Spain: Cp Attacks Internationalism

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Spanish fascism has behaved in the six weeks since Franco's death like a desperate, wounded animal - alternating between apparent quiescence and snarling savagery.

So, on the one hand, Prime Minister Arias Navarro's new goverriment, announced on December 12th., contains the most prominent so-called 'liberals' of the regime; it has hinted at an extension of the 'amnesty' for prisoners; in the vaguest possible words it promises political reforms; and it invites the participation of "all Spaniards" in political life, which is defined to include "responsible criticism".

But, on the other hand, "responsible criticism" does not include strike action by Chrysler workers in Madrid (ejected from the plant on three successive days by heavily armed police); nor a peaceful demonstration of 500 actors and lawyers outside the Ministry of Information on December 16th., (participants savagely beaten up by police); nor a peaceful demonstration of 2000 outside a jail in Bilbao in Euskadi (Basque country) on December 14th (dispersed by police assisted by ultra-right thugs of the Guerillas of Christ the King using whips, chains and medieval spiked metal balls).

'LIBERAL'

All this has happened since the grotesquely-described 'liberal' Fraga Iribarne became Minister of the Interior. Fraga, like the rest of the new cabinet, has spent his whole political life as a servant of Franco's From 1962 to 1969 he was Minister of Tourism and InformatSOCIALIST ion in which post he supervised the phenomenally profitable development of the tourist industry, took charge of government propaganda and designed the present censorship laws under which Spain's newspapers imposed self-censorship and get confiscated if they go too far.

Fraga • now claims that for his internal 'democratisation' he needs 'two weeks to decide, two months to plan and two years to implement'.

The decisions, presumably, are made and probably include in the Fraga short-term the release of some political prisoners, the legalisation of political parties (but not, it has been clearly hinted, the Communist Party) and perhaps the abandonment of the 1975 Suppression of Terrorism law; and in the longer-term a project for some form of parliamentary elections to bring Spain safely back to the western bourgeois-democratic fold.

Fraga. • knows that, though the ruling class of the major capitalist WORKERS countries has never been the enemy of the Spanish fascist regime, it can be made into a firm and necessary ally through such a plan of 'democratisation'.

This means that the other key ministry in the new government is Foreign Affairs - occupied by another former Franco minister, JoseMaria de Areilza.

Like Fraga, he has cultivated the liberal' image, developed contacts with the clandestine parties including the Communist Party, and took his distance from the direct administration of Franco's policies in the late sixties when the days of old-style Francoism seemed numbered.

Areilza became ambassador to the United States, as Fraga was until a few weeks ago ambassador to Britain; between them they have developed close contacts with international capital.

Areiza cleverly used his presence in Paris for the energy conference to conduct a massive public relations exercise by giving numerous interviews promising free elections, a passport on demand for the exiled leaders of the Communist Party, and so on.

For the time being, therefore, the Spanish government is in the hands of a group within the fascist regime which believes that the working class can most effectively be kept from power through the promise of reform.

This project is not merely their own but one in which the ruling classes of western Europe and the USA are intimately involved (one of King Juan Carlos' principal advisors has been French President Giscard d'Estaing).

In the most direct and immediate sense, therefore, the advance of working class interests in Spain is a question for the workers' movement internationally. For the Spancapitalist countries and the partystates of Eastern Europe... You cannot have a global strategy. If one existed it would be a violation of coexistence, of non-interference in the affairs of other countries; in fact it would be not another communist party but another state which one would be giving the opportunity to be mixed up in our affairs, involved in our strategy... In the Europe of 1975] we cannot base ourselves on what triumphed in Russia in 1917....I believe that the old internationalism is a histor¡cal residue, destined to disappear'.

Although Carillo speaks fo some "coordination of our action with that of the workers' movement in Western Europe, it is clear from this statement that the independence of the (capitalist) state is more important to Carillo than any international unity of the working class movement.

Of course, internationalism represented by the Stalinist parties has Areilza never been more than a deformed caricature of real working class internationalism. But it is not this which Carillo is arguing against but the principle of internationalism itself. No workers' state, he says, must interfere in 'our affairs' (that is, his affairs and those of Spanish fascists).

Carillo's statement is a more extreme version of the position of the Italian CP with which the Spanish CP has signed a joint statement on strategy.

The position. was carried into practice in a meeting organised by the Italian and Spanish CP's in Rome on December 14th., where a representative of the Portuguese CP who was present was excluded from the platform in favour of Portuguese Socialist Party. leader Mario Soares.

The Spanish CP has also issued a joint communique in France with the opposition Gaullists of the so-called Progressive Front.

Meanwhile Socialist (PSOE) leader Gonzalez has decla ed in an interview on West Germa radio that he does not exclude th possibility of Spanish entry int NATO 'once the internal problen are sorted out' In these ways the Spanish Stali ist and reformist parties are a tempting to lead the Spanis working class internationally ne into principled alliances with th international working class but int alliances with the bourgeoisie.

And this is a reflection of the class collaborationist position insic Spain, the latest examples of whic are the illusions they are creatir in the good intentions of Fraga and Areilza's new-look fascism.

SETBACK

Simon Sanchez Montero, a C spokesman in Madrid has said the the complexion of the governmer is 'in principle a setback for th ultras (ie 'ultra-lefts') in Paris spokesman s cross-clas alliance, the Democratic Junti spoke of a 'climate favourable t reforms' Workers' while in Spain itsel Commission leade Camacho (once more released fror jail) stated that reforms are withi reach' , and blamed violent cor frontations between workers an police on right-wing forces whe he said, wanted to disrupt "th King's efforts at restoring ha mony"

Of course it is not just th Stalinists who peddle this reactior ary line. The Socialist Party reacte to the government not with prit cipled opposition but with scer ticism' and complained only that il policy was 'vague' and had man omissions; Enrique Tieriro Galvar leader of the Popular Socialis Party, PSP (a small social democral ic group of mainly academics aa civil servants allied to the CP i the D with Fraga in Madrid said that 9 things go on like this, we shall hav to revise some of our judgements'But six weeks without Frano proves that no revision at all i needed of the judgement that th beast of Spanish fascism, thoug wounded, remains as savage anı dangerous as ever. Rather it show that the compromises advocated b! the leaders of the Stalinist an‹ reformist parties can do nothin but strengthen it.

The struggle in Spain for : workers united front to call genera strike action, and for the organ isation of armed defence squads fo: all-out confrontation with the state in the fight to remove the new fascist junta is therefore a polit ical task which can only be led by a Trotskyist party.