Page 6 — Saturday, January 6, 1945

Falangist Regime Will
Soon Be Overthrown

By ANTONIO MIJE

Member Political Committee, Communist Party of Spain

MEXICO Glave

HE favorable course of the war since the great Soviet vic-
tories and, later, the opening of the second front have
had undoubted political repercussions in Spain. A’ reflection
of the victories won by the armed forces of the United Nations

is to be seen in two basic facts:
The weakening of the Franco re-
gime, and the rise to 4 new high
pitch of the fighting will of the
Spanish people.

All of which logically corres-
ponds to the military and politi-
eal situation in Europe, repre-
sented by the weakening of Hit-
lerism and the defeat of the
Hitler satellites in Romania. Fin-
land, France, and Bulgaria,
leading to the liberation of the
peoples in France, Romania, Bul-
Zaria, and Yugoslavia.

Hor Franco who has been and
is a Hitler satellite. has in his
turn suffered from the mighty
blows dealt by the victorious
armies of the United Nations.
Corresponding in certain ways
to the decline’ of Hitler’s power,
there is a decline of the Franco
regime, and this despite the ef-
forts that are beings made to
Save it by the capitulationists,
and by the Vatican as well. by
lending it powerful economic and
political support.

FRANCO FELT BLOWS

The Franco regime has re-
ceived and still receives power-
ful aid from certain conservative
circles in England and from cer-
tain reactionary circles in North
America, which, to the detri-
ment of Spanish sovereignty, are
bent upon maintaining a pro-
Nazi bastion in the Iberian pen-
insula.

The Spanish people, however,
by their struggle are defeating
and will defeat utterly the evil
designs of the CGlivedenites and
the McCormicks, as, in defense
of those interests which they
hold most sacred, they fight to
see the banners of victory shall
Wave in Spain as they already
are waving in other Huropean
countries, in order that they may
be able to enjoy in full the fruits
of liberty.

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So Bes
“BUT UNCLE SAM REQUEST WE

KEEP HEAT in”

Certain political changes ‘that
are of great interest have re-
cently been brought about in
Spain. Basically, these changes
coincide with a turn in the in-
ternational situation favorable to
the armed forces of the United
Nations that dates from the end
of the year 1943. At that time
there was created in Spain the
Supreme Junta of j# National
Union. These changes have
been determined by a number of
potent factors, but for the pur-
pose of the present article we
may sum them up under the fol-
lowing heads:

1. Greater and more active
participation in the struggle
against the Franco regime on
the part of the working class and
the popular masses, based upon
a clear consciousness of their
responsibility and a profound
comprehension of the extent of
the role they are to play in
Spain’s salvation.

2. Growing development of na-
tional unity throughout the
country, with the participation of
the Catholic anti-Franco forces,
incorporated in the Supreme
Junta of National Union.

3. A sharpening: of the contra-
dictions in the governing bloc—
principally between the army
and the Falange and between
the Falange and the Requete
Party—which reyeals an unges-
tionable weakening of Franco’s
power of domination.

4. And finally, the great effect
produced upon the masses and
the shock given to the Franco
regime by the formidable and un-
interrupted series of defeats
which the German fascist army
has suffered, which has led to
a great feeling of confidence and
assurance with regard to the
approaching United Nations vic-
coryae

NO LONGER ARMY CHIEF

The Franco regime has been
visibly weakened by these cir-
cumstances. It is a noteworthy
fact that General Franco him-
self is no longer the undisputed
leader of the army.

This is especially significant,
since it indicates that the gen-
eral’s ascendancy among many

of his comrades in arms and
subordinates is on the ‘wane.
Highly symptomatic, likewise,

is the fact that deep in the mind
of the masses a fundamental con-
cept has taken root, to the ef-
fect that the overthrow of the
bloody Falangist dictatotorship
should be the chief objective of
all Spaniards in their united
struggle—which does not ex-

‘clude support lent to other peo-

ples on the international field.

When we make the statement
that the Franco regime today
does not possess the same sta-
bility that it did in 19483, we do

German troops surrendering to American soldiers

trenches in the fighting on

the Western Front.

during an assault on enemy

3

so as the result of a minute and
hard-headed study of the latest
happenings in Spain. In 1943,
for example, it would not have
been possible to found, with any
prospect of success, national
journal of protest against the
regime. The spirit of retreat
that had laid hold of the masses
would not have permited the
conception and development of
any plans as audacious as that.

Yet in the first half of the
year 1944 a journal of this type
was founded and met with a
satisfactory response from the
masses in the various provinces.

It was in connection with the
First of May observances (May
ist and 2nd) that the Supreme
Junta of National Union took
occasion to launch such an organ,
not alone of protest against
Franco, hut “f sympathy for the
United Nations. The ascertained
results of this venture up to
now are the following:

In Madrid thousands upon
thousands of people paraded in
front of the United States and
British embassies. in spite of all
the terroristic measures. that
were taken by the police (Office
of National Safety).

More than 80,000 leaflets were
distributed, calling upon the peo-
ple to demonstrate.

PARTIAL STRIKES

Thousands of letters. directed
to the embassies in question,
were sent through the mail.

In Bilbao a strong attempt
was made to hold a demonstra-
tion in the populous Calle de San
Francisco, where a large number
of persons gathered with the ob-
ject of staging a parade.

a

There were partial ten-minute
work-stoppages in important
factories of Wizeaya. In Orense
there was a demonstration and
parade in the sti-eets.

The government, meanwhile,
gave evidence of its own fright
and feeling of insecurity by hold-
ing incommunicado during this
period all political prisoners in
the jails of Madrid, Barcelona,
Seville, Alicante, and Walencia.
From Galicia all the way to Ga-
diz and from Barcelona to Bada-

|

joz, in spite of brutal persecu-
tions and government censorship,
thousands of letters were dis-
patched to the diplomatic repre-
sentatives of England and the
United States, as a token of sym-
pathy and of loyalty to the Uni-
ted Nations’ cause.

These facts go to show that
the call of the Supreme Junta of
National Wnion did arouse an
echo among the broad masses of
the Spanish people, who respond-
ed by street demonstrations and
by sending letters to the Allied
embassies. his May Day ob-
servance was the first of its
kind to be organized since the
War, and its importance is readi-
ly to be deduced from an editorial
in the Falangist organ of Ma-
drid, Arriba, on May 15 which
read in part:

“Any form of demonstration
cpposed to peace and in favor of
an insurrection should be looked
upon by Spaniards not only as an
attack upon the Fatherland, but
also as a crime against the lives,
fortunes, labor and
all the people of Spain. . .

Coinciding with this forthright
declaration on the part of the
Falangist editors came another
from one of the principal leaders
of the Falange, the Minister of
Labor, Jose Antonio Giron. It
was made as part of a speech de-
livered in Jaen on May 16, in the
course of which the minister toolz
occasion to refer to:

3?

“

. . - the thoughts and desires
of those little ex-Spanish lead-
ers who are indifferent to Spain’s
grievous agony or the present
hour, a Spain that is torn by
cowardly hatreds, overwhelmed
with difficulties, without bread,
without coal, without cotton—
and it is in this hour of supreme
difficulty and anguish that they
choose from their safe refuge
abroad to east in her face the
venomous spittle of defamation,
calumny, and contempt... ”

SHOW JITTERS

The Falangist press and the
Falangist leaders were thus un-
able to conceal the high degree
of intensity which the cpposi-
tion to the regime had attained,
an opposition that today, in high-

liberty of,

ly concrete form and with huge -
popular support, is being or |
ganized and directed from place |
to place by the Supreme Junta |
of National Union. 3

The observance of the ist anc
2nd of May marks a definite
growth of the struggle, of thr }
movement of protest and of sabo. |
tage. It brings to light the co.)
ordination that exists in the}
mobilizing of the masses, whict |
shows that the leadership of the i
Supreme Junta is being accepted |

During the past months ther: |
have been a series of strikes an: |
various acts of sabotage tha |
have gone to increase the genera }
unrest, symptoms of vital im |
portance, confirming the growt.
and extension throughout th
country of a feelings of hatred fo.
the regime, a hatred that i
neither to bé hidden by Falan
gist repressions nor diminishe
by the ruses of tne Franco fol |
lowers; such as the attempt t
appear now as an ally of Eng
land and the United States. an
ally that has not, nor has had |
any political or military ties an: |
understandings with Hitler. E

Franco’s cynicism in this re @
spect is boundless. But these pa
litical trickeries neither stop no |
restrain the masses. for the lati™
ter know that Franco is and ha }
been a Hitler vassal. Proof of@
all this is to be had in recen a

Fees"

news items gleaned from th |
British press. The Observer =|
conservative London daily, hac!

this to say, under date of Se
25: 5

“Last Sunday there occurred)
a clash between the Falange an
the people. The Falange is in
clined to follow Himmler’s tac
tics, o£ provoking the Oppositio; |
with the object of crushine thi) :
movement before it matures)
This points to the possibility o)
things happening soon in Spain. e

And under the same date th [
Reynolds News of London con)
tained the followme: 9

“In Spain the propaganda o
the Supreme Junta of Nationa
Union is widely distributed. Th
panie of Franco and the Falang |

ere Ras eRe

leads them to augment the ter)
Lor. x ?