Dear
Comrades!
I
greet you in the name of our comrades in England, the United States and Canada.
We outside of Spain have already been given a new impetus by your great courage
in the battle you are making against fascism and for our ideas. All of us are
determined to aid you with all our energies and to the last drop of our blood
until you have triumphed in your grand and wonderful aim.
I
realize as do all the comrades in Europe and the States do that you must first
concentrate your efforts to drive out of Spain the black and sinister forces
that are threatening your liberty, and that are holding the people in many
countries by the throat. In freeing Spain from this devastating [sic] scourge
you will also break the backbone from fascism in the rest of the world. Your
splendid battle is, therefore of universal scope and magnitude. I know only too
well the fortitude needed, the consecration [sic], and the tremendous power of
endurance to bring such a task as yours to victory. But also I know that you
have all these qualifications and that you will succeed.
I
am in your midst only a few days. But thanks to the solidarity and cooperation
of the CNT and FAI, I have already been placed in a position to learn that over
and above your struggle to crush fascism you are laying great stress on the
constructive side of your battle. The factories, I visited and the houses you
have requisioned [sic] for your great task are in perfect condition and order
as if there had been no pitched battles with our enemies in Barcelona. Work and
life has continued under your supervision perhaps better than under the old
owners. You have thereby proven that our grand teacher Michael Bakunin was
right when he said that the spirit of destruction is also the spirit of
construction. And you have done more. You have branded as villainous
misrepresentations the charges in many papers that Anarchism is a chaotic
theory -- that it has no program -- that it is only bent on wreck and ruin. In
the face of danger and death you have already demonstrated that Anarchism is
the most constructive social philosophy, worth living, fighting and if need be
dying for.
You
comrades of Barcelona and Cataluna in general are giving a shining example to
the workers of the rest of the world, that you fully understand the meaning of
revolution. For, you have learned through past mistakes that unless the
revolutionary forces succeed in feeding, clothing and sheltering xx the people
during the revolutionary period the revolution is doomed to ruin. For, its
strength and its security lie not in the state, or in the political power of
parties but in the constructive efforts during the fighting period. Your
marvellous [sic] experiment will and must succeed. But whether it does or xxxx
fails, you are planting new roots deeply in the soil of Spain, in the hearts
and minds of your people, and in the hearts and minds of the oppressed all over
the world.
I
have come to you as to my own. For your ideal has been my ideal for forty five
years and it will remain to my last breath. My one desire is to be a part,
great or small, in the grandious [sic] battle you are making. Long live the
CNT! Long live the FAI! Long live your fight for the liberation of humanity!
[portrait
by Robert Shetterly]
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