SPAIN AFTER
REFERENDUM
A referendum is a form of electoral consultation in which only the government can formulate proposals. That is why regimes almost always win referendums, except when gross errors of appreciation are made. Thus, a referendum cannot be considered a form of "democratic consultation, "unless it is the result of a popular initiative. This general rule is especially applicable in Spain today. The most elementary democratic rights continue to be violated in this country. Propaganda calling for abstention on the referendum was forbidden and advocates of abstention were persecuted. The right to vote was denied to youth under the age of 21 in order to avert massive abstention among the youth. Many forms of pressure were brought to bear on voters. State employees, pensioneers, unemployed persons, and workers absent from their jobs on the day of the referendum were compelled to present their voting certificate before receiving the stipends and wages legally due them. There were also many forms of more direct pressure, especially on the part of local power brokers in the rural areas, as well as many instances of fraud. Persons less than 21 years old were allowed to vote if itwas known that they would vote "yes"; some people voted in the names of others without presenting any proof of identity. The government did not limit itself simply to calling the referendum. It spent more than 2,000 million pesetas (more than $30 million) to guarantee a victory for the "yes" vote. In spite of all these efforts and contrary to appearances, the government did not achieve everything it was aiming at. The overall turnout was 77.7% of registered voters; the proportion of registered voters casting "yes" ballots was thus 72.9%. In other words, more than one-fourth of the electorate either abstained (22.6%) or voted "no" (1.9%, essentially the fascists) or cast blank or invalid ballots (2.5%). But the abstention rate was much higher among many oppressed nationalities and in working-class circles:
*Guipúzcoa: 55.1% abstention;
*Vizcaya: 47.2%; *Province of Tenerife (Canary Islands) : 32.4%;
THE by Juan Fernández
*Province of La Coruna (Galicia): 30.5%;
*Cuenca del Nalón (industrial center): 48%;
* Barcelona: 36.3%;
* Miners' areas of Oviedo: 49.6%, etc. In general the abstention rate was 10 to 15 percentage points higher in province capitals than in other cities in the provinces. As the detailed results came in - the government did not publish these, limiting itself to nationally distributing the overall figures province by province - what increasingly took shape was an image of massive abstention by the conscious working class and a broad abstentionist current among the oppressed nationalities. In view of the conditions under which the referendum was organized and held; in view of the absence of an active campaign for abstention with demonstrations and strikes, except in the Basque country (where this campaign resulted in rejection of the government project by a majority of the population); in view of the massive political commitment abstention required in the absence of real freedom for the workers movement, one can say that the results of the vote represent a twofold partial failure for the government. First, it is impossible for the government to interpret the result as a vote in favor of the electoral law (which particularly provides for elections without the participation of all the workers parties), or as a vote in favor of maintaining the institutions of Francoism, or as a vote in favor of concentrating power in the hands of a monarchy inherited from the dictatorship. Second, from the standpoint of the conquest of liberty, the open emergence of workers parties and organizations, the activity of the trade-union, women's and youth organizations, and the hundreds of meetings, assemblies, and protest strikes and demonstrations represented a precious school of mass political activity which the proletariat of the Spanish state and its allies had not experienced in nearly four decades. This experience will pay dividends in the struggles immediately ahead. That is when we will see who was really strengthened by the test of the referendum.
3
SPAIN Political Lessons The unfolding and results of the referendum also permit important political lessons to be drawn about the forces in the field today as well as their basic orientations. The referendum demonstrated that the fascist far right completely lacks any social base; the result obtained by the campaign for a "no" vote was derisory. The referendum indicated just how far the Francoist monarchy is prepared to go in "tolerating" an opposition. This was, in a certain sense, a dress rehearsal for the elections that have been announced - without the legalization of the Communist party, the far left, and the radical nationalist groups of the oppressed nationalities. Anything that endangered this dress rehearsal was systematically and harshly repressed. Not only thousands of arrests, but also threats, attacks, and torture in the police stations and prisons were applied systematically. The referendum indicated where the political orientation of the "democratic opposition" is headed. The "seven conditions for accepting the referendum" which were presented to the government on November 18 by the permanent commission of the opposition amounted to a serious capitulation to the government, even in comparison to the moderate positions previously adopted during the opposition meeting in the Canary Islands. All reference to a constituent assembly or to the problem of self-determination for the nationalities was abandoned in these "seven conditions. " This amounts to a desire 4 not to challenge the fundamental bases of the "political reform law, " to disarm the masses politically, and to curb or break their mobilization. The fact that a "commission to negotiate with the government" was established in the midst of the campaign for abstention could only disorient the voters, whereas the aim should have been to incite them against the political projects submitted to the referendum. The Social Democratic Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE - Spanish Socialist Workers party) and the Communist party did nothing to bring about a campaign of active abstention. CP leader Santiago Carrillo even went so far as to assert that "the opposition could have voted 'yes' on the referendum if the government had accepted the seven conditions" (conditions which, as we have just noted, in no way challenge the very bases of the Juan Carlos reform). The Maoist organizations PT, ORT, and MC waged strong agitation for abstention, as did our comrades of the LCR/ETA-VI and the LC. * But from the very outset the campaign of the Maoist groupings reflected a total contradiction between an adaptation to the political orientation of the class collaborationist bodies on the one hand and the desire to put forward slogans capable of mobilizing the masses for a real and active boycott of the referendum on the other hand. In a call issued December 12 the PT asserted that abstention was not enough to achieve democracy, but that a general strike was necessary ... to realize the program of the "platform of democratic opposition, " a program that includes neither the constituent assembly nor the right of the oppressed nationalities to determine their own future. But the same call added that it was necessary to struggle for constituent parliaments, amnesty, democratic rights, etc. The ORT likewise called for struggle for the program of the platform of democratic opposition, while also speaking of a "resolute fight for the overthrow of the imposed monarchy, " a programmatic position excluded from the platform of the "democratic" opposition. As for the MC, it cautiously occupied a mid-stream position, substituting "the right to autonomy" for the right of the oppressed nationalities to determine their own future and the "the formation of a democratic government that would convoke genuinely free elections" for the demand for a constituent assembly. Thus, the test of the referendum confirmed the correctness of our orientation. It confirmed that we were correct to stress the necessity for the mass movement and the workers organizations not to adhere to the *PT: Partido del Trabajo - Labor party; ORT: Organización Revolucionaria de los Trabajadores -Revolutionary Workers Organization; MC: Movimiento Comunista - Communist Movement; LCR/ETA-VI: Liga Comunista Revolucionaria/Euzkadi ta Askatasuna-VI -Revolutionary Communist League/Basque Nation and Freedom-Sixth Assembly; LC: Liga Comunista - Communist League.
program of the "de mocratic opposition, " but on the contrary to offer the mass movement slogans capable of putting an end to the monarchist regime inherited from the dictatorship: immediate legalization of all workers organizations, self-determination for the oppressed nationalities, free elections to a constituent assembly, republic. As far as the organization of the boycott is concerned, it confirmed the necessity of abandoning all pacts and groupings of class collaboration, which can only curb the mobilizations of the masses, and of replacing them with workers united fiont bodies intent on stimulating and organizing mass action. What next? Although it is true that the government did not emerge from the referendum as the big winner, it would be childish to try to deny that it achieved a partial success for its political "project": to arrive at a limited bourgeois "democracy" in which the democratic rights of the masses and their organizations would be considerably restricted and the institutions inherited from Francoism could be maintained as far as possible, especially the Francoist repressive apparatus. The "Suárez plan" constitutes a means by which to achieve this project of big capital in the Spanish state:
MADRID DEMONSTRATION-
*Through the game of an electoral low that would permit the establishment of a "center" bourgeois majority based on an axis composed of the Partido Popular and the Christian Democracy and would exclude the CP, the far left, and the radical nationalist organizations from the benefits of legality. The legalization of these organizations might be granted later if necessary, once the bourgeoisie's control of the new parliament and the other institutions had been confirmed and consolidated.
*Through the full utilization of the "stabilizing mechanism" of the "political reform law, " that is,
"the legal and legislative labyrinth" which guarantees that any further reform will have to be approved by a two-thirds majority of the "two houses" of parliament. This tends to compel the opposition to maintain an attitude of permanent negotiation with the regime, which impedes and disorients the activity of the masses.
*Through drawing the opposition into contenting itself with eyedropper "reforms, " which makes it abandon any systematic campaign for the complete winning of democratic rights, amnesty, self-determination, etc.
*Through maneuvers that foster divisions among the workers parties, seeking to draw the PSOE into participating in elections while the CP remains banned.
*Through applying the same method as the "political reform" to the question of the trade unions in order to avert a massive strengthening of the workers trade-union federations and to continue to utilize the CN$ (the vertical union of the fascist period) as an instrument with which to accentuate the division among these federations, the intent being to foster the negotiation of a "social pact, " which is required by the economic policy of the government. The Coordinación Democrática (Democratic Coordination) of the opposition is thus increasingly in crisis. The growing polarization between mass struggles on the one hand, which place the winning of democratic rights and rejection of the government's "social pact" on the agenda, and the de facto imposition of the "political reform law " on the other hand leave: little maneuvering room for negotiations between the Democratic Coordination and the government. The ability to use the authority of this Democratic Coordination o surb the mass struggle is thus inevitably narrowing increasingly. Under these conditions, the "constitutional compromise" proposed by the leadership of the PSOE at its latest congress in Madrid implies opting for a "realistic" policy of collaboration with the government and its political project, with de facto acceptance of a parliament that would be devoid of all constituent capacity and would not even be the result of free elections. It likewise implies a basic commitment to reintroducting parliamentary cretinism into the workers movement, a doubly lamentable cretinism since the "parliament" in question is neither really sovereign nor democratically elected. Ramón Tamames, one of the major leaders of the CP, pushed the same parliamentary cretinism in an article published in the December 10 issue of El País. In this article he wrote that even if it won 51% of the vote in the legislative elections, the opposition would be unable to overturn the antidemocratic constitution now in effect .... since this same constitution stipulates that a two-thirds majority is necessary to modify it and that this two-thirds majority must be won in both houses. Point by point Tamames showed that the only way to modify these antidemocratic rules was to go through the
5
SPAIN various channels of the regime, through the "legal labyrinth" established by the Suárez law. Juch a procedure, according to Tamames, obviously requires a very "broad democratic front, " the only force in position to amass the very "broad majority" capable of successfully running this mararhon. But Tamames seems not to realize that this "broad front" is in full contraon his moth diction with the needs of the bourgeois parties, which are favored by the electoral law, and with the needs of the CP itself, which has to fight for legalization. Does all this mean that the alections will take place as called for in the Suárez plan? Not necessarily. It all depends on the pace and scope of the struggle of the masses. The masses are fighting under very difficult conditions, with unemployment approaching 1 million and repression intensifying. But they never the less succeed in winning satisfaction on many occasions. The framework imposed by the government has been broken many times, with the workers forming democratic rank-and-file organs of self-organization. The organization of the neighborhoods, the groupings of youth, the women's liberation movement are gaining in strength. The masses are con inuing to fight for full and entire freedom for all their organizations, for totar and unconditional amnesty for all political prisoners. It is certain 'hat the road to victory in these areas is longer and less linear than could have been supposed. It is also certain that this possibility of maneuver by the regime has been large ly determined by the policy of the majority organizations within the working class, which have subordinated everything to their pacts with the government. Beyond the intentions and maneuvers of the reformist parties, however, it is the mass struggles and their relative success that will determine to what extent and at what pace the puppet democracy projects of the Francoist monaichy will wind up being swept aside or partially realized. The episode of the arrest and then release on bail of Santiago Carrillo and his comrades of the central leadership of the Communist party constitutes a new additional test in this regard. The mass mobilization for the release of Carrillo was not really stimulated and centralized at the level of the wnole spanish state by the apparatus of the CP. This is true to such an extent that our comrades of the LCR/ETA-VI were the first to react publicly and extensively, a fact which was implicitly recognized by the CP; which saluted the LCR/ETA-VI for the initiative it took on this occasion. As for the CP, here once again it exhibited its concern to subordinate everything to the pact with the bourgeois democratic opposition, ailowing that opposition to negotiate the release of its general secretary with the government rather than trying to win his release in the streets. The CP hailed it as a great victory that this release was obtained through negotiation. The CP showed
6 that it was prepaied to pay an immediate political price: it withdrew from the opposition's commission for negotiation with the government, which is discussing the question of the opposition's participation in the next elections. The importance of this concession may be measured by the fact that it was the government that demanded that the CP withdraw from this commission. The "solidarity" the "democratic" opposition manifested toward the CP was expressed in its transmission of the government ultimatum and capitulation before it. In fact, the CP is prepared to jettison the diamand for its own official and formal legalization before the elections. It has already aisandoned the demand that the rest of the opposition (above all the PSOE) boycott the elections so long as all the workers and radical nationalist organizations are not legalized. It is now content with an indirect electoral participation, hoping to obtain legalization after the estaolishment of the puppet parliament. It is useless to insist on how much this policy facilitates the task of the government and disorients the masses politically. But the masses are demonstrating a real will to maintain their political mobilization, especially through the cascade of struggles to win total amnesty for political prisoners. That will be one of the major tests of strength during coming days and weeks. The fundamental question of the "social pact" hovers over the entire orientation of the CP. In a widely noted article published in the January 1, 1977, issue of the weekly Triunfo, Nicolas Sartorius, one of the major leaders of the workers commissions, wrote: "Probably, it will possibly turn out that the Spanish right made a mistake in thinking that a government issued of a parliamentary majority in a Cortes within which the workers forces had been marginalized through unsavory procedures could have the authority necessary to clearly move out of the crisis. It has been repeated on many occasions that the present crisis has characteristics such that we can emerge from it only on the basis of an agreement among all the real social forces, among them undoubtedly the trade unions, which will not fail to put forward the basic demands of the workers. " (Our emphasis.) In other words: Legalize the CP and the workers commissions or else there will be no social pact. In exchange for legalization, we are prepared to impose the social pact on the workers.
But how can this blackmail be followed through if in order to maintain the alliance with the bourgeois parties the mobilizations and struggles of the workers are curbed and fragmented even before a pact is concluded?
And how to convince the bourgeoisie that once legalized the CP and the workers commissions will succeed in imposing the social pact on the workers? Such is the dilemma, for the CP leadership as much as for the bourgeoisie.
December 30, 1976
THE ECONOMIC CRISIS
FIVE _POUNDS THE