THE FRENCH ELECTION
Longuet, Jean
The French Election By Jean Longuet (The following article, by the Itader of the French Socialist party, was written before the tlsetions which resulted in a treat triumph for the Party which...
...Among the newspapers which suffered from the Fascist...
...As for violations of the Election Laws, the opposition parties are collecting data and documentary proofs to be presented to the proper courts, but God alone knows what it will avail...
...The Socialist city of Milan once more reaffirmed its devotion to Socialism and Labor, more complete returns showed that the Socialist vote in that city increased from 71,000, in 1921, to 74,-000...
...604,716 II Mondo, a non-Socialist daily of Rome, has published accounts of hundreds of cases of frauds, terroristic methods, beatings, killings, and other violations of the committee by the Black Shirts at the polls...
...The great^difflculty aI the oppo-aen<» of the National Bloc is that, while with oar complicated and dishonest electoral law, a coalition of the progressives is absolutely neces-aary to defeat reaction, this coalition I* frequently achieved only &roufh very hard and painful efforts...
...1,430,220 Central Italy: ' Fascist...
...Bome of them will even aay that they prefer the "National Bloc" to the Bloc del Gauchei...
...It Is impossible even for a very modest campaign td be waned without at least from 200,000 to 300,000 francs...
...could determine how individuals voted...
...the Liberals have five and various other small democratic and Socialistic parties the four remaining seats...
...Socialism seems depressed only .on the surface, and this can be' realized when one sees nil Socialist institutions destroyed but the spirit of Socialism still unconquared and unconquerable...
...while generally, in all the small towns, voters .were given marked ballots so that the Fascist...
...In many placeu, opposition party watchers were beaten and thrown out of the polling places...
...When the vote was counted they discovered six had voted the Socialist ticket...
...The same sort of thing happens in various other I'ariB and provincial districts, whejje suddeiffy quite unexpected "Independent Socialists" or '"Free Radicals" appear in the field with a great amount of money, covering the place with thousands of bills and placards, incurring tre-jnenfcus expenses, which nobody would expect mere political adventurers to be able to pay by their own means...
...given to the Socialist leader Turati were declared, void because they did not carry his ft rat name), the thousands npon thousands of voters who failed to go to the polls and did not vote at ah, and the crookedness and terrorism and the atmosphere under which the elections were held, and yet finds that more than two million Italian citizens out of seven millions who were supposed to have voted dared to register their protest against Mussolini, cannot fail to reallie that the Fascisti dictatorship of Italy is forced on the people by violence and physical force and that as soon as Italy is given freedom and the elections are held under normal conditions the Fascisti will be overwhelmingly repudiated...
...Billiet and his clique of corrupters may spend is of very poor service to tj>e National Bloc compared to the help that they expect gratuitously from the oirthodox Communist...
...In the Socialist city of Molinella, a known Socialist voter was killed on the street as he left the polling ptaffc These Incidents are indicative of what took place all over the nation...
...But all the money that Mr...
...It ia rather difficult for an American—-also for an Englishman—to understand the complication of Trench political life, created by its strong individualism, Its lack of great concentrated political parties as you have in the .States or in IJngland...
...the stronger are the individuals vith their ambitions and appetites...
...to tl?e tewn of Poggiorenatico, the Fascisti gave out nmhberad and marked ballots...
...The law provides that a booth shall be esablished in the polling place for the voters so as to respect the sanctity of secret voting, but in thousands of polling places the booths were wide open and Fascisti gunmen were in them to see that all the voters voted the Black Shirt ticket...
...Because of the weakness of the parties, it is easy for the individual who has not succeeded inside a great party, to try to attain outside a party his selfish aims...
...Whenever M. Billet can set up some "dissenters'" list that will draw off some thousand votes from the "Bloc des Gauches" list, he will spare no expense to do it...
...21,785 Maximalist, 7,069 Communist...
...Socialist Movement Cannot Be Deatroyed In summing up the situation, the open-minded observer, when he has eonsidered the many thousands of votes of the opposition that were declared void (in Milan alone 80,000 preferential vote...
...For instance, in our Paris suburbs district, after long and difficult conferences and negotiations a list of 19 candidates of the "Cartel des Gauches" has been constituted, where I am standing with four other members of the Socialist Party, while the "Socialist Communist Union" (the unorthodox Communists which have left Moscow) have five seats, among them, Krossard...
...Imagine the National Bloc maintained in power by the Communists...
...Expense* of Candidates For an electoral campaign in a French constituency made up for in-itance, like the great Paris suburbs —where I am now standing—of 1,700,000 inhabitants and 400,000 electors, is of course terribly expen-»lve...
...The French Election By Jean Longuet (The following article, by the Itader of the French Socialist party, was written before the tlsetions which resulted in a treat triumph for the Party which Longuet represents...
...This is what followed: The BJack-Hhirtcd Fascisti instituted a reign of terror, wrecking nearly all the opposition newspaper offices and, more than 50 workmen's cooperatives...
...The current in favor of the overthrow of the Bloc National is so powerful, so deep in the mass of the French nation, that 1 think it will overcome every obstacle...
...ire was the "Corrlere della Sera," the oldest conservative newspaper, which dared to oppose Fascismo...
...Some of them among the more fanatic eactariap ami unintelligent pretend not to care...
...for instance ia creating some "dissident" list if only he has the money...
...In a Naples polling booth, an anti-Fascisti voter had his skull crushed...
...The figures are as follows: Northern Italy: Fascist...
...M. Billirt's Millions TWi, of course, should prevent the fermation of dissenters' lists...
...Two Party Bottlas An eminent journalist remarked to me in 1908 that the two great parties were like two bottles: each bore a label denoting the kind of liquor it contained, but each was empty...
...The Socialist workman An-gclo Gaiani of the traditional Socialist city of Molinella, upon entering the polling place was warned not to vote the Socialist ticket, and as he, in spite of this, voted as he did for thirty years (Socialist), he was killed on the street as he lp(t the polling place...
...However, there are rumors thst Moscow, facing the problem from the more practical view of Russia'i immediate intereets, is aiarfhed by this foolish attitude of its French disciples...
...votes .........1,358,333 Anti-Fascisti votes...
...Fascisti reprisals were extended all over the country to those sections where the mass of citizens showed enough courage to vote against the Fascisti dictatorship...
...If you can take a few thousand votes away from year opponent at the top of the poll, your party, which otherwise would he second, will be tremendously and unfairly favored...
...The poor six Socialist voters, who had been identified by the numbers on the ballots, left the town and feared to return...
...Queer Communist Action JWw sum* former communistic ele-ints, which a month ago left the mmunist party, not for principles, nut onfy because they had not been nominated as candidates, are trying to build up a so-called "Independent Revolutionary Socialist" list that everybody suspects of being subsidized by the great corrupter, Bil-liet...
...The Communists have not the least dunce of getting even • single quota They can only prevent the anti bioe national coalition from getting the advantage...
...This very National Bloc te leading us directly to a new world war, to some sort of Fascist...
...The observer will also note that forty years of Socialist propaganda cannot be crushed by two years of reaction...
...In one of Naples' polling place*, a certain Eduardo Piatillt had hit skull crushed by the Fascisti in the presence of Deputy Girardi for daring to protest against open irregularities...
...Against all these Socialist and anti-Fascisti votes, the Fas-cisti polled 61,831 votes...
...The larger the city, the more diflficult became the task of intimidating the voters...
...I was personally returned to the French Parliament in the Sceaux-Villejuif district of the Paris suburbs in 1914 by 10,000 votes to 8,000 for my Conservative opponent after a fine campaign that had cost us altogether only 4,000 francs, while my capitalist opponent had certainly spent at least 60,000 to 80,000 francs...
...Of this, 46,579 were Unitarian Socialist votes...
...The weaker the parties Sre...
...From these and similar accounts given by the Socialist papers it can easily be seen that the Fascisti exercised their terror with a freer hand in country towns where they could mark the voters individually and compel them to vote their ticket...
...To these votes should be added the Catholic vote.of 10,860 and 10,000 more anti-Fascisti votes of smaller parties...
...But with the present list system the situation is absolutely different...
...the results of the election in that city must have angered him so much that he immediately left and returned to Rome to celebrate his wonderful world-broadcasted victory...
...The astute Senator expects such a "dissenting" party to take away some thousands of votes from the Bloc des Gauches list and prevent us from being at the top of the poll, and so losing the "premium" of two or three more seats that a list which is at the top of the poll usually gets...
...Yet, In spite of this the results show, according to the Fascisti count, that 93 per cent of the registered voters took part in the election...
...Our electoral law favors the list that comes at the ' top of the poll...
...But hen comes in the mighty M. BpU&tifa, Senator of the Seine, *4|PMl|le,'CeiMilel secretary- and atmrm the notorious "Economical Interests League," which has collect-el'Millions of francs from all the Nf plutocratic and reactionary fiptes and who want to maintain in power, by all means, the infamous National Bloc...
...In Foggia, Socialist and anti-Fascisti citizens were terrorized so that very few of them, only the most courageous, went to vote...
...The Unitarian Socialist Party is the one that belongs to the same International as the American Socialist Party, while the Maximalists are not affiliated with any International but are bitterly opposed to Communist tactics...
...regime—if it is net utterly destroyed on the 11th of May...
...In all the big cities, with the exception of Rome and Naples and other minor cities of the central and southern sections, the Fascisti vote resulted in a minority...
...Help Poincare and Company At the present time there are at least from ten to fifteen departments where the appearance of a Communist list has the only result of helping Poincare and his crowd...
...With the one-member constituency system, it is possible to stand in an election, if only you are backed by devoted partis with a very modest budget...
...This, at any rate, may be said, that the parties may weem to have erred rather by having clung too long to outworn issues, and by neglecting to discover and work out new principles ca)iable of solving the problems which now perplex the country.— James Bryce in "The American Commonwealth...
...Many Catholic institutions also were destroyed, and when the Vatican intervened by donating 500,000 lire to rebuild them, the Fascisti organs resented it as an overt act coming from the Holy See...
...However, I do not think that even the Communist's ugly work of division can achieve such a result...
...MUSSOLINI PERMITS A VOTE By GIRALAMO VALENTI Incomplete returns of the general elections in Italy show that Dictator Mussolini was actually beaten in northern Italy, in spite of the terror of the Black Shirts, and that he built up a fictitious msjority in southern snd central Italy and gen-ally in all rural districts...
...i^tes,............1,351,310 Anti-Fascisti votes 478,237 Southern Italy: Fascist...
...The day after the election, a proclamation was posted on the streets of the town stating exactly this: "Those six who did not vote the Fascisti ticket will pay for it next Saturday...
...It ii easy to understand this when you remember that the National Bloc and M. Poincare are among the more bitter, perftdioui and cruel enemies of the Russian republic...
...As a result of the Socialist Milan repudiation of Fascismo, the Black Shirts began an orgy of terror, devastating nearly all the opposition newspaper offices and destroying more than 50 workmen cooperatives...
...Unchecked Violence Ruled Italy Elections The Socialist city of Milan dared to oppose Dictator Mussolini and defeated him...
...In Giarre Riposto (Sicily), Socialist and other opposition watchers were thrown from the polling places and only 16 per cent of the voters voted, hut when the votes were counted it was discovered that 60 per cent of the registered voters had voted...
...In the village of Massa, Lombards, the thirty-flve local voters on the eVe of the election were assembled and told not to carry on any propaganda against the Fascisti ticket and to vote only the Fascisti ticket, making certain marks on their ballots that would show they had followed instructions...
...votes ............1,980,870 Anti-Fascisti votes...
...T was especially the case with Socialist Party, whose candidates could depend on the marvellous devotion of the common workingman inside Its ranks...
...We could cite innumerable cases of terrorism during the election if, space would permit, but the above will give the reader some idea of the methods and circumstances under which the elections took place...
...On election day, Dictator Benito was in Milan...
Vol. 1 • May 1924 • No. 18
