8. Seven Days in January: “A Superficial, Controlled Democracy”¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter dissects the Spanish Transition as a carefully managed restoration of capitalist power, not a genuine democratic rupture. Behind a smokescreen of reform, Franco’s entrenched institutions persisted. The Financial Times noted on 9 June 1977 that the result was a “superficial, controlled democracy.” Fraga Iribarne’s Alianza Popular gathered the Francoist right, including seven former Franco ministers. Extreme right paramilitaries—the Warriors of Christ the King and the Apostolic Anti-Communist Alliance—attacked workers’ organisations in collaboration with state intelligence, often comprising off-duty police. These groups were an auxiliary arm of the state, kept on a tight leash. At each turning point, the previously unknown GRAPO carried out spectacular provocations, including the kidnapping of Antonio María de Oriol y Urquijo four days before the December 1976 referendum.
In January 1977, fascist bands and state sectors launched a terror campaign to justify a military coup. On 23 January, student Arturo Ruiz was shot dead by an Argentine fascist. Protests erupted; police brutally evicted students from Complutense University. Student María Luz Nájera was killed by a smoke canister fired directly at her face. The next day, the Atocha massacre saw five people shot dead in a labour lawyers’ office. Millions poured onto the streets; more than 300,000 workers struck in Madrid on 26 January. The PCE, led by Santiago Carrillo, applied the brake, forbidding flags and slogans, enforcing silent marches, and supporting the government to prove communists could control the masses. The PCE’s conduct at the funeral convinced the bourgeoisie to legalise the party.
The chapter situates these events within the wider European context of Operation Gladio, a clandestine CIA-led network forged after WWII with the Vatican, the Mafia, and ex-Nazis, operating across NATO countries to combat communism. Its Italian branch was the P2 Masonic Lodge, led by fascist Licio Gelli, which included top military officers, politicians, judges, and media figures. The ‘strategy of tension’ involved false-flag terror attacks blamed on the left. The Atocha murders were a Gladio-style operation to prevent Communist Party legalisation and provoke a coup, but instead produced a backlash that secured it.
The chapter argues that Carrillo and Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez were shaped by similar bureaucratic, authoritarian structures—fascism and Stalinism—producing identical psychology: opportunism and willingness to abandon lifelong beliefs for survival. Their secret eight-hour meeting on 27 February 1977 saw Carrillo accept the monarchy, the flag, and Spain’s unity, and commit to restraining social conflict as a “fire extinguisher” in exchange for legalisation. Despite Carrillo’s belief he had won a great victory, Suárez delayed legalisation for weeks. The PCE was finally legalised on 9 April 1977. The text insists this was not achieved by elite manoeuvres but imposed by mass working-class and youth action that destabilised the regime. The legalisation provoked fury among generals, including Milans del Bosch’s armoured manoeuvres. On 12 April, the Superior Council of the Army issued a statement rejecting the legalisation. The generals saw Suárez as a traitor who had surrendered to communism.
Yet the chapter argues that Carrillo and the PCE played a key role in defending the capitalist system: they abandoned mass struggle, supported the Moncloa Pacts, and demobilised the working class during crises like the Vitoria massacre and the Basque general strike. The PCE handed power back to the bankers and capitalists. The monarchy was never put to a referendum. After legalisation, PCE membership grew to 200,000, but this marked the beginning of its irreversible decline. The chapter concludes that the threat from below, not elite intrigue, forced concessions, and that the PCE leadership’s fear of the masses and reverence for state power led to the great betrayal. The ruling class, it warns, will use such methods again when class struggle intensifies.