Faced with strikes, the Federación Patronal used the tactic of the lockout. At the start of November, 1919, workers from several factories were turned out into the streets. This was the owners' response to the strike at La Canadiense. The lockout lasted until January, 1920, and ended in a humiliating defeat for the working class.
The CNT had planned its national conference for December. Around the same time the Catalan bourgeoisie organized the "Free Unions", composed of paid thugs recruited by the bourgeoisie and the military authorities. These were armed and guaranteed complete impunity, and they lost no time making their force felt throughout the country, above all in Catalonia, Levante and Aragon. Their sponsors, in addition to the Federación Patronal, were Industrial Spain, the Fomento de Trabajo Nacional. [11] the Hispano-Suiza Company, Miró y Trepat, and the Sindicato de Banca y Bolsa.
According to Farré Morego (Los atentados sociales en España), from 1917 to 1922 1,472 assassinations were attempted. Miguel Sastre (La esclavitud moderna) puts the number at 1,012, of which 753 were workers, 112 policemen, 95 owners, and 52 foremen. Ramon Rucabado (En torno al sindicalismo) counts 1,207 and, finally, according to an official source (Jos6 Pernartin, Los valores historicos de la dictadura española), from 1918 to 1923 there were 843 attacks in Barcelona, and 1,259 in all of Spain.
The most important confederal source is a booklet published by the Committee for Prisoners in Barcelona in 1923, which lists major trials, sentences and murders of the 1920-1923 period. The number of CNT members killed is given as 104, with 33 wounded. 12 Note one detail: in most military actions the number of wounded usually exceeds-even doubles-the number killed. Here, as can be seen (on the CNT side of course), the opposite occurred. This detail says more than might appear at first glance.
End of Excerpts.
No comments:
Post a Comment