1. Crisis of the Franco regime:= The urgency of building the Spanish section of the Fourth International has to be seen in the context of the crisis of the Frenco regime as it has developed over the past decade, and the related stratecy of the Spanish bourvesisie. Postwar economic development, slight in relation to that of the major imperialist countries, but still significant in shifting the balance of class forocs within the regime, hes deepened the contr-fictions in Spanish capitalism. The latter has proved too weak for the inter-imperielist competition into which it has inevitably baen drawn. Beset by repic inflation anc balance of payments problema, it has bean maintained in laree part in recent years by foreign investment, tourism, and the export of large numbers of its workers to other Buropean countries. The dangerously makeshift nature of such props becomes ve y clear in the context of the international monetary crisis and fmerican wi_hdrewals of investment; while the desperate search for markets in which Spain is competetive continues in a series of agreements with the -Tab countries and dastern Hirope.
The Spanish bourgeoisie has therefore been sharply confronted in the last year rae: the proble. of deciding what strategy to adopt in relation ta the working class. er since the first great strike movement of 7962 it has been evident that despite ee repreceéion anc on ebsence of revolutionary leadership, the working class
has begun to throw off the disastrous consequences of the defeat of the evolution in 1937-39, anc revive its traditions of militant struggle, while new life has come into the revolutionsary movement from the student movement too. With the rising combativity of workers in the past three years, the Lurgos trials upsurge, the continuing though uneven emergence of new forms and organs of struggle in the working class since Burgos, the agents of the bourgeoisie proper have increasingly had to step in and make adapte ations in policy which Franco or the military alone were probably incareble of. The changing political balence reflects too the long-term struggle between the different forces within spanish capitel: the Felanzist nationalist elements of the bourfeoisie are now very strongly challenged by elements in lesazue with foreign capital, notably the Opus Dei group, whose overriding objective is te get into murope. J11 the signs indicate that their domestic strategy is simed at cecapitating the workers movement by increasing repression against the revolutionary groupings and the leading militants, while atteaptine to incorporate the mass of worke = in a certsin "liberalisation! of the fascist trade union structure. Their economic position makes even this attempt a gamble, but the issue for the Spanish working class is whether it can find the leadership to d.feat it cmplevely.
é. The revolutionary vanguard and the work of the LCR:i= The vanguard is ther. fore faced with the need to aperate in clandestinity, and to Fight for indepencent class © orfanisations. T,e dominance of the CP presents revo utionaries with a difficult relationship of forces for this work, even ap rt from the problem of developing a programme around which it can be carricd out. In the past decade the CP hes had control of the Workers Commissions which emerged from the 1962 strugzles. It was completely unable to respond through them ke to te new crises from 1967, to raine political ceaancs which would revive t e WC's as instruments of mass struggle, The CP participated -d in elections, anc continued public actions without préparing the workers for selfdefence, leacing them on to the streets to suffer the demoralising expertence of repeated deieats. In recent months ite ov.osition to the Stete of Guergency hoes been largely around the purely defensive slogan of ‘/nmesty',
It is in the light of the offensive by the bourgeoisie and the urgent need to change the relationship of forces on the left, that we must view the work of Lhe LCR (formerly the Grupo Comunismo). The GC came aver a year agom out of the splits from the Frente _
f—s — Gaol, eS, SS SA =, Sy wal a a Saree oe pee Te | 7-4 ree _——EEE— =
Spain/ grouping, and included currents strongly influenced by the French May and by the politics of the JOR, It experienced a process of intense internal discussion, in the course of which the Lanbertiste current split. The GC was represented at the Red Gurope Nevember confe ence as a sympathising section and ss the LOR, marched uncer the banner of the FI in the Paris Comsune demo last May.
The comrades of the LCR pose the need for generalisation of forms of factory coumittees anc orgenisations base? on the assembly of workers, such as have appeared eporadically in many places ov r the last three years, rather than working in the Stalinist-dominate: Workers Commissions. They support the national movement of the Basque people, calied for the extension of the struggle against the December trials and drawing on the Burgos experience, have taken the development of political campaigns in the direction of factory work as a priority. They are working in this field and in the factory committees through the Proletario groups. Thay raise too the need for an indepencent, united, trade-union movement. In this connection they conducted their first major cam : the cawpaign for the boycott of the elections in the CNS(State trade unions) on 18 Mayelections which hac @ role in the bourgeois 'liberalisation' strategy just outlined, while the CP called for participation in these elections, the revolutionary groups including the LCR called for boycott, aven with the opposition of the CP, which took the slogan "\igainsl the boycott", abstentions in the working class strongholds reached over 90%, and were scarcely less than 30% anywhere: a defeat both for the CP snd the State. What is more, the LCR comrades attempted to extend the strugele by calling for the formation of united front "Boycott Committees" to carry out united actions around the slogans: "Down with the State of Hmergency. Boycott the elections." None of the groups approactied were in agreement; the June issue of Combate, the monthly orgen of the LCR, carries extensive documentation of the correspondance with other tendencies over the question. In face of the difficulty of creating s united fromt, the LCR and the Proleteriogroups proceeded alone, and after a series of lightning street demonstrations to make propaganda in the previous month, mobilised some 1200 militants on their slogens in Madrid, barcelona and other centres on 18 May. The demonstrations, strongly defended by stewerds, passed rapidly through working-class quarters with placards and banners of the Fourth International (for the first time since the defeat of the Spanish evolution), distributing thousands of leaflets and meating with an overwhelmingly favourable restonse.
The formation of the LCR has come at a time when possibilities are opening up for effecting a change in the relationship of forces within the working class which is its urgent task. The hold of snarcho-syndicaliem over the Spanieh working class has cisappeared almost completely through the experience of the decades since the civil war. The crisie in the CP, with the split inte two equally bankrupt wings, shows no sign of resolution, and the revolutionary groups must now begin to win militants out of it. What we know of the newly-born LCR im encourages us to believe that the development of a viable Spanish section, capable of intervening in the struggles of the working clas s in Spain is a distinct possibility in the near future.