[Marxism] Milton Wolff

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

NY Times, January 17, 2008
Milton Wolff, 92, Dies; Anti-Franco Leader
By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Milton Wolff, the last commander of the American volunteers who fought 
against Franco in the Spanish Civil War and the longtime commander of 
the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, died Monday in Berkeley, 
Calif. He was 92.

The cause was congestive heart failure, said Peter N. Carroll, chairman 
of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives.

At first a young Communist rabble-rouser on soapboxes in New York City, 
Mr. Wolff was wielding a machine gun in Spain by the time he was 21. By 
22, he was the ninth commander of what is commonly called the Lincoln 
Brigade; four of his predecessors had been killed, four wounded; none 
now survive, the archives confirm.

Mr. Wolff found himself holding together the remnants of North American 
volunteers on a counteroffensive that moved across the Ebro River to the 
violent Hill 666 in the Sierra Pandols. It was a last gasp by foreign 
troops supporting the elected leftist government of Spain against the 
revolt led by Gen. Francisco Franco. The Americans soon left Spain; 
Madrid fell in March 1939, and the war was over.

While Mr. Wolff was in Spain, he became a friend of Ernest Hemingway, 
who served him his first glass of Scotch; Hemingway was in Spain as a 
reporter and wrote fiction about the conflict as well. Later, in a 
pamphlet issued when sculptures of the fighters were unveiled, he called 
Mr. Wolff “as brave and as good a soldier as any that commanded 
battalions at Gettysburg.”

After the exhausted volunteers arrived in New York aboard the ocean 
liner Paris on Dec. 15, 1938, it was Mr. Wolff who laid a wreath outside 
the railing of Madison Square Park, kept out of the park for want of a 
permit.

Mr. Wolff never stopped defying authority. He helped lead the fight 
against United States support of Franco’s government and battled 
fiercely for civil rights and against the Vietnam War. He even offered 
the services of the aging veterans of the Lincoln Brigade to the North 
Vietnamese leader, Ho Chi Minh, who declined them.

Mr. Wolff was born in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn on Oct. 7, 
1915. He dropped out of high school and joined the Civilian Conservation 
Corps, a New Deal program for unemployed youths. He was dropped when he 
protested what he considered the poor treatment of an injured friend, 
Mr. Carroll said.

He found a job in the garment district and joined the Young Communist 
League. When a leader called for volunteers to go to Spain, Mr. Wolff 
raised his hand. He considered himself a pacifist and planned to serve 
as a medic, but switched to a machine-gun company when his Washington 
battalion went into action at Brunete in July 1937.

The American volunteers were not actually members of a Lincoln Brigade, 
though that famous term was commonly used, even among veterans. Some, 
like Mr. Wolff, joined the Washington Battalion, others, the Lincoln 
Battalion. These battalions, and two others from other countries, made 
up the 15th International Brigade.

After the Washington Battalion suffered crushing casualties, it was 
merged into the Lincoln Battalion. More than 900 of the 3,000 American 
volunteers in these battalions were killed. It is believed that fewer 
than 40 are still living.

Mr. Wolff was fighting on the Aragon front in March 1938 and became 
commander when an artillery hit destroyed the battalion headquarters and 
killed several ranking officers. Then a captain, he led soldiers through 
perilous retreats and wandered behind enemy lines until they managed to 
swim across the Ebro.

One day, Robert Capa, the legendary photographer, snapped Mr. Wolff 
standing next to Hemingway. The photo appeared on the cover of The 
Forward, and for the first time his mother knew her son was in combat. 
He had told her he was working in a factory to free a Spanish loyalist 
for hazardous duty.

Mr. Wolff always said he first met Hemingway after stealing his 
mistress, something he told Salon in 1999 that Hemingway did not mind. 
Hemingway minded more when he found out that Mr. Wolff had no idea who 
he was. For his part, Mr. Wolff resented Hemingway’s description of 
villagers loyal to the Republic as having murdered fascists in “For Whom 
the Bell Tolls.”

Mr. Wolff is survived by his daughter, Susan Wallis of Vermont; his son, 
Peter, of Connecticut; four grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.

Mr. Wolff said he was turned down for combat duty in World War II 
because of concerns about his leftist politics. He later fought 
successfully against the “subversive” label pinned on the Lincoln 
veterans for decades. He personally delivered 20 ambulances to the 
Nicaraguan government when the Reagan administration was supporting 
rebels against it.

One of his battles after the civil war was leading his veterans to urge 
the Brooklyn Dodgers to integrate. “The guys were all Dodgers fans,” he 
said. “It was a way to carry on the struggle.”

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