into session in 1912 it had a Social Democratic group of 13 men, to which was added a Polish Socialist Party representative elected in Warsaw. With the Group of Toil (10 men) it forms the extreme radical wing of the Duma.

The Socialist representatives have seized every opportunity to tell the government and the capitalist class the truth. The persecutions which were their reward, increased in severity when the outbreak of the war showed that the great majority of the Russian Social Democracy was more sharply than ever, in opposition to the government and to the Duma as a whole.

The Social Democrats in the Duma on August 8, 1914, when the first war credits were put to a vote, expressed their attitude in a declaration which assailed the government for its imperialistic policies and pledged international solidarity with the workers of the world.

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After this declaration the Social Democrats left the Duma, to be followed at once by members of the Group of Toil. Neither of these parties were present when the vote was taken. Shortly after the Czar's government saw chance for revenge, and five Social Democratic members of the Duma, Petrowsky, Muranoff, Badaeff, Samoiloff and Schagoff, were arrested on the flimsy pretext that they belonged to a secret society and for attempted rebeilion. They were sent to Siberia.

The great majority of the Socialist proletariat remained opposed to war. When industrial war commissions were established, and elections were being held for the Central War Commission, the workers of Petrograd were called upon to declare by vote whether or not they desired to be represented on this commission. This election showed that not quite 35 per cent of the Petrograd workers declared themselves in favor of electing labor representatives. Of the 200 electors, who were elected by 225,000 votes, 91 refused to vote, so that the election could not be held, and the war commissions remained without labor representatives. Great strikes broke out in all parts of the country, particularly in Petrograd, Moscow and in the Caucasus, some of which are still unsettled. They have been particularly frequent in ammunition works.

The Socialist Press is limited to Nasch Golos (Our Voice) which is published in Samara, and belongs to the so-called Minority group of the Social Democratic Labor Party. A paper founded in Petrograd by the Majority group, the Utro, was forbidden after the first weeks of its publication.

Besides the main organization of the S. D. L. P. there are large national groups which also belong to this party: the Lettish and the Lithuanian S. D. L. P. and the Jewish

"Bund," all without exception in favor of the stand taken by the Social Democratic group in the Duma. These organizations are strong and possess great influence in their own national territories.

The Zimmerwald Conference was indorsed by the Central Committee of the Social Democratic Labor Party, by the Organization Committee of the Party, by the Social Revolutionary Party, by the General Jewish Labor Federation in Lithuania, Poland and Russia and by the three Polish Socialist Parties.

The Russian labor union movement has as yet no central organization. It was computed during the 1905 revolution that there were about 652 unions with an approximate membership of 246,000. In 1910 the number of unions was officially reported as 750. In 1912, the factory inspectors reported that 2,032 strikes had occurred in that year, involving 725,491 workers. Of these 1,300 strikes involving 500,000 workers were political in character. The labor union movement, in so far as the unions are not of the "yellow" category, is the victim of merciless persecutions by the government, and countless organizations and trade unions are every year sacrificed by the local satraps. Thousands of unionists are arrested or thrown out upon the streets; the activity of the labor unions reduced to a minimum and robbed of the right to strike. New labor unions are rarely, in some places never, registered, that is, permitted. Nevertheless the unions have taken root and will grow as soon as political oppression has been removed.

On August 18, 1914, a Co-operative Committee was formed in Petrograd to give to the existing co-operative organizations its full measure of usefulness during the war. In December, 1915, the committee was dissolved by the police, who declared that the Committee had used illegal and rebellious methods.

Secretary of the Social Democratic Labor Party of Russia: Kouznetzoff, 102 Rue Babillot, Paris (France).

The Secretary of the Social Revolutionary Party: E. Roubanovitch, 238 Boulevard Raspail, Paris (France).

SERBIA.

Constitutional monarchy; legislative authority vested in King with National Assembly (Skupchina) Parliament consists of 166 Deputies; Restricted manhood suffrage.

The labor movement in Serbia is weak because of the country's industrially undeveloped condition, and especially because efforts toward organizing the agrarian proletariat have failed. Nevertheless, the Serbian Social Democracy, like all other Social-Democracies in the Balkan States, per

sisted, before and after the outbreak of the war, in their antimilitaristic attitude, and refused to swerve a hairs-breadth, from the principles of the International.

The Social Democratic Labor Party of Serbia took an active part in national elections for the first time in 1904, when it polled a vote of 2,508. In 1907 this increased to 3,133, in 1910 to 9,000, in 1912 to 25,000, and in 1914 to 30,000. In 1912 the comrades Laptchevitch and Kazlerovitch were elected to the national parliament. Laptchevitch delivered a speech before the Skuptchina on October 12, 1912, which caused a great stir on account of his protest against any jealousy between the States of a Balkan federation built upon a progressive and democratic basis. When in May, 1913, the Serbian Prime Minister Paschitch delivered an incendiary speech against Bulgaria, it was the Serbian Social Democracy that entered a strong protest, and presented a plan, complete to the minutest detail, for the creation of a Balkan Federation. In May, 1914, shortly after the end of the second Balkan war, the National Convention of the Serbian Social Democratic Labor Party was held in Belgrad and a resolution was unanimously passed, in the presence of delegates sent by the Bulgarian S. D. P., favoring peaceable cooperation between Serbia and Bulgaria. The Bulgarian comrade Sakasoff had received a splendid welcome. When the great war broke out in August, 1914, the two Socialists in the Serbian Assembly voted against the war and against war budgets. Laptchevitch declared that the blame for the outbreak of the war lay with the capitalists of all nations on one hand and on the other with the government of Serbia, which had tolerated the intrigues of Black Hand organizations like the Narodna Obrana. This speech as well as the vote of the Socialist representatives led to furious attacks by all parties, while the Socialists became subject to bitter persecution by the government.

The war has completely destroyed the political as well as the industrial labor movement. The most prominent Serbian theorist, a deep thinker and great scientist, Tuzowitch, has fallen. The party newspapers have closed down one by one, after countless confiscations and prohibitions. The last paper to cease publication was the official Socialist daily, Radnicke Novine. Party branches and labor unions have been dissolved and destroyed. Splendid work was done by six members of the Belgrad city council, with the Party secretaries Luka Pavitshcevitch and Milan Dragowitsch at their head, in forcing the Belgrad municipal government to provide from the public funds for 25,000 people who had been caught in the Serbian capital,-most of them completely penniless. Small as are the resources of Belgrad, it is gen

erally conceded that only the systematic work of these comrades preserved the Belgrad proletariat from starvation. The labor union movement, Socialist and class-conscious throughout, had on July 1, 1914, 14,300 members, organized in 9 industrial Federations and a number of locally organized unions. The central organization is known as the General Federation.

There had been an exceedingly active strike movement in 1913, which had contributed materially to the growth and development of the economic movement of the Serbian working-class.

The Serbian Social-Democratic Labor Party has joined the Zimmerwald conferences, has endorsed their declarations and was represented at both meetings by delegates.

The Secretary of the S. D. L. P. is D. Papovitch, Servian Social-Democratic Labor Party, Belgrad.

The Secretary of the Labor Federation is P. Pawlowitsch, Radnicke Novine, Belgrad.

SPAIN.

Constitutional monarchy. Parliament (Cortes) of two houses-Congress of Deputies, chosen by popular vote, and Senate, part hereditary, part ex officio, part appointed, part indirectly elected.

Compared with France or Italy, Spain is a backward country. Less than half the people over the age of ten can read. Industry is but little developed. The liberties guaranteed in the constitution are largely illusory, the government being able to control elections to a great extent. Of late there has been progress, a feature of which is the movement for popular self-education launched by the freethinker Francisco Ferrer, who was executed under martial law in 1909.

The working-class movement is practically confined to Madrid, the mining and metal-working region of the north coast, and the commercial and industrial region around Barcelona, where it is complicated with Catalonian nationalism.

Sections of the International were formed in Spain in 1868, but soon fell under the influence of Bakunist Anarchism. Paul Lafargue, Francisco Mora, and a few others upheld the Marxian idea, and in 1879 formed the Socialist Labor Party. Among its founders was a young printer, Pablo Iglesias, who is still its foremost leader.

The party first nominated candidates in 1891, polling 5,000 votes. Its strength grew to 14,000 in 1896, to 26,000 in 1904, and fell to 23,000 in 1907. In 1910 for the first time it formed a coalition with the Republicans. Iglesias was elected in Madrid, with 40,000 votes, more than half of them

Socialist. In 1916 he was re-elected. The party has representatives in more than forty municipal councils.

In 1913 the party had about 12,000 members, and in the fall of 1915 it had 14,332. "El Socialista," published in Madrid, is the central organ, and there are several other weekly

papers.

In the beginning, the party took a clear stand in favor of neutrality. Its papers were prosecuted for printing articles against war, militarism, and imperialism, and an attempt to hold a congress to emphasize its views was forbidden by the authorities. More recently, influenced by sympathy with the French Socialists, and perhaps by reaction against Germanophil tendencies in the bourgeoisie, leading elements in the party at Madrid and elsewhere, including Iglesias, have rather decidedly taken the side of the Allies, some even advocating participation in the war. It appears that the bulk of the organized working people of the North, as well as the Socialist women and youth at the capital, oppose the party leaders on this point.

In April, 1915, the Socialist Women's Group celebrated its ninth and the Young Socialists' Federation its eleventh anniversary.

In 1889 was founded the General Union of Workingmen (Union General de Trabajadores) a federation of trade unions in sympathy with Socialism. Starting with 3,000 members, it grew to 26,000 in 1900, to 42,000 in 1910, and in 1915 it had 398 local unions with 112,194 members, among them 8,000 women. Vicente Barrio is its Secretary, and its organ is "La Union Obrero." There are also some Anarchist-Syndicalist unions outside the federation.

"Liberal" Tyranny.

The difficulties encountered by the labor movement may be judged by the fact that for thirteen months, ending October, 1910, under the "Liberal" ministry of Canalejas, the offices of the General Union and all local labor headquarters throughout the kingdom were kept closed by the police; all the members of the central committee and many other leaders were prosecuted, and a number imprisoned-all because of the campaign waged by the unions against the government's policy of imperialism in Morocco.

Labor Conflicts.

In

There have been many labor conflicts during the war. In May, 1915, the Asturian miners won an increase of wages and other concessions through the threat of a strike. July came a general lockout of bakers in Madrid, in which the Socialist women gave the union valuable aid. A pre

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