The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-11-08
BARRICADES WHICH
AROSE OVER NIGHT


offered the most obstinate resist
ance. From above, from the house
tops, a number of snipers descend.
From their observation posts they
have noticed in the distance the ap-
proach of an armoured car, and have
decided that it is better to attack
the car from below, in the street.
One of them succeeds with a lucky
shot in hitting the radiator; the
machine is out of action. The snipers
return to their eyrie. SO the fight
proceeds.
I'm Wednesday, the oath, the group
of leaders find themselves COM
PEELED to give the signal to retreat
rot because the workers are de-
feated, but because there is no sign
of general revolution in Germany.
What would be the use of continu-
ing the fight which had broken out
in Hamburg alone?
But it is not so simple to give the
order to retreat in a city which is
intoxicated with victory, in which
the defense can at any moment go
over to the attack, where there are
hundreds of barricades, and where
the workers are preparing for the
general attack, for the last act of
civil war-the victorious seizure of
power.
Now the workers retreat. Cursihg
inwardly with vexation, as their last
act they fling the enemy far back
from the barricades. The insur-
gents take advantage of the result
ing confusion in the ranks of the
enemy in order silently to leave
their trenches, barricades, d
watch-posts. They retreat with
their weapons, take their dead and
wounded with them, wipe out all
traces behind them, and dispense
gradually, in the streets Of the sub
orb which now have become silent.
The retreat according to plan is
accomplished under cover of sharp
shooters who are posted on the roofs.
None of them leaves his lofty barri-
cade before, down below in the
streets, the last fighter has left his
trench; before the last wounded
man, supported by comrades, has
disappeared in the doorway of a
friendly house.
The whole day they still hold out,
repel the Whites, run from one quar-
ter of the town to the other-over
the steep housetops, hanging over
abysses, past attic windows through
which the police begin to make their
way-for they have noticed at last
the empty silence behind the barri-
cades.
The fight becomes a pursuit. The
whole population conceals and res
cues the heroic rear-guard of the
Hamburg October-these wounded,
hunted solitary fighters who still
keep up a fire high above the town;
who suddenly make their entrance
into strange working class homes
with bleeding hands, torn clothes,
with black, patched lips, with a
crowd of pursuers at their heels who,
cursing, threatening, seeking, run
past the very door which has just
been closed behind their victim.
one of the last to retreat was an
old Notwithstanding from ex-
haustion, his clothing in rags, drunk
from WEAKNESS, and no longer able
to cling to the smooth glazed bricks
of the chimney-stacks. Arrived be-
low in the shadow of the door of a
courtyard which offered him the
way to freedom, he halted again for
moment, raised his rifle, in order
with fury and zest to fire off his
last cartridges.
The whole of the corner of the
wall against which he leaned was
pitted with bullet marks. 1t was a
blind chance that he was not hit. 1t
was only with the greatest difficulty
that he managed to get away at the
last moment. Round his neck, over
the open shirt and sweating hairy
breast, there hung a brand new
neck-tie.
Whatever are you wearing that
neck-tie for" he was asked.
81 wanted to die looking smart, :"
was his reply.
Such was the spirit of the prole-
tartan fighters in the Hamburg in
surrection.
~ ~. v.vxuN N a