Spanish Workers Oppose Leaders'

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Thousands of workers marching against the Moncloa Pact.

But the PSOE's need to has rejected the leadership's throw up this smokescreen at plans completely. And the the present time is instructive Asturian party leaders have because it is an expression of been openly critical of the the growing gulf between the national leadership both on leaders all the main the question of Leninism and workers' parties on the one on the party's acceptance of hand and their rank and file the monarchy. CSUT SU U.GT0 Hua Ne Win's economic needs are urgent since both agricultural and industrial production have been falling, and prices and unemployment both rising fast. Unless he can reverse this his leadership will soon be under threat again.

Isolation

The gigantic economic hardships suffered by Burma's worker and peasant masses have been worsened by the regime's policy of isolation from the world economy and the development of a corrupt and woefully inefficient state bureaucracy which controls much of the non-agricultural production. This situation has been absurdly characterised by the "Trotskyist' Militant group for example as a workers' state.

Burma, however, shows that workers' states cannot be defined on the basis of static and non-political criteria such as the proportion of industry which is state owned. Burma's form of petty state capitalism represents no gain whatever for the working class.

No solution The way to a workers' state in Burma lies neither through 'left' military dictatorships, nor through the guerrilla struggle of the CP in alliance with traditionalist, anti-centralist forces, but through the construction of a Trotskyist party able to fight for a programme of democratic and transitional demands and thereby lead the working class and peasantry to power.

When is an opposition not an opposition? That is one of the easiest riddles in the world. Two of the many possible correct answers to it would be When it's the Spanish Socialist Party; or the Spanish Communist Party'.

The last month in Spain has seen a whole series of manoeuvres by the main workers' parties in Spain both in relation to each other and in relation to the Suarez government, composed of the rotting remains of Francoism.

The new phase started when Suarez was faced with a small storm inside his Cabinet on the question of economic policy.

"Right shift'

In what was widely interpreted by the capitalist press as a shift to the right, the economics minister was replaced in a Cabinet shuffle.

*A shift to the right' in the special vocabulary of Spanish cpaitalism meant a move away from the policy of incorporation through the Moncloa Pact of the workers' parties and the main trade unions.

Suarez denied that anything like that was implied and declared his loyalty to the Moncloa Pact of agreed anti-working class measures to get Spanish capitalism back on its feet.

All the non-government parties, however, decided to vote for a harmless resolution which declared that the explanation of the change of economics ministers given to the Cortes was 'insufficient' Thus the Suarez government suffered its first parliamentary defeat (159-134).

Growing A few days later the Socialist Party (PSOE) moved into what it called opposition' This new tactic was largely concerned with the draft of a new constitution which has been produced by a Cortes committee, and is due to be voted on soon by the whole Cortes, and then to be submitted to a referendum.

The original draft of this constitution was produced by the PSOE. The governing Union of the Democratic Centre, however along with the even more right wing Francoist party, the Popular Alliance, used their majority in the committee to make important changes to the section on education and the church.

These restored special privileges of the Catholic church in relation to the state which the PSOE had tried to eliminate; and they referred to Spain's 'nationalities' as 'autonomous regions'.

Walk-out When faced with these modifications the PSOB representatives walked out of the committee and have not returned since. At the same time the PSOE made strident demands for the immediate convoking of the municipal elections which the regime seemed to have decided to postpone indefinitely.

Party Secretary Felipe Gonzalez even called for mass mobilisations to demand that the elections be held.

All this was declared very unseemly by the class collaborationist leaders of the CP.

After the defeat of the government, CP General Secretary Santiago Carrillo went so far as to state the obvious that 'in this government the employers are represented not workers' "Constructive"

But he hastened to reassure the bourgeoisie that the CP would continue to pursue its policy of "constructive opposition" (i.e. abject collaboration with the capitalist class).

Carrillo made disapproving noises about the PSOE's walk out from the constitutional committee and called for the continuation of 'consensus and concentration' which, he says, should culminate in a broad national coalition government including the Popular Alliance and the CP.

Despite this apparent tactical difference between the CP and the PSOE, it predictably took only a matter of hours to demonstrate that the PSOE's talk of opposition and mobilisations was a smokescreen.

At the beginning of March they opposed, along with the CP, a demonstration in Euskadi demanding the immediate convocation of the municipal elections. And they have made it clear that while they don't like the constitution, they certainly will not go SO far as to campaign against Upposition and the masses of the working class on the other. PSOE leader Gonzalez In a distorted way this is reflected in the extreme difficulty that the leaders of the small Popular Socialist Party have had in imposing on their rank and file a bureaucratically arranged fusion with the PSOE.

In Euskadi the party executive accepted the move by only 19 votes to 18.

And in the party assembly in Madrid opposition was so strong that the whole executive were forced to resign, admitting that they could no longer control the meeting, which then went on to oppose fusion by 140 votes to 37.

But the gulf is to be seen in a much more direct and significant way in the Communist Party which is now preparing for its Ninth Congress to be held later this month.

The perspectives proposed to the Congress by the Central Committee include not only the policy of class treason which the CP leaders are pursuing but also a number of constitutional changes the most important of which is the abandonment of the term 'Leninist' from the characterisation of the This, of course, represents no change of policy from the CP leadership, but only a further symbolic reassurance to the Spanish ruling class of the CP's trustworthiness as a policeman of the working class.

Unfortunately for Carrillo however the legacy of Lenin is also seen as an important symbol by large sections of the working class base of the The resistance to this move, therefore, has surprised the CP leaders. In the Madrid regional meeting of the party the leaders, who had hoped to beam down on a dutifully unanimous gathering, found it necessary to make several unscheduled, sharp interventions to defend the leadership's line.

Contentious

Of the 11 theses presented by the leadership only one was accepted by the Madrid meeting without major altercation.

On the abandonment of the 'Leninist' label, the vote was 453 in favour, 115 against with 62 abstentions.

This majority, though large, is completely different from the virtual unanimity which the party leadership had been counting on.

In Asturias in the north it annears that the neal narty This opposition in the CP is only half-formed politically but it has arisen with great speed, and is creating a profound crisis with the Crucial moment Now is a crucial moment for the intervention of Trotskyists in Spain to present an uncompromisingly clear alternative to the class collaborationism of the PSOE and CP leaders.

More than at any other moment since the death of Franco the leaders of these parties are at this moment finding it difficult to conceal their anti-working class and counter revolutionary role.

*Down with the new constitution!

*Down with the Moncloa Pact!

*For a general bring down the Francoist regime!

*For free elections to constituent assembly!

*For the building of workers' councils!

*For a PSOE-CP gover ment based on worke organisations!