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IMT rejects jail sentences for Catalan political prisoners

Marxist Theory · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The article argues that the Spanish Supreme Court's sentencing of nine Catalan political prisoners to 9–13 years for sedition is not a judicial act but a political attack by the Spanish 1978 regime against the democratic right of national self-determination. The sentences are intended as exemplary punishment to deter any future challenge to the constitutional unity of Spain. The International Marxist Tendency (IMT) rejects reformist illusions that such a regime can be pressured through legal channels, insisting instead that the only effective response is mass mobilisation, combined with a revolutionary strategy that links the national question to the struggle for labour and social rights.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is rooted in the Marxist tradition's treatment of the national question, particularly the right of nations to self-determination as developed by Lenin and the early Comintern. The article situates the Spanish state within the framework of the "1978 regime" — a bourgeois democratic settlement born from a "rotten compromise" between the workers' leaders and the Franco dictatorship. This framing draws on Trotsky's analysis of the Spanish state as a bourgeois democracy resting on a Bonapartist and repressive apparatus, where formal democratic rights coexist with the systematic denial of national self-determination. The argument also reflects the Marxist critique of reformism: the Catalan independence leaders are criticised for vacillating in 2017 and failing to carry the struggle through to its revolutionary conclusion, yet their imprisonment demonstrates that the regime punishes even incomplete challenges to its foundational principles. The call for a "Catalan Socialist Republic as a spark of the Iberian Revolution" echoes the Trotskyist perspective that national liberation can only be fully achieved through socialist revolution, breaking the bourgeois state apparatus across Spain.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article was published in October 2019, immediately following the Supreme Court verdict. The conjuncture is defined by the aftermath of the 2017 Catalan independence referendum, which the Spanish state met with police violence, suspension of Catalan autonomy, and the imprisonment of leading politicians. The sentences — drawn from the Franco-era penal code — represent the regime's attempt to reimpose constitutional order through exemplary punishment. Mass mobilisations were already underway at the time of writing: student strikes and street protests across Catalonia. The article situates these events within the broader crisis of the Spanish 1978 regime, which faces simultaneous challenges from Catalan and Basque national movements, a deep economic crisis of overaccumulation and austerity, and the exhaustion of the two-party system (PP and PSOE) that managed the transition from Francoism. The reference to the CDR (Committees for the Defence of the Republic) members arrested in September 2019 indicates the regime's widening repression beyond the political elite to grassroots activists.

Where the Argument Continues

This article is a short, conjunctural statement — a political intervention rather than a developed theoretical piece. The argument continues in several directions within the IDOM corpus:

  • On the Spanish state and the 1978 regime: IDOM has published longer analyses of the Spanish constitutional settlement, the role of the monarchy, and the Bonapartist character of the state.
  • On the national question: The broader Marxist debate on self-determination, federalism, and the relationship between national liberation and socialist revolution is developed in IDOM articles on Scotland, Quebec, Palestine, and the Basque Country.
  • On the Catalan independence movement: IDOM has covered the 2017 referendum, the subsequent repression, and the political trajectory of the Catalan left, including criticism of the reformist leadership of the Catalan government.
  • On the strategy of mass mobilisation: The article points toward the need for a revolutionary party capable of linking the national struggle to class struggle — a theme developed across IDOM's theoretical output and in Against the Stream episodes on Spain and the national question.

Connections

  • Lenin, The Right of Nations to Self-Determination — the classical Marxist formulation that the article implicitly draws on.
  • Trotsky, The Spanish Revolution (1931–1939) — the analysis of the Spanish bourgeois republic as a Bonapartist regime.
  • IDOM articles on the Spanish state: "Spain: The crisis of the 1978 regime" and "The Spanish monarchy and the crisis of the bourgeois state".
  • IDOM articles on the national question: "National oppression and the right to self-determination" and "Scotland, Catalonia and the question of independence".
  • Against the Stream episodes: Episodes on the Catalan crisis, the Spanish state, and the national question in the 21st century.

Key Quotes

  1. "This is a scandalous, undemocratic ruling that reveals the rottenness of the Spanish 1978 regime."

  2. "One of the pillars of the Spanish 1978 regime, born out of a rotten compromise between the workers' leaders and the dictatorship after the death of Franco, is the unity of Spain – guaranteed by force – and the denial of the right of the nations to freely choose whether they want to remain in Spain."

  3. "The leaders of the Catalan government, now sentenced to jail terms, at the crucial moment in 2017 vacillated and did not take the struggle to the end. That has not saved them, but lessons must be drawn from this experience."

  4. "The struggle for a Catalan Republic, which would represent a massive blow to the Spanish 1978 regime, can only be successful through revolutionary means."

  5. "It must also be combined with the struggle for labour and social rights (housing, education, health care, rights at work) so that it can have a broader appeal, in Catalonia and throughout the Spanish state."

  6. "For a Catalan Socialist Republic as a spark of the Iberian Revolution!"