Colin Casey
HONS 2011J – The Spanish Civil War in Literature and Film
Final Essay
Professor Hernandez-Ojeda
Better Red Than Dead: The Political Activism of William James Bailey
Personal Statement
I had no idea quite how impactful this class would be when I had first signed up for it. I knew about the Spanish Civil War only in passing, through works of art such as Pablo Picasso’s Guernica and films such as Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. Therefore, I knew about it primarily as a precursor to WWII, and the rise of Francoism in the country.
However, I had not known a thing about the Abraham Lincoln Brigade before joining this class. I had no real knowledge of international aid at all, much less the aid of American volunteers. Another aspect of the Spanish Civil War that went over my head was the work done by outspoken Leftists at the time, including, but not limited to, various Communist and Anarchist parties, as well as individual Socialist and Communist volunteers.
It is exactly this reason why I chose to write about William James Bailey, or “Bill”, as he’s better known. His unabashed support of Communism and Socialism is what initially interested me in him, as well as his working-class charisma. Unfortunately, unlike most of my fellow classmates, I was unable to interview one of Bailey’s descendants. However, I was able to get a hold of Bailey’s autobiography, The Kid from Hoboken, which is where much of my research will come from.
In this essay, I fully intend to focus primarily on Bailey’s politics as his reason for volunteering with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Unfortunately, Bailey did not write all to much about the Spanish Civil War itself, so I will focus on the way his politics affected his entry into the conflict, and the backlash he received for his politics directly following the conflict.
Bill Bailey: The Young Activist
As stated previously, Bill Bailey was an unwavering supporter of workers’ rights and labor activism throughout his life. From the official Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives website, “He became a sailor and the bad conditions he endured encouraged him to join the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). In 1930 he joined the Marine Workers’ Industrial Union and the American Communist Party.”[1] Bailey spends much of the second part of his autobiography talking about his experiences as a seaman in New York City, looking back very fondly on the MWIU: “They were outspoken in fighting for relief for the unemployed seamen. One had to be totally blind not to recognize those who were fighting for the rights and welfare of the seamen.”[2] The activist himself cites the MWIU as his means of political awakening. If not for his union buddies having his back through some of the toughest years of his life, helping him to truly understand the differences between the working and capitalist classes, Bailey may not have gained class consciousness to the degree that he did. Bailey describes his radicalization in a series of anecdotes, saying,
The idea that there was a country where everyone was equal, where there was no oppression, where workers and farmers controlled their own destinies, where was unheard of and where people referred to each other as comrade appealed to me. After all, what else was there in life that was worth fighting for? This had to be the dream, the ideal, the ultimate and most progressive form of life… Within six weeks of joining the MWIU I joined the Communist Party.[3]
Organization is far from where Bailey’s political activism ended, though. He is perhaps most famous for tearing down a Nazi flag on a German sailing ship, Bremen, during a planned demonstration against American leniency towards fascism. Bailey describes the event in harrowing detail in his bibliography:
I grabbed the swastika and started to pull. The banner at first resisted, but then I heard it ripping along the seam. Still, it was hanging onto the halyard. I yanked some more. It wouldn’t part. I panicked. Time was getting short. Goddamn that flag! It seemed to be stronger than canvas. Why wouldn’t the rope part? I had to be careful; one misstep and I would be over the side and in the Hudson River. I grabbed the swastika more firmly, preparing to give it my all, when I noticed a pair of hands reaching up to grasp the top rung. My first instinct was to bring my foot down onto the hands; I thought it was a member of the crew coming to get me. But in the next second I recognized one of our guys, Adrian Duffy, a short, wiry seaman. “Hold the bastard tight!” he shouted. A snap of a switchblade, a quick slash at the rope, and the flag was free. Quickly, I tossed it overboard as the roar of the crowd reached a deafening crescendo.[4]
Unfortunately, as with most protesters, Bailey was arrested shortly after the event, and was beaten severely by the police officers present along with his comrades. Bailey makes a note that the officers all mistook the protesters for Jews – which may very well have influenced their treatment – and were surprised when they found out that all of the men were of Irish descent. Bailey’s situation here was far from hopeless, though. In recalling his time spent in prison awaiting trial, he says, “I could hear a group of people marching up and down the street shouting, ‘Free the Bremen demonstrators!’ It was nice to hear that we were not forgotten.”[5]
In addition to the support of regular citizens sympathetic to the cause, Bailey and his cohorts also received the aid of Vito Marcantonio, a representative from one of the districts in Harlem: “With the support of the radical congressmen Vito Marcantonio, Bailey was acquitted of all charges.”[6] This example shines as a rare success for Leftist protest in the United States, likely only because the targets were a foreign nation, rather than American capitalist leaders.
Bill Bailey: The Soldier
Joining the Spanish Civil War as a volunteer for the Spanish Republic was almost a given for someone with the political consciousness and bravado as Bill Bailey. “On the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Bailey joined the Abraham Lincoln Battalion, a unit that volunteered to defend the Popular Front government against the Nationalist Army.”[7] Unfortunately, Bailey does not spend a lot of time writing about his experiences during the war, which is particularly surprising given his role as a combatant, instead of a medic, delivery driver, or other supportive role. Still, Bailey does recall the rather grueling speech he was given by Party leaders before his so-called “deployment.” Bailey was assigned as a leader for about 20 fellow volunteers, and was briefed with very specific instructions before boarding the ship to France: “Remember, you’re passengers en route to Europe, not Spain. As far as you’re concerned, Spain does not exist, so don’t mention it to anyone. We know there are members of the government aboard, even Franco agents, and their job is to stop volunteers from reaching Spain.”[8] Of course, I wouldn’t go so far as to consider these Black Ops, but the instructions are certainly harrowing at best. For someone like Bailey, who wears his politics and passions on his sleeve, this intentional self-censorship must have been rather difficult.
Eventually, though, Bailey and his team did arrive in Europe, where they had to remain even more vigilant. Bailey describes the fear he had of running into Francoist or French patrols on the way to the Pyrenees Mountains, the natural border of France and Spain. In a classic Bill Bailey twist, though, he wasn’t necessarily afraid of getting caught, beaten, or even executed. Instead, his worry was having traveled thousands of miles, just to be prevented from serving a mile short of his destination. Bailey describes the euphoria he and his team felt upon reaching Spain, eager to finally be able to embark on their noble quest:
We were in Spain, the territory of the Spanish Republican government. Many of us had traveled some 8,000 miles to be able to stomp our feet on Spanish soil. As we trudged toward the farm house we were shouting within ourselves, “Hey, you bloody fascist bastards, Franco, Mussolini and Hitler! We’ve come a long way and waited a long time for this opportunity to join thousands of other anti-fascists from all over the world to form the International Brigades… We may not be the most skilled army in this world, but one thing’s for sure–we’re going to make you pay for every indignity you committed against the peace-loving peoples of the world. We intend to give a good account of ourselves. From here on, you’re going to know we’re here.”[9]
Homecoming
Unsurprisingly, the welcome home party was not the kind that Bailey was expecting. He, like many other politically-engaged Leftists at the time, were met with indignance and brutal resistance from the conservative American government, a sentiment that still exists today. According to the ALBA website, “…Bailey, as a member of the American Communist Party, was blacklisted and unable to work as a seaman. In 1953 he began work as a longshoreman, retiring in 1975.”[10] Directly following WWII, because of tensions between the predominantly capitalist Western democracies – such as the United States and Britain – and the Soviet Union, the US Government made Communism their main target. After all, with Hitler and Mussolini gone, fascism was no longer an issue on their table. Spain could do whatever she pleased, so long as she didn’t come in the way of American interests. The first of two crucial pieces anti-Leftist legislation, the 1948 Amendment to the Smith Alien Registration Act, made it very easy for the US Government to infiltrate and condemn Socialist and Communist activist groups, including labor unions and political news publications. Bailey describes the impact of the SARA in his book as such:
However, in the early part of 1948, the Smith Alien Registration Act of 1940 was amended. This Act… forbade the teaching or advocacy of the violent overthrow of the United States government. This threat made us more nervous, but on the waterfront we stayed calm–until the gendarmes swooped down and arrested 12 National Committee members of the Party and indicted them… It would be a trial where books were the issue, books that spelled out the theory and philosophy of the Communist Party. Authors like Lenin, Stalin, Marx and Engels would be cited to prove that the people on trial conspired to teach and advocate the overthrow of the American government.[11]
More harmful than SARA though, was the Internal Security Act, which essentially put McCarthyism into law. Joe McCarthy, of course, being the Wisconsin senator famous for his anti-Communist rhetoric, leading modern witch hunts against Leftists, progressives, and even artists uninvolved with politics. Bailey, unsurprisingly, has strong opinions of this particular piece of legislation as well: “Congress passed the McCarran Act, also known as the Internal Security Act…To muddy up already dirty waters, Senator Joe McCarthy was about ready to unleash his brand of “McCarthyism” upon the American scene, creating havoc among liberals, professionals, trade unionists, and anyone else who stood up for principle.”[12]
Bill Bailey: In Reflection
The crackdown against Communism during the early years of the Cold War led to splintering among Leftist organizations in the United States. This, coupled with the brutal totalitarianism of Joseph Stalin and so-called “corruption” of the Soviet Union led Bailey to leave the Communist Party of the United States: “[Bailey] eventually became disillusioned with the policies of Joseph Stalin and left the party. He remained a socialist.”[13]
In the final chapter of his autobiography, fittingly titled, “Et Tu, Brutus,” Bailey expresses his feeling of betrayal from his fellow Leftists. Among other things, he claims that the Soviet Union – as well as the Communist political clubs in the U.S. – became little more than cults of personality, moving further and further away from the true goal of socialism. Bailey writes:
We cannot say that socialism did not work in the Soviet Union. The fact is, they did not have socialism in the Soviet Union, nor did they practice it. The true meaning of socialism for me is a harmonious, classless society with a social organization based on a collective or governmental ownership of the means of production, with a democratic distribution of all goods derived from such collectivization. While the aim of the Russian Revolution and the Soviet government may have been pursuing those noble goals, somewhere along the rocky road bureaucracy got the better of them and the only thing the masses got was lip service and more dogma.[14]
Bailey’s leaving the Party did not by any means imply his disinterest in politics, merely his disinterest in belonging to an organization he deemed hypocritical. As Bailey himself says, “I’ve participated in the fight for women’s and minorities’ rights, offered support on the picket lines for workers’ job demands and marched in demonstrations for peace up the main streets of our city.”[15] This, more than anything, proves that you can take a man out of politics, but not the politics out of a man. For the rest of his life, until his death in 1995 at the age of 85, Bill Bailey remained a key figure in the realm of labor activism. His legacy was more than cemented by appearing in documentaries such as Seeing Red and The Good Fight.
Bailey ends his autobiography with a brief reflection on his political life, as well as a word of advice to the future generations of activists. He says:
My generation fought against fascism and depressions and for equality. Those battles go on, but now there are new battles… The new generations will make a difference if they seize the opportunity and pick up where my generation tired out… This I sincerely recommend for all to follow: to witness an injustice and do nothing–that is the biggest crime.[16]
Works Cited
[1] Anonymous, “Bailey, William James,” The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives, 2020, https://alba-valb.org/volunteers/william-james-bailey/
[2] Bill Bailey, “Chapter 7: Join the Communist Party,” in The Kid from Hoboken: Book Two, ed. Lynn Damme (San Francisco: Circus Lithographic Prepress, 1993), https://www.larkspring.com/Kid/Book2/2-7.html
[3] Bailey, “Join the Communist Party,” in The Kid from Hoboken.
[4] Bailey, “Ripping the Swastika,” in The Kid from Hoboken.
[5] Bailey, “Ripping the Swastika,” in The Kid from Hoboken.
[6] Anonymous, “Bailey.”
[7] Anonymous, “Bailey.”
[8] Bill Bailey, “Chapter 21: Journey to War in Spain,” in The Kid from Hoboken, Book Two, https://www.larkspring.com/Kid/Book2/2-21.html
[9] Bailey, “Journey to War,” in The Kid from Hoboken.
[10] Anonymous, “Bailey.”
[11] Bailey, “The Party Under Attack,” in The Kid from Hoboken.
[12] Bailey, “The Party Under Attack,” in The Kid from Hoboken.
[13] Anonymous, “Bailey.”
[14] Bill Bailey, “Chapter 24: Et Tu, Brutus,” in The Kid from Hoboken, Book Three, ed. Lynn Damme (San Fransisco:Circus Lithographic Prepress, 1993), https://www.larkspring.com/Kid/Book3/3-24.html
[15] Bailey, “Et Tu, Brutus,” in The Kid from Hoboken.
[16] Bailey, “Et Tu, Brutus,” in The Kid from Hoboken.