National Episodes (Final chapters)

These are the instructions for the final chapters of your family saga:

CHAPTER 9

You are one of the children of the person who wrote chapters 7 and 8. You continue to work at a news-stand at the Puerta del Sol. As you sell newspapers and magazines, you are up to date with the main events of this period. In this chapter you will have to write in some specific dates, so that you can include the main historical contents of the Restoration period: 

- 1876: On this date you will have to explain the restoration of the monarchy with Alphonse XII, Cánovas del Castillo's plans for the new politica system, the features of the 1876 Constitution and the end of the 3rd Carlist War. You can explain the information you have about political changes and the end of the war as news you've read on the newspaper or comments of some of your clients. 

- 1879: On this date you will have to explain the end of the war in Cuba, the creation of the Conservative and Liberal Party and the founding of the PSOE in Casa Labra in Madrid. Even if the PSOE was illegal at that moment, you can know that it was founded because Casa Labra is very close to the Puerta del Sol and one of the waiters told you about that. 

- 1885: On this date you will have to explain the alternation of the dynastic parties in power and the manipulation of the elections, Alphonse XII's death and the beginning of Mª Christina of Habsburg's regency after El Pardo Agreement. One of you sons has to start working as an apprentice in a printing press. You will also receive an unexpected visit from your relatives in Andalusia. One of your cousins and his/her family come to visit you to Madrid and explain you that they lost their land because they got into debt and couldn't pay the money-lender. They've decided to migrate to Barcelona because they have known that textile industries need workers there and they think they can find a job and start a new life there. You will lend them some money to buy the train tickets to Barcelona. They will promise you to keep in touch through mail and give you the money back as soon as they can. 

- 1891: On this date you will have to explain the approval of the universal suffrage in 1890 and the first elections with this law. You will vote for one of the opposition parties (one of the republican parties) and will be deceived with the results due to electoral manipulation. Your son in the printing press becomes a PSOE member and explains you Marxist ideas, but you consider them too radical. 

You will also receive a letter from your relative in Catalonia explainig the industrialization of the city and the arrival of many immigrants from other provinces to work in the factories. Your relative is attracted by anarchism because the working conditions in the factories are very hard and he/she will explain you the debate between anarcho-syndicalism and propaganda by the deed. He/she has to reject violence. Your relative will also explain you the appearance of Catalanism. 

-1898: Here you will have to explain the founding of the PNV in the Basque Provinces,  the assassination of Cánovas de Castillo by an anarchist, the outbreak of the War of Cuban Independence and the war against the USA. One of your sons will be conscripted because you can't pay the redemption in cash to avoid the military service (1) and will die at the war.  

As you are very sad, one of your children will write about the 1898 disaster and the beginning of Alphonse XII's reign in 1902.  This person has to say that he/she wants to go on with the story. After what this person writes, you can include some broken sheets, as if someone had torn them out. 

POSTSCRIPT

Imagine that you are a contemporary person in 2017 who finds the diary of your family. Write a short conclusion about what you've read on the diary. 

(1) Redemption in cash: this was the money a family had to pay if they wanted that their son didn't go to the military service or to the war. Rich people paid to avoid their children to serve in the army. Poor people couldn't pay for it and always had to go to war. Republican parties and workers organizations claimed for the elimination of redemption in cash and wanted that everyone, no matter their wealth, did the military service. 

Here you have the presentation with the contents you will need to write the final chapters. You wil have to hand them in at the end of May. 

War Against War!

Source: https://libcom.org/forums/history/war-against-war-shockingly-powerful-ww1-photographs-ernst-friedrichs-classic-anti

This is the title of a photobook published by German anarchist pacifist Ernst Friedrich in 1924. During WW1 he was a teenager and joined a group of young anti-militaristic workers and was sentenced to prison after an act of sabotage in a military industry in 1917. When the war ended, he was released and continued to fight for peace and against militarism. In 1924 he had the idea of publishing a photobook  to show the atrocities and horrors of World War 1. The book includes a lot of pictures of  the consequences of the brutality and dehumanization caused by modern war. The short texts he wrote focused on explaining the lies and hypocrisy of the political and economic interests that promoted the war. His book, called in German Krieg dem Kriege! (War Against War!) was the first to include a big collection of pictures about the war and his intention was that the people discovered the real face of modern war and could have a more informed opinion about violence and militarism as "solutions" to problems between different territories. 

Source: https://thecharnelhouse.org/2014/07/10/ernst-friedrich-war-against-war-1924/

Here you have some of the texts he wrote on the book: 

And as we all, all human beings, equally feel joy and pain, let us fight unitedly against the common monstrous enemy, War. 

We shall unite in protesting against, in weeping over the accursed mass murders for which we all bear equal guilt. But let us also raise our eyes cheerfully to the red dawn of freedom and peace. 

This book is dedicated to all war profiteers and parasites, to all war provokers, and is consecrated also to the “kings”, generals, presidents and ministers of all lands. To the priests, however, who blessed the weapons in the name of God, this book is dedicated as a War bible! 

Show these pictures to all men who still can think!

He who then still believes in this mass butchery, let him be locked up in a madhouse, let us avoid him as we do the plague!

They lack the courage, these war-thinkers and war leaders, to go themselves into the battle, and themselves to die a sweet “heroic death”.

That is why they invented such beautiful phrases as “Fatherland” and “Field of Honour” and spoke of “defence” and uttered other lies.

The war against war signifies:
The war of the victimised against the profiteers!
The war of the deceived against the deceivers!
The war of the oppressed against the oppressors!
The war of the tortured against the torturers!
The war of the hungry against the well fed!

THE PREVENTION OF WAR

It is true that capital is the cause of every war.

But the guilt of war rests on our shoulders.

It is we proletarians that make the conduct of war possible; it is for us likewise to prevent wars!

Refuse to serve!

Bring up your children so that they may later refuse to render military and war service!

How very many lightly overlook the fact that in one’s own home in the family, war is being spontaneously prepared!

And here lies the beginning of all evils, here lies the beginning also of war!

The mother that sings soldier’s songs to the baby on her lap, prepares for war, yes, she prepares for war!

The father that makes gifts of toy soldiers to his child mobilises the child for the war idea!

The toy soldier is the Judas that you yourself bring into the home, is the betrayal of human life! Remember always this one thing: -

Ye parents that do not wish  that your sons should murder the dear sons of other parents, you should remember that the child whom you present with a helmet and sabre and gun, plays his tender soul to death out of his young body.

Those children, however, who are educated in love and solidarity, and are brought up to respect unconditionally the inviolable sanctity of human life, these children will most certainly be unfit for arms and war-service.

We, opponents of military service must finally destroy the halo and the humbug, and tear down the gaudy tinsel of the soldiery, and we must speak out what then still remains to be said:

a professional murderer paid by the state, who is trained in murder schools (called barracks) privileged by the state, in the carrying out of the most gruesome of crimes, the murder of human beings! That is what the children should be told!

I WILL NOT!

Stronger than all violence, than the sabre and the rifle, is our spirit, is our will!

Repeat these three words: “I will not!”

Give content to these words and all wars in future will be impossible.

War Against War! became a very famous book and Friedrich received a donation, which he used to buy an old building and create an Anti-War Museum in Berlin. The museum opened in 1926. 

Source: http://www.gusto-graeser.info/Leben/Lebenslauf/lebenslauf_index.html

 Source: http://www.anti-kriegs-museum.de/english/start1.html

In 1930 Friedrich was sent to jail again due to his propaganda campaigns against militarism. When he was released the folowing year, he managed to bring his archive abroad. In 1933, when the Nazis reached power in Germany, their SA troops destroyed the Anti-War Museum and he was sent to jail again.  The museum was transformed into a Nazi meeting place and later it became a torture chamber.  

Source: http://www.anti-kriegs-museum.de/english/start1.html

At the end of 1933 he left Germany and migrated to Belgium, where he re-opened the 2nd Anti-War Museum. 

During World War 2 Friedrich joined the French Resistance against the Nazis. When the war ended, he used the compensation received from the German government to buy a piece of land in Paris, where he created the Île de la Paix, an international center to promote peace and understanding, with the objective of hosting groups of French and German students. After Friedrich's death this center was sold and destroyed. 

In 1982 a new Anti-War Museum was opened in Berlin to remember Friedrich's work. 

Source: http://www.anti-kriegs-museum.de/english/history.html

Here you have some more links, if you want to learn more about Ernst Friedrich and his work for peace: 

https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/Illumina%20Folder/kell20.htm

https://libcom.org/forums/history/war-against-war-shockingly-powerful-ww1-photographs-ernst-friedrichs-classic-anti

http://fotografie.hfg-karlsruhe.de/imaging/related-book-war-against-war-krieg-dem-kriege

http://craigritchie.co.uk/archives/2581

Breaking news: Big Brother is watching us

Source: http://kafekultura.blogspot.com.es/2011/07/big-brother-is-watching-you.html

When George Orwell wrote 1984, he did it with the intention of criticizing a totalitarian system. Much of the information of the book was based on the USSR under Stalin's rule. But the news show that something similar to what Orwell imagined can happen in the so called best democracy of the world. The recent news from the USA have revealed that the government has a program to watch the citizens and record their e-mails, phone calls and all the information they want. The pretext of terrorism is constantly used to violate the freedom of the citizens. Yesterday, Edward Snowden, an ex-CIA employee explained to the British newspaper The Guardian what the NSA (National Security Agency) does with a sophisticated program called Prism. All this surveillance is made with the collaboration of phone and Internet suppliers. Apparently this doesn't only happen in the USA. Snowden has also pointed the UK. 

If you want to read further information about this scandal, here you have some links: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22842837

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22839609

Review of other leaks of information in the history of the USA: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22839913

In 1984 the only safe place for the individuals was their inner mind. We should think about it when we use the new media to communicate. 

P.S: Be sure that we are being watched as well.

Marxism for beginners

Source: http://ireadthat.blogspot.com.es/2006_07_01_archive.html

If you want to learn something else about Marxism, here you have some more information: 

- You can start reading the following post I wrote last year. It includes information about dialectical materialism, class struggle, Marx´s conclusions about private property and how it alienates people and his opinion about women´s submission and need for emancipation: 

http://todayinsocialsciences.blogspot.com.es/2012/01/something-more-about-marxism.html

- On the following link you can read the book Marx for beginners, written by a Mexican cartoonist called Rius in 1972. Rius used cartoons to explain the main ideas of Marxism, making them easier to understand: 

http://es.scribd.com/doc/28012909/Marx-for-beginners-by-RIUS

If some of you is interested in reading this book in Spanish, I can lend it to you.

- This is another link  from the Marxists Internet Archive, which includes different websites to start reading some Marx´s selected texts:

http://www.marxists.org/subject/students/index.htm

- This is a video I´ve found, made by a high school student, which explains in a very simple way some concepts developed by Marx and Engels, like the surplus concept and how extreme differences of wealth lead to impoverishment and cyclical crises in capitalism. This student based her video on Sophia´s World (El Mundo de Sofía), a book of Philosophy for teenagers. She made a really good work and you can draw inspiration from her work to do your projects: 

And finally, this is a Marx´s quote about the oppressed and the oppressors and their role in society:

Source: http://knowledgefordummies.tumblr.com/post/13705263305/karl-marx-and-his-wonderful-views-on-society

Maximilien Robespierre: a vindication

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Robespierre.jpg

Maximilien Robespierre, called The Incorruptible, was the main figure of the Jacobins and has gone down in history as the personification of the Reign of Terror. His name has always been linked to the period of extraordinary measures which included executions by guillotine of the suspected counter-revolutionaries. He was presented as a bloodthisrty dictator, responsible for uncountable atrocities. This image dates back to the Thermidorian Reaction: those who deposed the Jacobins and presented themselves as moderates and claiming for order spread a very negative vision of the Jacobins and found the perfect scapegoat in Robespierre. The winners of the French Revolution, the respectable bourgeois who got the rights they were looking for, used the Jacobin period as a threat and a symbol of chaos and injustice. But what part of this is true? Who was Robespierre and what were his main ideas?

Robespierre was born in Arras, in North Western France. His family belonged to the low bourgeoisie: his father was a lawyer and his maternal grandfather owned a brewery. When he was 11 years old, he received a grant to study in Paris, where he became a lawyer too. Back in Arras, he started working and soon became very popular, because he participated in some very famous trials, defending workers against the abuses of the privileged. He also used the trials to criticize injustice and the bad running of the structures of the Ancien Régime. When Louis XVI called the Estates General in 1788 Robespierre wrote the book of grievances of Arras shoemakers´ guild and was elected deputy of the Third Estate. Once in Versailles, he joined the Club Bréton and later the Jacobin Club in Paris. In the National Constituent Assembly and also in the Jacobin Club he participated in a lot of debates, where he exposed his ideas and expectations: 

- He opposed to the death penalty and explained that forgiving a hundred guilty people was preferable to sacrificing one innocent person.

- He defended the abolition of slavery and equal rights fot the inhabitants of the colonies

- He defended the participation of women in political clubs

- He supported universal suffrage, was against the division into active and passive citizens and believed in democracy

- He fought for the equality of rights for Jews and Protestants, defended religious tolerance and clerical marriage. He believed in God and thought that the decisions against the Church (like dechristianization) could be very negative to the Revolution. In fact, during the Jacobin Convention, he rejected the cult of Reason and proposed the alternative cult of the Supreme Being, as a way of reconciling religious beliefs with the revolutionary ideas. 

- He was against press censorship and martial law and defended freedom of speech, freedom of press,  protection of communications and freedom of association for workers.

- He considered that the right to survive was above other rights and was against punishing people who had committed crimes due to famine or because they wanted to live better. 

- He considered that people were good by nature, defended social justice, education and the fight for improving the living conditions of the poorest. 

- He was against wars of conquest and considered that the only wars worth fighting were the ones against tyrants, not against other peoples. 

- His definition of nation included all the people who had expressed their will of living together under common laws, no matter where they were born.

Could a person with these ideas be considered the monster most books of history have depicted? Why did he change his mind about some of his principles? The answer can be found in circumstances. Many revolutionaries had to make important decisions when they were confronted with the dilemma of  defending the achievements of the revolution and going on with changes or surrendering to counter-revolution. There were two opposed alternatives and they had to decide which one they preferred and what sacrifices were worth being done.  

Robespierre was not obsessed with the idea of founding a Republic, because he was aware of the risk of eliminating monarchy, but when Louis XVI tried to flee from France and his conspiracy against the Revolution was discovered, Robespierre supported the supression of the monarchy and the execution of the king (he said "It is with regret that I pronounce the fatal truth. The king must die so that the country can live"). He became one of the most important figures of the National Convention and when the Jacobins took the control, he was elected member of the Committee of Public Safety. His responsibility in the extraordinary measures the Committee took was shared with the other members of this organ. He detested violence, but also knew that revolutions had always been violent. Violence was very present in the 18th century and the urgency of the situation in France demanded quick and extraordinary actions. Deciding against his principles had an extraordinary cost to Robespierre´s health and during the last month of his life he was constantly sick and felt very weak, but the responsibilty of building a new and fairer society made him come back to the Convention. A conservative reaction against the policy the Jacobins were following deposed them and on the 28th July 1794 he was executed by guillotine without previous trial, together with other Jacobin leaders. The memory of their efforts was hidden by the bloody stories the winners told about them. They invented the expression Reign of Terror to define the Jacobin period and spread the ideas everybody links to Robespierre. But the Jacobin Convention and especially the Incorruptible deserve a fairer study. 

Here you have one paragraph of one of Robespierre´s most important speeches, on political morality: 

In our land we want to substitute morality for egotism, integrity for formal codes of honor, principles for customs, a sense of duty for one of mere propriety, the rule of reason for the tyranny of fashion, scorn of vice for scorn of the unlucky; self-respect for insolence, grandeur of soul for vanity, love of glory for the love of money, good people in place of good society. We wish to substitute merit for intrigue, genius for wit, truth for glamor, the charm of happiness for sensuous boredom, the greatness of man for the pettiness of the great, a people who are magnanimous, powerful, and happy, in place of a kindly, frivolous, and miserable people—which is to say all the virtues and all the miracles of the republic in place of all the vices of the monarchy. . . .

On Political Morality, 5th February 1794 

Source: http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/413/     

Satirical drawing of Robespierre executing the executioner after having guillotined everyone in France

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Robespierre_ex%C3%A9cutant_le_bourreau.jpg

Most of the content of this post comes from two books in Spanish I´ve read recently: 

- McPHEE, Peter, Robespierre: una vida revolucionaria, Ed. Península, Barcelona 2012. This is an extraordinary and documented biography, written by an Australian historian. Here you have some links about this book in English and Spanish: 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/feb/12/robespierre-revolutionary-peter-mcphee-review

http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1311

http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2012/11/21/actualidad/1353527310_172046.html

- GARCÍA SÁNCHEZ, Javier, Robespierre, Galaxia Gutenberg, Círculo de Lectores, Barcelona, 2012. This is a very long historical novel (more than 1,000 pages) that I still haven´t finished, but it has a very interesting post scriptum about how historians have treated Robespierre and the Jacobins and the reasons for this bad treatment. Here you have a review of this novel in Spanish: 

http://www.abc.es/cultura/cultural/20121126/abci-cultural-libros-robespierre-garcia-201211261054.html

And finally, here you have some Robespierre´s quotes: 

- The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant. 

- To punish the opressors of humanity is clemency; to forgive them is cruelty.

- Any law which violates the inalienable rights of man is essentially unjust; it is not a law at all. 

- We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic or perish with it; now in this situation, the first maxim of your policy ought to be to lead the people by reason and the people's enemies by terror.