(1) Valentine Ackland, Daily Worker (21st July, 1937)

There has never been a Congress like this before. More than sixty delegates from all countries met together in the front line held by the fighters for freedom and intellectual liberty - Madrid. Gathered there as honoured guests of the Republican government of Spain, we discussed the present phase of the World War from our various national points of view and, as always, from the unanimously agreed decision to combat fascism as Intellectual Enemy No.l.

Going by car from Valencia to Madrid we stopped for lunch at a small village. During the fine meal spread for us we heard a crowd of children gathered outside the hall. They started to sing and sang us the war songs of Spain, 'Riego's Hymn' and the 'International'.

After exchanging shouted greetings with them, when we came to embark again for the journey, we found their mothers waiting to greet us with handshakes, embraces, tears. These women told us that they were refugees from Badajoz and Madrid, sacked villages and towns. ('My husband was shot in the massacre at Badajoz ... I am alone here, I and my child, we have no one left ...') They thanked us with tears for coming to Spain, telling what we must write when we returned - what we must say - and always ending up with, 'Viva La Republica!', 'Viva los Intelectuales!'