labour movement throws its full weight into the scales. The Italian dockers vote to boycott all Spanish ships must be built upon around the world.
Below we interview a militant of the LCR. ETA(VI) who explains why the repression is taking place.
Q. Why do you think that the regime has launched the wave of repression at this time?
A. I think they are doing it because the internal contradictions of the regime are becoming more and more serious - there is a bigger and bigger upsurge of the mass movement, and the Franco regime and the Spanish capitalists cannot come up with a viable political and economic alternative. The only means left to them are repression.
Q. What has been the overall response of the working class to the repression?
A. Since the Burgos trial in 1970 the Spanish workers' movement has established new democratic forms of struggle. This is an unprecedented gain for the workers movement. The response of the working class to the repression has been the general strikes of 14 June and |l December.
A state of emergency has been imposed on the Basque country because it is here that the workers response has been the strongest. As the general strikes have shown, there is a more militant vanguard here because of the domination of the extreme left in this area.
Q. What do you think are the chances of the death penalties being commuted?
A. First of all, if they obtain a reprieve it will be because the mobilisation of the working class has forced Franco to do so. It will stimulate even more the combativity of the working class.
For example, look at the upsurge after the Burgos trials in 1970, when all the political prisoners condemned to death were saved by the mobilisations of the Spanish and international working class. This was the first generalised and central struggle against the dictatorship, and it made the working class aware of its own strength. If Franco is forced to save the lives of Garmendia and Otaegui, thanks to Spanish and international solidarity movements, the upsurge will be even bigger than after Burgos, because the contradictions faced by the Spanish bourgeoisie are deeper than they were in 1970.
Q. How do the different currents inside the ruling class view the situation?
A. First you must understand that the state of emergency imposed on the Basque country reflected the response of the whole Spanish bourgeoisie to the upsurge of the workers. At the moment the whole Spanish bourgeoisie is in favour of repression, even if sections are trying at the same time to find a political solution to the crisis.
In this situation some sections of the bourgeoisie openly declare that they favour 'democracy' and are attracted by the programme of the 'Democratic Junta' (see below). That is the case with the Christain Democrats. How ever, you cannot expect these fractions to fight against the state of emergency at the moment because the strikes hit the whole of the ruling class.
Q. How have events in Portugal affected this analysis?
A. The events in Portugal, following on from the elimination of Carrero Blanco, have undoubtedly deepened the crisis within the Spanish bourgeois order. Some factions of the bourgeoisie reckon that the Spanish dictatorship should be even harder now in order to prevent a repeat of the Portuguese situation in Spain. Others, on the contrary, reckon that the dictatorship should transform itself into a democracy in order to undermine the possibility of a coup d'etat on the Portuguese lines.
The ruling class has had to take a stand over these questions, and we have seen a real polarisation of the political options for them. The Portuguese and Spanish situations cannot be seen in separation - for example, if the Portuguese revolution fails, it will mean a strengthening of the Spanish dictatorship.
Q. What is the current role of the Socialist and Communist Parties?
A. The Communist Party is a Stalinist party, which up till now has maintained a position that the dictatorshin should he trane. formed. They do not believe in the necessity of breaking the dictatorship by a revolutionary upsurge of the masses; rather, they are seeking an alliance with democratic currents inside the state apparatus in order to transform the dictatorship into a bourgeois democracy before it beeomes an 'advanced democracy', etc.
This explains the proposal for a 'pact for liberty' made by the CP towards a section of the Spanish bourgeoisie, and since taken up by the Democratic Junta. is a class-collaborationist alliance between a. large part of the workers movement and some significant sections of the ruling class This has big consequences for the Spanish situation, not only in terms of the government which might well come to power, but also because they are betraying the struggles of the Spanish workers now: they break strikes to allow collaboration with the bourgeoisie You can see the practical conclusions of this in the 11 December strike. There were more than 25,000 workers on strike, but the CP and the Democratic Junta not only failed to call for the strike but also denounced it the bourgeoisie.
The Democratic Junta strike, it has to call for it first.
La base and pose an alternative.
CUSE country. extreme right.
A. The the historic moment to overthrow the Franco dictatorship'. Their programme is not designed to develop the self-organisation of the working class, but to assist alliances with some parts of of a working class vanguard which is now bigger than in any other European country. This clearly explains the general strikes in the Basque country The problem is that this development has been uneven. The Basque country is under the control of this revolutionary vanguard, whereas some other parts - like Madrid and Andalusia - are dominated by the CP. It explains why the call for the extension of the December strike to the whole of Spain found a resonance, because the influence of the CP was insufficient to oppose it. However it prevents the working class from putting forward a global alternative.
Q. What are the workers' commissions?
A. In the Spanish conditions of struggle when the main union is clandestine, the working class has provided itself with a new instrument of struggle - the workers commissions. These were born in the 1960s during the Asturian miners' strikes, and they developed as rank and file organisations inside the factories. They are co-ordinated at a regional and national level, and now constitute an alternative organisational structure recognised by the whole of the workers movement.
In some regions the CP controls them, in others it is the revolutionary left, eg. the en gineers in Barcelona. But the co-ordination is most effective in the Basque country, because only there does workers' democracy really Even there it is not yet perfect, but there is a big difference with the rest of the Q. Certain officers have been arrested because they showed sympathy for democracy What is the general situaion in the army?
A. The Spanish army is different from the Portuguese army. You cannot expect the phenomenon of an Armed Forces Movement, as in Portugal, because the Spanish army has not been radicalised by the colonial wars However, there is a very small current inside the Spanish army which opposes the use of the army for political ends. For example at the time of the Burgos trials some 2,000 soldiers signed a petition saying that the army should not be involved in political life. is the current represented by the officers recently arrested.
But the bulk of the Spanish army, and more specifically the generals - who came out of the civil war covered in the glory of their atrocities - is linked primarily with the What do you think are the tasks of the international revolutionary movement today?
main task of all those who claim allegiance to proletarian internationalism and to the class struggle is that of solidarity. Today two political prisoners are sentenced to death - with more undoubtedly to come - and we defend them. It is not a humanitarian ques tion, it is a political question.
The victory of the Spanish working class, if the sentences are not applied, would mean a qualitative and quantitative increase in class combativity and in the confidence of the workers to smash the dictatorship. The role of the international revolutionary movement is to organise the broadest united front campaigns to save Garmendia and Otaegui and all the other militants who also face the threat of the death penalty.