9. The Communist Party
The PCE emerged from the period of the dictatorship as the strongest and most influential party within the labour movement. It played a key role in the underground workers’ movement. In its ranks were to be found some of the most militant of class-conscious workers who frequently stood at the head of strikes and demonstrations at this time. As the result of years of consistent underground work, the Communist Party enjoyed a commanding position in the workers’ movement.
The PCE’s leading role in the CCOO union ensured its control of the heavy battalions of the working class, organised in the largest and most important factories. It also enabled the PCE to win over an increasing number of militants and develop its influence. In addition, the outstanding role that it played in the struggles to improve conditions in working-class neighbourhoods, through the creation of Neighbourhood Associations, also endowed the organisation with tremendous authority.
Through the efforts of its courageous and seasoned cadres, the PCE carried out systematic clandestine work during the dictatorship years. Many of its cadres had years of experience in the Civil War, imprisonment and torture behind them. These were completely self-sacrificing militants for whom ‘the Party’ represented their raison d’être. Through its struggle, the PCE contributed numerous martyrs to the cause of the fight against the dictatorship and, justifiably, its elimination became a priority for the Franco regime.
The PCE was virtually the only workers’ organisation that carried out systematic clandestine work uninterruptedly under the dictatorship. The anarchists, who had been the most numerous and militant section of the working class in the 1930s had virtually ceased to exist as an organised force. The Socialist Party and the UGT were present in the underground in places like Asturias, Bilbao and Seville, but did not have anything remotely resembling the strength of the communists.
My experiences of the underground work in Barcelona soon confirmed these impressions. But there was a deep contradiction at the heart of this party, and it would destroy it in the end. The main plank of the leadership’s programme was the need to curry favour with the liberals, or even the so-called reformist wing of the Franco regime. In time, this became something of an obsession. They did everything in their power to limit the militancy of the workers’ movement and to give the Party a moderate appearance. Although in theory they stood for communism, in practice the positions that they adopted were openly reformist.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Carrillo began to push the PCE in that direction. This was by no means self-evident to the majority of its activists, over whom the party leadership exercised tremendous authority. The majority of the Party leaders were in exile, having spent years in Moscow. That gave them an almost mystical authority in the eyes of the members.
Courageous and self-sacrificing, these workers had nevertheless been trained in the school of the Stalinist Communist Party. In that school they learnt the art of clandestine work and discipline, which undoubtedly was a big advantage in the prevailing conditions in Spain. But there was another side to the coin.
The communist workers were often in the vanguard, in spite of, not because of, the leadership. Numerous PCE militants were killed or imprisoned for long periods, becoming martyrs to the cause of the struggle against the dictatorship. This contributed enormously to the authority of the Party in the eyes of the working class. However, the Communist Party was no longer the revolutionary democratic party of Lenin and Trotsky, but the bureaucratic caricature that was Stalinism.
The PCE was highly centralised and extremely bureaucratised. Centralisation was obviously made necessary by the exigencies of underground work, but that gave the leadership an excuse to exaggerate the tendency towards bureaucratisation. In underground party cells, what the workers learned was not revolutionary discipline, which was absolutely necessary, but blind obedience to the leaders, which was harmful in the extreme. They were taught to obey without question. This ingrained habit of blind obedience was to play a fatal role.
An interlude in Moscow
I first became acquainted with the name of Santiago Carrillo in 1970. At the time, I was studying at MGU, the Moscow State University, as part of my PhD course. Getting on the train in Victoria station on my way to Moscow my attention was drawn to a middle-aged man with grey hair and a moustache, with all the appearance of a retired British army officer. I noticed that he spoke Russian to the other passengers with a strong English accent, a trait which I used to describe as ‘Foreign Office Russian’.
I was rather surprised that an agent of the British Foreign Office would be travelling in the second-class compartment, and even more surprised that he should be conversing with Russians, most of whom would be members of the staff of the Soviet embassy in London. My suspicions aroused, I decided that it would be better to keep some distance from this gentleman.
However, when we reached the Hook of Holland, we ended up in the same sleeping compartment. In order to avoid contact, I retired to the restaurant car. But then something strange occurred. As we crossed the border into East Germany, the immigration officials entered our compartment and I noticed that my fellow passenger produced a red passport. This was a document issued to foreigners by the Soviet Government. I was surprised. “Excuse me,” I said. “I see you have a red passport.” “Yes, I am a citizen of the Soviet Union,” he answered. He then told me quite an amazing story about himself.
His name was Tom Botting and, when I met him, he was working for the English language department of Radio Moscow. He was from a fairly prosperous middle-class family in Sussex, in the south of England (as it happened, I had been studying in Sussex University). But in the 1930s he joined the Labour League of Youth, the youth wing of the Labour Party. When the Spanish Civil War broke out, he left for Spain to join the International Brigades to fight Franco.
While in Spain he formed a relationship with a woman from Asturias, the daughter of a coal-miner and a member of the Communist Party. After the defeat in 1939, believing that his wife would not be admitted to England, he decided they should both go to Moscow. This was the first time he had returned to England since then. His one surviving sister, along with the rest of his family, thought he was dead. By the time I had met him, he had separated from his Spanish wife. They had two sons, both of them serving in the Soviet Army. They were handsome lads, and he proudly showed me photos of them in army uniform. They were both of dark complexion, and looked very Spanish.
I asked Tom about his experiences in Stalin’s Russia. He was very frank about it. Together with other foreigners who had taken refuge in Russia, he had had a very difficult time. Foreigners in general, including, perhaps especially, foreign communists were treated with suspicion. The atmosphere of suspicion among the exiles was quite poisonous. There was always the suspicion that somebody would denounce you for something or other, and the consequences could be extremely serious.
Tom got a job in a factory, but he also was continually under surveillance. He noticed one day that a very good friend of his, an Italian who had fought in the International Brigades, suddenly stopped talking to him. At first, he could not understand this. Then he found out that this man had been requesting permission to leave the Soviet Union to go back to Italy. His request was refused, and he assumed that Tom had denounced him. After that, Tom broke off all relations with him. They had been inseparable friends and comrades on the battlefield of the Civil War, but their friendship did not survive the inhuman regime of Stalinism.
Despite his bad experiences, like many others, Tom remained totally loyal to the Soviet Union. He remained a convinced socialist, although I do not think he ever joined the Communist Party. He questioned me a lot about politics in Britain, especially the Left. He was particularly interested in the fact that there were so many Trotskyist groups on demonstrations he had seen. I answered his questions, without revealing too much about my own views. But Tom was astute enough to put two and two together and make four. Seeing my interest in Marxism, he offered to introduce me to two very old ladies who had worked with Lenin and Trotsky in the Kremlin immediately after the Revolution. That was a very memorable encounter.
I regret to say that I have forgotten the names of those old ladies. I took no notes of the conversation, which was purely informal. But I remember what was said very well. They were living in a modest dacha in the countryside, not very far from Moscow. It was a warm spring day. Given their advanced age, we did not stay for long, and the conversation was brief and entirely anecdotal, but quite interesting.
I asked them about their memories of Lenin. They both clearly adored him. They said that Lenin did not care much about his personal comfort. There was an old chair in his office that was in bad repair with a nail sticking out. He would often tear his trousers on that nail, and they would try to mend them as best they could. But it never occurred to him to ask for another chair. A small incident, but one that faithfully conveys an idea of the modest living conditions of the leader of the first Soviet Government, a very far cry from the lavish lifestyle of Brezhnev and the other leaders of the Stalinist USSR.
Then, to my surprise, Tom asked them: “Did you know Trotsky?” I expected them to be taken aback by the question, but I was wrong. “Lev Davidovich? Yes of course I knew him. You know, I couldn’t stand that man.” She then went on to recall the following incident. One day Lenin gave her a parcel marked “Urgent, for the attention of Comrade Trotsky.” She went to his office, but he was not there. Not knowing what to do, she picked up a phone and rang his apartment in the Kremlin. An irritated voice answered that she should not ring him at his private number. That little incident forever determined her attitude towards Leon Trotsky. It is very probable that her memory had been shaped by many years of Stalinist falsification. The human memory, as we know, is highly selective.
The reason I mention Tom Botting is that his experience in Stalinist Russia must cast some light on the experience of another foreign exile at that time. After the Republic’s defeat in 1939, like Tom, Santiago Carrillo fled to Moscow. There are obviously differences between his experience and Tom’s. But one must not suppose that life was any easier for a leading Spanish Communist than for anyone else. Quite the opposite, in fact. Many foreign communists had fallen victim to Stalin’s purges. In order to survive, Carrillo would have had to tread very carefully indeed.
He would have to tow the Stalinist party line 101 per cent. He would have to be prepared to inform on his comrades, denouncing even the slightest deviation to the authorities. He would have to show extreme servility to his Soviet bosses, and extreme disloyalty to everybody else. In a word, he would have to faithfully serve the interests of the Soviet bureaucracy. The fact that he maintained himself in such an environment, and even advanced his career, indicates that he fulfilled these conditions admirably. This enabled him gradually to climb up the ladder of the hierarchy of the Spanish Communist Party, finally becoming its secretary general in late 1959.
Although Tom Botting was not, I believe, a member of the Spanish Communist Party, he showed a keen interest in its affairs. One day, he came up to me, triumphantly waving a copy of a newspaper. It was the first issue of Mundo Obrero with a red masthead, and it was edited by Enrique Lister, the veteran Spanish Stalinist. He was leading a split in the PCE against the leadership of Carrillo in the early 1970s. “See this, Alan? The game’s up. Carrillo is finished!” Tom’s optimism was premature. Santiago Carrillo was not yet finished. He had another decade to go – and what a decade that was.
Eurocommunism and National Reconciliation
The split with Lister that so excited my friend Tom was the result of the intense antagonism between the Eurocommunist trend, of which Santiago was the most outspoken proponent, and the pro-Moscow Stalinist faction. The general secretary, Santiago Carrillo, was opposed by Enrique Lister, who enjoyed the full support of the Kremlin. He accused Carrillo of anti-Sovietism, nationalism, revisionism and other heinous crimes. But Carrillo kept control of the apparatus of the Party. Lister’s faction was forced to split from the Communist Party of Spain, which remained in the hands of Santiago Carrillo and Dolores Ibarruri.
The phenomenon known as Eurocommunism reflected a desire on the part of the leaders of European Communist Parties to break free from the suffocating control of Moscow and become masters of their own house. For decades, the leaders of the PCE had been under the influence of Stalinism, slavishly following the dictates of the Moscow bureaucracy.
By the late 1960s, however, Carrillo was astute enough to realise that his links with Moscow, which hitherto had been the key to his success, were rapidly becoming a hindrance to his further advancement. The Communist Party of Spain, which had been one of the most slavish followers of the Moscow line, was now among the communist parties which went furthest in its break from Moscow, as shown by its condemnation of the Soviet military intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968.
As early as 1928, Leon Trotsky had predicted that if the Communist International accepted the theory of socialism in one country, it would inevitably lead to the national reformist degeneration of every communist party in the world, whether in or out of power. With a delay of forty years, his prediction was shown to be true. To the degree that the Eurocommunist leaders ceased to be under the control of Moscow, they became increasingly dependent on their own national bourgeoisie.
To this end, the Spanish Communist Party had to make sure that it was seen as a respectable and moderate political option that presented no threat to the capitalist system or even to that section of the Franco regime that was prepared to recognise it. Everything else was to be subordinated to this one overriding aim. The rank and file of the Communist Party of Spain had to be instructed to do nothing that might interfere with it.
One might ask how it was possible to speak of reconciliation in a country where fascism had triumphed over the dead bodies of the Spanish proletariat, a country whose prisons were still full of socialists, communists and republicans, and whose government showed not the slightest interest in reconciling itself to anyone, least of all the Communist Party.
Actually, the origins of the line pursued by Santiago Carrillo in the 1970s can be traced back to the policy adopted by the PCE as early as 1956 that was designated as the policy of National Reconciliation. Their perspective was a ‘democratic’ agreement with the heirs of the Franco regime. The resolution of the Central Committee of the PCE of June 1956, approved on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, reads as follows:
In the present situation, and as the twentieth anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War approaches, the Communist Party of Spain solemnly declares its willingness to contribute without reservation to the national reconciliation of Spaniards, to end the division opened by the Civil War and maintained by General Franco […] There exists in all the social strata of our country the desire to end the artificial division of the Spaniards in ‘reds’ and ‘nationals’, to feel citizens of Spain, respected in their rights, guaranteed in their life and freedom, contributing with their effort and their knowledge to the national good.
And it added:
The Communist Party of Spain, on the eve of the anniversary of 18 July, calls on all Spaniards, from Monarchists, Christian Democrats and Liberals, to Republicans, Basque nationalists, Catalans and Galicians, the CNT and Socialists to proclaim, as a goal common to all, national reconciliation.1
It is difficult to read these lines today without a sense of profound outrage: “Artificial division of the Spaniards into ‘reds’ and ‘nationals’”! As if the Civil War had never taken place, as if hundreds of thousands of people had not been killed, or driven into exile, or a whole generation of workers had not been subjected to the tender mercies of a ferocious dictatorship!
The policy of alliances with the liberal bourgeoisie was consistently opposed by Lenin. But it became like second nature to the Stalinists. One might say that it made up an integral part of their genetic inheritance. Although the Stalinists occasionally adopted an ultra-left zigzag, the general line was always the same, it followed the path of least resistance, of subordinating class politics to the lowest common denominator – that is, to the interests of the bourgeois allies. This applied even when these allies represented nobody but themselves. In such cases, the minority imposes its interests upon the majority. The tail always wags the dog.
The so-called Freedom Pact, together with the Alliance of the forces of Labour and Culture (Alianza de las fuerzas del Trabajo y de la Cultura), formed the basis of the tactics and strategy of the PCE throughout the 1970s. The PCE was desperately looking for allies in the fight against the dictatorship. It toned down its language in an effort to appear moderate and respectable. For the first time since the Civil War the Communist Party declared its willingness to collaborate, without conditions, with anyone that was willing to unite under the banner of national reconciliation in order “to put an end to the fratricidal conflict between Spaniards.”
The slogan of national reconciliation was intended as a sly wink to the bourgeois liberals, as if to say: “Don’t worry, we communists are not as bad as you think. Just link up with us and we will guarantee that you will not end up before a firing squad. Instead, you can join a government of national reconciliation alongside nice, respectable communist ministers.”
At the same time, they would reassure sceptical communist workers by whispering in their ear: “Don’t worry, comrade. This is only a tactic. We will fool these gentlemen, use them for our own purposes, then we will push them aside and get out the red flag.” The CP workers would sigh, shrug their shoulders and say: “Well, if it is only a tactic… I guess our leaders know what they are doing…”
The Democratic Junta
The policy of the Spanish Communist Party was the very antithesis of the ideas of Lenin, and amounted to a programme of open class collaborationism. The united front of workers’ parties on the programme of a Socialist Spain was discarded by the PCE, and replaced with the ‘Freedom Pact’ – a Popular Front of ‘all progressive forces’ – including monarchists and ‘progressive’ fascists. Santiago Carrillo was to claim that the only way forward, without violence, was “this convergence of the working class with the popular masses, and including also the capitalists.”2
What kind of ‘convergence’ was this? This peculiar creature, which finally made its public debut on 30 July 1974, was intended to be the axis of a broad democratic opposition. But this broad base turned out to be very narrow indeed. Apart from the PCE and the Workers’ Commissions, which it effectively controlled, the Left was represented only by the tiny People’s Socialist Party of Enrique Tierno Galván and several regional groups in Andalusia. The PTE, a small Maoist party, joined later.
What of the ‘progressive bourgeoisie’? There were a number of individuals who represented nobody but themselves. Among the latter was Rafael Calvo Serer, a Catalan businessman. In addition to being a member of the reactionary Catholic Mafia known as the Opus Dei, he was also a counsellor to Juan de Borbón (Juan Carlos’ father), who once declared that “the freedom of speech leads to demagogy, ideological confusion and pornography.” There had been high hopes that His Majesty would honour them with his presence. However, the man in Estoril was worried that such a bold measure might destroy the monarchy, so in the end he honoured the Junta with his absence.
The PCE leaders were offering their services to the bourgeoisie against the ‘chaos and anarchy’ that threatened to sweep them away together with the dictatorship. In this context the slogan of a general strike was transformed from an instrument for changing society, by means of a mass movement from below, into a lever in the hands of a small group of unrepresentative bourgeois politicians to be used to put pressure on the regime for concessions. When Santiago Carrillo declared that the Franco regime was in crisis and “did not offer the best conditions to guarantee the interests and profits of the Spanish bosses,” it was to these insignificant elements, not to the workers that he was speaking.
Here we no longer have the self-mobilisation of the working class, a movement that expressed the will of the most revolutionary elements in society. Instead, the working class were transformed into so much small change to be used as a bargaining counter by elements entirely alien to it. Instead of being protagonists, the workers who have done all the fighting and made all the sacrifices are to be reduced to the role of mere passive spectators of the great spectacle of negotiations, wheeler dealing and sell-outs at the top. Here in a nutshell is the central contradiction of the Spanish Revolution of the 1970s and its inevitable destruction.
To tell the truth, the only real forces in this alliance were the PCE and the Workers’ Commissions. In the days of the Roman Republic, when Julius Caesar was joint consul with the conservative Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, people used to joke about “the consulship of Julius and Caesar”. When we analyse the real content of the so-called Democratic Junta, we can speak with equal conviction of the convergence of Santiago and Carrillo.
Did anyone take these heroes of Spanish Liberalism seriously? The police? Hardly. The regime? No, they were legally tolerated. The workers? They were too busy shedding their blood to win the freedom the Liberals only talked about. Who then? The answer is found in the Stalinist World Marxist Review3 where we read the following:
Diverse political factors have come together for joint struggle against Fascism – Communists, Socialists, members of Workers’ Commissions, some Monarchists and those members of the business world who understand that the Franco regime is an obstacle to economic growth.
Presenting this comical farce in glorious technicolour, Sam Russell, writing in the British CP newspaper Morning Star,4 talked of “the liberty-loving lawyers of Spain”, bolstering up the image of men like Don Jaime Miralles, whom even Russell himself was obliged to describe as “an honoured captain of fascism” up to the time when, for some unknown reason, he became a “liberty-loving lawyer”.
The PCE Executive Committee naturally issued a triumphant statement:
Compatriots, if a dialogue, a convergence of all the forces interested in the step from the dictatorship to democracy succeeds, drawing itself above the Civil War of the past and thus creating a new climate of civil co-operation which will bring Spain closer to Europe and to the world of today … The Communist Party has maintained for many years that Spain needs a real national reconciliation.
On 30 July, Carrillo and the liberal editor, Rafael Calvo Serer, announced the programme of the Junta: a Provisional Government “pending democratic elections,” amnesty for political prisoners, the legalisation of political parties “without exception” (a note of anxiety from Comrade Carrillo lest his party be forgotten when the portfolios were distributed), free trade unions, the right to strike, assemble and peacefully demonstrate, a free press, an independent judiciary, the limitation of the role of the armed forces to defence only, “regional autonomy” for the Basques, Catalans and Galicians, the separation of the Church and State, a plebiscite to decide the future political system and the integration of Spain in the European Economic Community.
Very nice. But there was a small problem here. No genuine democratic change was feasible without the overthrow of the dictatorship. But it is precisely on this central question that the PCE leaders had nothing to say. They had previously called for “a peaceful general strike”. Under a regime where even the smallest strike or demonstration is met with the violence of the state, how could a general strike, which precisely poses the question of power, be peaceful? One might ask, what became of the ‘progressive’ bourgeois elements whose names adorn every one of the manifestos and petitions of the period? The vast majority later disappeared without leaving any trace and certainly without playing any notable role in the fight against the dictatorship, which was being played out on the streets, in the factories and mines of Spain.
The ‘Democratic Platform’
The Socialist Party (PSOE) claimed approximately 10,000 members at the time of the death of the dictator, although the accuracy of this figure may be doubtful. Certainly, it was a far smaller party than the PCE and with infinitely weaker roots in the working class. Despite this, it remained an important traditional organisation of the class in the minds of millions of workers, and this fact would make itself felt a few years later. Moreover, it became a pole of attraction for thousands of sincerely revolutionary workers and youth who were repelled by the bureaucratic centralism of the PCE.
Initially the PSOE had opposed the Democratic Junta from a ‘left’ position. But in reality, like the UGT’s opposition to the PCE’s policy of participating in the Vertical Trade Union, it was dictated by weakness. The PSOE leaders were afraid that if they participated in the Junta, they would find themselves playing second fiddle to the PCE. The PSOE needed its own ‘broad front’, to rival that of the PCE. That was the real origin of the Democratic Convergence Platform (Plataforma de Convergencia Democrática – PCD).
It is often said that the rats will instinctively desert the sinking ship. This same instinct for survival was what prompted a growing number of former Franco supporters to leap overboard once they understood that the vessel that had served them so well was floundering on a stormy sea. It goes without saying that none of them had ever shown the slightest inclination towards democracy until pressing circumstances demanded it. Like the Democratic Junta, the Democratic Convergence included former Francoists such as Joaquín Ruíz-Giménez and Dionisio Ridruejo. There was no fundamental difference between the two. They were a reflection of the bitter rivalry between two parties: the PCE and the PSOE.
There followed an undignified scramble, with a tacit acceptance by the regime, to create ‘democratic’ organisations such as the so-called Popular Democratic Federation, led by Gil Robles, the former leader of the Clerical Fascist party, the CEDA. The Times5 published a list of organisations, which were tolerated or semi-tolerated and that claimed to be democratic, in spite of the fact that many were led by former Franco ministers.
In reality, the PCD was no broader than its rival, and probably a lot narrower. It included, apart from the PSOE and its union, the UGT, a number of small social-democratic outfits from different regions, the Maoist ORT, the Basque Advisory Council, plus assorted liberals and Christian-democrats. The Platform did not try to co-operate with the Junta to establish a militant alliance to plan strikes and mass demonstrations. Such an idea was very far from the minds of these champions of Democracy. The aim was not to overthrow the regime but to enter into negotiation with it, to persuade it to do a deal with the Opposition. But which Opposition? Ah! That was the question.
The ‘Platajunta’
In the first year after Franco’s death, the PCE was apparently in a very strong position. It claimed to have a membership of 150,000 and its newspaper Mundo Obrero had a print-run of 200,000 per issue. Members of the PCE were active in all the struggles to improve conditions in working-class neighbourhoods. These activities gave the PCE a colossal authority, not only in the workplaces but in the workers’ districts. But the leaders were nervous. The party, still illegal and concerned that it would be marginalised from the transition process, moderated its traditional policy strategy. For more than twenty years it had had a strategy for transition based on mass mobilisation – first the peaceful national strike and then the ruptura democrática (democratic breakthrough).
But by this time, Carrillo had become convinced that the way forward lay through negotiation with the liberalisers within the regime and that threats of strikes would scare them off. Despite the ferment in the aftermath of Franco’s death, he felt that the opposition organisation had to be broadened through uniting with the Plataforma Democrática. This was the first step towards a strategy based on rapprochement with the other ‘democratic’ parties. In reality, there was no reason for the two bodies not to unite, since, politically speaking, there was little or no difference between the Junta and the Platform, other than the conflicting interests of the leaders of the PSOE and the PCE. Only the clique interests of two rival bureaucracies stood in the way of unity, and now the common need to establish conditions for a rapid transition to a bourgeois democracy that would guarantee comfortable ministerial posts to both sides rendered the maintenance of a separate existence an unnecessary encumbrance.
In March 1976, the ‘Democratic Junta’ and the ‘Democratic Platform’ finally came together and formed what came to be popularly known as the Platajunta. They were soon joined by the CCOO and the UGT trade union confederations. This was a natural and inevitable development – the illegitimate offspring of an opportunist policy of class collaboration.
The reforma pactada
Originally, the idea of the ruptura democrática was a general strike organised by unions and opposition parties to bring down the regime. Fernando Claudín cites Carrillo calling in 1956 for “a strike, starting wherever, which will rapidly extend to every major urban centre and create a revolutionary situation in the country.”6
In 1973, the PCE defined its strategy thus:
The step from dictatorship to democracy has to happen through a real political revolution. Through our struggle, through the struggle articulated by the forces in favour of democracy, the task that we propose is to carry out a political revolution… The PCE’s proposals will facilitate the step from fascist dictatorship to democracy… with the least violence possible and the elimination of the danger of a new Civil War… On repeated occasions the communists have said that a national strike could finish with the dictatorship.
The concept of a national strike goes further than that of a political general strike… The national strike does not consist in crossing your arms, mimicking the anarchist dream about the general strike. It is not a question of simply paralysing work, but organising the workers from every business, the locals from every neighbourhood, to intervene massively on the street… It’s a question not only of stopping the country, but empowering ourselves on the street, building organs of struggle and power at every possible level to strengthen the pressure on the nucleus of dictatorial power until it is overthrown.
This was supposed to be the cornerstone of the PCE’s strategy in Spain. Then, suddenly and without any warning, the line was changed. The slogan of the ruptura democrática became transformed miraculously into a strange animal known as the ruptura pactada (agreed break), which, in turn, became the reforma pactada (agreed reform). Of course, nobody could understand the precise meaning of these Byzantine formulas. But under the circumstances, from the standpoint of the leadership, such a lack of understanding was rather positive than negative.
The militants of the PCE and PSOE could not understand what game their leaders were playing, but they still had the belief that whatever that game was, it was probably in their best interests. Only time would convince them of the error of their judgement. The truth was that the leaders of the PCE and PSOE were banking on striking a deal that would grant them legalisation in the near future, and that shortly thereafter there would be parliamentary elections.
The party leaders decided that the former strategy was no longer viable, and a break with Francoism should be negotiated at top level, instead of through mass action. Rather than a central plank in their strategy, the action of the masses was now regarded as something that hindered their negotiations by unnecessarily alarming their interlocutors. When asked why, after decades of campaigning for a certain strategy, it was necessary to change it, the PCE leader Santiago Carrillo responded:
“Yes, we talked about a national strike, the mobilisation of different classes… However, the problem was that none of our allies in this period wanted that… We managed to involve a few million people, the vanguard. The great mass of Spanish people were very passive, and that was because they were frightened.”7
In order to sell their policies to the rank and file, the Communist Party leaders had to present the Liberals in general and Adolfo Suárez in particular in the most flattering colours. But the attitude of the workers remained sceptical. Of course, the leaders found a hundred and one reasons to justify their actions. Once again, they whispered in the ear of the activists: “Don’t worry, comrade. This is only a tactic. We have to go along with this manoeuvre in order to get the Party legalised. Then we will come out in our true colours. Just be patient and trust us!” And once again, the Communist Party activists would shake their heads, grumble under their breath, and accept.
Of course, this was not a temporary tactic at all, but only the application of the strategic line that had been worked out by the Communist Party leaders many years before in the Freedom Pact and the policy of National Reconciliation. It was not a tactical manoeuvre, but a definite policy of class collaboration – a policy that demanded an end to militant action in the interest of negotiation, pacts and consensus. Robert Fishman points out:
The reforma pactada was to entail much more than a temporary change in strategy. The new democracy was to rest on a broad socio-political consensus, or in the language of political science, a broad regime-founding coalition. Thus, the new strategy would lead to a logic of restraint to safeguard the consensus underlying the Transition and the hoped-for consolidation of democracy. Restraint rather than mobilisation would emerge as a major political goal of dominant sectors within the labour movement, at least for a time.8
That would be a very long time: in fact, it would be permanent. From now on, the policy of the PCE would be one of constant demobilisation. This demobilising role of the PCE was clearly understood by the strategists of international capital, as the following extract from The Sunday Times on 21 January 1974 shows: “The Spanish CP is one of the most reformist and tactically moderate in Europe… and its influence could enable Spain to avoid any desperate structural upheaval in Franco’s wake…” This verdict was absolutely correct. Yet the arguments of the CP leaders were answered in advance by the experience of the recent regional general strike in the Basque Country, which was met by the unleashing of a ferocious terror.
The ABC of Politics
In politics, if you say A, you must say, B, C and D. One step determines the next, and the next in a logical and inevitable sequence. And Santiago Carrillo was nothing if not consistent. On the morning of Saturday, 9 April 1977, José Mario Armero was summoned to Moncloa and informed of Suárez’s decision to legalise the PCE that same day. Carrillo was in France, where he said he had gone to visit his sick brother. At lunchtime, Armero secretly called Cannes and warned Carrillo of the imminent news. Morán writes:
Between the two of them, they prepared the declaration that the general secretary of the PCE would have to give. The president had given him some very clear ideas about what the Party should say, and specifically some phrases that he was interested in, which appeared verbatim: I do not think that President Suárez is a friend of the Communists. I consider him an intelligent anti-Communist, who has understood that ideas are not destroyed with reprisals or illegalities, since he is willing to answer our [ideas] with his. That is the ground in which divergences must be settled, and that the people will decide with their votes.9
This conversation is interesting because it shows just how far the secret connivance between Suárez and Carrillo had gone. The president of the government was now so confident that he could count on the active collaboration of the general secretary of the PCE that he could even dictate the contents of the public statement which the latter was to issue on the question of the parties’ legalisation. His confidence was not misplaced.
If Carrillo’s statement was intended to calm the nerves of the right-wing opposition to the Transition, it can only have had a very partial success. The news of the legalisation of the PCE fell like a bombshell. It had even been kept secret from Suárez’s ministers, let alone the general staff whose fury at having been thus deceived and betrayed knew no bounds. It immediately provoked the resignation of Admiral Gabriel Pita da Veiga as Minister of the Navy. But there were no further resignations and the generals were forced to choke on their indignation and accept the fait accompli. However, they never forgave Suárez for his betrayal. The consequences would be seen on 23 February 1981.
Carrillo met with his Executive Committee on 14 April where the discussion of his report took place without incident. The prevailing mood of euphoria at the news of the Party’s legalisation meant that the members of the Executive hardly noticed that halfway through the meeting the general secretary made a casual reference to the need to think about accepting the flag and the monarchy. But at that stage he did not think it was wise to press the point.
This hesitation was not accidental. He was treading on eggshells, and he had to carefully calculate every step of the way. No doubt he was thinking of Suárez’s question as to whether the members of the PCE would be prepared to swallow such a bitter pill. Maybe they would rebel? But no, Santiago Carrillo knew his Party and he also knew its leadership. He knew that these were people who had become accustomed for decades to follow the leader unconditionally, to follow orders without question, to observe communist discipline and not to undermine party unity. He knew it, because he himself had done exactly the same for many years. In this cynical game of poker, the general secretary knew very well that he held all the aces in his hand. He proceeded cautiously, but he proceeded with absolute determination and complete confidence that he would overcome any opposition that got in his way.
Carrillo’s bombshell
Now the time had come to show his hand. Carrillo interrupted the plenary session in order to increase the impact of the news on his leading comrades. At the meeting of the Executive Committee the following day, his tone changed completely. He launched his bombshell without contemplation. He informed his astonished comrades that Adolfo Suárez and he had reached a secret agreement; that this agreement was binding on the Party and that it had specified in writing the explicit terms that the PCE must approve. Morán describes the dramatic scene at the meeting:
At 13.00 on 15 April he [Carrillo] rose to speak because he had something very important to say. With a tremulous voice that almost nobody had heard in him before, he said: “We are in the most difficult meeting today that we have had since the War… In these hours, I do not say these days, but hours, you can decide if we go towards democracy or if we enter a very serious involution that would affect not only the Party and all the democratic forces of the opposition, but also the reformists and institutionalists … I do not think I am dramatising, I am saying how things stand at this very moment.”10
These words caused consternation among the members of the Executive Committee. The Basques were particularly concerned by the implications of this speech and there were murmurs of protest, which were abruptly silenced by Carrillo’s secretary, Belén Piniés, who warned them that “President Suárez was waiting, listening by the telephone (…) In an adjoining room there is a telephone off the hook,” she added. Strangely enough, the news that Adolfo Suárez had been unofficially invited to attend a meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party over the phone did not appear to shock those present, or even cause any questions to be asked.
Whether Adolfo Suárez was actually listening in to the sessions of the Executive Committee is not entirely clear. What was true was that José Mario Armero was waiting in the nearby cafeteria of the Iberia Mart hotel for the paper written by Suárez to be returned to him once the Executive Committee had approved it. But this significant detail was never revealed to the members of the PCE leadership. With his customary cynical coolness, Carrillo went on to read this statement as if it were his own idea. The contents were a bombshell: in all future acts of the PCE the flag with the official colours of the state would appear next to the Party flag. Furthermore: “We consider the Monarchy as a constitutional and democratic regime… We are convinced of being both energetic and clear-sighted defenders of the unity of our common homeland.”
To a generation of class fighters who had conducted a lifelong struggle for the Republic and its tricolour flag, this was an outrageous betrayal of elementary principles. That is why the existence of this deal was kept shrouded in the utmost secrecy until finally it emerged in the light of day to the consternation and dismay of all honest communists, socialists, republicans and democrats. In this single act the fraudulent and dishonest nature of the so-called Democratic Transition stands revealed in a most glaring manner. Some members of the committee expressed differences, although these were of rather a formal nature. Joaquín Sempere of the PSUC Executive complained that a decision of such importance required time and discussion. But these feeble objections had no more effect on the general secretary than the bleating of sheep on the ears of a shepherd.
The discussion was rapidly closed down and the matter was put to a hasty vote by a show of hands. There were only eleven abstentions, mainly Basques and Catalans. Their fears were quite natural, since the prospect of returning to Euzkadi waving the red and gold flag of the Franco monarchy was hardly an inviting prospect. Nevertheless, the resolution was approved. The sheep obediently returned to the fold, the shepherd chuckled as he lit yet another cigarette, recalling the words of President Suárez: “How can you be sure that all the members of the PCE will follow you?”
As they left the hall to make room for the press conference, the Central Committee members observed with astonishment that a colossal flag had appeared as if from nowhere and was hastily placed next to the red flag of the Communist Party. It was the flag of the monarchy. The hated flag of the dictatorship against which generations of Communists had fought, suffered and died. And nobody uttered a single word of protest.
This little detail in itself exposed the farcical nature of the meeting of the executive committee. It was a comedy in which the Central Committee simply acted as a rubber stamp for a decision that had already been taken in advance. They saw Jaime Ballesteros leaving the premises in a hurry. Evidently, he was late for his appointment with Armero, who doubtless received, with satisfaction, the news that Suárez’s orders had been carried out to the letter.
How the Leaders Justified the Sell-out
The PCE leaders leaned over backwards to declare the Franco flag the national flag of Spain, to accept the monarchy, and to picture Suárez as a democrat. On the Monarchy, Carrillo declared: “The king has played the role of the motor force of the democratising process”; he also backed wage restraint, and practically any other issue which could convince the ruling class that the PCE, in the words of its manifesto, “does not present a threat to anybody.” The Morning Star, the daily paper of the British Communist Party, stated in its issue of 3 May 1977: “The Communist Party has pledged that it will not indulge in any aggressive tactics against those people and parties with whom co-operation must continue after the election if Spain is to have a stable democracy.”
The same article went on to state that the Party “has made it clear that its proposals for a constitutional pact between the parties, ranging from the centre to the left, should include ‘those forces who, by their conduct, have shown that they have genuinely separated themselves from Francoism.” In an interview in the Morning Star,11 Federico Melchor, editor of Mundo Obrero, the Spanish Communist Party newspaper, declared:
Take for example the question of the national flag. It must not be forgotten that Franco fought the Civil War under that flag, against the legally elected government of the Republic which had a different flag. But when at our meetings we tell people, most of whom are republicans, that the state flag is also our flag and should not be allowed to become the possession of the ultra-right, they applaud our actions.
People also show their approval when we declare that Premier Adolfo Suárez is our political adversary, but not our enemy, the enemy is the ultra-right… then there is the question of fear. There is a real fear among the people, and it is in the first place the fear of those fascist elements who did well out of forty years of Franco dictatorship and of what they might do in defeat.
In small towns people are very conscious of the fact that the local Civil Guard, sergeants and officers are the same who were beating people up not so long ago, while the Mayors, the local police chiefs and most of the army commanders are also the same…
They [people] also know that Suárez legalised the PCE, the trade unions, liquidated Franco’s fascist movement, the only legal political party, gave access on radio and television to the opposition parties and insisted that on television the PCE should be treated like other parties…
And we think so, too, that Suárez is making this contribution despite his own fascist past. But who has not got a fascist past in the ruling circles of this country? The important thing is what people are doing now.
These people trailed behind the ruling class and imagined that the former fascists and their masters the capitalists had a ‘change of heart’. They had no confidence in the power developed by the Spanish working class, which, deprived of all rights, in the most difficult conditions, defied the dictatorship with mass strikes and demonstrations. The line of the PCE leaders was the antithesis of everything that communism and Bolshevism ever stood for. The policy of the Communist Party leaders was to the right of that of Felipe González, leader of the Socialist Party. Despite its far weaker organisation the Socialist Party was already beginning to gain ground at the expense of the PCE.
Rallying to the Flag
From then on at all the public meetings of the PCE the monarchist flag was flown and the republican tricolour was strictly prohibited. Those who carried it were manhandled and even beaten up by the PCE stewards. The lengths to which the PCE was prepared to go were shown by an article in Informaciones,12 which is a report of the first authorised public meeting addressed by the general secretary of the PCE. We reproduce it here in full:
VALLADOLID: TEN THOUSAND PEOPLE IN THE FIRST AUTHORISED MEETING OF CARRILLO
Firm action by the stewards against the tricolour banner.
Santiago Carrillo – wearing a tie – addressed about ten thousand people, at the first public meeting organised by the PCE after its legalisation.
VALLADOLID, 25 (Informaciones, by F. Valiño)
“Why did I come first to Valladolid, to Castile? The reason is simple: because there is a lot of mystification about so-called Imperial Castile, fascist Castile, Castile, the cradle of the Movement and so on. But there is another Castile, that of the comuneros (communards),” Don Santiago Carrillo began by saying, in the first authorised rally of the Communist Party of Spain at the regional level, which coincided with the first public intervention of the PCE general secretary in an electoral event.
The meeting was held on Saturday afternoon in the Municipal Sports Pavilion. In addition to the flag of the Communist Party, a national banner was flown. Nearly ten thousand people attended the meeting in which, together with Mr. Carrillo, Mr. Julián Ariza, CCOO, and candidate for Valladolid, Mr. Anselmo, participated. Hoyos and Don César de Prada, provincial secretary of the PCE spoke.
Don Santiago Carrillo, who had been received with great applause, gave a speech, mainly about the flag and the monarchy.
“It is still not an easy road,” he said, “and to triumphantly travel to conquer freedom and democracy, not only do you need courage, because you also need a head, political intelligence, you need to know how to win new followers every day for that cause and neutralise the possible enemies. That is why we have taken this step, which some people still do not understand – especially the veterans of the Party and young people, accustomed to seeing the tricolour flag as their flag. They do not understand that today we have accepted the National Flag as our flag.”
It was at this tense moment that disagreements and conflicting opinions were heard when the words of Carrillo were met with shouts of disapproval and whistling. He repeated his well-known arguments on the acceptance of the bicolour flag by the PCE. He also said that the colour of the flag of the Socialist Republic of Cuba is exactly the same as that of Batista’s time. He also referred to the fact that the question that is now under consideration is dictatorship or democracy, and not a republic or monarchy. “Whoever does not understand,” he added, “is politically inept, no matter how honest and revolutionary he may be.” This caused new dissensions among the attendees.
In relation to the monarchy, Mr. Carrillo went on to declare in a press conference held at the end of the rally that Marx and Engels advised the German Social Democratic Party not to exhibit republican symbols in their meetings. “And if that’s what the Founding Fathers of Marxism did, their children can do it too.”
Another issue addressed by Mr. Santiago Carrillo was the Army, which, he said, belonged to everyone, “it belongs to Spain. It is there to defend our borders and as long as it is doing that, the communists will be with it.” He then alluded to national reconciliation, “thanks to which”, he said, “we are here today.” Finally, he spoke of the elections and the need to put an end to fear, to close with Long Live Castile, Spain and socialism and repeating that the Communists say what they mean and mean what they say. A strong stewarding service had been established by militants of PCE, who occasionally reacted violently against groups that carried a republican flag or were wearing insignias from outside their organisation.
Some of these members even carried truncheons that they used to ‘invite’ leftists to leave the premises. The first incident took place before the start of the meeting, when on the side of the upper part of the pavilion a tricolour flag and an ikurriña [Basque flag] were displayed and a large number of attendees chanted “Spain tomorrow will be republican”. These events motivated the energetic intervention of the stewards in charge of keeping order, who, after a long struggle and exchange of insults and blows, took away the flag and expelled some people from the premises. Similar events would take place all through the event, in which many members of other organisations could be seen, including the UGT, wearing stickers with the three colours [of the Republican flag]. Among those who were also repressed was a PCE militant who carried a red flag with a hammer and sickle with a crown and the inscription: “T.B.O. Carrillo I of Spain and V of Germany” [a reference to TBO, a popular comic book magazine for children].
Outside the ground, elements of the extreme right staged an aggression against members of the PCE. The incidents took place when the latter were selling the first number of their newspaper, The Union of the People. A woman worker had her hair pulled by known provocateurs from the city.
The Correlation of Forces
The leaders of the PCE repeatedly tried to justify their position at that time, appealing to the excuse of the ‘unfavourable correlation’ of forces. This argument is even repeated today by some who wish to find a reason for the conduct of the leaders of the PCE and PSOE. I have no reason whatsoever to doubt the sincerity of those thousands of communist workers who carried on a stubborn and courageous fight under difficult conditions. For such people I have only the sincerest respect. But despite this, I cannot accept the logic of their argument, which is merely a repetition of the arguments that they were given many times by those who claimed to be their leaders, and who misled them so many times.
For those leaders I have no respect whatsoever. I hold them personally responsible for the debacle of the Transition, the results of which are today as clear as daylight. Criminals can always find a thousand arguments to justify their crimes. They have powerful psychological reasons for finding such plausible arguments, which may even keep them out of jail – providing they can convince the judge and jury. What the leaders of the PCE and PSOE did in the Transition was a crime, and in the end, the court of history will pass a harsh judgement on them. No amount of casuistic twisting and turning, no amount of lying and falsifying the facts will save them from that well-deserved condemnation.
The old argument about the balance of forces does not withstand the slightest scrutiny. The PCE was without doubt the hegemonic force in the opposition to the Franco regime. With 150,000 militants in clandestine conditions before their legalisation, they represented a formidable force in society. They effectively controlled the workers’ movement that was the main force that compelled the regime to retreat.
Without a powerful movement of the working class and the youth, the so-called reform might have been postponed for years or decades. The idea that the regime could contemplate its own liquidation out of the goodness of its heart is an absurdity that does not bear examination. All the facts speak against it. Even more absurd is the supposition that the king and Adolfo Suárez were convinced by the sweet-talking diplomacy of Santiago Carrillo and Felipe González. To believe that is to believe in Santa Claus.
The real reason why the leaders of the PCE and CCOO acted as they did was simply that they did not believe or trust in the struggle for socialism, they did not believe or trust in the ability of the working class to lead society, they had no other horizon than a bourgeois-democratic regime and anything else seemed to go into an abyss. They themselves believed their own tales of the threat of a ‘military coup’, which they then transmitted to their cadres and, through them, to sectors of the vanguard and the masses. When this reality began to dawn on the consciousness of the workers it led to a complete collapse in their self-confidence and fighting spirit. Thousands of militants walked out of the ranks of the socialist and communist parties, disgusted with the conduct of their leaders.
Pacts, deals, consensus, coalitions with the bourgeoisie: all this had become the daily bread of the Stalinists for decades. Of course, we are speaking here of the leaders. The rank and file communists had never abandoned their loyalty to the class struggle and socialism. They submitted with gritted teeth to the dictates of the leaders, consoling themselves that these sell-outs were merely ‘tactical’, that they were dictated by necessity but that in future the Party would come out in its true colours. But it never did. This unprincipled opportunism was not tactical but organic.
The argument that the line of the Party leadership was the only one possible is false. The main reason behind this argument was that the correlation of forces was unfavourable and that people were afraid.
However, in the area where mobilisation was strongest, Barcelona, interviewees reject the idea, widely accepted elsewhere in Spain, that fear was a significant factor affecting the left. As a consequence, in Barcelona nearly twice as many CCOO organisers felt that “a historic opportunity was lost to create a more advanced democracy on the basis of popular mobilisations” (Fishman) as in Madrid. In the 1977 elections, the proportion voting Communist in Barcelona was almost twice the national average.13
The document referred to above includes many quotes from PCE activists, who drew the necessary conclusion: “In addition, a significant proportion of ordinary PCE members suggested that fear of violence was a factor affecting the leadership more than the base – those most heavily involved in parliamentary activity as opposed to grassroots mobilisation in the unions and on the street.” As José Casado put it: “I suspect that there was more fear of a return to the past among the party leaders than among the masses, the working class.”
It was the leaders of the left, above all of the PCE, who kept on shouting ‘the wolf is coming’, constantly harping on about the danger of a military coup if the people pressed their demands too far. This argument was constantly repeated in order to contain and frustrate the revolutionary process that was developing within Spanish society. They try to back up this argument by pointing to the attempted coup of 1981. But this failed attempted coup occurred not at the height of the revolutionary movement (1976-77), but precisely at the moment when the demoralisation and demobilisation of the masses had reached its lowest point. The ebb of those years was precisely caused by the class collaborationist policies of the leadership of the PCE and the PSOE.
It is important to keep this in mind, because the current leaders of the PCE, Izquierda Unida and Unidos-Podemos continue to cling to the hackneyed argument that the democratic and social advances they achieved were limited by the “unfavourable correlation of forces” of the left at that time. They intone this monotonous chant ceaselessly like a repeating groove on an old LP record, in the hope that constant repetition will make it true. It will not.
This is a grotesque falsification of reality and not the cause that led to a rotten compromise with the successors of the Franco regime. That compromise was the political objective declared, not in the 1970s, but for decades before the Franco regime entered into crisis through the revolutionary push of the working masses. It was anxiously sought by the leadership of the PCE from the very beginning. The correlation of forces had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
[1] Communist Party of Spain, ‘For national reconciliation, for a democratic and peaceful solution of the Spanish problem’, Declaration of the Communist Party of Spain, June 1956.
[2] Mundo Obrero, 13 February 1974.
[3] No. 4, April 1975.
[4] Morning Star, 19 May 1975.
[5] The Times, 21 October 1975.
[6] Fernando Claudín, Santiago Carrillo – Crónica de un Secretario General, Editorial Planeta, Barcelona, 1983, p. 133.
[7] Quoted in Patrick Baker, The Spanish Transition to Democracy – A Missed Opportunity for the Left?, Socialist History Society, Occasional Paper, No. 11, 2000.
[8] Robert Fishman, Labor and the Return of Democracy to Spain, unpublished paper, April, 1988.
[9] Gregorio Morán, Miseria y grandeza del Partido Comunista de España (1936-1985), p. 548.
[10] Ibid., p. 549.
[11] Morning Star, 9 June 1977.
[12] Informaciones, 25 April 1977.
[13] Quoted in Patrick Baker, The Spanish Transition to Democracy – A Missed Opportunity for the Left?