Socialists Consolidate Their Position in Spanish Elections
Khinoy, Mark
Socialists Consolidate Their Position in Spanish Elections By Mark Khinoy IN the dramatic struggle between * Revolution and Reaction in Spain, the Reaction scored. Out of the 473 members of the...
...The great crisis of the capitalist system of the world gave, even predominantly, agricultural Spain an enormous army of unemployed —a million in number...
...Those people, who have to work twelve to fourteen hours a day, get their meals—and whatever tips they can wangle...
...All of these factors must he borne in mind whenever we attempt to analyze the results of the Spanish election...
...One of the hideous results of this abysmal color prejudice ia that it keeps white and black workers opposed to each other while the capitalist claaa exploits both...
...I say "born at the polls" because when King Alfonso abdicated he did it because his supporters were overwhelmingly defeated by a Republican-Socialist fusion in the municipal elections of April 1931...
...In the other twelve the party made common cause with the most trustworthy of her former allies, the Left republicans, but was bitterly opposed by the other formerly radical groups...
...Henry L. Doherty, the big utilities magnate, owns the colossal Miami Biltmore Hotel, up to now a white elephant upon which millions of dollars have been lost...
...He also was convicted by the jury and death is the penalty...
...Reaction The capitalists, active supporters of the revolution against the King and feudal privileges in 1931 turned against the revolution the moment it began to show its working class color...
...Doherty thereupon announced that he had ten millions to invest in the sunshine, and Arthur Brisbane came along to get a coat of tan -and to write ecstatic articles about the air and the gentle breezes...
...At any rate, troubles in Cuba are expected to shunt a lot of tourists from Havana to Miami, and increasing prosperity—if any —is expected to do more...
...At leaat one big capitalist has announced his intention of spending up to ten million dollars In advertising to make the country "Florida-conscious," and the Cham, bers of Commerce are hoping to recoup the losses of many past disastrous seasons by a brand new boom...
...Socialists Consolidate Their Position in Spanish Elections By Mark Khinoy IN the dramatic struggle between * Revolution and Reaction in Spain, the Reaction scored...
...The meetings will be hold at one o'clock on Saturdays pt the Rand School, the place where a multitude of Socialists Just naturally appear about that time...
...This helped in the overthrow of the King, but it did not contribute much to the stabilisation of the revolutionary government...
...A Lone Battle However, in the Cortes election of this month the S.P...
...In these elections the nine fusion parties and groups secured a majority of 392 deputies out of a total of 470...
...That there was no weakening of the S.P...
...marched to the polls alone...
...In both elections the tendency was the same— away from the Left, a turn to the counter-revolutionary Right...
...Capitalists and workers, bankers and doctors, rich landowners and landless farmers, monarchists with a grudge against the King and lawyers, republicans with a hatred toward the monarchy in general, Socialists and even communists—all marched together and voted the same anti-government ticket...
...Programs have already been arranged for the four Saturdays in January...
...The 6,600,000 women whoso social and political freedom the Socialist-led revolution accomplished, turned at the poll against the revolution and its champions...
...but they are net.ready to go to the extreme of paying wages to waiters and waitresses...
...117 of them were members of the Socialist Party...
...EvJn the constitutional monarch istf voted for the candidates endorsed by the underground Revolutionary Committee, composed of bourgeois radicals and liberals of all shades—plus the Socialists...
...Socialists and friends from every part of the Eaat will form the basis of the crowds...
...Most of them must even pay for their own uniforms...
...They are ready to shoot the works in advertising the Florida sunshine and the lovely beaches...
...He also owns the palatial Roney Plaza, and is otherwise interested in the commercial aspect* of the Florida sunshine...
...It did not succeed, however, in electing a single communist deputy...
...The "Radical" Party of Alejandro Lerroux was the first to turn its back upon the revolution...
...Superficially it even looks as though the Spanish Revolution born at the polls is now dying at the polls...
...No more...
...The Communists The Communist Party was the only other political party to compete with the Socialists among the workers...
...The Socialist-Republican government freed the press and for various reasons, that I cannot enumerate here, all of them turned against the government...
...The continual local uprisings, dynamiting and bombing, promulgated by these "revolutionary" elements, frightened still more the middle class element...
...For whatever the party lost among its middle class sympathizers it gained among its basic element—the working class...
...This helped to consolidate the reactionary and capitalist front, but was too late to win over the farmers...
...Thia means a sentence of death, the second sentence Patterson haa received...
...White people can never fully understand the feeling of the Negro tried by a jury of whites, especially in the South where he is consigned by law, tradition and custom to a pariah in the social order...
...Florida Workers Get Sunshine For Wages foofrers Speed MIHhm re Lure Visitors While Waitresses 0O Unpaid...
...There have been bad times, but the Florida boosters think they're over...
...Deeply religious and illiterate, as the majority of them are, the women followed the lead of those whose enormous landed possessions, factories, banks and public utilities, the Republican-Socialist Government expropriated • and whose domination over the educational system the revolution undermined...
...influence among the workers during the 2% years of revolution, is attested also by the enormous growth of its dues paying membership and the still greater increase in the membership of the Socialist controlled Federation of Labor, where a solid organized million are supporting the party...
...Four were sentenced to ten years in prison, two to six years, and the rest to terms ranging from one to three years...
...The Socialists of Miami, as well as the Central Labor body, are in* veatigating and are prepared to expose the situation at a moment when the philanthropic pikers are beginning to beat the tom-tom about the climate and their own hotels...
...This is shown by the triumph in the industrial and urban centers, whereas in Madrid the poll gave the party 13 deputies out of the 17 elected...
...These workers raised for the election fund of their party the enormous sum of almost 800,000 pesetos...
...The Chamber of Commerce idea of the New Deal is increased spending by the visitors, but no more...
...Socialists eating lunch together st tho Rand School and discussing the really epochmaking events that are taking place In America and abroad...
...This emergency fusion against the King accounts for the exceedingly great number of places captured by the S.P...
...The money question, the international crisis, the labor union situation, and other similar topics will be treated by the best speakers to bo found...
...The result was achieved in two popular ballots: one on November 19th, and the second—supplementary—December 3rd...
...Spain then voted almost unanimously against the monarchy and the King obligingly left for other quarters...
...Everything points to tho success of the plan, and comrades everywhere have received it with enthusiasm...
...in this first municipal election...
...The ease will be appealed and the motion for a new trial will be based on prejudiced statements made from the bench and by Attorney General Knight The case against Clarence Nor-ris, another accused Negro, was placed in the hands of the jury Tuesday night...
...The lunch served will bo for a lower price than that which is usually paid for a meal anywhere else...
...But meanwhile, the hotel keepers are refusing to sign the Code, which provides that tips are not to be counted as wages and that a certain minimum wage must be paid to all hotel and restaurant workers...
...In most of the hotels, big and little, no wages at all are paid, and in addition, musicians must play for room and meals...
...The Italian Terror Thirteen persons were tried by the "special tribunal" at Rome for antifascist propaganda, and of course all were convicted...
...The School will then inaugurate a series of discussion-luncheons...
...Among those who have si* ready consented to appear, Waldman said, are Harry W. Lsldler, John T. Flynn and Chas...
...Editor's Corner Discussion Lunches Will Be Held at Rand School IN January the Rand School will * try a very Interesting experiment, for the purpose of bringing Socialists and their friends together for information, discussion and comradely enjoyment...
...There are a number of other things in the Spanish election that deserve our attention...
...The world depression that was the immediate cause of the revolutionary landslide in 1981 proved to be the most important single factor in swinging the middle class elements away from the Revolution...
...This unemployed army was both a drain on the depleted finances of the State and a fertile field for the quasi-revolutionary activities of the Communists, the anarcho-syndicalist, the counter-revolutionary and stool pigeons...
...Later on all of the capitalist parties deserted the field, frightened away by the specter of Socialism...
...All the radical, truly republican and Socialist, parties lost considerably in comparison with the elections to the previous legislatvie body, the constitutioi.al Cortes...
...Instead of supporting the land, religious and social laws promulgated by the Socialist Party, as they promised when they entered the Coalition, they began to sabotage them...
...In 39 election districts (out of 61) the Socialist candidates were opposed by all the eight groups that were formerly on the fusion ticket with them...
...To these analyses I hope to return in the near future...
...Only 23 are avowed monarchists...
...IT is going to be a great aeason 1 in Florida this winter, take it from the hotel keepers, and money will be spent there like water...
...Solomon...
...Out of the 473 members of the newly elected Cortes, or Parliament, only 61 are Socialists, of the other 413 deputies, 88 are Radical Socialists and Left Republicans of the Azana school, 101 are Radicals, 62 are conservative allies of the Radicals, and 212 are members of the Right (reactionary) Bloc...
...Louis Waldman, who will act as permanent chairman of these affairs, announced that a very attractive list of speakers haa been arranged and that the topics will be of the most vital sort...
...Two Scottsboro Negro Boys Face Death in Chair AN Alabama jury, out for 25 hours, brought in a verdict of guilty against Heywood Patterson, young Negro accused of assaulting a while girl...
...The waitresses get meals, but must rent their rooms elsewhere...
...This alone should be sufficient to explain the decrease in the lost representation—from 117 to 61...
...Algernon Lee, in making the announcement, said: "We want all of our friends, all the Socialists and near-Socialists in New York, New Jersey snd Connecticut, to know that every Saturday during the month of January they can find a lot of other...
...It is without doubt a considerable setback for the two-year-old Republic and a painful reverse for the deep economic, social, political and cultural reforms the Socialist-Republican coalition sponsored during its short rule...
...Eight Years of Primo And let us be frank about it...
...The Socialist Party, for instance, will have In the Parliament 61 deputies, instead of the 110 in the previous one...
...Going into a courtroom facing a serious charge is itself like walking to the death chair...
...Opposition from the Press To this should be added the powerful opposition of all the press...
...The same forces, with very few exceptions, joined hands in the elections to the Constitutional Cortes of June 28, 1931...
...A Setback The eight years of Primo de Rivera's dictatorship and the monarchist intrigues that followed it lef\ the King without a friend...
...The revolution nationalized the soil, but, thanks to a powerful opposition, the actual distribution of the land to the landless multitude did not start till last August...
Vol. 16 • December 1933 • No. 24
