SPAIN: Burning at Both Ends

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The Tradicionalista Club, Basque royalist society, attempted to hold a meeting last week in Bilbao. Socialists, Communists, Republicans attempted to break down the doors, and the fun began. Civil Guards were called out, four people were killed, three wounded. Mobs wrecked a Catholic newspaper, hurled gasoline on the doors of a Jesuit monastery and attempted to burn it down. Inside the monastery somebody fired on the mob. As another crowd stormed the jail and attempted to lynch the 70 Tradicionalistas who had taken refuge there, 30 artillerymen saved their lives. Police searched the convents and monasteries of Bilbao for hidden arms. Socialists held a public funeral for the victims of the riot, and declared a general strike.

Excited by stories of the gunfire coming from Bilbao's monastery, the government of Premier Manuel Azana drew up a long-contemplated decree abolishing the Jesuit order in Spain, confiscating all its property, estimated at $30,000,000 exclusive of security and trust holdings in the name of individuals, said to amount to $70,000,000. President Alcala Zamora signed the order. Jesuit superiors were expecting it, novices were ordered to pack up and get ready to leave the country, but suddenly the government grew timorous. Days passed, the decree was not published in the official gazette.

In Catalonia at the other end of the Pyrenees, Syndicalists and Communists have been waiting for many weeks for a chance to rise. Bilbao was their signal. In Barcelona a swiftly thrown police dragnet arrested the organizer of a general strike, an Italian named Duriti, and dozens of assistants, seized truckloads of pamphlets and posters. Trouble centered further north, about the manufacturing town of Manresa, where 410 years ago St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, spent a year in a cave preparing his Exercitia Spiritualia.

Miners and textile workers cut all telephone wires and cables out of Manresa, then seized thousands of pounds of dynamite from the Iberian Potash Works. Up and down the valley spread the revolution. Soviet flags went up over Berga, Alto, Gironella, Puigreig, Salient, Cardona. Excited crowds rallied to Leon Trotsky's old slogan: "EUROPE IS BURNING AT BOTH ENDS!!" Rich farmers and mill owners were kidnapped. Peasants were threatened with death.

Back in Madrid Premier Azana swore mightily: "Por Dios! I am sick of this business! I'm going to give them back as good as they send. The anarchist movement started outside Spain but I am going to finish it here. We have rounded up about fifty of their leaders, tonight they are in jail, tomorrow they will be on their way to the colonies to cool their heels."

Five battalions of infantry, a squadron of cavalry, a battery of artillery took the field and Manresa and the other towns were invaded. The "Catalonian Workers' Republic" fell as quickly as it had risen. Most of the inhabitants were heartily glad to see the soldiers. By nightfall troops were playing hide and seek in the mountains with the last of the revolutionists. In Barcelona the government chartered the liner Buenos Aires, loaded it with political prisoners and ordered the captain to sail without any destination until he received further orders by wireless.