Spain THE ARIAS GOVERNMENT IN ITS DEATH AGONY by A. MARTINEZ The Arias government is in its death agony. It is choking in the blood of the workers of Vitoria. The formidable response of the toiling masses of Euzkadi - nearly one million strikers, the strongest work stoppage in Spain since 1937 - has mortally wounded this government. Its disappearance is now only a matter of weeks. The reformists of the Communist party and the POE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español - Spanish Socialist Workers party, the Social Democracy) had deliberately put the brakes on the struggles of the workers after the death of Franco. They hoped in this way to convince the Spanish bourgeoisie that a gradual and calm transition from Francoism to bourgeois democracy was possible, while maintaining "social peace." Negotiation with "reformers of Francoism" like Frago, the present minister of the interior, was on the agenda. The king himself was declared to be above the fray, even above any suspicion of betrayal of democracy. The reformists quickly received their just desserts. No question of breaking the continuity of the Francoist institutions, proclaimed Frago; reforms, yes, but in the framework of these institutions. No question of legalizing the CP, Fraga threw in. And he added: No amnesty for terrorists, no return of La Pasionaria. The hardliners, the "bunker" manned by those nostalgic for Francoism, bristles with vetos and bans. Solidly rooted in the well-known "institutions" -from the laughable Cortes (parliament) to the "National Council of the Movement" to the "Council of the Kingdom" - the "hardliners" are playing a useful role in post-Francoism in that they provide the excuse Arias and Fraga needed to justify the delays and foot dragging in granting the miserable minireforms that they were going to magnanimously hand down to the docile though somewhat impatient reformists. Thus, everything was going to unfold according to the rules of Realpolitik. As for the matter of who was taking whom for a ride in this poker game, history would later total up the gains and losses: Were the torturers serving the liberals, " the liberals serving the "reformists, " and the "reformists" serving the "moderate" workers movement, or, on the contrary, was the respectful workers movement giving in before the liberals, who were themselves giving in before the "reformers of Francoism, " allowing the torturers to remain in their posts under the watchful gaze of the king and his patron, big capital? The Spanish working class upset all these learned calculations. The combative spirit of this class, unequalled in Europe today, is fueled by the economic crisis (nearly 1 million unemployed, 20 percent of the workers of Malage without jobs), by the provocative wage freeze proclaimed by an inept minister, by the passion for liberty and the ardent desire to free their brothers and sisters from the jails of the dictatorship and to put an end to the repressive apparatus of the torturers once and for all, to end the game of duplicity. Our comrades of the Liga Comunista Revolucionaria/ Euzkadi fa Askatasuna-VI (Revolutionary Communist League/Basque Nation and Freedom-Sixth Congress) were correct to say that the dictatorship would fall only under the blows of a revolutionary general strike. Euzkadi following Vitoria - that is a first example of the revolutionary general strike, which, moreover, need not necessarily occur simultaneously in all regions. The collapse of the dictatorship has now become a tangible objective. In face of the impetuous rise of workers struggles, the bourgeoisie understands that its great post-Francoist maneuvers were only a pitiful delaying operation. The present temporary situatton, which is no longer Francoism but neither the reestablishment of bourgeois democracy, damages the bourgeoisie more than it serves it. The maintenance of the repressive apparatus no longer halts the mass movement. The use of this apparatus even stimulates brilliant responses.
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SPAIN At the same time, the maintenance of the reformist organizations, above all the CP, in semi-illegality prevents the bourgeoisie from taking full advantage of the braking role these organizations are prepared to play, facilitates their being outflanked, as was the case at the end of February and the beginning of March, and blocks any attempt to channel the upsurge of the proletariat into paths compatible with the maintenance of the capitalist system. The army itself is perplexed and divided. Who benefits from clinging to Francoist institutions if these institutions cause disorder and revolt in the streets? Suddenly, after Vitoria, the isolation of the "bunker" is clearer than ever. Fraga himself is increasingly pressed by the bourgeoisie, which wants to terminate the comedy of post-Francoism, take the "perilous leap, " move to a real constitutional monarchy, and prepare to deal with the revolutionary upsurge by using the reformist parties, playing on the democratic illusions of the masses, newly rediscovered after dark decades of dictatorship. Let Fraga succeed Fraga, buf let him surround himself only with "reformers"; after one last experience with Opus Dei, let him extend his hand to Ruiz Gimenez, who will be a stepping stone to the PSOE and even to the CP; let there be a brief interlude with the Count of Motrico; nonetheless, Spain is now pointed toward the liquidation of the Francoist institutions. This is neither a freely granted liquidation nor a liquidation negotiated in the palace corridors. It is a liquidation extracted inch by inch by mass mobilizations and strikes, by a succession of political general strikes. The fall of the dictatorship is the liquidation of its institutions, that is, the de facto legalization of all the workers organizations, the conquest of freedom. of trade-union organization and of the free and unrestricted right to strike, the conquest of all democratic rights. The mass movement is in the process of carrying ouf this conquest day by day. It is enough to look at the unfolding of strikes, the workers contingents in the street, the meetings of workers in football stadiums, and the strike committees that emerge out of general assemblies of strikers and one can see that the avalanche has started. Let a Fraga or a Motrico legalize only the PSOE, and the CP and the revolutionary organizations will be on the streets within twenty-four hours after that decision. Immense crowds will assemble in front of the prisons to free their brothers and sisters. That. is the probable march of events. In demanding immediate elections to a constituent assembly in the Spanish state, as well as national assemblies of the oppressed nationalities in order to permit them to exercise their right of self-determination, our Spanish comrades are trying to lend a common and centralizing aim to the democratic thrust of millions of Spanish workers and youth. They are seeking to overturn all the maneuvers intended to allow the bourgeoisie, through provisional and "transitional" governments, to continue its arbitrary rule without permitting the working people to decide for themselves. To generalize and unify the mass mobilizations and struggles in order to achieve the overthrow of the dictatorship also means to create the best conditions for avoiding any discontinuity between the overthrow of the dictatorship and the development of a powerFul assault on the capitalist bastions. A united and democratic trade union run by the workers themselves with full respect for the right of tendencies; a united front of all the workers organizafions to commonly defend the new gains of the proletariat against the attempts of Spanish and international capital to erode them the day after they are won; a continual upswing of self-organization of the masses, that is, a surging forward of elected committees in the factories, offices, neighborhoods, universities, schools, shipyards, and villages - such are the main instruments for the transformation of the struggle of the masses against the dictatorship into a struggle of the masses against capitalism. The construction of a powerful revolutionary Marxist party is the precondition for the victory of that struggle.