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In regions held by the Government last week, to travel behind the front lines was to be stopped every few miles by men or women bristling with arms but too ignorant to read the passports and documents which they threateningly demanded. In Madrid one of the Government's official passers-out-of-arms, Commandant Carlos Gomez, cheerfully announced: "We are training 1,000 people a day and sending them to all fronts."
"How long do you train them?'' he was asked.
"Three days."
"How much of that training is spent in shooting practice?" "What!" cried Commandant Gomez, "You don't think we waste ammunition on rifle practice? Our Militia gets all its shooting practice at the front!" Franco and Mola, Soldiers of professional standing and technical proficiency are the leaders of the Revolution: short, stoutish, dynamic General Francisco Franco, Arabic-speaking onetime Commander of the Spanish Foreign Legion in Morocco whose brother Ramon is "The Spanish Lindbergh";* and slim, tortoise-spectacled, tenacious General Emilio Mola, the Cuban-born son of a captain in the traditionally non-partisan Civil Guard.
Last week the South Army of the Revolution under General Franco and the North Army under General Mola advanced until their forces finally made contact with each other for the first time since the war began, near Merida on their west fronts.
Field telegraph lines and military postal service were established between General Mola's headquarters at Burgos and those of General Franco at Seville. In token that Franco is No. 1 in the Revolution, Mola, as No. 2, flew last week from Burgos to Seville for a joint tactical and strategic conference on the situation.
Behind the Revolution last week were:
1) The influence of the Church.
2) The Spanish Monarchists and Fascists.
3) Landowners, big and small.
4) Adolf Hitler & Benito Mussolini.
5) Important members of the British Cabinet.
Behind the Madrid Government were:
1) The working class of the Spanish industrial towns and the landless peasants.
2) The Socialists and Communists of the Spanish "Popular Front" whose broad-faced and optimistic leader, Don Francisco Largo Caballero, is avowedly trying to bring Spain under "the dictatorship of the proletariat."
3) The Socialist and Communist parties of the world, including the U. S. Socialist party which from Milwaukee last week appealed for funds to be sent to Madrid.
As Generalissimo of the Revolution, General Franco announced: "We want a national government and intend to assure all classes in Spain a chance to draft a Liberal constitution assuring justice for middle-class property owners as well as for the working class. ... We propose that long-needed social reforms shall actually be pushed forward in Spain. . . . We started the revolt only after it had become self-evident that the Government was playing into the hands of the Communists and extreme Socialists and that there was no justice for others. The aims of the National Revolution are to restore peace, justice and democracy with favor to no one class. As far as the Church is concerned we intend to allow complete freedom of worship, but under no conditions to permit the Church to play a part in politics."