Spain Crisis of Working Class

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Barce volice disperse a rally demanding amnesty for political prisoners.

All three are estimated to have as many as 10,000 members or close active supporters.

In many areas and factories these parties have provided an important organisational alternative to the CP. Only to a very smali extent, and in the most erratic way, however, have they offered a real political alternative to Stalinism.

MAOIST

All three parties are commonly known as "Maoist" though this conceals their very varied origins.

They are all to some degree centrist in that they ricochet from day to day between the reactionary positions of the CP and apparently revolutionary or even ultra-left positions.

The PT was formed in the 1960s by a left opposition group expelled from the CP Last year it changed its name from the International Communist Party because, it claimed, such a name "aroused suspicions of Trotskyism". Its political line, however, arouses no such suspicions.

Following the CP, it declares that the primary objective in Spain is for the working class in alliance with other "democratic" classes to establish bourgeois democracy.

Its major difference with the CP the installation of the proletariat can our present revolution be said to have ended in success"

SEPARATED

But, like the CP's "socialism" this is postponed in the PT's party programme for an indefinite future and safely separated from the democratic objectives of the moment.

In its recent practice the PT has become little 1 more than a • left cipher of the CP and it has remained a loyal and uncritical member of the Democratic Junta.

The ORT is on the surface less close to the CP's line. In its origins the ORT goes back to left wing groups of catholic workers and intellectuals in the early 1960s, such as Vanguards and Catholic Action.

In 1963 some of these formed the syndicalist AST which converted itself into a political party after numbers of Maoists, expelled from the CP, had become the majority.

So in spite of its catholic origins the ORT is now Maoist to the extent that it claims to follow "the revolutionary line of the Chinese Communist Party" and bases itself on "the ideology of Marxism-Leninism and the thought of Maotse-tung"

It is not surprising that from this starting point its apparently commendable objective "to combat the revisionism of the CP" has not led it to a consistent revolutionary position.

TWO STAGE It has rather led to bizarre ariations on the CP line. The ORI, for instance, accepis the CP's rigid concept of a "two-stage" revolution (one step from fascism to bourgeois democracy, and another, separate step, to socialism) but argues for the armed struggle of the workers to produce the bourgeois democratic stage.

Its definition of the political contents of this first stage do, however, go further than the CP's and include the nationalisation of monopolies under democratic workers' control.

These differences have not prevented the ORT from joining class collaborationist alliances.

It recently withdrew from the Socialist Party's Democratic Platform and called for the unification of the Junta and the Platform - an event which has now taken place, creating_ the body under the name of Democratic Co-ordination, though certainly not because of the ORT.

The MCE began in 1964 as the Basque Communist Movement, split from the nationalist organisation ETA. It adopted its present name in 1972 and claims allegiance to the ideas of Marx, Lenin and Mao.

Its strength is still concentrated the Euskadi (Basque) region, where in many towns it occupies a dominant position in the workers' and students' movement.

It is the only one of the three large centrist/maoist organisations to have made a strong, specific criticism of the CP's political line.

It correctly condemned the Democratic Junta as "an alliance of a few reformist parties with political representatives of the oligarchy"

In a recent issue of its paper interference Serve the People it condemns und international" of Wilson and Meir in the Spanish opposition.

In contrast to the CP's call for "national unity" peace and forgiveness the MCE talks of the need to "disarm and dissolve" the repressive forces of the state, and bring the instigators of torture and repression to trial and punishment.

On economic questions the MCE has called for an end to wage control, the control of prices, nationalisation of all important sectors of the economy under democratic control, recognition of the right of workers to inspect the books and accounts of all capitalist The group, which left the CP in the early 1960s, was concentrated Catalonia (especially Barcelona).

After huge oscillations of political line it liquidated itself back into the CP, but a minority has recently resigned to re-establish the second incarnation of Bandera Roja (Red Flag).

The group has made a more consistent criticism of the CP and Socialist party than the three larger centrist/maoist groups.

Its press has condemned the way in which: "the revisionists and reformists, often supported by the PT and MICE, have tried to limit the demands and channel the combativity of the people into a narrow pacificism in the face of the aggressive attitude of the police."

It calls for:

"Freedom, amnesty, dissolution of the repressive forces (armed police, etc.), the overthrow of the government and the monarchy." and the building of workers' self-defence organisations.

CRITICAL

And in its press it maintains a constantly critical position towards the CP's abandonment of even the pretence of fighting for dictatorship of the proletariat.

These correct positions, however, represent more a number of correct points than a qualitative political advance on the CP's line. Bandera Roja has not been able to develop a consistent programme incorporating these demands; they remain as propaganda.

In addition to these parties and groups, the last few years have seen the growth of several looser, syndicalist organisations in the workers' movement.

One of these is the very localised organisation which headed the strikes and demonstrations in Vitoria in February and March, the Organisation of the Communist Left (OIC), Operating at a more national level is the Workers' Syndical Union (USO).

CATHOLIC

This organisation, like the ORT, originated in the movement of Catholic workers in the 1960s, though it has now lost most of its religious connection.

It consciously models itself on the French trade union federation, the CFDT. It has recently established a political party, the Socialist Reconstruction, whose political line is hard to distinguish from that of the Communist Party.

The large number of centrist, maoist or syndicalist organisations which have established themselves in Spain is symptomatic of the growing dissatisfaction of workers with their traditional stalinist and reformist parties.

But none of them have been able to offer a clear programme to serve as a basis for a complete break with class collaboration.

The challenge and opportunity in this situation for Trotskyism is obvious.

In a future article Socialist Press will assess the record and programme of the groups in Spain which claim allegiance to the Transitional Programme of the Trotskyist Fourth International

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Page 6 SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday April 2Ist 1976