"Brothers, we will never forget!"
Spain: The courage of a people Wednesday, March 3. The struggle of the workers of Vitoria for their demands - very similar to those now being put forward in the immense majority of platforms throughout the country: 5,000-6, 000 pesetas per month across-the-board wage increases; forty- or forty-twohour workweek; full wages in cose of illness, accident, or unemployment; no layoffs, etc. — seemed to be beginning to break down the intransigence that had been manifested by the employers for two months. The last remaining obstacles to negotiations were the twentytwo workers laid off at Forjas Alavesas and the workers laid off or disciplined at Apellániz. The coordinating committee of striking workers, formed by representatives elected in factory assemblies, had once again called for a general strike to demand the rehiring of all workers laid off and the lifting of all disciplinary measures. At seven o'clock in the morning of the following day, March 4, the first pickets began to be formed in the workers neighborhoods of Zaramaga, Adurza, and Arana, throughout the working-class belt in which a young proletariat, for the most part emigrants from the countryside in Alava or elsewhere in the country, has been concentrated over the past fifteen years, a working class that now constitutes the majority of the 150,000 inhabitants of Vitoria. At ten o'clock in the morning all the factories were already on strike, and the pickets
VITORIA by M. SAURA began marching toward the center of the city in groups of upwards of 5,000, chanting the slogan that has been heard hundreds of times during past months in Vigo, Madrid, Valencia, and Barcelona: "We are workers, join us!" the cry of solidarity, of the general strike. In Spain today it is enough simply to say that - join us! Nobody asks why, the response is only too clear for everyone. And since the third day of March, has become even clearer. By noon, all Vitoria was paralyzed. It was the fourth general strike call in the past three weeks, and without doubt it got the greatest response. Unlike what had generally been happening since the struggles began on January 9, the police moved in with extreme violence. This was no accident: The government and the employers belleved that weariness would begin to erode the unity and combativity of the workers of Alava and had decided to take the offensive. They were making a mistake. Right from the beginning, each police charge met with a determined response. The strikers fought back with sticks and stones and barricades were built, the classical barricades of workers struggles, now appearing, to the panic of the bourgeoisie of all political stripes, in many of the mass struggles in Spain. A demonstration of hundreds of women, who had played a fundamental
3
SPAIN role in the Vitoria strike, was savagely repressed. A group of workers who had taken refuge in a gasoline station threatened to burn it down if the police attacked. The police disappeared, and a slaughter was able to be averted that time. Tension mounted. Only at two o'clock in the afternoon, when the police temporarily withdrew to their barracks - for Vitoria had suffered a genuine police invasion, detachments having been brought in from other provinces — did the city appear calm. Later, official news reports would say that "the city had fallen into the hands of the strikers. " That was precisely why it was calm, for the aggressors had withdrawn, The police were receiving "new orders. " The content of these orders was soon to become clear. At five o'clock in the afternoon a general assembly met in the San Francisco church in the Zaramaga neighborhood. It was the two hundred and ninth general assembly to meet in Vitoria since January 91 More than 5,000 strikers were inside the church, a more or less average attendance. Another 10,000 were outside. The police, following their "new orders, * had surrounded "tolerance" of the Francoist "reformers" toward mass the church and blocked the entrance. The well-known actions went up in smoke in Vitoria, just as it had previously in Elda, where a worker had been murdered several days earlier, in Madrid, where violent clashes took place in January, in Barcelona, where striking construction workers had recently erected barricades, in Tarragon, where another worker had been murdered. When the worker delegates of the coordinating committee arrived to preside over the general assembly - and it is important to note that this has happened dozens of times in Vitoria during the past weeks, that the members of the coordinating committee, militants of the UGT, MCE, PCE, OCA, and LCR/ETA-VI", are known throughout the entire city and were elected democratically and openly by their comrades in struggle - that is, when the leaders of the strike arrived af the assembly after their usual preparatory meeting, they were prevented from entering the church. Clashes broke out in front of the church between the police and the people demanding the elementary right to participate in the assembly that was to make decisions about their strike. Suddenly, without prior warning, the police broke the glass of the church windows and threw smoke bombs and tear-gos grenades inside. When people saw smoke pouring out of the church, they began to shout, "They're smoking them out!" The indignation that then spread - without for a moment giving way to fear - was not, as official reports were later to claim, a re-
* UGT: Unión General de Trabajadores — General
Workers Union; MCE: Movimiento Comunista de España - Communist Movement of Spain; OCA: Organización de Comisiones Anticapitalistas — Organization of Anticapitalist Commissions; LCR/ETA-VI: Liga
Comunista Revolucionaria/Euzkodi to Askatasuna-Vl
- Revolutionary Communist League/Basque Nation and Freedom-Vi, sympathizing organization of the
Fourth International in Spain.
4 sult of lack of consciousness. On the contrary, it was the product of the consciousness developed during weeks of struggle, of the will to win, to repel any aftock, that had taken root among all the people of Alava. The workers left the church much more calmly than could have been expected; they were coming out to fight, not to run. Then the slaughter began: four dead, seventy-three taken to the hospital for gunshot wounds, hundreds of wounded who were cared for in their own homes. Such was the price that had to be paid for the struggle for the rehiring of a few dozen comrades in today's Spain being "cautiously" led toward "democracy" by the Francoist reformers. But once again, the most savage repression was unable to halt the mass struggle for an instant. Immediately, all Vitoria was filled with barricades, the whole city took to the streets, spurred on by rage, struggling for hours, well into the night. With the blood of one of the murdered comrades, someone had written a word on the street, a word longed for by the Spanish people for years: Justice. This word, with its real meaning, the meaning supplied by the exploited and oppressed, immediately resounded throughout the country. On March 4 Pamplona went on general strike at the call of the Assembly of Factory Delegates, a new body including some 500 representatives elected in the factories of Navarra. There were innumerable demonstrations of thousands of people; barricades were built when the police charged. In Vizcaya, the strike became proctically general even before a united call was issued; the central strike committee, which included representatives of factories that had been struggling for their demands for some days, organized demonstrations that drew 15,000-20,000 people, demonstrations that lastea four or five hours and marched through the streets for miles: in Basauri, where there was another murder, in Sestao, Portugalete, Guetxo. In Catalonia, Vigo, Gijon, Zaragoza, Seville, Madrid, and Valencia there were work stoppages and demonstrations of solidarity and protest. The cry of the workers of Vitoria - "Vitoria! Brothers, we will not forget!" - summed up the sentiment brought to the struggle by hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country-
On the same day, March 4, Vitoria was militarily occupied by the police. Groups of more than three people were not allowed on the streets. But the barricades stayed up nonetheless. In this apparently deserted city, if anyone dared so much as to remove one stone of a barricade, tense and determined strikers immediately emerged from the doors of surrounding houses, sticks and stones in hand, defending their barricade. For the fight was not over in Vitoria; the struggle had to go on, and the barricades would still be needed. It had cost too much blood to erect them.
The funeral was held on March 5. Hours before it began there were 100,000 people in the cathedral and the square outside. One hundred thousand people chant-
JusTiCia - With the blood of one of the murdered comrades, someone had written a word on the street...
ing, paying homage to the murdered comrades, waving their handkerchiefs, making the sign of victory, raising their fists as the coffins passed by, bearing the coffins on their shoulders for hours, parading defiantly before the Guardia Civil, and shouting "Dissolve the repressive bodies!" at the police murderers. From the cemetary, a group of 3,000-4,000 men and women of Vitoria, without anyone directing them, guided by a spirit of deep and irrepressible solidarity, instinctively headed for the hospital where their wounded comrades were being treated. At the doors of the hospital they shouted: "Workers, wounded, we are herel" This "here" concentrated all the determination to continue struggling, not to abandon a single one of the motivations that had given life to two months of mass mobilization, motivations that were stronger than any bullets. On Monday, March 8, an urgent united meeting of the Euzkadi leaderships of the PSOE, PCE, PTE, ORT, MCE, and LCR/ETA-VI*, which was joined by the other political and trade-union workers organizations, called for a general strike. This time there were about 500, -000 strikers in Euzkadi. Much more than ever before, but much less than the next time, thus continuing the *PSOE: Partido Socialista Obrero Español - Spanish Socialist Workers party, the Social Democracy; PTE: Partido del Trabajo de España — Labor party of Spain; ORT: Organización Revolucionaria de los Trabajadores - Revolutionary Workers Organization.
U basic dynamic - ever higher and stronger - of the mass struggles of past years. And Vitoria continued to fight. On Saturday, March 6, Minister of the Interior Fraga arrived, the man of "strong democracy, " the admirer of Adenauer, the man who said "I will decide the timing of the reform, " the man who nevertheless intends to exclude legalization of the workers movement from his reform plans, the man who blamed the Vitoria strike on "anarchism." The interior minister of the Francoist monarchy was going to try to save appegrances in the city that had given the coup de grâce to his political program. Fraga ordered - at that late date! - the employers to rehire the workers who had been laid off. But by now, that was not enough. Mare demands were put forward: release of the six members of the coordinating body being held, freedom of assembly, recognition of the commissions elected in assemblies as the genuine representative of the workers. On Friday, March 12, Vitoria continued to struggle. No one had forgotten in Vitoria. And no one can ever forget Vitoria. In Spain today, nothing is as it was before Vitoria. The price of freedom Vitoria is the most heroic link in the chain of mass struggles now being forged in Spain, particularly since Janwary. It is not, of course, the sole link, nor will it be the last.
5
SPAIN A violent revolutionary wind has penetrated the country, pushing its way through the fissures of the miserable political "concessions" the Francoist reform has been compelled to "tolerate" on its road toward puppet "democracy. " This wind will not die down so long as a shadow or threat of exploitation and oppression remains. Since the first silent peaceful demonstrations for amnesty, a new and striking phenomenon has taken shape: The masses are entering into political action, making their presence felt in the streets. People who have never -"never" meaning during forty years of dictatorship -"acted politically" have taken to the streets and met thousands of others like themselves, people struggling for the same objectives, confident of winning them by themselves, through their own actions. These workers, students, professionals, women from all over the contry are leaming to make their presence felt, to assert themselves in the factories and in the neighborhoods. All the latent demands - economic, political, and social - are coming to the fore, generating on enormous consciousness of solidarity, an immediate politicization of all struggles, a profound need for self-organization for the struggle. All the bodies the mass movement considers useful for united activity have been utilized, regardless of the function these bodies are assigned by Francoist legality (neighborhood associations, trade unions, professional associctions, housewives" associations). Concurrently, new bodies are being created and are replacing or combining with these older bodies in the course of action, always seeking the road capable of providing the greatest degree of representativity, the greatest coordination, the greatest extension of action. And always, in the very center, is the sovereign factory or branch assembly, the delegates, the commissions and committees elected in these assemblies, and, more recently, the massive pickets to extend the struggles, the self-defense pickets, which already represent a genuine acquisition of the movement, in spite of the hysterical press campaign that has been waged against them. Thus, in January and February, during the struggles of the teachers in Madrid, the general assemblies sent delegations to factories in struggle - Chrysler, Pegaso -asking for and obtaining solidarity; in turn, the teachers" assemblies welcomed delegations from these workers assemblies, from neighborhood coordinating bodies, and from tenants' associations, and together they discussed the demands and leadership of the struggle. And in February, when the construction workers went on strike in Barcelona, all the work sites elected delegates and the assembly of delegates took the lead in the mobilizations. In Pamplona something similar happened, as had already occurred in January during the Getafe. strike in Modrid. The slogans orienting the struggles are broadening, becoming unified, and radicalizing. Amnesty has broadened its content to the social terrain. It now also means the rehiring of all those fired or laid off for political reasons since 1939. At the Babcock-Wilson factory in 6
Vizcaya this demand has already been won. In other factories the struggle for it is continuing. In a few cases during the first demonstrations in January, the police were applauded because they refused to charge against the demonstrators. The press multiplied this applause by the thousands. But the inexperienced hands that were then applauding the police are now building barricades. The slogan of the dissolution of the repressive bodies is already part of the atmosphere being breathed in Spain today (and in spite of this, or rather because of it, during the united-action meeting that called the general strike in Euzkadi in solidarity with Vitoria, the PCE threatened to withdraw if this slogan was maintained, and this the day after the murders in Vitoria!). The cry of "Down with the CNS" (the state "trade-union" federation) is now part of all the platforms of demands. The need for a united class trade-union is felt by millions of workers; it is being discussed in detail in the assemblies of many factories. In Spain today, nobody dares assert that it is possible to "reform" or "take over" the CNS, the hated fascist vertical trade union. There is unanimous agreement on the necessity of destroying it. When addressing more than 30,000 workers in Pamplona, even the president of the Consejo Provincial de Trabajadores (Provincial Council of Workers), the highest provincial body of the vertical frade union, cried "Down with the CNS!" a cry that was taken up by thousands. The Congreso Sindical (trade-union congress), a farce being prepared by the government, will undoubtedly provide an opportunity for a great independent mobilization of Spanish workers, who are already beginning to organize. The "reform" projects of the government are stillborn; they belong to prehistory at a time when the masses are already writing history. The government proposes that sixteen conditions be met before a demonstration is organized, but every day there are dozens of demonstrations in the immense majority of the cities of the coun try, called for thousands of reasons by every imaginable body. Likewise, in order to organize a meeting "legally, " it is necessary to go through god knows how many channels, but assemblies of thousands of workers, students, people of every profession are occurring factory by factory and city by city, while in Sabodel, Pamplona, and Vigo assemblies have to meet in football stadiums in order to accommodate all the people who turn out! What remains of the Francoist "reform" after Vitoria? An open government crisis that may well drag on for weeks; a confrontation to the death within the Francoist apparatus, which has not even been able to agree on the formation of a so-called National Front, a defensive bloc of all the Francoist carrion; the army is suffering the consequences of the heavy sentences against the officers of the Unión Militar Democrática (Democratic Military Union) and is beginning to become concerned about the spread of soldiers' commissions (the streets of Madrid are full of painted slogans reading "Form soldiers' commissions") and the broad meetings that have been reported in Guipzco, with dozens of soldiers attending.
The Francoist reform has been wrecked, "Fragamanlis," as the interior minister was called of the beginning of the year (to his evident satisfaction), has become "Fragachet, *which is what he should have been called in the first place. The bourgeoisie is observing this failure with growing concern, for the political consequences fully affect all the bourgeois political projects. The dynamic of the mass mobilizations is sending shivers down the spines of even the most "democratic" bourgeois politicians. For example, only a few days ago Ruiz-Gimenez (a Christian Democrat) affirmed in Rome: "We must advise that actions in the streets not be multiplied except for very serious reasons and with a great sense of responsibility. The political project of the "democratic bourgeoisie" is becoming ever clearer, and so, unfortunately, is it becoming ever clearer that the submission of the reformist workers organizations to that project is limitless. Thus, the latest invention of the Junta Democrática and the Plataforma de Convergencia Democrática* which, once again, have remained on the fringes of the ongoing struggles or have even openly opposed them, is whot they call an "agreed break" (ruptura pactada), a weak-willed and shameful formula offering a pact to the "Francoist reformers." This is being accompanied by a "tactical turn" that consists of eliminating from their communiqués any critical reference to the king and any call, no matter how distant, for the mythical *National Democratic Action" that used to be the recommended means of "breaking" with the dictatorship. This brings us to the central problem of the present political situation in Spain. The bourgeoisie, subject to an economic crisis it sees no way out of, deprived of its old mechanisms of power, which were demolished by the death of the dictator, and lacking in any new mechanisms with which to replace the old, is facing a mass movement that daily rises to a higher level of organization, breadth, and combativity. Mired in a growing political paralysis, this bourgeoisie sees no way out other than evolution, than putting pressure on the king and a section of the present political apparatus to arrive at a "realistic pact" capable of slowing down the development of the activity of the masses. The functich and role being played by the reformist organizations is to attempt fo transmit this paralysis to the mass movement itself. During the recent strikes in Madrid, when known leaders of the Communist party were asked in a discussion meeting why they had not called for a general strike, the answer was always the same: "Because a provisional government has not yet been formed. The opposition is divided, and under these conditions the launching of a general strike would lead to chaos." It is becoming increasingly difficult for the Communist * The Junta Democrática (Democratic Council) is an interclass bloc created in July 1974 under the impetus of the Communist party; the Plataforma de Convergencia Democrática (Platform of Democratic Convergence) is a similar body, formed in 1975 under Social Democratic leadership.
party to make such cynical assertions in the assemblies and meetings of the vanguard. Now, after Vitoria, it is even more difficult. During a general assembly of metalworkers in Barcelona called in connection with the next provincial congress - which affects more than 200,000 Barcelona workers - one worker said to his comrades, "We know that the same thing that happened to the comrader a Vitoria can happen to us. But we have to conti e the struggle anyway." This phrase sums up the state of mind of the mass movement in Spain. Nothing will be able to stop this will to fight. It is this will that constitutes the basic underpinning of the intervention of the revolutionary Marxists. We have been present in all the mobilizations of the final battle against Francoism, pushing for a line of class independence, self-organization, self-defense, and coordination among all the sectors in struggle toward the overthrow of the dictatorship. The March 11 Issue of the Barcelona weekly La Vanguardia wrote, "Everything suggests that it is the LCR/ETA-VI that has capitalized on the recent conflict in Alava, " To be -ure, the journal of the Catalan bourgeoisie is exaggerating a bit. But it would be true to say that in Vitoria, as in the construction strike in Barcelona, in the strikes in Asturies, Vigo, Valencia, and Madrid, in the struggle of the teachers, in all the places where rebellion is mounting against oppression and exploitation, the militants of the LCR/ETA-VI have been in the vanguard of the movement, together with many other Fighters and militants of other organizations struggling for the economic, social, and political demands of the masses, asserting their confidence in the masses, so that the very high price our people are paying for their freedom will not be wasted. When the dictatorship has been destroyed, the working class and the people of Spain will be able to tell those who speak of "reconciliation": "We do not forget." And to those who talk of "social pact": "We do not forget." And to those who try to fool them with the rotten merchandise of "limited freedom, " once again: "We do not forget." For us of the LCR/ETA-VI, our task consists of strengthening this memory, organizing it, extending it, and through it building the section of the Fourth International in the territory of the Spanish state. In Spain today, liberty is struggling to be born. To insist on how much we need the solidarity of the workers of all the world is to repeat the obvious. We know that the flame ignited against the murderous dictatorship with the day of international solidarity with Spain on September 3, 1975, has not been extinguished. Alert for Spain, comrades of all the world! For we need more third of Septembers. So that the blood of the workers never again flows in Spain! Down with the murderous dictatorship! March 12, 1976
7
MILITANTS STILL
More information has been received about the revolutionary militants who were arrested in
Egypt last summer. Initial reports from the official Egyption press had said that twenty persons had been arrested in early July 1975 and charged with being members of the International
Communist League, a revolutionary Marxist organization. (See INPRECOR, No. 33, September 11, 1975) The Egyptian press reported that the arrested militants would be charged with having made contact with the Revolutionary Communist Group in Lebanon and the Fourth International and with having organized to "overthrow the political and economic regime" in
The regime issued twenty-one arrest warrants. Sixteen people were arrested and imprisoned, while five of the twenty-one could not be found. One of the sixteen has been releosed, Ten others have been released on bail and may be arrested again at any time, although no formal charges have been ploced against them. Five militants are still being held in prison. They are:
Abdel Kazim Shahit Mahmoud and Muzahim Muhi el-Takriti, both of whom are Iraqi teachers,
Reda Ibrahim Farag, a student; Mahmoud el-Sayid Muhammed el-Sayid, a worker; and Rashad
Mansour Mustafa el-Bedawi, also a worker. These militants are still awaiting formal charges, and a long delay in the disposition of their cose is possible, since the government can hold them in prison indefinitely. It is not known what penalties they may face, but a low possed in
1971 provides for sentences of up to life imprisonment for any political activity conducted outside the framework of the Arab Socialist Union, the sole legal party in the country.
The ten militants who have been released provisionally are: Dr. Muhammed Abdu Bayuni, a veterinarian; Ibrahim Abdel Azziz Azzam, a student, Muhammed el-Bashir Abdel Fu'ad elher brother, Najwa el-Baasi, both students; Ali Mahmoud Khalil, an employee; and Shawki
Further, it has been confirmed that Ahmad Nabil el-Hilali, a well-known Egyptian, lawyer,
The meaning of the status of the militants under attack in Egypt i contradictory. On the one hand, the fact that some of the comrades have been released, even if only provisionally, shows that the Sadat regime, which is now trying to polish up its "liberal" Image, is suscepfible to international pressure on the question of political prisoners. On the other hand, the fact that five militants have been held in prison for more than eight manths without even being formally charged indicates that the regime may well intend to hold them indefinitely, refusing to risk a political trial but also refusing to release the prisoners. It is thus clear that the fate of the comrades depends on two factors: the internal political situation in Egypt and the degree to which international solidarity is organized in their defense. The lotter factor is particularly important in the case of the two Iragi militants, who could be deported to Irag, where they would face almost certain death of the hands of the ultra-repressive Baathist regime.
But solidarity is not purely political. Several of the imprisoned militants are workers whose
Families are deprived of any income as lang as they are held in jail. These families are in an extremely difficult Financial situation, and aid is needed. Contributions may be sent to Gisela
Scholtz, Postal Account Number CCP000-1085001-56, Brussels, Belgium, Notice of contributions should be sent to INPRECOR, 76 rue Antoine Dansert, Brussels 1000 Belgium.
Egypt and replace it with an "extremist Trotskyist Communist regime."
The latest information is as follows:
Muhammed Rashad Abdel-Ghanni.
is defending the imprisoned