General Lukac – Mate Zalka

Thank you very much for such high opinion of my article. If it is going to be published as a brochure, would you be able to, please, send me two copies?

The name of the legendary General Lucas is very well known to me. I am also very familiar with the works of Mate Zalka. I have a book of his selected works in my personal library. Among them, a novel "Doberdo", which, I believe, is one of the best works of world literature on the First World War. His stories about the civil war are among the best in Soviet literature.

Soviet people knew and loved Mate Zalka as a writer and as a fearless fighter for Soviet power. The fact that the Soviet government awarded Mate Zalka with the Order of Red Banner and honorary gold ammunition testifies about the dedication, with which he was fighting in the battlefields.

Mate Zalka was a person of the unprecedented pure soul and ethical nobility. It is not by accident that N. Ostrovsky, who shook the world with his courage, soon upon meeting Mate Zalka became friends with him. Ostrovsky admired Mate Zalka and in his novel "Born by the Storm" immortalized Mate Zalka by creating the character of the brave revolutionary Leuftenant Shaino.

Mate Zalka’s gift was a rare combination of both literally and military talents. However, his main characteristic was being a true and unbending communist. This is why he became immortal. Perhaps, Mate Zalka was not known on all the continents, however, all progressive humanity knew about the fighter of fascism in Spain, General Lucas. The news about his death spread around the world. When the Soviet people found out about this tragedy, M. Isakovsky wrote:

Spain mourns silently
Having bowed its battle flags.
The fascist bullet killed
Comrade Lucas in the fields of Aragon…
He died, so the earth would blossom,
So that children will grow in peace…
All the way to Valencia
The warriors carried the General’s coffin.

In Spain, the day of General Lucas’s funeral was proclaimed a day of national mourning. The Spanish people announced General Lucas as their national hero.

Humanity will never forget the writer and soldier of the revolution Mate Zalka, as it will not forget its many other sons who gave their lives for the freedom and happiness of the nations. However, we must not just remember them, but also continue their struggle, which means, we must fight with all means possible for destruction of modern wage slavery.

I. Komarov