Not so much as a square mile changed hands in Spain's civil war last week but vigorously boiled a question now vexing socialists in many lands: whether those Communist forces which have made the Soviet Union what it is today—the Stalinist forces — now largely dominate Leftist Spain or not. Last month worried Manhattan socialists sent Associate Editor Sam Baron of the Socialist Call to investigate conditions in Barcelona and Valencia where were occurring the trials of several prominent Spanish labor leaders for fomenting "Trotskyist riots." Mr. Baron, onetime New York president of the Bookkeepers, Stenographers & Accountants Union, has been active in leading U. S. organizations working for Leftist Spain. Instead of being permitted to "observe conditions" in Valencia, Socialist Baron found himself abruptly clapped into jail, managed to smuggle out news of his plight by means of a prearranged code. Last week international Socialist pressure secured Observer Baron's release and he arrived in Paris after traveling the length of Leftist Spain, keeping his eyes & ears open. Earlier in the year Socialist Baron had spent four months traveling freely all over Leftist Spain, thus last week had ample background to contrast conditions in the spring and today.
"The civil population [in Leftist Spain] now is desperate," declared Socialist Baron. "Food supplies have been reduced to severe siege rations. Under the present regime, democratic forces have lost their spirit and this, coupled with severe privation, has weakened their resistance."
"What is wrong is that an overwhelming majority of farmers and workers distrust the present Prieto-Communist coalition," continued Mr. Baron, referring to the Spanish Leftist Government in which Defense Minister Indalecio Prieto overshadows both Premier Dr. Juan Negrin and President Manuel Azaña. This Government's removal of itself from Valencia to Barcelona (TIME, Nov. 3), Socialist Baron reported, "has been very unpopular, both as an admission of failure and because of the political complications that are likely to follow. The failure of the Government to win any victory has depressed the population. Even the Brunete offensive, which was intended to relieve pressure on Madrid, did not succeed."
The people of Leftist Spain, according to Mr. Baron, resent their Government's "arbitrary use of censorship for the political advantage of those in control," and "dislike the reign of terror by secret police, informers and spies of the Communist Cheka."
Meanwhile, last week Socialists in many lands were distributing copies of a speech delivered on Oct. 17 in Madrid by Leftist Spain's onetime Premier Francisco Largo Caballero, who has since been prevented from criticizing the regime which replaced him. Its contents, largely suppressed by the Leftist Government's cable censors last month, packed all the more punch because Socialist Baron had come out to report last week that in Leftist Spain there is much "dissatisfaction with forcing Francisco Largo Caballero out of the Govern-ment last May. He is by far the most popular political leader among the Spanish masses, and they resent the Communist campaign against him!"