12. The Strange Birth of a ‘Parliamentary Monarchy’: The Fascists
The Francoist Bunker still occupied key positions in the state and it was bitterly opposed to any suggestion of reform. But the forces of open reaction were by now too weak to present a serious threat to a mass movement that had exceeded all bounds. The fascist gangs were increasingly violent, carrying out acts of terrorism, beatings, kidnappings and murders with impunity. But they were utterly incapable of playing an independent role.
The fascists acted as an auxiliary arm of the state. The police and the fascist gangs were working together. The Guerrilleros de Cristo Rey (Warriors of Christ the King), falangists and members of the fascist party Fuerza Nueva (New Force) were allowed to act with complete impunity, despite the fact that these thugs were known by most of the population. The police, apparently, were the only ones who had no idea about the names and addresses of the fascists.
At this time, the fascists in Spain were not a serious mass force. In the elections they received a derisory vote. When Blas Piñar, one of the ideologues of the Falange movement, held a meeting in 1974 and proclaimed that “the [Civil] War had not yet finished”,1 he found himself ridiculed in most of the media. The press (that represent the views of industrial and finance capital) attacked him mercilessly.
Like a man who keeps a vicious dog to guard his property, the ruling class kept the fascists on a short leash. The ruling class from time to time made use of the services of these mad dogs, but it had no intention of allowing them to escape its control, let alone take power. Moreover, they were causing trouble by antagonising and infuriating the masses, who were moving into action.
Ferment in The Police
The shaky basis of the regime was brought into stark relief by reports, initially suppressed, of rank and file policemen demonstrating for better conditions and an improvement in their status. I wrote a report about this at the time:
On 17 December 1976, 700 members of the Civil Guard and the armed police demonstrated in Madrid. They had seven main demands: increase in basic salary to 7,125 pesetas; across the board bonus of 10,000 pesetas; social security – inclusion in the system; retirement at 100 per cent of real wages; holidays which don’t have to be made up for; reform of the laws of March 1941, which considered them as soldiers not agents of public order; no punishments against the visible heads of the demonstration.
They picketed the Royal Palace for two hours, then marched to the Ministry. During the march a police chief was stopped forcefully from putting two members of the march in his car. Shortly afterwards the efforts of this chief to make himself heard outside the ministry resulted in a punch up and free for all. The demonstrators shouted for the minister to receive two representatives to no avail, but a lieutenant colonel came to see them. In the street the police continued to shout “We won’t go”. The anti-disturbance brigade (anti-riot squad) appeared. There had been a previous agreement between them and the demonstrators so that the former would not intervene. This agreement worked to perfection and was helped by the police demonstrators shouting “join us brothers!”
A demonstrator said “They have been ordered to charge against us, but that would be stupid. By defending our rights, we are defending theirs”; “They are in front of us because they are on duty.” A spokesman of the movement said that his comrades would not tolerate punishment and that the movement was strong enough throughout all Spain to win. “We are 90,000 in all Spain. 80,000 are with us. Although we don’t rely on the majority of the officers, a few tolerate the movement and take a broad view of our actions so as not to punish us.”
“Our slogan is: We don’t want them to set us against the people. We want justice. We want to be under civil jurisdiction. In other countries the police are under the Minister of Justice and we hope to be the same if democracy really arrives. We want to keep out of politics and not to be cannon fodder. By demonstrating this morning, we feel like civilians. A new and strange sensation, which we hope will be felt more often. Now we have representatives in Madrid. We want them in all the provinces to defend our rights better. It’s not a question of a trade union but of obtaining legality for the comrades we elect to defend our interests.”
Although that demo seemed to surprise the authorities because of the great number of demonstrators, this movement has been feared for some time among the tops. The bad feeling in the Civil Guard had been growing fast. Early October saw a high-level meeting about some nomination for top jobs. All the generals of this body, the president of the government, the Minister of Interior and his two sub secretaries, the director and the sub-director of the Civil Guard dined together in Madrid Centre of Instruction. There the generals explained the bad mood.
The military tops are ready to take over from the police to keep the regime in power. In Catalonia special sections had been constituted under the direct command of commandants or lieutenants colonels who are battalion chiefs, jumping over the younger captains out of the academies. Their mission was to co-operate with the police or, if necessary, substitute them as the forces of public order.
Restless and nervous, a Civil Guard talked to our reporter in a central Madrid bar. He looked all around before beginning each sentence. He’s young, twenty-four years old and part of the Mobile Unit of the Civil Guard in Batalla del Salado [A Madrid street]. He said: “The economic demands have acted as a detonator to present to public opinion our genuine problem of being social outcasts. We understand the image people have of us and it is justified up to a certain point. We have arrived at such an extreme that we represent nothing more than a repressive machine for our superiors just as much as for the people. This is the real problem hidden beneath the economic demands which are also just.”
The officer stopped speaking whenever a waiter or anyone else came near. “I know I’m breaking the rules telling you these things but you don’t know how much we need to make our anxiety known to the public. There is a sector amongst us who think these are internal problems and shouldn’t leave the barracks, but I don’t agree. We left the academies hating everybody. We suffered a tremendous brainwash and they gave us a very different vision of things. That’s why many of us prefer to stay inside and put up with it rather than leave because we know that it is very difficult to integrate into civilian life due to the education we received”.2
The Armed Forces
The armed forces constituted the last point of support for the Franco dictatorship, but that prop was also beginning to crumble, although the threat of a backlash from the army was not very credible at this time. The army served Suárez as a useful scarecrow with which to frighten the workers’ leaders and provide them with an excuse for the capitulation that they were preparing. However, the threat from the armed forces was greatly exaggerated. After the overturn in Portugal, the Spanish regime lived in dread of the subversion spreading to the armed forces. But the Spanish officer caste was not analogous to the Portuguese, which was undermined by years of colonial war. There was no ‘Spinolist’ tendency trying to carry out a change from the top.
There was one thing, however, that the Spanish army had in common with Portugal. The bulk of the army were conscripts, the sons of workers who would carry the bacillus of revolution to every regiment. Therefore, it would have been extremely risky to try to use the Spanish army to suppress a revolutionary upheaval. It would inevitably have ended in bloodshed and would have threatened to shatter it in pieces with untold consequences for the ruling class. The strategists of capital realised, far better than their military cousins, the real state of affairs in the ranks of the armed forces.
In any country the army is always a mirror of society as a whole. The Spanish army was under pressure from the revolutionary movement in society. We received at the time an article signed by an ex-soldier, which gives an interesting insight into the life and psychology of a conscript soldier, the morale in the barracks and the attitude of the men towards their officers. Here is an extract:
Perhaps the worst day of your entire military service is when a person stops being a civilian in order to ‘serve the country.’ From the first moment a person comes into contact with the military environment, you are converted into just another number, becoming part of the pack that has to put up with the orders and whims of imbeciles who call themselves your superiors. While in the training camp, you have to endure the tyranny of the ‘veterans’, corporals, sergeants and other individuals higher up the ladder, for whom any mistake is an excuse for punishment and you are constantly subjected to insults and threats.
In the barracks, following months in the training camp, you recover your name, but not your personality or freedom. This is where you found out that the soldier does not serve the country, but a series of individuals who use the ‘country’ for their own ends. They get disproportionate salaries for what they do. A sergeant gets about 22,000 pesetas, and yet they protest when they have to stand guard or do any other duties. In the regimental workshops, at least in the artillery unit, the purpose of which is to repair the cars and military trucks, they do nothing but fix private vehicles. The sergeant in charge of the workshop set up a nice little business buying used cars, repairing them and selling them to private individuals on the outside.
This sergeant never saluted the colonel of the regiment and he exploited the soldiers who were under him. All the officers got soldiers of the most diverse trades to carry out repair work in their homes for no money. Among these gentlemen drunkenness is acceptable, but is a punishable offence for the troops.
In Artillery, Brigadier B. arrives drunk at 10 o’clock in the morning, whether or not he is on guard duty, and nobody calls him to order. The same was true of Lieutenant H., who requested money from troop personnel – an action prohibited by military law. He obtained 15,000 pesetas from a soldier and he paid him back with a cheque that bounced. This same brigadier stole money from the payroll of soldiers on leave, which he mostly spent on alcohol.
We know from reports sent to us by soldiers who witnessed the events after the shootings in Vitoria on 3 March 1976, that relations between the police and army recruits in the barracks assumed an extremely tense character; one false move and there could have been an open clash between soldiers and police. This fact was well known to the politicians in Madrid. It was at that time that the army adopted the system by which conscripts would do their military service away from their region of origin, in order to minimise the risk of fraternisation.
Jesús D., an old friend and comrade of mine, was a soldier at that time:
In January 1975 I was called up for military service and the first thing I saw was a soldier being beaten up by an NCO while we were waiting for our uniforms. As soon as I joined, I received lectures on the Green March in the Western Sahara where the people were pressing for independence from Spanish rule. It seemed as though they were preparing to send us to fight against the Moroccans, but in the end, they were powerless to halt the movement for independence. They had more pressing problems at home.
He was stationed in Vitoria on 3 March 1976, and remembers very well the mood of the troops at that time. He described to me the atmosphere of extreme tension in the barracks after the massacre:
The whole town had been turned into an armed camp and we had to share our barracks with armed police and Civil Guard. This led to open confrontations between soldiers and members of the repressive corps. The attitude of the soldiers towards the latter was one of extreme hostility. There was a ferment in the barracks when we learnt that there were military manoeuvres outside Vitoria. I saw a sergeant in a Jeep brandishing a pistol but they were unable to use the troops for repressive purposes. Once again, we were ordered back to barracks where the officers attempted to hand out live ammunition, which we refused to accept. The mood became increasingly heated and rebellious.
Our barracks was near the centre of Vitoria and police had been drafted in from Burgos, Logroño and other provinces. As there was only one canteen, we had to share it with them. Immediately, there was friction with the police and especially the Civil Guard, who were insulted by the soldiers. At meal times one heard comments such as: “this place stinks of pigs” and “get them out of here.” At the slightest provocation there would have been an explosion of violence in the barracks.
Under these circumstances, any hasty move on the part of the general staff leading to a bloody clash would have led swiftly to a split in the army and the going over of the soldiers to the side of the workers with incalculable consequences for the ruling class. That is why they kept the generals firmly on a leash. In the end, the generals had to swallow their indignation and accept the inevitable, although continually growling and snarling from the side-lines, like a mangy old lion locked up in a cage. Those who remained obdurate were quietly side-lined, or pushed into a comfortable but harmless retirement. When, eventually, the reactionaries attempted to stage a coup d’état in 1981, it ended in a complete farce. But that is the subject of a later chapter.
What Was the UCD?
The process of the revolution is characterised by the rise and fall of different political tendencies, parties and personalities. Individuals who appeared to be dominant forces in the process rise to a peak, basking in the attention of the public, then burn themselves out like a spent rocket that has reached its highest point and then falls to earth.
In April 1977, Suárez announced general elections. The way was opened by the referendum. But Suárez had a small problem. He did not have a party. Voltaire once remarked that if God did not exist, he would have to be invented. Following this admirable advice, Adolfo proceeded to invent a party of his own. Already in March, Suárez had taken the first steps, manoeuvring himself into the leadership of what was then a small grouping of ex-Franco ‘democrats’. This insignificant sect then became miraculously transformed into the UCD, the Democratic Centre Union (Unión de Centro Democrático).
On Tuesday, 3 May 1977, the new party was born. It was a weird coalition of the most varied and contradictory interests, hastily cobbled together by a burning desire to turn the new ‘democracy’ into a lucrative source of power and enrichment. Then, in the late spring, trade unions were legalised, the right to strike recognised and Franco’s Movimiento Nacional was abolished. This Frankenstein monster, composed entirely by former fascists and ex-ministers of Franco’s regime, was subsequently portrayed as a champion of democracy.
Clearly, those who write the history books in Spain do not lack a sense of humour. The very name of the new party proclaimed its colossal ambitions: it was, in the first place, a Union – and unity, as everybody knows, makes us strong. There is something profoundly comforting about a unifying force in politics, which brings together everyone and everything under the common banner, eliminating unnecessary conflict and struggle. That is surely what every responsible citizen ought to desire?
If the question is asked: precisely what forces are hereby united? The answer is equally easy to understand. The political centre is the place which nullifies all extremes, embracing in its warm and welcoming bosom every reasonable and moderate tendency. In the ranks of the newly-created party we find the liberal Joaquín Garrigues Walker, the social democrat Francisco Fernández Ordóñez and the Christian Democrat Fernando Álvarez de Miranda. All these respectable men signed up to the party led by that most respectable and reasonable of all men, President Adolfo Suárez. A most comforting vision!
And comfort is precisely what is required by the average citizen who desires neither more nor less than to live a quiet life and pursue his or her business interests without further trouble or turbulence. “Enough of chaos and uncertainty! Let us have peace and quiet and goodwill towards all men on earth.” That is the message that was transmitted day in and day out in countless electoral broadcasts, speeches and interviews in the newspapers, on the television and on the radio. The media were of course entirely dominated by the president and his men.
Once it was formed, the new party acted as an irresistible magnet for the caciques, all the right-wing careerists and opportunists and the all-powerful, all-embracing and, above everything else, all-concealing ‘centre’. The caciques were little local political bosses, with a strong instinct for survival. The careerists that the new party attracted were those with a past they wished to jettison as soon as possible. They hastily took off their blue shirts and wrapped themselves in the flag of democracy. The advance of Suárez and his new party appeared to be completely irresistible. But in fact, all this was merely an optical illusion.
Observing this stampede to the ‘democratic centre’ reminded me of scenes that were described to me some years earlier when I was studying in Bulgaria. In 1945, after the Stalinists had come to power following the defeat of Nazi Germany, a large number of former Bulgarian fascists and reactionaries suddenly developed the most unsuspected leanings towards ‘communism’. A friend of mine, who would have been in the University of Sofia at that time described to me some amusing examples of these miraculous conversions.
One university professor of history, who had been an outspoken defender of the previous fascist, pro-German government, suddenly began to sprinkle his lectures with a generous amount of quotations from Lenin and Stalin. This provided an occasion for the general merriment among the students who, every time the unfortunate lecturer mentioned their names, began chanting “Lenin! Lenin! Lenin!” and “Stalin! Stalin! Stalin!” The poor man had to stand there in a state of extreme embarrassment while these expressions of enthusiasm for his new-found political beliefs died down and he was able to continue with the lesson.
In recent years, we now see the same process in the former Soviet Union, except in a diametrically reverse direction. A large number of writers and historians who, not so long ago were card-carrying members of the so-called Communist Party of the Soviet Union, have now become the most fervent defenders of the capitalist market economy and ‘democracy’. The same people who spent all their lives writing the most sycophantic praises of the Party and its geriatric leaders were suddenly writing numerous books condemning the Russian Revolution, socialism and all its works. It is hard to know what is worse, more cynical and hypocritical: what they wrote then or what they write now. But what is transparently obvious is that many so-called intellectuals and respectable academics possess highly flexible consciences and highly disposable principles.
All too many of these people regard their own personal well-being, careers and privileges as being far more important than any political beliefs that they may, or may not, have professed. Of course, in Spain there were many students and university professors that fought and made sacrifices in the struggle for democracy. Some of them paid with their lives, others with their careers and personal freedom. But for every one of those there were a dozen or a hundred who were prepared to jump on the bandwagon when it was already in motion. The most convenient bandwagon upon which to jump was the UCD. Some of the smarter and more unscrupulous ones eventually decided to throw in their lot with the party of Felipe González. Once the PSOE had abandoned its Marxist baggage, and was conveniently purged of the ones who did all the fighting, it opened up the most fruitful career prospects for the ones who did all the shouting and cheering once the battle was over. In Catalonia, the largest number of Franco-era local mayors who became ‘democrats’ were recycled into the ranks of the Catalan bourgeois nationalist CiU.
King and Shah: The Missing Millions
For some, the launching of the new party was seen as a historic step in the direction of a future democratic paradise. For others, less idealistic and more practical, it was simply a mouth-watering business opportunity. We will now have an opportunity to study a laboratory case of this fascinating subject.
Corruption has been a feature of monarchical rule for centuries. It has always been the prerogative of a ruling monarch to plunder the public finances in order to maintain a lavish lifestyle, both for the royal family and for an army of servile and venal courtiers that surround the throne like flies around a honey pot. In the old days the royal prerogative was unquestioned for the simple reason that to question it was regarded as an act of treason and was punished accordingly.
As time went on, however, the gentle art of hanging, drawing and quartering went out of fashion. The lavish expenditure on the monarchy turned into a habit that nobody questioned, and like all habits proved extremely difficult to eliminate. Thus, old established monarchies like the one so comfortably installed in Buckingham Palace could afford to assume a veneer of polite respectability, behind which the plunder of the public purse continues as before.
The case of the Spanish monarchy is somewhat different. As we have seen, the hated monarchy that was overthrown by the people of Spain in 1931 was re-imposed by Franco. It has no roots, no basis in popular affection, no democratic credentials and no genuine legal justification. It is the exclusive creation of a dictator who wished to perpetuate his dictatorship after his death by nominating his successor, Juan Carlos. Like every other aspect of the so-called Democratic Transition, the Spanish monarchy is false, deceitful and inherently unsure of itself. And like every other aspect of the present Spanish state it is corrupt to the marrow.
This corruption was revealed in a most startling way by the scandal over the king’s African safari when, accompanied by his mistress, he made a significant contribution to the cause of animal conservation by exterminating some of the few surviving African elephants. The news of this particular escapade so inflamed public opinion that it led to his enforced abdication. However, it is by no means an isolated example. Recently, an interesting letter has come to the public attention which sheds some light on the dubious financial dealings of the royal family.
I refer to the infamous letter sent by the Spanish King to the Shah of Persia, Reza Pahlevi, asking him for the modest sum of 10 million dollars. The letter, written in French and dated 22 June 1977, was sent from La Zarzuela Palace. The address and the farewell were written in the king’s own hand:
My dear brother:
To start I would like to tell you how immensely grateful I am that you have sent your nephew, Prince Shahram, to see me, thus facilitating a quick response to my request at a difficult time for my country.
I would like to inform you about the political situation in Spain and the development of the campaign of the political parties before, during and after the [parliamentary] elections.
Forty years of a totally personal regime [he means dictatorship, AW] have done many things that are good for the country [!!!], but at the same time they left Spain with very poor political structures, which poses an enormous risk for the strengthening of the monarchy. After the first six months of the Arias government, which I was also obliged to inherit, in July 1976 I appointed a younger man with fewer links [to the past], whom I knew well and who had my full confidence: Adolfo Suárez.
From that moment I solemnly promised to follow the path of democracy, always striving to stay one step ahead of events in order to prevent a situation like that of Portugal that could be even more disastrous in this country of mine.
The legalisation of various political parties allowed them to participate freely in the [electoral] campaign, elaborate their strategy and use all the media for their propaganda and presentation of the image of their leaders, while ensuring a solid financial support. The right, assisted by the Bank of Spain, socialism, by Willy Brandt, Venezuela and other European socialist countries; the communists, by their usual means.
Meanwhile, President Suárez, to whom I firmly entrusted the responsibility of the government, was able to participate in the electoral campaign only in the last eight days, deprived of the advantages and opportunities that I explained previously, and from which the other political parties could benefit.
In spite of everything, alone, and with a barely formed organisation, financed by short-term loans from certain individuals, it managed to ensure a total and decisive victory.
At the same time, however, the socialist party obtained a higher percentage of votes than expected, which poses a serious threat to the country’s security and to the stability of the monarchy, as reliable sources have informed me that their party is Marxist. A certain part of the electorate is not aware of this, and they vote in the belief that with socialism Spain will receive help from some large European countries, such as Germany, or failing that, from countries like Venezuela, for the reactivation of the Spanish economy.
For that reason, it is imperative that Adolfo Suárez should restructure and consolidate the centrist political coalition, creating a political party for himself that serves as a support for the monarchy and the stability of Spain. [No mention of democracy… AW]
To achieve this, President Suárez clearly needs more than ever any possible help, either from his compatriots or from friendly countries that seek to preserve Western civilisation and established monarchies. [No mention of democracy… again! AW]
[Now comes the punch line, AW]
For this reason, my dear brother, I take the liberty of asking for your support on behalf of the political party of President Suárez, now at a difficult moment; the municipal elections will be held in six months and it will be there more than anything that our future will be in the balance.
That is why I take the liberty, with all my respects, to submit to your generous consideration the possibility of granting 10,000,000 dollars, as your personal contribution to the strengthening of the Spanish monarchy. [Again, not a word about democracy, AW]
In case my request deserves your approval, I take the liberty of recommending the visit to Tehran of my personal friend Alexis Mardas, who will take note of your instructions.
With all my respect and friendship.
Your brother,
Juan Carlos3
The existence of this extraordinary letter was kept a close secret at the time. Its publication was only made possible by the overthrow of the Shah in 1979. A former minister in his government, Asadollah Alam, published it in a book that is now almost impossible to obtain. It is hard to know what is more astonishing: the brazen insolence with which an enormous quantity of money was requested with the same nonchalance as a man asking to borrow some small change to purchase a cup of coffee, or the conscious deception implied in the terms that were supposed to justify this request.
The latter are false from start to finish. The statement that Adolfo Suárez was somehow at a financial and organisational disadvantage in relation to the other parties in the 1977 general election stands the truth completely on its head. For the entire period before and during the elections, Suárez enjoyed a virtual monopoly of free coverage on radio and television. No other political party had such colossal media exposure, and consequently all the others found themselves at an extreme disadvantage.
Nor is it true that the UCD at the time of its creation lacked funds, since it had the backing of the decisive section of the ruling class, including the bankers. In its ranks there were many rich people who could well afford to finance all its operations. Not least among its backers was Juan Carlos himself, who could hardly be considered to be the poorest man in Spain.
This did not prevent him from writing to his “brother” in Tehran with a request for what most people would regard as an eye-watering amount of cash. When this money was finally handed over, it was the Zarzuela Palace that took the largest share, not the UCD. Evidently, Juan Carlos, who one might regard as the chief shareholder in the ‘Business’, considered that he was entitled to the lion’s share of the profits…
It is not known how the Shah of Persia reacted when he read this letter. Evidently, he responded in the affirmative to the persistent demands of his “brother”. However, he was careful not to do so by letter. According to the Shah’s minister: “The Shah replied to this letter on 4 July 1977. It is affectionately worded, but it shows greater caution than that of the king of Spain. It states merely: ‘As for the question to which His Majesty alluded, I will transmit my reflections orally’.”
Concerning the final destination of this money requested by Juan Carlos, and generously donated by the Emperor of Iran, García Abad writes in his biography of Adolfo Suárez, that “much more went to the palace of the Zarzuela [i.e., the king] than to the Moncloa [i.e., Suárez].”4 Soon afterwards, President Suárez went to Saudi Arabia, accompanied by the private administrator of the king, Manuel Prado y Colón de Carvajal, to obtain another loan from Prince Fahd to King Juan Carlos and the UCD. García Abad recounts how Prado y Colón de Carvajal, taking advantage of the fact that President Suárez knew no English, acting as a translator, deceived the president about the amounts that the monarch would receive. He translated “a thousand million” as “millions”.5
But hey, what are a few million dollars between friends and “brothers”?
The General Elections of 1977
In June 1977 the first democratic election was held in Spain since 1936. It presented an extremely confused picture with around 6,000 candidates in no fewer than 156 different parties contesting the seats. Most of these were grouped together in alliances, making things even more confused.
Before the legalisation of parties, unofficial opinion polls showed a clear majority for the parties of the left, especially the Socialist Party, but also, to a lesser degree the Communist Party. This support derived from the heroic struggle that the militants of these parties and their respective trade union wings, had waged throughout the dark days of Franco’s dictatorship. But as the date of the election drew closer, the chance of a clear victory for the left seemed ever more doubtful.
For Marxists, elections provide a valuable way of determining certain tendencies in society. It is true that they are not the only way of judging the mood of the masses – nor even the best barometer of the real state of the class struggle. At best they are a snapshot of a particular mood in society at a given time. But having made these necessary reservations and qualifications, one has to take these indicators seriously. What trends did the 1977 elections reveal?
The UCD got 34.4 per cent of the votes and the AP (Alianza Popular – Popular Alliance) 8.2 per cent. The PSOE obtained 29.3 per cent of the vote, the Popular Socialist Party of Tierno Galván (which later merged with the PSOE) took another 4.5 per cent and the PCE got 9.3 per cent. These results confirmed the existence of four main political forces at the national level: the UCD, PSOE, PCE and AP. The PSOE became the official opposition party with 29.3 per cent of the vote and 118 seats in parliament. The openly fascist parties received derisory votes.
Here we are confronted with a paradox. The Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD), which had played absolutely no role in the struggle for democracy, won the election, whereas the communists, who had been at the forefront of the struggle against the dictatorship, did not receive a good result. How is this paradox to be explained?
They say nothing succeeds like success. The UCD served as a convenient rallying point for many of the forces on the right. It gained at the expense of Fraga’s Alianza Popular. The results of the election were good enough to hold the new party together, at least for a time, disguising its extremely heterogeneous and contradictory composition.
The advantages of the UCD were blatantly obvious. They possessed a monopoly of state power and control over public broadcasting. Despite Juan Carlos’ pleas of poverty to the Shah of Persia they had access to enormous funds to pay for a massive campaign of TV broadcasts and adverts. But Suárez’s real advantage was something else. By actively collaborating in his intrigues and building up his image as a democrat, the leaders of the PSOE and the PCE conferred upon Suárez a credibility he did not possess and which he certainly did not deserve. In this way, the socialist and communist leaders virtually handed him victory on a plate. Even so, Suárez was not at all sure that he would win. There were reports that he was worried about the failure of the UCD to pick up support, in spite of the massive TV and press campaign in its favour.
It must be pointed out that these elections were held under conditions which were clearly disadvantageous for the workers’ parties. Firstly, the parliament was represented by two chambers: The Congress and the Senate, which was a device aimed at limiting genuine popular representation. Unlike the elections to the Congress, the same number of senators was elected to the Senate for each of the provinces, without distinction. This was a blatant manoeuvre to give greater representation to the less-populated regions at the expense of the large industrial centres of the big cities, where the vote of the working class was concentrated.
The legislative assemblies too were rigged to try to prevent them carrying through any major changes in society. In the lower house, Congress, 350 members are elected by a system of proportional representation based on regional lists of candidates. The effect of this is to favour the more rural and generally more conservative regions, since there is a minimum of two from each region. So, while each member from the Soria region represented 24,664 voters, those from Madrid and Barcelona represented 88,448.
The upper house, Senate, was a travesty of democracy. Of its 248 members, forty-one were not elected at all, but appointed by the king. The remainder were elected regionally, generally four from each region, with no regard to population. Consequently, while in the Senate a member from Soria would represent 18,498 voters, those from Madrid and Barcelona would represent 718,643! On top of all that, amendments to the constitution required a two-thirds majority of both houses and the Prime Minister was appointed directly by the king, irrespective of the strengths of the parties in the assemblies. Moreover, voting was restricted to those over twenty-one years old, excluding some 2 million youths aged eighteen to twenty-one, who would have voted overwhelmingly for the workers’ parties. Around 1 million emigrants were also excluded from voting, and they also would have overwhelmingly leaned to the left.
The electoral system was distorted to favour the right. The left, with 43.1 per cent of the votes, obtained just 144 deputies. All this is enough to expose the fraudulent nature of the election result of 15 June 1977. It was a real mockery of the popular will.
To show the real situation, it is sufficient to point out that the UCD, with 34.4 per cent of the votes, took 165 seats. That, together with the sixteen deputies obtained by the AP, gave the Francoist and ‘ex-Francoist’ right an absolute majority of the Congress, with 181 deputies. This enabled them to veto the most advanced measures presented by the left for the future Constitution.
Setback for the PCE
On the left there existed two major options: either the PCE, which had hundreds of thousands of dedicated activists, or the PSOE, which, despite its lower membership, nevertheless connected with the historical memory of a very important layer of workers and youth. At bottom, the political differences which existed between the leaders of the PSOE and the PCE were insignificant. The result was a big shock to the Communist Party above all. The PCE had after all been the main party of the working class throughout the entire period of the underground and was by far the best organised political force in Spain. Its leadership had behaved with extreme moderation with a view to making the party acceptable to public opinion, which is to say principally to the bourgeoisie and the regime.
According to the theories of its leaders, it should have obtained a correspondingly good result. It did not. The Socialist Party, with a far smaller base and an infinitely inferior level of organisation swept the board. How is this to be explained? The answer to this question can be taken from different points of view. In the first place, the base of the Communist Party was mainly amongst the active layers of the working class, a decisive layer to be sure, but a minority. The calling of elections and the conceding of ‘democracy’ – albeit of a partial and truncated kind – permitted for the first time, the entry of the broad masses of town and country into the political arena. Under these circumstances, it was natural that the millions of voters, politically inexperienced and naive, would in the first instance seek the line of least resistance. That was the Socialist Party and the UCD.
But this general observation does not exhaust the question of the decline of the PCE – a decline that continued and deepened for the whole of the next period. Here we see the hollowness and utopianism of the so-called realistic policies of the PCE leaders. By abandoning Leninism and moving towards greater moderation in an attempt to win the middle ground, the PCE leaders caused confusion and disappointment among their own activists without gaining any appreciable support from the masses outside the Communist Party ranks.
The links between the party and Stalinism also prevented the PCE from connecting with layers of the working class who completely rejected the bureaucratic regimes existent in the USSR and Eastern Europe. The entire policy of Carrillo before the election consisted in making one concession after another (accepting the monarchy, accepting the exhibition of the fascist national flag at public events, support for Suárez, etc).
The programme of the PCE did not make any kind of real challenge to the power of the big banks and monopolies who were behind Suárez. Instead, it called for “a series of economic measures to deal with the crisis through which Spain’s economy is now passing” and a “clean-up of the social security system with full democratic control of the organisations which control industrial development, a democratic educational system and agrarian reform.”
With a programme as timid as that, there is no way that the great expectations of the workers, who were looking to the PCE and PSOE, could possibly be realised. In fact, it was a programme that could have been supported by Suárez himself! If the masses are presented with two workers’ parties with a similar policy and programme, they will always tend towards the better-known party with the big name. The latter will grow at the expense of the former, and as it gets bigger the gulf between the two will tend to become an aberration. That is precisely what happened with the PSOE and the PCE.
The Socialist Party emerged as the largest workers’ party of the working class, clearly winning in Asturias, Andalusia, Barcelona, Valencia and Alicante. In Madrid, the votes of the workers’ parties combined represented 51.5 per cent compared to 42.4 per cent for the UCD and AP. The left swept the board in the big cities and industrial centres. If these results had been combined with the votes of the youths and emigrants who were excluded from the elections, their victory would have been overwhelming.
The Line of Least Resistance
The so-called Suárez Reform was an attempt to suppress the most obvious aspects of the old regime while at the same time preserving its essence under the guise of a constitutional monarchy. Felipe González and Santiago Carrillo leaned on Suárez; Suárez leaned on Juan Carlos and Juan Carlos leaned on the old Franco state apparatus, which in turn represented the interests of the real rulers of Spain: the big bankers and capitalists.
A threat of a boycott of the elections, based on popular mobilisation, would have forced the regime to back down and prepare the way for genuinely democratic elections. But the leaders of the left accepted what was offered without protest, because they had already reached an agreement with the regime and had consented to the idea that it was the ex-Francoist ‘new democrats’ who would lead the ‘Transition’ and not the left.
The 1977 election was clearly rigged. But the reasons for the victory of the UCD cannot be reduced to a simple list of tricks and electoral rigging. There was a deeper political reason. The results of the 1977 elections did not at all reflect the true correlation of forces, which at that time was still tremendously favourable for the working class. This was a dynamic and changing situation, in which strikes and demonstrations involving millions of workers and youth were being led by the most class conscious and courageous sections of society.
This was the real face of the Spanish people, the living forces of Spain mobilised in a life-and-death struggle against the old oppressive order. A burning hatred of the dictatorship and the pseudo-democratic regime that replaced it was present in every struggle. But there is another side to the picture. Revolutions are powerful devourers of human energy. After long years of struggle, the masses yearned for a change. Despite all the limitations of the Suárez reform, enormous expectations were aroused in Spanish society. After forty years of suffocating dictatorship, the masses felt that they were on the verge of a new era.
After many months, the strike movement had not reached a decisive result, because of the refusal of the leadership, especially the PCE, to generalise the movement into an all-out struggle for power. This failure to act decisively meant that a broad sector of the masses was anxiously looking for other options. As soon as the elections were announced thousands of young political militants put up a mass of party posters all over the country. After so many decades of enforced silence, millions of people seized the opportunity to express themselves through the ballot box.
At election time, the voice of the working class and its advance guard was swamped by the undifferentiated and politically untutored mass of the electorate. The millions of small shopkeepers, peasants, civil servants, professors – that amorphous mass that is generally referred to as the middle classes – were beginning to seek a political expression. Theirs was the vote of fear, a vote of indecision and uncertainty about the future, reinforced because nobody presented them with a clear alternative. The vague and confused democratic aspirations of the population, only recently awoken to political life, led them to take what appeared to be the line of least resistance.
Alongside the class conscious worker queueing to cast his vote were many other elements: timid office clerks afraid of their position, shopkeepers afraid for their business, old people afraid for the future, civil servants, police, Civil Guards and all the mass of former servants of the old regime who were now suddenly converted to the wonders of democracy – provided that democracy did not go ‘too far’ and introduce unwanted elements of chaos into their small but relatively ordered sphere of existence. Together with the older layers, still frightened by the spectre of the Civil War, and the more inert and politically backward layers of the working class, they were easily influenced by the slick phrase-mongering that apparently offered them the easiest, most painless road towards democracy.
Here we have the real electoral basis of Adolfo Suárez, the real ground upon which he emerged triumphant against all the odds. Suárez, this man of the ‘centre’, this man for all seasons, standing for everything and standing for nothing, and master in the art of political platitudes, was the hero of the hour. He was the saviour of Spain and a guarantee against that chaos which men and women fear.
Suárez Gains a Breathing Space
When the votes were finally counted, Adolfo Suárez must have breathed a sigh of relief. The result could hardly have been more satisfactory for the president and his hastily improvised ragbag that ran under a name that at once tells us everything and tells us nothing. The new UCD government, at least for a moment, was riding high. Suárez, who gave every impression of tiredness and demoralisation, even during the election campaign, now appeared to be euphoric with his unexpected stroke of luck.
The capitalists breathed an audible sigh of relief at the election result. Prices rose on the stock exchange and the peseta floated upwards. Nevertheless, beneath the surface of this euphoria, there remained a nagging doubt. The electoral victory of the centre in no way resolved any of the pressing problems facing Spanish capitalism. On the brink of a new international recession, Spanish capitalism was in a very weak position.
Life itself soon showed that the UCD was neither united nor democratic. It was only the ‘centre,’ that gigantic political zero where all extremes coalesce and peacefully merge into a single undifferentiated blob. And since we do not like extremes, and since we also lack any clearly defined political ideas or principles, and since we would like everyone to be nice to each other and forget past differences, clearly the centre was the place to be, and the UCD was the party to vote for.
It would take some time for people to wake up to the fact that this centre was in fact nothing more than a fraud. But in order to reach this conclusion, it was first necessary for the people of Spain to pass through the experience of a government of the ‘centre’. The first problem was self-evident: Suárez did not have an absolute majority. In order to survive, the UCD had to seek support outside its ranks in the other parties represented in the Cortes. A section of the PSOE leadership, led by Enrique Múgica, was all along in favour of a coalition government with the UCD. Communist Party leader Carrillo advocated a Spanish version of the Italian compromesso storico – i.e., a UCD government, supported in parliament by the votes of the PSOE and PCE.
On the other hand, if Suárez was forced to lean on the right-wing Alianza Popular (Fraga’s party), this would have antagonised the workers still further and increased the social polarisation he wished to avoid. His only alternative was to continue and deepen his policy of leaning on the workers’ leaders as a drunken man leans on the arms of his cronies to stop himself from falling over. Herein lies the essence of the policy of ‘pacts and consensus’, the crowning glory of which were the Pacts of the Moncloa.
For decades, Spanish capitalism had developed on the basis of protecting its domestic market, the provision of cheap credit by the state, and by keeping the working class under the heel of the military jackboot. They had been able to achieve a certain level of growth on the basis of a major boom in the world economy. Now, however, under conditions of profound crisis, with a shrinking world market, there was ferocious competition between different countries, which cruelly exposed the weakness of Spanish capitalism.
In the context of the international crisis, the economic crisis that gripped the Spanish State in mid-1977 reflected the weakness of Spanish capitalism. The closure of thousands of businesses left an additional 1 million workers unemployed at the end of the year. The bankers and capitalists, in effect, launched a strike of investment. The nation’s wealth was being drained away as billions of pesetas worth of capital fled to Switzerland and other countries.
The Spanish economy was teetering on the edge of an abyss with rampant inflation, a massive external debt, a strike wave and a level of unemployment that had already reached the million mark. The indices of economic health deteriorated rapidly. Swiftly rising unemployment was accompanied by a sharp rise in inflation, which reached thirty per cent by the end of the year, and in the months of June and July reached an annualised figure of forty-seven per cent.
Following the elections, in June, Suárez devalued the peseta by twenty per cent to stimulate exports. But such a measure, in the context of stagnant production, only served to increase the price of imports, further fuelling the fires of inflation. Devaluation, in fact, only made sense if it was accompanied by an austerity plan to freeze wages and to increase the rate of profit for the capitalists. But the underlying problem was the lack of competitiveness of the Spanish economy. The parasitic nature of Spanish capitalism was shown by the failure of the bourgeois to invest in technological innovation.
In the absence of this, the only alternative left was to attack the wages and drive down the living standards of the working class. But after decades of low living standards and dictatorial rule, the workers were in no mood to accept further impositions. The problem lay in the strength of the workers’ movement. A frontal assault on the living standards of workers, at the time, would have increased social tension to levels that would have been dangerous for the system.
In order to carry out its plans the bourgeoisie needed a strong government. But the government that emerged from the first democratic elections was not strong, but very weak. Since they could no longer use repression to crush the workers, the rulers of Spain had only one option: to lean on the labour leaders to keep the workers under control. The support and collaboration of the workers’ leaders was essential for the bourgeoisie to carry out their plans. This was the real reason for the bourgeoisie’s new enthusiasm for a ‘social pact’. Suárez did not form a coalition government. Instead, he continued manoeuvring (an art which he knew to perfection) in order to arrive at deals and agreements.
The Moncloa Pacts
The Pacts of the Moncloa represented a kind of stabilisation plan, which could only be achieved thanks to the collaboration of the PCE, PSOE and the trade unions.
Throughout the months of August and September, the government undertook all kinds of meetings with political parties and trade unions that culminated in what became known as the Moncloa Pacts. The main points were as follows: wages must grow at levels below the government’s official inflation figures (which were far below the real inflation figures); freezing of public spending and the reduction of the public deficit; the reform of labour laws to increase flexibility, which took the form of companies being allowed to sack up to five per cent of their workforce if wage increases exceeded the agreed maximum (which in practice meant freedom to dismiss workers); and a timid reform of taxation.
The workers’ leaders did their best to demobilise the workers. The arguments put forward were along the lines of: “Now that we have democracy, we have to pitch in to take the country forward; we must work together if we don’t want to provoke the military”. The plans that the bourgeoisie were impotent to apply in the final years of the dictatorship were being achieved under the aegis of ‘democracy’. And in this work, they relied entirely on the collaboration of the ‘left’ leaders.
In October the agreements were signed by Santiago Carrillo on behalf of the PCE and the CCOO. In practice, the concrete effects of this deal were as follows: wages could not rise more than twenty-two per cent, when prices were rising at a rate of thirty per cent; the peseta was to be devalued; and the bosses could sack five per cent of the workforce without notice. In other words, this deal represented an attack on the living standards of the working class.
The leaders of the PSOE, the PCE and the CCOO fully supported this pact. But there was a groundswell of opposition in the ranks. The UGT initially opposed them, reflecting the pressure from below. Throughout November, demonstrations were called by the UGT and other unions in the major cities against the Moncloa Pact, for the defence of living standards and against rising unemployment. Even many sections of the CCOO union joined the opposition against the Moncloa Pacts.
In the end, however, the leadership of the UGT also put their signatures to the Pact. The impact on workers’ living standards soon made itself felt. By the end of 1977, workers’ wages had lost ten per cent of their purchasing power. Carrillo had claimed that “with these measures, in eighteen months we will emerge from the crisis.” The reality was that, after eighteen months, unemployment reached more than a million-and-a-half and the purchasing power of workers continued to fall.
The Moncloa Pacts were the first of a series of social pacts that, far from reducing unemployment, only served to maintain the rate of profit for the capitalists, to reduce the standard of living of the masses and to demoralise the workers, who, having witnessed an opportunity to radically transform society within their grasp, saw the same opportunity irretrievably lost thanks to the policy of class collaboration of their leaders. This led, on the one hand, to the acceptance of wage restraint and falling living standards and, on the other, to massive factory closures and a sharp rise in unemployment.
The masses were bitterly disappointed. In particular, the activists who had sacrificed so much – risked their lives, lost their jobs, suffered imprisonment, beatings and tortures – felt deceived. Thousands of militants resigned from the left parties and trade unions in disgust. Robert Fishman writes:
The decline in union membership which began, most likely, in late 1978, continued through the early 1980s leaving the union confederations with relatively few formal members and serious financial problems. The mobilisation of workers – whether in industrial disputes or in public demonstrations – also waned during much of this period.6
This wave of disillusionment prepared the way for a period of semi-reaction, which began in the early 1980s. There was increasing discontent in the ranks of the Communist Party:
Some communist militants undoubtedly felt that the party had sacrificed too much during the negotiations over the Moncloa Pacts, and trade union officials also spoke of being marginalised from the process. For some, the most important part was the symbolic acceptance of the monarchist flag. For others, [it was] the fact that Carrillo and others had signed up to salary limits with very little attempt to consult those it would affect.7
The most accurate summing-up of the Moncloa Pacts was made by my old friend and comrade Alberto Arregui (Manu), who tragically died as I was writing the final chapters of this book:
The worst thing about the Moncloa Pacts, the biggest social pact we have lived since the Transition, was not the content. It was its meaning, the implicit message of ‘we are all in the same boat’, and above all, the deception that this presupposed. The leaders of the PCE, who were the ones who pushed hardest for the social pact, dressed it up in rose-tinted colours, tied up with a gift ribbon. Instead, there was a new crisis, mass unemployment and industrial restructuring. The Pacts of the Moncloa became a bridge that led inexorably towards the constitutional pact that was the cornerstone of the regime of 1978.8
The New Constitution: The Suárez Reform Made Flesh
With the election victory of Adolfo Suárez, the Spanish ruling class began to recover at least part of its lost confidence. In turn, the moderation of the workers’ leaders served to strengthen the nerve and resolve of Suárez himself. It was bad enough that the left agreed to accept what was a massive electoral fraud. But even worse was the fact that these elections had a constituent character, that is, the elected parliament was given the task of elaborating a draft Constitution. This was the prior condition for carrying through the counter-revolution in a democratic form.
Spain had been without a constitution since 1936. The new government had a mandate to draft a constitution which they began in the middle of 1977. The constitution was approved by the Cortes Generales on 31 October 1978, and submitted to the Spanish people in a referendum on 6 December 1978. The percentage of yes vote was 91.81 per cent. But at least a third of people did not vote, or spoiled their ballot paper, while in the Basque Country, turnout was only forty-four per cent and, of those who voted, twenty-five per cent voted against. Therefore, the constitution only had the support of one third of the electorate. Finally, the new constitution was sanctioned by King Juan Carlos on 27 December in a ceremony in the presence of parliamentarians. The new constitution replaced Franco’s Fundamental Laws. At last, Spain was a democracy. Or was it?
The new document made Spain a parliamentary monarchy and recognised Juan Carlos as “the legitimate heir to the historic dynasty” (Article 57). The expression ‘parliamentary monarchy’ is somewhat mystifying. It was clearly calculated to conceal the fact of the capitulation of the PCE and PSOE and their abandonment of republicanism. The constitution abolished the death penalty, although people were still being tortured and killed by the police. It left intact all the repressive bodies of the dictatorship. Not a single torturer or murderer was prosecuted or put on trial. Instead, the Spanish people were advised to forgive and forget the terrible crimes that had been committed against them.
The Constitution uses a subterfuge in order to disguise the maintenance of the connection between the state and religion, and the Catholic Church in particular. Article 16.3 of the Constitution states that: “No confession will have a state character. The public authorities will take into account the religious beliefs of Spanish society and will maintain the resulting relations of co-operation with the Catholic Church and other confessions.” And in Article 27.3 it says: “The public authorities guarantee the right to assist parents so that their children receive religious and moral training that is in accordance with their own convictions.” It is precisely this which is the legal stratagem to justify the subsidies to the Church and the Concordat with the Vatican. But in practice, as we see forty years later, that church continues to enjoy a most privileged position in Spain, absorbing a huge amount of taxpayer’s money.
The 1978 Constitution offered to grant devolved powers to the regions and the ‘historical nationalities’ (Nacionalidades históricas). But the right of self-determination was not recognised. That was an omission that prepared the ground for serious problems. The point was not lost on the author of this Guardian article: “The Spaniards indicated on Wednesday that they were happy about the constitution. But the Basques showed overwhelmingly that they did not.”9
The same article points out that “the great majority of the population is still waiting for the expectations aroused by the death of Franco to be fulfilled… It is this growing sense of disillusion, prevalent throughout Spain this autumn, that partly accounts for the relatively low poll.”
A small incident showed just how little had changed, in spite of all the noisy campaign about the ‘reform’. A socialist deputy for Santander, Jaime Blanco, was beaten up by the police while leading a legal demonstration in Cantabria in August 1977, and this action was carried out with the full knowledge of the police. When Ignacio Camuñas Solís, Minister of Relations with the Cortes resigned unexpectedly, Suárez appointed his undersecretary, Rafael Arias-Salgado, to replace him. He was the son of one of the ministers of Franco, who was notorious for his repressive zeal.
Did the People of Spain Vote for a Monarchy?
The weakness of the ruling class was compensated for by the refusal of the workers’ leaders to take power, thus creating a kind of unstable equilibrium in society. Such a situation inevitably creates conditions for the rise of Bonapartist tendencies. Juan Carlos was no longer the impotent puppet that he had been in the past. All the reactionary forces flocked to the standard of the monarchy. They worshipped him as king, just as in the past they had worshipped the dictator Franco. He was the sole remaining hope for survival.
The bankers, capitalists, army generals, police chiefs, bureaucrats and bishops all rallied around the monarchy as the firm pillar of their rule. The monarchy sought to maintain the character of an authoritarian regime, while making limited concessions to democracy. These concessions were intended as a fig leaf to conceal the reality of the continuation of significant elements of the old regime. Basically, the faces changed, but the same powerful groups remained firmly in control. Democracy was the façade behind which the old power remained intact.
Under the new constitution, the king became head of state, head of the armed forces and guarantor of the unity of the nation. He had the power to endorse and ratify laws, appoint the presidents of the government and dissolve parliament with the consent of the president of the Congress of Deputies. He represented the country internationally and exercised the right of pardon (Article 62). He accredited ambassadors, signed international treaties and, after authorisation by the parliament (Article 63), disposed of the power to declare war. Finally, as stated in Article 56, he had full and absolute immunity for all crimes and misdemeanours, including even cases of treason to the fatherland.
As you can see, these are by no means trivial powers. The Spanish monarchy is not something symbolic, as many believe, but a real bulwark against democracy and the popular will. The fact that these important powers have yet to be used does not at all mean that they cannot be used in the future, for example, to prevent a socialist government from carrying out radical policies. Like an assassin who conceals a knife in his sleeve, the reserve powers of the monarchy were to be kept under wraps until the moment they were needed.
Needless to say, the services of the monarch did not come cheap. If there is one thing that always characterised Juan Carlos I de Borbón from his earliest youth until the moment he abdicated, it was a very acute sense of the value of money. Under the constitution, he is granted an annual budget for the support of his family and his entourage. Naturally, the quantities required to keep up appearances are by no means trivial. According to the Casa Real, for 2018, it was 7.8 million Euros. And he may dispose of it as he sees fit (Article 65).
However, this figure does not tell us the full story. Colonel Amadeo Martínez Inglés was expelled from the army in 1990 after thirty-seven years for making controversial statements critical of the Spanish Armed Forces to the press. A specialist on the Royal House, he has calculated that the real cost of the monarchy is over 560 million Euros per year. In addition to the initial budget directly allocated to the Casa Real, the budget of the Ministry of the Presidency (royal administration, receptions, preservation of national heritage for the exclusive use of the royal family) should also be included.
Also to be included are all of the logistical expenses, for example, the cost of security for the Casa Real that is charged to the Ministry of the Interior, the cost of foreign travel charged to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the cost of the staff of the Casa Real (372 employees), as well as that of the regiment of the Royal Guard and the armed forces required for the protection of the king during his travels. The New York Times estimates the personal fortune of the King of Spain at over 2 billion Euros.
On a question of such transcendental importance, one might think that the people of Spain would have been given the democratic right to say whether they wished to live under a monarchy or a republic. After the overthrow of the dictatorship, the people of Greece voted in just such a referendum in December 1974. Almost seventy per cent voted for a republic. But the Spanish people were never given the chance to decide. Why not? Because Suárez was convinced that if a referendum were held, the result would be the same as in Greece.
An interview with Suárez, which was made public only after the former president’s death, finally revealed the facts. In November 2016, the journalist Victoria Prego provoked a bitter controversy when she made public an extract from an interview that she had conducted with former president Adolfo Suárez in 1995. These extracts never appeared on television at that time. Suárez insisted that they were strictly “off the record.” With his hand on the microphone to prevent it from being heard, he confessed that he had practiced a colossal deception on the Spanish people, in order to avoid putting the question of the monarchy to a public vote in a referendum. He made these astonishing confessions to Victoria Prego only because he believed that he was not being recorded. But he was mistaken.
In the course of the interview, the former president was asked: “Why was there no referendum on the issue of monarchy or republic during the Transition?” Adolfo Suárez admitted that certain foreign governments (which he did not name) had asked for a popular consultation on monarchy or republic, and that this was at the instigation of Felipe González (“It was Felipe who was asking others to ask for it.”)
So why was this not done? With astonishing nonchalance, Suárez explained: “When most of the foreign heads of government asked me for a referendum on monarchy or republic… we carried out surveys and we lost”, admits the former president. (My emphasis, AW.) A solution had to be found to get around this unfortunate situation, so the words ‘king’ and ’monarchy’ were quietly slipped into the Law of the Political Reform of 1977. In this way, Suárez continued: “I said that it had already been subjected to a referendum. By putting monarchy into the Law, the permanence of the institution was assured.”10
That was the first time the people of Spain found out how they had been tricked into accepting the monarchy. This was yet another product of consensus between the representatives of the old regime and the workers’ leaders. That is why they had to take steps to pour cold water over the revolutionary mood of the working class and lower their expectations about the scale of the changes to come. That is why they had agreed to participate in semi-democratic elections that would hand a parliamentary majority to the ‘democratic’ party of the old regime.
The leaders of the opposition had agreed all this behind the backs of the people, in smoke-filled offices behind locked doors, in secretive negotiations with the regime, where they bargained away the rights that the workers had won through hard struggle, like merchants haggling over the price of a horse in the marketplace. And they were not even good at that. The price they paid in the end was the maintenance of the monarchy, the Francoist state apparatus, and the renunciation of the republic. If all these facts had been made public at the time, the entire farce of the Transition would have been seen for what it was: a shameless betrayal of the most elementary principles of democracy.
[1] La Vanguardia, 21 May 1974, p. 9.
[2] Civil Guards lived and still live a military-style life in barracks with many rules to separate them from social contact.
[3] Reproduced in: Gregorio Morán, Adolfo Suárez: Ambición y destino, pp. 166-7.
[4] José García Abad, Adolfo Suárez, Una tragedia griega.
[5] See Gregorio Morán, Adolfo Suárez: Ambición y destino, p. 168.
[6] Robert Fishman, Labor and the Return of Democracy to Spain.
[7] Patrick Baker, The Spanish Transition to Democracy – A Missed Opportunity for the Left?
[8] Jordi Escuer y Alberto Arregui, 18 October 2018, ‘Sobre el acuerdo presupuestario Gobierno-Unidos Podemos: La gran ilusión’, Rebelión.
[9] The Guardian, 28 December, 1978.
[10] The film clip of this extract (in Spanish) is available on Periférica TV, 2017, ‘Adolfo Suárez reconoció la manipulación del Referéndum Constitucional para consolidar la Monarquía’, YouTube.