10. The Socialists: The PSOE
The Socialist Party was a far smaller party than the PCE. Nevertheless, the party had a tradition in the class that allowed it to grow rapidly only a few years later. Politically it stood to the left of the PCE, at least in words. This made it into a pole of attraction for many of the leftward moving workers and youth who were repelled by the bureaucratic Stalinist regime of the PCE.
In 1972, a split took place amongst the socialists in exile1 and the socialists in the interior.2 A kind of fossil left over from an ossified past, Llopis had spent years waiting patiently in the party headquarters in Toulouse for the ‘Free World’ to reinstate democracy in Spain.
Consequently, at a time when Spain was gripped by a revolutionary upheaval, the Socialist Party found itself effectively leaderless. The resulting vacuum opened the way for the emergence of a new generation of leaders in the interior. But this development, far from pleasing the men in Toulouse, provoked their anger and resentment. The old leadership had lost contact with the reality on the ground and was faced with a growing revolt on the part of the workers and youth in the underground inside Spain. A bitter battle opened up between the exiles and the renovators in the interior. The main bone of contention was recognition by the Socialist International.
The PSOE in the interior were moving sharply to the left. The PSOE Renovado (PSOE Renovated) claimed to be a Marxist and working-class party. But despite its left-wing rhetoric, it never succeeded in catching up with the Communist Party. The latter had a far bigger base in members, organisational strength and mass influence. Arturo Val del Olmo, who at that time was a leading figure in the UGT of Álava and a member of the Young Socialists, recalls:
In the PSOE there was the leadership abroad, and in Spain there was a younger layer that confronted them from the left. On the one hand there were the professional people from Seville, Felipe González and Alfonso Guerra, but there was also a young layer that was entering into action in Asturias, in Vizcaya and in Álava too. And although we were few in number, the Álava socialists at that time had quite an influence in the congress of Toulouse. There were only a few of us, but we had influence among a younger, more militant layer who believed in the need for a radical break with the existing social order. That was one thing, but another, quite different thing was the manoeuvrings of the leadership, which I guess began in 1975 and 1976, although I do not know exactly, because such intrigues take time to develop and mature. Maybe at that time they themselves were not sure how things were going to turn out.
At that time very few people could guess how the political evolution of the leaders of the PSOE would turn out…
The Toulouse Congress
In August 1972, the PSOE held its Twenty-Fifth Congress in the French town of Toulouse. For obvious reasons it was impossible to hold a congress inside Spain at that time. Up until this moment the Party was still in the hands of the old émigré leadership of Rodolfo Llopis, who was recognised by the Socialist International. This was the situation when, as I have already mentioned, I attended the Toulouse Congress.
I arrived in Toulouse as part of the British Labour Party delegation, representing the Young Socialists, which was then engaged in an active campaign of solidarity with the Spanish Young Socialists. The town was decorated with banners advertising the congress – something that was clearly unthinkable inside Spain. But Toulouse was friendly territory for the Spanish socialists, not only because it was on the French side of the border, but it was a town where many of the citizens had originally arrived as political refugees after the defeat of the Spanish Republic. The people from the interior were led by a charismatic and ambitious young lawyer from Seville, Felipe González. His faction showed considerable energy and initiative, establishing points of support in other parts of Spain, notably Asturias and the Basque Country, where the leading figure was a worker by the name of Nicolás Redondo, the future general secretary of the socialist UGT trade union.
At the congress, González won the support of eighty per cent of the delegates. Since the Llopis faction had stayed away from the congress, this result was not altogether surprising. But, although Felipe González had won the vote, he was not at all sure of his victory. The new leadership had a clear majority in the interior, but Llopis and the old guard still maintained close links with the leaders of the Second International, whose support was essential to consolidate González’s position.
In the hot summer weather, almost all the delegates were dressed informally, mostly in their shirt sleeves and jeans. Felipe, as always in those days, wore no tie. But there was one notable exception. There was a middle aged, grey haired and rather distinguished-looking man, dressed in an immaculate suit who stuck out like a sore thumb in this plebeian gathering. The man was Hans Hermann Matthöfer of the German SPD. I had only a limited contact with Matthöfer, who introduced himself politely, with a broad smile and firm handshake. I noticed that he spoke excellent English and good Spanish, although it seems he was self-taught. He had an air of supreme self-confidence and appeared to be quite at home, almost as if he owned the place. A few years later, some people might have concluded that he more or less did.
Matthöfer was obviously a rising star in the SPD leadership. In December of that year he was appointed junior minister in the Ministry for Economic Co-operation by Chancellor Willy Brandt. In the government of Helmut Schmidt, he later became the German Minister of Finance. To have sent such a man to the congress of a small, struggling Socialist Party from Spain struck me as unusual, especially as the SPD had traditionally backed the PSOE led by Rodolfo Llopis. But times were changing, and the Germans had their own agenda, as I was to discover.
I have already described my first visit to Spain, which took place shortly afterwards. I visited Seville, Barcelona, Madrid and the Basque Country and discussed with leading members of the Socialist Party. It was clear to me that the González wing had the overwhelming support of the people in the interior, and that Llopis had virtually nothing. I wrote a report to the NEC of the Labour Party, which subsequently recognised the PSOE (interior). However, González’s burning desire to obtain international recognition was to be satisfied very quickly, not in London but in Bonn.
The results of the Twenty-Fifth Congress and the leftward shift of the PSOE put the party in a much better position to take advantage of the upsurge of the class struggle following the death of Carrero Blanco. The renovation began in Toulouse in 1972 and was continued and deepened at the Twenty-Sixth Congress held on 11, 12 and 13 October 1974 at Suresnes.
A special commission of the Socialist International received representatives of both sections of the PSOE in Paris on 12 and 13 January 1973. After further meetings in London in March 1973, the International finally decided in favour of the PSOE Renovado on 6 January 1974. At the PSOE congress in Suresnes, the Socialist International recognised a new leadership under Felipe González. This step had momentous implications for the PSOE and the future of the struggle against Franco.
The German Connection
Ever since my first contact with Hans Matthöfer at the Congress of Toulouse, I was convinced that the international Social Democracy, through the agency of the German SPD, was attempting to get control of the Spanish socialists. The latter were in desperate need of international recognition, and above all, financial aid. Subsequent developments confirmed the suspicions. But it was virtually impossible to prove them – that is, until recently. But a new and surprising development changes everything.
While writing this book I happened to find a document that sheds light on an important aspect of Spanish left-wing politics during the Transition. It is the PhD thesis by a German student – that I referred to earlier – by the name of Jens-Ulrich Poppen, and it is entitled: Soft Power Politics. The Role of Political Foundations in Germany’s Foreign Policy towards Regime Change in Spain, Portugal and South Africa 1974-1994.3
This fascinating thesis was submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in International Relations at the London School of Economics in 2006. Here at last one could obtain first-hand information of how the German SPD secretly intervened in the internal affairs of the Spanish Socialist Party, controlling its finances and effectively dictating its policies and tactics.
Up to the first elections in 1977 the main role in controlling the working class and handing power to Suárez was played by the leaders of the Communist Party. The Socialist Party represented a fairly insignificant force in comparison. Nevertheless, the PSOE was potentially an important element in the equation. Given the extreme weakness and fragility of the UCD, the strategists of capital, in Spain and internationally, saw the need to build up a reliable alternative to the Communist Party as quickly as possible.
By the early 1970s, the leaders of Europe and the USA had realised that the Franco regime was on its last legs. They urgently needed a point of support, which would ensure the transitional period that led from the Franco regime to a new one would be accomplished in a way that would not threaten their vital interests. Above all, they wished to ensure that the Communist Party was excluded from power.
However, they were immediately faced with a problem. The West German government was not in a position to gain control of the Spanish workers’ movement, which looked upon it with justified suspicion. The Americans, naturally, were in an even weaker position. They had backed the counter-revolutionary Spinola in Portugal and had burned their fingers. Belatedly, they had come to realise that the man who had saved the situation in Portugal was not Spinola or any of the other discredited right-wing leaders, but Mário Soares, the leader of the Socialist Party. This experience conditioned their tactics in relation to Spain, where they looked to Felipe González and the Socialist Party as a point of support in their battle against ‘communism’.
Insurrection in Athens
There was a highly explosive situation in many countries of Europe. Events in Italy, France, Portugal and Greece helped to intensify the general mood of radicalisation. The first great revolutionary movement took place in France in May 1968, when 10 million workers occupied the factories. That was the beginning of a general radicalisation, which swept through Europe in the following decade.
At the end of the 1960s in Italy, an unprecedented period had opened up. For almost a decade, there was a mobilisation of the working class and the youth, which began with the Hot Autumn of 1969. The 1970s saw an explosive upsurge of the class struggle, accompanied by a series of bloody provocations by the extreme right wing.
In November 1973, the bloody dictatorship of the colonels in Greece faced a revolutionary uprising of the workers and students, beginning with the occupation of the Athens Polytechnic. The movement immediately escalated into a general revolt of university technical and high-school students with 10,000 students joining the occupation. A co-ordinating committee of student delegates was set up, with worker representatives. Other universities in Patras and Salonica were occupied, and the student radios broadcast for worker support and the overthrow of the Junta.
Workers from the big construction sites began to respond to the call. By midday, all the roads within a quarter of a mile of the Polytechnic were flooded with people, and demonstrations were spreading everywhere. The first clashes with the police occurred when protesters moved to seize ministry buildings, especially the Ministry of Public Order. Buses and trolley buses were overturned and used as barricades.
The students at the Polytechnic were joined by high school students, workers and even peasants who had come to Athens from the provinces. The joint student-worker committee issued a call to broaden the struggle. The declaration now had a clearly anti-capitalist content:
The character of the struggle, which began as a struggle of students and now embraces the whole people, is a struggle against both the military dictatorship and the local and foreign monopolies that support it. It is a struggle for power to pass into the hands of the people…
Spread the call for committees to be set up at every place of work with the aim of preparing workers to come out on an economic and political general strike.
Down with the rising prices. Americans out. Down with the Junta. All people out on the streets. Set up factory committees. For a united action front.
The army used tanks and tear gas and eventually crushed the movement. However, in spite of this, that movement marked the beginning of the end of the military junta, which eventually collapsed in 1974. In a referendum held later in the year, the Greek people voted by a massive majority to reject the monarchy. Revolution was on the order of the day in Greece.
Alarm in Washington – and in Bonn
The Greek insurrection was followed in April 1974 by the Portuguese Revolution. To the strategists of international capital, Europe resembled a row of dominoes, which were falling one by one. NATO and the CIA feared that Europe was facing an imminent communist takeover. And Spain must surely be the next domino to fall.
These events were being watched with growing alarm by government circles in Germany. Spain was a major source of concern, especially after the Portuguese Revolution. Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the German Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs, visited Spain in March 1975 to evaluate the situation. His goal was “to secure the country’s geostrategic position and considerable military potential for the Western alliance.”4
The death of Franco in November 1975, and the subsequent intensification of the class struggle in Spain, led to an acceleration of the efforts of the German foreign office to get a grip on the situation. Bonn’s aim was to establish contacts with the ‘reformist’ elements in the regime, including Carlos Arias Navarro and Fraga.
It was no accident that Fraga was visiting Bonn when the events of 3 March 1976 were taking place in Vitoria. But the German foreign office was smart enough to realise that perhaps Fraga was not the best man to represent their interests at that time. Carefully looking at all the options, they concluded that they needed to cultivate relations with the PSOE, since: “In the long term, this relationship can help us to soften (sic) certain tendencies towards political co-operation between Communists and Socialists.”5
The foreign office’s Southern Europe Desk advised that: “A practical foreign policy towards Spain should not take place only between governments but should be implemented simultaneously also by political parties and their affiliated foundations”. It points out that contacts already existed between CDU, SPD and their Stiftungen (Foundations) with the opposition Christian Democrats and the Socialist Party in Spain.
And it adds:
They should be urgently extended to help train a political elite, which will be able to take political responsibility after Franco’s death. The political foundations are playing a particularly important role in this context by training junior politicians abroad.6
However, Genscher and his advisers were afraid that any closer interaction with opposition elements other than ‘soft-liners’ within the regime (Fraga and Areilza) could lead to “unwarranted publicity thus undermining German efforts to tie Spain closely to EC and NATO.”7
For this reason, the authorities in Bonn were quite happy to quietly delegate this sensitive task to its trusted agents in the leadership of the SPD. The German foreign office therefore concluded that “the contact between SPD and PSOE needs to be seen as positive and merits our support, which should be provided discreetly.”8
These remarks make clear the very close relation between the activities of the SPD with the German government and its foreign office. The two things are completely inseparable. The political and strategic interests of imperialism in general, and German imperialism in particular, demanded that Spain should be a member of both the European Union and NATO. The fundamental aim of these bodies was the struggle against ‘communism’. It must be confessed that this strategy succeeded brilliantly. Under Felipe González the PSOE was the ideal candidate for this role. In the referendum of 1978, PSOE supported the Spanish Constitution; it backed the Pact of Moncloa and was prepared to ditch not only Marxism but also the Party’s long-held republican tradition.
A large part of the success was due to the fact that these intrigues were unknown to anyone, except a small handful of right-wing labour leaders and their paymasters in Bonn. The story of how this remarkable transformation was carried out can be found in great detail in the Soft Power document, to which we will refer frequently from now on. We will deal more with the role played by the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation (FEF) later on.
Suffice it for now to point out that right from the beginning the imperialists had worked out a strategy to dominate and control the so-called Democratic Transition in Spain. For this purpose, they utilised a twofold strategy: contacts at governmental level (with the so-called Francoite ‘reformers’) and a parallel strategy aimed at controlling the labour movement, thus ensuring the formation of a future ‘political elite’ that would be obedient to the dictates of imperialism.
The SPD Changes Horses
As we have seen, initially, West Germany’s SPD recognised the exiled PSOE históricos, led by Rodolfo Llopis, who jealously defended their monopoly over international relations. They also provided financial support for the Partido Socialista del Interior (PSI, Socialist Party of the Interior), a party chaired by the law professor and future mayor of Madrid, Tierno Galván. However, the situation changed after 1972, when Willy Brandt became Chairman of West Germany’s Social Democrats.
The PSOE had a programme that was far to the left of any other party in the Socialist International and defined itself as Marxist. That was most unfortunate. The German SPD had long ago abandoned all its links with Marxism, which it formally eliminated from the party programme at the Congress of Bad Godesberg in 1959.
The main thing from Bonn’s point of view was that the González-led PSOE wing had clearly distanced itself from any co-operation with the PCE. To the degree that the Spanish Socialist leaders continued with this policy, the men in Bonn were quite prepared to put up with a certain amount of ‘left’ radical speeches – at least for a time. Properly handled, they could soon be persuaded to be more reasonable. Moreover, the perfect man to re-educate them was standing in the wings.
The new leader of the SPD, Willy Brandt, with his ‘left’ credentials was in a strong position to establish relations with the PSOE leaders. A man who, in his younger days, had flirted with a kind of Marxism, Brandt in his mature years had become an astute bourgeois politician. He was smart enough to realise that González was the horse to back. The Marxist nonsense could be cleared up later. And since the Spanish socialists showed themselves to be eager for links with the SPD, the German state as such had no reason to intervene directly.
Brandt and his colleagues were aware that the PCE and its affiliated union organisation, CCOO, were the leading force in the workers’ movement and that Communist forces commanded the “best functioning apparatus.” In reality, the refusal to collaborate with the PCE was dictated by the extreme organisational weakness of the Spanish socialists – something that was recognised by the SPD as a possible lever for influencing their politics. The SP document states:
Strong transitional ties between PSOE and SPD and especially between opposition matador Felipe González and his fatherly mentor Willy Brandt also helped to secure the political backing of international organisations such as the Socialist International…
[A]fter his resignation in April 1974, Brandt had played an increasingly active role in the SI [Socialist International] and took over the chairmanship in 1976. His influence within the socialist organisation made it arguably easier for PSOE’s leadership to establish itself as the undisputed champion of progressive, left-of-centre transitional politics in Spain not least in the eyes of its politically and financially potent European sister parties.
The Friedrich-Ebert Foundation
In April 1975, the new PSOE leadership held talks with Willy Brandt in which both sides discussed possible forms of future co-operation between the two parties as well as logistical, organisational and, most importantly, financial questions. The vehicle that was used to channel large amounts of money into the PSOE was the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung), a harmless-looking organisation that is apparently devoted to all kinds of good works all over the world.
If you examine its website, you will draw the impression that it is all perfectly innocent, practically a charitable institution. It tells us:
The work of our political foundation focuses on the core ideas and values of social democracy – freedom, justice and solidarity. This connects us to social democracy and free trade unions. As a non-profit institution, we organise our work autonomously and independently.
Its goals include the promotion of a free society, based on the values of solidarity, a lively and strong democracy; sustainable economic growth with decent work for all, a welfare state, and “peace and social progress in Europe and in the world.” How innocent! And how laudable! To object to any of this would be like objecting to apple pie and motherhood.
And What Do We Do?
“We support and strengthen social democracy in particular by means of: political educational work, [organising] think tanks”, creating “a public discourse for a just and sustainable economic and social order”, “[supporting] talented young people”, and “increasing education in democratic principles.” Again, all perfectly innocent. But when one reads the carefully researched and well documented study by Jens-Ulrich Poppen, a very different picture emerges.
The principal go-between in this murky business was the FEF’s resident representative in Madrid, Dieter Koniecki, a former activist of the West German Liberal Students Association in Berlin. In 1975, Koniecki was asked by Willy Brandt and SPD Finance Minister – our old friend Hans Matthöfer – to help open a Foundation office in Spain in order to co-ordinate and develop FEF activities and to oversee the Foundation’s support for the PSOE. According to Jens-Ulrich Poppen, who interviewed Koniecki in Madrid in April 2003, he later became the “permanent link between the German SPD and the Spanish PSOE, and the main channel for the German financing of the latter.”9
In order to establish an office in Madrid, Koniecki entered into contact with the Minister of the Interior of the dictatorship, Manuel Fraga Iribarne, who he tried to convince that:
Socialism a la PSOE was certainly more acceptable than the Socialist model Libyan-style with which he hinted at the ideological coquetries of Partido Socialista Popular (PSP) Chairman Tierno Galván’s Mediterranean Socialism.10
Jens-Ulrich Poppen concludes:
The message was unambiguous: The political situation in Spain was about to change fundamentally and sooner or later the government had to allow opposition forces to enter the political arena. By allowing for a co-ordinated re-admission of those political parties that promised to play the transitional game, by the rules which the government had set, thus ensuring stability and political order during the interim phase, Fraga on behalf of the Spanish Government would retain a maximum of control and secure influence on the emergence of pluralist structures.
What does this mean? It means that the German SPD entered into secret contacts with one wing of the dictatorship in order to convince it that it was better to keep contact with the most moderate and pliable leaders of the left in order to keep them under some degree of control. Here we have the essence of the tactics adopted by the ruling classes of Europe in Spain for the so-called Democratic Transition, a transition that would make sufficient changes to prevent a revolution, while retaining essential elements of the old regime.
Dealing With Dictatorship
On 15 February 1976, when Koniecki informed FEF headquarters that “because of Minister Fraga and his positive political attitude towards support for the opening of formal activities of the FEF, the establishment of a Foundation office in the near future seems to be likely.”11 The SP document makes it clear that the Spanish government was well aware of the links between the SPD and the PSOE and considered them as something positive:
Madrid’s official attitude remained unagitated. In an interview with Cambio 16, Spanish Foreign Minister Areilza had unambiguously stated that his government would not perceive SPD support for PSOE as outside interference, and that it appreciated inter-party links.12
It is important to remember that we are talking about the government of a dictatorship! Echoing Areilza’s position, the Spanish Ambassador in Bonn, Emilio Garrigues, reasoned in a frank letter to SPD foreign policy spokesman Bruno Friedrich:
The days when non-interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state was seen as a national taboo are long gone and I am asking myself if that has been always so, particularly since – according to Talleyrand’s cynical but important opinion – the principle of non-intervention appears to be the one with the most similarities to the principle of intervention.
According to Garrigues, PSOE appeared to be still strategically and ideologically torn between working towards “a Social Democracy German style or a people’s front a la Mitterrand.” He stressed the fact that the path ultimately chosen by the party “will be of the utmost importance for Spanish politics”13
In talks with SPD foreign affairs expert, Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski, the Spanish Foreign Minister, Areilza, described González as a “modern young politician of absolute integrity” and he promised that he and his colleagues would “support the creation of a truly democratic leftist movement in order to prevent Spain from falling prey to left or right-wing extremism.”14 Areilza also supported the creation of a strong union organisation.
West Germany’s Ambassador von Lilienfeld had informed SPD Chairman Brandt about the positive attitude displayed by the Spanish Government vis-a-vis the democracy promotion activities of SPD and FEF:
The king as well as Foreign Minister Areilza and Interior Minister Fraga confirmed to me that without the participation of PSOE their reform projects would be doomed to failure. They all want to see a strong Socialist party under the leadership of Felipe González, which is going to compete politically within the newly-emerged democratic structures in Spain. Therefore, they welcome the contacts between SPD and PSOE and appreciate the positive influence the former has over the latter.
Discretion! Discretion! And Yet More Discretion!
The real purpose of opening an office of the FEF in Madrid was to channel large sums of money into the hands of Felipe González. This was acknowledged by SPD international relations expert Dingels, quoted in the SP document as stating unambiguously: “It is acknowledged that Spanish Socialists ought to receive every conceivable form of assistance” and he stressed the importance for PSOE “to create a counterweight given the material dominance of Communist organisations.”15
But these connections contained many dangers for the PSOE leaders, and they knew it. The Soft Power document emphasises that “Party leaders had to dissolve the widespread fear and perception on the part of the Spanish public that PSOE was a mere puppet in the hands of foreign powers and remote-controlled by West Germany’s SPD.”16
Of course! The revelation that the leaders of the Socialist Party were receiving funds from Germany would have provoked a scandal that would have discredited the party completely, not just in the eyes of the Spanish workers, but in its own rank and file, who stood on the left and were generally suspicious of the International Social Democracy. All these activities were therefore carried out behind the backs of the party membership, who have remained ignorant about the whole affair for decades. Koniecki writes:
PSOE seeks to prevent at all costs accusations of an outside influence on its decision making by West Germany’s SPD, which is the most powerful Social Democratic party in Europe […]
On the other hand, in direct talks with their West German counterparts, Socialist leaders were not holding back with their affirmation of how much the SPD’s support was appreciated, crucial and influential. The PSOE leadership reiterated once more in my talks with them how influential the West German Government and the SPD were in Spain and told me how valuable the SPD’s assistance was. They explicitly mentioned Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt and others who would make their job of establishing relations with the public much easier.17
Thus, the alleged ‘independence’ of González and co. really signified independence from the mass of the working class, especially the most active layers, including the rank and file of the Socialist Party, and complete and utter dependence on the people that controlled the funds in Bonn. Interestingly enough, the Spanish Government requested in talks with German diplomats “a discrete approach, which would be in the interest of all parties involved although in principle it welcomed the inter-party contacts.”18 Here we have a modern variant on the famous words of Danton: Discretion! Discretion! And yet more discretion!
He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune
There is an old proverb that says “he who pays the piper calls the tune.” The purpose of the operation was to gain complete control over the Socialist Party and dictate its political line. The degree of this control is evident from the fact that Koniecki himself organised the training programmes for the organisational administrators, which were planned to take place in the West German city of Mannheim. He later “travelled through Spain accompanied by a PSOE official to visit all of the party’s provincial committees and to supervise the newly-trained administrative teams.”19
The general elections scheduled for 1977 posed a serious problem for the PSOE, which lacked the means to organise an effective campaign. Felipe González needed cash urgently and the FEF was able and willing to provide it.
Under a two-year Action Plan, the FEF agreed to help the PSOE establish a network of twenty-seven “identification centres” all over Spain, managed by full-time party staff who would take up their duties in April 1976. The plan also provided for the creation of a PSOE Press, Media and Campaign Office, which also opened on 1 April, though operating under a different name. A similar plan was launched to fund the operations of the Socialist union, the UGT. All this must have involved an enormous amount of money, and this money was not being given out of motives of generosity or fraternal solidarity with the comrades in Spain, who knew absolutely nothing about it.
Koniecki, who gives the impression of being a very shrewd observer, pointed out that:
[T]he current epoch, which is characterised by a wild jostling of illustrious personalities on the vanity fair, outbidding themselves with ideas and attributes vis-a-vis one another and in front of an audience that gets tired very quickly appears to be simply a short-lived transition towards a situation, in which only those groups will survive that possess solid organisational structures besides strong personalities.20
In Felipe González the FEF believed itself in possession of a strong personality. However, solid organisational structures require above all a solid bank balance. The channelling of ample funds from the FEF into the coffers of the PSOE was therefore the most urgent task. For obvious reasons, this had to be performed in the utmost secrecy.
Koniecki expected that, in order to maintain the organisational structure for party offices in forty-six provinces, the required monthly sum would come up to DM 120,000 (ca. £40,000) for salaries, technical equipment and public relations material. He therefore emphasised the importance of high-profile projects – ‘neutral’ seminars, scholarships, etc. – which the FEF would have to organise and which would prove to be useful to explore potential areas of political activities and to identify possible partners for co-operation.
He therefore underlined the crucial importance of the creation of intermediary organisations to organise seminars, training courses and to provide other platforms for political communication with a low public profile. These officially independent institutions would provide political cover behind which FEF involvement would attract considerably less attention in the Spanish public.21
Here the amounts of money involved are spelled out with admirable clarity. The SPD’s generosity evidently extended to the regular payment of salaries for PSOE full-timers, party offices in the provinces (one imagines that the costs of the national headquarters are taken for granted), technical equipment and even public relations.
But this is undoubtedly only the tip of a very large iceberg. It omits the cost of foreign travel (PSOE leaders travelled frequently to Bonn, where it is reasonable to suppose that their interests were not confined to tourism), election expenses, including a huge number of lavish posters, leaflets, the hiring of halls and large meeting places (including, as I recall, the Ventas bullring in Madrid) and a very large etcetera.
I remember very well that at a time when the PSOE hardly had two pesetas to rub together, we were astonished to see the sudden appearance of huge quantities of posters carrying the smiling face of Felipe González.
In order to conceal the real state of affairs, a whole series of intermediary organisations were set up to organise seminars, training courses and to “provide other platforms for political communication with a low public profile.”22
The origin of these sudden and unexplained riches soon became clear to us, as well as the price tag that came attached. The appearance of this expensive propaganda was the prelude to an inevitable wave of expulsions. In exchange for Deutschmarks, González would be expected to change the political line of the PSOE. But the ex-Marxist Willy Brandt was under no illusions that this would be easy. The change of line would meet with stiff resistance, and this would have to be overcome at all costs.
Despite their public protestations of democracy, the SPD bureaucracy behaved ruthlessly in stamping out any opposition to its right-wing policies. It soon detected the presence of left-wing and revolutionary tendencies inside the Spanish Socialist Party, especially the Young Socialists, and advised González to take the necessary measures to eliminate the left. He was not slow to take their advice. He immediately set in motion a vicious witch-hunt against the left that destroyed the Spanish Young Socialists and later drove out the most active and self-sacrificing elements of the Socialist Party itself.
The SPD leadership also offered its services as a ‘mediating force’, allegedly to bring about the unity of the Spanish left – that is to say, to eliminate all possible sources of competition with the González-controlled Socialist Party. The PSI (now renamed PSP – Partido Socialista Popular) was rapidly absorbed by the PSOE and vanished without leaving a trace. Tierno Galván was awarded by being made Honorary President of the party – a quite meaningless gesture. He later became a very successful and popular mayor of Madrid. Hans Matthöfer summarised West German expectations when he expressed his confidence that “the PSOE has the ability to integrate numerous leftist splinter groups and to become the decisive force for political change towards a democratic Socialism in Spain.”23
The SP document explains:
West Germany’s Social Democrats were not only mobilising financial, logistical and political resources to prevent the creation of a popular front between Socialists and Communists that could potentially set the pretext for a fully-fledged Communist take-over of power positions. They were also aware of significantly more radical ideological tendencies within PSOE and UGT.24
The aims of the German Social Democrats are expressed here with the most delightful frankness. They admit that the purpose of channelling large sums of money into the coffers of the Spanish Socialist party was to prevent it from moving further to the left and preparing the ground for “a fully-fledged communist takeover of power positions” – or in plain language, a revolution. They were also concerned about the existence of “more radical ideological tendencies within PSOE and UGT” – meaning the Marxist tendency represented by Nuevo Claridad.
The entire purpose of these intrigues, which were carried out under the fig leaf of seemingly innocent “seminars and workshops”, was to combat Marxist ideas, expel the Marxists and push the Socialist Party to the right. The logical place to begin the purge was the Young Socialists.
The Young Socialists Sixth Congress
Despite the overwhelming preponderance of the Communist Party, many people still regarded it with suspicion, partly as a result of its past links with Stalinism and the totalitarian regime in Russia. On the other hand, the most radical elements among the youth were repelled by the bureaucratic nature of the Communist Party and its openly reformist programme. Many of the new layers turned towards the Socialist Party, which at that time seemed to present a more radical, even revolutionary, face. This left façade attracted a new layer of radicalised youth, especially in the Young Socialists.
On 18-20 July 1975, the Spanish Young Socialists (JJSS) held their sixth national congress just outside Lisbon. I was present at that congress. Portugal at that time was in the middle of a revolution. The revolution in Portugal spurred the Spanish working class on in their struggle to overthrow the Franco dictatorship and establish a regime of workers’ democracy. The Congress met in an atmosphere of feverish revolutionary activity.
Delegates travelled to the Congress from numerous federations from all over Spain: Madrid, Asturias, the Basque Country, Seville, Granada, Salamanca, Álava, as well as others from abroad. For the young militants from Spain, accustomed to difficult conditions of a clandestine underground, it was as if they had landed on another planet. Revolution was in the air. All the streets and squares of Lisbon were plastered with revolutionary slogans, posters and red flags. It only took one young man to start chalking a lengthy revolutionary manifesto on a wall for a large crowd of people to gather round, anxiously pushing forward to try to read what it said.
They were exciting times. Breathing the heady air of freedom was more intoxicating than champagne. It brought to my mind the words of the young poet Wordsworth when he arrived in France in the midst of a revolution:
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!
At the Lisbon Congress the Spanish Young Socialists came out in favour of class independence and of a revolutionary policy. But this did not meet with the approval of the leaders of the Socialist Party, who were already moving in an entirely different direction. In three days of intensive discussion, resolutions were adopted on basic ideology, Spanish perspectives, the international situation, trade union work, work in the working-class estates (barrios) and numerous organisational questions.
The Young Socialists were keen to understand the lessons of the past. The congress resolutions denounced “the Social Democratic policy of class collaboration which has now transformed the workers’ parties into mere administrators of big capital, allied with reaction and imperialism.” The document on ideology traced the development of Marxism from the writings of Marx and Engels, through the degeneration of the Second International and Lenin’s fight against reformism to the Russian Revolution, the rise of Stalinism and the fight led by Leon Trotsky and the Left Opposition against Stalinist reaction in Russia.
They also denounced the “false socialism” of the countries of the Warsaw Pact for their treason to proletarian internationalism and denial of the political rights of the working class. The document on Spanish Perspectives advanced the prognosis of an independent working-class policy and a united anti-capitalist front. It included the demand for a general strike to overthrow the Franco dictatorship and the democratic slogan of a Constituent Assembly together with a programme of transitional demands such as a sliding scale of prices and wages, freedom of assembly, association and the right to strike, freedom for all political prisoners, self-determination for the nationalities and the dissolution of the repressive bodies of fascism. The international resolution put forward the idea of the Socialist United States of Europe.
At the time this extremely radical programme did not appear to contradict the left-wing line adopted by the leaders of the Socialist Party – at least on paper. But the sharp denunciation of the class-collaborationist policies of the social democracy – clearly aimed specifically at parties like the German SPD – made very uncomfortable reading for Felipe González and the other PSOE leaders, who were negotiating behind-the-scenes with the same German Social Democrats.
The PSOE had refused to join the Democratic Council or Democratic Junta, when it was set up in July 1974 under the leadership of the PCE. However, the real reason for this was the fact that the PSOE was not strong enough to compete with the Communist Party, and would therefore have been relegated to a subordinate role in the negotiations with the Liberals. The result of this sense of inferiority was the creation of the Platform of Democratic Convergence in June 1975. The only real difference between this outfit and the Democratic Junta was that the former was controlled by the PSOE and the latter by the PCE. Eventually, as we have seen, the two bodies merged. The real aim of the Platajunta was to carry on negotiations with Adolfo Suárez on the so-called Reform being cooked up by the government. This opportunist policy met with stiff resistance from the ranks of the Socialist Party. The main opposition to this naturally came from the Young Socialists.
The central issue was: for or against the policy of collaborating with the bourgeois liberals. On the leadership of the Young Socialists the left wing had a clear majority. They were implacably opposed to this line. True, there were some elements who were closer to the party leadership, but they were an insignificant minority. But one of the members of the national leadership was manoeuvring to prevent an open clash with the Socialist Party executive. This person, whose underground party name was Raúl, assured the party leaders that they had nothing to fear from the Young Socialists, while delivering equally soothing (and deceitful) messages to the latter.
This anomalous situation could not last for long. The party leaders finally got suspicious and Alfonso Guerra, their principal hatchet-man, was dispatched to sort out the mess. He called an emergency meeting of the Young Socialist leadership at which he demanded that its members should declare themselves to be for or against the policy of the party leadership of seeking alliances with the “progressive bourgeois elements”. One by one, the members of the National committee answered in the negative. A scandalised Alfonso Guerra left the meeting, determined to settle this question once and for all. He and González were under pressure from their friends in Bonn to deal with the rebellious youth.
As a result of the direct intervention of Alfonso Guerra, the elected leadership of the Young Socialists were forced to resign in late 1975 and replaced by a totally undemocratic steering committee. In order to decide on the central political question, a national debate was organised. In January 1976, the opposition produced a document entitled ‘From the Franco Dictatorship to the Socialist Revolution’ that set forth the key points of divergence. The party leaders lost no time in taking action. They demonstrated their enthusiasm for democracy by expelling the youth and ruthlessly closing down all federations that refused to follow the party line (despite the fact that the Young Socialists were theoretically autonomous).
The Destruction of the Young Socialists
The Young Socialists of Spain represented the most advanced, militant and audacious section of the Spanish Socialist Party. They were therefore the first target for the right-wing leaders, receiving their orders from the German SPD. Unlike the leaders of the parent party, the youth leaders maintained a Marxist position regarding the tasks of the Spanish revolution, having won broad support for these positions in the ranks of the youth organisation.
A debate was organised in every Young Socialist Federation to decide the question of for or against class collaboration. Luis Osorio (‘Rati’), who had been a member of the elected YS leadership, drove hundreds of kilometres in an old British Leyland car given to him by his father to put the case for the opposition. While the bureaucrats were able to send different speakers in relays, Luis had to defend our corner on his own. This went on for several weeks and must have been physically exhausting. Where he got his energy from, I will never know. But he managed, and the opposition case made spectacular progress.
The full weight of the apparatus was mobilised to crush the dissidents. The debate had a farcical, if not surreal character. The party leaders appointed a new leader for the youth by the name of Miguel Ángel Pino who led the charge. Big meetings were held, but instead of debating the political questions, Pino and the other bureaucrats launched into a diatribe against the Marxists in the Young Socialists. The accusations of the bureaucrats were generally met with laughter, ridicule and sarcastic comments.
In some federations the bureaucracy won the vote, but in many others, it failed, and failed miserably. The militant membership of the Young Socialists was in no mood to submissively accept the dictates of the party executive or its policy of class collaboration. The bureaucrats, not used to being questioned in this way, reacted in a predictably bureaucratic and dictatorial manner. Whenever the vote went against them, Pino would stand up and announce: “This Federation is dissolved.” He would then walk out, leaving the members angry, indignant and frustrated.
On one occasion in the Federation of Pamplona the general secretary had to suffer the indignity of being accompanied in his exit by a crowd of Young Socialists chanting “Pino, Pino, Pinochet!” But no amount of anger and indignation could prevent the bureaucracy from pursuing their aim of destroying the Young Socialists. In many areas, it also led to the dissolution of dozens of party branches, with several hundred members expelled and denied the democratic right to appeal to the party congress.
In the following months the Young Socialists were dissolved in Navarre, Seville, Cartagena, Madrid, Malaga and other areas, in the majority of which Marxists, identifying with the ideas of the newspaper Nuevo Claridad, were in the leadership. The party leaders preferred to see the destruction of the Young Socialists rather than permit the Marxists to argue their case. It is a supreme irony that the very people who allegedly stood for democracy in Spain were quite prepared to trample underfoot the democracy of their own movement.
In both the party and the Young Socialists, the González faction acted in a completely undemocratic and dictatorial manner. Evidently, for them, and for their backers in Bonn, democracy was only of use when it served their interests. As a matter of fact, democracy and bureaucracy always tend to be incompatible. And so they were in this case.
The purge of the youth was successful because the leaders felt themselves to be immune, lifted high by the onrush of mass support. They felt themselves to be above criticism. Leaning on the middle classes and the most backward, most immature elements of the class, they struck blows against the most advanced and militant elements, with the heaviest blows falling on the youth. The leadership were subsequently reinforced by the growing disillusionment with the policies and conduct of the reformists.
From the beginning of 1977, the leadership of the PSOE had unleashed a ferocious witch-hunt, not only in the Young Socialists but also increasingly in the party, against those militants who had consistently defended the ideas of Marxism and who had opposed the consensus and political pacts that they formed with the bourgeoisie. In January, the PSOE and the Young Socialist branches in Álava, where the stance of Marxism had obtained its greatest strength, were dissolved.
Between 1977 and 1979, without interruption, hundreds of militants were bureaucratically expelled from the party, a large section of these identifying themselves with the paper of the Marxist tendency Nuevo Claridad. The sale of the paper was banned at Party meetings. Thus, the first action of those who were supposed to be fighting for democracy and free speech was to stamp on the democratic rights of the socialist rank and file, violate internal democracy and censor ideas.
These bureaucratic attacks, which led to the destruction of the Young Socialists and the closure of dozens of party branches across the country, earned the warm applause of the Second International. Their appreciation found a material expression in a considerable influx of funds to the Socialist Party, which was thus enabled to participate in election campaigns with expensive propaganda, posters, glossy literature and all kinds of goodies.
The Role of ‘Seminars’: Preparing the Ground
The PSOE’s break from Marxism was not the result of a spontaneous change of heart on the part of Felipe González. It was a deliberate manoeuvre expertly planned down to the last detail. The key mover in all this – as we have seen – was the right-wing leadership of the German SPD and its agents in the Madrid offices of the FEF.
It was imperative that the fight against Marxism should be carried out to the bitter end as a prior condition for bringing the Spanish Socialist party under the control of the right wing with the active backing of the German SPD and the FEF. But this could not be accomplished easily or quickly. The ground had to be prepared first, and this was carried out by Koniecki and the FEF with typical German thoroughness.
A key role in this was played by so-called seminars, which were a subtle but effective way of indoctrinating the cadres of the PSOE. The Foundation organised a series of seminars to prepare the ground, gradually but insistently pushing forward the idea of class collaboration in place of class struggle. Koniecki realised that the problem of ideological pragmatism would become a future playground for FEF projects seeking to prepare PSOE-UGT cadres effectively for the ‘real world’ of parliamentary politics.
The SP document explains: “In order to simulate the organisational processes governing political work within party apparatuses, they then had to prepare a motion e.g. for a PSOE congress.”25 Koniecki explains the method of utilising seminars, in which the main speakers would be carefully selected to peddle the SPD line in a surreptitious way:
By organising seminars, discussion groups and workshops, the FEF aimed at subtly setting the agenda through a selection of participants, the raising of important issues for debate and the inclusion of its own experts to provide outside experience.26
In this way, gradually, step-by-step, the party was being pushed away from the revolutionary socialist road and in the direction of social democratic reformism. In order to conceal the real aim, these seminars were organised in collaboration with Luis Gómez Llorente. As he was generally regarded as a left-winger and enjoyed a good reputation among party members, this was an ideal cover.
According to Koniecki, the pragmatic nature of the seminars helped to also overcome the “politically obstructive trauma” of the PSOE’s Marxist wing, a trauma he attributed to years of “winter sleep in the subculture of illegality” that “pure ideologues” went through.27
Gómez Llorente was not aware of what was behind it all. But he was not the only one who was kept in the dark, as Koniecki points out:
For obvious reasons the number of persons completely familiar with the concrete form of our involvement is kept as small as possible. […] The other members of the PSOE executive know in principal about our contribution of solidarity but not about the exact amounts invested and specific forms chosen.28
According to this account only two people were fully informed about the exact scope and nature of political co-operation between the FEF and the PSOE – Felipe González and his secretary-general Alfonso Guerra.
What were these “obvious reasons” to which he refers? If he had nothing to hide, why should González be so anxious to conceal his collaboration with the Germans from public view? González was clearly nervous. He asked his West German supporters “particularly during the complicated transition and of course in the run-up to the PSOE-Congress to shield our contribution from public view – a wish which does not require further explanations.”29 This “does not require further explanations,” for the simple reason that it would have caused an almighty scandal. It would have exposed the fact that González and the leaders of the SPD were collaborating in a secret conspiracy to get the PSOE to abandon Marxism and move sharply to the right.
Between 16 and 23 September 1976, the PSOE and UGT’s training departments, assisted by the FEF, organised a political education seminar with 120 leading functionaries of party and union organisations in El Escorial near Madrid. It was arranged in preparatory talks between the head of the PSOE’s education department, Luís Gómez Llorente, and Dieter Koniecki, the resident representative of the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation.
The event was not without risk given UGT and PSOE’s still illegal status. But since the FEF had established excellent relations with the regime, Koniecki was unconcerned. However, he stressed the need for extraordinary discretion, insisting particularly that “mentioning of FEF involvement had to be avoided.”30 Among the speakers were Miguel Boyer, a bourgeois economist and wealthy playboy with only the vaguest connection with the PSOE. In fact, Boyer resigned from the PSOE in February 1977, claiming that the party’s economic policies, were “too unrealistic, theoretical and politically leftist to be implemented in contemporary Spain.”31 He later came back and became a right-wing finance minister in González’s government in the 1980s, in charge of closing down state owned factories and sacking tens of thousands of workers, of course, all in the name of ‘realism’.
Despite all these precautions, the leadership’s turn to the right was met by stiff resistance. The document informs us that “the seminars were platforms for the display of frequent verbal clashes between PSOE ‘ideologues’ and ‘pragmatists’.”
Felipe: I Am Not a Marxist
Even before the dust had settled after the 1979 election, some of the PSOE leaders were talking about parliamentary agreement with the UCD along the lines of the Italian CP’s support for the Christian Democratic government. González and the PSOE leaders had decided to drink the cup of class collaboration to the last dregs. But first the leaders had to complete the purge of the Party, eliminating its proletarian and left-wing base and filling its ranks with careerists and obedient opportunists. However, they faced a serious problem.
The programme adopted in the Twenty-Seventh Congress in December 1976, although it contained many inconsistencies and ambiguities, was far to the left of any other of the parties of the Second International (though not the Greek PASOK, which was not then part of the Socialist International). In the political resolution adopted at the congress, we can read the following: “The supplanting of the capitalist mode of production by means of the seizure of political and economic power and the socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange by the working class”.
It called for a forty-hour working week (most Spanish workers worked long hours of overtime, weekends, holiday, etc., and, in many cases, had two or three jobs in order to make ends meet), retirement at sixty, free and obligatory education (education in Spain was neither) and the nationalisation of the big banks. The party also recognised the right of self-determination for the historical nationalities within its programme as well as a number of other radical measures.
In October 1977, the FEF office in Madrid reported with concern that:
If one follows the resolutions of the twenty-seventh PSOE Congress and the ongoing communiques of the federal executive committee of the party it becomes very clear that a majority within PSOE sees the party as a Marxist organisation and believes that a number of discrepancies exist between PSOE and SPD.32
While publicly the leaders of the PSOE were committed to this programme, or at least were unable to criticise it openly, in private, many of them considered it to be impractical and unrealisable given the period of crisis of capitalism. The right wing of the leadership wanted to ditch the programme, or to modify it radically to win the good graces of the bankers and industrialists – to convince them of their ‘fitness to govern’. But they faced a serious problem.
The great majority of the party membership regarded themselves as Marxists. In order to change the party programme, it was necessary to open up a sharp struggle against the rank and file. Having successfully accomplished the purge of the youth, the PSOE leadership felt increasingly confident to proceed with a purge in the party itself. But they still felt it necessary to proceed with caution, taking one step at a time, like a man crossing a minefield without a map.
The initiative for this witch-hunt emanates not from Madrid, but from Bonn. The PSOE’s paymasters feared the effect that a coherent Marxist opposition could have in the party when Felipe González entered the government. Utilising the expert services of Willy Brandt, the SPD made strenuous efforts to convince, cajole and push the leaders of the PSOE towards a more ‘realistic’ position in preparation for their entry into the ‘real world’ of parliamentary politics. But here they had a very serious problem: the radical mood of the working-class base of the party and, even more, the socialist trade union, the UGT.
Felipe González announced to the press that he was “no longer a Marxist”.
Prodded on by his German friends, Felipe González lost no time in launching his offensive. He went so far as to affirm that capitalism was a superior system, and that he personally would far prefer to live in the USA than in Soviet Russia. He issued a public statement (evidently without consulting with the party executive) to the effect that the PSOE should drop the word Marxist from the party programme at the forthcoming congress.
While there was no publicity given, for obvious reasons, to the discussion in the National Executive, it is clear that there must have been angry exchanges between González and the representatives of the left-wing such as Gómez Llorente and (surprising though it may sound, given his subsequent evolution) Javier Solana.
The fears of the leaders were well founded. All this represented a fundamental negation of everything the party stood for. Despite all the careful planning, intrigue and subterfuge, it met with fierce resistance from the rank and file.
The move to eliminate the word Marxism from the party rules provoked a storm at all levels. With a speed and vehemence which took the leadership completely by surprise, the party membership showed itself to be implacably opposed to the rightward move of the leadership. At the Regional Committee of the PSOE in Madrid a resolution was passed bluntly stating that González’s comments were unacceptable.
The grassroots immediately protested, with hundreds of branches inundating the PSOE headquarters with resolutions reaffirming the Marxist and revolutionary character of the party. The switchboards of the party headquarters in Madrid and Barcelona were jammed for hours as local party branches, committees and individual members tried to ring up and protest.
A number of party branches in Madrid felt so indignant that they actually went to the lengths of demanding disciplinary action against the general secretary for having publicly gone against party policy. This detail clearly revealed the depth of feeling on the issue and the abyss which opened up between the party base and the rightward moving elements in the leadership.
González tried to strike a compromise by playing with words: while declaring PSOE to be a Marxist and class-based party, at the same time, he rejected “the maximalist approach of the high priests of dogmatic Socialism” and argued in favour of using Marxism as a “methodology.” But that trick did not work, either.
The Madrid Federation declared, among other things, that:
The Federation defines itself as Marxist in the same way as Marxism is expressed in our declaration of principles approved in the twenty-seventh Federal Congress of the PSOE, that is to say, not only as a method of analysis but also as an alternative for the revolutionary transformation of society.
Within a matter of days, Alfonso Guerra was forced to make a public statement on behalf of the leadership to the effect that the PSOE would remain a Marxist party and hoped no-one would start a discussion on such a “foolish” issue. Meanwhile, González, after an initial feeble attempt at self-defence, retired to the side-lines and declined to make any further interventions. He had evidently learned that discretion is the better part of valour. But that was not the end of the story.
The Twenty-eighth Congress: González Blackmails The Party
The Twenty-Eighth Congress was scheduled for late May 1979 and was due to settle this point and elect a new leadership. The fight around a single word – “for or against Marxism” – was no mere semantic debate. What was really at stake was an attempt to abandon the revolutionary and class character of the party on the part of the leadership. In practice, the leadership had long since abandoned Marxism and had adopted a policy of opportunism and reformism (the theory and practice of conciliation and collaboration between the classes), which contributed to the demoralisation of a large number of workers and youth who had placed such hopes in PSOE leading a profound social change.
It was precisely this atmosphere of general apathy and frustration that had eroded the party’s membership and weakened the pressure of the rank and file on the leadership. As such the leaders of the party became more and more detached from the ranks, leaving them completely exposed to the influence of the bourgeoisie and bourgeois ‘public opinion’, which pushed them still further to the right. But they were out of touch with the mood of the rank and file.
Even elements in the leadership were unhappy with González’s declarations. They provoked a reaction in the parliamentary group of the PSOE where a group of MPs signed a written protest and Pablo Castellano, the most prominent spokesman of the left wing of the party, wrote an angry denunciation to the press in which he stated that “this was how the German SPD started off” and added that that party had ended up selling the interests of the working class to big business.
González hoped he could use his authority as party leader to get his line adopted by the twenty-eighth party congress, but he was quite mistaken. So fierce was the resistance to the change that González suffered a shock defeat. Although the Executive itself received the approval of sixty-eight per cent of the delegates, the commission on the ideological stance of the party rejected the official position of the leadership, and the position of their critics adopted. This stated: “The Socialist Party reaffirms its character as a mass, democratic, federal, class-based and Marxist party”.
Felipe González was now faced with the prospect of a humiliating defeat. He was shocked and angry. Is this how they repay me for all I have done? And what will they say in Bonn? Visibly shaken by this rebuff, a furious González announced his decision not to stand for re-election to the Executive.
The opposition then met to weigh the possibility of putting forward an alternative list (Tierno Galván, Francisco Bustelo, Pablo Castellanos and Gómez Llorente). The majority of congress delegates took it for granted that the critics would put forward their own list as they appeared to have every guarantee of walking away with an electoral majority. Opposition to the leadership as such fell to those sincere elements (such as Gómez Llorente and others) who stood not so much on the position of Marxism as a kind of intermediate position between Marxism and reformism. These elements, however, lacked sufficient willpower and decisiveness to take the reins of the party when the opportunity presented itself.
Precisely at this moment of decision, the opposition lost its nerve. Instead of assuming the leadership, they announced instead the need to create a “Management Committee” to convoke an extraordinary congress, which would choose a new leadership to “salvage the unity of the party”. This conduct is absolutely typical of the political tendency that tries to stand between Marxism and reformism. The left reformists and centrists are always characterised by a lack of clarity, ambiguity, indecision and spinelessness. In moments of great decision, they run away, citing the need to maintain unity as a cover for cowardice and lack of principle.
By contrast, the right reformists, who feel they have the backing of sections of the ruling class, always act with firmness and decision. This is just what we see here. If González and Guerra had got a majority, one could be sure that they would not have hesitated to use it to seize all the leading positions and drive all their opponents out through a pitiless purge. That was shown clearly by what happened a few months later.
González actually had no intention of resigning. That melodramatic gesture was a cynical move designed to put pressure on the rank and file. To call it by its right name, it was blackmail, and eventually it had the desired effect.
The PSOE Abandons Marxism
In my younger days there used to be comics, which invariably contained the adventures of heroic figures like Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel and the like. The episodes were serialised, and so designed as to maintain the suspense of the reader until the next exciting issue of the comic one week later. The hero would inevitably end up in a seemingly impossible situation: usually, tied up on a railway track just when an express train was due to arrive. The next issue usually began with words like: “With one leap, he was free!” When I consider what occurred with Felipe González in the next congress of the Spanish Socialist party, it is these early comics that instantly come to mind.
At first sight, Felipe was in a difficult, if not impossible, position. But in the words of Napoleon, the impossible takes a little longer. In this case, about four months. In September 1979, an extraordinary congress was called in which González was re-elected and the party agreed to abandon Marxism. The result of this congress was decided in advance. The party officials at once began to manoeuvre to ensure it would be rigged.
They managed to introduce a change into the statutes of the party, which passed by unnoticed by the incompetent lefts, altering the way in which delegates were elected. No longer would they represent the local groups, but would be elected instead from the provincial and regional federations, with the head of delegation voting for the entire province. In this way, rank-and-file representation was dramatically narrowed, and the balance of forces shifted sharply to the right. The officialdom had a thousand other tricks up its sleeve: assemblies were improperly convened, debate was restricted and so on.
But the real reason for the defeat was not so much the preparedness of the Right, but the complete unpreparedness of the Lefts. A serious battle must be approached seriously. The Lefts probably assumed foolishly that their easy victory in the congress would automatically be replicated in September. More likely, they did not assume anything at all. Their frivolous attitude invited defeat, and defeated they were. The Executive headed by Felipe carried the field without any difficulty. The decisions of the previous congress were overturned. The Marxist appellation was wiped from the statutes of the party for the first time in a hundred years.
That congress signified a decisive change in the PSOE. Not only did it no longer claim to stand for Marxism, even in words, but it was no longer a democratic party where workers and youth could freely express their views. It was a party that had been hollowed out by the loss of its most vigorous active members. They were replaced by a new influx of careerists and office-seekers, completely dominated by a bureaucratic apparatus, which had obtained complete independence from the rank and file.
This marked the closing of the chapter that had opened in Suresnes. It was also the congress that, under the banner of democracy, handed absolute powers to the general secretary. The PSOE was emptied of any content that it previously had: not only socialist but democratic. All opposition was crushed. Power passed from the members to the bureaucracy and from the bureaucracy to the general secretary. The dictatorial methods of the apparatus were in stark contrast to the PSOE right-wing leaders’ hypocritical speeches about democracy. The purge led to the virtual collapse of the PSOE’s youth organisation; seventy per cent of whose members left in disgust in six months. Now a section of the party leadership aimed to repeat the process of expulsions in the PSOE as well.
If the Communist Party came to be politically identical to the Socialist Party, the latter became organisationally indistinguishable from the Stalinist model of bureaucratic centralism. The cult of personality was replicated in the leadership cult of Felipe González, the all-powerful and unquestioned leader, who henceforth could rule the party without any control, limit or restriction.
By his side stood Alfonso Guerra, snapping and snarling like a faithful guard dog. There were occasional rumours that Guerra had ambitions of his own and even of tensions between them. Some people thought that Guerra stood to the left of Felipe. But that was mere wish-fulfilment. Guard dogs who snap at their master can easily be silenced by a well-aimed kick. Guerra could be relied upon to bark at González’s enemies both inside and outside the PSOE, but his main role was to keep the party itself firmly under control.
In the end, González and his clique succeeded in its aims. Marxism was cast off and the leaders were now free to push the Party far to the right. By democracy, González understood the continuing domination of society by a tiny unelected clique of bankers and capitalists. It meant that the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party must abandon all pretence of standing for socialism and the working class. From this moment, the PSOE fell into line with the SPD and the other European Social Democratic parties, embracing the capitalist system, the market economy and, finally, NATO.
This was the PSOE’s Bad Godesberg. The leaders of the European Social Democratic parties loudly applauded. They fell over themselves to praise González’s ‘courageous stand’ in effectively bullying the party rank and file into accepting an unpopular line, and the Social Democratic Party of Germany sent large quantities of money as a sign of its approval. Dieter Koniecki boasted that at that time there “was hardly a chair to sit on in the offices of the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), which I had not paid for.” And the FEF paid for a lot more than chairs. The abandonment of Marxism proved to be a highly profitable investment for González and his friends. They responded to all the praise (and all the money) by changing the party’s symbol, the anvil and book, with the peculiar-looking rose in a fist, as used by the French socialists. I remember one PSOE member commenting ironically that it looked like a cauliflower in the hand of Frankenstein.
In the general election of 28 October 1982, the PSOE was victorious, with 48.1 per cent of the vote (10,127,392 total). Felipe González became prime minister of Spain on 2 December, a position he held until May 1996. Whilst in opposition, the party had always opposed NATO, but once they were comfortably seated in ministerial positions, the leaders had a change of heart. In 1986, the González administration organised a referendum on NATO aimed at keeping Spain inside the organisation. They called for a favourable vote, and they won.
The Party had entered the ‘real world’ of parliamentary politics.
[1] The so-called históricos or historicals led by the old general secretary, Rodolfo Llopis.
[2] Known as the Renovators.
[3] Jens-Ulrich Poppen (2006), Soft Power Politics: The Role of Political Foundations in Germany’s Foreign Policy towards Regime Change in Spain, Portugal and South Africa 1974-1994, London: London School of Economic and Political Science. Hereafter referred to as SP.
[4] SP, pp. 232-3.
[5] Ibid., p. 233.
[6] Ibid., p. 234.
[7] Ibid., p. 233, my emphasis, AW.
[8] Ibid., p. 234, my emphasis, AW.
[9] Ibid., p. 193.
[10] Ibid., p. 194.
[11] Ibid., p. 195.
[12] Ibid., p. 244.
[13] Ibid., p. 244.
[14] Ibid., p. 244, footnote 800. AdsD, WBC, BN/131, Note Hans-Eberhard Dingels, 11 January 1976.
[15] Ibid., p. 236, my emphasis, AW.
[16] Ibid., p. 240, my emphasis, AW.
[17] Ibid., p. 241.
[18] Ibid., p. 244.
[19] Ibid., p. 197. My emphasis, AW.
[20] Ibid., p. 196.
[21] Ibid., p. 198.
[22] Ibid., p. 198.
[23] Ibid., p. 232.
[24] Ibid., p. 231, my emphasis, AW.
[25] Ibid., p. 218.
[26] Ibid., p. 218.
[27] Ibid., p. 221.
[28] Ibid., p. 198, my emphasis, AW.
[29] Ibid., p. 218, footnote 692, my emphasis, AW.
[30] See SP, paragraph 690.
[31] See SP, p. 218, footnote 691.
[32] Ibid., p. 231. My emphasis, AW.