9. The Communist Party¶
Core Argument¶
The Spanish Communist Party (PCE) emerged from the Franco dictatorship as the most formidable force within the labour movement, its disciplined cadres forged in clandestine struggle and sacrifice. Through systematic underground work, the Party had built hegemony over the Workers’ Commissions (CCOO) and neighbourhood associations, its militants seasoned by Civil War experience and willing to pay the price of martyrdom. Yet beneath this strength lay a profound contradiction: the leadership, under Santiago Carrillo, had long since abandoned revolutionary politics for a programme of currying favour with liberals and reformist Francoists.
The policy of National Reconciliation, adopted in 1956, set the trajectory. Rather than deepening class antagonisms, the Party sought to erase the ‘artificial division’ between reds and nationals, forging alliances with monarchists, Christian Democrats, and even Opus Dei figures. This culminated in the Democratic Junta of 1974, a Popular Front that excluded genuine workers’ parties while embracing former regime loyalists. The strategy was not a temporary tactical manoeuvre but a permanent strategic line of class collaboration.
When the regime’s crisis deepened, the PCE leadership abandoned the mass mobilisation required for a ruptura democrática in favour of a reforma pactada negotiated behind closed doors. The general strike, that weapon of working-class self-emancipation, was reduced to a bargaining chip for unrepresentative bourgeois politicians. Carrillo’s secret agreement with Adolfo Suárez dictated the Party’s public statements and required acceptance of the monarchy and flag. So complete was the subordination that Suárez listened on an open telephone line during a meeting of the Party’s Executive Committee. The Central Committee acted as a rubber stamp, the decision rushed through with only eleven abstentions, mainly Basques and Catalans. At the subsequent press conference, a giant monarchist flag was placed next to the red flag, and no one protested.
The leadership justified this capitulation by praising Suárez as a democrat, endorsing wage restraint, and invoking the threat of a military coup. The author rejects the excuse of an ‘unfavourable correlation of forces’: the PCE was hegemonic with 150,000 militants, and the working-class movement had forced the regime’s retreat. The real reason was that the leaders did not believe in socialism or the working class’s ability to lead. The 1981 coup attempt occurred after demoralisation had set in, not during the peak of mobilisation. The compromise was not tactical but organic, and the correlation of forces argument is a falsification. International capital understood this well: The Sunday Times noted the Party’s reformist character could prevent structural upheaval.