Carrillo Comforts Franco's Heirs

Scan page 2

Carrillo (centre) with Italian CP leader Berlinguer and French CP leader Marchais Spain's Francoist government led by Adolfo Suarez is supported by a minority of the population (even after vote-rigging it got barely one third of the votes in the general election in June).

And it is now suffering major internal disputes which resulted two weeks ago in the first ministerial resignation.

But no matter what its troubles, it knows it can count on one group of real friends-Santiago Carrillo andsthe leadership of the Spanish Communist Party.

Carrillo has never uttered a word of public criticism of Suarez and has frequently come to his aid.

ABSTAINED

For instance, in the regime's first parliamentary test last month, when the Socialist Party demanded the resignation of the mass murderer Martin Villa as Interior Minister after armed police had beaten up a Socialist MP, the Communist Party ostentatiously abstained, leaving the government with a decisive majority.

This was an example of the unswerving CP support for the armed repressive forces of the state.

The member of the armed police shot dead on September 27 (the anniversary of Franco's judicial murder of five left wing militants iwo years ago) was immediately declared by the CP to be a 'good democrat"

On other such occasions the CP has sent condolences to the police and representatives to the funeral. One of its members has been expelled from the party and denied the party's legal aid after he killed a fascist thug in self-defence.

Carrillo and the CP leadership Save been calling for the last three years for a popular front governsent of national reconciliation -nich would be a coalition of Stalinists, reformists and the loyal servants of Franco who remain in charge.

This treacherous class collaborationist plan has come several steps gearer fulfillment over the last two z22x5.

AUTONOMY

*== piece the Suarez granted =: oi 12=23:211 10 the four Catsionia parties will be headed by the rightwing veteran leader of the neralitat in exile, Josep Tarr ade las, a man very close to Suarez.

MINISTERS

There will be two Socialist Party ministers and one each from the bourgeois nationalist Democratic Pact for Catalonia, the Union of the Democratic Centre (Suarez' grouping) and the United Socialist Party of Catalonia (the CP), plus several other 'technicians' to be chosen by Tarradellas.

The agreement on the provisional Generalitat, therefore, has led to the formation of the first popular front government in postFranco Spain.

Though this is only in one region of Spain, a similar arrangement is now being planned for Euskadi (the Basque region).

But at the national level too, Spain is rapidly heading for the formation of popular front Last week the Suarez regime proposed to the 'opposition' parties an agreement on a governmental programme to resolve the growing economic emergency of Spanish capitalism in exchange for parliamentary support from the opposition parties.

This appeal was mainly directed towards the Socialist and Communist Parties.

Though there is no doubt about the willingness of Felipe Gonzalez' Socialist Party to enter into this kind of sordid deal, it was as usual the CP which replied first, with near rapture, to Suarez' initiative.

It was a step, the CP spokesman said, towards the government of national reconciliation which the CP had been proposing.

RUSHED

Carrillo, alone among 'opposition' leaders rushed to Suarez' office to talk to him about it face to face.

Having done this, Carrillo shot off not to Moscow but to Brighton where he has been an observer of the Labour Party conference.

There he was able to meet some of the experts on undeclared class collaborationist coalitions.

On a day off from the conference Carrillo spoke, even less guardedly than usual. to an audience of academies in Lon Caiversity with Suarez Francoists.

They are a programme of democratic reforms in relation to womens' rights and freedom of expression especially on radio and TV, measures to allow workers to "have a certain level of control in the factories' , along with an economic programme which deals with inflation and unemployment, and 'structural reforms' relating to energy and food policy.

These conditions are all stated so vaguely that they could well have come straight out of Suarez' election manifesto.

NOT BEST His proposals are not the best possible programme, Carrillo added. The best would be a more complete and radical programme, though not of course, he assured his audience, a socialist one.

'Today in Spain I don't believe in socialising the economy--but in a plan to strengthen the economy. We need to consolidate democracy and then think about the rest."

Most of Carrillo's remarks were about the relationship of the Spanish CP with the Spanish Socialist Party and the Soviet Union.

He made it clear that his differences with the Soviet Union are not some positive rejection of Stalinism but part of a complete rejection of internationalism.

The fragmentation of the world communist movement, he said, was not only not a tragedy but a sign of the development of the revolution.

"The more the revolution grows", , said Carrillo, "the more it will fragment and therefore diversify"

The victory of socialism will be the victory of the progressive force in each country.

"It has to be national."

The Communist Parties therefore have to be totally independent of the socialist powers.

Having liquidated in this way the basic political need for proletarian internationalism Carrillo went on to the organisational liquidation of the CP.

There was *no essential difference in programme he argued, between the Spanish CP and the Socialist Party.

The only obstacle to the tusion of the two organisations was the unwillingness of the Socialist Party "I feel more representative.

much more renretentative of the