1937 - Political Events
Political Events
New Moscow show trials begin January 23 as Josef Stalin purges the Communist Party and Soviet Army of alleged Trotskyites (see 1936). Grigori L. Pyatakov, 47, is executed January 31; Karl Bernardovich Radek, 52, condemned to serve 10 years in prison; Marshal Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevski, 44, convicted of treason by a military tribunal and executed June 12 along with seven other generals; hundreds of others are liquidated or sent to the gulag (labor camps) of Siberia and elsewhere. Fully 7,000 will be sent to the gulag, 35,000 others dismissed from the armed forces on suspicion of disloyalty.
Malaga falls to Gen. Franco February 8 as Spain's civil war continues, with more than 10,000 Germans and from 50,000 to 75,000 Italians supporting Franco (see 1936). He commands several thousand insurgents against the Republican Army, whose efforts enjoy the support of an International Brigade of Russians, Britons, other Europeans, and Americans. The insurgents advance with Italian aid, but the road from Madrid to Valencia remains intact. Loyalists defeat Italian troops March 18 at Brihuega, capturing large stores of equipment. Benito Mussolini began the year by concluding a "gentlemen's agreement" with Britain, each party agreeing to maintain the independence and integrity of Spain and respect each other's interests and rights in the Mediterranean; an Italian-Yugoslav treaty signed March 25 guarantees existing frontiers and maintenance of the status quo in the Adriatic.
German Junker and Heinkel bombers of the Nazi Condor Legion annihilate the defenseless Basque town of Guernica on the afternoon of April 26, dropping explosives and thousands of aluminum incendiary projectiles for more than 3 hours while Heinkel fighters strafe civilians who have fled into the fields. The incident produces outrage worldwide.
Congress amends the Neutrality Act of 1935 May 1 to stiffen the embargo against shipment of arms, ammunition, and implements of war to any nation at war, including civil war, and bar U.S. vessels from carrying such material (see 1939).
President Roosevelt sends Wisconsin-born Washington, D.C. lawyer Joseph E. (Edward) Davies as his ambassador to Moscow. Now 60, Davies attended the Versailles Peace Conference with Woodrow Wilson in 1919, divorced his wife 2 years ago to marry General Foods heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, and will urge amending U.S. Neutrality Acts to discourage European powers from starting a second world war.
Four German warships bombard Almeria May 31 in reprisal for a Loyalist air attack on the Deutschland. Gen. Mola dies in a plane crash June 3, Bilboa falls to the insurgents June 18 after weeks of heavy fighting and aerial bombing, Basque resistance collapses, and Gijon falls October 21 as Franco breaks resistance in the Asturias. The Spanish government moves from Valencia to Barcelona October 28. Franco announces a naval blockade of the entire Spanish coast November 28, but a Loyalist counter-offensive begins December 5, and Teruel falls to the Loyalists December 19.
Britain's Hawker Aircraft begins production of the single-seat Hurricane monoplane fighter plane. First flown 2 years ago, it is the first Royal Air Force plane able to exceed 300 miles per hour in level flight and can actually reach a speed of 330 miles per hour and an altitude of 36,000 feet (see 1940).
The Bren gun that goes into production in England is adapted from a Czech light machine gun made at Brno. Easy to clean, load, and operate, its barrel can be changed quickly when it overheats. The gun weighs 19 pounds, can fire 520 rounds per minute, and has an effective range of about 2,000 feet (see Sten gun, 1940).
Former British foreign secretary and 1925 Nobel Peace Prize winner Sir (Joseph) Austen Chamberlain dies at London March 16 at age 73. Parliament votes in March to double the annual salary of Britain's prime minister from £5,000 to £10,000 and to pay him a pension upon retirement. The lord chancellor has been receiving £5,000 with another £5,000 for acting as speaker of the House of Lords.
Britain's prime minister Stanley Baldwin retires May 28 at age 69 and is succeeded by his chancellor of the exchequer (Arthur) Neville Chamberlain, 58-year-old son of the late Austen Chamberlain, who attempts to appease Adolf Hitler, a policy whose many supporters include Edward F. L. (Frederick Lindley) Wood, 56, earl of Halifax, who served as viceroy to India from 1925 to 1929. Former Canadian prime minister Sir Robert Borden dies at Ottawa June 10 at age 82; former British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald at sea en route to South America November 8 at age 71.
France's premier Léon Blum resigns in June after a conservative majority in the Senate refuses to grant him the emergency-decree powers that he has sought to deal with the nation's financial problems; left-wingers have denounced him for refusing to intervene in the Spanish civil war, right-wingers for trying to establish state control over finance and private industry. Former premier Camille Chautemps heads a new modified Popular Front ministry that will continue until March of next year (see 1938).
Former Czech president Tomas Masaryk dies at Lány September 13 at age 86; former German general and erstwhile Hitler supporter Erich F. W. Ludendorff at Tutzing December 20 at age 72.
Italy joins the German-Japanese anti-Comintern pact November 6 and withdraws from the League of Nations December 11.
Former U.S. secretary of state Elihu Root dies at New York February 7 at age 91; former U.S. Navy admiral and fleet commander Henry D. Wiley at Palm Beach, Fla., May 20 at age 76; former U.S. diplomat Frank B. Kellogg at St. Paul, Minn., December 21 on the eve of his 81st birthday.
A Kurd assassinates Iraq's 47-year-old military dictator Gen. Bakr Sidqi at Mosul August 11 following conclusion of a nonaggression pact signed in July by Turkish, Iraqi, Iranian, and Afghan diplomats (see 1936). British diplomat Sir Percy Cox has died at Melchbourne, Bedfordshire, February 20 at age 72, having overseen the transition of Iraq from a provisional, largely military regime to a national government headed by the late Faisal I (see 1939).
Japanese forces invade China July 7 as the new prime minister Prince Fumimaro Konoye, 46, embarks on an undeclared war that will continue until 1945. A scion of the ancient Fujiwara family, Konoye is a onetime liberal who has come to favor increased armament and centralized government control. The Japanese attack Chinese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge outside Beijing (Peking), the city falls to the Japanese July 28, and Tianjin (Tientsin) falls July 29 as Gen. Otozo Yamada, 55, directs the invading army. Kyoto-born military intelligence veteran Gen. Naruhiko Higashikuni, 49, has commanded the 5th infantry brigade since 1934 and is named chief of military aviation; a member of the royal family, he will head Japan's Home Defense Headquarters beginning in 1939. Chinese patriot Sun Yaxing, 26, sells his jewelry business and uses the proceeds to found the Chinese Youths National Salvation Association. Japanese authorities on Taiwan force the people there to celebrate the Imperial Army's victories; in the next 8 years they will draft 200,000 Taiwanese into the army, and 40,000 of them will die. The Japanese Army uses poison gas August 13 against Chinese troops at the outbreak of the Wasung-Shanghai campaign. It has earlier used gas more than 1,100 times in 14 provinces (see biological weapons [Unit 731], 1936). U.S. women and children living in Shanghai are evacuated August 15 while Japanese forces prepare to launch an attack on the city. Nationalists and communists join forces to repel the invaders, communist military leader Ye Ting is given command of the New 4th Army in October (now 40, he has spent 5 years in the Soviet Union and western Europe), but the Japanese take Shanghai November 8 and stage a victory parade down the city's main shopping street December 3; a Chinese assassination team led by Sun Yaxing throws a bomb that disrupts the parade, and Sun hides Browning automatics, Mauser machine pistols, and Mills hand grenades in the attic of his former jewelry store to prepare for future terrorist activities (but see 1938). The Japanese advance on Nanjing (Nanking), take that city by storm December 13, and take Hangzhou (Hangchow) December 24 (see 1938).
The Panay incident heightens tensions between Japan and the Western powers. Japanese bombers attack British and U.S. ships near Nanjing December 12 on orders from Col. Kingoro Hashimoto, 37, who commands Imperial Army troops in central China, but Washington accepts Japan's explanations, and events in Europe distract London and Washington from the aggression in China.
President Roosevelt proposes a reorganization of the U.S. judiciary February 7 and explains his idea to the public on radio March 9 in one of his "fireside chats." The "nine old men" on the Supreme Court have frustrated FDR by blocking so many New Deal initiatives that the president asks for a law that would empower him to appoint an additional justice for every current justice over the age of 70. FDR's Texas-born vice-president John Nance Garner opposes the "court-packing scheme," as do many other Democrats, and the proposal's only effect is to increase criticism of Roosevelt.
Dominican troops and police massacre Haitian workers living near their border in October as long-simmering enmities erupt into violence (see Trujillo, 1930). The economy of the Dominican Republic depends on Haitian labor; somewhere between 5,000 and 25,000 are killed in a 36-hour bloodbath; the outside world pays little attention, but the atrocity creates a furor on the island. U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull has said of the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo that he "may be a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch." Trujillo will let a puppet president replace him next year. The new government will agree to pay $3.4 million in compensation to relatives of those killed, but only a fraction of this will actually be paid. The despotic Trujillo will be enriching himself to the tune of $200,000 per month by 1939, and he will return as president in 1943 (see 1954).
Brazil's president Getulio Vargas proclaims a new constitution November 10 after 7 years in office, closes the Congress, and begins nearly 15 years of a dictatorship he says is not fascist but will have all the hallmarks of fascism. Socialist newspaperman Alexandre Barbosa Lima, 40, opposed the Vargas coup in 1930 but will support him with nationalist fervor in his columns.
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