The following lead article appeared in the February
1 issue of Combate, central organ of the Liga Comunista Revolucionaria/Euzkadi ta Askatasuna-VI
(Revolutionary Communist League/Basque Nation and Freedom-VI), sympathizing organization of the Fourth International in Spain. I was a faithful reflection of the political project that The programmatic speech of the Arias government defines it (the Francoist "reform"), of the methods by which the government intends to carry this out, and of the depth to which it has been hit by a month of mass struggles whose geographical and social breadth has been unprecedented. It was, then, a coherent speech. Only those who had harbored absurd illusions about the will and possibility of the government to "change" con be "disappointed" today. And harboring such illusions required previous acceptance of the notion of the evolution of Francoism, at the most hoping to exert pressure to gradually broaden and accelerate that evolution. That is why it was predictable and exemplary that the general staff of the "democratic" bourgeoisie should stand at the head of the army of complainers who are now whining their discontent in the pages of the newspapers: But while they are complaining, the people are struggling. In the immense and solid ranks of the working class, among all the workers, there was no disillusionment, for there had been no illusions. It took only a few weeks to get to know the "reformers" of Francoism, through their deeds and not their press conferences, in the factories, the neighborhoods, the streets, the schools and universities, the hospitals, and the public services that were militarized or threatened with militarization, and not in the administrative councils of the capitalist corporations. The working class and the people are already well acquainted with "democracy, Spanish-style." The January 28 program simply served to help them to know it better. That is, the better to destroy it, and soon. 2 "reform" is the present political program of Spanish As we have said on other occasions, the Francoist big capital and imperialism; it is aimed at forestalling the outbreak of a prerevolutionary situation in the country produced by the final assault of the mass movement against the dictatorship. The method of this "reform" is the "controlled evolution" of the regime toward a caricature of "bourgeois democracy. " The essential objective of the project is to reverse the relationship of class forces, which is now favorable to the working class and has been for years. The Francoist dictatorship in its classic form commands only one weapon with which to achieve this objectiver repression. But this weapon has only too clearly demonstrated its ineffectiveness, and has even stimulated the strength and combativity of the masses. Having become convinced of this, the bourgeoisie is now trying a different tactic, transform-
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"The overthrow of the dictatorship is not a slogan of the past; it is the central slogan of the present period."
ing the political framework. Under the traditional poItical framework of the Francoist dictatorship, class battles had direct and frontal expressions. Each struggle, no matter how limited at its outset, immediately clashed with the state. Now it is necessary for the bourgeoisie to establish channels to protect the "new" bourgeois state from these direct confrontations and thus to permit the stabilization of that state. These channels are the bourgeois political parties, the historic Social Democracy, a fake parliament, and a shadow of legality for the mass movement. Precisely these channels and no others, for the bourgeoisie knows very well that "the parliamentary representation of an oppressed class considerably reduces its real strength, while on the other hand, the representation of the bourgeoisie, even on the eve of its collapse, is always a mask-that conceals its imaginary strength." But the bourgeoisie also knows that under the present conditions the working class would not use its liberty solely or even mainly to increase its number of parliamentary deputies. Hence the rejection of amnesty and the refusal to legalize the communist and revolutionary nationalist organizations. All the promises of puppet democracy contained in the government program are not accidental, are not "errors" that are going to be corrected with the passage of time. They are the very reason for being of the Franform. If liberties and democratic rights are to live, the coist "reform, "a matter of life and death for that reFrancoist "reform" must die. The overthrow of the dictatorship is not a slogan of the past; it is the central slogan of the present period.
Thus, it is no alternative to confinue to give any
Soort of confidence, small or great, unconditional or conditional, implicit or explicit, to the Francoist "reformers. "
The "democratic" bourgeoisie continues to speak of
" to reject any "open collaboration"
"democratic break, with the government. This is its role; those are the terms of its alliance with the reformist workers organizafions, the terms that are supposed to allow them to later become the protagonists of the broad coalition provi-
* the signers of the "social pact, "
sional government, and the rebuilders of the threatened bourgeois state,
4 once the working class and the people have destroyed the "democratic" bourgeoisie, through Jordi Pujol, one the Francoist "reform. At the same time, however, of its most capable spokesmen, claims that "we are not emment. " They are surely not, because when thousands interested in blocking the projects of the present govof workers fight for their demands, it is this government that has to protect the interests of these "democratic" bankers and employers, because they know that this government relies on the support of imperialism, Spanish big capital, and the army, and because this government represents "evolution, " the possibility of the bour- geoisie's organizing freely, while the workers movethe possibility of "making up for lost time." Hence, the "democratic" bourgeoisie waits with folded ment cannot, arms, criticizing creetly, " without clear commitments but also without "sensitively, " making its points "disconfrontations with the government, waiting for the land" in the name of "United and indivisible democracy" time when it will be called upon to save the fatherfrom the "excesses" of the mass movement on the march toward socialist revolution.
But what permits the "democratic" bourgeoisie to hope to play this political role are the alliances it has with workers organizations. Thus, the line of class collaboration offers the reins of the mobilization of the workers to those who aspire only to control the workers more effectively, in another manner. Such is the result of this line. The PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español - Spanish Socialist Workers party, the Social Democracy) has to go further than the "democratic" bourgeoisie in its verbal criticism of the government and has to be more active, to occupy some position in the struggles of the workers. The Social Democracy can assume its political role, can appear as an effective administrator of the bourgeois order, only if it is able to rely on a fundamentally working-class social base. The bureaucracy of the PSOE knows this and also knows that it does not yet command such a base. In order to develop it, the
PSOE has to make it seem that it is not entering into any compromise with the government, but has also to put itself in position to "utilize" the legality it is being offered, the possibility of becoming the only workers organization that is legal in practice. The Social Democracy also has some "lost time" to make up. Under the conditions of the class struggle in our country, this
"The foundation of our program is the self-organization of the working class and the entire mass movement"
"utilization" requires some ideological alibis, which provide samples of the project of the PSOE leadership. The PSOE secretary general has gone so far as to assert that the farcical municipal elections scheduled to be held at the end of this year can play "the same role as the elections of April 1931. " This is not just parliamentary cretinism, it is worse. It is pre-parliamentary crefinism. In the present political situation, it is obvious that the mass mobilization that will destroy Francoism may be sparked by the most varied of factors. Thus, it cannot be excluded that one of these factors might be the government's convoking of an electoral farce. But, in the midst of the greatest mass struggles of the postwar period, to consider that "democracy" can be achieved by winning the majority in sham municipal elections that will take place ten months from now, if indeed they take place at all, is to carry electoralism to its ultimate and most nefarious conclusions. The bureaucracy of the PSOE dreams of ending forty years' of dictatorship through a victory in elections organized by the heir of that very dictatorship. Luckily for the PSOE leaders, while they are busy dreaming, the working class and the people are throwing themselves into their final battle with Francoism, and they will win that battle; if things were otherwise, the Social Democrats would awaken from their dreams in prison.
5 de Españe)? What is the alternative put forward by And the Communist party (PCE - Partido Comuniste the largest workers organization in the country, which has been expressly excluded from the projects of the Francoist "reform"? Here is what Jordi Sole-Turá, a member of the PSUC (the Communist party in Catalonia), had to say about the government program: "The basic problem is that... they want to make this change by reaching an agreement with the camarilla instead of with a democratic opposition that represents the population's genuine desire for change. " Thus, the "democratic alternative" to the government's program is to reach an agreement with the government! It would be ridiculous if it were not so tragic, if these words were not spoken in the name of the workers party that holds hegemony in the country, if they were not consistent with the overall line of the PCE, if they were not the logical consequence of the theory of "peaceful transition." Each time the crisis of power of the Spanish bourgeoisie deepens an inch, the Spanish Communist party responds by descending one more step down the ladder of capitulation. From the "pact until the day of the fall of Francoism" we have moved to the "pact for the whole constituent period, " from the "political pact" to the "social pact, " and now, from the "pact against the dictatorship" to the "pact against the
SPAIN camarilla." What does the PCE have in store for tomorrow? If every previous "advance" down the road to the "unity of the democratic opposition" has had its price, what price is the PCE prepared to pay for reaching an agreement with Fraga (the present minister of the inteThe alternative of the PCE boils down to attaining two objectives: First, to convince big capital that it is not possible to stabilize a bourgeois state in Spain while refusing to legalize the PCE; second, to convince big capital that it is possible to achieve this sort of stabilization with the collaboration of a legal PCE. Anything is valid in pursuit of these objectives, including, as we have just recently seen, reducing the PCE's own program to this miserable "desire for change," sufficiently modest to be shared with and agreed to by Francoist reformism. On the day when the mass movement brings down the dictatorship, the PCE will have apparently achieved the two objectives mentioned above: Big capital will urgently call upon the PCE to collaborate in the reconstruction of its state. But the "triumph" of the PCE will be only apparent. What will have convinced big capital will not have been "peaceful mobilizations of citizens" or mythical "national democratic action, "but rather the independent action of the masses breaking down the ramparts of class collaboration in practice.
In spite of the important differences that exist among them, the Maoist organizations, the PTE, ORT, and
MCE*, share a similar conception of the "democratic alternative, " very close or even identical to the conceptions of the PCE and the PSOE. There is only one difference among them on this score: The PTE, ORT, and MCE's faith in democracy is the faith of the converted, and they believe heart and soul in the words of the united "democratic" appeals. Thus, they believe that a great "antifascist" alliance can be forged between the "bourgeois-democratic current" and the "popular democratic current" (that is, themselves), that this alliance can bring about a "national democratic action"
of "peaceful citizens," which will carry out the "democratic break" and open up a constituent process guaranteed by a provisional government "without exclusion or obligation" (that is, in which they will not be com- a to princeton tector pet over copi..
pelled to participate). This storybook vision of what the proclamations, and programs nobody believes except the Maoists themselves. For in reality, the person who consistently upholds the "democratic break" is the sec-
*PTE: Partido del Trabajo de España - Labor party of
ORT: Organización Revolucionaria de los Trabajado- Spain res - Revolutionary Workers Organization
MCE: Movimiento Comunista de España - Communist
Movement of Spain retary general of the PSOE, when he asserts: "I see the democratic break as a gradual conquest of liberty." And the one who defined the provisional government in a consistent manner was Gil Robles, when he said: "Our party will stand at the head of the forces that will reconstruct the new Spanish state. " And the consistent definition of the "antifascist alliance" was offered by Solé-Turd in the passage we quoted above. And the consistent definition of what the attitude of the "democratic opposition" toward mass struggles has to be was provided by Ruiz Jiménez, when he said, during the strike of more than 250, 000 Madrid workers: "We will do everything possible to see that popular mobilization is peaceful and sectoral and does not obstruct the normal activities of the Spanish people. " These phrases reveal the real logic of the "democratic alternative. " In practice, the PTE, ORT, and MCE stand rather far removed from this logic. In practice, in the activity of the masses, these organizations can find thousands of arguments by which to make their own break with the "democratic break."
Let us take a good look at our country. While Arias was recounting his program to the Francoist carrion, how many thousands of workers, toilers, students, men and women of our people were struggling or preparing for struggle, thinking about the experiences of the past strikes and demonstrations, or thinking about and expressing solidarity with the comrodes who are fighting in other sectors, other cities, other nations of the state, in the Francoist prisons and in exile? The response to
Arias's program is to be found among them. The program that inspires their struggles, that assembles all their demands, all their rights, including, most especially, those rights and demands that will never be granted in any form by even the most "democratic" of the bourgeois political factions — that is our program.
The road must be chosen: Either the point is to put "pressure" on the government and the Francoist monarchy or else the point is to destroy them.
HERE IS THE ROAD WE HAVE CHOSEN:
*Against the farcical amnesty of November and against any other amnesty that entails the slightest restriction: Amnesty, freedom for all political prisoners, return of all exiles.
* Against the caricature of "democracy" in the Arias program: Freedom of assembly, association, and the press; freedom to demonstrate, for the right to strike without any restriction whatsoever.
*Against the fraud of the "constitutional reform, "
the "democratic disguise" of Francoism: Elections to a constituent assembly on the basis of universal suffrage with the right to vote at age 16.
*Against all the limitations on freedom of artistic creation: Abolition of all forms of censorship.
*Against the prevailing hypocritical and repressive sexual "morality": Full sexual freedom, right to sexual information, free and legal distribution of contracepfives, free abortion on demand.
*Against the oppression of women socially and on the job: Abolition of all discrimination against women.
* Against the "Independence and mutual respect" between the church and the dictatorship: Complete separation of church and state.
* Against the "institutional organization of the regions" called for in the Arias program in order to maintain national oppression: Immediate election by universal suffrage exercised by all the inhabitants of the territory of each oppressed nationality of a sovereign nafional constituent assembly that organizes the free exercise of the right of self-determination.
*To carry the overthrow of the dictatorship through fo the end, to prevent a single Francoist virus from reinfecting the country: Dissolution of the special repressive bodies and the Francoist tribunals. Abolition of all repressive legislation of the dictatorship. Exact responsibility for the crimes of Francoism. Throw the reactionary commanders and officers out of the army. Dissolution of the mercenary and colonial brigades. Democratic rights for soldiers.
*Against the wage freeze, unemployment, incomes policy; and any form of "social pact, "against the constant degrodation of the living and working conditions of the masses: For the demands of the workers. Against the militarization of public services. For a sliding scale of wages and hours.
*Against fake bankruptcies and factory shutdowns, daily manifestations of the "Formidable force of private initiative" to which the government's program pays homage: Workers control of production. Nationalization without compensation of all factories that are shut down and reactivation of these factories under workers control. Nationalization of key industries without compensation and under workons control.
*Against capitalist commercialization of education: For free, secular, bilingual, rounded, compulsory education until 18 years of age. For the demands of the employees in education.
*Against class medicine: For social security financed by the state and the companies that includes the entire population and covers all illnesses. For all the demands of the health workers.
*Against the totally disastrous agricultural policy of the dictatorship: Radical agrarian reform. Expropriation without compensation of the landlords and big capitalists in the countryside. Abolition of all forms of separation between ownership and cultivation of land: Land to those who fill it. Notionalization of the trode networks of agricultural production and their administration by delegates elected by the agricultural workers, the agrarian cooperatives, and the small peasants.
*Against the promised "fiscal reform, " which actually amounts to an institutionalization of capitalist fiscal fraud and the robbery of the workers: No taxes on wages. All fiscal revenues to be paid by the capitalists.
*Against the CNS (the government "trade union"), fascist trade union, and any "reform" of it, which in no case can or even seeks to change its essential reacfionary content: For a united class trade union in which the right of tendency is recognized, which stimulates workers democracy (through its two fundamental instruments, the assembly and the elected and revocable strike committee), and whose organization is defined by a constituent trade union congress of delegates democratically elected in the factories.
*Against the projects of integration into the political and military alliances of imperialism, profector of the Francoist "reform", against the new agreement with Yankee imperialism; against the traditional Francoist demagogy on Gibraltar: Break all imperialist pacts and alliances, including the secret pacts of police collaboration of the Fraga-Poniatowski type. Yankee bases out. Immediate restitution of Gibraltar to the Spanish state.
*Against the Francoist colonial policy and the occupation of Moroccan territory in North Africa, directly responsible for the present slaughter of the Saharan people: Independence for Sahara. Recognition of the Polisario Front as the sole legitimate representative of the Saharan people, Immediate restitution to Morocco of all occupied territories in North Africa. Unlike the "minimum programs, " which serve only for bargaining with big capital, this body of slogars is intended to serve as an overall orientation for the indeCARRILLO WITH BERLINGUER
FORWARDTO THE
GENERAL STRIKE!
SPAIN pendent action of the masses. Hence, it must be translated, transformed, and broadened according to the needs of this action. In addition - and this is fundamental - it has a foundation that is clearly lacking in all the "democratic alternatives": This foundation is the self-organization of the working class and the enFire mass movement; the organization of struggles by the fighters themselves is the basic organizational consequence of the line of class independence. For it is not simply a matter of mobilizing the masses, but also of the masses* providing themselves with their own organs, holding discussions in assemblies about what direction to Tend the struggle, electing and controlling their own representatives, forming strike committees and pickets to extend and defend strikes, vigilance committees and purge committees against all forms of counterrevolution, popular tribunals that exact justice from those responsible for Francoist crimes, soldiers committees, and so on. And all these organs must be coordinated and centralized, thus advancing on the road to organs of workers PoWer8
The forms and names these bodies may adopt are of little importance. The important thing is that the mass movement see them as instruments of struggle. In the mobilizations that are going on right now we see the thousand forms that self-organization can take, the thousand roads that lead to the coordination of the struggle, to its extension, to the organization of solidarity, and to the drawing of new sectors into the fight. The point, then, is to struggle within all, absolutely all of them, to develop the content of mass self-organization that exists in all these forms, no matter how embryonic their present reality may be. The point is to advance in this way toward organs that directly represent the masses in struggle and are thus immediately in the service of the struggle, the organs of the workers united Front from top to bottom. And to construct this united front it is necessary to pose to the workers and revolutionary nationalist organizations, through slagars and above all through action, the cry that sums up the battle against class collaboration:
Break with the bourgeoisie!
The various "democratic alternatives" always conclude with the slogan that sums up class collaboration: the "broad coalition" provisional government charged with reconstructing the Spanish bourgeois state in a "democratic" form. The central slogan of our program is precisely the government capable of carrying out our program, whose task is to satisfy the demands of the working class and the people unconditionally, which would be based on the combat organs of the masses, the organs that have been established to bring down Francoism, that embody the battle against exploitation, repression, and national and social oppression. We call this government the worken government. Between their provisional government and our workers government there is much more than simply a difference over the type of "coalition, " although the workers govemment obviously cannot contain even the shadow of the bourgeoisie. Above all, there is a difference of function between the two governments. The function of the provisional government is to reconstruct the bourgeois order; the function of the workers government is to destroy it forever. Some comrades, militants of other organizations and vanguard fighters, often tell us: "But you are not realistic. You don't take account of the fact that there is going to be a provisional coalition government, that the masses want it. It is necessary to be in that government, or to be close to it, in order to avert 'rightist' maneuvers. Your workers government is a slogan that is not understood, that has nothing to do with the present concerns of the masses. So, are we "idealists" or "ultraleftists"? Not at all. We are communists, which is the only revolutionary way to be realistic. And we know that there is going to be a "provisional government." And we know that the majority of the mass movement believes, is made to believe, that this "provisional government" is the "alternative" to Francoism. But we do not deduce a political line from these two facts. In developing a political line, we have to ask ourselves, Why do the masses. believe in this provisional government? The answer is quite clear: Because they believe that such a government will satisfy their political, economic, and social demands. The masses do not adapt their demands to this or that sort of government - that is the business of the reformists - but on the contrary "adapt" the government to their demands, which are the things that really count For them. Thus, we have to ask ourselves another question: Would an interclass government want or be able to satisfy the demands of the masses; is that the function of the "broad coalition provisional government"? And we must answer, categorically: No; it does not want to, it cannot, and that is not its function. And thus, we come to the decisive question: If that is the case, what should the attitude of revolutionaries be? To foster the illusions of the masses in the "provisional government" in order "not to be isolated, * thus collaborating in the real function of this government? This would be a typically opportunistic attitude. The attitude of revolutionaries consists in fighting so that the masses, through their own experience, put forward their own demands, gain confidence in their own strength, acquire an absolute determination to realize their aspirations, and actually do so through their own action, constructing the organs best suited to achieving these objectives. Within this fight and linked to it, it is necessary to propagate the slogans of class independence, and in particular of the workers government. If the majority of the mass movement places its struggles under the banner of an interclass provisional government, we will continue to oppose this slogan and all its consequences, yielding no concession. No one will be able to accuse us of "dividing" the movement. First, because the basis of the unity of the workers lies in the agreement to defend the workers demands against capitalist exploitation and against the dictatorship. The disagreements, even principled ones, over the composifion of the government that should be established after the fall of the dictatorship should not affect the united combat of the masses. Second, because those who foster the division of the movement are those who try to subordinate the struggles of the movement to pacts with the bourgeoisie. Third, because we will always defend the unity in action of the workers, whatever may be the orientation that the majority of the workers adopt. In the end, the orientations and slogans of the various workers organizatiors must be subjected to the test of practice, to the heat of the united struggle of the working class and the people. We are certain that the line of class collaboration will melt like wax in this heat, while the line of class independence will be forged like steel. When the forge has done its work, the masses will give liberty its real name. They will call it socialism, and the workers government will stand at the head of the offensive toward the achievement of the classless society. We are fighting right now for that day to come about.
That is our general position in a debate that is of fundamental importance, but which must not divert once ounce of strength for one second from the essential task of the moment: the organization of a general strike against the Francoist monarchy, against the dictatorship. The necessity of concentrating, of central[zing all the will for freedom that exists in the country today into a united effort was never so within reach, never so necessary, and never so well understood and desired by the working class and the people as it is today. Beginning from the mobilizations for amnesty, the days of struggle, the solidarity with workers strikes like the strikes of the education and health workers, with the comrades of the militarized sectors - forward to the general strike against the dictatorship! January 30, 1976
9
During his press conference in Paris, Leonid Plyushch issued a pressing appeal to the international workers movement to fight for the release of thousands of political prisoners still detained in Soviet camps and "special" psychiatric hospitals. The conditions of their detention and the harassment and treatment inflicted on them place their lives in danger. One need only remember Galanskov, who died in a camp at the age of 33 because of lack of medical care. Plyushch declared that Mustafa Jemiley is now in danger of suffering the same fate.
For more than ten years, Jemilev has been fighting for the right of the Crimean Tatars, deported to Central Asia by Stalin, to return to their lands. Throughout these ten years, Jemiley has been constantly persecuted and frequently imprisoned. If the bureaucracy is determined to get Jemilev, the reason is that he is the symbol of the struggle of an entire people for its national rights. The struggle of the Crimean Tatars is among the most important of the mass movements that have developed in the Soviet Union since the death of Stalin. Since the
1960s, representatives of the left wing of the opposition - such as Pyotr Grigorenko, Ilya