The time has come when absolutely everything possible must be done to reinforce the International Brigade, to transform it into a shock Brigade of the Republican army and hold Madrid. Now there is nothing to be ashamed of. As widely as possible, popularize the International Brigade, its actions, fighters, and outstanding role as a powerful means for ensuring the active solidarity of the international proletariat with the Spanish people. There is a need also to make use of outstanding historical examples of the behavior of revolutionary volunteers, including the British and the intelligentsia in general, for example Byron in the Greek people’s struggle for liberation. 30

30 RGASPI, f. 495, op. 184, d. 47a, incoming 1936 from Kislovodsk, l. 26, coded dispatch of 12 November 1936, ms.; Izvestiia na Instituta po istory na BCP, no. 15 (Sofia, 1966), p. 376. Lord George Byron, the famous English poet and a member of the House of Lords, went to Greece in 1824 to take part in the Greek people’s struggle for national liberation from Turkish domination and died of a fever soon afterward.