Spain: Stalinists Knock on the Door

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In Spain this week the leaders of the Communist Party are literally and politically knocking on the front door of the fascist state.

King Juan Carlos' second government looks all set to fall because it cannot decide whether to let them in.

The literal aspect of the problem is that Dolores Ibarrun and Santiago Carillo, the President and General Secretary respectively of the Spanish Communist Party, have said that, although already refused passports by Spanish embassies abroad, they will enter Spain during September.

A special watch on all border posts has been ordered by the Suarez regime to prevent their entry.

CARILLO

Usually well informed press sources in Madrid claim that Carillo has already spent most of the last six months in Spain.

And he himself admits to having entered the country several times. The most recent occasion was three weeks ago when he went to Barcelona to try to persuade the bourgeois Catalan nationalist organisations and dissident "separatist" CP members to integrate themselyes in the nationwide class collaboratonist alliance, the Democratic Coordination.

Carlo's travek have Dresumably Its political problem, however, is that it cannot permit their open return to Spain without reversing its pledge not to legalise the Communist Party.

But that it is unable to do because it would finally break the already strained support which Suarez has from the Francoist "bunker" - those fascists who argue that even to talk of 'reform" is fatal.

REFERENDUM

This strain is already showing up in the fact that not even the plans for the referendum on "constitutional reform" originally promised for this month have yet been unveiled.

Informed speculation in the press about its content has now been censored by the regime.

This is undoubtedly because of the resistance of the bunker (which still controls the Cortes, Spain's caricature parliament), which opposes any constitutional reform at all.

While Prime Minister Suarez and the King face this immovable obstacle to their plans to incorporate at least part of the opposition in a plan for minimal constitutional change, they are also having to deal with an outflanking manoeuvre.

This comes from the self-styled "reformist" wing of the fascists in the person of ex-foreign Minister lho tg so - Bt !4: 190 .•••. "4 .4 roAf 2: 02-000 entry to Spain - an no coincidence : MIhCarilio Areilza gave a provocative interview to Cambio 16 Spain's (in fact Europe's) most widely read political weekly.

It was ridiculous, he said, that the Communist Party should remain illegal. It should be legalised and, he implied, invited to join the Francoists and the other opposition parties in a National Pact.

This proposal is virtually the identical twin of the CP's proposed Areilza and the CP leaders are gambling on provoking the King to thow out the Suarez government and by-pass the old Francoist constitutional organs such as the Cortes and the Counci of the Realm (also dominated by the "bunker") whose role is to nominate the candidates for Prime Minister.

Such an action would certainly produce a major constitutional crisis which the CP leaders would exploit by attempting to deliver the mass movement behind the King and a "democratic" provisional government of "national unity" led by Areilza, as a kind of civilian Spanish version of Portugal's Spinola.

BATTERING RAM

Already millions of Spain's militant and impatient workers oppose the CP leaders' policy of politely knocking at the door of Francoism.

The "reformist" fascists and the Stalinist leaders now coincide on a plan such as the one just outlined because they both know that if the knock is not promptly answered those millions are waiting with a battering ram.

With this the workers are prepared to destroy not only the whole edifice of fascism, the protector oi capitansm and imperialism in Spain, but also Inyone. including their own lear eIs,

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SOCIALIST PRESS, Wedecadey Sik September 1976 • LABOUR LEADERS PROP DICTATORSHII Tor Trade Union fit to iD fran, sad aide trong" m at CM Pub, Lord by Review of "Workers of Iran: Repress the Campaign for the Restoration of WC1V 6XX for 75p plus postage).

"Many workers in Britain may have been deceived by all the talk about "oil wealth" into thinking that the workers in these countries which produce the wealth are benefitting by it. Such an impression is quite false, particularly in Iran, ruled by the brutal dictatorship of the Shah."

These are the opening words of an important and timely pamphlet which goes on to set out many details about the conditions of Iranian workers under one of the world's most vile and brutal regimes.

Though very few statistics are published, the average wages of those in work can be calculated at £7.35 per week, with the cost of living increasing rapidly, to the level of Western Europe, and rents in the capital Tehran as much as £50-£60 a month.

The cost of a Hillman car produced by the Chrysler-controlled Iran-National is about half as much again as in this country, but the worker who makes it gets about one-eighth as much as his counterpart in this country.

Many other forms of exploitation are quoted, including the employment of chuldren, the subjection oi women to their male relatives, and a vast army of unemployed and under-employed people, at least 7% of the labour force.

How is all this brought about? By thé brutal suppression of trade union rights and of every effort to establish independent organisation in and the Fight for Democratic Trad rade Union Rights in Iran, and availa in the working class.

Thus in Iran, there are large numbers of soldiers present in big factories, usually under orders from Savak, Iran's notorious secret At the steel mill Aryamehr at stanan, there are 500 'security guards' between three and three and a half thousand workers!

Strikes and all other forms of trade union activity are illegal and suppressed with the utmost brutality.

In June 1974 when the workers was rushed off to hospital by the police and died in mysterious circumstances.

An enormous funeral procession of workers in Tabriz was convinced that Jahani had been poisoned -they were never allowed to see the body or to carry out any kind of post mortem.

There is one other interesting way in which the struggle of Iranian workers to improve their conditions is held back.

The unspeakable Shah has (P47)

"decided that the form the worker participation in the economic life of the country should take: it is profit-sharing which is the answer to all problems."

HAND-OUTS

With nominal wages extremely low indeed, then some additions can be made through 'handouts' from profits.

This system is used by the regime to direct workers into the IATI manufacturing sector, to more easily slash wages and conditions, and to confine disputes to discussions about profits earned in particular enterprises.

Both repression and 'participation' are thus used to hold back the struggle for the right to set up unions and to improve conditions.

There have been. numerous attempts by Iranian workers to fight this. Despite their illegality, many strikes have taken place, notably in the early part of this year, and many of them are described in the pamphlet.

They take place without publicity in the censored press and in the face of the utmost brutality. In defiance of 'union' organisations run by the employers and the state there have developed "embryonic elements for organisation similar to the Spanish Workers' Commissions and UGT" • (p39):

NOT COLLECTED Such facts as these have not, so far as we know, been collected together elsewhere,. and their appearance now will play a part in building the international solidarity of the working class.

Of considerable importance is the expression in the pamphlet of "confidence in the indestructable strength of the workers of Iran in overthrowing the Shah's regime"

This in itself represents a considerable advance ON the bourgeois democratic views normally held in this country by opponents of the Shah's CIA-established regime.

Also important in the pamphlet is the way that attention is directed to the need for a workers' enquiry into conditions in Iran, and for leaders. of the TUC and other workers' organisations to take part. where the fight for posed continuously.

Thus the pamphlet does not mention that the regime of the Shah rests not simply on the CIA who put it there, but on the support and respectability it has obtained from the Chinese Stalinists and from numerous Labour aV/ foreign locations (often exploiting workers on low wages in countries where rights to organise are denied) is recognised as a cause of economic instability and redundancy. During 1973 more than £1000 million was invested abroad in this way, instead of creating jobs and growth in Britain.

----- pull-quotes -----

demanding the timing

at Tabriz Transport in Northwest- their teaser chid Segen ages,

I'LL BUY THE LOT, JIM-IF YOU'RE SURE THAT YOU WON'T BE NEEDING THEM YOURSELF!