Winners Confront the Victors after the elections in spain "Surch peared in a Madrid magaziner is a good sum- " This headline, mary of the results of the Spanish elections of June 15. Indeed, the election results were just as contradictory as the political process we have been experiencing during the past eighteen months and will surely continue to experience in the immediate future. This article is aimed at analyzing the election results, which is necessary in order to proceed to another, even more crucial task: drawing the political balance-sheet of the evolution of the Spanish situation since the death of the dictator and, on that basis, newly defining the tasks of the Trotskyists in the Spanish revolution. What follows is only an initial contribution to accomplishing that task. The results Looking at the results presented in the three tables, we can deduce a series of important conclusions: 1. The workers candidates obtained 44% of the vote (and 41% of the seats in the Congress, the lower house of the Cortes), compared with 34% of the vote (and 47% of the seats) for the major bourgeois coalition, the Union of the Democratic Center (UCD). The candidates of the workers parties won the absolute majority of the seats in Madrid, Barcelona, Andalusia, and Valencia, and came close to a majority in Catalonia (23 seats out of 48). These results were obtained despite a number of adverse factors: People between 18 and 21 years old (about 2 million people) could not vote, nor could the emigrant workers in other European countries (about 800, 000); the legal status of the workers parties was precarious (the PSOE, Spanish Socialist Workers Party, the largest Social Democratic formation, had been legal for only slightly more than three months; the Communist Party, PCE, had been legal for only two months and the trade-union federations for one month, while the organizations of the "far left" remained illegal); there was deep division among the workers parties (an average of six or seven lists in each province). Above all, the workers parties that command the allegiance of the majority of the class presented no clear and firm alternative of power. Given these conditions, it is easily understandable that most of the toilers greeted the election results as a "victory. " At the same time, however, the limits of this "victory" must be understood, both the objective limits, even on the purely electoral level (since the "winner" of the elections was Suárez, who is only 12 seats short of an absolute majority in Congress and holds an absolute majority in the Senate), and the subjective limits, since the toilers have not understood their victory as representing a possibility for an immediate, radical change in the situation. Instead they have under8 by Miguel Romero stood it in terms of "resistance"; they feel that they prevented the victory of the enemy and have created good conditions for coming battles. We believe that the rather precipitous conclusions about the "workers electoral victory" must be tempered by these observations. 2. Undoubtedly the most spectacular result of the elections was the breakthrough of the PSOE. The final figures will probably give it 30% of the vote, which means about 5.5 million people. The PSOE got the majority of the vote in eleven provinces out of fifty-two: Asturias, Barcelona, Gerona, Valencia, Alicante, Murcia, Jaén, Córdoba, Seville, Málaga, and Cádiz. It is the majority party in Euskadi, Catalonia, Andalusia, and Valencia. It got three times as many votes as the PCE and established itself as the leading workers party in the electoral domain. (Moreover, it is probable that the PSOE will absorb the Popular Socialist Party, PSP, before too long; because of its modest vote, the latter party will have less chance of playing an independent political role or of negotiating its incorporation into the PSOE from a position of strength.) To analyze the causes and consequences of the PSOE results, which point to a radical shift in the traditional relationship of forces in the Spanish workers movement under Francoism, is a task of great importance. We are not yet in a position to broach it in any depth. As a first approximation, however, we may posit the following conclusions:
*Fundamentally, "voting PSOE" represented the will to "break with Francoism, " to achieve "non-truncated democracy. " The PSOE was able to lend itself an image capable of capturing these two aspirations of the toilers and the Spanish people and to appear as the effective alternative to Suárez.
*The very conception of the election campaign and its development allow the previous conclusion to be made more precise: The PSOE conducted its campaign not with a goverment program but with a blend of banalities and generalities aimed at "selling an image" (advertising language was more appropriate for this than political language). In the entire twenty-six pages of its program there is only one reference to the problem of the government ("We want a government responsible to the Cortes..."). During the first phase of its campaign the PSOE assiduously avoided presenting itself as a candidate for power, but it exercised equal care not to appear as though it was openly capitulating to the regime, and it systematically criticized Suárez, even making some vague references to "republicanism. " It was only during the second phase of the campaign that the PSOE began responding demagogically to the perceptible radicalization of the
people attending its election meetings and put itself forward as "a party prepared to govern."
*In this manner the PSOE garnered the vote of a very broad spectrum of "aspiration for change, " including significant sectors of the left disappointed by the PCE's attitude of capitulation. But very probably the greater part of its vote came from workers entering political activity for the first time, for whom the image of the PSOE was more "effective" and "democratic" but also less "radical" than that of PCE (among other reasons because everyone noted the grave political crisis posed by the legalization of the PCE, compared to the "normality" with which legalization of the PSOE was accepted).
*Although the PSOE emerges from the electoral test strengthened for the immediate future, it is obvious that in the medium term powerful contradictions will build up within the PSOE, both because of the diverse political opinions that coexist within it and because of the progressive radicalization of the workers who have just been awakened to politics and have placed their confidence and hopes in the Socialists. This phenomenon will also arise, even more strongly, within the UGT, the PSOE-dominated trade-union organization;
*The leadership of the PSOE is conscious of this problem. Its refusal to enter the Suárez government (in spite of the "clever" Carrillo's calls for this) and its assertion of an "alternative of socialist power ... within two years" are aimed at assuring its political hegemony among the workers while avoiding immediate government compromises and promising to assume these compromises in a sufficiently faroff future. At the same time, a campaign of internal "homogenization" is now under way, which is intended to eliminate the most conflict-generating aspects of the party's policy (like "republicanism"), and the proposal of radical rank-and-file sectors that a discussion for a party congress be opened has been rejected.
*For its part, the bourgeoisie is also conscious of the problem. As soon as the election results were known, very significant sectors of the bourgeois press launched a campaign warning the PSOE leadership against "ultraleftist dangers," "largocaballerismo," * etc. and clearly registering bourgeois uneasiness about the PSOE's results, as well as a certain lack of confidence in its ability to play the sort of stabilizing role the bourgeoisie needs. These pressures, along with those of the international Social Democracy (of which the PSOE ceaselessly proclaims itself the "legitimate Spanish representative"), will not diminish but on the contrary will tend to intensify. It is quite probable that the PSOE will be called upon to participate in the government well before the "two year" interval the leadership wants. That is when *Largo Caballero, a Social Democratic leader during the 1930s and head of the UGT, the Socialist-led trade-union organization, was noted for his maximalist demagogy, which did not prevent him from following a consistently reformist practice, serving in the Popular Front government. - INPRECOR
Division of Seats in Congress number of seats
% of seats
Party
118
• 33.71
PSOE
5.71
19
PCE
1.71
6
PSP
166
47.42
UCD
16
4.57
AP
8
PNV
2.28
11
PDC*
2.85
*The PDC (Democratic Pact of Catalonia), a "center" bourgeois nationalist electoral coalition, suffered a split of one
* group that red to pe i deputies original y attributed to the PDC.
The 10 remaining deputies are divided as follows:
Christian Democracy of Catalonia: 2
Independents (close to UCD): 2
PSC: 4
Euskadiko Eskerra: 1
Esquerra de Catalunya: 1
Overall Results number of votes
% of vote
Party
33.86
6,142,460
UCD
28.73
5,211,038
PSOE
1,673,765
9.22
PCE
8.16
AP
1,480, 657
4.32
783,593
PSP
The results achieved by the far-left slates were as follows:
PTE (including Esquerra Catala): 265,584 votes in forty provinces.
ORT: 44,959 votes in twenty-five provinces.
FUT (LCR-OIC): 38,052 votes in eighteen provinces.
MC: 41,872 votes in five provinces.
Division of Seats in the Senate
Nominated by the king: 41
AP: 2
UCD: 105
Center Independents: 11
PDC: 2
FDC (Christian Democracy): 5
PNV: 4
PSOE: 47
PCE: 3
Euskadiko Eskerra: 1
SPAIN the real "test of fire" for the Social Democratic leadership will begin. 3. The electoral score of the PCE was spectacular in the opposite sense. Apart from Catalonia (where the PSUC, the Communist Party there, achieved good results), the PCE will have only 12 deputies throughout the country, divided among only eight provinces; there are no PCE deputies from Euskadi or Galicia. The entire PCE rank and file recognized the defeat, and the leadership had difficulty covering it up (claiming, for example, that "the Communist vote represents a mass vanguard" or that "had it pursued a different policy, the PCE could have emerged from these elections at the same level as the PTE, the ORT, and other groups which have come out of the test in a clearly marginal situation"). The reality is that the PCE, which reasonably could have expected 15% of the vote, got only 9%, clearly out of proportion to its complete hegemony in the Spanish workers movement under Francoism. Even taking account of the real influence of the desire to "make your vote count" by casting it for the PSOE and the "fear" of communism which still exists in some parts of the country, there is no doubt that the string of obvious capitulations the PCE engaged in from the very day of its legalization — its positions on the monarchy, the Francoist flag, the army, Suárez ("my most worthy opponent, " said Carrillo in the midst of the campaign), and above all on the workers and people's struggles (as in Euskadi) - cost the party many thousands of workers votes. (Under these conditions, the crude attack by the Soviet bureaucracy was welcome for Carrillo, for it acted as a temporary factor of cohesion for a relatively demoralized rank and file concerned about the immediate future of "the party, " especially in the trade unions.) There is no reason to expect that the PCE will abandon the "ultrareformist" course of past months and risk grabbing the tiger of the autumn mobilizations by the tail. A combative position on the part of the PCE (within which, and there must be no forgetting this, the absolute majority of the leaders of the Spanish workers movement are active) would have explosive effects on the entire political situation, and it is very improbable that the PCE will assume such risks. But the maintenance of the present orientation would contribute to fueling internal tensions which already exist among broad sectors of militants. The coming opening of the discussion for the Ninth Congress of the PCE (a congress which will be held under legal conditions and in full "Eurocommunist" enthusiasm and which will thus not be able to be stage-managed in as shameless a bureaucratic manner as the previous ones) will provide an excellent occasion to deepen and clarify the roots of the nefarious present course of the PCE leadership. 4.There were four "far left" slates in the election campaign (one of them rather sheepish; the PTE energetically refused to stand "to the left of the PCE, " and there is no doubt that programmatically it did not; the PTE candidates defined themselves as "consistent democrats"). The other slates may be briefly defined as follows: The ORT (Revolutionary Workers Organization) aimed at asserting itself as a "radical Maoist" party upholding a "leftist" version of the popular-front policy 10 during its campaign. The MC (Communist Movement) attempted a sort of alliance with sectors of left socialists and nationalist or regionalist groups; the alliance was oriented toward creating a "movement of popular unity" patterned after the Otelo candidacy in Portugal. The LCR (Revolutionary Communist League, a sympathizing organization of the Fourth International), basically along with the OIC (Left Communist Organization), presented a clear class independent and anticapitalist slate, but serious problems came up during the campaign because of the sectarian character of the OIC and its erroneous positions on various fundamental themes (trade unions, women, the national question, etc.). On the whole, the electoral results of the far left were very poor in comparison to the real weight it has in struggles and even in comparison to the attendance at its campaign meetings. (And also in comparison to the illusions some organizations had about the results they would get. The PTE, for example, expected 20 deputies, the ORT 10). The "far left" has thus undergone an experience in how the change in the political situation drastically diminishes its central political weight, to the advantage of the great workers parties. Only the LCR was prepared for this experience and has thus been able to draw the balance-sheet of its campaign calmly (a balance-sheet which is, moreover, quite self-critical, and one which is now being drawn by the entire organization). A very serious crisis has broken out in the rest of the organizations. The effects of this crisis will probably come to the surface in September: the ORT has called its first congress in its eight years of existence; the MC has decided not to launch the "movement of popular unity" and has suffered an intensification of its "identity crisis" consequent to its dissolution as a party into the electoral slates; the PTE, realizing that reality is not very favorable, has decided to ignore it and claims that everything that has happened confirms "the correctness" of its "analysis. " It is maintaining its fictitious electoral coalition for the future (the Democratic Front of Lefts, FDI, made up of the PTE and its trade-union fronts, women's organizations, and so on). The OIC has also witnessed the wreck of its project of creating a "movement of anticapitalist popular unity." In reality, the key factor in the crisis of the "far left" must be located in the policy of the united front, in the attitude that has been taken toward the unity and class independence of the workers, and in each and every one of the key questions of the future (the "national question, " stabilization plan, municipal elections, the "trade-union question, " the problem of the government, etc.). 5.The only radical nationalist organization that played an important role in the elections was the ElA (the Party of the Basque Revolution, which embodies the tradition and includes most of the cadres of the ETA-V, Basque Nation and FreedomFifth Congress). The only far-left Cortes deputy belongs to this party: Francisco Letamendia, "Ortzi, " one of the best known theoreticians of the ETA. In addition, the slate in which the ElA held hegemony (Euskadiko Eskerra, or Basque Left, in which the MC also participated) got excellent results in the three Basque provinces in which it ran (some 60,000 votes in Alava, Guipúzcoa, and Vizcaya, 4.5% of the vote in all and nearly 10% in Guipúzcoa). The explana-
tion for this success compared to the weak showing of the rest of the "far-left" candidates (with the exception of the ORT in Navarra, almost 6%) is twofold. On the one hand Euskadiko Eskerra garnered practically all the votes of the "radical nationalist" current, which is very strong in Euskadi; on the other hand this slate appeared as an "effective left list" of candidates who had a chance of getting elected. Finally, it also appeared as the "most unitary" slate under conditions in which the pressure for the "unity of the left" was especially strong. The evolution of the ElA, an organization which is in a phase of ideological clarification, remains open. It must now submit itself to two important practical tests: first, its permanent presence in a state-wide political institution (whereas all the experience, intervention, and analyses of the ElA have hitherto been limited to Euskadi); second, its confrontation with bourgeois nationalism around concrete and urgent answers to the national oppression of the Basques (the EIA has always held an inter-class position for the "first stage" of the struggle against national oppression in Euskadi, combining it with radical slogans like dissolution of the repressive corps, "anti-oligarchical measures, " and so on.). In any event, the presence of an ElA militant among the Basque members of parliament is already acting to impede the bourgeois projects of neutralizing the struggle of the Basque people through an "autonomy status" of a formal character negotiated with and granted by the central power. It is significant that one of the first political acts of the ElA since the elections has been to call for the unity in action of the entire left "unrepresented in parliament" (which makes the mistake of excluding the PSOE and including the PCE, which is surprising in view of the traditional anti-PCE position of the Abartzale left). This represents a clear challenge to the "Assembly of Basque Members of Parliament, " an organism that has proclaimed itself Euskadi's representative to the central power for "negotiating autonomy." 6. Moving on to the bourgeois camp, we must begin by taking a look at the "winner" of the elections: the UCD. The coalition headed by Suárez obtained the majority of the vote in thirty-eight provinces of the country (that is, all the provinces except Lerida, where the PDC won the majority, Guipúzcoa and Vizcaya, where it was the Basque Nationalist Party, PNV, and those provinces where the PSOE got the majority). It has also gained a position in the Cortes strong enough to make its parliamentary defeat unthinkable. Thus, there may be talk of "success, " but no more than that, for this result was far from what the bourgeoisie expected and, more important, needed. This is true for the following reasons:
*Since the formation of the Suárez government about a year ago, the political situation of the country has been characterized by the "dialectic of fragmentary mass struggles and fragmentary concessions by the bourgeoisie" referred to in the editorial in the last issue of INPRECOR. Suárez's objective was to move to general elections accepted by the entire country from which an incontestable bourgeois majority would emerge. This majority was an essential objective since
Suárez had "shelved" a number of basic political and economic problems in the name of the elections and needed an overwhelming electoral victory that would leave him a free hand to negotiate the inevitable "pacts" with the workers parties and trade unions from a position of strength.
*For the bourgeoisie, Suárez's "success" is more apparent than real. Neither the national problem, nor that of the coming municipal elections, nor above all the economic crisis will admit being shelved again. The bourgeoisie nov commands some maneuvering room (particularly that whic! the reformist workers parties grant it), and it will use and is using this, as we shall see. But it does not command the "position of strength" it needed. On the contrary, since the elections the workers are more convinced of their strength than ever; they are more than ever confident that they will achieve their political and social objectives. In spite of the unevenness, illusions, and influence of the reformist leaderships, this "state of spirit" of the working class and the people underpins a relationship of forces which is favorable to the toilers. And there lies the fundamental weakness of Suárez's "success. Suárez has now undertaken a forced march to transform the electoral coalition of the UCD into a political party, the political party the Spanish bourgeoisie needs. This is especially important since apart from the UCD there is no even minimally significant bourgeois party on a countrywide scale. This operation has a dubious future. The fact that the UCD is practically alone as the political representative of the bourgeoisie does foster centrepital tendencies within it, but it also means that the UCD will be torn by all the political contradictions of the bourgeoisie, which are and will be quite serious. It may thus be concluded that the Spanish bourgeoisie is now closer than ever in recent years but still very far from resolving the problem of its own political organization. 7.The electoral defeat of the Popular Alliance (AP) was another significant feature of the elections. This party won parliamentary representation in only fourteen provinces (the four Galician provinces, Asturias, Leon, Santander, Zamora, Logroño, Toledo, Vizcaya, Barcelona, and Madrid) and remains a minority lacking in credibility or political influence. If to this we add that the fascist groups (Falange, Fuerza Nueva) obtained only about 60,000 votes (0.3%), the electoral defeat of Francoism becomes overwhelming. There are several significant consequences of this. First, the specter of a coup and the alleged necessity for an "antiAP" coalition, which had played a central role in the policy of the PCE in past months and had been of real concern to broad sectors of workers, has lost its effect; second, any possibilities of an AP-UCD bloc, which had been among the projects of the furthest right wing of the UCD, have practically disappeared (even though the sum of AP and UCD seats in the Cortes would constitute a majority, it must be taken into account that the formation of such a block would result in the immediate breakup of the UCD); third, the defeat will have a disintegrating effect on the AP itself, which will lose influence over the sectors of the state apparatus it has previously controlled.
11
SPAIN The only road that remains open to the AP is that of "capitalizing on chaos, " feeding on the future political and social instability and aiming for support in the barracks rather than at the polling places. This road quite naturally presupposes making use of fascist and parapolice activity,
"strategy of tension," which will very probably be one of the permanent features of coming months. (A recent example: During a football game in Madrid attended by several thousand Basques a 12-year-old girl was raped in the street by a group of fascists because her parents had raised the national team banners of Euskadi.) 8. The Christian Democracy has been practically wiped off the political map. Apart from the PNV (which is a very special component of the Christian Democratic "team, " and to which we will refer further on), the Christian Democrats won only two deputies, in Barcelona; their best known "historic" leaders (Gil Robles, Ruiz Giménez) were not elected to parliament. The efforts of the international Christian Democrats, extended during the campaign to support their Spanish "brothers, " had no result. The DC had wanted to occupy 9 "populist" inter-class space with a certain radical tinge in certain respects ("federalism," "advanced" measures of economic policy, etc.). But such a space barely exists in a society as polarized as Spanish society is today. Nevertheless, it would be premature to bury the Christian Democracy. First, because two of its factions are part of the UCD (the Christian Democratic Party, a rightist split from the Ruiz Giménez group, and the sector that is loyal to Suárez and holds posts of responsibility in the present govemment and perhaps in future ones); second, because the DC is still the only possibility for a "leff" bourgeois alternative to the UCD, very improbable in the medium term but not completely out of the question; third, because a relatively autonomous "Christian Democratic pole" could take shape within the UCD itself, as a possible alternative leadership to the Suárez group. In any event, however, the dream of an "Italian-style" DC as the fundamental bourgeois option for post-Francoism is finished. 9. The electoral scores of the bourgeois nationalist formations were uneven. The Basque Nationalists (PNV) won a modest vote (finishing first in Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa and second, behind the PSOE, in Euskadi as a whole). The PDC achieved bad results, which triggered an immediate crisis in the coalition and a comprehensive reframing of the political organization of the Catalan bourgeoisie. There had been no significant bourgeois nationalism in Galicia and this did not change: the big winner there was the UCD. . . and abstention (which came close to 50% in Orense and Lugo); the weight of bossism and the marginalization of the Galician peasants played a decisive role here. One feature must be highlighted: the "popular" character of the vote of the PNV, which recovered its traditional influence in considerable sectors of the petty bourgeoisie and also among the Basque toilers, at the price of radicalizing its program and even its symbols (the present symbol of the PNV is a clenched fist superimposed on an ikurrina). But the 12 demagogy of this "radicalization" will rapidly clash with the limits of the ability of the bourgeoisie to make concessions on the "autonomy" of Euskadi. This confrontation will be especially harsh because of the strength and depth of Basque nationalist consciousness and because of the existence of a sector of radical nationalist masses, of which Euskadiko Eskerra was the electoral expression. The role of the PNV-PSOE axis (between them these two parties account for two-thirds of the Basque deputies and also constitute the central forces of the "Basque government in exile") as the administrator of the "strong state" in Euskadi will be contested on the social and national terrain, and this will mark the immediate course of events in Euskadi. 10. Finally, we must refer to the role and composition of Senate. According to the political reform law, the Senate has practically the same powers as the Congress, especially on the great political questions (such as constitutional reforms). Thus, it acts as a "security mechanism" for the bourgeoisie, and its ultraconservative character is further intensified by the forty-one Senators who are appointed by the king (who, in order to forestall any possible leftist victory, drew up an extremely reactionary list laden with Francoist politicians and representatives of big capital). The composition and very function of the Senate sap the credibility of the line of "constitutional pact" upheld by both the PCE and the PSOE. In fact, it would be difficult for a constitution negotiated under these conditions to have a content acceptable to the workers. The constitutional debate, cornerstone of the legitimation of the strong state in general and the monarchy in particular, will be one of the key political questions in the future. Initial conclusions: Fragility of the « strong state » Such is our interpretation of the results of the elections. To conclude, we will sketch out some general conclusions on the Spanish political situation and its perspectives. During the days just after the elections four sorts of events occurred or were on the point of occurring which, although of uneven importance, are all useful symptoms of the new situation:
*First, the workers struggles which had been under way prior to June 15 have continued and gained in strength, resulting in important mass actions (50,000 demonstrators in Asturias, 3,000 in Vizcaya, 2,000 in Vitoria). Moreover, there has been a new rise of struggle by Andalusian day laborers and peasants (who have, with thousands of tractors, taken to the highways of Valencia).
*Second, on July 1 the vertical trade union was formally liquidated. Even before the formal liquidation, this was already spurring an enormous rise in affiliation to the workers trade unions. Overall membership figures may stand at about 2 million by September (about 20% of the work force). This is still a modest figure, but it goes well beyond the present feeble one.
*Third, there has been a semispontaneous spread of a generalized demand for the resignation of the present municipal councils, the great majority of which are composed of Francoists; the proposal is to replace them with administrative commissions formed in accordance with the election results. The major forces interested in halting this movement have been the PSOE and the PCE in its zones of influence, both invoking the necessity of avoiding "hollow municipal councils."
*Fourth, things have developed in a complex way with respect to the national and regional question. Even before the elections, the majority tactic of the "opposition" in Catalonia and Euskadi consisted in general lines of forming assemblies of members of parliament immediately after June 15 which would become the representatives of the nationality and would take charge of negotiating autonomy with the central power. Obviously, the point was to establish an instrument of automatic control aimed at warding off any assertion of national sovereignty by the Basque and Catalan peoples. In Catalonia, however, because of the progressive national radicalization among the population (which culminated in the largest meeting of the campaign: 400,000 people in Montjuich demanding the reestablishment of the 1932 autonomy status and the reinstallation of the Generalitat), the possibility arose of the masses themselves imposing national Catalan demands in the event of an electoral victory of candidates favoring autonomy. In face of this threat, Government Vice President and Defense Minister Gutiérrez Mellado warned against acts of this type on the eve of the elections. On June 15 itself the traditional Plaza de S. Jaime (where Maciá proclaimed the Catalan Republic, which Andreu Nin correctly considered "the most revolutonary act of April 14"') was surrounded by the military. Before this military encirclement, however, a "political encirclement" of the Catalan people had already been begun, carried out by the future election victors (various Socialist and Communist speakers) calling for a "sense of responsibility, " for "avoiding adventures," and so on. Nothing happened on June 15. The forthcoming constitution of the assembly of members of parliament was immediately announced and a mass demonstration was called. Before this, however, a delegation of Socialist election winners paid a "courtesy call " on the king and Suárez, conveying their proposals. Upon the delegation's return to Catalonia the assembly of members of parliament was convoked (and was reduced to an inoffensive exchange of patriotic literature) and the mass demonstration was called off. Then and only then did Suárez make his "big move". Tarradellas, the president of the Generalitat in exile, a bourgeois politician with ambitions of becoming the Catalan bonaparte, showed up in Madrid to call on Suárez, met with him and the king several times, and established a provisional "compromise" whereby the "first step" toward the recovery of Catalan autonomy would be taken while respecting the present law on local regimes, a law worked out before the death of the dictator. It is a long story, but one worth recounting, for it clearly expresses two important points: first, that the "maneuvering room" of the Spanish bourgeoisie derives fundamentally from the servility and cowardice of the great workers parties, and second, that this servility and cowardice are limitless as soon as there is a threat of action by the masses capable of winning their demands. In addition, a genuine "autonomy fever" has swept the coun try and "assemblies of members of parliament" are cropping up everywhere. Curiously, the major protagonist of this fever is the UCD, which intends in this way to bury the real national problems under a mountain of "regional problems. " But it is quite possible that the UCD may find itself turning into a sorcerer's apprentice if it continues on this path. This series of events constitutes the initial skimishes of the new situation, the preparation for September. The period we have lived through since the death of the dictator has very clearly expressed the depth of a contradiction we had detected many years ago: the contradiction between the combativity and political consciousness of the Spanish toilers. The fundamental responsibility for this "lag" in consciousness, for this political and organizational weakness of a workers and people's movement that has given proof on many occasions of its will to struggle and its class instinct naturally falls on the reformist warkers leaderships. But the situation of illegality and the forty years of dictator. ship are also a decisive factor in this. Hence the immense importance of the political phase now opening. For millions of Spanish toilers the election campaign was the first opportunity to listen to workers parties, to be able to buy their newspapers, to discuss directly and openly with their militants. For three weeks Spain was a giant meeting hall swept by the growing enthusiasm and radicalization of the workers and people. The results themselves heightened the "politicizing" effect of the elections. Moreover, there will be two other elections in the coming six months: general elections to the factory councils (in October or November) and municipal elections (in December or January). And during this same period the "stabilization plan" of the bourgeoisie will be set in motion, definitive amnesty for political prisoners and exiles will be won, the legality of the entire workers movement will be achieved, the national and regional question will be broached, and the constitutional debates in the Cortes will begin. It would be a serious error, or rather the repititon of a serious error, to head into this situation with apocalyptic visions, once again announcing that "the revolution is coming, it is drawing nigh, it is even here. " We will not issue ultimatums to the Spanish working class, which has just experienced an important change in political coordinates and now has to leam to orient itself in the new system. The pace of radicalization will probably be slower than we had predicted in the past. But it would be an even more serious error to consider the Spanish situation "stabilized, " and naturally the consequences of this sort of error would be injurious to the political orientation of those who made it.
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SPAIN We are entering the "parliamentary prelude" of the Spanish socialist revolution. The "prelude" has been preceded by many years of struggle and the toilers are moving into it with their strength and morale intact. Moreover, this "prelude" will be combined with harsh social and political struggles which will go well beyond parliament and which will occur in a favorable international context. The bourgeoisie has achieved a significant renovation of its political personnel, has made it through the first phase of crisis opened with the death of the dictator, has established an institutional framework intended to channel and integrate the aspirations of the toilers by relying on the maneuvering room granted by the capitulatory policy of the reformist workers leaderships, and has succeeded in maintaining a solid and effective repressive apparatus. The toilers have entered the political scene massively, extending their politicization and organizations; they are maintaining their illusions in but also their demands on the reformist parties, and they will now begin to undergo practical experiences with these illusions and will see how the reformists respond to these demands.
The class polarization of Spanish society is not new. What is new is that this polarization now exists under conditions in which it can assert itself and deepen with much greater force, although perhaps not quite so spectacularly as in the past. This is what the Fourth International must prepare for, and it is especially what we Spanish Trotskyists must prepare ourselves for.. We have been able to build a large and combative organization linked to the working class and capable of understanding new phenomena, an organization which, while it is far from having achieved the necessary programmatic and organizational firmness, is nevertheless fully conscious of its own responsibility. What is on the agenda now is to build a party. Situations like those of the elections, where the "winners" and "victors" are different, will not be repeated in the future. This party is the precondition for the "victors" of June 15 definitively vanquishing the "winners, " for the workers vanquishing the bourgeoisie. June 30, 1977 south africa
One Year After the Soweto