BELGIAN SOCIALISM at the DOOR OF POWER
BELGIAN SOCIALISM at the DOOR OF POWER The Workings of the Strongest Party in BelgiumAn Interview with Huysman_ By ESTHER FRIEDMAN NOWADAYS Europe is brimful of political interest. Heie and...
...After the conclusion of peace my party stood for friendly and neighborly relations with Russia...
...argentina Gain* In Buenos Aires Province Big gains were registered by the Socialists on March 29, when there was a partial renewal of the Legislature of the Province of Buenos Aires (not including the city, which is in the Federal district...
...Hermann Heller, a leader of the so-called Hofgeismar (or Right) faction, and a sharp criticism of collaboration and a reaffirmation of the Marxian theory %y Professor Max Adler of Vienna in the name of the Hannoverians (or Lefts), the delegates adopted the following resolution, by a vote of 71 to 39: "The national conference of Young Socialists, after hearing the remarks of Comrades Heller and Adler, decides that the Young Socialists, as a political factor, sharply repudiate national romanticism in every form...
...It we have a front, then it is the common front with the whole Socialist Internationa) against those who endanger peace and threaten to stir up war...
...7, and the Communists fell from 742 to 653...
...During the Russo-Polish War, when Russia made an offer of Eeace, we urged that the war should c terminated with all possible speed...
...Camille Huysman had established a direct contact with the parents...
...These were parents of school children...
...The Communist political movement in the Province is negligible, as only sixteen Communist votes were cast in the First Section, against fifty-nine in 1922, and none was counted in the Second, compared with fifty-four three years ago, A feature of the Socialist campaign waa wide distribution of El Sol, the new semimonthly organ ef the Provincial organization...
...After listening to a defense of the policy of coalition with bourgeois political parties in the interests of the country as a whole, while never forgetting that they must wage the class struggle, by Dr...
...He asked many questions concerning our experience with the progressives during the last year...
...Theae indicated a desire to cooperate with the Socialists if they decided at their conference, held two days ago, to form the Government...
...Public Schools Popular "When Comrade Huysman assumed the office of Minister of Education he did not attack tha school budget of the Clericals and demand its curtailment in favor of the public schools, but chose rather to concede their right to teach their children religion if they pleased without being doubly taxed, but that people who did not want religious education forced upon their children shall have the same right to Government support...
...On April 26, Hindenburg got sorho 14,000 votes in Schaumburg-Lippe, against 12,-000 for Marx, the candidate of the Socialists, Democrats and Centrists...
...Bulgaria—well, that is Bulgaria...
...germany Mora Local Electoral Victories Confirmation of the theory that the election of Paul von Hindenburg, as President of the German Republic, was largely the result of sentimentality and did not represent any real falling off in the strength of the backbone of the German Republicans—the Social Democracy—is found in a couple of local elections held since April 26...
...The critics were silenced...
...We recognize but one front—against the warmongers, be they In Poland or abroad...
...The people evidently did want them...
...Young Socialists Move Left A marked drift to the Left in the German Yipsel organisation was noted at the annual national conference held in Jena at Easter...
...Right Bloc, 6; Jewish Bloc, 3; Landlord party, 2. In Pabjanice, in the Lodz textile district: P. P. S., 1; National Labor party, 6; Right Bloc, 6| Independent Socialists, 3; German Arbeitspartei, 3; other parties, 5. Deputy Defend* Party's Stand Replying in the Bielitz Volks-stimme, a German Socialist paper published in Poland, to recent criticism of the foreign policy of the Polish Socialist Party, Deputy Lieb-ermann said: "I consider it absurd to speak of a changed front in my party...
...Three new Socialist legislators were elected—Comrades Rogelio L. Ameri, Carlos del Forno and Teodoro Bron-zini—bringing the total representation of the party up to eight...
...This, added' to the ia-dustrial and political reforms persistently advocated by the Socialist Party,- and which reforms the Socialist Deputies persistently fought for, eventually broke down more ami more barriers of prejudice and even burrowed its way into the Clerical party...
...While the National Executive Committee is made Up of representatives of both factions on a fifty-fifty basis, the new editor of the Jungsozialistiche Blaetter, En-gelbert Graf, who was elected by a vote of 75 to 42 for Max West-phal...
...In th* First Section the Socialists polled 1,534 votes, out of 21,962, against 1,424 out of 23,599 in 1922...
...Considering that Antwerp is not an industrial town, that there are no significant Industries, is noted only for its harbor and ai a diamond market, with a population of at most 18,000 people, ths workers' ownership of such an institution is noteworthy...
...The party in power has not only failed to fate the problem, but .- utterly void of any program The Labor party of England expects to grapple with the problem in four years or less, when they shall have attained a working majority in Parliament...
...In speaking of Camille Huysman, tiie young Comrade who served as my guide waxed quite eloquent in bia praise...
...Labor movement, in his opinio* tbe only hops for an awakening *f the party to thia danger lay in ths election of the two Communists ta tha Chamber of Deputies Antwerp has s People's House— s stolid four-story building, litutttd in a prominent esction of a pread-nant street It provides fog avsry interest tha worker* of Antwerp aad environs know...
...The national conference is certain that the Socialist proletariat must not accent any political responsibilities toward the bourgeois class State if such action is against the interest of the international class struggle...
...7, 1924, while the combined parties of the Right, polled but 9,322, compared with 11,275 on Dec...
...With considerable earnestneas and feeling he declared1 the Socialist Party of Belgium was Socialist in name only...
...Within the ranks of the Clerical party there hai developed an insurgent group apoken of aa tha Catholic Democrat...
...This false report was promptly nailed to the fence by a statement by the Yipsel Executive that the question of the Presidential election had not even come up at the Easter Conference...
...It is a place to which tha old folka come, and the young ones, and the children, too...
...Murh of the tune devoted to religious teachings and services in the parochial schools is devoted to calisthenics and gym in the public schools...
...poland Socialist* Win Two Big Towns Municipal elections recently held in several Polish industrial towns showed big gains- by the Socialists, reports the London Bureau of the Socialist and Labor International...
...It could not, he claimed, be distinguished from any reform party anywhere...
...Of the British Labor party, he said it consisted of two extreme divisions...
...I In Belgium the Socialist Party has won a bare majority over the Clerical party in the late elections and was seriously considering to accept the support of the progressive wing of that party, and so reinforced go on unhindered with its program of industrial political and educational reform—the platform upon which it has made its remark- \ able gains...
...But, in the words of Juan Pressacco, an active Socialist leader in Cordoba, there is no occasion for real down-heartedneas, as the party has organized six new locals in the Province during the last few months and the steady work of education is bound to show results in the eruj...
...There is no front against any State or people...
...Evidently, party issues are becoming clearer...
...P. S.), 29...
...In Germany the Communists elected Hindenburg...
...Photos of drills adorn the walls of the offices and corridors of this old Antwerp town house, now devoted to education for all the children of the community by the .State...
...During the telling his face gradually broadened into a smile—something my escort told me was not a frequent occurrence, though his cordiality to all who speak to him regardless of factions is common knowledge and his strong armor...
...In the Second Electoral Section, the Socialist vote rose from 1.275 on March 26, 1922, out of a total of 15,579, to 2,837, out of a total of 14,015, and ousted the Conservatives from second place...
...The deplorable fact, in hia opinion, was the absence of a loft wing Is ths party to sav* ft* Socialist ideal aad philosophy from complete extinction in the Belgian...
...In theats few years we have made re-markablo strides toward reducing the appalling illiteracy of the country...
...Today avsry Socialist in Belgium—all of whom had previously opposed him, sow admit his war predictions were correct and his present policy one of his own...
...The swing to the Left at Jena was seized upon by Communist and German Nationalist papers as an excuse to print a tale to the effect that the Yipsels had voted to abstain from voting in the Presidential election on April 26, because the Socialist Party had accepted Wilhelm Marx, a Centrist, as the joint candidate of the Republicans...
...The .Socialist Party in Belgium was, by inferences, steering in the same middle course...
...therefore, it merely obscures the conflict of classeR...
...Notwithstanding his manifold duties, responsibilities and his absorption in them, his keen eyes see the movement elsewhere...
...And it is also a mean insinuation to speak of our new anti-German orientation...
...The principal cause of the decline in the Socialist vote is given as the hot fight waged between the partisans of ex-President Irigoyen and the Democrats, with the latter the victors...
...The House of lb* PeopU Another young Belgian, not a member of ths Socialist Party, nor, said he, of any other party, but apparently wall informed, held a decided and different opinion...
...His long, lean form, lean features, vivid dark eyes tell the tale of long hours, much work and worry, and little pause...
...n Er.ifland the Labor party is contemplating practical procedure for the transfer of overripe industries and the hanking business from private to pub-he ownership and management ms the only means of solving the piobleni of unemployment...
...Comrsde Huysman is fine and far-seeing...
...The new Board of Aldermen is made up of twenty-two members of the bourgeois bloc, fifteen Socialists, two Communists and one Centrist...
...the former editor, is counted as a Hannoverian...
...It is not likely that the working people of Cordoba will fail to realize before long that it due to the work of the two Socialist legislators that the bill abolishing night work in bakeries was put through last winter...
...At given hours they could coma to him with thtir complaints, criticisms and suggestions...
...Although the Socialists have lost control of the Diet, now having seven Deputies, against their former eight, the one Democrat is expected to work with them, thus enabling the Left to out-vote the opposition, composed of six membera of the Right and one Artlzan...
...Present-day democracy is based merely upon equality at the ballot-box and permits the continued existence of economic inequality...
...To punctuate his remarks he jotted figures down on a sheet of blank paper and underscored them vigorously denoting'the gains made in this and that department, especially in the yearly increase of children attending tTfe public schools over those of the parochial schools...
...Polish Right BJoc, 7; National Labor party, 1. In Dom-browa, another large mining town, the figures were: P. P. S., 18...
...Heretofore the Clerical party dominated and aucceaafully held down tha advance* of aecular education and diverted tha public funds for education to its own parochial aehools...
...Heie and there the j map i« splashed with reddish J pink and then a bold blotch of I yellow and black...
...In France they rain bullets into a crowd of Ingoted nationalists and thereby create more bigoted nationalists...
...j The School Administration On passing out through the anteroom a number of people, mostly women, were waiting for an interview with the Minister of Education...
...One still lives in the realm of idealism"—I assume he had in mind the I. L. P. —"and the other in crass trade-union materialism...
...In 1014 we established 'the first law for compulsory education," he said...
...Evidently they are not strong enough to dictate tbe policy of their party on ao important an iaaue, nor are they prepared to cut looae and organize a third party or join tha Socialists...
...The Democrats got 1,940, against 2,061, an Artisans' list got 2,228, and a Prohibition group 661...
...It is a great social center whirs th* working-class community gathers nightly to see a cinema, h»«r a lecture, discus* the price of grain...
...On May 10, in a municipal contest in the City of Halberstadt, H.973 votes were cast for the Socialist candidates, a gain of some 1,500 since the preceding municipal election on May 4, 1924, while the Communist vote of 1,208, represented a loss of about fifty per cent since that date...
...It is the honsj of tha cooperatives, tha trad* unions, th* Socialist Party and their sympathiser* It contain* a large theatn, a ballroom, halls for lecturai as* meetings, a good-aised gymnasia* and a big, wall-furnished kitcbaa, reminder of the renown of Spotless Town...
...The national conference fears that the mere emphasizing of Republican political necessities, with the'consequent concessions to bourgeois ideology, is apt to modify the revolutionary, proletarian class struggle...
...On The International Front -Wot he, i •/ the World, Unite I You Aav* nothing to lo>» but your eAsiiu *nd s world to gain...
...Many Socialists interpreted thia program as favoring the parochial schools, and it met with severe criticism from them "In the meantime the public Schools became more and more popular...
...Therefore nobody can accuse us of a change of front in our party, seeing that wc never took a stand against that country after the Armistice...
...In legislative elections held in tha Province of Cordoba on March 8, the Socialists experienced a material set-back, the vote falling from 1,871 in 1922 to 1,046, while the Communists, who had no candidates three years before, polled 89S votes...
...Education in Belgium i Comrade Camille Huysman, the I Minister of Education in Belgium, is intensely earnest and indefatigable in his labors to broaden and elevate the scope of the public schools...
...In 1919, our party voted against the ratification of the Versailles Treaty...
...The Liberal party of Belgium is in the same fix—in the same sad state of dissolution for the want of purpose as is the Liberal party of England...
...Due to the war, this law was not put into operation till 1920...
...The bourgeois bloc, just about held its own, with 13,847 votes...
...and at present the plight of their King, who is asked to decide whether his shall be a Government by th* Clerical party or the Socialist Party...
...The children take great pride in these activities...
...His patience with them is current comment and has won him tbe good will and confidence of the people as a whole mid the parents in particular...
...In Sosnowiec, one of the largest towns in the coal district close to the Silesian frontier, the results were as follows: Polish Socialists (P...
...Nevertheless we believed the discussion now started by Nationalists on both sides on the revision of the Treaty as far as frontiers are concerned to be extremely dangerous...
...In the election of the Diet in the tinv State of Schaum-burg-Lippe, on May 3, the Socialist vote was 12,006, but a slight loss from the 12,684 cast in the Reichstag election of Dec...
Vol. 2 • May 1925 • No. 22
