Foreword¶
Core Argument¶
This foreword establishes the central thesis that the so-called ‘Democratic Transition’ in Spain was not a democratic achievement but a ‘gigantic swindle’ engineered to betray the working class. The author’s core argument is that the official narrative—which credits King Juan Carlos I, President Adolfo Suárez, and the leaders of the PCE and PSOE with wise and courageous statesmanship—is a deliberate falsification. The real motor force of historical change, the author insists, was the heroic struggle of millions of anonymous working-class men and women who risked their lives to overthrow the Franco dictatorship. Their efforts were ultimately thwarted not by the strength of the old regime but by the treacherous actions of their own leaders.
The chapter draws heavily on the metaphor of buried truth. The author compares the suppression of historical memory to the unmarked grave of Federico García Lorca, the poet murdered by fascists in 1936, whose body has never been found. This image is used to argue that the Transition was built on an imposed amnesia—a demand that the Spanish people forget the thousands killed in the Civil War, those who perished in Franco’s prisons, and decades of violent suppression of the workers’ movement. The retention of the monarchy, the Civil Guard, and the impunity of torturers under the new ‘democracy’ are presented as evidence that nothing fundamental changed.
The polemical target is twofold. First, the author attacks the official propaganda disseminated for four decades through books, schools, and media, which portrays the Transition as the work of a handful of wise leaders. Second, he takes aim at former comrades who have abandoned revolutionary Marxism in the intervening years. The author positions himself as a witness who participated in the struggle, relying on his own experience and his role as political editor of Nuevo Claridad. He makes no apology for this personal testimony, asserting that he too was a witness to events that the official version seeks to erase. The foreword thus frames the book as an act of historical recovery, written to restore the nameless working-class heroes to their rightful place in history and to expose the imposters who harvested the fruits of others’ labour.