[The Twenty: Seventh Congress of the Spanish Socialist…]
Socialist Press1976 1976-12-15Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 2 →
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The Twenty: Seventh Congress of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), after being banned by the fascist government in November, was finally permitted by regime in the first week of December.
Permission was still witheld until the last moment in a vain effort to get the PSOE to register itself under the regime's new law governing the legalisation of political parties.
The semi-legality which the government has granted to the PSOE in the last few months is part of its effort to channel the opposition to Francoism into what it sees as the safest organisaton.
YELLOW INTERNATIONAL It regards the PSOE as just such an institution; safely allied as it is internationally to that group of opportunist anti-working class "socialist' leaders, such as Helmut Jarats Schmidt, James Callaghan and Mario Soares.
The regime thinks that it can tempt the PSOE out of its opposition alliance with the Communist Party, which has far greater impor tance in the Spanish workers' movement, by offering to legalise the PSOE while keeping the Communist Party and all the parties to its left illegal.
EAGER
Filipe Gonzalez, reelected First Secretary of the party, gave a strong hint that he would respond eagerly to this appeal to his opportunism.
Though the PSOE still claims to oppose participation in elections until all political parties and unions are legalised and all political prisoners are released, Gonzalez announced to the Congress that the PSOE might 'have to' participate in the elections proposed for next year in order to gain control of the government and legalise the other parties itself.
Gonzalez did not. make this scandalously unprincipled statement until he had already been assured of a majority of Congress delegates for his right wing line of class collaboration and a negotiated pact with the fascist government at the expense of the other parties to the left of the PSOE.
NOT REJECTED The position of the Communist Party is not to reject such a deal but merely to demand that it is itself party to it. That was the theme of the dramatic press conference which CP General Secretary Santiago Carillo gave last week under the bose of the regime.
I the CP mas sai legalised. said
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SOCIALIST PRESS, Modmesdey 15ih December, 1976