THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, August 12, 1936. WHITHER SPAIN?

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22957, 12 August 1936, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, August 12, 1936. WHITHER SPAIN?

From the cabled chronicle of the occurrences in Spain it is difficult to draw any conclusion respecting the probable outcome as between the forces of the Government and those which are in revolt against it. A protracted struggle for ascendancy seems, however, to be not unlikely. Meanwhile, conjecture is closely concentrated on the question of the direction in which Spain is moving and what the destiny is to be that must be worked out by herself. If the rebels should be victorious a dictatorship of the Right is obviously to be expected. The revolt on this occasion is under the direction of army generals who declare that the objective is to extirpate everything representing Marxism. Should the Government, as is not improbable, succeed in maintaining the upper hand, the question of the character of the new regime is attended with more uncertainty. Ever since the expulsion of the monarchy, indeed, the political future of Spain has been the subject of conjecture. Lenin was credited with predicting that Spain would be the first State in Western Europe to follow the example of Russia The recent return to power of a Left Wing Government ready tc grant large concessions to the workers was not necessarily an indication that events were shaping definitely towards that end It may be, however, that this rebellion, with the challenge which it repre sents and the passions which it is arousing, is tending to urge Spain more rapidly than she woulo otherwise have been likely to move to wards an extreme position Even so, the issue in this civil war is not quite clear-cut In relation to the possibility of Spain becoming another Russia, various factors have to be considered It is difficult to determine the measure of President Azana’s oresent influence The Socialists. Anarcho-Syndicalists, and Bolshevists who helped to return him to power are said to despiSe him for the Liberal bourgeois intel lectual which he confesses to being In some quarters his transference from the Premiership to the Presi dency has been interpreted as sigm fying that he has been trapped by his numerous enemies and “ thrown into a glass cage.” An anti-Marxist. Senor Azana has aimed at steering the ship of Stale between the Scylla of Communism and the Charybdis of reaction The direction in which the country is actually moving may depend largely upon whether it possesses an element strong enough to prevail over extremism —or too inert to he swayed by it—and to maintain a democratic regime A writei in the Contemporary Review who endea vours to answer the question ‘Will Spain follow Russia? ” looks to the events of the last few years for an indication of the answer. Since the monarch’s abdication, as he recalls the pendulum of government has swung to the Left, to the Right, and again to the Left, Its swing has obeyed parliamentary considerations quite as much as the dictates of the people. Parliamentarism remains a force in Spain, and the Spanish equivalents of the Soviets—the Socialist, Anarcho-Syndicalist and Communist executive committees—are credited with being unwilling tu destroy parliamentary government so long as it will yield good results It has not been suggested that they have been anxious lately for a general call to revolution The revolution in October, 1934. was the nearest Spain had yet come to the setting up of a Soviet regime. It failed because public opinion had not, as in Russia, reached that

pitch where revolution was inevitable, and because the army on the whole sided with the Government It is true that in Spain any thing in the way of a powerful middle class is somewhat conspicuous by its absence, even though the republic may be regarded as a bourgeois' institution And it is difficult to say what the forces behind the Spanish Government, the “loyalists” as they are termed, may regard themselves as fighting for at the present juncture They have not taken the initiative, but by the writer already mentioned the opinion offered—prior to the present clash—is that if the Spanish workers fight again it will be to impose a “ dictatorship of the proletariat.’ Another interesting view, that to which Sir Charles Petrie gives expression- in a review article, is that the Spaniard, however far to the Left he may be, *s too much of an individualist to submit easily to the discipline of a Soviet regime, so that Anarchism, rather than Communism, is the form which extremism is likely to take But within the oast few weeks a new situation has arisen, and whether the fierce internal conflict which is now convulsing Spain is going to reproduce there the conditions that made the Russian revolution possible is a matter for speculation.