REGIME DEFEATED IN
ATTEMPT AT REPRESSION
Of the 154 comrades arrested, the government was rapidly forced to release 119, under the pressure of the masses, Thirty-five remained in prison, among them the comrades who had presided over the assembly at Aranzazu. Among those remaining in prison were:
* Jaime Pastor, Jordi Jaumendreu, and Ramón Zaye of the national leadership of the LCR/ETA-VI;
*Jose Maria Solchaga, Isabel Ciriza, and Pilar Andriego of the Workers Commissions of the
*Patxi Allestarán of the Workers Commissions of the province of Guipúzcoa;
* José Luis Pariza of the Workers Commissions of the province of Vizcaya;
*Anton Carrera, sentenced to eight years in prison in the infamous Burgos trials of 1970 and
*Felipe Izaguire, member of the leadership commission of the united campaign for amnesty in
*Javier Armendariz, member of the leadership commission of the united campaign for amnesty
*Pedro Maria Zugadi (eight years in prison, released in August 1976) and Yosi Lorono (eight
The comrades who were kept in jail came before the San Sebastian tribunal at 7:00 p.m. on
November 23. They were indicted and sentenced to fines totaling 600,000 pesetas (about 510, 000).
Collections were immediately organized. Within three hours after the sentencing, 700,000 pesetas had been collected in the popular neighborhoods of San Sebastian. A collection in the
Five metal factories in Navarra that had gone on strike brought in an additional 200,000 pesetas.
Thus, the "mistake" the government made in arresting our comrades permitted a popularization of unity in action of the workers organizations in Euzkadi, which will bear fruit in the struggle
Francoist dictatorship. In all, more than 2 million workers stopped work, 500, 000 in Catalonia, 420,000 in the Basque country, 300,000 in Madrid, 230,000 in Valencia, 120,000 in Andalusia, 90,000 in Asturias, 80,000 in Galicia, 60,000 in Aragon, 35,000 in the Balaeric Islands, and so on. The November 12 general strike was a palpable demonstration of the refusal of the workers of the Spanish state to tolerate the consequences of the capitalist economic crisis, of their determination to compel satisfaction of their economic demands agairst the high cost of living, the wage freeze, and layoffs for economic, trade-union, or political reasons - in spite of the chatter abouf "the need for a responsible attitude in order to overcome the crisis. " It also demonstrated that a real general strike is now possible, even a political general strike, which would overturn the whole applecart of the "reform of Francoism, " which would put an end to the Francoist monarchy, which would genuinely win democratic rights. But November 12 also demonstrated that winning genuine satisfaction of all the demands of the workers, both economic and political, and genuinely bringing down what remains of the dictatorship requires that the mass struggles be organized differently. In this sense, the November 12 strike and the success of November 12 must be analyzed in depth in order to draw all the lessons, positive and negative, so as to prepare for taking a step forward in coming months.
province of Navarra; released in March 1976; Guipüzcoa (spent eight years in prison, released in February 1976); in Navarra (seven years in prison, released in March 1976); years in prison, also released in August 1976). and greater implantation of the organization. And, no less important to boycoft the fake referendum.
The first lesson that must be drawn is that economic demands must absolutely be linked to the demand for the full and integral reestablishment of democratic rights, with no restrictions whatsoever. In the course of each strike for demands, even if it is deliberately limited to advancing only economic demands, the same phenomena are repeated: police repression, arrest of strikers, lack of freedom of organization and expression, lack of legal and representative trade unions. All this makes it difficult for the workers to defend their rights and win their demands. In the immense majority of cases, when strikes have ended in failures, it has been due to the repressive action of the state which has arisen out of the dictatorship. The workers have understood this, for when they draw up platforms of demands, they regularly include the demand for the reestablishment of democratic rights, the struggle against Francoism and its remnants, along with the purely economic demands. But the platform on the basis of which the trode-union coordinating committee (which included the Workers Commissions, the Social-Democratic dominated UGT, and the USO) called for the general strike of November 12 left the political demands aside completely. Did this contribute to a greater mass mobilization? On the contrary. The proof of this come in the Basque country, where participation in the November 12 general strike was less than it had been in the two previous general strikes, if stimulated the process
SPAIN which were political. Further proof is that with the exception of Valencia and some neighborhoods of Madrid and Seville, it was impossible to draw the teachers into the November 12 strike or to get the artisans and shopkeepers to participate. This would have been avoided if the social and political demands of all the oppressed masses had been added to the demands of the workers. The "depoliticization" of the platform of the trade-union coordinating committee for November 12 corresponds to a precise political project. Given the perspective of the reformists, it was necessary at all costs to prevent the general strike (Itself reluctantly "conceded" as a result of pressure from the rank and file) from interfering with the negotiations of the political parties of the "democratic opposition" with the government. In other words, it was necessary to prevent the conquest of demo -cratic rights through the mobilization and direct action of the masses from being understood as an alternative solution to the project of negotiating the reestob lishment of these rights one step at a time through making successive compromises with the politicians who have emerged From Francoism. But events like the vote of the Cortes in favor of the political reform law precisely confirm that negotiation with the regime is not the rood by which the disappearance of the regime will be achieved. Even the limited demands presented by the Coordinación Democrática (Democratic Coordination) - which for the moment includes the entire "respectable" opposition, both workers parties and bourgeois liberal organizations - have resulted only in a retreat by the bourgeois opposition parties, which have now agreed to negotiate on the only grounds the government has offered from the very beginning: the fraud of elections without the prior legalization of the entire workers movement, without elementary guarantees that the workers will be able to organize their parties and unions freely.
That is why the future rise of the mass movement desperafely requires the unification of the economic and political demands, the amplification of strikes and mobilizations toward a political general strike against the Francoist monarchy for the conquest of all democratic rights. The second lesson of the November 12 strike is that the workers struggle must be organized on a united basis. Wherever massive participation in the strike occurred,
It was in large part a result of the united convocation of the three trade-union confederations and the support accorded the call for the general strike by the immense majority of the workers organizations.
But a united call for the strike should have led to a united organization of the strike. And that was another weakness of November 12. The united call came from the top. The workers supported it massively. But there were no centers of united organization and leadership at the rank-and-file level. There was no massive information campaign and no broad democratic preparatory assemblies before the strike. There were no strike committees based on delegates democratically elected in such assemblies in order to lead the struggle. There were no structures that could have drawn tenants, housewives, youth, teachers, artisans, and shopkeepers into the struggle. This was no accident either. Right from the time of the call for the general strike, the leaders of the three trade-union federations insisted on the necessity of "controlling the movement, " of preventing it from spilling out of the foctories and into the streets. The aim of this "control" is to curb and fragment the mobilization of the masses, even at the cost of reduced effectiveness of the strike. For it is clear that the greater the impact of the movement on the whole of society, the greater are the chances of forcing the bourgeoisie to grant satisfaction to the workers. It is easy to understand how difficult it would have been for the government to maintain the illegal status of the majority of the workers organizations if November 12 had resulted in a complete paralysis of the state and society in Spain. The "rechnical" domain in which this problem was most forcefully manifested was that of public transport. In the great urban centers paralysis of public transport was the most adequate means by which to brooden and generalize the strike to all the workers. This was publicly asserted by the spokesman of the National Workers Commission in Catalonia when he drew the balance of the November 12 actions. But in Madrid and Barcelona, there were only a few united groups of transport workers to try to extend the strike to the whole of this sector, and they were unsuccessful. It was not a massive presence of the cops in the subways that was responsible for this failure but rather the refusal of the reformist trade-union leaderships to include this sector in the general strike. Proof of this can be seen in Seville, where a three-hour work stoppage by bus and taxi drivers was sufficient to lend November 12 a genuine character as an inter-professional genera! strike with the massive participation of the entire toiling population of the city. On the basis of these two lessons of November 12 it can be concluded that the mass movement will succeed in going beyond a certain threshold and upsetting the poTitical plans of the bourgeoisie only if it overcomes these two inadequacies.
Restructuring of the trade-union movement
But this brings us directly to the problem of the restructuring of the Spanish workers movement, and more exactly the Spanish trade-union movement, in other words, the evolution of the relationship of forces between the worker cadres who still apply in practice the orientation of the reformist leaderships and those who have shown that they are prepared to break in practice with these leaderships, at least on some occasions and on certain key questions. The emergence of a new leadership for the Spanish working class depends in large part on this modification of the relationship of forces among the natural leaders of the class and on the ability of revolutionary Marxists to win over a growing portion of the
new workers vanguard in formation to the program and organization of the Fourth International. There are now four central trode-union federations in formation in the Spanish state: the Workers Commissions, under the leadership of the CP; the Unión General de los Trabajodores (UGT - General Workers Union), under Social Democratic leadership; the Unión Sindical Obrera (USO - Workers Trade-Union Federation), under Christian Democratic leadership; and the old Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT - National Confederation of Labor), of anarcho-syndicalist inspiration, which is now on the road to reconstruction. Of these four formations, the Workers Commissions are far and away the most influential within the working class, af least for the moment. After months of hesitation, the CP leodership of this orgonization has issued an appeal for massive recruitment, with the sale of individual membership cards, a project which is aimed at signing up between a million and a million and a half members. A future article in INPRECOR will deal with the question of how revolutionary Marxists should defend the project of trade-union unity, that is, the united response of the working class to the maneuvers of bureaucratic division openly encouraged by the Spanish and infernafional bourgeoisie. For the moment, our central point is to examine the evolution of the situation within the Workers Commissions themselves. Three currents have taken shape here:
*The majority current, led by the CP, which has recently accentuated its bureaucratle and sectarian course out of fear of being pressed by reformists on the right. and revolutionaries on the left.
*The so-called minorify current, primarily inspired by two Mao-centrist organizations, the Partido del Trabajo (PT - Labor party) and the Organizac ión Revolucionaria de los Trabajadores (ORT — Revolutionary Workers Organization). This current has carried out a de facto split, founding a separate organization on November 7 in Modrid; it is oriented toward the creation of "red unions" closely controlled by the above-menfioned political organizations.
*The unitary current, within which the comrades of the LCR/ETA-VI are leading forces. This current has significant strength not only in the Basque country, in Navarra, but also in Madrid and even more in Catalonia. The weekly Cuadernos para el Dialogo reported in its November 27, 1976, issue that during the delegates' assembly of Catalonia a representative of the unitary tendency, Comrade Nuria Casals, was elected to the secretariat of the confederation and that in the vote on the general secretary of the confederation 597 delegates were for the candidate of the CP, while 106 were against; there were 37 abstentions. It may be supposed that a good part of the votes against came from representatives or sympathizers of the unitary tendency. The sectarianism and bureaucratism of the majority current has been clearly manifested in the limitations that have been systematically imposed on the exercise of the right to form tendencies in many regions, as well as by the expulsion of some leading Mao-centrist trade unionists, like Linde in Barcelona, Casasola and Sanchis in Andalusia, etc. Above all, this tendency has attempted to impose from the top down the coordinating bodies and various inter-professional organisms of the Workers Commissions and has made a turn toward the transforming the Workers Commissions into a new frode-union federation alongside the others without any real consultation of the rank and file. In foce of this bureaucratism the Mao-centrist current inspired by the PT-ORT has nonetheless reacted in an ultrasectarian manner, precipitating yet another trade-union split. The PT-ORT formula "construct a united trade union outside the existing trade-union organizations" is a real example of what Lenin called "destroying unity in the name of unity. " While using the word "unitary" in virtually every sentence they pronounce, the leaders of the PT-ORT current have in fact perpetrated a new split, whatever the responsibility the bureaucrats of the CP may bear in this matter. It should also be added that they themselves behave very bureaucratically wherever they control trode-union organizations. In Galicia, for instance, they rejected adherence to the Workers Commissions they control of the comrades of Coruña, who have been regularly elected as delegates in assemblies. The position of the unitary current within the Workers Commissions is very different. The comrades of this current assert that the struggle for trade-union unity requires primarily the assertion, strengthening, and organization of the majority charocter of the Workers Commissions within the working class in order to defeat the maneuvers of division and diversion of the employers and the government as well as the organization of strong rank-and-file pressure for united and democratic structures both within the Workers Commissions and within the factories, which is the real starting point for tomorrow's organic trade-union unity. In this regard the unitary current upholds the idea of a constituent congress for a United Trade-Union Federation of Workers on the basis of delegates democratically elected in general assemblies held in the factories. It particularly upholds the following points, which were presented during a press conference held October 28 in Madrid: "Formal affiliation of workers to the Workers Commissions and the election of trade-union delegates by the workers themselves; "Maximum democracy to enable the various trade-union positions, both majority and minority, to make their program known to all the members of the Workers Commissions in preparation for the congress and in the discussion before the congress; "The right of all tendencies of the Workers Commissions to democratic access to leadership posts based on the strictest proportionality, *We think that the battle for trade-union unity through a constituent trade-union congress in the course of which
SPAIN the Worker Commissions should dissolve as a separate union federation should be fully taken up by the Workers Commissions. Toward this end it is important: "To structure the Workers Commissions as trade unions which fight for trade-union onity in the most consistent manner; "That the trade-union confederation of the Workers Commissions commit itself to stimulating and supporting the united trade-union bodies both on the factory level and on the industrial branch level, in the provinces and throughout the state;
SCENE FROM A RECENT DAY-LONG STRIKEST "That we defend and push for the broadest and most effective unity in action of all the separate trade-union organizations, recognizing the sentiment for unity among the rank and file." The unitary tendency also defends the sovereign right of the trade-union organizations of each oppressed nationality to define their own status and action programs for their own area of activity, as well as their right to adopt the organizational forms best suited to their own needs.
The battle for a united and democratic class trade union which the unitary tendency has launched within the Workers Commissions and the factories will be of considerable importance in fostering the emergence of an alternative leadership of the working class which will be able to counter all the maneuvers of the bourgeoisie aimed at fragmenting and breaking the rise of the mass movement as well as the aid to these bourgeois projects objectively furnished by the policy of class collaboration pursued by the various reformist leaderships.
For an active boycott of the referendum
Revolutionary Marxists have unhesitatingly pronounced themselves in favor of a pure and simple rejection of the "political reform" of the Suárez government. They
8 thus call for a boycott of the referendum farce the govemment has planned around this reform. Most of the workers organizations also reject the reform. But their decision for "active abstention" still lacks clarity and punch. By definition, abstention represents an attitude of absence, of abstentionism without mass mobilization, without struggle, without activity directed against the fraud being perpetrated by the Francoist monarchy. If the "active" character of the abstention is limited to denouncing the fraudulent nature of the referendum, these organizations will be far from responding to the needs for a reaction by the mass movement to the great maneuvers of the Spanish bourgeoisie. BASQUE SEPARATIST SYMPATHIZERS That is why, without hoping that the government will "clarify" its positions, without spreading the pernicious illusion that freedom will be won through negotiations with post-Francoist politicians, without hoping that the conquest of democratic rights will depend on reaching agreement with those who make negotiating with the of the masses and only the mobilization of the masses in order to break the maneuver of the bourgeoisie and win democratic rights in action. That is why the common attitude of all the workers organizations, the only vote of the entire working class on December 15, must be that of active boycott and the broadest mobilization to win:
*Total amnesty for political prisoners;
*Immediate free elections for a Republican Constituent Assembly;
*Self-determination for all oppressed nationalities;
*Complete and non-exclusive legalization of all the political and trade-union organizations of the working class;
*Conquest of all democratic rights: freedom of association, freedom of the press, of demonstration, the right to strike, etc. with no restriction whatsoever;
*Dissolution of all the repressive bodies and all institutions of the dictatorship. November 21, 1976