This is a moving book about war and love and hatred and brutality. It is, however, much more than a good story well told because it is, in fact, an historical document giving behind-the-scenes information on the communist seizure of power in Czechoslovakia told by a man who was there.

Miloslav Zlamal has in fact written an autobiographical novel. At the age of 23, this remarkable man was a commander in the partisan forces in Slovakia operating under the name of Milkov. The events in the novel are all essentially true-to-life and the characters are real. The communist leader Husak in the novel, for example is Gustav Husak, now the General Secretary of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia, who did in fact, arrest the author as he has recounted in the novel. It is interesting to note that Husak, in his own autobiography, mentions his postwar confrontation with the “adventurer” Zlamal whom he describes as the leader of the gang formed after the fighting was over which was “terrifying” the countryside. Zlamal was (ironically enough) saved by his Russian fighting comrades, who advised him to flee Slovakia. Canada thus gained one more of this remarkable group of people, who have contributed so much to this country.

He gives valuable insights into the methods used by the communist forces to work their way into positions of authority which lead to the enslavement of a great people. He draws sympathetic sketches of communist fighting men, in particular the Russian partisan leaders Asmalov and Yegorov, but has only contempt for the others scheming and whoring as other men die. Learning to know these men who subsequently moved to a position of civilian power, one gained a new appreciation of the causes of the ultimate collapse of the Czechoslovak System, leading to Dubcek’s attempted reforms and Russian interventions.

These are the men about whom Czechs and Slovaks despaired 20 years later. I was there as a foreign correspondent in 1965 and I recall the open contempt expressed even by government employees. Even then, at the outset of the reform programme, there were all-too-accurate predictions that the frightened functionaries would conspire successfully to save the system and destroy the nation. Mr. Zlamal has sketched the first act of a great human drama which leads almost inevitably to the final tragedy.

He also reveals details of an important event about which relatively little is known in the West, the great Slovak uprising of 1944.

After 26 years of silence, the author, tells for the first time, the real story of the capture of leading generals Viest and Golian, of the cruel uprising in Slovakia against the Germans in 1944, in Bukovec, where the author during the uprising was garrison commander. The book reveals the story of the capture and assassination attempt of SS-General Hoffle, commander in chief of all German forces in Slovkia in Skalica, and the story of the attempt to capture collaborating members of the Slovak Government, as they fled to Austria.

The book describes how communists and democratic fighting men died side by side in the uprising, the operations which, if successful, could have ended the war a year earlier. Many Russian armored divisions were poised to break through the vital Dukla Pass in the Carpathian Mountains which would have permitted them to reach Budapest in Hungary, Vienna in Austria and Hlivice in Southwest Poland within 48 hours and place them within striking range of Berlin. The plan miscarried, the author states, because the Communists arrested the Slovak Minister of Defense General Catlos who was to have given the vital orders which would have called the troops, in particular two Slovak divisions, to strike behind the German lines in front of Dukla Pass. The Communists, he says, apparently did not want a noncommunist to lead such an important operation.

Mr. Zlamal’s book is impressive also as a personal achievement. It is the latest success of a man whose troubles and adventures did not end when he reached Canada. Having been jailed once by the Fascists and twice by the Communists, Zlamal found himself denounced in Canada as a Communist spy. He was immediately dismissed by his employer, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. With 30 cents in his pocket that year on Christmas Eve, he bought a packet of candies as a present for his child. Then, penniless, he trudged for miles home to “celebrate” a Christmas without a Christmas dinner. He recalls that, as passing cars splashed slush on him, he raised his fist to the sky and vowed that he would succeed in his new country. He has.

Miloslav Zlamal is now a wealthy businessman who has found time, however, to write immense amounts of political, military, theatre and art commentaries, and to publish five books of poetry and to assemble an outstanding private art collection. He is a director-at-large of the Czecholovak Society of Arts and Science in America, Inc., in New York, and is past president of the Czechoslovak National Association in Toronto. The Partisan’s Captain is his first work in English and the ease with which he expresses himself in this “foreign” language is extraordinary.

He is a leading member of one of the most talented groups of people ever to arrive in the New World. Numbering only 60,000, they have produced men and women of international standing in writing, visual arts, music, science, and business and sport.

Tragedy has stimulated extraordinary energy and talent. Canada is far richer for their suffering.