Comrade José Díaz defended rights of nationalities in his speech on Madrid,on 9th February 1936

"Queremos que las nacionalidades de nuestro país puedan disponer libremente de sus destinos"


We want the nationalities of our country - Catalonia, Euskadi, Galicia - to freely dispose of their destinations, why not? and to have cordial and friendly relations with all popular Spain.

If they want to get rid of the yoke of Spanish imperialism represented by the central power, they will have our help. 

A people that oppresses other peoples can not be considered free. And we want a free Spain. We want full democratic liberties for the people, freedom of assembly, of demonstration.


Who are the patriots?

Comrades: there is a flag that is in the hands of our enemies, which they try to use against us and that must be wrested from their hands: that by voting for them votes for Spain. What Spain do they represent? In this matter, clarity must be made. 

When reaction, when fascism can not demonstrate with practical facts that the conditions of life and work of the working class and of the peasant masses have improved in the slightest, because it has worsened them, and not only those of the workers manuals, but those of the employees, the petty bourgeoisie, the peasants, even the middle bourgeoisie; when the situation of these popular masses has not improved, but, I repeat, worsened; in an abstract way, to hunt unwary, it is said, is shouted in the posters, in the rallies: voting for us, you vote for Spain, you vote for the country. 

This argument, which penetrates above all the layers of the petty bourgeoisie, the middle bourgeoisie, people who love their homeland and their home, we must analyze and demonstrate that those who truly love their country, are us, and that we are us those who are going to try it with facts, because it is not possible that they continue to deceive these masses, using the flag of patriotism, those who prostitute our country, those who condemn the people to hunger, those who submit to the yoke of oppression at ninety percent of the population, those who dominate by terror. 

Do they Patriots? Do not! The popular masses, you, workers and antifascists in general, are the patriots, the ones who want your country free from parasites and oppressors; but those who exploit you are not Spanish, nor are they defenders of the interests of the country, nor do they have the right to live in Spain of culture and work. (Prolonged applause.)

Theirs is the Spain of the Inquisition.

Jose Diaz on Tradition

Tradition is spoken. But there is no single tradition, and it is necessary to claim for each class the men and the tradition that belong to it. There is the tradition of the Inquisition, which they represent, and the tradition of those who fought against obscurantism and for progress and freedom, which we represent. 

Already at that time they fought two Spains. There was one, which implanted the Inquisition, which caused the deaths and martyrs of the honest men of that time, using to dominate all the barbarous means of which the wicked are capable who want the predominance of a handful over the immense majority. And there was another Spain: that of those who at that time were fighting in front of the Inquisition, giving their lives for the freedom of the people. 

We want to claim for our cause the men who fought at that time against the Inquisition, because those men were the men of progress. Under the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, the Inquisition was established with all crudeness, being the first inquisitors Primo Juan de San Martín, Miguel de Murillo, Juan Jose de Medina, San Pedro Arbués. The latter was killed by the masses in Aragon, who resisted the implantation of the Inquisition, considering it contrary to the Aragonese freedoms. The same resistance was on the part of the people in Catalonia. The men of the Inquisition are what our tyrants today want to claim. Well, we claim for our cause those who rebelled against it.

The general inquisitor was Torquemada, and his successor Diego de Deza. During the time of Torquemada nine thousand people were burned and tormented one hundred thousand. Then, in the time of his continuing Deza, two thousand seven hundred burned and thirty-five thousand tormented. Do not you remember this, what, centuries later, has been done in Asturias? (Voices: "Murderers!")
Our traditions.

Why do I give these figures? Why do I remember these facts, comrades?

For the people must know their friends and their enemies. 

And the friends of the town are those who continue the tradition of those men who fought against the Inquisition, who, like the comuneros, fought years later by a situation of improvement for the majority of the town of Spain, that fought to bring the first Republic: men like Pi and Margall, like Salvochea, like Zorrilla, like Salmerón and a series of men who fought at that time for a Republican Spain, where there was welfare for the town; men like Galán and García Hernández, who gave their lives for the sake of a social republic, are the forerunners of the revolutionary movement that the proletariat claims for itself.

We continue, then, the tradition of Pi and Margall, the tradition of Salvochea, of Galán and García Hernández and of all the fighters who battled to destroy feudal, clerical and monarchical Spain, and open a channel for democracy based on welfare of the masses.

Extracts from 9th February 1936 Speech of Jose Diaz Ramos

José Díaz Ramos was a Spanish trade unionist and communist politician. He was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Spain during the Spanish Civil War

SEE ALSO

 - https://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/the-communist-blogs-network-for-right.html



FOR FULL SPEECH OF JOSE DIAZ IN SPANISH

http://dazibaorojo08.blogspot.co.uk/