Free The Spanish Holocaust by Paul Preston Page B

skeletal bodies by stick-like necks, their bellies swollen, their little legs twisted into incredible shapes like those of a rag doll, their mouths gulping in air for want of better nourishment. This is the Spain that we found when the Republic was born. Behind the thin and prematurely aged women – who can ever tell whether a woman in the Castilian or Andalusian countryside is twenty-five or two hundred and fifty years old? – stood the men, the oldest supporting their frailty by leaning on the wall at the back. 87
    During the first two years of the Republic, the left had been appalled by the vehemence of opposition to what they regarded as basic humanitarian legislation. After the elections of November 1933, however, the flimsy foundations of a socially progressive Republic laid down in that period were to be ruthlessly torn up as the right used its victory to re-establish the repressive social relations obtaining before 1931. That the right should have the opportunity to do so was a cause of great bitterness within the Socialist movement. In large part, it was their own fault for having made the elemental mistake of rejecting an electoral alliance with the Left Republican forces and thus failing to take advantage of the electoral system. They now believed that the elections had no real validity. The Socialists had won 1,627,472 votes, almost certainly more than any other party running alone could have obtained. With these votes, they had returned fifty-eight deputies, while the Radical Party, with only 806,340 votes, had obtained 104 seats. According to calculations made by the secretariat of the Partido Socialista Obrero Español, the united right had gained a total of 212 seats with 3,345,504 votes, while the disunited left had won ninety-nine seats with 3,375,432 votes. 88 That the right gained a parliamentary seat for fewer than 16,000 votes while left-wing seats ‘cost’ more than 34,000 was certainly galling, although that did not alter the fact that the main factor in determining the results was the party’s own tactical error in failing to take advantage of a system which favoured coalitions.
    However, the Socialists had other, more substantial reasons for rejecting the validity of the elections. They were convinced that in the south they had been swindled out of parliamentary seats by electoral malpractice. In villages where one or two men were the sole source of employment, it was relatively easy to get votes by the promise of a job or the threat of dismissal. For many workers on the verge of starvation, a vote could be bought for food or a blanket. In Almendralejo (Badajoz), a local aristocrat bought votes with bread, olive oil and chorizo. In many villagesof Granada and Badajoz, those who attended left-wing meetings were beaten by the landowners’ estate guards while the Civil Guard stood by. The new Civil Governors named by the Radicals were permitting ‘public order’ to be controlled by armed thugs in the service of the landowners. Sometimes with the active assistance of the Civil Guard, at other times simply with its benevolent neutrality, they were able to intimidate the left. In the province of Granada, Fernando de los Ríos and other candidates faced violent disruption of their campaign. In Huéscar, De los Ríos was met with a volley of rifle-fire and, in Moclín, his car was stoned by rightists. At Jérez del Marquesado, the local caciques (bosses) hired thugs whom they armed and filled with drink. De los Ríos was forced to abandon his planned meeting when he was warned that they planned an attempt on his life. At the remote village of Castril, near Huéscar, a meeting being addressed by María Lejárraga and De los Ríos was disrupted by the simple device of driving into the crowd some donkeys laden with logs. In Guadix, their words were drowned out by the persistent ringing of the nearby church bells. In the province of Córdoba, in Bujalance, the Civil Guard tore down left-wing election