General Mola said: “Following the election of the
Socialist government in Spain, and the king’s withdrawal from the country,
there was an absolute avalanche of public officials who rushed to the Grand
Orient Lodges to request entry. They thought they could thus be free of the
persecution which had been practiced by the majority of Masons in the
government. Their purpose was to give evidence of their republicanism and
to prevent the certainty of having their careers ruined.”
Immediately after the king had left, Franco told the
Military Academy, of which he was then in charge, “The republic has been
proclaimed in Spain. It is the duty of all at the present time to
co-operate with their discipline and allegiance so that peace may reign and
the nation be permitted to direct itself through the natural judicial
channels. Hitherto, at the Academy, there has always been discipline and
exact fulfilment of duty. To-day these qualities are even more necessary;
the Army needs, serenely, and with a united spirit, to sacrifice every
thought of ideology to the good of the nation and the tranquility of the
fatherland.” The wording of this proclamation shows Franco to be
anything but a “Black” Nazi which Communist propaganda would have the public
believe him to be.
But the Secret Powers were not willing to give the
republican government a chance to operate in an efficient and democratic
way. Churchill wrote: “The Communists helped set it up so they could knock
it down again and create more political and economic chaos, until they had
the country, and the people, in such a state that the leaders could advocate
with reason, that only a proletarian dictatorship could restore law and
order and save the day.”
Having overthrown the monarchy in Spain, the next logical
move was to attack the religion of the people. Secularism was introduced
into the schools. A campaign was launched to destroy parental authority and
that of the Church. Having created thousands of anti-religious, and
anti-social young Bolsheviks, it was only necessary to await the opportunity
to turn the masses loose against the forces of law and order in a
well-planned revolt.
On May 14th, 1931, a meeting was held in the Ateneo Club,
in Madrid, to discuss the new political programme.
Its eight points were :
1. Creation of a republican dictatorship.
2. Immediate punishment of all responsible for illegal acts under the
dictatorship.
3. Disbanding the Civil Guard, the Army, and the police, etc., and the
substitution of armed republicans chosen from the labouring classes and
Republican Clubs.
4. Confiscation of property of religious orders.
5. Nationalization of land.
6. Suppression of all press agencies hostile to the Republican cause.
7. Utilization of technical schools and other buildings for the public
good.
8. Postponement of the Cortes until this programme had been carried out.
Azana, an intellectual Liberal; Prieto — a socialist;
and Caballero, a Communist, were three of the most prominent political
leaders at this time. Azana, with his tongue in his cheek, publicly opposed
such radical suggestions, although he secretly approved. When elected to
power he put the programme into effect.
In due course the ‘Cortes Constituyentes’ was elected.
Under the excuse of “Law for the defence of the Republic”, a ruthless
dictatorship was set up — The only democratic feature about it was its name
“the Republic of the Workers”. A Moscow trained revolutionary, Jiminez Asua
drafted the new Constitution.[1] Azana now
concentrated his entire efforts on destruction of the churches and
persecution of religious orders. In December 1932, he set up the “League of
Atheism”. He financed its periodical ‘Sin Dios’ (The Godless), out of
public funds. All these moves were made in the name of democracy. The
leaders told the people they were being liberated from the control of the
religious orders, and the clergy who, they said, were allied to feudalism
and tyrannical monarchs.
In Catalonia the revolutionary activities which General
Prime, de Rivera had subdued broke out again. By January 1933, the London
Morning Post correspondent reported “Huge stocks of bombs, rifles,
and ammunition are being found by the police all over Spain. An enormous
amount of money is being spent to foster the revolutionary cause. Many of
those arrested, though to all appearances not well paid, carried note-cases
full of bank-notes.”[2]
Next an uprising in Asturia was organized, and on
September 14th, 1934 a report was issued which implicated war officials and
army officers in the sale of Arms.
General Franco made a desperate effort to try to
re-organize the Spanish Army and put an end to Anarchy, but he obtained
little support from government authorities. To indicate how well the
Communist underground was organized, over three hundred churches were set
afire at exactly the same time in a hundred different cities and towns.
The assassination of individuals the revolutionaries wanted removed, became
so common that ‘Professional Pistoleros’ became competitive. It was
possible to have an enemy liquidated for 50 pesetas (a little more than
$5.00 American). The Moscow agents used the confused conditions existing in
Spain to carry out Lenin’s mandate: “The Communist legal Code is to base
terrorism on fundamental principles.”[3]
Torture, mutilation, rape, burnings, bloodshed, and death,
were the methods by which Communism tried to obtain power. Conditions
deteriorated from bad to worse. By the beginning of 1936 the whole country
was in a state of turmoil. President Alcala Zamora dissolved the Cortes.
February 16th was set as the date for a general election. Gil Robles, and
Calvo Sotelo, stamped the country on a straight anticommunist ticket.
Bolshevik election propaganda was issued by ‘The Friends of Russia’.
Largo Caballero was in prison at this time for the part he
had played in a revolutionary uprising. He was interviewed by Mr. Edward
Knoblaugh who afterwards wrote “Correspondent in Spain”.
Caballero said : “We will win at least 265 seats. The
whole existing orders will be overturned. Azana will play Kerensky to my
Lenin. Within five years the republic will be so organized that it will be
easy for my party to use it as a stepping stone to our objective. A union
of the Iberian Republics ... that is our aim. The Iberian Peninsula will
again be one country. Portugal will come in peaceably we hope, but by force
if necessary. YOU SEE BEHIND THESE BARS THE FUTURE RULER OF
SPAIN. Lenin declared Spain would be the second
Soviet Republic in Europe. Lenin’s prophecy will come true. I shall be the
second Lenin who shall make it come true.”
After the most completely dishonest election Spain ever
endured, President Zamora wrote : “The Popular Front was hoisted into power
on the 16th of February, thanks to an electoral system as absurd as it is
unfair, which gives an extraordinary advantage to a relative majority though
absolutely it may be a minority. Thus in a certain constituency the Popular
Front with 30,000 votes less than the opposition was nevertheless
able to win ten seats out of thirteen, though in no part of the constituency
did the number of votes exceed those of its major adversary by more than 2
per cent. Paradoxical cases of this kind were fairly common.”
In spite of the illegal means employed, first count only
gave the Popular Front 200 seats out of a possible 465. Thus it became the
largest minority group in the parliament, but did not have enough
seats to form a government. The next move was for the Popular Front members
to join forces with the Basque, and other minority groups. They elected a
Committee to verify the election returns in each constituency. They made
sure the final returns were favourable to the Popular Front Party. In
several cases Rightist candidates were disqualified and Popular Front
candidates were elected as deputies in their place. When the “fixing” was
all over the Popular Front had the 265 seats Caballero predicted they would
have... But even after all this had happened, the final breakdown of the
votes showed : —
For ‘Centre’ and ‘Right’ parties ........... 4,910,000
For the ‘Popular Front’ .......................... 4,356,000
‘Right Centre’ majority : 554,000
It must be understood that Popular Front candidates
elected to the Spanish Cortes represented every kind of individual from the
very mild socialist to the dyed-in-the-wool Bolshevik.
The Stalinites created so much chaos that hellish
conditions broke out all over Spain. Previous to the February elections in
1936 the governmental record in Spain was as follows :
From the end of the Prime de Rivera dictatorship in 1931
there had been one revolution with 2,500 persons killed, seven revolts,
9,000 strikes, five prorogations of the budget, two billion pesetas
increase in charges, 1,000 municipalities suspended, 114 newspapers
forbidden, two and a half years of “States of Exception” (equivalent to our
state of martial law). After six weeks of popular front government under
Azana, Caballero, and Prieto the record read : —
Assaults and robberies : At Political headquarters, 58;
At public and private establishments, 105; At churches, 36. Fires : At
political headquarters, 12; Public and private establishments, 60;
Churches, 106. Disturbances: General strikes, 11; Risings and revolts,
169; Persons killed, 76; Wounded, 346.
Caballero, speaking at Zaragoza, said : “Spain must be
destroyed in order to remake it ours. On the day of vengeance we will leave
not a stone upon a stone.”
Caballero also declared : “Before the elections we ask for
what we want. After the elections we will take what we want by any means.
‘The Right’ must not expect mercy from the workers. We shall not again
spare the lives of our enemies.”
footnotes
