Spain: Cp & 5p Hold Back Fight Franc

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The Spanish King Juan Carlos, only two weeks crowned, is already having a troubled reign. His opening moves have produced public criticism from all sides, including both hard line and soft line members of the fascist regime.

This reflects not so much his tactical ineptitude as the real political contradictions which face the inheritors of Franco's dictatorship.

The far right is critical of the 'amnesty' under which Marcelino Camacho and other Workers' Commission leaders have been released from jail. Despite their objections, the amnesty is derisory: it reduces sentences by three years only, and excludes 'terrorists' , a category which can be defined to include members of the Communist and Socialist Parties.

The more 'moderate' sections of the regime and the semi-clandestine parties of the right, like the Christian Democrats, have criticised Juan Carlos' appointment of ultra-rightist economics professor Fernandez Iranda, the man whom Franco appointed as the King's political 'tutor', to the powerful office of President of the Cortes (Spain's caricature parliament).

Juan Carlos has also retained Franco's trusted servant •Arias Navarro as Prime Minister. Arias' political prestige, however, like that of Juan Carlos, is suffering a major setback as a result of the agreement with Morocco over Spanish Sahara.

The sordid deal of the far-right of the regime with King Hassan, designed largely to outflank the Saharan liberation movement and its Algerian supporters, has led to the complete withdrawal of the Spanish occupying army as Moroccan forces move in, reportedly massacring Saharan nationalists.

All details of the deal are still censored from the Spanish press and the last issue of the wide circulation weekly Cambio 16 was seized because it contained an interview with President Boumedienne of Algeria.

Juan Carlos' first two weeks of rule have sharpened differences in the regime which Franco's ruthless control had managed to contain. The differences however, all come from a shared preoccupation -hatred and fear of the working class. The differences are about how its strength can be kept in check.

The so-called moderates of the regime are those who realise that their greatest potential allies in this endeavour will be the leaders of the Stalinist and reformist parties.

Any concessions the regime makes are designed to assist these leaderships to maintain control of the working class through the illusion that the problems facing the working class can be overcome through the "democratic transformation" of Francoism.

This will not be an easy task when the mass of the Spanish people are showing their growing impatience with any compromise with fascism and the right.

Carillo This determination forces the leaders of Spanish Stalinism and reformism into constant shifts of position as they manoeuvre to remain at the head of a rising mass movement.

Both the Communist Party (CPE) and the Workers Socialist Party (PSOE) have condemned the "amnesty, the CPE calling it a 'scandalous fraud' and rejecting Juan Carlos' call for a political truce.

Words.

But such apparently tough words must be seen in conjunction with the consistently rightwing line of the CPE: it calls for a provisional coalition government of national unity (including the left, centre and right); its General Secretary, Santiago Carrillo, announced on November 29th. that the party had made a proposal that Don Juan, Juan Carlos' father, should become regent of Spain (this was withdrawn only when Don Juan rejected it); the CPE has attracted into the ranks of its popular front organisation the Democratic Junta (JD) so-called 'liberal' monarchists and numerous individual 'demócrats' of the bourgeoisie; and in its campaign for a real able Petitions signed by 'respect- amnesty it has put more emphasis able' professionals than on mobilising the fighting strength of the working class, though the demonstration of 2000 outside Madrid's Carabanchel jail was organised by the JD.

(The 22 people arrested after police brutally attacked the demonstrators were released the next day; and on December 3rd. the seven CPE leaders arrested without charge on November 15th. were also released).

Shifts

There is no doubt that the incessant shifts of emphasis in the CP's line, between left-sounding words and calls for coalition with the right, partly reflect sharpening differences between the exiled leadership of the Party in Paris and Moscow and many Party members inside Spain.

The general strike in the Basque provinces (Euskadi) last June was bitterly opposed by the CPE under instructions from the exiled leadership. Its success in mobilising thousands of workers frightened the CPE into at least strong verbal support for the next general strike in August.

The return of the exiled leadership, which Carrillo has promised will be soon, is almost certain to bring major conflicts in the party to a head.

For some time virtually the entire leadership of the PSOE has been inside Spain, a fact which has aided • the rapid growth of the party's membership in the past year, even though the PSOE remains small in relation to the CPE.

The PSOE has established its own popular front alliance, the Platform for Democratic Convergence (PCD), to which it has recruited small groups of right wing social democrats and a faction which split from the CPE in 1968.

The PSOE has also reconstituted the General Union of Workers (UGT) as an alternative pole in the workers' movement to the Workers' Commissions in which the CPE has played a leading role. Both the Commissions and the UGT have put up candidates and won substantial gains in the elections within the legal corporatist labour organisations.

Both the CPE and the PSOE argue that the restoration of bourgeois democracy, which they put forward as the primary task, cannot come about through the continuity and liberalisation of the present regime but only from a 'rupture' with it.

Revealed

Yet the CPE reveals its abject class collaborationist position by making this not a matter of principle but purely a matter of pragmatic judgement.

of the opposition and the more moderate sections of the regime have built great hopes on liberalisation. We would like them to be right. But we think they are wrong and that it is not possible."

On October 30th., after much recrimination, the two democratic fronts (the JD and the PCD) signed a joint declaration. It did not at that time include the CPE's demand for a broad coalition.

But a joint communique of this 'common left front issued on November 20th. does contain this call; it also demands the release of all political prisoners, the right of all exiles to return to Spain, an end to the intensifjed repression and the more stringent wage control laws introduced on November 14th; and it ends with a demand for a constituent assembly to organise a constitutional referendum.

"Democrats'

Significantly but not surprisingly, it does not call for socialism or for anything which would offend the bourgeois 'democrats' with whom both the CPE and the PSOE are so anxious to ally themselves.

Already it appears that the demand for a 'national' coalition coincides with the policy of sections of the regime. The newspaper of the corporatist labour organisations, Pueblo (People), called last week for a coalition of the regime with Liberals, Christian Democrats, Social Democrats and sections of the PSOE - a less broad coalition than that proposed by the CPE and PSOE, but the same reactionary principle of national government.

Independence

The working class must fight for its independence against this unprincipled opportunism and class collaborationism of the democratic fronts.

A demonstration of 50,0 led by Communist and Soci ist party chiefs march through the streets of Pa against the persecution of cr script soldiers and tra unionists for attempting organise rank and file com:

ttees, and to defend tra union and political rights the forces. (See report in St ialist Press of November 26t The Gaullist regime has set uj special "court of state security" deal with 'disaffection' in 1 armed forces, and among the facing serious charges are not ol sixteen. soldiers singled-out 'ring-leaders' , but active tra unionists who have tried to uni ise within the army.

Michel Bourre, secretary of 1 CFDT (the reformist-led tra union federation) in the Giron was flown to Paris under arrest l week, to be charged before t 'state security' court. His 'crin was to help in the printing of paper 'Soldiers in Struggle', by ra and file airmen at the Cazaux a force base.

ALARMED

What has reportedly alarmed t officer corps is that these airmen nine of whom have been arrest for attempting to organise a trai union section - were circulati clear class positions against t capitalist army:

"Our rifles defend the boss and are the guarantee of those wi are producing the crisis and kee ing up unemployment.. Whead hour comes, we shall know to t them against those who hand and oppress us."

The Stalinist and reformi leaders have been forced, by ti spreading agitation in. the rank and the mass anger at the gover ment's arrest, to take part ! demonstrations against repressions.

But they continue to defend tt state's right to discipline the bodies of armed men - only exho ting them to do so in a mor "humane" way, more "approprial to the last quarter of the twentiet century"

While Socialist Party lead‹ Francois Mitterand - a lawyer demagogically offers to defend i person the civilian accused c offences against 'state security

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DEMO DEFEND: CONSCRIPTS