Tuesday 31 October 2017
UN independent expert urges Spanish Government to reverse decision on Catalan autonomy
GENEVA (25 October 2017) - The UN Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, Alfred de Zayas, is calling on Spanish authorities to enter into negotiations in good faith with leaders in Catalonia following the announcement that the Spanish Government would suspend the region’s autonomy. On 19 October, the Spanish Government announced its intention to impose direct rule on the region after a deadline seeking an end to the Catalan independence campaign was not met. His statement is as follows:
“I deplore the decision of the Spanish Government to suspend Catalan autonomy. This action constitutes retrogression in human rights protection, incompatible with Articles 1, 19, 25 and 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Pursuant to Articles 10(2) and 96 of the Spanish Constitution, international treaties constitute the law of the land and, therefore, Spanish law must be interpreted in conformity with international treaties.
“Denying a people the right to express themselves on the issue of self-determination, denying the legality of a referendum, using force to prevent the holding of a referendum, and cancelling the limited autonomy of a people by way of punishment constitutes a violation of Article 1 of the ICCPR and of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Alternatively, addressing the aspiration of peoples to self-determination in a timely fashion is an important conflict prevention measure, as is evidenced by the countless wars that have occurred since 1945 that found their origin in denial of self-determination. Dialogue and political negotiation should be encouraged to prevent violence.
“The Spanish Government appears to invoke the principle of territorial integrity to justify forceful attempts to silence political dissent and aspirations of self-determination. While the principle of territorial integrity is important, as understood in many United Nations Resolutions, including GA Resolutions 2625 and 3314, it is intended to be applied externally, to prohibit foreign threats or incursions into the territorial integrity of sovereign States. This principle cannot be invoked to quench the right of all people, guaranteed under Article 1 of the International Covenants on Human Rights, to express their desire to control their futures. The right of self-determination is a right of peoples and not a prerogative of States to grant or deny. In case of a conflict between the principle of territorial integrity and the human right to self-determination, it is the latter that prevails.
“Of course, there are many peoples worldwide who aspire to self-determination, whether internal in the form of autonomy or external in the form of independence. And while the realization of self-determination is not automatic or self-executing, it is a fundamental human right that the international community should help implement.
“The international law of self-determination has also progressed far beyond mere decolonization. Applying the 15 criteria contained in my 2014 report (paras 63-77), it is evident that no state can use the principle of territorial integrity to deny the right of self-determination and that arguments about the legality of actions taken by Catalonia’s elected parliament are immaterial. Such arguments do not nullify the ius cogens character of self-determination.
“The only democratic solution to the current impasse is to suspend repressive measures and to organize a referendum so as to determine the true wishes of the population concerned. Such a referendum should be monitored by the EU, OSCE and private observers including the Carter Center.”
ENDS
Mr. Alfred de Zayas (United States of America) was appointed as the first Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order by the Human Rights Council, effective May 2012. He is currently professor of international law at the Geneva School of Diplomacy. Mr. de Zayas practiced corporate law and family law in New York and Florida. As a Human Rights Council mandate holder, he is independent from any government or organization and serves in his individual capacity
Source -
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22295
Monday 30 October 2017
Saturday 28 October 2017
Catalonia declares Independence - - Welcome to Catalan Republic
The independence motion was passed with 70 votes in favor, 10 against, and two blank ballots, the assembly's speaker announced, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has urged for calm, stating that the rule of law will be restored in Catalonia.
"L'organització Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr de Gal•les afirma que la lluita catalana és bàsicament una lluita per la democràcia contra un Estat espanyol burgès corrupte, que ha pres una forma nacional a Catalunya.
No obstant això, el lideratge nacionalista català busca subordinar a Catalunya a una Brussel•les corrupta i a la Unió Europea, no és l'alliberament nacional, sinó un simple reajustament entre els burgesos nacionals de l'Estat espanyol i d'Europa.
L'Esquerra Revolucionària de Catalunya s´ha d'oposar tant al corrupte Estat espanyol com a la corrupta Unió Europa, l'OTAN i elevar a la classe obrera al lideratge polític de la lluita nacional per la democràcia a Catalunya. La classe obrera ha de guanyar la direcció de l'alliberament nacional.
Suport a la declaració unilateral d'independència de Catalunya.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
La organización Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr de Gales afirma que la lucha catalana es básicamente una lucha por la democracia contra un Estado español burgués corrupto, que ha tomado una forma nacional en Cataluña.
Sin embargo, el liderazgo nacionalista catalán busca subordinar a Cataluña a una Bruselas corrupta y a la Unión Europea, no es la liberación nacional, sino un simple reajuste entre los burgueses nacionales del Estado español y de Europa.
La Izquierda Revolucionaria de Cataluña debe oponerse tanto al corrupto Estado español como a la corrupta Unión Europa, la OTAN y elevar a la clase obrera al liderazgo político de la lucha nacional por la democracia en Cataluña. La clase obrera debe ganar la dirección de la liberación nacional.
Apoyo a la declaración unilateral de independencia de Catalunya.
Socialism and Independence
Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr in Wales says the Catalan struggle is basically a struggle for democracy against a corrupt bourgeois Spanish State which has taken a national form in Catalonia.
However the bourgeois nationalist Catalan leadership seeks to subordinate Catalonia to a corrupt Brussels and the European Union - this is not national liberation but a readjustment among the national bourgeois in the Spanish State and Europe.
The Revolutionary Left in Catalonia should oppose both the corrupt Spanish State and the corrupt European Union and NATO and elevate the working class to political leadership of the national struggle for democracy in Catalonia - the working class should win the direction of national liberation.
Support a unilateral declaration of independence
Sunday 22 October 2017
Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr says the European Union is the enemy of justice and democracy and self determination
Yr Afonyddwch Mawr says the European Union is the enemy of justice of those 1000 people in Catalonia who were attacked by Spanish Police and needed medical assistance for merely voting - it is an enemy of the millions in Catalonia who uphold the fundamental United Nations established democratic right of national self determination.
The CUP is a Catalan Independence Party with roots in the working class that did not sow democratic illusions about the EU unlike other bourgeois parties.
The Internationalist Case Against the EU - Quim Arrufat of Catalan Party CUP
https://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/the-internationalist-case-against-eu.html
There are many lessons to be learned from the current struggle in Catalonia about the class struggle for justice and democracy in Europe particularly for Sinn Fein the SNP and Plaid Cymru all democratic illusion spreaders about EU institutions.
In fact as a sign of its political illiteracy that Plaid Cymru has called for a second referendum on EU showing its political blindness about events in Catalonia as they continue to spread the EU democratic illusion in face of the facts.
Article 50 and the National and Social Liberation of the British Isles by Nickglais
https://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/article-50-and-national-and-social.html
EU Treachery
Flemish view
“[The EU] have been backing the Spanish government – first on October 10, when the Catalan Prime Minister (Carles Puigdemont) was about to declare independence, (European Council president) Donald Tusk begged him to make a gesture of goodwill and Puigdemont did – he suspended the declaration of independence, so it would open a possibility of talks. But now the same Donald Tusk is just saying that Spain is [fine] to follow its repressive [course of action]. I think they are making a big, big mistake.”
“[The EU] have been backing the Spanish government – first on October 10, when the Catalan Prime Minister (Carles Puigdemont) was about to declare independence, (European Council president) Donald Tusk begged him to make a gesture of goodwill and Puigdemont did – he suspended the declaration of independence, so it would open a possibility of talks. But now the same Donald Tusk is just saying that Spain is [fine] to follow its repressive [course of action]. I think they are making a big, big mistake.”
Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr says the European Union is the enemy of justice and democracy and self determination
Yr Afonyddwch Mawr says the European Union is the enemy of justice of those 1000 people in Catalonia who were attacked by Spanish Police and needed medical assistance for merely voting - it is an enemy of the millions in Catalonia who uphold the fundamental United Nations established democratic right of national self determination.
The CUP is a Catalan Independence Party with roots in the working class that did not sow democratic illusions about the EU unlike other bourgeois parties.
The Internationalist Case Against the EU - Quim Arrufat of Catalan Party CUP
https://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/the-internationalist-case-against-eu.html
There are many lessons to be learned from the current struggle in Catalonia about the class struggle for justice and democracy in Europe particularly for Sinn Fein the SNP and Plaid Cymru all democratic illusion spreaders about EU institutions.
In fact as a sign of its political illiteracy that Plaid Cymru has called for a second referendum on EU showing its political blindness about events in Catalonia as they continue to spread the EU democratic illusion in face of the facts.
Article 50 and the National and Social Liberation of the British Isles by Nickglais
https://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/article-50-and-national-and-social.html
EU Treachery
Flemish view
“[The EU] have been backing the Spanish government – first on October 10, when the Catalan Prime Minister (Carles Puigdemont) was about to declare independence, (European Council president) Donald Tusk begged him to make a gesture of goodwill and Puigdemont did – he suspended the declaration of independence, so it would open a possibility of talks. But now the same Donald Tusk is just saying that Spain is [fine] to follow its repressive [course of action]. I think they are making a big, big mistake.”
“[The EU] have been backing the Spanish government – first on October 10, when the Catalan Prime Minister (Carles Puigdemont) was about to declare independence, (European Council president) Donald Tusk begged him to make a gesture of goodwill and Puigdemont did – he suspended the declaration of independence, so it would open a possibility of talks. But now the same Donald Tusk is just saying that Spain is [fine] to follow its repressive [course of action]. I think they are making a big, big mistake.”
Thursday 19 October 2017
Spain and the Catalan Crisis by Dr Andrew Dowling
The Dr Andrew Dowling lecture shows the strengths and weaknesses of the Catalan national movement particularly its weakness in the working class unlike Scotland where the working class is more strongly represented in the national movement - it shows while the CUP has working class support there is much work to be done to strengthen working class position in national movement and particularly in its leadership - the hesitancy of the bourgeois leadership of the Catalan Independence Movement is self evident and the working class forces like CUP may be too weak to seize direction of the national movement hence Dr Andrew Dowling's conclusion that the Catalan National Movement lacks the strength to break with Spain at this moment in time.
Dr Andrew Dowling (School of Modern Languages, Cardiff University) is a specialist on modern and contemporary Catalonia and is the author of The Rise of Catalan Independence: Spain’s Territorial Crisis published by Routledge in December 2017. He has previously written Reconstructing the Nation: Catalonia since the Spanish Civil War (Sussex Academic Press, 2012), as well as numerous academic articles
Spanish government will meet on Saturday to trigger article 155, withdrawing Catalonia's right to self-governance
Statement in Catalan and Spanish of Solidarity with struggle in Catalonia
"L'organització Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr de Gal•les afirma que la lluita catalana és bàsicament una lluita per la democràcia contra un Estat espanyol burgès corrupte, que ha pres una forma nacional a Catalunya.
No obstant això, el lideratge nacionalista català busca subordinar a Catalunya a una Brussel•les corrupta i a la Unió Europea, no és l'alliberament nacional, sinó un simple reajustament entre els burgesos nacionals de l'Estat espanyol i d'Europa.
L'Esquerra Revolucionària de Catalunya s´ha d'oposar tant al corrupte Estat espanyol com a la corrupta Unió Europa, l'OTAN i elevar a la classe obrera al lideratge polític de la lluita nacional per la democràcia a Catalunya. La classe obrera ha de guanyar la direcció de l'alliberament nacional.
Suport a la declaració unilateral d'independència de Catalunya.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
La organización Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr de Gales afirma que la lucha catalana es básicamente una lucha por la democracia contra un Estado español burgués corrupto, que ha tomado una forma nacional en Cataluña.
Sin embargo, el liderazgo nacionalista catalán busca subordinar a Cataluña a una Bruselas corrupta y a la Unión Europea, no es la liberación nacional, sino un simple reajuste entre los burgueses nacionales del Estado español y de Europa.
La Izquierda Revolucionaria de Cataluña debe oponerse tanto al corrupto Estado español como a la corrupta Unión Europa, la OTAN y elevar a la clase obrera al liderazgo político de la lucha nacional por la democracia en Cataluña. La clase obrera debe ganar la dirección de la liberación nacional.
Apoyo a la declaración unilateral de independencia de Catalunya.
Socialism and Independence
Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr in Wales says the Catalan struggle is basically a struggle for democracy against a corrupt bourgeois Spanish State which has taken a national form in Catalonia.
However the bourgeois nationalist Catalan leadership seeks to subordinate Catalonia to a corrupt Brussels and the European Union - this is not national liberation but a readjustment among the national bourgeois in the Spanish State and Europe.
The Revolutionary Left in Catalonia should oppose both the corrupt Spanish State and the corrupt European Union and NATO and elevate the working class to political leadership of the national struggle for democracy in Catalonia - the working class should win the direction of national liberation.
Support a unilateral declaration of independence
SEE ASLO _https://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/the-national-question-once-again.html
Tuesday 17 October 2017
Monday 16 October 2017
Tuesday 10 October 2017
Liam Mellows Socialist Republican visionary by Sean Doyle
We have assembled here today to commemorate the life of Liam Mellows. Through the generations revolutionaries have come to the fore to take up the mantle to guide, inspire and lead us in our quest for liberation.
Liam Mellows contribution and sacrifices places him amongst our Socialist Republican visionaries. He was born in Manchester to William Joseph Mellows on the 25th of May 1895 who was a British army non commissioned officer, and Sarah Jordan of Inch, County Wexford where he grew up. His family moved to Fairview in Dublin in February 1895 when his father was transferred. However Liam remained in Wexford with his grandfather due to ill health. He was educated in Cork and Portobello garrison school in Dublin but ultimately refused a military career much to his father’s dismay choosing to work as a clerk in several Dublin firms.
Nationalist-inclined Mellows approached Thomas Clarke who recruited him to Fianna Eireann, an organisation of young Republicans. Mellows was introduced to James Connolly at Countess Markeviczs residence recuperating after his hunger strike. Connolly was deeply impressed and told his daughter Nora “I have found a real man”. He was possibly about 19 years old and Connolly was 47 but they were equally committed on views to achieve an Irish Republic. Mellows was active in the I.R.B. and a founder member of the Irish Volunteers being brought into its organising committee to strengthen the Fianna representation. He was arrested and jailed on several occasions under The Defence Of The Realm Act.
We do not seek to make this country, a materially great country at the expense of its honour in any way whatsoever. We would rather, have this country poor and indignant; we would rather have the people of Ireland eking out a poor existence on the soil; so long as they possessed their souls, their minds, and their honour. This fight has been for something more than the fleshpots of Empire – Liam Mellows (1895-1922).
On Friday morning, April 28th 1916, the wounded James Connolly reviewed as Commandant General of the Irish Republican forces the situation on the fifth day of the insurrection. In the course of the despatch he said that Captain Mellows “fresh after his escape from an English prison, is in the field with his men”. The young Liam Mellows commanded the Republican forces in Galway, the only county outside of Dublin to respond to the Rising. Mellows’ presence had much to do with that. He was a member of the I.R.B., organiser in Galway for the Irish Volunteers, and very determined.
Galway city was loyal, the County Inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary reported to Dublin Castle; it was not in sympathy with Sinn Fein or the Volunteers and “recruited very largely, for the (British) army.” Matters were different in Athenry, an old Land League stronghold. “There is always trouble there” County Inspector E.M. Clayton told the Royal Commission on the Rebellion. “They became so expert with and accustomed to firearms that the teaching “to rise with arms” did not shock them. They glided quietly into the new condition of affairs.
The energetic Mellows was arrested in March, 1916 and deported to England on April 2nd. This blow to the Rising in the West was remedied during Holy Week when his brother Barney and James Connolly’s daughter Nora crossed to Staffordshire. Barney changed places with Liam who then proceeded to Dublin – via Glasgow and Belfast – disguised as a priest. He stayed at St. Enda’s school in Rathfarnham where he received his orders from Pearse and Connolly, and travelled to the West on Good Friday. The confusion over the conflicting mobilisation instructions affected Galway like every other area and wasn’t straightened out till Monday evening when Pearse sent a message saying, ”Dublin has acted 12 noon today.”
Mellows’s men were depending on the arms. They hadn’t enough weapons and ammunition to seize an R.I.C. barracks. Nevertheless they cut rail and telegraph lines, blocked roads, attacked Clarinbridge and Athenry police barracks and occupied the village of Oranmore until troops arrived from Galway; Mellows with a small party covered the withdrawal. Athenry was reinforced by 200 extra constabulary; the Volunteers routed a patrol that tried to push out from the town. A thousand Marines landed in Galway city and naval sloops conducted firing exercises from the bay to intimidate the people.
On Wednesday the Volunteers took over Moyode Castle near Ballinasloe. It was a poor defensive position and on Friday they pulled out amid reports that Crown forces were preparing an attack. The Volunteers marched to the Clare border with the intention of linking up with whatever other Republican forces might be still in the field. But on Saturday morning a priest arrived at the new encampment with the news that Dublin was in flames. He advised the Volunteers to disband. Mellows argued against this: he wanted them to fight on as a guerrilla force: but was outvoted and the Volunteers went home.
Subsequently they were rounded up and transported to England and some who did not join the Rising shared their fate. “We had hardly any guns or ammunition”, Mellows said of the short campaign “I had to send many of them home. I never knew the blackness of despair until then”.
With two companions Mellows went on the run in County Clare. No one was in arms there, they quickly discovered; but they were given food and shelter and managed to avoid arrest. Mellows’s name cropped up during the enquiry into the Rebellion. County Inspector P.C. Power of Kilkenny said his area was quiet until Mac Diarmada and Mellows - he called them “John Mc Dermott and William Mellows” held meetings there sometime before the Rising. “What has happened to Mellows?” Justice Shearman asked. “Mellows is on the run, too with a good many more”, replied County Inspector Clayton. “ He is somewhere in Ireland” said Major Ivor Price, Director Of Military Intelligence for Irish Command, who before the war headed the Crimes Special Branch of the R.I.C. “ I hope we shall see him some day” . At Christmas, 1916, Mellows escaped to America aboard a British munitions ship sailing from Liverpool.
Liam Mellows was one of the young organisers who built Na Fianna Eireann, the movement founded in 1909 by Constance Markievicz and Bulmer Hobson “to train the boys of Ireland to fight Ireland’s battle when they are men”, as a 1914 manifesto declared. He rode around the country on a bicycle, organising the Fianna and - after November, 1913 - training the Volunteers. Without the Fianna there would have been no Volunteers, Pearse said; and without the Volunteers there would have been no 1916. Fianna boys dragged a trek cart from Dublin to Howth on Sunday morning, July 26th, 1914, to meet the Asgard.
The return journey was harder for the cart was loaded with rifles and ammunition boxes. At Clontarf a line of soldiers with fixed bayonets barred their path. The boys ran down a side road with their trek cart which later they took to Madame’s house, not the safest place in the circumstances. Next day Liam Mellows shifted the cargo to safety with the aid of Nora Connolly and some Fianna girls, who sat on the weapons as they were removed by cab, and a couple of Volunteers. In New York, Mellows went to work in the office of the Gaelic American and as an organiser for the Friends Of Irish Freedom. The Friends Of Irish Freedom was a Clan front Organisation founded in the Spring of 1916 at the Irish Race Convention. Four months after Mellows arrived in America, the United States declared war on the Central Powers. The Gaelic American was banned from the mails, a severe blow to a publication depending on subscriptions for sales. As a political exile from Ireland Mellows was under constant surveillance. When he spoke at meetings of The Irish Progressive League - the only Irish American group to stand out boldly for Ireland during this period – Secret Service men would sit in the audience. He once opened a meeting at the Irish Carmelite hall on East 29th Street, New York, with these words:
What will you say when your grandchildren ask you what you did in this great war to free small peoples? Will you tell them you were engaged in New York City holding down the unarmed Irish, and with revolvers trying to silence their claim to be free?
Mellows’s constant aim was to return to Ireland. When Dr. Patrick Mc Cartan arrived in the Summer of 1917 for the I.R.B. as “envoy of the Irish Republic” he nearly succeeded. Mc Cartan carried a message for President Wilson signed by 26 prominent officers of the Irish Volunteers, including Eamon De Valera and Eoin Mc Neill. The message began.
We the undersigned who have been held in English prisons and who have been dragged from dungeon to dungeon in heavy chains, cut off since Easter Week, 1916, from all intercourse with the outside world, have just had an opportunity of seeing the printed text of the message of United States Of America to the Provisional Government Of Russia: we see that the President accepts the aims of both countries “the carrying of the present struggle for freedom of all people to a successful conclusion.
When Wilson refused to see him, Mc Cartan decided to go to Russia. But it was wartime and he could not travel openly. Joseph Mc Garrity got seaman’s papers for Mc Cartan and Mellows, who hoped to reach Ireland from neutral Holland. Mc Cartan shipped out first. He was seized at Halifax, Nova Scotia. Mellows was arrested in New York and lodged in the Tombs prison. Both were interrogated at great length by the Secret Service. An alleged Mellows “confession” was leaked to the press. The following account is from the Philadelphia Evening Ledger of October 27th, 1917:
According to government officials who grilled Mellows several hours following his arrest, he admitted that he frequently met Colohan, Jeremiah O’ Leary and Devoy and that he talked of matters prejudicial to the best interests of this country and her allies. These meetings, according to Mellows, were held at the Murray Hill Hotel and the Maennercher Hall on the East Side of New York.
“General” Mellows was charged with conspiring to bring about a rebellion in Ireland and pleaded guilty to the charge when arraigned before Commissioner Hitchbrook. He was held in 7,500 dollars bail and so far had been unable to procure a bondsman. When Mellows was taken to the headquarters of the Secret Service in the custom house he was put through a thorough questioning by William J. Flynn, chief of the Secret Service. His every move in this country was enquired into, and naturally Mr Flynn wanted to know who his associates were and the matters discussed when they met in conclave. According to a transcript of this testimony which came to light, Mellows attended several meetings at the Murray Hill Hotel last winter when Justice Colohan, Devoy and O’Leary were present.
Colohan, a New York politician, was the most important member of the Clan after Devoy. He was a bitter foe of President Wilson, and although a Democrat had publicly opposed the leader of his party in the 1916 elections. He believed the administration was seeking to destroy him because of it. Jeremiah O’Leary, American born like Colohan, published the satirical weekly “Bull” which Washington considered pro-German. Devoy said the Secret Service manufactured the Mellows “confession” to implicate himself and Colohan in a non-existent plot. He insisted that Mellows had not been abandoned by the Clan. He had been left in the Tombs for a reason. “They wanted him released on bail so as to use him as a bait to entrap others” he wrote in the Gaelic American” in the desperate hope that they could frame up a conspiracy case”.
Mellows may not have appreciated such reasoning. Most observers believed that the man who was making the decisions for the Clan was not the aged Devoy but Colohan. Others came to Mellows’s aid and he was freed from prison; the case was not disposed of until May, 1919, when Mellows and Mc Cartan were fined 250 dollars each for using false seaman’s papers.
The Tombs incident left a bad taste. The breach between Mellows and Devoy widened. Colohan and Devoy had tried to coerce Mellows into taking out “first citizenship” papers to “save myself”, he told Mrs Hearn of Westfield, Massachusetts in 1920. In the same letter he charged that when Ireland was “facing disaster and death” in 1918, Colohan and Devoy had done nothing. He had only contempt for “the structure that battens on the work and sacrifices of the people at home”, Mellows wrote. And he asked: “How dare the old man talk of the young men at home in view of the treatment meted out to the young men who came over since 1916, and were not a bit different from those left behind?”
The 1918 charge had to do with the second Irish Race Convention held in New York in May of that year. Colohan went to great lengths to assert the “Americanism” of the gathering and his speech was spattered with declarations of loyalty. Mc Garrity barred federal agents from the hall. Mellows delivered a powerful plea for Ireland in the course of which he denounced the “German plot” round up of Irish Republican leaders. He said:
There are times ahead for Ireland which are going to try the people of Ireland as they have never been tried before, and are we going to sit here and keep our mouths shut? We all feel these things too deeply now any longer to conceal the truth. A wrong is going to be perpetrated on Ireland the like of which even the British government never conceived before. They have stated that they discovered a German plot, in order that they might thus alienate the sympathy of the people of America from Ireland. They could then turn around and do as they liked in Ireland, while the world looked on and laughed. This wrong that is going to be done in Ireland is a terrible thing. Conscription at the hands of the British government is a crime, not alone against the Irish people, but against the whole civilised world. And I say that America, by its silence on the question of Ireland’s independence, has been and is still, until it speaks out acquiescing in England’s domination. If there is bloodshed in Ireland, if our men and boys and women and girls are slaughtered, the fight will not alone be that of the men, but the women will take part in it also. This time the fight will be for the preservation of the very life of the Irish nation. If there be bloodshed in Ireland, the blame will not rest alone on the British government; it will rest on America, unless America speaks out on behalf of Ireland.
The draft board of New York city sent Mellows a questionnaire which he returned unanswered on January 10th 1918 giving these reasons: “First, because I am an Irishman and have devoted all my humble efforts since I came to the use of reason to help free my country from the tyrannous domination of England”. He said he would have no connection under any circumstances with the armed forces of the American government which by its silence on Ireland acquiesced in England’s occupation. He added:
I am a citizen of the Irish Republic proclaimed at Easter 1916 which has the allegiance of the overwhelming majority of the people of Ireland, but which this country has not yet recognised. I owe allegiance to one country only – Ireland – and the cause of Irish freedom, which is the cause of God.
Coholan and Devoy barred Mellows from addressing further public meetings. When Mellows threatened to resign from the Gaelic American the quarrel was patched up. But the differences continued. He told Nora Connolly in a letter dated September 14th 1919 that a campaign of the most vile and vicious slander started which has lasted to the present time. His efforts to halt the conscription of young Irishmen were opposed by Colohan. “I was ostracised everywhere everywhere from almost everything”, said Mellows.
Liam Mellows was elected for two constituencies in the December 1918 general election: North Meath and East Galway. When the First Dail met they entered his name on the roll in Irish Liam O’ Maoiliosa and wrote ar dibirt ag Gallaibh after it. Meanwhile the deputy for North Meath and East Galway was without a job in America. He left the Gaelic American at Christmas 1918 hoping to go to California but the court case prevented that. He went to work on the docks as a casual labourer before getting a teaching job at the school run by the Irish Carmelites in Manhattan.
The Clan sponsored a meeting in New York on January 5th 1919 to congratulate the Irish people on the great election victory of Sinn Fein in December. Colohan using the Wilsonian catch cry stressed Ireland’s right to self determination. He said nothing about an Irish Republic. Mellows on the other hand declared that the Irish people have “exercised so far as lay in their power the right to self determination and they have determined that Ireland shall and must be free and independent”. Next night the Irish Progressive League meeting in the same location (the Central Opera House) expressed the determination of the Irish in America to uphold the new Irish Republic and to insist that it be permitted to work out its own destiny without British interference. Mellows was one of the speakers. Another speaker was Norman Thomas future leader of the American Socialist Party. Colohan was annoyed by the rejection of his leadership and the self determination formula and a split along ideological lines was evident.
Then on January 21st Dail Eireann held its founding meeting. The Republic proclaimed in 1916 was ratified and the radical Democratic programme – which was to influence Mellows a great deal – adopted. Cathal Brugha as Priomh Aire (Prime Minister) in a message to America urged the Irish there to work for international recognition of the Irish Republic. The third Irish Race Convention opened in Philadelphia on February 22nd and Colohan trotted out his self determination resolution once more despite the efforts of Mc Garrity, Mc Cartan and Mellows to substitute demands for recognition of the Irish Republic.
Mellows was not exactly a welcome guest. Indeed he only learned of the convention through the newspapers. Among the honoured guests was the conservative Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore, and Colohan did not want any radical speeches while his eminence was listening. So he asked Mellows to speak on the first day when the Cardinal was absent; Mellows refused. Because Mc Cartan would not speak for the self-determination resolution he too was renounced as a dangerous character by Colohan.
‘As for me I’m beyond redemption’ Mellows told Nora Connolly in the letter already quoted. ‘Am looked on as wild, hot headed, undisciplined-liable to get movement into trouble - dubbed a socialist and anarchist.’
During the big flu epidemic of 1919 Mellows fell ill and almost died, he told Nora Connolly. What worried him most was that he had only three dollars - then worth 12 shillings - which was hardly enough to bury him. He told the writer John Brennan and one of the Gifford sisters of Dublin then living in New York, that the doctor who attended him said something about his illness being brought on by hunger and privation. He started to work too soon, collapsed at the famous meeting in New York when President Wilson on the eve of his departure for the Peace Conference at Versailles refused to meet a delegation of Irish-Americans unless Colohan withdrew, and suffered a relapse. Joe Mc Garrity took him to Philadelphia and afterwards to Atlantic City where the sea air did wonders for his health.
Harry Boland arrived in America in May 1919 as the representative of the I.R.B. and President De Valera followed a couple of weeks later. His law case settled Mellows planned to return to Ireland. But Boland got sick and he had to take his place of De Valera’s schedule. During the 18 months mission to America Mellows was De Valera’s advance courier to the many cities visited on the continental tour. Mellows sided with De Valera in the split with Devoy and Colohan and on March 9th 1920 wrote to Mrs Hearn:
How often I lay awake at night unable to sleep because of the indignation I feel burning into my very soul. And yet the thought comes how futile when the real enemy requires all our hatred. And I pity Colohan.
On September 1st 1920 as Terence Mc Swiney was fasting in Brixton Prison, Mellows wrote to Mrs Hearn’s son John:
Oh dear! How small we all appear in the face of this terrible tragedy. How little indeed are the ambitions that have brought the movement into such a pass here compared with the great principles for which Mc Swiney is giving up all.
Are we genetically impaired after generations of British oppression with native collaboration incapable of recognising the twin evils that has been catalogued throughout our history of sell outs, and betrayal for elite economic gain? Our struggle has always been national and social revolution which should be affirmed as often as necessary until there is no ambiguity and we consolidate our forces to achieve our goal.
Liam Mellows’s mentor James Connolly said:
We mean to be free and in every enemy of tyranny we recognise a brother wherever be his birthplace. In every enemy of freedom we also recognise our enemy though he were as Irish as our hills.
What is our problem with recognising that some Irish find that their class interests are more important than their national difference and thus become enemies of our freedom? I have no doubt if the British had not executed James Connolly in 1916 The Treaties Free Staters would have in 1922. Because his grasp and understanding of the struggle and our past history would leave no hiding place for their treachery and hypocrisy we had well documented.
TONE:
He was crucified in life, now he is idolised in death, and the men who push forward most arrogantly to burn incense at the altar of his fame are drawn from the very class who were he alive today would hasten to repudiate him as a dangerous malcontent. False as they are to every one of the great principles to which our hero consecrated his life, they cannot hope to deceive the popular instinct, and their presence at the ’98 commemorations will only bring into greater relief the depth to which they have sunk. Our Home Rule leaders will find that the glory of Wolfe Tone’s memory will serve, not to cover, but to accentuate the darkness of their shame. It will be thus seen that Tone built up his hopes upon a successful prosecution of a class war, although those who pretend to imitate him today raise up their hands in holy horror at the mere mention of the phrase.
FAMINE
A Poor Relief Bill in 1847 made provision for the employment of labour on public works but stipulated that none should be employed who retained more than a quarter of an acre of land; this induced tens of thousands to surrender their farms for the sake of a bite to eat, and saved the landlords all the trouble and expense of eviction. When this had been accomplished to a sufficient extent 734,000 persons were discharged, and as they had given up their farms to get employment on the works they were now as helpless as men on a raft in mid ocean.
We must write our history correctly identifying 1847 as genocide. People in this society will preach to preserve the free market. In recent time the government received a report recommending a cap on land prices agricultural rate plus 25% which they ignored.
God forbid that they would put people before their free market masters. The result; social crime of devastating proportion that has destroyed families’ peace and home serenity paramount to children’s development. The inflated cost of the most human requirement of every person a modest roof over our heads. That has been allowed to spiral out of control to feed the appetite of greed of bankers, speculators and developers by governments who ignored the report. They dare not to interfere with the free market that is the heart that drives capitalism and is what has destroyed our society for all our citizens. For example; in the greedy free market system a portion of land is offered for sale which attracts interest of speculators. Their bankers have long dispensed with the recommended regulation. The bidding is excessive. The banker who funds the speculator is paid a huge bonus. The speculator sells to a developer. The banker gets a bonus. The developer passes the excesses onto every house. Our children pay for it all. Their income is not sufficient so the lending institution changes their regulation and in some cases gives 100% mortgages. Some of our children still can’t afford to buy. They are presented with continue to rent or move to another county which some opted for which means getting up at 5.30am taking children out of cots and beds transporting them to minders, go to work and collect them in the evening, not arriving home till late to bed and repeat the same process day in day out. No life and no way to bring up children. All because of the unrestricted greed of a few with the support of governments.
From 2006 onwards they even issued cost of living indexes excluding houses. The single most draining part of our income because of the uncontrolled greed of the aforementioned and stamp duty that had the government awash with money to pay for junkets to far destinations all over the world. Extravagance beyond belief. When you realise every struggling mortgage holder is paying 100,000 plus which was the speculators’ reward for the misery inflicted with the aid of government. The most outrageous statement that beggars belief came from the banks. That they are going to stress test new mortgage applicants. After all the citizens are stretched to their limit bailing out the same banks, insurance companies, foreign banks, speculators, developers decreed by the government and the EU who through their greed added 100,000 plus to the cost of mortgages.
You Joe Citizen pay for your house plus the lavish lifestyles of the aforementioned and accepted a 50,000 debt around your children’s necks. Is it any wonder they want to stress test you? And the government for their part are introducing home tax starting at 100 euro and by 2014 rising to 1300 including water tax. The sale of the best of our semi state companies in an attempt to prop up this vicious self serving monetary monster that is sucking the life blood out of the citizens of Europe. And of course the Free State parliament exercising its loyalty by giving away our children’s inheritance - our natural resources. Vast quantities of gas and oil have been discovered under Irish waters in the Atlantic ocean over the last fifteen years.
The government figures puts the value of these resources at 420 billion but it is a very conservative estimate, the true figure with global prices of oil and gas rises. The wealth will be leaving Ireland thanks to a deal made between FF and multinational oil companies. Minister Ray Burke later jailed for corruption changed a law in 1987 reducing the states share in our offshore oil and gas from 50 % to 0 and abolished royalties in 1992. Minister Bertie Ahern reduced the tax rate for the profits made from the sale of these resources from 50 to 25%. The respected economists Colm Raffle said, the amount of tax will be very low and will not be paid for years into the operation. Because the deal allows the companies to write off 100% of costs even the cost of shutting down the operation before they declare the profits to be taxed.
In major oil and gas producing countries the state takes an average medium of 68% of the value of gas and oil. But not in Ireland the state is using tax payers money to force the people of Mayo to allow shell to bring the gas to shore and take it away free.
This is a declaration of war on the people of Ireland and must be confronted before our people are totally impoverished and are natural resources stripped bare.
In conclusion, I would like to send our support to the Shell to Sea campaign and wish them the best of luck in their endeavours.
Tractors Symbol of Catalan Independence arrive near Catalan Parliament
NO DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE- IT WAS SUSPENDED PENDING TALKS VISIT
https://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/catalan-president-puidgemont-does-not.html
Sunday 8 October 2017
SEAMUS COSTELLO 40TH ANNIVERSARY BY SEAN DOYLE
Comrade Sean Doyle
SEAMUS COSTELLO 40TH ANNIVERSARY BY SEAN DOYLE COSTELLO MEMORIAL COMMITTEE, ROYAL HOTEL, BRAY, COUNTY WICKLOW. 07/10/2017.
My name is Sean Doyle of The Costello Memorial Committee. It is a great honour and privilege to accept your invitation to speak and pay tribute here today about Seamus Costello a man who had such a profound influence on my thinking and I must say an enriched and gave the best sense of feeling alive I’ve ever known. I suppose in the Connolly phrase it was the “awakening of a slave”.
Speaking about Seamus Costello, Nora Connolly O'Brein, the daughter of James Connolly, said
"I regret that I never had the honour of meeting Seamus Costello in person. But, I have heard a lot of his speeches, and I admired so much all that I had heard about him. So it was a great horror to hear that he had been shot.
I had so much hope in him. To me, he expressed himself so much on my father’s line of thought that it was evident that he had been thorough reader of all James Connolly’s, writings.
He seemed to be the leader who would bring about an organisation such as my father wished to bring about. Of all the politicians and political people with whom I have had conversations, and who called themselves followers of Connolly, he was the only one that truly understood what James Connolly meant when he spoke of his vision of the freedom of the Irish people.
In him, I had hoped at last after all these years, a true leader had come, who could and would build an organisation such as James Connolly tried to do.
I dislike very much to have to use a phrase that it is a cliché- to say that he is “a great loss”. But there has been no greater loss to those fighting the same fight. Seamus Costello’s death was a loss to the cause of Irish freedom.
As Seamus Costello was a true disciple of James Connolly and his teachings, I can only hope that among those who were associated with him and who learned from him, there will be another disciple to take his place and build an organisation among the workers and people of Ireland that will be bound to bring Ireland James Connolly’s and Seamus Costello’s vision of freedom."
On Constitutional Nationalism, Connolly was clear. He wrote "The Home Rule Party were merely the ambassadors at a foreign court – ambassadors who remained powerless until the popular armies in Ireland had struck down landlordism in spite of evictions, battering rams, imprisonment and death. The extent of our indebtedness to the Home Rule Party can be gauged by measuring the relative achievements of the people who fought and won the fight on the land question- a fight fought and won outside parliament- and the people who fought and lost the battle of Home Rule- a purely parliamentary battle…
The Irish parliamentarians met the British politicians on their own their own chosen field of battle- and lost every move of the game. Every time the astute British politicians called for a sacrifice on the part of the Irish Home Rule Party that party yielded the point and sacrificed their principles. They yielded to sacrifice Ulster and divide their country, they yielded the control of taxation, and they yielded control over their post office, customs and excise: in short, they yielded everything that gives life and power in a nation. And finally, when their grandest opportunity came in the breath of war they yielded up countless thousands of the lives of their fellow-countrymen. And in turn they achieved- nothing.
The benefits that have been gained, and some of them are undoubted, have been gained by the heroic fighting and sacrifice of the Irish people, and a political party was only one, and not the most important one, one of the many weapons forged and used by the Irish people during that fighting, and as a result of their sacrifices. Landlordism in its worst phases was not abolished, the right of a tenant to security in his tenure was not secured, and the purchase of the proprietary rights by the tenantry was not accomplished by the mere presence of eighty-five spouters in the British House of Commons.
James Connolly was also clear on the role of Physical Force for Socialist Republicans. He argued "That some Socialists believe that force may be used to inaugurate the new social order only indicates their conviction that the criminal capitalist and ruling classes will not peacefully abide by the verdict of the ballot, but will strive by violence to perpetuate their robber rule in spite of the declared will of the majority of the people. In this conviction such Socialists are strengthened by the record of all the revolutions of the world's history.
It is a well-established fact that from the earliest revolutionary outbreak known down to the Commune of Paris, or Red Sunday in Russia, the first blood has been shed, the first blow struck, by the possessing conservative classes. And we are not so childish as to imagine that the capitalist class of the future will shrink from the shedding of the blood of the workers in order to retain their ill-gotten gains.
They shed more blood, destroy more working class lives every year, by the criminal carelessness with which they conduct industry and drive us to nerve-racking speed, than is lost in the average international war. In the United States there are killed on the railroads in one year more men than died in the Boer War on both sides. When the capitalists kill us so rapidly for the sake of a few pence extra profit it would be suicidal to expect that they would hesitate to slaughter us wholesale when their very existence as parasites was at stake. Therefore, the Socialists anticipate violence only because they know the evil nature of the beast they contend with."
In 1897 the British requested their Irish subjects to celebrate Victoria’s jubilee, mindful this was 50 years after the genocide.
James Connolly made a black coffin wrote British Empire on it and threw it into The Liffey.
Connolly said: “We must stop thinking in the lines and grooves our enemies wish us to think: For example: the 1916 Rising. When Connolly and his comrades called a ceasefire it was a military surrender to save civilian lives. From the moment it started and the reading of the Proclamation we became Irish citizens.
The Proclamation and the 1919 declaration is our claim as an independent sovereign state. The counter revolution aided and armed by the British to protect their financial and other interests and the murder of our revolutionary leaders.
The citizens were denied their inheritance; the subversion had taken place of our fledgling state aided by the British. They set up a committee to manage the affairs of the rich ruling class in Leinster House and the laws to protect their ill gotten gains.
Connolly said; “Knowing your history is like a lamp to the feet of the Irish worker in the stormy paths of today”. Seamus Costello knew his history and was determined that the Irish people would dislodge the robber barons by the same means he used.
Any other thinking would be utter folly. He also believed the national struggle and the national question were two inseparable strands of the same struggle. Connolly spoke about the awakening of the slave. Costello spoke about the power of empowerment and inspiration necessary for self rejuvenation and above all the power of collective actions.
The year he was murdered in 1977 by counter revolutionaries he had prepared papers and presented them for the broad front talks. I recall he said there was general agreement amongst the rank and file; the leadership was yet another problem.
No doubt a control issue as always dogging our chances of a unified approach little wonder his quote “I owe my allegiance to the working class”. Seamus honoured the Proclamation and the 1919 Declaration as I do. No vote on EEC, Maastricht and the Lisbon Treaty done twice until they got the result they wanted, The Good Friday Agreement, Articles 2 and 3 of our constitution, border polls will change anything other than give recognition to a false premise.
We claim jurisdiction over all of Ireland, no poll, no barter, it’s the property of the people as Connolly said “We must stop thinking in the lines and grooves our oppressors wish us to think”.
Leinster House is the HQ of subversion. If anyone is in any doubt ask yourself a century after the Rising the Proclamation and the 1919 declaration that committee has rendered us citizens as guarantors for banks and bond holders and speculative debts.
Seamus warned of this in his now famous 1966 Bodenstown speech incidentally the first time I heard him speak when he called for the nationalisation of banks, insurance companies etc. Little did we know what that Leinster House committee would feist onto us? He was no doubt a visionary but I believe his greatest vision was the realisation that only a free thinking people would have the motivation and determination to remove the parasites that feed and suck the life blood out of our people.
But his ability to empower people was remarkable and instilled hope in place of despair. I recall in about ‘68/’69 we worked with Seamus on a housing action campaign in Greystones, County Wicklow. He was so impressive a completely different mindset, gone was the subservient approach to the gombeen men and people empowerment was the order of the day. Street marches and demands for attendance in public galleries at council meetings to watch the performance of the so called elected representatives. I joined Sinn Fein as it was then with some of my friends until we resigned in block in 1974 to form the IRSP.
In 1978/1979 during the dirty protest before the first H-Block hunger strike we would stand outside Catholic and Protestant churches in silent vigil dressed only in blankets before holding our public meetings. I recall now with humour our preparation on the Saturday evening before we would go into a field with our public address system and read our speech while others listened and each week we would alternate a speaker. I suppose you could say we had collective leadership unwittingly.
That was all down to this amazing ability to motivate you to take the shackles and smash them that Seamus possessed.The electoral system has played havoc with the Republican movement down through the years.
In the earlier years of abstenstionism caused a major crisis for the movement.
I believe today that building a political party and a revolutionary movement are not compatible. Electoralism is predicated on populism. It shackles and gags and impedes honest talking and stifles development of a revolutionary movement. Only a revolutionary movement can take back what was stolen. Like Connolly spoke of the Home Rule Party they conceded everything that gives life and power to a nation.
In conclusion on behalf of The Seamus Costello Memorial Committee I want to announce we are launching The Seamus Costello School next year.
Saturday 7 October 2017
REVOLUTIONARY CATALONIA REMEMBERED AND REVISITED
REVOLUTIONARY CATALONIA REMEMBERED AND REVISITED
SERIOUS DIVISIONS - SECTARIANISM AMONG ANARCHISTS, SOCIALISTS AND COMMUNISTS : WHAT ARE LESSONS FOR TODAY ?
THERE WERE SERIOUS MISTAKES ON ALL PROGRESSIVE SIDES IN SPANISH CIVIL WAR.
WHY CANNOT COMMUNISTS AND SOCIALISTS LEARN FROM ANARCHISTS AND ANARCHISTS LEARN FROM SOCIALISTS AND COMMUNISTS ?
DO WE SHARE THE SAME STRATEGIC AIM ? ARE OUR DIFFERENCES
TACTICAL ?
HERE ARE THE VIEWS OF KANG SHENG EXPRESSED TO MAO ZEDONG ON SPANISH CIVIL WAR IN 1964.
(K’ang Sheng: ‘On New Democracy is of great significance for the world communist movement. I asked Spanish comrades, and they said the problem for them was to establish bourgeois democracy, not to establish New Democracy. In their country, they did not concern themselves with the three points: army, countryside, political power. They wholly subordinated themselves to the exigencies of Soviet foreign policy, and achieved nothing at all.’) These are the policies of Ch’en Tu-hsiu! (Comrade K’ang Sheng: ‘They say the Communist Party organized an army, and then turned it over to others.’) This is useless.
(Comrade K’ang Sheng: ‘They also did not want political power, nor did they mobilize the peasantry. At that time, the Soviet Union said to them that if they imposed proletarian leadership, England and France might oppose it, and this would not be in the interests of the Soviet Union.’)
How about Cuba? In Cuba they concerned themselves precisely to set up political power and an army, and also mobilized the peasants, as [we did] in the past; therefore they succeeded.
(Comrade K’ang Sheng: ‘Also, when they [the Spanish] fought, they waged regular war, in the manner of the bourgeoisie, they defended Madrid to the last.[20] In all things, they subordinated themselves to Soviet foreign policy.’)
SOURCE: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-9/mswv9_27.htm
SOURCE: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-9/mswv9_27.htm
THE VIEW OF DEMOCRACY AND CLASS STRUGGLE
Democracy and Class Struggle says the passage of time reveals the truth that Fascism was not defeated by Anarchism but by Leninist discipline which some call Stalinism during the Second World War - that discipline did not exclude spontaneous acts of personal courage like at Stalingrad but exceptional military and organisational ability some of it learnt from defeat in Spain - defeats are sometimes more instructive than victories.Know the past to understand the present to correctly understand contradictons among the people and not confuse them with the enemy
What are your views ?
Friday 6 October 2017
Catalan Rising October 6th 1934 Remembered
Lluis Companys President of Catalonia
After the death of Francesc Macià in 1933, at that time presiding over the Catalan government (Generalitat), Companys was elected the successor President of the Generalitat by the Catalan Parliament.
In October 6, 1934, Companys led a Catalan Nationalist uprising not supported by the center and conservatives Catalan representatives, against the center and right-wing republican government, and proclaimed the Catalan State (Estat Català) within the "Spanish Federal Republic", an action by which he was arrested and sentenced to thirty years in prison.
Companys asked Manuel Azaña, who happened to be in Barcelona during the events, to lead a newly proclaimed Spanish Republican government, a proposition that Azaña rejected.
After the 1936 election and the victory of the left-wing coalition Frente Popular, he was set free by the new government and the Catalan government was restored
Proclamation of the Catalan State
Catalans:
For some time now, monarchist and fascist forces have been awaiting an opportunity to betray the Republic. They have now achieved their objective and have seized power.
The parties and men who have publicly demonstrated against the longed for liberties of our land, along with the political centre which has constantly preached hate and war towards Catalonia, today make up the backbone of support for current institutions.
Recent events have given all citizens the manifest feeling that the Republic, in its fundamental democratic form, is in the gravest danger.
All of the authentically Republican forces of Spain and its more advanced social sectors, without distinction or exception, have taken up arms against this brazen fascist takeover.
A Liberal, Democratic and Republican Catalonia cannot be absent from the protest that is triumphing all over the country; nor can it silence its declarations of solidarity towards our brothers who, throughout Hispanic lands, are fighting to the death for Liberty and Right. Catalonia has hoisted its flag! We call on everyone to do their duty and give their unswerving loyalty to the government of the Generalitat, which, from this moment, breaks off all relations with these deceitful institutions.
In this solemn hour, in the name of the people and of Parliament, the government over which I preside has taken over all the faculties of power in Catalonia and proclaimed the CATALAN STATE within the federal Spanish Republic. In order to establish and fortify our relationship with the leaders of the general protest against fascism, we invite them to establish in Catalonia the Provisional Government of the Republic. They will find that we Catalans will demonstrate the most generous fraternity in our common aim of building a Federal Republic that is free and magnificent.
The Government of Catalonia will be in constant touch with the people. We will establish in Catalonia an indestructible stronghold fortified by the true spirit of the Republic. We encourage all Catalans to obey the Government and require that no one ignores its orders.
With the enthusiasm and discipline of the people, we feel strengthened and invincible. We will keep everyone in line, but it is essential that each one of you maintain calm and subject yourself to the discipline and instructions of your leaders. From this moment on, the government will work ceaselessly to ensure that nobody disrupts, or compromises, our patriotic objectives.
Catalans: the hour is grave and glorious. The spirit of President Macià, the restorer of the Generalitat, is with us. Everyone to your stations and keep Catalonia and the Republic in all of your hearts.
Long live the Republic and long live Liberty!
Barcelona, 6th October 1934
See Also
https://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/asturian-commune-of-1934-by-jose-luis.html
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