[The following account of how the January 26 Spanish general strike developed in the Madrid area was published in the January 27 issue of Combate, the central organ of the Liga Comunista (Communist League, a sympathizing organization of the Fourth International in Spain). The translation is by Intercontin ental Press.]
On the afternoon of Wednesday, January 26, up to 300,000 persons gathered in the center of Madrid in response to the crimes committed by the fascist gangs and the police. This most massive of the demonstrations in recent years was the culmination of days of actions in which workers struck simultaneously in all the major centers of the country for a single objective-to put an end to the murdering dictatorship.
This mobilization occurred despite the appeal for "no demonstrations" by S. Carrillo, M. Camacho, F. González, and N.
Redondo among others that was disseminated by all the media controlled by the government (TV, radio, and all the papers)
As a result of this broad mobilization of the masses, a deep crisis has opened up for the crowned dictatorship and its government. Nonetheless, the mobilizations that occurred thoughout the Spanish state did not succeed in toppling the murderous dictatorship. What is more, the government that bears the chief responsibility for the crimes committed in recent days and whose fate still hangs in the balance dares to deny the workers their sustenance, to ignore their demands for freedom, and to adopt measures designed to break up the mass mobilizations and prolong the life of the dictatorship. But nothing will be the same again for the bourgeoisie or for the working class.
Sunday, January 23: Arturo Ruiz dies at the hands of the fascist gangs during a demonstration for total amnesty. For hours, the center of Madrid is the scene of violent confrontations between the police and thousands of demonstrators who seize the streets and at times throw up barricades. What stood out were the brutality of the police and the impunity with which the fascist gangs were allowed to move around during the demonstration. The final list of casualties among the demonstrators included one dead and several persons gravely wounded.
Monday, January 24: The response to the attacks on the demonstrators begins. More than 20,000 students demonstrate during the morning hours. The clashes are even more violent than the day before. The police murder María Luz Fernández Nájera and wound dozens of persons. This same morning the workers begin to prepare their response. In a number of factories in the metallurgical industry, calls are raised for organizing a general strike for Wednesday. Nonetheless, on hearing of the kidnapping of General Villaescusa, the Madrid COS [Coordinadora de Organizaciones Sindicales- Coordinating Committee of Trade Union Organizations] refuses to issue a general strike call. They say that "a general strike could provoke a coup." On this day also, the army high command decides to support the government and its plan, ruling out a military coup for the moment.
In the afternoon, the Comisión Negociadora? and the government issue a joint communiqué appealing for "calm and civic responsibility," calling in unison for demobilization.
Immediately afterwards, Coordinación Democrática agrees to a request from the Izquierda Democrática to avoid any mass action and not to hold any kind of meetings to call a centralized action.? It orders the big factories not to step up their activity to build the Wednesday action.
The MCE and LCR, together with the PTE, the ORT, and the OICE, take up the call for a general strike on Wednesday.* They propose that the Comisión Gestora Pro-Amnistia [Pro-Amnesty Steering Committee] take on the task of leading and organizing the struggle.
The LC issues a communiqué Monday afternoon, calling for a general strike on Wednesday. It appeals to the PCE and the PSOE to stop their negotiations with the government and to form a Workers Alliance. The aim is to organize the general strike and call on all the workers organizations and parties to form a provisional strike committee to coordinate and galvanize mass actions to prepare for Wednesday. "Everything must be aimed at building and organizing the general strike."
During the night, a handful of fascist criminals slaughter several members of the Workers Commissions and the PCE. This event is used as an argument urging de la Izquierda
2. Negotiating Committee, set up by the opposition parties to negotiate with the government. It includes the reformist workers parties, though the PCE is no longer formally represented on it.
3. Democratic Coalition, a popular-front-type formation, including the PCE and PSOE. The Democratic Left is a bourgeois-liberal formation.
1. MCE-Movimiento Comunista de España Comuni Moveren of Span IR Comunista Revolucionaria (Revolutionary Communist League, a sympathizing organization of the Fourth International); PTE-Partido del Trabajo de España (Labor party of Spain); ORT-Organización Revolucionaria de los Trabajadores (Revolutionary Workers Organization); OICE-Organización
Comunista (Organization of the Communist Left).
the army to intervene, thus increasing the possibilities of a coup. The results, however, are quite different. The reaction of the masses is not long in coming. On Tuesday, January 25, workers in all the centers go out on a general strike, paying no attention to their leaders. Instead of organizing the actions of the masses, these leaders oppose them, supporting a government without authority and incapable of maintaining itself by its own strength.
This day, the workers held the fate of the dictatorship in their hands. But various developments postponed decisive action. The leaders of the PCE, the Workers Commissions, the PSOE, and the UGT, the workers organizations with the greatest responsibilities in organizing the general strike, call for demobilization. They put all their weight behind the government and promise the masses that their demands for freedom and punishment of those responsible for the crimes of Francoism are going to be gained through negotiation with the murdering government.
This support for the government by the leaders of the majority of the working class threw the struggle into a still graver state of disorganization, thereby posing an obstacle to the general strike. A fundamental impediment was the lack of committees elected in the factories and of a strike committee for Madrid, as well as for the Spanish state as a whole, that could lead the mass mobilizations under way and focus them against the dictatorship.
Moreover, the attitude of the trade-union organizations made it still more difficult to organize the struggle. So, when the union halls were most needed to develop the potential of the struggle, the UGT and the Workers Commissions closed most of theirs because of the fascist attack the night before. Instead of organizing protection and defense for these halls, they decided to close them. Thus, the fascist action achieved one of its objectives-to neutralize the organizing centers that still remained. But in spite of everything, throughout the day numerous demonstrations kept occurring in the streets and neighborhoods of the city.
Wednesday, January 26: The general strike takes hold. Early in the morning the workers of EMT, the main transportation company, began to circulate an appeal that said:
The continuity of the regime or the lives of the workers: that is the dilemma that faces us today. We will not stand for any more murders. We will not let them condemn us to starvation wages and unemployment. We will not accept the vertical unions and the judgments of their arbitrators. Nor will we stand for firings or beatings like those we faced in our last strike.
The massive resistance of the workers yesterday, who struck in all the main factories in the Spanish state, shows that the time has come to say we have had enough, and to put an end to the regime.
Today, January 26, we are going out on a general strike, with sit-downs and with factory assemblies to elect delegates to form a strike committee. We have to organize marches from the factories and extend them with picket teams, all converging on the central demonstration at Las Salesas. And we have to defend the central demonstration from the savagery of the police.
Compañeros: We have seen enough murders! Let us all unite to win freedom, amnesty, and all our demands!
In Madrid alone, there were two committees: the one elected in the assembly at the Hospital Primero de Octubre and the one set up by the EMT workers. Attempts to hold demonstrations in the workers neighborhoods were cut short by brutal attacks by the police and Guardia Civil. Thousands of police controlled the center of the city. Several attempts by youth to get demonstrations going were dispersed by gunfire from police. Despite the confusion and lack of organization, more than 300,000 persons gathered at 1:00 in the afternoon in the center of the city.
Several thousand members of the PCE and other parties formed pickets to safeguard the "order" of a dying dictatorship. This collaboration with the dictatorship's police was the other side of these parties' refusal to form pickets to defend the demonstrations and the headquarters of the workers organizations against the savagery of the police and the fascist gangs.
The actions of the PCE and the PSOE on January 26 were the culmination of their policy of support for [Premier Adolfo] Suárez and their sabotage of the general strike. What could have marked the end of the dictatorship remained nonetheless the biggest mobilization that has developed since it was established. The day ended with violent confrontations between thou sands of demonstrators and the police.
When the workers went back to their factories, the regime was still there. S. Carrillo and F. González had saved its life. For how long? The workers movement remains strong, and the fascist apparatus is breaking down.
Notes
1. Santiago Carrillo is a leader of the PCE (Partido Comunista de España-Communist party of Spain). Marcelino Camacho is a leader of the PCE and the Workers Commissions. Felipe González is a leader of the PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español-Spanish Socialist Workers party, the main Social Democratic party in Spain). Nicolas Redondo is a leader of the UGT (Unión General de Trabajadores-General Workers Union, the federation controlled by the PSOE).