Franco has changed

Six who death SPAIN is still ruled by that butchoieu to way to power over the bodies of countless workers and peasants in the civil war From the very beginning of his military career, Franco, born into a wealthy Galician family, dedicated himself to the preservation • of capitalist Whether it was against striking miners in Asturias or the rebelling Riff tribesmen of 'Spanish' Morocco, Franco excelled all other officers in his lust for retribution against the enemies of his class.

SUPERVISED

It was Franco who personally supervised the butchering of the Asturian miners after October 1934 uprising against the ultra-right-wing Gil Robles regime.

As many as 10,000 miners are known to have died at the hands of Franco's firing squads.

Yet this was but a small-scale rehearsal for the massacres Franco unleashed aftér the outbreak of the civil war.

Backed by Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, and with the connivance of the 'democratic' imperialists, Franco's mercenaries slaughtered trade unionists, communists, socialists, anarchists, even liberals and right-wing republicans, not in their tens, but hundreds of thousands. ‹Each town or city seized by Franco's killers was subjected to the same bloody routine.

First the trade union headquarters, the 'houses of the of prove BY A WORKERS PRESS CORRESPONDENT "The caller, who appeared to be English from his accent, was asked whether this was a threat to kidnap Spanish diplomats and their families. He said: "Yes, that is quite right".

"The call was reported to Scotland Yard and action was immediately taken to protect Spanish Embassy officials and their families.' The "Telegraph' report clearly indicates that the dangers to the labour movement of provocation will be multiplied a hundred-fold in 1971.

When the Tories spoke of 'law and order' in their election proposals, they meant changes in the law to deal with demonstrators and the organizers of demonstrations.

This is completely in line with their plans to shackle the unions through the InThey were joined by members of the Socialist Labour League, Maoist organizations and the More than 200 people, shouting 'Franco Assassino verdicts being released.

Demonstrators had Basque flags and carried banners BY A WORKERS PRESS CORRESPONDENT prevented by police from holding a demonstration.

In Genoa, Italy, dockers held a strike

people would be sacked and occupants shot hand.

Then, using the trade union records, a systematic witchhunt of all working-class militants would be launched, until not a single socialist, communist or anarchist militant remained at liberty.

MOWN DOWN

Herded into city squares, bull rings and stadiums to intimidate the local population, they would be mown down-sometimes to the peal of church bells-by Franco's hired gunmen, armed to the teeth by Hitler and Mussolini.

This is how Franco came to power.

This is how he intends to hold on to it now.

This grisly ritual did not end with Franco's military victory in March 1939. For another three years the ring squads worked on, tearing the guts out of the Spanish workers' movement and rendering it powerless to resist the exploitation and repressions of the capitalists and landlords.

Even official fascist figures reveal that at least 200,000 militants were executed in the years that followed the end of the civil war.

Franco's crusade against the working class did not halt at the frontiers of Spain. He sent his infamous 'Blue Division' into action against the Red Army when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.

IRON CROSS

Franco's future foreign minister, Castiella, was awarded the Iron Cross by Hitler for his services to the anti-communist cause on the eastern front.

Yet recently, the Kremlin leader of a libera) as the trend within the Franco regime !

With the defeat of the Axis powers in 1945, Franco began to make overtures to thé 'democratic imperialist camp.

Without in any way 'liberalizing' his regime, Franco began to win friends in the USA and Britain.

The official United Nations policy of boycotting fascist Spain was dropped, and, by 1950, Spain had secured admission to one of its affiliated organizations.

Then, with Soviet approval, fascist Spain became a full member of UNO.

But inside the country, the working class, recovering trom the blood-letting of the previous decades, had begun to In 1962, a strike wave swept through the Asturias