STRUGGLES IN SPAIN
By Paul Arnault
Things are speeding up in Spain. Following the Madrid student demonstrations, the protest movement against the SEU [Sindicato: Espanol Universitario -- the official government-controlled student union] and for democratic rights swept throughout the Spanish universities. [See World Outlook March 5 and 12.] On March 22 and 23 a new "Free Assembly,” half underground this time, was held in Barcelona. Besides Barcelona, the universities of Madrid, Oviedo, Salamanca, Valencia and Bilbao sent delegates. ;
According to the Paris daily Le Monde [March 25], they approved the draft of a resolution to be submitted to the student movement as a whole. The resolution covers two points: (1) It indicates why the meeting had to be held "underground" and. explains to the whole country the objectives of the student movement. (2) It calls for the organization of a union set up according to professions, independent of the authorities in the educational and political system, and really representative and democratic. Membership in the union should not be compulsory, although the delegates advised that it be so temporarily in view of present circumstances. Finally -~ and this is important -- the delegates decided to cut off any further dialogue with the Franco government in view of the failure to carry out the promises made by Herrero Tejedor,. assistant general secretary
of the Falange at the recent Villacastin meeting.
In addition, since the student demonstrations, the bourgeois opposition favoring an "evolution" of Francoism towards "enlightened bonapartism," has stepped up its activities, Among these should be noted the letter sent to Minister of Information Fraga Iribarne signed by 1,661 persons headed, naturally, by leaders of the Christian Democracy such as Manuel Jiménez Fernandez, José Lépez Aranguren, Lafn Entralgo, Aguilar Navarro, José Marfa Valverde, as well as their accomplice and associate, the social democrat Tierno Galvdn.
In this letter, the signers, in order "to avoid the worst" (without doubt, the worst for these good bourgeois would be a new wave of strikes and demonstrations becoming more and more radical and even revolutionary) propose a series of "liberalizing" measures. "Alarm signals and serious warnings compel us," say the signers, "to propose various elementary and urgent measures: (1) Freedom of association and particularly trade-union freedom; (2) The right to strike; (3) Freedom of information and expression; (4) Amnesty for all those who were subjected to reprisals for having struggled in favor of these rights and liberties."
Professor Tierno Galvdn, leader of the domestic "moderate socialism," in a long interview granted to the Agence France Presse correspondent in Madrid, went along with this (he was one of the Signers, as we have noted) and even spoke of a prerevolutionary : situation in the country. By this, however, our professor referred not to what might be imagined, put to the discontentment of the. .. middle classes! Is the problem then a revolution of the middle classes? Or is it that Tierno Galvdn wants to be the political representative of these classes in the projected evolution of the Franco regime toward "bonapartist" political forms and the domination of the Spanish monopolies linked to the international trusts?
Not to be left behind, Arriba, the organ of the Falange, demanded [March 23] "the legalization of the opposition." "It would be good," the editors observed, “to. make a small place for the opposition proper to any democracy. The political order could only gain from it."
What is happening in Spain? The. current stirrings and their future direction cannot be understood without taking into account two essential facts: (1) The increasing number of workers! struggles, their growing extent and deepening content, of which everyone is aware. (2) The evolution of Spanish capitalism and its need to adapt itself for integration into the international "neocapitalist"™ currents, particularly those in Europe. This requires certain changes in the political structures of Francoism now blocking this development,
But the Spanish bourgeoisie is far from united on what to do. In fact two. camps stand out more and more clearly as opposed to each other (up to a certain point, naturally) -- the "conservatives,"
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partisans of the status quo and even in some instances of strengthening the dictatorship in order to crush the expressions of discontent; and the "liberals," partisans of evolution, actually of neocapitalism. Among the latter, the Christian Democracy seems to constitute the main force, which is understandable in view of the role of the Church in Spain,
But the workers! movement is stepping up its actions more and more, A significant event just occurred which ought to fill the Spanish bourgeoisie with uneasiness, whether “liberal” or "conservative. This was the demonstration March 12 at. Mieres, a city of 65,000 in the Asturias mining region,
Some 8,000 miners from various parts of the area gathered in the town. What began as a demonstration for economic demands, rapidly changed into something quite political, even pre-insurrectional. After police arrested fifteen demonstrators, about 1,000 others took the police station by assault. They stripped it from top to bottom and in passing bashed the faces of some thirty cops they found inside,
The police had to send in an emergency call to Oviedo, the capital, for reinforcements, who finally managed to put down the demonstrators,
The shouts of the demonstrators were significant: "UHP f "3 "Tong Live Communism!" "“Liberty!"
Thus, after twenty-five years of dictatorship, the old slogan of the 1934 insurrection in Asturias, the cry for proletarian unity, again echoed in the mine fields in the first assault of a police station since Franco's victory! The importance of such an action, even though it _be an isolated: one, should be obvious to everyone,
It appears that among the twenty miners who were arrested after the arrival of police reinforcements, there was a percentage of members of the Communist party. ‘But it is self-evident that these militants -~ like many others -- are not following the slogans of the leadership but are even going against the line of "national reconciliation" of the opportunist leadership of the Spanish Communist party.
In face of facts of such importance, the political fissures and contradictions among the Spanish bourgeoisie cannot help but grow. The advocates of evolution are forced to initiate new attempts to try to canalize the movement, to lead it along the way they want it to go. But in doing this, they deepen the differences; and the “eulf" that separates them from the "conservatives," still rather shallow, tends to deepen. ..
*UHP Union of Brother Proletarians |
“4.
= Union de Hermanos Proletarios!
New events of all kinds will break out in Spain. Of this there is no doubt. Will the Spanish working class prove capable of _ organizing itself, of overcoming the old sclerotic apparatuses, of profiting from the contradictions of the bourgeoisie and guiding the general movement of discontent in the direction of socialism? This is the question now on the agenda.
DEFENSE PROBLEM GROWS MORE ACUTE IN ALABAMA
By Evelyn Sell
_. The cold-bloaded murder of another civil-rights worker, this time a white mother of five children, near Selma March 25, brought. nation-wide anger over the situation in Alabama to a new high. The problem of self-defense from the bestial racists of the South gained fresh acuteness as the four men arrested by the FBI were turned loose on bail, charged only with “conspiracy to violate" the murdered Mrs. Viola Gregg Liuzzo's "civil rights," and President Johnson went on television to say that what the United States needs is more "legislation.
The problem was already under. growing discussion among civil». rights workers throughout America, ‘ Their mood now leans more and more toward organizing themselves in an effective way despite the preaching of the American Ghandists.about the high moral value of unresisting acceptance of the clubs and bullets of the Southern sadists,.
To put things in better focus, it is necessary to indicate at least the highlights of the recent struggle in Alabama.
The voter registration campaign, launched at the end of January by the Rev. Martin Luther King, had been proceeding in a rather businesseas-usual manner. King led registrants to the county courthouse in Selma where Negroes encountered legal technicalities barring or delaying their registrations. Fists, clubs, electric prods and arrests were employed by the county police force led by Sheriff Clark. The local city administration and police force in contrast tended toward a more "moderate" treatment of the repeated demonstrations. King went to Washington and met with President Johnson and. Vice-President Humphrey. The Negro leader was assured | that new federal legislation was being prepared to ease voter regis-= tration in the South,
The Detroit News of February 9 reported, "The officials heard Dr. King's proposals with a sympathetic ear. They also reviewed with considerable concern the militant forces who had attached themselves on the left of Dr. King's crusade and who have so far spurned
peace feelers in Selma,"
As. events unfolded there :was increasing concern over the militant forces that threatened to burst through the more conserva-=tive approach of King.
Incidents of police brutality.continued to pile up in Selma. On February 18 state troopers charged into 400 Negroes demonstrating in nearby Marion, A 26-year-old Negro, Jimmy Lee Jackson, was shot in the stomach when he attempted to defend his mother who had been clubbed by troopers; he died on February 26. But Jimmy Lee Jackson wasn't the only one to fight back that day -- Searcy Wright was arrested for hitting a trooper with a coca cola bottle. Unidentified Negroes threw bottles, bricks and rocks at the troopers before fleeing from the clubs. In another nearby town, Camden, right-to-vote marches were stopped by armed police. oe
On March 6 a very unusual march took place in Selma. A group of 60-70 persons, calling themselves "Concerned Citizens of Alabama," marched in the streets to protest discrimination against Negroes, The group included professors, businessmen, housewives, schoolteachers and other professionals, As they stood on the steps of the county courthouse they read a statement calling for an end to police brutality and asking that officials make it easier for Negroes to.register to vote, While they marched and read their statement, a crowd of 500 whites jeered and taunted them; Jimmie George Robinson, the National States Rights member who hit Rev. King on January 18, yelled, "Communists , Communists."
Previously, similar sentiments had been expressed by other white Southerners but this was the first time that such a street demonstration had taken place in the South. White Southern students had been participating in civil-rights demonstrations since the sit-ins of 1960 but now the older generation was entering the picture in a new way.
The day after this sympathy march, on March 7, the infamous attack at the bridge leading out of Selma took place. State troopers, sanctioned by orders from Governor Wallace, halted Selma Negroes attempting to march to Montgomery, the state capitol. The marchers were ordered to turn back; instead, they knelt and prayed. Troopers using clubs, bull whips, ropes, tear gas, nausea gas and smoke bombs charged into the praying Negroes. Those who were able to, tried to escape the furious assault by running back to the shelter of Brown's Chapel AME Church, headquarters of the Selma campaign. As the troopers chased the Negroes into town a shower of rocks, bottles and bricks came from the Negro housing project near the church.
This action prompted Rev. James Bevel, 28-year-old director of ‘King! s Alabama project, to admonish Negroes the following day: "We ,almost had a flop yesterday. A few fellows came back to church and started throwing bottles and stones. If you.see a guy get
emotionally out of control, you take his hand and quiet him down,"
National reactions to the March 7 brutality were immediate and significant. The government announced that it would hold an investigation to determine whether "too much force" had been used by the state troopers. The civil-rights organizations responded quickly of course, but a new note was struck. The traditionally conservative National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [NAACP] issued a statement that read in part: "Negroes must either submit to the heels of their oppressors or they must organize, underground, to protect themselves from the oppression of Governor Wallace and his storm troopers,"
Roy Wilkins, head of the NAACP, declared, "There's going to be resistance with weapons, protection of ourselves with weapons, unless the Federal Government acts," He explained that when Negroes "start shooting back" the racists “start thinking twice about shooting." When Malcolm X voiced exactly the same.idea, Wilkins among others, roundly denounced him for "preaching violence."
. King immediately announced that he would return to Selma and lead a new march, "I must do this," he declared from Atlanta, "in | spite of the dangers, possible beatings and the inhuman use of tear gas by state troopers, We have no alternative but to leave our opponents glutted with their own barbarity."' He hurried to Selma to offer new victims to the far-from-glutted racists. .
In Selma he repeatedly lectured mass rallies on the nonviolent philosophy which won him a Nobel prize last year. "We are going tosuffer some more," he promised. "But we must let them know it they beat one Negro, they will have to beat 100 or 1,000."
He appealed to Christians across the nation to come to Selma and join in the crusade, Whites and Negroes, young and old, began pouring into the small city in an expression of commitment unparallelled in the civil-rights movement to date. A great many of the participants in this flood were members of religious bodies. Churches had published many expressions:of support for civil rights but this was the first time such extensive physical involvement in the Southern struggle took place. Nuns. singing "We Shall Overcome ,": ‘the | battle hymn of the civil-rights movement, faced grim troopers in many of the confrontations that followed. Three white ministers were attacked by racists on March 93 Rev. James Reeb of Boston died of his wounds two days later.
While this demonstration of solidarity was building up inside Alabama, sympathy demonstrations flooded the United States fromthe east coast to the west. Sit-ins took place in the Federal Building at Los Angeles and Detroit. Rush hour traffic in Chicago's downtown Loop was tied up when demonstrators lay down in the streets. Marches were held in Cleveland, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit, New York City, Newark (New Jersey), Iowa City, Springfield (Tllinois), Ste Paul, Greensboro (N. Carolina), Syracuse (New York), Gary (Indiana),
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San Francisco, Kansas City, San Diego (California), Cambridge —_ (Massachusetts), Madison (Wisconsin), Buffalo (New York) -- this is just a partial list! Delegations were sent to Washington to -put pressure on the White House and Gongress to protect Negroes and insure their voting rights.
In the chants and picket signs and statements of these demon-= strations, two significant facts must be noted: the first public attacks against Johnson were heard for his betrayal of the civil-— rights program he espoused during the election campaign; and,, the most explicit statements to date were made linking up the pro-civil rights and anti-Vietnam war sentiments of millions of Americans,
Rev. Robert Hoppe, director of the Detroit Council of Churches! Commission on Race and Cultural Relations and leader of the Michigan delegation to Washington, stated, "The president is dragging his feet. We want action to prevent further trouble in Selma," |
In a confrontation between Vice-President Humphrey and a delegation of white and Negro civil-rights leaders, the Rt. Rev, - Paul Moore, Jr., Episcopalian bishop of Washington, said, "I'll tell you right now, the civil-rights movement and this administration have just about come to the parting of the ways."
Picket signs outside the White House read: "LBJ Just You Wait! See What Happens in '68!" "Keep Promises, LBJ," "LBJ, Is Selma Part of Your Great Society?"
The announcement that 3,500 Marines were being sent to Vietnam blazed across America's newspapers on March 7 -- the very day that Alabama troopers tear-gassed Negroes on the first March to Montgomery. The first wave of Marines landed in Vietnam on March 8 == the day civile-rights advocates started streaming into Selma and sending delegations to Washington. The irony of Marines "defending freedom" in. Vietnam while American Negroes were being tear-gassed in Selma was not lost on Americans,
Myra Wolfgang, secretary-treasurer of Local 705, Hotel, Motel and Restaurant Employees Union, wired Johnson: "If 3,000 Marines are justified in landing in South Vietnam, then 30,000 are justified in being dispatched to Alabama,"
The Trade Union Leadership Council of Detroit (composed largely of Negroes) said in its wire to Johnson: "Surely the executive powers of the President which can send U.S.Marines to South Vietnam in defense of freedom can also be used to send Marines immediately to Alabama to protect Rev. Martin Luther King and the freedom fighters who were so brutally attacked by the state troopers for. simply exercising their legal rights. "
A. statement issued by United Auto Workers leaders said, "The establishment of democracy is as essential in Selma as Saigon." In
another wire to Johnson, the Institutional Youth Guidance League of Michigan said, “We strongly and humbly urge you to speak out against the ill-treatment of Negro Americans inasmuch as we are called upon to shed our blood and give our lives to protect the peoples of other parts of the world, including the war in Vietnam."
"Send Marines to Alabama Not Vietnam" was the message of one sign in a picket line in Detroit. Roy Wilkins'reference to the Marineslanding in South Vietnam was pungent and to the point: "Dammit, they can send somebody to Alabama and defend the government right here,"
Johnson's domestic and foreign policies were not the only targets of dissatisfaction. King's behind-the-scenes deals and his strategy "to leave our opponents glutted with their own barbarity" drew increasing public criticism. Immediately after the first March to Montgomery was broken up on March 7, King vowed to personally: lead a second march. Hundreds of white and Negro sympathizers came to Selma to march with him; Selma Negroes hurried out of the hospital to rejoin demonstrations, their ‘bandages still fresh around their heads. However, a-federal judge issued an order banning all further marches until hearings could take place. Another counter-pressure against the second March to Montgomery came in the form of LeRoy Collins, head of the federal Community Relations Service and Presi-~ dent Johnson's personal emissary to quiet things down in Selma, King was caught in the cross fire between’ the militancy of the civilrights forces and the legally sanctioned bodies attempting to dampen the struggle.
The night before the second march was to take place, Collins conferred separately with King and State Public Safety Director Al Lingo, a hated racist well known to Negroes. At first Collins tried to get King to call off the march entirely but it was too late for that; King could not call it off without taking the risk that it would be carried out without his moderating influence leading it -and government officials are anxious to keep King and his nonviolent philosophy at the head of the civil-rights movement. So, a plan was worked out, King agreed in advance to turn back when the march reached the bridge (even this limited action was in direct violation of the federal court order -- the first time King ever violated a federal court order). Lingo agreed to-let the Negroes hold a brief prayer session before turning back, King later revealed that Collins actually handed him the route he was to take!
On March 9 the demonstration took place. Many of the marchers had brought suitcases and bedrolls in anticipaticn of the several days journey to Montgomery. King had not told them of the plan to abort the march, When the long line of people reached the bridge, ~ Operation Double Cross was set into motion and went over smoothly. Once he got them back into Brown's Chapel Church, King told the marchers, "This was the greatest demonstration for freedom, the greatest confrontation of the South, We were able to do something
in Selma today that we'd never been able to do before. We stayed on a highway of Alabama and had a prayer session and a freedom rally,"
Not all the participants shared these sentiments. One young Negro exclaimed, "Sunday we went out there by ourselves and got our -heads busted. Now we had all these white people from all over the . country ready to take a chance with us and we didn't do anything but come back home,"
After this aborted march,the demonstrators were not allowed to parade at all but were confined within a Negro housing project. The younger Negroes argued, "Yesterday we could get over the bridge outside Selma; now we can't even get to the end of the street. You rouse us all up in the church and then you come out and stand in front of the police and do nothing but talk." A number of times the tension threatened to burst as demonstrators pressed against the barricades (dubbed the Berlin Wall) and the lines of club-swinging troopers,
While this was going on in Selma, a new crisis exploded in Montgomery. On March 15 mounted deputies rode their horses into a group of 300 civil-rights demonstrators. As the demonstrators retreated, they threw rocks and bottles at the charging police. A similar exchange took place the following day. Rev. King hurried to prop up nonviolence in Montgomery. At a church rally King opposed his views to the remarks made by James Forman, leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee [sncc]. Forman, speaking first, reminded the audience that President Johnson had said all Americans had the right to demonstrate. "We want to know if he means what he says. Is the President going to be made a liar? Or is he going to tell the truth?" Forman said he was prepared to go to Washington and lead "the most massive civil disobedience this nation has ever seen,
During the following days while King was negotiating with local officials, the nonviolent philosophy was continually preached to the civil-rights group by King's aides. When Rev. Bevel saw SNCC workers wearing protective plastic helmets he ordered, "Take those ~ inside the church, All they! re going to do is antagonize. If they're going to hit us, we're going to be unprotected." The SNCC workers put the helmets pack on again, however, when the march to the state capitol building began.
Although the young militants are voicing their dissatisfaction with King's leadership, there are those who welcome such a leader, When. County Prosecutor David Crosland received word that. King wes coming to Montgomery after the battles between police and demonstra-= tors, Crosland exclaimed happily, "I never thought I'd see the day when Itd welcome a visit by Martin Luther King to Montgomery."