When Geneva's Streets Ran With Blood
Grimm, Robert
By Robert Grimm When Geneva's Streets Ran With Blood Swim Socialist Leader TelU Story of Recent Massacre—Reactionary Attempt to Stop Socialist Tide in World Capital Fails. ipjll KK were tragic...
...Communist Obstruction The afternoon session set up a continuations' committee to carry on the work of the convention, and was characterized by obstructionist tactics of the Communist section led by Donsld Henderson of the Nstional Students' League...
...Drawing Up a Program On the third day the conference settled down to draw up a minimum program and machinery for united action...
...The Geneva bourgeoisie turned therefore to a certain pornographic writer and adventurer, who founded a "National Union," repeated with daily increasing frequency his provocation of the working class, and constituted himself a sort of "public prosecutor" of the Social-Democrats of Geneva...
...As a result Geneva | has been suffering for some years past from an economic handicap, producing a local crisis which has nothing to do with the general economic crisis...
...The last day's session also had the opportunity to hear Norman Thomas present a masterful speech regarding the questions of war and the question of social transformation...
...The events in Geneva have caused a tremendous sensation throughout Switzerland Among the workers there is an indignation and excitement such as has not been experienced since the national general strike of 1918...
...Troops were brought in all haste from the remotest valleys of Valais to replace the Genevese...
...were hurled at the colonel in command from among the troops...
...the bourgeoisie and the state authorities took advantage of the d e fensive M e a s u r e s of the working class as an excuse for drowning the onward-marching forces of SocialDemocracy in a bath of blood...
...The second day was devoted to discussion groups which dealt with various phases of the peace problem...
...Roger Baldwin and Brockway organized the discussion on "Non-Violent Tactics in Class War," and the question of what should be done( "When Congress Convenes" was bandied by J. B. Matthews and Benjamin Marsh of the People's Ixibby...
...members of its Board of Directors dissipated the savings of poor people in luxury resorts of the Riviera...
...The burden of this fell upon the taxpayer and enhanced the cost of the administrative machine, while the advantages were mainly reaped by the bourgeoisie and trading community...
...Bet w e e n seven and e i g h t thousand p e o p l e tried t o assemble on the s t r e e t . T h e police barred t he • t r eets and later some hundreds of raw recruits, who had just undergone their first .period of military training, were brought on the scene...
...Earlier in the afternoon these recruits in training had paraded the streets with bands playing...
...This produced a state of mind among the working c'*ss that contrasted their own precarious social position with the luxurious expenditure, lavish outlay of public funds and all the stir and activity of a diplomatic centre...
...Following the Treaty of Versailles, the<"Free Zones" which had facilitated trade between the city and its hinterland were abolished...
...Its circulation rose rapidly...
...Devere Allen led "Resisting International War...
...The chairman for the first two sessions was Monroe Sweetland of Syracuse, and for the last session Jules Umansky of New York...
...In 1919 the vote was 25.4 per cent of the electors, in 1925 it was 31.6 per cent, and at the last elections, in 1931, it was 40 per cent...
...These activities put the finishing touch to things...
...The Geneva Social-Democrats met this p r o v e - cation by o r g a n i z i n g a m a t s d e m o n - s t r ation in front of the me eting hall...
...By Gus Tyler Youth Conference Held Against War Spirit anti-war youth conference, representing 53 colleges and a host of other radical and youth organizations, was held at the Rand School November 25-27...
...The underlying causes that led to the massacre are of a local character and can be understood only in the light of the political situation in Geneva...
...it will do the same now...
...The proposal was passed unanimensly with ths exception of this small opposition group...
...Oh, yes, at the same time ho sent la I r s sabs...
...News has been received that the commanding officers have not ventured to distribute ammunition to Genevese troops...
...At the moment stark reaction has the upper hand in Geneva...
...Many Arrests Many arrests have been made, among them Nicole...
...Geneva is essentially a trading centre, the economic hinterland of which lies in French Savoy...
...Wllho Redman, New York asks as to rash some sub blsnks...
...It was an easy matter for the crowd to disarm these soldiers as they came o . Rifles and a Lewis gun were broken up on the pavements and steel helmets knocked off the soldiers' beads...
...In the morning session, resolutions were presented by the committee on specific demands upon which all could unite...
...ipjll KK were tragic happenings in Geneva, the city of the League of Nations, on November 9th, Swiss troops fired with machine-guns upon demonstrating workers...
...There1 was little or no debate on such questions aa...
...The Party wanted to put an end to the provocative attacks being made upon it...
...The Communist tactics in the last session presented difficulties thst would have been insurmountable were it not for the remarkable chairmanship of Jules Umsnsky...
...Some of the recruits were taken into the neighboring restaurants, treated to a drink and sent off back to the barracks...
...Fortunately the Swiss working class realized what was happening...
...Socialists pointed out that while they did not expect the capitalist governments to yield this measure, it was a "revolutionary demand" which could serve as a rallying point for the workers who had to bear the burden of the military budget, and that it was no more bourgeois then Litvinoff's propossl, snd that it was "the litmus paper with which we show to the workers the hypocritical pacifism of the ruling classes...
...High officers were implicated in unsavory affairs An old and well-known commercial firm defrauded the state of millions by evading the customs...
...Local Corruption More important is the notorious corruption of a considerable section of the bourgeoisie, bankers, traders and industrialists...
...All the measures taken have been designed to incite the workers of the whole country so as to drown in a sea of blood their efforts to protect themselves...
...The Swiss working class has always frustrated these attempts...
...The local troops apparently cannot be wholly counted on...
...The Party was steadily increasing its influence...
...The next proposal reported from the committee asked for complete disarmament by example as well as by agreement...
...The call for the conference was sponsored by 22 youth organizations, and groups of varying opinions ranging all the way from Quakers to Young Communists (Left Opposition) participated The three-day session was opened with a keynote address by A. Fenner Brockway, of the British Independent Labor Party, dealing with the points, of irritation in world affairs, and urging the development of a decisive technique to promote fundamental social change with a minimum of bloodshed...
...The casualties were 12 killed and 70 wounded, of whom some are in danger of death...
...Thousands of troops under arms occupy the city...
...France pushed the customs frontier up to the political frontier...
...Windows of the building in which they were quartered were smashed, and from within came the strains of the "Internationale," in which the crowds outside joined heartily...
...Only the Social-Democratic daily "Travail" got to grips with this mass of corruption...
...Meetings have been prohibited and freedom of ths press has been curtailed...
...Tucker P. Smith led a scction on "Putting the War Department Out of Education...
...Opposition came from the Communist "Left Opposition" who claimed that Litvinoff, by mislesding the workers to think that the cspitaliats would ever disarm, was spreading bourgeois illusions...
...A Socialist Geneva Not only did the bourgeoisie of Geneva see its own political influence dwindling...
...Id the Canton of Vaud the working class protested by meetings, demonstrations and a short general strike...
...The bourgeois press either kept quiet about all these and other happenings or tried to hush them up...
...The immediate cause of the conflict was trivial...
...Certainly the League stimulated trade and finance, but it entailed heavy expenditure by the municipal and cantonal authorities in respect of buildings, streets, town-planning and entertainment...
...Here the enHre Communist section, with a few exceptions, opposed the measure on the grounds that this surely was spreading a bourgeois illusion...
...There was some debate when the committee offered a resolution endorsing the Litvinoff proposals calling for complete disarmament by multilateral agreement...
...The Bank of Geneva was an absolute sink of incompetence and irresponsibility...
...its leaders had already begun to be pre occupied with thoughts of what would happen if Geneva, the seat of the League of Nations, should one day have a Social-Democratic majority...
...On November 12th, when they were being sworn in after being called up, shouts of "Assassin...
...A Radical head of the government, a member of the National Council, went to prison on account of shady transactions...
...A few political adventurers, led by a moral defective, had called a public meeting, sup]>osed to turn itself into a public tribunal, before which two of the leaders of the working class of Geneva, Dicker, president of the Socialist Party, and Leon Nicole, the editor of its daily paper, both Socialist members of Parliament, were to be "indicted...
...Without agreeing in detail with everything in the policy pursued by the Social-Democrats of Geneva, the working class has ranged itself solidly behind the workers of Geneva at this critical juncture, and is ready if occasion should demand, to wage war with every available means against the corrupt bourgeoisie of Geneva and the state authorities who are shielding it...
...Assassin...
...The choice of Geneva as the seat of the League of Nations could not overcome this handicap...
...After a temporary retreat of the troops reinforcements appeared, and suddenly, without any previous audible warning, and without firing of blank cartridges, came a volley of firing which resulted in an indescribable massacre...
...abolition of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps and the Citizens' Military Training Corps, the immediate recognition of the Soviet Union, the withdrawal of troops from Central America...
...A judgment of the Hague Court has declared this action illegal, but in spite of long-d -awn-out negotiations the question has not yet been settled...
...Apart from short strikes in Geneva and Lausanne protests have been confined to indoor meetings and no excuse has been given for the reactionaries to take the law into their own hands...
...Embezzlement by dishonest officials of the cantonal administration were frequent...
...The resolution was passed by an overwhelming majority...
...The Communists have never had one per cent of the electors with them...
...During the demonstration a military officer ordered small bodies of recruits to penetrate the crowd and break it up...
...This uncooperative policy was climaxed by the opposition of the delegate of the Young Communist League to a motion inviting the cooperation of the Young Communist League, and by his declining the invitation, although the motion was passed with almost unanimity...
...This is not the first time that a bourgeois democracy has had resort to the military arm against the working class and misused the army as a watchdog for Capital...
...Radical" means member of the Radical Party, which is not radical...
Vol. 14 • December 1932 • No. 23
