They are more than reliable.
They are magnificent.
You will see that.
Also we still have the Brigades although their role is changing.
But an army that is made up of good and bad elements cannot win a war.
All must be brought to a certain level of political development; all must know why they are fighting, and its importance.
All must believe in the fight they are to make and all must accept discipline.
We are making a huge conscript army without the time to implant the discipline that a conscript army must have, to behave properly under fire.
We call it a people's army but it will not have the assets of a true people's army and it will not have the iron discipline that a conscript army needs.
You will see.
It is a very dangerous procedure."
"You are not very cheerful today."
"No," Karkov had said.
"I have just come back from Valencia where I have seen many people.
No one comes back very cheerful from Valencia.
In Madrid you feel good and clean and with no possibility of anything but winning.
Valencia is something else.
The cowards who fled from Madrid still govern there.
They have settled happily into the sloth and bureaucracy of governing.
They have only contempt for those of Madrid.
Their obsession now is the weakening of the commissariat for war.
And Barcelona.
You should see Barcelona."
"How is it?"
"It is all still comic opera.
First it was the paradise of the crackpots and the romantic revolutionists.
Now it is the paradise of the fake soldier.
The soldiers who like to wear uniforms, who like to strut and swagger and wear red-and-black scarves.
Who like everything about war except to fight.
Valencia makes you sick and Barcelona makes you laugh."
"What about the P.O.U.M. putsch?"
"The P.O.U.M. was never serious.
It was a heresy of crackpots and wild men and it was really just an infantilism.
There were some honest misguided people.
There was one fairly good brain and there was a little fascist money.
Not much. The poor P.O.U.M. They were very silly people."
"But were many killed in the putsch?"
"Not so many as were shot afterwards or will be shot. The P.O.U.M. It is like the name. Not serious.
They should have called it the M.U.M.P.S. or the M.E.A.S.L.E.S.
But no. The Measles is much more dangerous.
It can affect both sight and hearing.
But they made one plot you know to kill me, to kill Walter, to kill Modesto and to kill Prieto.
You see how badly mixed up they were?
We are not at all alike.
Poor P.O.U.M. They never did kill anybody.
Not at the front nor anywhere else.
A few in Barcelona, yes."
"Were you there?"
"Yes.
I have sent a cable describing the wickedness of that infamous organization of Trotskyite murderers and their fascist machinations all beneath contempt but, between us, it is not very serious, the P.O.U.M. Nin was their only man.