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Title: News From Spain Author: Freedom Press (London) Date: October, 1889 Language: en Source: Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, Vol. 3, No. 35, online source http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=3053, retrieved on April 14, 2020.
(From our Collectivist Anarchist Correspondent in Barcelona.)
As I have spoken in my preceding letters of the Anarchist movement in
Spain, I will now say something about the middle-class political
situation. We are now living under the regime of the Liberal Monarchy.
Sagasta, ex-Minister of the Provisional Government of the Revolution of
September 1868, ex-Minister of King Amadeo, ex-Minister of the Republic
which survived after the coup d'Etat of January 3, 1874 and prepared the
way for the Monarchical Restoration, has been Prime Minister since the
death of Alfonso XII. He remains in power, partly because he knew how to
elaborate a program of Democratic Monarchy which includes universal
suffrage and solves small difficulties while continually postponing the
more important ones, and partly because of the attachment of the Regent
who understands that her only means of remaining Queen is to keep in
sympathy with the Liberals.
Our politicians are characterized by an unlimited passion for
enrichment. All parties - from the "traditionalists" who sigh after the
medieval times, to the Federalists who dream of a universal federation
of republics, are guided by a longing for personal power and constitute
so many sects, the prominent man of each considering himself the
pontiff. Under such conditions politics is simply a means of satisfying
personal ambition, and the Opposition - Reactionary as well as Radical -
is moved by the most miserable trifles. The consequences of this are the
complete neglect of all the public services; an immense deficit, never
covered even by ruinous loans; a national debt capable of absorbing the
whole of the wealth of the nation; the paralyzing of all branches of
production; numerous cases of bankruptcy - and emigration to the extent
of depopulating our - villages and cities, thousands and thousands of
workmen leaving for Brazil or La Plata. To give you an idea of the state
of affairs, it is sufficient to say that during the last four months no
less than 580 land owners in Granada, the richest province of fertile
Andalucia, have been evicted by the State for arrears of taxes. The
blackest despair has taken hold of our best educated men who exclaim
"Spain is dying! Dying is the nation which starves its workers!" While
the anger of the masses finds expression in burning manufactories,
granaries, earn-fields and forests, with terrible frequency. Such is our
situation. The nation lives in misery and loses its. old faith in
religion, law and authority. Anarchism is welcome, as it holds out the
hope of regeneration.
The enclosed program of a Socialist competition [our Barcelona comrades
have offered prizes, chiefly books, for the best essays on certain
questions relating to Anarchist thought] will show you bow we work for
the scientific elaboration of Anarchist principles.
An Anarchist Communist paper, La Revolucion Social, has just appeared in
Barcelona, which will certainly contribute to the triumph of truth and
justice. Fortunato Serantoni, Calle de, Magallanes, 53, Barcelona, is
the publisher.
In a coming Lumber of El Productor we propose to discuss the ideas in
your article, "Is Communism Just?" Two of the contributors to El
Productor recently made all excursion into the province of Valencia and
held meetings at Valencia, Alcira and Alcoy. It was a triumph for our
ideas. In Valencia they spoke in the ball of the Federalist Republicans,
but neither there nor anywhere else has anybody came to contradict them.
Another excursion of the same kind will soon follow.