This is the first post of Pittsburgh in Spain, an occasional series covering locals who served in the Spanish Civil War. The first item covers local activism in defense of the Spanish Republic; future posts will include brief biographies of those who served.
When Robert Raven stepped off his train at the Pennsylvania Railroad station on Nov. 26, 1937, a clutch of local Communist Party representatives greeted him with a banner. The 24-year-old’s brothers were there, too, to guide him as he hobbled atop crutches. Eight months earlier, a grenade had left Raven — a Pittsburgh native and onetime University of Pittsburgh medical student — blinded and seriously injured on a Spanish battlefield.
Raven told his story to a Pittsburgh Press reporter in a hotel room. “What am I going to do, now I’m blind, you ask? Well, I suppose I will speak with ‘Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.’ I hope the American people hear the truth. Democracy will win.”
Raven was one of dozens with Pittsburgh ties to volunteer in Spain. Some were killed, others returned home wounded; a few are buried here. As locals sparred over the war at rallies and in letters to the editor, Pittsburgh Communists and their allies raised funds and spread the word for the Spanish Republic.
Fascists and Republicans
When a group of far-right generals launched a coup attempt against Spain’s left-of-center government in July 1936, Americans took an intense interest. Nazi Germany and Benito Mussolini’s Italy sent arms and troops to back the fascists; the Soviet Union aided the beleaguered Spanish Republic. As Franklin D. Roosevelt’s government maintained neutrality, activists of all stripes backed their respective armies from across the Atlantic.
With the rebels were many Roman Catholic officials, alongside William Randolph Hearst’s media empire. Visiting for a eucharistic celebration at Pitt Stadium, Oklahoma bishop Francis C. Kelley attacked communism: “Countries which have tried it have found the experiment highly unsuccessful. In Spain it is on its way out. In Russia it has become fascism of the Hitler stripe.” Heart’s Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph ran anonymous syndicated columns, purportedly by an exiled Spanish official, warning of “what happens to a country once if falls into the hands of Reds.” The papers published lurid reports of nuns and priests murdered by Republican troops.
Opposing them were forces like the American League Against War and Fascism, a Communist Party-affiliated group that hosted pro-Republican speakers and rallies (including a Spanish-themed “fiesta and musicale” to raise funds for war orphans). The league held a September 1936 rally in which Pat Fagan — the United Mine Workers of America District 5 head who had once shot dead a would-be assassin — called on attendees to give money for Spain.
Fagan tied the Spanish struggle to that of the American worker, as the Sun-Telegraph reported: “We have a group in America that would do the same thing to labor here as they are trying to do in Spain. The Manufacturers’ Association and the Liberty League would crush labor if they could.” The Hearst paper warned its readers of Fagan’s speech: “Fagan, one of the Pennsylvania leaders in the campaign for the re-election of President Roosevelt, will be a speaker at a radical meeting . . . in support of the radical Spanish regime.”
Friends of the volunteers
Left-wing speakers, some fresh from the Spanish trenches, regularly visited the city. There was a steady stream of American men who had fought in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the English-speaking Republican unit made up of mostly U.S. and Canadian volunteers (most recruited from their respective Communist parties). Speakers at the Carnegie Music Hall (now the New Hazlett Theater) included a trio of Boston brothers who fought in Spain, as well as Spanish diplomatic representatives and the English novelist and Republican officer Ralph Bates.
Particularly active was the Pittsburgh branch of the Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, a front that sent aid and drew attention for the cause. The group claimed at least two addresses during the war: the Methodist Episcopal building at 524 Penn Ave. and the McGeagh Building at 607 Bigelow Blvd. The group published local soldiers’ names and addresses, with letters to be sent via International Red Aid, the Communist Red Cross equivalent.
News clippings boasted of “thirty tons of food, clothing, books and cigarettes” sent to American troops “from nearly all large American cities, including Pittsburgh.” One returning veteran expressed a wish for more Pittsburgher troops and repeated the calls for cigarettes and tobacco. The Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade even put out Italian-language materials, with an affiliated “Pittsburgh Friends of the Garibaldi Battalion” supporting the Italian Communist expatriates fighting for the Spanish Republic. Activists raised funds for medical aid in meetings at the South Side Lithuanian hall, itself the scene of left-right battles.
The fighting was particularly bitter on the pages of the city newspapers, where supporters of the fascist Francisco Franco sparred with leftists. More than just Communists supported the Spanish Republic: Liberals and antifascists of all stripes joined the fight, with Communists — in the midst of their open-minded Popular Front period — welcoming the help. Ann Rodriguez of Donora wrote to the Pittsburgh Press: “I take my hat off to the Washington and Lincoln Battalions in Spain,” she said, stressing that she had no interest in communism. “They knew what they’re fighting for. They’re fighting to help make Spain what she should be. Bravo! I say to America’s fighting lads.”
“Abolitionists”
The struggle drew particular interest among some Black activists, who noted with surprise that Black officers commanded U.S. troops in the integrated Lincoln Brigade. In 1939 P.L. Prattis, city editor of the mainstream Pittsburgh Courier, compared Communists to 19th-century abolitionists and Franco’s backers to those who supported the Confederate states:
On the side of government Spain are the Communists (abolitionists) and all that sentiment in the world which believes in freedom for all people. Black Americans must be party to that sentiment. France should. England should. The United States should. But are they? What have they done for freedom? Very little. Very little can be expected of them. . . . Attempts are even made to persuade you that you shouldn’t pull for freedom in Spain because the Communists (abolitionists) are on freedom’s side.
Prattis called for Black people to rally to Spain’s defense despite fascist victories, noting that the Union armies in the American Civil War risked defeat until Black soldiers joined the fight in great numbers. Despite his hopes, the Republic fell within just a few weeks, and American leftists turned to support for its refugees and war survivors.
Pittsburgh’s ties to the Spanish war were surprisingly deep, with many locals fighting or otherwise serving at the front. Some returned only to face government investigations as “premature antifascists,” while others never came home. We’ll look at some of them more closely in future posts.
Thanks for reading Red Pittsburgh. Follow on Twitter and Facebook for articles, archive items and photos.