The Last Volunteer … Never Stopped Volunteering
You would think that old Delmer would’ve seen enough of fighting fascists that he would’ve sat out the biggest anti-fascist action this side of Portland, but he didn’t. He volunteered to fight Japan’s troops in the Pacific until he was sent home in 1942 because of, you know, the shrapnel that was still in his liver.
Del was actually rare among the Brigaders because the American government, though they were knee-deep in the fight against fascism, weren’t super-pumped about a bunch of ragtag lefty-commie-pinko-socialists becoming GIs. The Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade were put on a list of subversive organizations and monitored more closely than the legal filings of Britney Spears. When they were allowed to serve, they were never allowed to rise above the lowest ranks of the military. One soldier, who went on to win the Medal of Honor for his service in the Second World War, was being tailed for his “suspected communist exposure” for his time fighting fascism in Spain.
Delmer, of course, was flagged for communist exposure when he … joined the American Communist Party as soon as he returned home from the war. He worked with the United Farm Workers in California as a union organizer, and one of his proudest moments was being elected VP of the NAACP. He was their only white member because, while the arc of history is long, it’s also pretty bumpy. He also protested against nuclear weapons, the Vietnam War, and probably thought Twitter should be burned to the ground, like all good Americans.
Of course, the Feds were hot on Del’s tail through the course of his career as a leftist activist, especially one who joined the Communist Party. But what saved him was the fact that his house was between a whorehouse and a church on the wrong side of the tracks in Modesto, California. Cops weren’t keen on going into that neighborhood because that’s where the *gasp* Black community of Modesto lived. The House Un-American Activities Committee tried in the ’60s to serve Del papers, but they couldn’t seem to find him either. Of course, that didn’t stop them from keeping a file on him, which you can find here.
Delmer Berg died in 2016, aged 100, as the last living member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. The last living member of the International Brigades died last year, right as the world seemed to fall apart.
So pour one out for the International Brigades, and remember Delmer Berg: the greatest communist ever eulogized by John McCain.
Steven Assarian is a librarian. He writes stuff here.
Top Image: Wiki Commons