Message to Anti-Franco Protest Meeting [1952]

In approaching Russell on 4 March, Read was merely seeking to associate his correspondent's name with an announcement of this forthcoming event. Political repression was routinely employed by Franco after his victory in the Spanish Civil War. Although the present paper is extremely brief, it touches on the important issue of the British Left's antipathy to Franco. While the foremost objective of the proposed campaign was to obtain reprieves for the eleven syndicalists under sentence of death, five executions were carried out two weeks before the Memorial Hall meeting, which took place after a similar gathering was staged in Paris at the end of February. It is hard to imagine Russell objecting to such a change, which was in alignment with what he had communicated privately to Herbert Read. The copy-text is the signed typescript, prepared from the dictated manuscript in Edith Russell’s hand.