OCUMENT*
Theses on the
national question
1. SPAIN IS NOT a nation and the Spanish state is not a national state. A territory comprising all the peoples living within frontiers imposed on them historically by the Spanish state is not a nation. The latter has not succeeded in preventing the emergence of national movements which challenge ruling Spanish nationalism and the centralist and oppressive character of the state. The project of building a Spanish state has failed since some of the peoples who live within that state have asserted their national identity and have begun to struggle for their rights. Since then the Spanish state and Spain have been synonyms for a state which oppresses nationalities and peoples. In these conditions defending the Spanish nation is a reactionary position because it implies the imposition of a false national identity on peoples who do not accept it and justifies, in the name of this identity, the continuity of oppression by the Spanish state. Neither is Spain a nation of nations, a voluntary community of nationalities and various peoples justifying the necessity of a Spanish multinational state (and the denial of the right of nationalities to form an independent state). Such a community cannot be imposed against the freely expressed will of different nations: a multi-national state is only acceptable if it is the result of exercising the right to self-determination. But the Spanish state has allowed neither one thing or the other. So declarations
114 International Marxist Review about a nation of Spanish nations or an obligatory multinational Spanish state are new forms of justification of the national oppression which exists under the State of the Autonomous Regions. Presenting Spain as a nation, a nation of nations, as a national state or a voluntary multinational state, is an expression of Spanish ideology. It is a reactionary ideology which aims to cover up and justify present national oppression. Revolutionaries have to fight this and put forward national and regional liberation as alternatives, in this way contributing to the weakening of Spanish nationalism and to the full exercise of national or regional power.
2. Any democratic position must start from the recognition of the existence of nations oppressed by the Spanish state and of their right to self-determination — in other words to freely dispose of their own political power including in the form of an independent state. This is a fundamental right for nations in the same way as human rights exist for individuals. It necessarily involves the right to independence. Any interpretation of self-determination that excludes the possibility of independence leads in reality to denying this right and to a sort of justification of national oppression. If a nation does not want to form an independent state, self-determination implies its right to adopt the form of political power it wishes and its freedom to opt for a confederal, federal or other relationship with neighbouring nations. Finally self-determination is a permanent right of nationalities, which can raise again the problem of their relations with other nations on the basis of their experience. The right to self-determination
3. Defending the right to self-determination requires that revolutionaries in the oppressed nations give concrete responses to the different ways in which that right is expressed. All national realities have a history and specific relations with the Spanish state. Each oppressed nation has particular demands and a different type of mass movement. An analysis of the social and political reality and of the pro-independence demands in Euzkadi and Catalonia has led the LKI (Euzkadi) and the Lliga (Catalonia) to the conclusion that for specific reasons in both cases the demand for independence is the most appropriate for developing the struggle for national liberation in a revolutionary direction and for communists to play a vanguard role. The LCR agrees with these positions and defends them throughout the Spanish State even if the fundamental content of its activity on this terrain continues to be based on
Theses on the national question 115 the self-determination demand, each nation having the task of giving a concrete content to this demand. The demand for independence in Euzkadi and Catalonia is perfectly compatible with defending cooperation and necessary cooperation between free and socialist peoples, in this case those of the present Spanish state. It is a necessity for constructing socialism. But we do not think at this time that we have all the elements at our disposal to define the most effective forms of this cooperation.
4. Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands have common national characteristics derived from history and a common language and culture although through differentiated processes (particularly those linked to the birth of capitalism there). Centuries of oppression have resulted in very uneven forms of national consciousness, weak levels of unification and consequently different political and institutional realities. Nevertheless the nationalist sectors of these three peoples put forward in their programmes the demand for the Paisos catalans. At the same time, anti-Catalonism has been the banner used by the Spanish state against the national struggle in Valencia and the Islands. Our comrades think it is necessary to work for a common political project for the Paisos catalans, while respecting the specificity of each struggle and the freely expressed will of each of these peoples. The LCR agrees with this position, considers it to be an expression of the right to self-determination and will defend this throughout the State. In Galicia we demand the right to self-determination, to self-government and to national sovereignty as a means of fixing the framework for the achievement of national freedom without immediately at this stage fixing its concrete political form. In the Canary Islands and Andalucia our fundamental demand is for national self-determination. The congresses of our party in these nations will sovereignly decide on the alternative they will put forward in the struggle for national freedom.
S. Some peoples in the Spanish state have not developed a national consciousness but have a strong national character and desire to struggle against the centralism of this state which is incapable of alleviating the deep regional inequalities which concentrate very environmentally harmful activitities in some zones, which encourage a bureaucratic and ineffective structure in many public services and which impose uniform cultural formulas.
In all these cases, revolutionaries will work to stimulate the strengthening of the consciousness of peoples with their own identity. We fight against the inequalities inherent to capitalist development (which entry into the EEC will
116 International Marxist Review deepen), proposing alternative criteria for planning and supporting movements for defence of the land. We put forward the demand for autonomous political power, free from the constraints which first of all the Constitution (with its dual road to autonomy), then the UCD-PSOE pacts and at all times the centralist attitude of the central government, place on the autonomous development of these peoples. The shaping of this autonomous political power will take place in breaking with the present institutional framework. Revolutionaries put forward the demand for statutes in which it is the people affected who decide what powers are necessary and take them on and which should be ceded to the state institutions. Among other things, these Statutes should put an end to the existence of the province and the post of civil governor. Revolutionaries will also initiate solidarity between these peoples and the oppressed nationalities, and work for a convergence of their struggle in confrontation with the state.
6. One of the most important aspects of national oppression is the attempt by the Spanish state to replace the languages of the oppressed nationalities and impose Castillian in their place. The aim of these operations, within a historical process of marginalization, oppression and repression is to reinforce the centralist state. Using and defending Galician, Basque and Catalan are determinant factors in the formation and development of national consciousness. Thus the enormous interest of the state in fully carrying out the language substitution which would eliminate a fundamental element of differentiation, reinforcing the "indissoluble" Spanish unity.
As revolutionaries we actively participate in the struggle to defend oppressed languages and fight to obtain a normal status for them, in other words the recuperation of their social use as national languages. It is not a case of just defending a cultural heritage. It is a means of developing the national consciousness of oppressed peoples and of opposing attempts by the state to make everything uniform. The State of Autonomous Regions does not respect the rights of these languages, does not ensure their development and does not guarantee their future. It condemns them to a subordinate position and favours their regression. In the State of Autonomous Regions, Castillian is the only obligatory language, the only one whose full social and cultural use is guaranteed: in whichever nationality or people, whatever is a person's own language, the only one they have to know is Castillian and knowledge of this language is enough to develop their social life. Basque, Catalan and Galician are not obligatory languages in their own ter-
Theses on the national question 117 ritory. There is no guarantee of their full social use and thus for their development and future.
Revolutionaries aim to change this unjust situation, to win a normal status for Catalan, Galician and Basque which must be languages of unrestricted social use and therefore become necessary in their respective nations. That is why we support the resolutions from the congresses of our comrades in Euzkadi and Catalonia and the Valencia/Balearic Islands LCR congress resolltion which calls for Basque and Catalan to be the only official languages in their nations. This is compatible with the guarantee of democratic rights for those who speak other languages (not only Castillian) and who would be able to use them at various levels of the administration, to receive a suitable education and in their own cultural activity. We are also in favour of recognising Galician as the only official language in Galicia.
In the case of Asturian and Aragonese, revolutionaries support campaigns to ensure these languages get the cultural status they merit. We demand that the governing institutions in Asturias and Aragon take the necessary measures to increase the daily use of these languages. We demand that Aragonese should be recognized as an official language in the same way as Castillian.
In other nations Castillian has evolved into perfectly defined and autonomous linguistic forms such as Andalucian and Canarian. The latter languages are violated in a conscious and permanent way by the official cultural apparatus which use the false argument of idiomatic purity to cover up the imposition of the official norm. It is a clear case of national oppression against which our party fights. At the same time we support the principle of strict equality and the same treatment for all languages in relationship to the existing state institutions and in the relations between different peoples. We are opposed to any imposition of the use of Castillian, including a de-facto imposition. 7. Self-determination is a fundamental right of all peoples. In the concrete conditions of the Spanish State we envisage that it cannot be won except through a revolutionary mass struggle. For the following reasons:
• the profoundly centralist nature of the state apparatuses (particularly the armed forces) which, because of their historical formation, are mortal enemies of this demand;
• the great majority of the bourgeoisie (including within the oppressed nations) do not want to give up these state apparatuses as instruments of social and political power. It does not want any confrontation nor any fundamental reform which might weaken them. Furthermore the bourgeoisie is
118 International Marxist Review determined to maintain the unity of the territory and the market protected by this state;
• the international bodies of which the Spanish state is a member (NATO and the EEC) are committed to safeguarding the stability of the existing Spanish state as a guarantee of the process of European integration and of the existence of a strong, unified imperialist military bloc. For these reasons self-determination could only be won by huge mass struggles against the State. Such struggles have to be strong enough to destroy it or at least to render it incapable of repressive intervention after the conquest of sovereignty (which is not possible unless struggles develop throughout the state). National struggle and the struggle for socialism
8. The right to self-determination presupposes a revolutionary fight against the Spanish state. So there is a close link between the struggle for national liberation and the struggle for socialism. In all the oppressed nations, the necessary struggle to destroy an enemy a strong as the Spanish state with its powerful international allies requires the active involvement of the majority of the population. It is only possible if the national demand is linked to the main social, economic and political demands of the various sectors and popular movements (workers' movement, feminist movement, ecologist movement etc). In other words, only if the mobilization is based on an overall programme. Given present conditions in the oppressed nations, this will have a tendency to put into question both the Spanish state and the mode of production it defends. Consequently the struggle for self-determination must not be seen as a distinct stage in the struggle for socialism but as a fundamental aspect of the same revolutionary process. During this process the central demands at any given moment may change but their final aim must be the destruction of the state apparatus (in its Spanish and bourgeois form) and its replacement by a revolutionary socialist regime, based on self-determination and national sovereignty. Therefore our conception of the revolutionary process means that in each nationality we act in such a way that the economic, social and political demands of the different sectors and social movements mutually reinforce each other without any subordination between them. We have to reject any nationalist, workerist or economist reductionism which seeks to make the mass movements' demands dependent on designated priorities of the workers' or national struggle.
9. The articulation between national liberation and socialist revolution
Theses on the national question 119 determines the relationship between the working class and the national struggle. It is a prejudice to locate the national struggle only within the interests of the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie and it makes the revolutionary struggle more difficult if such a position is adopted. The socialist revolution needs to draw together a bloc of social forces (necessarily pluralist), which can win power. So the centre of gravity must lie in the working class (which is also a national class) given the place it holds within the production process, its mass character and its potential cohesion and because the central tasks of this revolution corresponds to its class interests. But it is also necessary to bring in new social forces. Hence there are different tasks which must be accomplished within the oppressed nations and outside them. In the oppressed nations the working class must succeed in placing itself in the vanguard of the struggle for national liberation. Indeed the struggle against such an intensely felt oppression is the condition for the broadest possible internal unity. Other broader social layers willing to participate in the national struggle will in this way be encouraged to rally around the working class. It will create favourable conditions for this struggle to develop in a revolutionary direction and become part of an overall struggle against the Spanish state and capitalism. The working class of a nationality can thus become the backbone and leading force in a broad social coalition fighting for social liberation and socialism. At the level of the Spanish state as a whole the socialist revolution needs the unity of the proletarian forces of all nations and peoples as well as the mobilization of the maximum of social forces. Among such forces an important place belongs to all those who are committed to the fight for national liberation, because this commitment brings them into confrontation with the Spanish state. The convergence in struggle of the workers' movement throughout the Spanish state and the national liberation movements is a means of binding these forces together. This convergence will only be possible if the proletariat consistently defends the right of all the oppressed nations to self-determination. It must also develop solidarity with these nations under attack from the state and support their demands for national liberation.
10. It is a strategic necessity for the socialist revolution that the working class succeed in playing this vanguard role in the national liberation struggle. We should not see this as a comforting certainty but rather as a difficult political task. In fact today the working class has a limited social and political Icadership because of the defeat suffered during the transition from Francoism. This particularly applies to the national struggle where the role of the working class vanguard has been historically weak and it exerted an influ-
120 International Marxist Review ence more because of its social weight than its political leadership. To overcome this contradiction the working class must be capable of transforming itself in the face of powerful enemies. At the level of the Spanish state the most important factor is undoubtedly represented by the influence of Spanish ideologies (old and new) and reformist leaderships (who do not support self-determination or who only support it formally and defend Spanish ideologies). These enemies are also present within each nationality. But it is very important at the same time to struggle against the various bourgeois nationalist currents which have a policy of consensus with the state and reject working class or popular demands in the name of national solidarity. This long and difficult task furthermore demands very complicated tactical mediations which have to be worked out in each nationality and at the level of the state as a whole. The objective of raising working class consciousness and ability of working people to struggle for national demands can be achieved by various means - by the intervention of revolutionaries in the workers' movement or in other movements (peace, ecology, feminist etc.) in order to bring these movements to involvement in the national struggle or by the work of a revolutionary nationalist movement committed to defending workers' demands.
11. The objective of destroying the bourgeois state and building socialism means revolutionaries have to combine tasks on the national level and tasks at the Spanish state level.
Making the working class of each nation the backbone and leading force of a large social coalition for national liberation and socialism is a crucial strategic task which by its very nature cannot be achieved within the national framework except through specific tactics and mediations, even if a militant solidarity position by the working class throughout the Spanish state in support of oppressed nations does significantly contribute to this. Nevertheless the destruction of the Spanish bourgeois state cannot be achieved only at the level of one nationality. It requires an overall offensive (more complicated than solidarity or a simple coordination) of the peoples in the state, the building of a broad social majority with the working class as its centre of gravity. Action to reach this objective is necessarily a task to be achieved at the state level, even if it can be greatly facilitated by progress made at the national level in the struggle for the working class to become the vanguard of the national and social struggle. In the last analysis there are strategic tasks (in addition to tactical or organizational ones) relevant to the national level and others relevant to the state level although it may be difficult to make a clear distinction between them because of their combined character. As revolutionaries we
Theses on the national question 121 have a duty to articulate them and to establish their reciprocal relations. The understanding of this greater importance of national strategic tasks and of the complexity of their relationship with tasks at the level of the state implies a change in relation to previous positions of our party.
12. Since Spanish membership of the EEC, the place of today's oppressed nationalitie in the Europe of the future has become a topical issue for discussion. As long as Europe is built according to the needs of capitalism and imperialism, the oppressed nations cannot hope for any change in their condition because there is no space for the rights of nationalities in the framework of economic and military centralization that is being imposed. The European project presupposes the maintenance of the existing states as instruments of political and social power. As long as there is a Europe of bourgeois stales which oppress nationalities, there will not be a Europe of nationalities nor of peoples. This is a fundamental reason for our rejection of the EEC. Neither Will there be a Europe of nations and peoples as long as the European workers' states are dominated by the bureaucracy. A Europe where the right to self-determination and full sovereignty of oppressed nations will be guaranteed will only be possible as a result of massive social and political struggles that can destroy the present bourgeois states and the capitalist system they defend, as well as the bureaucratic regimes in the workers states. It is only possible if there is a socialist Europe. A Europe of nations and peoples is only possible if there is a workers' Europe. Revolutionaries struggle for this objective. In the course of this process it will be possible to put forward the perspective of unification between North Euzkadi and South Euzkadi and of a Northern Catalonia freely integrated into the project of the Paisos catalans. The EEC includes in its present framework dependent extra-European countries like the Canary Islands. Membership of the EEC implies a worsening of this condition of dependency. The national freedom of the Canaries can only be within a perspective that involves a separation from the present European framework.
13. The type of party to be built depends on the tasks which must be carried out. If there has to be an articulation and inter-relation between national and state-wide tasks then there has to be a party which is at the same time a national and a state party. Without this dual dimension of the subjective factor, the articulation and inter-relation of tasks which has to be developed over a long period and despite the ups and downs of the national or state-level struggles is impossible.
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There also has to be an international dimension to the party, and for this reason we are part of the Fourth International. But this dimension is qualitatively different from the previous because its objective reality is different (there is not an international bourgeois state) and so are the practical tasks to accomplish. However, insofar as the EEC has spheres of competence in the member states, the power of multinationals is growing and there is a greater degree of repressive, military and police unification, we have to advance on the formation of broader alliances at an international level.
The party to be built should not be the mechanical consequence of a necessarily general strategic project, nor simply the reflection of the tasks that can be taken on a given point. It should be a choice in the medium and long term, to building a revolutionary vanguard through struggle, able to relate the current tasks with the concrete reality of communists (numerical strength, implantation, social influence, education, experience, etc.) in each moment. Also for these reasons, the most appropriate choice is to build ourselves as a party which is both national and state-wide, because the need for articulation and inter-relation also exists in the current struggles.
The form in which this dual dimension of the party is taking shape in the different nations demands a concrete discussion on why there are strong specificities in the political tasks to be carried out in each, in the relations with the vanguard sectors of these peoples and in the material reality of our party.
In the cases of Euzkadi and Catalonia we support the proposals of the national congresses of the LKI and the Lliga to constitute themselves as national parties, which while maintaining their sovereignty have organic relations with the LCR (including common bodies) in order to ensure the articulation and reciprocal relationship between the tasks ahead of us. Combining these tasks in political activity must be an ongoing concern of all the members and all the structures of the national parties and of the LCR. The constitution of national parties in Euzkadi and in Catalonia of national parties is an important change from our previous situation where there was a statewide party in which the Euzkadi and Catalonian parties had significant autonomy even. Nevertheless we feel that it will be easy to achieve this in our day-to-day activity since experience has already led us in this direction. Today's proposals are based on the positive experience of the past. Note * This document was adopted by the LCR at its congress in May 1989.
SALAHJABER