WEAKEST GOVERNMENT
OF THE DICTATORSHIP
SPAIN The following resolution was odopted by the Central Committee of the Liga Comunista (Communist League), a sympathizing organization of the Fourth International in Spain. 1. The events that preceded the death of Franco (mobilization against the death penalties, Sahara) decisively sharpened the crisis of the regime. The disappearance of the dictator, key institution cementing together all the cliques of Francoism, qualitatively aggravated this mortal crisis and irreversibly accelerated the tersions among the "families" of the regime, completely upsetting its fragile equilibrium. 2. The government, which has not yet presented its programmatic declaration to the Cortes (parliament), has clearly exposed its positions. The fraudulent. "bicameral system" of Fraga, the anathema of "terrorism, communism, and separatism, " the "trade-union future" openly condemning the workers commissions, and the economic speech of Villar Mir patently mark the limits of this government. They clearly demonstrate its antidemocratic character in continuity with Francoism, a character the bourgeois opposition is attempting to mask. 3. The new Arias government is the weakest in the entire history of Francoism. Without having succeeded in taking any real step toward the much-vaunted "institutionalization" and facing the greatest economic crisis of recent years, the government is up against the powerful rise of a mass movement on which it has not managed to inflict any serious setback. In order to embellish its appearance and plans, the previous government had to rely on its periphery of groups like Fedisa. The tremendous weakness of the present government, which is planning ever harsher atfacks on the workers and people, is compelled to have this dirty role played by personalities like Ruiz Gimenez and Tierno Galván, who disguise themselves as "socialist" and "socialistic" in order better to deceive the proletariat and the oppressed. These bourgeois sectors of the "democratic opposition, " which want to offer this government of continuity a truce while waiting for its acts, are proposing this policy, through the Junta Democrática and the Plataforma de Convergencia Democrática, to the Communist party, the PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español - Spanish Socialist Workers party, the Social Democracy), and the other workers parfies that are present in these bourgeois bodies. In reality, this truce that the workers parties are succeeding in imposing on the workers and the oppressed is 12 the only thing that offers the government a possibility of taking any steps toward implementation of its plans. The weakness of the government, which may be considered as the political expression of the change in the relationship of class forces that has been achieved during past months, creates better conditions for the struggle of the workers movement. For the moment, the government finds it impossible, without exposing itself completely, to prevent the mass movement from winning a limited de facto legality through its actions. 4. The government is absolutely incapable of holding back the advance of the mass movement toward the overthrow of the dictatorship. Any demagogic "reform" that may be carried out will have no result except to propel the workers and the oppressed forward and sharpen the contradictions among the Francoist cliques. Nevertheless, we cannot exclude the possibility, improbable right now, that steps backward will be taken under the pressure of the hard-line sectors of the dictatorship, whose influence cannot be underestimated because of their decisive role in the institutions of the regime, a role that big capital cannot disperse with, even though this solution has the inconvenience of creating a greater mass response on a state and national scale without decisively driving back the mass movement. 5. In face of the "evolution" of the Fragas and the democratic "rupture" that sectors of the dictatorship defending a program that maintains the fundamental features of the dictatorship are trying to win, the Trotskyists reaffirm more than ever that the only way to overthrow "crowned" Francoism is the general strike. Conditions today are better than ever for advancing toward this. The latest struggles clearly demonstrate the possibility of the masses" moving to direct action agairst the dictatorship. We must pass to the offensive against Francoism, breaking any truce. Toward the overthrow of the dictatorship through the general strike. For the total destruction of Francoism to permit free elections to a Constituent Assembly based on National Constituent Assemblies of the various oppressed peoples. For a provisional workers government capable of convoking the Constituent Assembly and satisfying the most urgent needs and aspirations of the oppressed. This is the requirement that is posed for all the workers parties; hence, we call for the creation of a class pact of all these parties in order to push for these objectives through the workers commissions.