fications, battering away on the barricades. It was the heavy artillery 
of the science of politics, employed to its fullest in a war fundamentally 
political, and it laid down a psychological barrage on the most vital 
centers of resistance. 
The guns of Fascist propaganda were silenced by his opening sen-
tence. He told the Fascists that their radio was lying. Quinto was safely 
in Republican hands. Instead of Fascist reinforcements it was the Re- 
publican Army that was steadily pressing on to victory. Next, he con- 
trasted the status of the enemy rank and file with that of the men in the 
Republican Army: 

“The Fascists have taken your land. They have oppressed and ex- 
ploited you and kept you in poverty. The Republic is distributing land. 
It has brought freedom and democracy. 
The Fascists are the enemy of the people. When you are on their 
side you are fighting against your own brothers, against the people of 
Spain. Our side is fighting for the people of Spain. Our side is the 
people of Spain. 
If you remain on the Fascist side you are condemned to death. If 
you keep fighting for them you will be killed, every single one of you. 
But we don’t want you to die. You are our brothers and we want 
you to live. Come over to the people’s side where you will have freedom 
and democracy, where a new life is awaiting you. 
Take your choice! 
Further resistance means death. Death for each and every one 
of you. 
Come over to us and live. If you don’t you will all be killed in our 
first assault at dawn. We have you surrounded on all sides so none of 
you can escape. Our guns are trained on you this minute, to blow you 
to a million pieces at the first streak of the dawn. 
Drop your arms and come over the barricades one by one. 
All who come over to us will live. 
Come over the barricades one by one. 
If you hold out you are doomed. You will all die. There is no 
escape for you. If you don’t come over you will all be killed in the 
morning.” 

The speech ended right there. Deathly silence followed from behind 
the Fascist lines. Their machine-guns had ceased firing; the voice had 
silenced them all. There was an unearthly hush. The word “Death” 
seemed to have taken on a shape, a living form, stark and grim, ghastly 
and enormous, pressing down with ever-increasing, monster weight on 

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