Leftists Reorganize

Thrifty Joseph Stalin belatedly bet another blue chip on the Spanish Loyalists last week in the form of ten splendid Soviet warplanes. Tons of other Soviet war paraphernalia have reached the Leftists in the past month via France. Amid wild cheering in recently bombed Barcelona, Soviet war birds in mass formation darkened the sky and last week the Leftist Cabinet reorganized itself for a last-minute effort to crawl between the jaws of defeat and wrench out the tonsils of victory.

Premier Dr. Juan Negrin abruptly dropped out of his Cabinet the moderate Leftist who has been the key man of the regime, National Defense Minister Indalecio Prieto, the builder of the People's Army and, as such, comparable to Leon Trotsky, the exiled builder of the Red Army. Nominally the Premier took over the portfolio of Defense himself, but he gave overriding control of the People's Army to able Communist Jesus Hernandez, named him General War Commissar.

Every able-bodied man in Leftist Spain was promised by Premier Negrin death before a firing squad unless within 72 hours he should volunteer for the People's Army. The new Minister of Justice is picturesque Ramon Gonzalez Pena, an Asturian firebrand who led squads of dynamite-throwing miners against the Rightists in the early days of the war.

Eleven motorcars, flying official Government flags, tore out of the capital last week, took safely to France numerous Leftist personages, and Donna Luis Companys, wife of the President of Catalonia. On foot to France 6,000 persons fled from Leftist Spain. To 5,000 of these who had belonged to the Leftist militia the French Government refused admission. However, it was now the fast-growing Soviet Machine against the German-Italian Machine, and Spaniards found themselves facing the possibility of a civil war prolonged indefinitely--unless the swift, victorious Rightist offensive of recent weeks should quickly prove decisive.

With a premium on speed, immediate Rightist objective last week was to capture by surprise the gigantic hydroelectric Tremp station, before the Leftists should make again their standard move of dynamiting a big dam rather than let it be captured. In a panting, breathless five-mile drive, Rightists under General Jose Moscardo got possession of Tremp in time's nick, for otherwise the flood of water released would have swept away whole villages, drowned thousands in 247,000,000 cubic feet of water.

To the southwest of Madrid the Leftists launched a furious offensive, intended if successful to cut those Rightist supply lines which run in from Portugal. At latest reports this offensive, designed to distract Generalissimo Francisco Franco from his onslaught upon Barcelona last week, had gained little.

Meanwhile, heroic Leftist "suicide squads," operating in the Ebro delta to defend the besieged Tortosa, had kept Italian forces at bay for a full week. Tortosa civilians had long since evacuated their bombed, shelled and burning city.

Generalissimo Franco added 2,900 square miles to Rightist Spain last week, had taken 8,300 since he began his spring offensive on March 9. Rightist officers figured they must take another 12,500 square miles before they would consider the Leftist position altogether hopeless. This week five main Rightist drives were all advancing on a 135-mile front. The Generalissimo's forces were within 80 miles of Barcelona.

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