Wednesday, 30 April 1930

Paris:  France expels 22 communist leaders as a precaution against May Day agitation tomorrow. 

Tuesday, 29 April 1930

Shanghai:  The nationalist government raids suspected communist bases in the foreign settlements, arresting 27 and seizing tens of thousands of pieces of communist propaganda, in advance of May Day.  Elsewhere, the government says its forces killed 900 bandits responsible for lawlessness in Hupeh. 

Monday, 28 April 1930

Vienna:  The Austrian government announces that 15,000 Austrian laborers who were to be employed by France to help build defensive fortifications there, cannot be used to work on fortifications directed toward Germany. 

Sunday, 27 April 1930

Rome:  Italy launches four new cruisers and a submarine in a festive event celebrating the country’s naval power.  Additionally, 90,000 members of fascist youth organizations are received into the Black Shirts, Mussolini’s fascist paramilitary, in ceremonies around the country.  They receive rifles to commemorate the occasion.

Madrid:  Melquiades Alvarez, former monarchist, criticizes King Alfonso in a speech, saying the king “forever” ignored his duties under the constitution of 1876 by allowing the dictatorship of Manuel Primo de Rivera.  Alvarez says a republic is now what Spain needs.

Berlin:  More bad economic news: the government announces that tax revenues were 70 million marks below budget for the fiscal year ended March 31. 

London:  Still more bad economic news: unemployment in Great Britain is higher than at any time in the last four years.

China: The nationalist government announces that martial law will be in effect for Shanghai May 1, in anticipation of communist unrest on May Day.  The government arrests 150 suspected communist agitators, detains 100 more, and displays weapons it says were planned for use in May Day uprisings.

Friday, 25 April 1930: Opposition to London Naval Treaty Rises in Japan

Tokyo: 

Opposition to Japan’s approval of the London Naval Treaty arises quickly.  Inukai Tsuyoshi, President of the Seiyukai opposition political party, attacks the treaty in the diet, claiming that because it was signed by a civilian government representative, it violates the Japanese constitution, which stipulates that the military be free from civilian control.  Foreign Minister Kijuro Shidehara, reviewing the treaty in the Diet, repeatedly has to refute the accusation that the Japanese delegation was forced to sign. 

Inukai Tsuyoshi

Paris:  Prime Minister Andre Tardieu proposes severe measures to prevent communist demonstrations on May Day, May 1. 

Halle, Germany:  A clash between nazis and communists after a nazi meeting results in injuries to 19 nazis. 

Tuesday, 22 April 1930: London Naval Conference Ends with Incomplete Results

London: 

The London Naval Treaty – focal point of the London Naval Conference which has been going on for the past two months -- is signed by the five participating nations: Japan, the United States, Great Britain, France and Italy.  The treaty marks a partial victory for diplomacy: all five nations agree to suspend expansion of their battleship fleets until 1936.  However, only three of the countries – Japan, the U.S., and U.K. – agree to limitations on their fleet sizes.  France and Italy could never resolve their differences with each other nor the rest of the participants, and so did not agree to fleet size limitations.  Perhaps indicative of the anticlimactic ending after 13 weeks of meetings, the U.S. delegation is already at the docks ready to board their ship home the same day of the signing. 

British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald says, “We have now gone as far as we can at present.  Compared with Washington and Geneva [earlier conferences], we have progressed far.  Compared with our desires, we have fallen short.  We part today in a spirit of active good will, prepared to take every means which offers itself to secure a five-power agreement on all points.  Our work has been but partly done, but all good work must be done in stages.”

London Naval Conference delegates

Cettinje, Yugoslavia:  A communist agitator guns down four people, including the chief of the gendarmes, and wounds three others, before being killed by police. 

Sunday, 20 April 1930

Leipzig, Germany: 

A gathering of 30,000 young communists observing “Red Youth Day” turns violent when fighting breaks out as police attempt to cordon off side streets leading away from the plaza where the gathering is being held.  Three are killed, two of them police. 

Madrid: 

More than 25,000 supporters of the monarchy jam the new bull ring here to show their support for King Alfonso XIII.  Streets around the arena are draped with banners reading, “Long Live the King,” and “Long Live Spain.”  Speakers say the king has been unfairly attacked by supporters of a constitutional republic, and that the majority of Spaniards want the monarchy to continue.  The king was not present, spending Holy Week in Seville. 

Soviet Union:

Kharkov, Ukraine:  29 people are sentenced to prison terms totaling 173 years for allegedly trying to restore a “capitalistic” system in Ukraine.  Among those being sent to prison are the former President of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, the former Ukrainian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister.

Moscow:  The 200 or so remaining Orthodox churches here are jammed on Easter Sunday, despite efforts by the Atheist League to detract from it.  In an attempt to draw people away from church, all theaters in the city are opened at midnight and shows are run continuously through the day, and military bands play at public squares and other gathering places.  However, as part of its “slowdown” on the atheization of the country, the government does forbid citizens from molesting worshipers in churches, or on their way to and from them. 

China:

In the civil war, skirmishes are reported between nationalist government forces and northern rebels along railroads around the city of Kweiteh. 

Friday, 18 April 1930

Zurich:  Political exiles from fascist Italy report that political prisoners of dictator Benito Mussolini’s government, being held in prisons on the Lipari Islands in the Mediterranean, are being killed by their guards – two, at least, are reported dead.

Berlin:  More bad economic news: reports measuring economic activity such as railway car loadings of coal and other heavy goods are all down from the same time last year. 

Bydgoszcz, Poland:  Nine members of the Deutschtumbund, a German organization in the areas of Poland that were taken from Germany after the World War, are sentenced to prison for sabotaging Polish administrative decisions and spying.

Monday, 14 April 1930

Germany: 

Wilhelm Frick, nazi Minister of the Interior and Education in the state of Thuringia, issues an order that will revoke the licenses of entertainment establishments that present black performers or their music.  Frick says he is acting to save Germany from “negro culture,” which he says is corrupting morals in the country.

Berlin:  New Chancellor Heinrich Bruening’s package of financial reform bills (mostly taxes) and agrarian relief passes the Reichstag by slim margins – in the case of the budget bill, by just four votes.  Bruening’s authority to dissolve the Reichstag, granted him by President Paul von Hindenburg, again looms large over the proceedings, with political parties sending cars and in some cases even planes out to bring legislators in for the vote, rather than face elections for a new parliament.  The measures implement new taxes on tobacco, sugar, beer and mineral water. 

Elsewhere:

Paris:  Two fascists are shot to death in the street by communists in revenge for recent arrests of communists in France.

New York: The Rand School of Social Science, a socialist institution, releases its American Labor Year Book for 1930, which states that the growing worldwide unemployment problem caused by the Great Depression is worst in Russia.

Sunday, 13 April 1930

Germany:

Berlin:  Nazis paint “Death to Young” and swastikas on three portals of the Reichstag building in protest of the Young Plan. 

Magdeburg:  Several are injured in a street battle between communists and nazis.