2. The Reawakening – 1960-73
It took a long time before the Spanish proletariat could recover from its wounds. But recover it did. During this period all the old scars of defeat were healed. A new generation of revolutionary fighters was being formed in the heat of struggle. The stormy strike wave under Franco had no parallel in the history of the working class. It shook the dictatorship to the core, provoking deep fractures in the ranks of the ruling class.
Superficial commentators only see what was taking place on the surface: the emergence of opposition tendencies within the regime, without realising that these splits at the top were only a distorted reflection of the colossal pressures building up at the bottom. In reality, it was the strike movement of the working class that undermined and finally overthrew the Franco dictatorship.
In the 1960s, the first miners’ strikes in Asturias heralded the revolutionary reawakening of the workers of Spain. Throughout the 1960s, the strike movement continued to gather pace. In 1966, there were 184,000 working days lost, the figure increased slowly to 236,000 in 1967 and 240,000 in 1968. The year 1969 saw a doubling of the working days lost to 559,000. The year of the Burgos trial in 1970 saw an amazing 1 million working days lost in strikes. The big explosion in strike activity took place in 1976, with 3.6 million workers involved and 13,752,000 working days lost. In 1977, the figure went down slightly to 11,500,000 days lost, 1978 registered 16 million working days lost and finally, in 1979 over 5.7 million workers took strike action with a total of 21 million working days lost.1
Slightly different figures are given by Sebastian Balfour in ‘La Dictadura, Los Trabajadores y la Ciudad’. The table he provides [Table 2.1], despite the small discrepancies, illustrates exactly the same process.
| Table 2.1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Strikes | Workers involved | Work hours lost |
| 1968 | 351 | 130,742 | 1,925,278 |
| 1969 | 491 | 205,325 | 4,476,727 |
| 1970 | 1,595 | 460,902 | 8,738,916 |
| 1971 | 616 | 222,846 | 6,877,543 |
| 1972 | 835 | 277,806 | 4,692,925 |
| 1973 | 931 | 357,523 | 8,649,265 |
| 1974 | 2,290 | 685,170 | 13,986,557 |
| 1975 | 3,156 | 647,100 | 14,521,000 |
| 1976 | 40,179 | 2,519,000 | 106,506,000 |
| (Sebastian Balfour, La Dictadura, Los Trabajadores y la Ciudad, 1994.) | |||
These figures provide a graph that accurately depicts the sharp increase in the class struggle in Spain and the rapid rise in working-class consciousness and militancy. In Germany under Hitler nothing remotely similar existed. In Italy under Mussolini there were big strikes in 1943 in the north, which marked the beginning of the end of the regime. The unprecedented wave of strikes in Spain dates from the spring of 1962. That was when the Spanish proletariat really showed its power, twenty-three years after the terrible defeat of the Spanish proletariat in the Civil War. The summer of 1963 was marked by a second wave in the assault of the workers against the Franco regime.
As we have seen, there had been big strikes in the Basque province of Vizcaya in 1947 and 1951, when there was also a general strike in Barcelona. But in their intensity, extension and duration, the Asturian strikes marked a decisive change in the situation. They represented a direct challenge to the dictatorship by the working class. This showed that the workers were losing their fear and flexing their muscles. The great strike movement immediately brought the working class into conflict with the state power, which recognised neither strikes nor trade unions and reacted in the only way it knew: with violent repression. Labour disputes over economic issues therefore became immediately politicised. The line between economic strikes and political strikes ceased to have any significance.
The Asturian Miners
In the 1930s, the Asturian miners stood at the head of the class struggle in Spain. In 1934, they staged a heroic uprising known as the Asturian Commune. It was brutally suppressed by troops sent from Morocco led by a then little-known army officer by the name of Francisco Franco. The horrors inflicted on the Asturian working class after the defeat of the Commune left an indelible memory and a feeling of undying hatred for the ruling class that burst to the surface in 1962.
The miners in all countries are a remarkable breed. My experience of the Welsh miners and their militant strikes in the early 1970s convinced me of that. The special character of the miners is shaped by the very conditions in which they live and work. Years of hard, dangerous underground work produces a tough, resilient and courageous spirit and a stubborn independent character that will not easily admit defeat.
Asturias has always reminded me of my native land, South Wales. The geography is almost identical, and both regions were traditionally dependent upon coal and steel. The character of the people too, is remarkably similar. The Asturian mineworkers reminded me very much of the miners I knew in Wales. They had the same indomitable fighting spirit, the same defiant attitude to the employers and the government, and the same proletarian sense of humour. It is a humour that carries them through the most difficult situations and enables them to conquer those difficulties.
These similarities are not accidental. Working in difficult and treacherous conditions, where any mistake can cause a catastrophic accident, creates a spirit of comradeship and solidarity among the workers that is far greater than anything else I have seen. These men are tough fighters. They are also, of course, formidable drinkers. The only difference between the Asturians and their comrades in the Welsh mining valleys was that they drank cider, not beer.
Although the mines were privately owned and operated, the state dictated the wage rate and workers’ rights. The so-called economic stabilisation plan of the government imposed a wage freeze. In reality, this plan amounted to a plan to stabilise poverty, making the workers’ pay for economic development, keeping wages at a very low level in order to supply European monopolists with a ready supply of cheap labour. However, the Spanish miners had other ideas.
The Nicolasa mine is today the last-remaining operational coal mine in Asturias. On 7 April 1962, miners from the Nicolasa pit walked out on strike. They knew that this was an illegal act and they would have to face the full weight of the attacks of the state. In Franco’s Spain, striking was equal to military rebellion and was punished harshly. But they were determined, and once miners have made up their mind to act no force on earth will stop them. Once it started, the campaign spread with lightning speed from one pit to another. The miners from Baltasara mine came out on the next day. Then a strike was declared in Polio pit and a week later the whole Caudal Valley in Asturias was on strike. On 16 April 1962, the strike spread to Turón and then to the Nalón Valley.
As soon as the Asturian miners began their strikes in April, the government declared them illegal. The regime responded with brutal repression, with arrests and beatings of workers and women. But that did not deter the Asturian miners. The strikers were able to organise effectively and the strike grew to almost 500,000 workers in twenty-four provinces, who carried out the strike for more than eight weeks.
Solidarity
The central role of solidarity was one of the most significant aspects of the movement. The slogan that the strikers chanted was: “general salary raises and solidarity with our comrades”. It demonstrated a very high level of class consciousness, showing that the workers were manifesting themselves as a class. This remarkable degree of solidarity spread to other areas and other layers of the working class.
Those miners who possessed small plots of land shared their crops with their less fortunate workmates and small businesses supported the strikers by giving away food for workers that lived in their local neighbourhoods. Those workers who refused to participate were publicly shamed with insults and grains of maize being thrown onto their door steps, indicating that they were ‘chickens’ (cowards).
Thus, a spontaneous strike at a single coal mine was, in a spirit of solidarity, extended everywhere in the mining regions of Asturias. The heroic example of the Asturian miners inspired the workers of the Basque province of Vizcaya to follow them. In the industrial and mining zones of the Basque province at Bilbao and Beasain, 60,000 miners, engineers, chemical workers and shipyard workers were out on strike. The fishermen of Bilbao agreed to work longer shifts than normal in order to supply the Asturian miners with fish.
The strike was beginning to assume the scope of a nationwide struggle. The spirit of narrow-minded nationalism was entirely absent here. The workers did not look upon themselves, or other workers in struggle, as Basques, Catalans, Galicians or Asturians, but as members of the same class, workers and comrades fighting the same battle against a common class enemy. That is what made it so powerful – and so dangerous for the regime.
The strike spread to factories in Valencia and Galicia. In Barcelona, the engineering plants of Pirelli, Siemens and ENASA lorry manufacturers also came out on strike. Sympathy strikes broke out in different parts of Spain, with 3,000 copper miners in Río Tinto in the south. Workers in Madrid were also joining in the struggle. At Vallecas, a working-class suburb of Madrid, the railway repair shop workers staged a sit-down strike. At Villaverde, another suburb, the workers were preparing to strike in new factories established by the Franco regime. In some small plants, the employers only avoided strike action by conceding to the demands of the workers.
This magnificent movement was unfolding in the teeth of the laws of the fascist dictatorship. The movement was faced with ferocious repression. On 4 May, the government declared a state of siege in the provinces affected by the strike. This was equivalent to a declaration of martial law. In 1963, trade union activists were arrested and sentenced by court martial to prison terms ranging from five to eighteen years. But it was all too late. The movement had already gained an unstoppable momentum.
The regime caved in. On 24 May, the Official State Bulletin agreed to the strikers’ demands and on 5 and 6 June 1962, the strikes ended with wage increases being granted. The effects of this amazing victory were far more widespread than this, extending far beyond the borders of Asturias. A powerful anti-Franco movement emerged after these strikes as a direct result of the working-class militancy.
One can speak of a before and an after of the Asturian miners’ strikes. It is impossible to overstate the importance of these strikes. Ever since the success of 1962, agitation in the Asturian mines did not cease. Conflicts over working conditions and selective strikes were obstinately pursued. At the end of the strikes the miners earned a wage raise from ninety-five pesetas to 150 pesetas. As a result of the miners’ efforts, workers in other industries, transport services, and agriculture also obtained wage increases. It eventually led to the nationalisation of Spanish mines, forming the huge state enterprise Hunosa.
The strike movement in Spain found an echo in the international labour movement. The Danish Metalworkers’ Union sent a large cash donation to help the Spanish strikers, while the Finnish Seamen’s Union decided to refuse tug or offer other port assistance to Spanish ships in solidarity with the striking Spanish workers. It was a fundamental turning point in the whole situation.
The Birth of the Workers’ Commissions
The regime was so shaken by the strike movement that it was forced to make concessions, and even to consider recognising the right to strike. Under existing conditions, the economic struggle necessarily led on to democratic demands. Out of the strikes in the Asturian coalfields emerged the Workers’ Commissions (Comisiones Obreras, CCOO) – the first real attempt of the Spanish workers to organise on a class basis independent of the vertical trade union of the regime. This was an underground trade union organisation.
The vertical ‘trade unions’ run by the Falange were ignored by the organisers of the strike. Instead, the miners set up their own workers’ commissions and strike committees, which successfully organised and co-ordinated the strikes. Each mine shaft elected delegates to represent them in the secret meetings and these worker delegates were the leaders of the strike. Bypassing the Franco ‘unions’, the strikers sent a group of Asturian miners, who were suffering from silicosis, to the central government in Madrid. Silicosis is the dreaded respiratory disease caused by inhaling coal dust. The suffering miners served as a practical demonstration that they would only recognise their own elected representatives.
The CCOO started out as a genuinely grass-roots labour movement. Those who participated in and led the movement were of many different political parties, and some did not belong to any. Many had been formed in the Catholic labour organisations, which were tolerated and were in a state of ferment. Many rank-and-file priests were sympathetic to the workers and were drawing radical political conclusions.
But the influence of the Catholic elements in the CCOO dwindled as the Communists became increasingly dominant in the movement. With its disciplined organisation and experienced militants, the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) had a clear advantage over any other group or tendency. The PCE used this success in underground work to take over the Workers’ Commissions and create a strong, centralised trade union confederation, over which it could exercise a powerful influence.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the CCOO became the principal opposition to the regime. From the mid-50s, workers in many industrial areas had organised into Workers’ Commissions. Opposition groups became more active in elections for shop-level representatives (the enlaces and jurados). Slates of candidates sponsored by the CCOO increasingly won elections for factory shop stewards. The force behind them was the Communist Party.
The tactic of the CCOO, under the initiative of the PCE, was to use the structures of the CNS (the fascist vertical union) to gain a wider echo in the labour movement, and thus increase its points of support in the factories. This tactic was unpopular among the more radical layers, but it proved to be very successful, at least in the initial period.
In the union elections of 1975, the CCOO achieved a majority of workers’ representatives within the Vertical Union in the major enterprises. This work in the CNS enabled the CCOO to sustain significant growth, converting it into the most important trade union organisation after the death of the dictator, counting 200,000 militants by the end of 1976.
Under the guidance of the Communist Party they began to operate more or less openly in factories and mines. This shop-floor activity by the CCOO (and, though to a far lesser extent, the Unión General de Trabajadores – UGT) prepared the way for the wave of strikes and general strikes of the 1970s. It was this that undermined the regime and lead to its eventual collapse.
The socialist union, the UGT, had a very strong base among the Asturian miners in the 1930s. But it had lost a lot of ground as a result of the ferocious repression under Franco, and was only able to play a very limited role until the early 1970s. During the period we are considering here, the main force by far was the CCOO. However, thanks to the traditions of the past, the UGT still retained a certain prestige, which enabled it gradually to recover lost ground. As a result, the UGT could claim 150,000 militants by early 1977 shortly after emerging from illegality.
Labour unrest underwent an explosive development. There were 777 strikes in 1963, 484 in 1965, and the number soared to 1,595 in 1970. Between the last week of July and the end of September 1963, the Asturian miners again organised a sixty-day-long strike that brought together 40,000-50,000 workers. The strikes resulted in wage increases that frequently exceeded the official guidelines.
Had the PCE put all its efforts into extending the strike movement on a national scale, they could have transformed the entire situation. But the Party leaders had no intention of doing that. Their attentions were fixed elsewhere. The PCE leaders had previously advocated a ‘peaceful general strike’ to bring down the dictatorship. But later, when all the conditions were ripening for a general strike, the slogan mysteriously disappeared.
The Game of Thrones, Part I: The Road to Estoril
Now we must temporarily take our leave of the tumult in the factories and mining villages of Asturias, and turn our attention to the genteel calm and serenity of the royal palace. Only the royal family of Spain did not yet possess a palace worthy of the name, and had not known much calm or serenity since April 1931, when the people of that country took King Alfonso XIII by the scruff of his royal neck and sent him packing.
Ever since then, Spain had remained formally a republic. That status was not officially changed by the victory of Franco. Spain became a sort of kingdom without a king, although Franco occupied that position in all but name. Finally, in 1969, Franco designated the young Juan Carlos as his successor, ignoring the dynastic rules that clearly meant that Juan de Borbón y Battenberg, the legitimate heir of King Alfonso XIII, was the rightful heir to the throne.
At this point, with apologies to the reader, we will be obliged to say something about the tangled intricacies of royal lineage that lie at the heart of the rules of succession. Juan Carlos – or to give him his correct title: Juan Carlos Alfonso Víctor María de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias – was the paternal grandson of Alfonso XIII, the last Bourbon king of Spain, who was ignominiously expelled by the decision of the Spanish people in 1931.
The Bourbon family has a very long, if not very enlightening, history. Since 888 A.D. it furnished seventeen kings of Spain, twenty-nine kings of Portugal, twenty-one kings of Naples, thirteen kings of Hungary, four emperors of the Holy Roman Empire and thirty-seven kings of France. But despite this illustrious record, they did not always end well. The line of French kings that began with Henri IV, ended on 21 January 1793, when Louis XVI mounted the steps of the guillotine in revolutionary Paris. The reign of the Spanish Bourbons came to an equally abrupt end in April 1931 when King Alfonso XIII fled the country after republicans won the local elections in a landslide victory.
Ejected from their ancestral home, the Spanish royal family found a more congenial welcome in Mussolini’s Italy where they settled happily for a while. Don Juan, the third son of Alfonso XIII, became heir-apparent to the defunct Spanish throne following the death of his brother in a car crash. In order to assert his claim to the throne, after his father’s death Don Juan decided to make use of the title of Count of Barcelona. Although he was very far removed from that illustrious city, he thought this title might come in handy, as it was traditionally associated with the Spanish crown.
When in 1936, the fascist generals staged their military uprising against the Popular Front government, which had been democratically elected by the Spanish people, the ex-king Alfonso did not hesitate to take sides. He immediately sent his son and heir Don Juan back to Spain to put himself at the service of the uprising. By thus ingratiating himself with the fascists, he was hoping to regain the throne, for his son if not for himself.
But there was a problem. By this time, the name of King had become so toxic to Spaniards that even the fascists would not touch it. General Mola placed the uninvited royal guest under arrest, and sent him back to his father. Despite this little contretemps, Alfonso loyally supported the fascists throughout the Civil War. On 15 January 1941, Alfonso XIII abdicated his rights to the vacant Spanish throne in favour of his son Juan. He died in Rome on 28 February of that year. Franco declared Spain in mourning, but showed no sign of wanting to restore the monarchy. Why should he, when he held absolute power in the palm of his hand?
After some time in Mussolini’s Italy, Don Juan de Borbón and his family settled in comfortable exile in Portugal where they enjoyed the generous hospitality of another fascist dictator, António de Oliveira Salazar. The royal couple had four children in all: Pilar (1936), Juan Carlos (1938), Margarita (1939) and Alfonso (1941). The last-named died in mysterious circumstances, allegedly killed by his elder brother Juan Carlos in a shooting accident, about which we shall speak shortly.
The pretty little town of Estoril was known as Portugal’s Little Monte Carlo. Its picturesque white, yellow and pink houses were in the Mediterranean style, though unfortunately the real Monte Carlo was far away. There were several hotels, a palm-lined park, a gambling casino, a seaside promenade and a golf course. The climate was pleasant enough. Above all, from the standpoint of impecunious royalty, it was cheap.
Servants in Estoril, for instance, could be hired full time for the equivalent of twelve dollars a month. Even a former king living off his dwindling life savings could afford to keep up appearances at that rate. A dinner at the casino (with wine, a dance orchestra and a floor show) cost as little as $1.75, tips included, so that a viscount with holes in his stockings might enjoy a decent meal from time to time. In short, Estoril was the ideal home for exiled royalty and down-at-heel aristocrats whose fading names can still be found as footnotes in the yellowing pages of history.
This little town had the highest per capita concentration of European ex-kings, would-be kings, dukes, counts and marquises in the world. Here was to be found all the flotsam and jetsam of the throne-less ex-monarchs of Europe. Here King Carol of Romania could rub shoulders with King Umberto of Italy who, not having a country to reign over, ruled over a little society of petty aristocrats and wealthy parvenus instead. There was a man calling himself Count of Paris, who was pretender to a non-existent French throne. Another frequent visitor to the town was the Archduke Otto of Habsburg, who would inherit the Hungarian crown – if only one existed.
Last but by no means least in this illustrious company we have Don Juan de Borbón, the Count of Barcelona, pretender to the vacant, but legally still existing, Spanish throne. Don Juan, Doña Maria, and their children, secretaries, and servants arrived from Switzerland in 1946. He immediately occupied the place of ‘first among equals’ in this exalted company of royal down-and-outs.
Though he happened to be financially well-off, Estoril appealed to him more because it was a) near to Spain, and b) the servants were cheap. They set up headquarters in one of the largest houses in Estoril. A big white house on a hill overlooking the ocean, it used to be the clubhouse of the golf course, and Don Juan was an enthusiastic golfer.
Yet, although he enjoyed every human comfort that could be found in this provincial backwater, Don Juan was not a happy man. The endless rounds of golf, the tedious conversations with the same small crowd of tumbledown toffs, the endless gossip of royal exiles, none of whom would ever regain their throne, although all of them talked as if they were awaiting the call to return at any moment – all of this only made him even more restless, discontented and frustrated.
Unlike the other royal has-beens, Don Juan believed he still had a real chance to regain his throne. The narrow confines of Estoril were like a prison from which he had to escape. Though the man had never been a king, he had high hopes, and it is known that hope springs eternal in the human breast. Hope finally arrived one day in 1947, when Franco suddenly announced that, after he had gone, Spain would once more be a monarchy. He did, though, give himself the right to name the king or regent who would succeed him.
Excellent news! But whether Don Juan would be the person named by the Caudillo was far from clear. Relations between the two men were hardly satisfactory. Ever since Hitler had lost the War, Don Juan had lost his earlier enthusiasm for fascist dictators. The rumour was going around that the Americans might invade Spain to restore democracy. The idea of returning to Madrid on the back of a US military Jeep struck him as oddly appealing, so he was making every effort to win the approval of democratic America.
From his comfortable Portuguese hideaway Don Juan would solemnly announce his willingness to return to reconcile all Spaniards and eliminate the heritage of 1939 by turning the clock back to the glorious years before 1931. Sadly, his generous offer fell on deaf ears. Franco had other plans in mind. General Francisco Franco was beginning to take a fatherly interest in the young Juan Carlos, the eldest son of the Pretender. The problem was that Don Juan had allowed himself the luxury of making outspoken criticisms of the Franco regime, and singing fulsome paeans to the wonders of Democracy.
We do not know what effect they had in Washington, but these alluring hymns to moderation and the reconciliation of all Spaniards were not at all to the liking of the Caudillo, who, beneath his gruff exterior, was known to be a very sensitive little man with a very thin skin. Though he could sign a hundred death sentences and sleep quietly in his bed, he was easily upset by even the mildest criticism. This regrettable human weakness may well have had a physical foundation. Franco was very short: 1.63 metres or 5 foot 4 in stature. When he appeared in photos, the photographer always made sure he was surrounded by men of an even smaller size, in order to create an optical illusion of grandeur. There is one photo that shows him as a tall imposing figure addressing a large crowd from a balcony; seen from the side he is clearly standing on a box. Unlike Hitler, who at least was an effective orator, he spoke in an unpleasantly squeaky voice, which made him an embarrassingly poor public speaker. Such a man will almost invariably be full of psychological complexes. He also had a singularly spiteful and vengeful nature. He never forgot or forgave an insult. He was therefore not likely to forget the affront from the man who would be King.
Franco had decided that the best way of perpetuating his regime was by restoring the House of Bourbon to the Spanish throne – but not by handing it to Don Juan! On 25 August 1948, the Caudillo and the Count of Barcelona met secretly on a Spanish naval ship in the Bay of Biscay and reached a deal. It was decided that Juan Carlos would move to Spain in order to receive a proper (fascist) education under the personal supervision of the Generalissimo himself. Reluctantly, Don Juan accepted. He hardly had any choice. The young Juan Carlos had been going to school in Spain for two years and was already being groomed for an eventual kingship. However, the new situation held out the promise of considerable material benefits, and by accepting it Don Juan would have a far broader scope to pursue his intrigues to place himself on the throne of Spain.
He was well rewarded for his collaboration. An accredited Spanish diplomat, Ramón Padilla, was assigned full-time as a kind of unofficial ambassador to the exiled pretender. Padilla acted as the Count’s aide-de-camp, calling on him each morning at his house, fending off unwelcome visitors, arranging appointments, and acting as a buffer between the Count and the outside world. In this way, Franco could control every visitor to the Count, gain knowledge of all his contacts and limit his relations with enemies of Madrid.
The Countess was not overlooked in these generous arrangements. She obtained the services of an unofficial lady-in-waiting. Every month a different Spanish noblewoman came to Estoril and stayed at the Palacio Hotel. In the morning the Countess picked her up in a station wagon and took her up the hill to spend the day in a most pleasant manner, gossiping about this and that. And, as we know, gossip can be a most valuable source of information, extending to even the most intimate parts of the bedroom.
In this way, the Count of Barcelona and his wife got some degree of recognition, as well as the creation of a kind of royal palace in exile, complete with servants who did not have to be paid, while Franco got a regular flow of information from his spies concerning everything that was going on in Estoril. Better still, Franco now had Juan Carlos in his hands as a hostage for the good behaviour of his father. In short, a highly satisfactory arrangement for all concerned.
In 1950, Juan Carlos returned to Spain to continue his studies under the fatherly supervision of Franco who closely followed the career of his future successor and personally chose his educators. He frequently praised the dictator as a second father. But if Franco was a father, he was a harsh and capricious one. Juan Carlos was under constant surveillance and occasionally had to put up with petty humiliations. Franco was particularly insistent that Juan Carlos should be closely identified with the armed forces, sending him for military training at the Zaragoza General Military Academy, the Marin Naval Academy and the San Javier General Air Force Academy. It was here that he received most of his education, although his fascist instructors deemed him to be of only average intelligence.
In addition to the military influence, Juan Carlos was to be close to the Church, that other bulwark of the dictatorship. His teachers instructed him to pray for the conversion of atheist Russia and for a Conservative election victory in Britain. He was surrounded by members of the ultra-reactionary Catholic Mafia, the Opus Dei, who acted as his advisers. He swore eternal loyalty to the principles of the National Movement. In this way Juan Carlos was being groomed most thoroughly for his role as a faithful disciple and heir of Franco.
The Game of Thrones Part II: A Murky Affair
On 29 March, 1956, Juan Carlos’ younger brother Alfonso, aged fourteen, died in mysterious circumstances at the family residence in Estoril. The future king was aged eighteen when it happened. The royal family issued a laconic statement, which said:
Whilst His Highness the Infante Alfonso was cleaning a revolver last evening with his brother, a shot was fired hitting his forehead and killing him in a few minutes. The accident took place at 20.30 hours, after the Infante’s return from the Maundy Thursday religious service, during which he had received Holy Communion.
Nothing more was said by the palace. The official declaration claims that the boy died from a bullet wound to the head while handling a revolver. The unofficial story was that King Juan Carlos accidentally shot his brother dead, it was initially suggested, by nudging his elbow, causing the gun to fire. The official story is contradicted by other versions, including that of Jaime, brother of Don Juan, who wrote in a letter sent to his secretary: “My dear Ramón: Several friends have confirmed to me recently that it was my nephew Juan Carlos who accidentally killed his brother Alfonso”. Bernardo Arnoso, a friend of Don Juan, later stated that the future king of Spain confessed that he had pointed to Don Alfonso, thinking that it was not loaded, and that he pulled the trigger “to impress him”.
Was it an accident? It is reported that, on hearing of the death of his younger son, Don Juan, deeply disturbed, addressed the older of the two with the words: “Swear to me that you did not do it on purpose!” Those words powerfully suggest that an awful doubt had occurred to him. Was there an argument? Perhaps a case of extreme sibling rivalry? We may never know the truth. What is not in doubt is that the whole matter was immediately silenced.
Jaime, brother of Don Juan and uncle of the dead Alfonso demanded an investigation. He wrote:
I demand that you conduct a criminal investigation because it is my duty as head of the House of Bourbon and because I cannot accept that someone who has failed to fulfil his responsibilities might aspire to the Spanish throne.
The reference was to Juan Carlos.
Don Alfonso was buried in the cemetery of Cascais, at noon on Saturday, 31 March 1956. His brother turned up, wearing a Spanish cadet uniform. But the English historian Paul Preston says that Don Juan, unable to bear the presence of his eldest son, ordered him to return to the Military Academy. A Spanish military plane duly conveyed him to Zaragoza. No investigation was ever held. It seems that Franco intervened personally through his brother, Nicolás Franco, then Spain’s ambassador to Portugal, to protect Juan Carlos by writing a false statement on the incident. The king’s authorised biography makes no mention of the incident. The only thing we can say for certain is that following this accident (if that is what it was) Juan Carlos was alive and his brother was dead.
A Modern Bourbon
Juan Carlos was a modern Bourbon, with all the characteristic traits of the Bourbon family historically. These characteristics were similar to those that Trotsky attributes to the Russian Romanovs: “Passive, patient but vindictive treachery, disguised with a dubious kindliness and affability.” These words adequately describe the character of the future Spanish King, who was quite prepared to sacrifice his father’s (legitimate) claim to the throne in order to further his own interests.
In 1962, Juan Carlos married Princess Sofia of Greece in Athens. The Greek royal family was notorious for its reactionary and pro-fascist leanings. Her role in the Transition has not been given sufficient attention, and is shrouded in secrecy. But her fierce anti-communist views are well known, and her conduct during the attempted coup of 1981 is documented by Juan Carlos’ private secretary, who was astonished to see her and the king toasting the success of the coup with champagne. Oh yes, Sofia was a faithful product of the Greek royal family. But we are anticipating…
In January of 1966, Juan Carlos made a statement to the US news magazine Time in which he swore loyalty to his father: “I will never accept the crown as long as my father is alive.” But what is an oath but a thing of air? And a Bourbon oath is even less than that. The young couple were invited by Franco to set up home in the Palacio de La Zarzuela in Madrid. This was too much for the Count of Barcelona, who suspected that Franco was aiming to deprive him of the throne. His suspicions were well founded.
On 5 March 1966, Juan Carlos was supposed to go to Estoril to attend a meeting of the Count of Barcelona’s Privy Council meeting, held ostensibly in commemoration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of Alfonso XIII. But Franco advised him not to participate, as the real purpose of this gathering was to confirm his father Juan de Borbón y Battenberg as the rightful successor to the Spanish throne. Juan Carlos followed the dictator’s friendly advice, preferring to break with his father in order to prepare his own path to the throne. After all, a father is only a father, but a monarchy is a lot of money.
By accepting the throne, Juan Carlos committed an act of betrayal against his father. But he seemed completely indifferent to it and calmly proceeded to add insult to injury. Having stabbed his father in the back, Juan Carlos wrote asking for his blessing. The latter wrote a furious reply:
What monarchy are you saving? A monarchy that is against your father? You have saved nothing. You want to save a Franco monarchy? I do not agree and I never will. I will never accept that you can be king of Spain without the consent of the monarchy, without passing through the dynasty.
In protest, the Duke stripped his son of the title ‘Prince of Asturias’ – an empty gesture at that late stage in the proceedings. What need did Juan Carlos have of an empty title when Franco was about to present him with a far more glittering prize? In reply, Franco immediately bestowed upon Juan Carlos a far more impressive title: ‘Prince of Spain’ – a title that had never been heard of before but just popped out of the brain of the dictator as a seed pops out of an overripe melon.
It goes without saying that Franco would never have taken this decision to restore the monarchy with Juan Carlos at its head unless he was wholly convinced that the latter was completely integrated into the fascist regime and could be relied upon to guarantee its survival after Franco’s death. In July 1969, the man who was now successor-designate took the oath of office.
In a solemn ceremony that was captured on film for all to see2 a grim-faced Juan Carlos can be seen surrounded by generals, bishops and all manner of state functionaries dressed up to look like the characters in a deck of playing cards. There he stands, as stiff as a broom, swearing a solemn oath of loyalty to the Generalissimo. He swore to uphold the principles of the National Movement, the fascist party founded by Franco. He also swore to uphold the Fundamental Laws of the Realm, that is to say, the laws of the dictatorship.
At that time Juan Carlos lost no opportunity to express allegiance to Franco. In a 1969 interview on French television he said:
General Franco is truly a decisive figure for Spain, both historically and politically. He knew how […] to solve our crisis of 1936. He played a political role that got us out of the Second World War. Over the past thirty years, he has laid the foundations for the development [of the country]. For me, he serves as a living example through his daily patriotic devotion and service to Spain. I have a very great affection and admiration for him.
It is important to note that the only claim to legitimacy that the present monarchy of Spain possesses is that Juan Carlos was nominated by the dictator Franco. Even from the formal standpoint of monarchical inheritance, he would be seen as a cynical usurper. As for any democratic legitimacy, that is simply non-existent. He was the heir to a fascist dictator who came to power over the dead body of Spain. Full stop.
Franco Names His Successor
On 8 June 1973, to the great relief of the Falange establishment, Franco at last gave up his position as head of the Spanish government. He indicated that, in the event of his death, or incapacitation, power would pass to his Vice President, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, an ultra-conservative mediocrity. The Admiral’s new political flagship was decorated with an elaborate wooden figurehead in the shape of Don Juan Carlos de Borbón y Borbón, the pretender to the Spanish throne, who had been groomed by Franco as the new head of state.
Franco’s choice may have been entirely to the satisfaction of the narrow-minded reactionaries of the Falange, but it provided small comfort to the ‘liberal’ faction of the regime around the Catholic lay organisation, the Opus Dei. This Catholic Mafia, representing the more far-sighted sector of Spanish big business, rightly feared that Franco’s death could trigger a social explosion that would place in danger not only the survival of the regime, but the very future of capitalism in Spain. They would have preferred a less compromised figure, such as Foreign Minister López Bravo. But it was not to be.
The aged dictator had sworn to continue to “govern while God gives me life and clarity of judgment”. But the regime was already shaking at the foundations. Just six days later, the new government was faced with the mightiest challenge to the regime to date. Spain was now the scene of many conflicts, strikes and protests. An important trial of a group of ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, Basque Homeland and Liberty) militants in Burgos added a new element to the already-charged atmosphere.
This had serious repercussions both inside and outside the frontiers of Spain. The real aim of the 1970 Burgos Show Trial was to execute sixteen ETA members, arrested after an attack that had killed Superintendent Melitón Manzanas. But the whole thing backfired badly.
The trial, which attracted international attention, became a focal point in the struggle against the Francoist regime and marked the beginning of the end of the dictatorship. There were big protest demonstrations both inside Spain and abroad.
From the accused bench, the defendants showed great courage, denouncing the national, ethnic and linguistic oppression suffered by the Basque people. The defendants, all but two of them, were under thirty. The older men were priests. Abrisqueta was the first to take the stand. The New York Times of 7 December carried an account of his answers to his lawyers’ questions:
Q. Are you a member of ETA?
A. Yes, certainly.
Q. Since when?
A. Since I first became aware of social oppression.
Q. Didn’t the Basque national movement end with the Civil War?
A. In 1939 the Basque people joined the Spanish people in fighting fascism.
Q. Don’t you think there can be evolution in Spain?
A. In Spain there is no evolution.
Mr. Abrisqueta told how the police had laid an ambush for him and two of his comrades in their apartment in Bilbao. They went in, he said, and from the next room, without warning, the police began shooting. Mario Onaindía was hit in the chest.
“They threw him on a bed and began questioning him,” Mr. Abrisqueta related. “He was screaming that he needed a doctor and they told him he was just getting what he deserved.” He told the court, packed with spectators, journalists and policemen, that at the police headquarters he had to run a gauntlet of thirty policemen and was given “a terrible beating.”
It was only when a lawyer asked him about a specific form of torture called “the operating table” (the victim’s legs are held down on a table while his torso, hanging over the edge without support, is beaten) that the presiding judge, Col. Manuel Ordovas, ordered the lawyer to change the subject and go on to something else.
In the end, largely as a result of international pressure, Franco was forced to commute the death penalties. Many workers were detained or fired from their jobs for participating in demonstrations, strikes or illegal meetings in those days. Others fell under the bullets of the police. But the workers’ movement could not be tamed by means of repression. Practically every day Spain was rocked by new shocks: general strikes in San Adrián and Pamplona, a police mutiny, the dismissal of the Cabinet, angry demonstrations by priests.
A further report in the New York Times on 4 December 1970 reported on the unrest and protests caused by the Burgos Trial:
The northern provinces of Guipúzcoa and Vizcaya were jammed with police reinforcements that rolled in throughout the night. Perhaps 100,000 workers in Bilbao, San Sebastián and a dozen smaller towns were on strike to protest the court‐martial.
A number of clashes, none especially serious, took place during the day. Tonight, there were reports of a large demonstration in the industrial section of San Sebastián and of smaller demonstrations in Barcelona, Valencia and Seville.
Just as the waves of the ocean, pounding against mighty cliffs, wears away the strongest granite, so the mighty waves of strikes in Spain undermined the basis of the dictatorship. It was during this elemental wave of strikes that the Spanish proletariat began to shake off the lethargy of previous decades and reawaken the old militant traditions. The strikes acted approximately as a kind of limbering up whereby an athlete, following a period of inactivity, begins to stretch his limbs, preparing for a great leap forward.
At the start of the 1970s, a series of workers’ mobilisations took place that revealed the high and growing level of militancy. In March 1972, Spain was rocked by the general strike of Ferrol that ended with two workers – Amador Rey and Daniel Niebla – being shot dead by the police with many others wounded. The government responded by authorising the Ministry of the Navy to militarise the 6,000 workers of Bazán Shipyards “for the time it deems necessary.” The conflict in Ferrol, which soon spread to other areas of the country, posed a direct threat to the regime, which was powerless to halt the wave of strikes that was sweeping the country.
In 1970, there were four times the number of strikes as in 1969 and in 1971, two-and-a-half times the number in 1970. There were many victims in this struggle. Many workers lost their lives in confrontations with the police and hundreds more were detained or sacked from their jobs for participating in demonstrations, strikes or illegal meetings. The curve of the strike movement was moving sharply upwards.
A report of the official Sindicato published in Gaceta del Norte3 gives details of the situation in 1973. Some 11,120,250 working hours were lost through industrial disputes compared to 6,500,000 in 1972. That is to say, in 1973, Spain lost more time through strikes than West Germany, Belgium, Holland and Denmark together.
The rising cost of living undermined workers’ living standards. Unofficial sources put the rise as high as forty per cent in relation to basic necessities. The Spanish workers found it increasingly hard to purchase the basic necessities of life.
No amount of repression could halt the movement of the working class. It was the real backbone and driving force of the struggle against the dictatorship. All other oppressed layers and classes rallied to the side of the workers: students, intellectuals, artists and singers, the oppressed nationalities, women and the youth. In a word, all the living forces of Spanish society were mobilised for the struggle for freedom.
The Spanish proletariat, its ranks renewed by fresh layers recruited during the industrial upswing, learned about politics under the most difficult conditions. Its parties and trade unions were illegal, as were strikes. In 1973, a general strike was declared in Pamplona, which elected a strike committee consisting of representatives of all the most important enterprises.
The increase in labour conflicts was accompanied by a growth in the importance and influence of the underground trade union movement. The old anarcho-syndicalist CNT (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo – National Confederation of Labour), had been the biggest trade union force in Spain before 1939, but lost its base in the period of underground struggle and was reduced to a marginal force with no influence in the working class.
In the Basque region, ELA-STV (in Basque, Eusko Langileen Alkartasuna [ELA], in Spanish, Solidaridad de Trabajadores Vascos [STV] – Basque Workers’ Solidarity), the trade union wing of the PNV (Partido Nacionalista Vasco, Basque Nationalist Party), also made a belated reappearance.
There were several smaller left-wing unions, notably the CSUT (Confederación de Sindicatos Unitarios de Trabajadores, Unitarian Workers’ Trade Union Confederation) and the SU (Unitary Trade Union), both originally of Maoist inspiration, which had a certain strength in some areas, notably the SU in Navarre. The church’s activities on the labour front led to the creation of USO (Unión Sindical Obrera). The USO entered into competition with the UGT, but had a very small base and the two ended up fusing.
The socialist UGT was historically linked to the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español – PSOE). Traditionally strong in areas like Asturias and the Basque Country, it now lagged far behind the CCOO, which enjoyed a far superior organisation and, in most areas, a far larger base in the working class.
The Workers’ Commissions were a force to be reckoned with. In 1971, the CCOO managed to capture a very significant segment of the enlaces and jurados positions in the Sindicato elections held that year. These successes provoked panic in the leading circles.
Like a wounded beast, the regime lashed out blindly. In 1972, the entire national leadership of the CCOO, with Marcelino Camacho at their head, were arrested. The proceedings against them have gone down in history as ‘the 1,001 Court Process’, after the number of their legal case. A major international mobilisation was held across a whole number of countries demanding their release and an end to the dictatorship.
In the hope of forestalling mass protests while preserving a tough image for the benefit of its own ranks, the regime’s leaders decided on a snap trial before Christmas. But it received a most unexpected and unwelcome Christmas present when their carefully laid plans blew up in their faces – literally.
The Assassination of Admiral Carrero Blanco
The trial of the CCOO leaders was expected to start on 20 December 1973. But on that very day, all Spain was rocked to its foundations by a dramatic event. It was a freezing cold morning in Madrid when, at 9.35 am, a black Dodge Dart drove down Claudio Coello Street, in the smart Salamanca district of the capital. Inside the vehicle were Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco, his driver and a police inspector.
When the Dodge reached house number 104 of that street, it was forced to slow down to avoid a collision with a double-parked Austin. At precisely 9.36 am, ETA member Jesús Zugarramurdi (‘Kiskur’) made a sign to another man on a ladder, dressed in electrician’s overalls. The man pressed the button and all hell was let loose. A tremendous bomb blast rocked the centre of Madrid. ETA had blown up the Prime Minister and effective-ruler of Spain, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco.
It was just a quarter of an hour before the trial was due to commence.
From a strictly military and technical point of view, it was an impressive achievement. The assassination had been meticulously planned for months. A powerful bomb was placed in a tunnel dug below the street where Carrero Blanco’s car passed every day. The bomb blew up beneath the politician’s car. There were enough high explosives to blow the car into the air, landing on the roof of a four-storey building.
From ETA’s point of view, it was certainly a spectacular success. Admiral Carrero Blanco was seen as a key target by ETA. One of Franco’s closest henchmen, he was in charge of carrying out repressive policies and counter-insurgency. As head of the intelligence service (SECED), he was responsible for implementing states of emergency, the systematic use of torture, the shoot-to-kill policies and the murderous activities of the death squads.
The ETA people were naturally elated by their success. For years after, people in the Basque Country celebrated the event with a humorous song, accompanied with the tossing of an effigy from a blanket high in the air in memory of the Admiral’s final airborne journey. But apart from an element of grim satisfaction among the enemies of the dictatorship, it merely showed the futility of terrorism. The mistake of terrorists is to imagine that the power of the state rests upon individual ministers, bureaucrats and police chiefs. Eliminate them and one disorganises the state and renders it powerless, while encouraging the masses to rise up against it.
This is false in theory and counterproductive in practice. The state does not rest upon individuals, but is the organised power of the ruling class. Eliminate one reactionary minister and they will be replaced by an even more reactionary figure. Far from weakening the state, terrorist actions inevitably serve to strengthen it. All history bears witness to this fact. Let us remember that, in 1881, the Russian terrorist organisation Narodnaya Volya succeeded in assassinating Tsar Alexander II. But the elimination of the figure at the apex of the hated autocracy simultaneously dealt the deathblow to the so-called party of the People’s Will which had organised it. The very successes of the terrorists contained the seeds of their own disintegration.
The assassination of the tsar unleashed a reign of repression in which the terror of the individual against ministers and policemen gave way to the terror of the entire state apparatus against the revolutionary movement in general. The new Procurator General, the minister Pobedonostsev, promised a reign of “iron and blood” to wipe out the terrorists. A series of draconian laws gave the government sweeping new powers of arrest, censorship and deportation, which affected not only the revolutionaries, but even the most moderate liberal tendencies.
In the same way, the assassination of Carrero Blanco provided a convenient excuse for the immediate unleashing of a new reign of terror against the organisation of the working class built up under illegal conditions in the underground. The former deputy prime minister Torcuato Fernández-Miranda was now Prime Minister. He was the head of the National Movement into which the Fascist Falange had been absorbed. Fernández-Miranda hastened to promise that: “order will be maintained with maximum firmness”. His words were immediately followed by deeds.
The regime answered the attack with brutal severity. The following day a nineteen-year-old ‘suspect’ was shot. The police in central Madrid used the situation as an excuse to brutally attack the 5,000-strong queue waiting to observe the trial of the Carabanchel Ten. Over the following months, the Basque Country was in a constant state of emergency, and thousands of people were arrested. For instance, in 1975, 4,625 people were arrested in massive police raids, and 628 prisoners were serving a total of 3,500-year sentences in Spanish prisons. The government responded with new and even more draconian anti-terrorist laws, giving the police greater powers and empowered military tribunals to pass death sentences.
Negative Consequences
The methods of terrorists downplay the importance of the self-organisation of the working class. They attempt to replace it with the pistol, the bomb and the actions of a small minority of dedicated individuals acting in the name of the workers. Such methods are not only futile but counterproductive, placing an obstacle in the way of the development of class consciousness.
If we can end oppression through force of arms alone, then why do we need political parties? Why do we need trade unions? For that matter, why do we even need a socialist revolution? That is why Marxism has always combated the harmful idea of individual terror as a method of struggle. The only way to advance the cause of the revolution is through the conscious movement of the working class: mass strikes and demonstrations that are the preparatory school for the taking of power.
Some people have attempted to build up a picture of ETA as an important factor in the struggle against the Franco dictatorship. But in fact, the mass struggles of the workers in Bilbao, Pamplona, Vitoria and the industrial towns and villages of Guipúzcoa were a thousand times more important than the isolated cases of ‘armed struggle’ – that of the assassination of Carrero Blanco included.
Soon after, the Madrid Court of Franco’s Spain meted out savage sentences to the Carabanchel Ten. Eduardo Saborido, an aircraft worker, received twenty years and six months; Marcelino Camacho, twenty years; and the worker priest García Salve was put in a special prison for priests for nineteen years.
The announcement of the verdict coincided with the naming of the new prime minister, the reactionary Carlos Arias Navarro, who had been brought into the cabinet in June 1973 as Minister of the Interior as part of a concession to the Falange and police apparatus following the mutiny within the Civil Guard and political police after the killing of one of their ranks in the May Day demonstrations in Madrid.
This verdict, together with the massive round of arrests and torture following the assassination of Carrero Blanco, only served to intensify the mood of seething anger among the workers.
[1] Álvaro Soto Carmona ‘Long Cycle of Social Conflict in Spain (1868-1986)’, Review [Fernand Braudel Center], vol. 16, no. 2, 1993, pp. 173-197.
[2] It is available on the RTVE Archive, 2019, ‘Don Juan Carlos de Borbón nombrado “sucesor al título de Rey” (22 de julio 1969)’.
[3] Gaceta del Norte, 5 June 1974.