crews as well, were made up of Spanish officers and men. Only a few Soviet tank men remained in Spain, working as instructors and advisers in the armoured brigades until the end of the war.

p The Spanish Navy played an important part in the plans of the fascist insurgents. The vast majority of the naval officers, who constituted a particularly privileged and select caste, joined in the conspiracy against the Republic. But at the moment of insurrection, thanks to the political awareness and alertness of the seamen and 326 non-commissioned officers, most of the ships remained loyal to the Republic, although they lost nearly all their officer personnel. “Squadrons commanded by sergeants" was the description given to the Republican Navy in those days.

p Soviet naval specialists invited by the Spanish Government as advisers (N. G. Kuznetsov, V. A. Alafuzov, N. Y. Basisty, N. O. Abramov, N. G. Pitersky, S. G. Sapozhnikov, G. A. Zhukov and others) concentrated mainly on helping the Republican Command to obtain military cargoes by sea. Warships, acting in accordance with a specially drawn-up time-table for each given case, met transports from the Soviet Union in open sea as they left North African territorial waters and escorted them to Spanish Mediterranean ports. The advisers also helped the Naval Command and individual ships to solve other military problems. A group of Soviet specialists—A. G. Golovko, V. P. Drozd, S. S. Ramishvili and others—worked as members of Naval staffs and at the Cartagena Naval base. I. D. Yeliseyev, V. L. Bogdenko and other specialists were posted on board individual ships.

p Some of the volunteer navy men were appointed submarine and torpedo boat commanders. I. A. Burmistrov, I. V. Grachov, N. P. Yegipko, V. A. Yegorov, G. Y. Kuzmin and S. P. Lisin were in command of submarines at various times; A. P. Batrakov, V. P. Likholetov, S. A. Osipov and others, of torpedo boats, the crews of which were composed mainly of Soviet volunteers due to the lack of trained personnel in Spain.

p I. A. Burmistrov and N. P. Yegipko became famous for the hazardous journeys which their submarines made from France, where they had been repaired, along the Atlantic coast of the Pyrenean Peninsula through the Straits of Gibraltar to Cartagena, i.e., a route almost entirely controlled by the fascists.

p Soviet Army advisers made a substantial contribution to the defence of the Republic and the building up of the Republican Army. Contrary to the lies spread by anti-Republican propaganda, these advisers did not and could not play a leading role in the Republican Army. The principle of “help, not command" was strictly observed by them at all levels. They were equally consistent in observing the rule of professional collaboration with all Republican officers, regardless of their party affiliations.

p Thanks to their experience and the trust which officers devoted to the Republic felt for the Soviet Union, the advisers helped to improve the army build-up, to devise methods of managing the troops and planning front operations. It was to a certain extent under the influence of these advisers that the tactics of passive defence employed during the first few months of the war were replaced by the tactics of active defence, the use of all means to inflict blows upon the insurgents and interventionists. The advisers helped the Spanish Command and staffs to make proper use of the 327 new Soviet equipment. They also helped staffs draw up regulations, instructions and rules on the training of troops and the use of various types of weapons.

p The Soviet Government recommended experienced military men as advisers. The post of chief adviser was held consecutively by Y. K. Berzin (1936-37), G. M. Stern (1937-38) and K. M. Kachanov (1938-39).

p The following Soviet military specialists served as advisers in the central apparatus of the Republican Armed Forces: P. A. Ivanov, K. A. Meretskov, B. M. Simonov and V. P. Butyrsky (General Staff); I. N. Nesterenko and D. G. Kolesnikov (General Military Commissariat); A. I. Bergolts, Y. V. Smushkevich, I. S. Galtsev, V. N. Lopatin, Y. S. Ptukhin, A. F. Agaltsov, A. P. Andreyev, F. K. Arzhanukhin, and A. P. Sharapov (Air Force Staff); N. N. Voronov, N. A. Klich, V. I. Goffe and M. P. Dmitriyev (Artillery Staff); Y. A. Tykin and N. N. Nagorny (Air Defence Staff); and the doctors I. A. Klyuss and A. A. Veliky (Medical Administration).

p The following advisers were attached to front staffs and commands: R. Y. Malinovsky, M. S. Shumilov, P. I. Batov, I. G. Kulik, I. A. Maximov, A. M. Mokrousov, I. G. Chusov, V. A. Yushkevich, N. P. Ivanov, P. P. Vechny, V. Y. Kolpakchi, V. I. Kumelan, V. A. Frolov, D. M. Kovalyov, P. I. Lyapin, E. V. Toikko and M. I. Nedelin.

p Advisers to the commands of army corps, divisions and brigades N. I. Biryukov, N. G. Lyashchenko, V. T. Maslov, P. G. Novikov, A. I. Pomoshnikov, Y. G. Trotsenko, M. Y. Khvatov ( Kharchenko), S. Y. Churilov and others, and Soviet instructors working under them helped Spanish officers and men, and volunteers from other countries, to use Soviet weapons and to train units tactically for various forms of combat.

p In the breathing spells between large operations the whole Republican Army turned into an enormous training school with both officers and men as the pupils. There was a great need for instructors. Spanish officers with a military training were few in the brigades, and the Republican Command gratefully accepted the help of Soviet advisers and instructors.

p The difficulties involved in their not knowing Spanish were overcome with the help of interpreters, mainly graduates from higher educational establishments in Moscow and Leningrad. They went to Spain as volunteers and performed their duties bravely.

p Machine-gun and artillery instructors A. I. Rodimtsev, N. P. Guryev, D. A. Tsyurupa, I. N. Tatarinov, Y. N. Ishchenko, Y. B. Izvekov, I. A. Semyonov, V. M. Podgoretsky, N. A. Boiko, N. D. Pidorenko, M. M. Plyukhin, N. G. Lyashchenko, P. G. Novikov and others carried out their duties selflessly on the front line under 328 enemy fire. Guerrilla detachment advisers and instructors Kh. D. Mamsurov, I. G. Starinov, A. K. Sprogis, V. A. Troyan, K. P. Orlovsky and others frequently went on important reconnaissance missions behind enemy lines and showed exemplary courage, resourcefulness and bravery.

p Among those who lost their lives on Spanish soil were instructors N. A. Boiko, V. I. Dmitriyev, and V. D. Tsvetkov and advisers V. M. Buskhin, I. G. Pidgola, I. F. Skalko and A. P. Fomin.

p A group of Soviet engineers and workmen helped the Republic organise its defence industry. The production of artillery and small arms and ammunition, repair of tanks and aircraft and the manufacture of armoured cars and even, on a small scale, fighter planes was organised in Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona, Sagunto, Murcia, Cartagena and Sabadell. The essential technical documentation was provided by the Soviet Union.

p As the Spanish commanders and staffs accumulated organisational and operational experience, the Soviet Government gradually recalled the advisers and instructors.

p Soviet airmen and other specialists left Spain in SeptemberOctober 1938 after the Spanish Government’s decision to recall foreign volunteers from the front. In February 1939, all that remained was a small group of thirty advisers and staff, which also left Spain after the capitulatory take-over by Colonel Casado. In all 157 Soviet volunteers laid down their lives in Spain. Onesixth of the Soviet airmen and tank men did not return to their native land.

p Spanish patriots and democrats had this to say about the brave deeds of Soviet volunteers in the History of the Communist Party of Spain: “Of the extensive moral and material assistance which the land of socialism gave the Spanish people there stands out in particular, as an unfading and moving memory, the activity of the heroic Soviet volunteers who came to Spain to teach our soldiers and young commanders of the People’s Army to use the latest military equipment and the art of modern warfare. Displaying courage and modesty, they showed how to fight in the air and in modern tanks, how to fight against the planes and tanks of the enemy. The Soviet volunteers won the right to a place of honour in the history of our war."  [328•1 

p In Western literature one finds fantastically exaggerated figures about Soviet participation in the military operations in Spain. In fact only a little more than 2,000 Soviet volunteers fought and worked in Spain on the side of the Republic throughout the whole war, including 772 airmen, 351 tank men, 222 army advisers and instructors, 77 naval specialists, 100 artillery specialists, 52 other 329

Veterans of the International Brigades from 22 countries and Spanish Communist Party representatives attend a wreath-laying ceremony at the Soviet war memorial in Berlin’s Treptow Park Cemetery. July 1966
specialists, 130 aircraft factory workers and engineers, 156 radio operators and other signals men, and 204 interpreters.  [329•1  What is more, there were never more than 600 to 800 present in Spain at one time.  [329•2  So this is the truth behind the “Soviet intervention" and “Russian divisions" proclaimed by fascist propaganda, which served the hypocritical “appeasers” of fascism in Paris and London ruling circles as a pretext for equating the Soviet people’s aid to the Spanish Republic with the massive invasion of Spain by hundreds of thousands of regular Italian and German troops in support of the insurgents.

p The total extent of Soviet military supplies may be seen from the following figures: the Soviet Union sent to the Spanish Government 806 military aircraft, mainly fighters, 362 tanks, 120 armoured cars, 1,555 artillery pieces, about 500,000 rifles, 340 330 grenade launchers, 15,113 machine-guns, more than 110,000 aerial bombs, about 3,400,000 rounds of ammunition, 500,000 grenades, 862 million cartridges, 1,500 tons of gunpowder, torpedo boats, air defence searchlight installations, motor vehicles, radio stations, torpedoes and fuel.  [330•1  Not all these war materials reached their destination because, as had already been mentioned, some Soviet vessels and ships chartered from other countries were sunk by the Italians or forced into ports held by the insurgents.

Soviet military cargoes were delivered to Spain by two routes— by sea to Spanish Mediterranean ports and overland through France. Both routes were extremely unreliable. The French Government allowed military cargoes to cross its territory only at certain times and then not in their entirety. They used to be held up in France for months. In the period from autumn 1937 to spring 1938 the Pyrenean frontier was firmly closed to Soviet arms. The last large consignment of Soviet war material sent to France did not begin to cross the Franco-Spanish border until the end of January 1939, when a considerable part of Catalonia had already been captured by the fascists. By then there were no aerodromes where the planes could be assembled.

p The struggle against fascism in Spain was a struggle for peace. The defeat of the Spanish Republic, responsibility for which must be borne to a large extent by the “appeasers” of fascism in the governments of Paris, London and Washington, paved the way for war. No more than six months after the collapse of the Spanish Republic, fascist Germany unleashed a world war. Intoxicated by his easy victories over France and other European countries, Hitler treacherously invaded the USSR in 1941. The whole Soviet people arose under the leadership of the Communist Party to engage fascism in mortal combat.

p From this moment onwards the hopes of the enslaved peoples of Europe rested on the outcome of the struggle in the East. “Each victory of the USSR over Hitler will also be our victory,” announced the Communist Party of France on June 22, 1941, the organiser of the Resistance movement in the country.  [330•2  In Poland, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary and other fascist-occupied countries the popular resistance, led by the Communists of these countries, received a new and mighty stimulus.

p In the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad and Kursk, unprecedented in history for the number of troops and the amount of war material involved, the Soviet Armed Forces broke the back of the 331 fascist beast. “Out of fascist Germany’s 13,600,000 total casualties, it lost 10 million killed, wounded and captured on the Soviet- German front. Three-quarters of the total losses of the fascist aviation and more than half the artillery losses also fall to the Soviet- German front."  [331•1 

p After expelling the enemy from the USSR Soviet troops fulfilled their internationalist duty by bringing liberation to the peoples of Eastern, Southeastern and Central Europe.

p For the Soviet volunteers to Spain the Great Patriotic War was a continuation of the struggle against fascism begun on the soil and in the sky of Spain.

p Whatever the post they held in this war: be it front commander or battalion commander, they all brought with them to the fields of battle against the nazi invaders experience accumulated in Spain, ardent patriotism, internationalism and hatred of fascism.

The Spain of 1936-1939 was a battlefield for advance guard combat between the forces of democracy and fascism. The great victory of the forces of the anti-Hitler coalition led by the Soviet Union was a fitting crown to the heroic struggle against the mortal enemy of all peoples—fascism.