Anisa Najar
HONS 2011J
Final Essay
Professor Hernández-Ojeda
Volunteer Marion Merriman by Student Anisa Najar
Marion (née Stone) Merriman was born on August 18, 1909 in Reno, Nevada. She graduated high school at 16 and took up a secretarial job in order to save money for college. Marion’s mom, who had passed a few months ago, emphasized the importance of education to her 5 children. She hadn’t been highly educated herself, so she very much wanted her children to be.
When Marion was 18, she met her future husband, Robert Merriman, at a dance. Both were planning to enroll in the University of Nevada the next year, and they became much closer there. As both of their times passed at university, they became sweethearts, and eventually started dating officially. After essentially 4 years of dating, they got married right after they graduated in 1932; Marion got a degree in English, and Robert in economics. They moved to California as Robert went to the University of California, Berkley to continue his education in economics. Meanwhile, Marion got a job as a secretary at the Berkley office of the Federal Land Bank. All of the married women who worked there, however, were fired due to the Great Depression. Although they protested and tried to keep their jobs, they were still terminated. Marion’s two little sisters came to live with her and Robert in his first year at graduate school, which left little space in their apartment. They were being sent to convent, however, after their aunt was unable to care for them, so this was better than that. They also took in one of Roberts friends who was down on his luck, so their apartment was basically all beds. As Robert learned more about economics, both from books and from real life, he fought more for those who did not have and who were downtrodden. He also, like many others, became more interested in Russia, especially the economic system. In 1934 he applied for, and received, a $900 scholarship for a year of study abroad in Russia.
Ana Lomidze
HONS 2011J
Hunter College-CUNY
Professor María Hernández-Ojeda
Children and Young Adults in the Spanish Civil War
Personal Statement
In the first week of classes, we were assigned to read Sam Levinger’s last letter to his parents. It was a short letter, but the words he used had a huge impact. The part that stuck to me, as well as to the rest of my class was when he said, “Certainly I am not enthusiastic about dying. I’ve gotten a good bit of fun out of my first twenty years despite the fact that except for the last six months they were pretty useless. I suppose I would have enjoyed my next twenty just as much. I wanted to write this letter, however, to make clear that there is absolutely nothing to regret” (Love and Revolutionary Greetings: An Ohio Boy in the Spanish Civil War 158). Because of this one paragraph, my class’s hour and fifteen minutes were spent discussing, “what makes one’s life meaningful?” This question and my class’s discussion stayed with me. I kept thinking about what would be the answer to such a complex question.
Vincent Londoño
HONS 2011J
Final Essay
Professor Hernández-Ojeda
Hyman Wallach: The Strongest Man in San Pedro by Vincent Londoño
Personal Statement
I first found out about Hyman Wallace by chance while looking through the documents in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade’s digital archives. Looking through the letters he had written about his experiences I was amazed when I read about his experiences after his capture by the fascists, and how while imprisoned at the Concentration camp San Pedro de Cardenas, he kept spirits high by taking bets on which nationality of prisoners would be released next, offering to push a coin across the filthy floor of their quarters if he lost, which he never did. Between the betting and his contributions to the “Jaily News”, and his participation in Chess games with the other prisoners, his discussion of his experiences at the camp had a certain defiant positivity to it, as if refusing to succumb to the idea that imprisonment in obscene conditions had to crush one’s spirit. In every representation of life in a Concentration camp, whether in movies or books, they had always seemed to be places utterly devoid of hope, and yet Hyman Wallach seemed to carry it in there with him, and he kept that seed of hope watered and intact, and distributed its fruit out among his fellow prisoners for the duration of his imprisonment. I had never even considered such a thing to be possible, and yet knowing what I know now, it summarizes his attitudes so perfectly. I knew right then that I had to write about him.
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.
Theadora Williams
HONS 2011J
Final Essay
Professor Hernández-Ojeda
The Spanish Civil War: The Popular Front, The Commissars, and George Watt
Even in hindsight, the policy of the COMINTERN under Stalin during the Spanish Civil War is contentious, to say the least. Some attribute the downfall of the Republic to their interference, others praise them for the support they lent it. What might have won the war is easy to speculate about in retrospect, but was a much more pressing and difficult issue during its actual course. The policy of the COMINTERN was admittedly at times misguided, as was often the case, but nothing exists in isolation. Their policies were applications of previous lessons to current problems, and should be understood in that light.
To understand the policy of Popular Frontism, we must look at the past experiences of the Communists with fighting fascism, as an overreaction to a disastrous failure. Nazi Germany stood as a towering monument to the fascist victory against the Communists in Germany, where a united right had triumphed against a divided left. The German Communists, Social Democrats, and other branches of the German left had failed to work together to fight the immediate threat, choosing instead to squabble amongst themselves, but they fell together. The popular front policy adopted in Spain was a direct result of the Comintern realization of Lincoln’s statement, “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” based on its own huge mistake in assessing the Social Democrats as a threat equal to the Nazis.
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