The antidemocratic attitude of historical socialists whom the PSOE still claims

The Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) is a party that has been claiming the role of dispenser of democrat titles for many years.

Pedro Sánchez said he would imitate a socialist leader who led a coup d'état
The Spanish left and its illegal amnesties for coup plotters: the case of February 21, 1936

This pretentious attitude aims to convey, without any disguise, that those of us who are not socialists or leftists are not democrats, all while protecting in its particular concept of democracy the supporters of communist totalitarianism, the sympathizers of ETA or the authors of the 2017 separatist coup in Catalonia. In reality, the PSOE has been a historically undemocratic party, and to verify this it is enough to review the attitudes of historical leaders of that party whom the PSOE still claims. Let's look at some examples.

Pablo Iglesias Posse: terrorist threats in Parliament

The founder of the PSOE, whose portrait appears today in all the headquarters of that party, gave an incendiary speech on July 7, 1910, during the debate of the Crown's speech, in the Cortes: "this party has not changed its mind regarding this matter; it will be within the law as long as the law allows it to acquire what it needs; outside the law, as all parties have been, when she does not allow him to realize his aspirations." It was a clear display of contempt for the rule of law, which is the very basis of democracy.

In that same speech, Pablo Iglesias threatened to kill the conservative deputy Antonio Maura, with words that the PSOE has never condemned: "we have reached the extreme of considering that before His Honorable rise to power we must come to personal attack". On July 22, 1910, fifteen days after the founder of the PSOE issued that threat, Maura suffered a terrorist attack, in which he was shot and wounded in the leg and arm.

Francisco Largo Caballero supported violence and defended a dictatorship

He was president of the PSOE between October 1932 and December 1935, during the Second Republic. On August 12, 1933, at the Socialist Summer School, he stated: "Today I am convinced that carrying out socialist work within a bourgeois democracy is impossible." Then he stated: "Not only outside our ranks, but within them, there are those who fear that it would be necessary to establish a dictatorship. If this happens, what would be our situation? Because we we cannot renounce nor can we carry out any act that tends to prevent the achievement of this aspiration".

A month later, in statements to the weekly 'Renovación' of the Socialist Youth, Largo Caballero stated: "I don't know how there is someone who has such horror at the dictatorship of the proletariat, possible workers' violence. Is not workers' violence a thousand times preferable to fascism? In the last extreme, is not bourgeois democracy a system of oppression and violence?"

In November of that same year, at a PSOE rally in Don Benito (Badajoz), Largo Caballero threatened: "We are going to tear down the private property regime", one of the rights currently recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 17). Immediately afterwards, he launched a new threat: "I say that the bourgeoisie will not accept a legal expropriation. It will have to be expropriated by violence". In case there was any doubt about what the then president of the PSOE intended, he made it very clear: "we will carry out the revolution violently", he stated, and added: " This, the enemies will say, is inciting civil war. Let's face reality. There is a civil war."

A few months later, on April 20, 1934, at an event of the Socialist Youth, Largo Caballero stated: "I maintain the criterion that political power must be seized revolutionaryly, and that it is It is foolish to get the illusion that we are going to be able to take control of it in any other way, I have to state that the revolution is not made with shouts of long live Socialism, long live communism and long live anarchism. It is done violently". A few months later, his party put those threats into practice and led a bloody coup d'état against the Republic, then with a center-right government that emerged from the general elections of November 1933.

It was not the last time that Largo Caballero exhibited his contempt for democracy. On January 27, 1936, at a PSOE rally in Alicante, he threatened a civil war if the right won the elections: "if the right wins, our work will have to be twofold, because with our allies we will be able to work within the law, and with the rights winning we will have to go to declared civil war."

Two years ago, the current general secretary of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, called to imitate Largo Caballero in a speech given at a rally of the socialist union UGT: "He acted as Today we want to act", said the current president of the government of Spain.

Margarita Nelken: against women's right to vote

She was a PSOE deputy during the Second Republic, and although she joined the Communist Party of Spain during the Spanish Civil War, the PSOE has dedicated streets to her in 20 Spanish cities. A dubious tribute taking into account the things that Nelken said, for example in her book "Woman before the Constituent Cortes", in which she rejected the possibility of granting the right to vote to women. women for fear of what they might vote for:"Putting a vote in the hands of women is today, in Spain, realizing one of the greatest desires of the reactionary element". Nelken added: "Spanish women who truly love freedom must be the first to postpone their self-interest to the progress of Spain."

Indalecio Prieto threatened another deputy in Parliament with a pistol

As he himself recognized, this socialist deputy was one of the ringleaders of the 1934 coup d'état. On July 4 of that same year, during a parliamentary session, Prieto unholstered his pistol and pointed it at the right-wing deputy Jaime Oriol de la Puerta, an unprecedented event in Spanish democratic history. The next day, the newspaper Abc reported what happened page 18): "Mr. Prieto advanced from his seat, relatively far away, took out a pistol, cocked it and made to shoot at Mr. Oriol, who was fallen on a seat. He did not manage to shoot, but he was seen attacking the CEDA deputy with the weapon."

Despite these facts, the PSOE continues openly claiming Indalecio Prieto, and even dedicated a statue to him in the area of New Ministries in Madrid.

It is intolerable that a party with these references is dedicated to giving lessons on democracy. If the PSOE continues to vindicate characters like those we have just seen, it is because, deep down, that party continues to maintain the same contempt for democracy that they exhibited. And the PSOE must be reminded of this every day.