Dolores Ibárruri
Date: September 15, 1936
Source: Speeches and Articles pp. 24 & 25 , Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1938
First Published: Komsomolskaya Pravda
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2005). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
Day is dawning on the heights of the Sierra Guadarrama. Pages of history, full of heroic enthusiasm, are being written in the blood of our glorious fighters on the slopes of these mountains. This is the first time that the hearts of our soldiers are filled with so profound a sense of class-consciousness. Workers and peasants are fighting shoulder to shoulder at the front. The ice has been broken. The walls of hatred erected by the exploiters and parasites have been razed to the ground.
The fields of our country are watered with blood and sown with the corpses of fallen fighters. But a rich harvest is promised in the early future. Mothers do not weep over the bodies of their fallen sons.
They are proud of having given birth to heroes. Wives and sisters hasten to the front to take the places of husbands and brothers who have been killed or wounded. They too are prepared to sacrifice their lives for the cause of freedom, for only one thought inspires them: Fascism must be defeated!
Behind the lines, in the rear, every man is al. his post: weapons are being forged, motor trucks. are being covered with armour, guns and ammunition are being manufactured for the equipment of the Spanish people's army, which is the body and soul of the people. For the children of militia men who have fallen at the front homes are being organized where they are being brought up with loving care.
The men and women of Spain have risen in a body. inspired by a heroic, magnificent and powerful urge. The Spanish people gaze at the world from the heights of the Pyrenees and, proud of the courage of their sons and daughters, proclaim in a loud voice: Fascism will be defeated!
Our voice is heard in every part of the world; it is heard by the broad masses of the people. In the Soviet Union and in France, in Mexico and Norway, in Cuba and the Argentine—in all these countries the people have understood the significance of our struggle for freedom and democracy.
The victory of the Spanish people over the forces of reaction, which wants to dig its claws into the heart of Spain, will mean a victory for world democracy.
We are marching forward along a path strewn with the bodies of our fallen fighters and drenched with the blood of some of the finest sons of the Spanish people. But we are firmly convinced that this path will lead to a decisive victory over fascism. Then forward, comrades! The nations who are suffering beneath the frightful yoke of fascism look to us with hope and await the issue of our struggle.
Our battle cry—"Fascism must not win!"—has been heard all over the world.