[The fear of revolution dominates the thinking of…]

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The fear of revolution dominates the thinking of the bourgeoisie in Spain today. as the working class continues a massive wave of strikes and demonstrations, which have now enguffed much of major industry for three or four months.

Major industrial struggles, with thousands of workers taking illegal strike action or demonstrating against lock-outs by the employers, have been taking place in the car industry, and in steel, plastics, telecommunications and typewriters factories.

In Navarra province a virtual general strike paralysed production leaving over 16,000 workers idle through much of January. At one point barricades were erected to defend working class districts against attacks from the police, and were only torn down by riot police using tear gas and rubber bullets. Priests in the province have been fined a massive £28,00 for giving "subversive" sermons in support of the strikers, who included carworkers from Pamplona and potash miners, and many of whom had been almost continuousiy in disputes for the previous two months.

In Vizcaya province about 20 companies were standing idle because of strikes and lock-outs, and early in Fehruary these movements spilled over into the professional classes, with strikes of actors, actresses, nurses and auxilliary hospital workers, with sympathetic action from workers in television and radio. At the same time the Asturian coal mines were halted by a strike of 12,000 minet Increasingly central to these struggles, which nearly all start with the question of wages, is the struggle for recognition of the semi-legal trade unions, the Workers Commissions, by the empioyers.

THREAT

This poses a fundamental threat to Franco's fascist regime with its corporatist system of state unions or "syndicatos". A further setback to this system was the recent drastic cut in jail sentences on the "Carabanchel Ten" - a group of militant workers who were self-confessed minder of the Workers Commissions.

As this takes place, the 20% inflation continually creates further class confrontation, as housewive: in a Madrid market showed recently by pelting police patrols with tomatoes in protest against soaring prices.

The Financial Times of January 29th admitted: "Spain's security forces are having their work cut out to cope with the economic and political challenges to the regime of 82 year old Gencral Police intervened in a number of Spanish cities last week to put down demonstrations by workers and left-wing students. Student marches were attacked in Madrid and Malaga, and in Barcelona on February 25th police invaded a church to arrest the wives of workers at the giant SEAT car plant, who had barricaded themselves in the church in protest against the sackings of car-workers.

POLITICAL CRISIS

In the same week the political crisis of the Franco regime took a further turn with the resignation of Minister of Labour de la Fuentes on February 24th..

Fuentes, a lifelong member of Franco's 'Falange' political machine, joined the cabinet in 196 at the same time as a number of other ministers associated with the "liberal" Opus Dei wing of Spanish fascism.

Opus Dei (Latin for "Work of God is chosely linked to the Catholic Church heirarchy, and has stood for gradual reform' of the regime, and a swift entry into the Common Market.

The immediate cause of Fuentes resignation was his draft labour law, which was to attempt to head off the movement of the working class by the concession of legalising strikes. The majority in the cabinet, backed by the major employers, would not accept the removal of bosses right to sack striking workers on the spot and without pay.

The fascist bourgeoisie correctly see that in the climate following the upheavals in Portugal, even the smallest concession to the working class could lead to a revolutionary ferment.

Without commenting directiy on Fuentes resignation, Prime Minister Arias Navarro - in a televised press conference on February 26th - tried to heal some of the divisions in the ruling class. He was himself opposed, he said, to any constitutional-reform which would permit universal suffrage (i.e. the restoration of capitalist 'democracy") and warned that 'professional revolutionaries' were out to undermine the natios But, while specifically banning Communists from political legality, he suggested that leftist' groupings which accepted the principles of Franco's National Movement world always find the Government to be understanding.

COMMON MARKET

The real divisions among the Spanish ruling class are on tactics, not strategy. With one eye they look towards Western Europe and the Common Market, where they all would like to take shelter in the world economic crisis, The bourgeois politicians of Western Europe are eager enough to have Spain - last week French President Giscard d'Estaing entertained Prince Juan Carlos, Franco's nomince to succeed him as head of state, on an 'amiable' shooting excursion near Paris - but they are unable to negotiate immediate entry. So deep are the scars left by the Spanish revolution and the civil war of 1936-9, and the following four decades of Fascist rule, on the European working class, that the bourgeoisie cannot safely admit Spain without more visible trappings of "democracy'. To do so could upset delicate relations of class compromise within the BEC With its other eye Spanish fascism is keenly watching the development of the Portuguese revolution, now resonating through the whole of Spanish society. Dozens of army officers in the Barcelona region are already involved in protests against the use of troops against civil disturbances'; when two junior officers were arrested in February many others, including a Lieutenant -Colonel, signed a petition in their defence.

But on one question the ruling class are clear and united. They face revolutionary struggles with the working class.

The growth of semi-legal organisations in the 1960's was only temporarily halted by the 1969 emergency decrees - nominally directed against 'unrest" in the universitSTRIKE WAVE BEGINS During Franco's illness last summer 10,000 workers shut down over thirty factories in Catalonia (the region around Barcelona) and faced the police in street demonstrations which lasted over a week In the Autumn 10,000 workers of the Barcelona SEAT plant struck were locked out, and then held the first mass meetings seen in the city since the days of the Republic.

Shortly following this 12,000 workers in the northern Basque country carried out a three day general strike against inflation and the continued imprisonment of Basque leaders.

Now such struggles are increasing in frequency and intensity, embracing an ever-wider cross- section of Spanish socicty.

The regime intends to face the renewal of the Spanish revolution with a combination of repression and manocuvre. What is in questio: is the character of the manoeuvres required. As a first step, important sections of the Spanish ruling class waat greater "flexibility" of political arrangements- particularly the ability to deal openly with the Workers Commissions which now clearly have the major representative voice amongst workers in most of the biggest industries. In this Stalinism plays a central role The 'official' Communist Party has made it's readiness for class-collaboration crystal-clear.

CLASS COLLABORATION Last summer Party Secretary Santiago Carrillo joined hands in Paris with former Opus Dei min ister Rafael Calvo Serrer and other capitalist politicians, such as Carlist monarchists, to form the Spanish Democratic Council' (Junta Democratica de Espana). Their "Declaration' explains that the civIf President Ford cannot tak decisive steps to impose massive unemployment on the American working class, an ultra-conservative third party may come forward to do the job for him.

This is the message from a four-day conference of 500 right-winge held last month in Washington D.l under the joint sponsorship of 'Young Americans for Freedom' and the "American Conservative Union' The delegates sharply expressed their disappointment with Ford's vacillating response to the econom crisis, and there was strong teeling for a formal break with the Repub lican Party. The man on whom many of the American extreme right pin their hopes is the former governor of California Ronald Reagan.

Reagan is a natural for the job. A the "liberal Democrat" president o the Screen Actors Guild from 1947 to 1952 he distinguished himself by frequent denunciations of "Communist infiltrators" in true McCarthy style.

In 1952 he appeared as a "Democrat for Eisenhower", and after a decade as paid propagandist for General Electric Co., joined archconservative Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidentell campaign Reagan's tenure as governor of California from 1966 was marked by increased taxes on the poor and drastic cuts in spending on social welfare, all in the name of a "balanced budget".

For the time being Reagan has not committed himself to a 'third party much to the chagrin of grass-roots reactionaries - suggesting that big business still hopes to teach the slow learning President Ford how to make the workers pay for recession In any event the complete economic confusion which is rampant in bourgeois circles in the US prevents much of a decisive move at this stage.

The Democrats for instance are now in support of petrol rationing and a "prices and incomes policy while Ford concentrates on welfare cuts, petrol taxes and personal tax concessions. Neither course offers much hope of a solution to the crisis, yet the employers are hesitant to reject their traditional parties.

But Reagan is sure to be heard from again While the ruling class have two parties and the seeds of a third to protect their interests, American workers have no political party.

The Democratic Party, unlike th British Labour Party. does not ow its existence to the working class but to 18th century aristocrats with populist leanings.

The Democrats have been many things to all people, apologists for the decaying slave society in the 1850's and salvage men of capitalism during the 1930's through Roosevelt's fraudulent "New Deal of public works and social welfare.

They have long had the collusion of America's right-wing trade union bureaucracy, who will now coopera in every way possible to stifle the rising militancy of workers in defen of their jobs and living standards.

Workers of the United States must fight to build the independent party of the working class in preparation for the struggle against capitalismn in crisis.

This party must be based upon the organised working class in the trade unions, and within such a Labour Party the Trotskyists will continue to fight for the demands and perspectives of the Transitional Programme. Thus the qualitative struggle to develop revolutionary leadershin must be combined with the broader fight in the US labour movement to turn trade unionists from capitalist to working class politics in the building of the US Lahour Party.