Peter Taaffe: Spain on the eve of revolution

(Militant No. 244, 21 February 1975, p. 6)

Spain is on the eve of Revolution! The “ravings” of Marxism perhaps? No – this is the sober verdict of the Spanish Capitalists and their counterparts in this country.

Thus the Spanish monarchist newspaper A.B.C. has recently declared … The regime is decomposing”. The right wing Catholic newspaper ‘Ya’ chimes in about “the deterioration of authority” (9^th Feb.)

The mouthpiece of Big Business in Britain, The Times, has also drawn the same “pessimistic” conclusions.

In an editorial on 12/2/75 they lament … “It is hard to resist the impression that certain irreversible changes occurred in Spain in the course of the last year”. They detail the ‘changes’ they fear most … “Perhaps most serious of all, the working class, hard pressed by the serious effect of steeply rising prices and the sudden slowing down of Spain’s spectacular post-war growth rate has resorted, with growing frequency and boldness to strikes and demonstrations”.

This power of the Spanish workers – reluctantly admitted to by the spokesmen of the capitalists – has been spectacularly revealed in the past few weeks. In last week’s issue of Militant we detailed the sections of workers who have come out on strike.

Even as the Times editorial was written, an estimated 100,000 workers in Madrid were on strike in support of the Carabanchel 10 – the leaders of one of the underground trade union organisations, the “Workers Commissions”. Street battles have taken place in and around the court where they are being tried. Actors and actresses, university students and even the students at the naval colleges have come out on strike.

Even the police tops, according to the Times, are eager to ingratiate themselves with the workers’ movement … “some police officers have taken care to let the opposition know that they are personally out of sympathy with the oppressive policies which they do not expect to last” (Our emphasis).

This unseemly scramble to establish “left wing” credentials sometimes takes on the character of a farce. Thus the Associated Press on 12^th February reported that after 30 students and workers in Seville had been arrested … “40 Seville lawyers immediately announced they will defend the 30 free of charge”!

Army and Police

Nothing better illustrates the proximity of revolutionary upheaval in Spain than these statements. The Franco regime is completely rotted! The props on which it rests – the army and police – are completely unreliable!

How to deal with the emboldened Spanish working class? The Spanish capitalists are split down the middle on their answers. “Revolution starts at the top” said Karl Marx. This process is mirrored within Franco’s own Cabinet. Thus the Financial Times 13/2/75 has revealed that in response to the strike wave, pressure has been mounting from the three army generals in the cabinet for “special measures” against the workers.

But according to the same report Senior Cabinet Ministers close to the Prime Minister are believed to have been arguing in favour of a policy of “non-activity” in the hope that the present wave of strikes and protests will evaporate. In other words Arias, the Prime Minister, hopes that if he closes his eyes the spectre of the Revolution will vanish! It will be his delusions and those of his class which will “evaporate” before the challenge from the working class disappears.

Their opposition to the regime is more likely to intensify rather than diminish in the next period.

Nor are the “special Proposals” of the generals – A “diet of lead” for strikers – likely to work for the capitalists in the changed situation.

The shooting of strikers in the major industrial areas – Madrid or Barcelona – would have the same significance as the Tsarist shooting of the workers led by Father Gapon in 1905. This triggered off the first Russian Revolution.

So too in Spain. An attempt to drown the present strike wave in blood risks – for the capitalists – a general strike, the demoralisation of the police and a split on class lines in the Army between the troops and the officer caste.

But no matter how much the hangmen of the Franco regime squirm, there is no way of avoiding the coming storm in Spain. Concessions will only embolden the working class and give a further push to their struggle to overthrow the dictatorship. A strengthening of repression threatens to ignite an explosion.

Nothing could save the Spanish capitalists and landlords from losing their factories and land along with Franco, but for the policies of the leaders of the workers’ parties. While the Spanish capitalists tremble before the potential power of the working class, the ‘Communist’ and Socialist party leaders seek the embrace of the frightened representatives of these same capitalists. This is what the idea of the “Democratic Junta” – whose principal author is the CP – actually represents. It is a new – only worse – version of the Popular Front which led to the shipwreck of the 1931-37 Spanish Revolution and the victory of Franco.

Socialism

Not in coalitions with the terrified capitalists but by relying on their own power can the present magnificent movement of the Spanish workers result in victory not just over Franco but also over the vile capitalist system which bred him.

The only guarantee that the coming revolution will not end in defeats and a new slavery for the Spanish people is the establishment of a socialist Spain.

By Peter Taaffe