In October of 1936 was founded a committee to help the Democratic Spain thanks to the Czechoslovak communist. KSČ also organized a recruitment of the volunteers and their slogan was: “At the gates of Madrid they also fight for Prague”. At the same time they accentuated that some expressions of sympathy wasn’t enough and that it was necessary focus on the material aid. On July in 1936 was provided material aid and financial sources. Klement Gottwald, the last president of Czech Republic declare: “What matters to Democratic Spain also matters to us”.
The recruitment was done by the secretaries of KSČ and they also did the equipment of volunteers. Each one obtained some documents and money rfo the route until the west. There were two options to reach Spain, through Germany or through Austria. The one supporting was France, were the anonymity functioned in the office of Kominterna. This office send lots of transports to Spain, there were called “Los Espanolotes”.
The way out of the volunteers from Czechoslovak Republic and the access to International Brigades wasn’t an easy task because Czechoslovak didn’t want to enter officially in the Spanish Civil War and the entrance in the foreign army was prohibited by law. The main organizer of the recruitment of volunteers was KSČ, it was investigated by the police for going so (the 14 of December of 1936 the main committee of the Communist Party was cached, the police arrested 150 members of that party they took part in recruitment). At first there were only 20 percent of members of KSČ but at the end of the war hey were 50 percent.
The majority of Czechoslovak soldiers were private but during the services in Spain they became officials; 8 commander, 34 captain and 134 lieutenant.
