SPAIN-GENERAL STRIKES OR SECRET DEALS? USO [Socialist the dictatorship.
Jones's visit. action on 12 November.
There is now no section of Spanish society which seriously believes that a (relatively) large degree of change Is avoldable Therefore the regime has staked its vision of the future on its ability to set the terms and control the pace of this change.
The recent setting up of the Popular Alliance is the first fruit of this new The "Alliance' -OT seven former Francoist ministers, backed by banking interests and sections of the West German Christian Democracy — is more 'Popular' masses it is hoping to draw in behind it. It is headed by Fraga, Minister of the Interior at the time of the Vitoria massacre in March.
The outstanding characteristic of the Spanish bourgeoisie is its political weakness: it is without a political tradition independent of the fascist state on which its economic and social power has rested since its victory in the civil war democraucaly rooted political cohesion, and the key role of the mass movement in the decomposition of means that plans for the has aton of "democracy in Spain with There are a dozen or so "socialist' pares - mcrudig te regional parties + plus a handful of insignificant •democratic socialist bourgeois bandwagoners. But added up they don't amount to the forces of th entire far left, nor even a quarter of the membership of the Spanish Communist Party (PCE). And the two Socialist trade union organisations - the USO, linked to Federation of Socialist Parties, which groups the regional Social ist Parties) and the UGT, the trade unior adjunct of the PSOE, the historic party of Spanish social democracy - don't between them account for even a tenth of The regime's frequent contacts with general secretary Felipe Gonzalez, feted by the Labour bureaucracy at this year's conference in Blackpool - and its granting of permission to the UGT Popular Socialist Party (PSP) to hold their conferences earlier in the year, show clearly the direction in which it is trying to move.
But the social democratic forces are inhibited by many of the same factors which paralyse the regime politically. To the right of the PSOE (the principal party concerned) there is a vacuum caused by the absence of plausible democratic forces based on the bourgeoisie, while to its left it is squeezed by a Communist Part which has taken over large tracts of social DUSHHOR base into taking up positions to the left of the PCE.
All workers organisations are in period of rapid growth, and significant new layers of the mass movement hav enrolled in the ranks of the PSOE and/or UGT. But many others of similar persua sion have•opted for their rivals, the FPS and USO. In the case of the former this been largely due to the PSOE's traditional indifference to regional prob lems, while USO's growth at the expense of the UGT has profited from the latter' sectarianism and relative absence from key areas such as Catalonia for so many This was compounded when the FPS leadership through articles, interviews and paid advertising space in the national press, denounced the Socialist Interna tional's massive financial support (princi pally from the Labour Party and the West German SPD) for the PSOE/UGT as a scandal rivalling Lockheed. It is within this framework that the attempts of Jack Jones, the Labour Party bureaucracy and the LYS to focus solidarity with the exclusively in terms of support for the PSOE/UGT leadership must be seen But the backing of the international social democratic bureaucracy is only one reason for the arrogant claims of the Socialists, such as that recently made by UGT general secretary Nicolas Redondo: •We think that the (future) United Central Union can be built around the UGT... because it has international stan ding as well as national implantation arcaler man any omer union force.
The other is the craven treachery of the class collaborationist policies being pur sued by the Stalinists inside the Demo cratic Coordination' (CD). This was set up following the Vitoria general strike, which clearly exposed the regime's narrow margins tor pounca manoeuvre The CD's formation was a recognition that only the PCE could hold back the mass organisations of the working class and give the democratic bourgeoisie time prepare a 'democratic break'. The PCE hoped to use the CD to identify the democratic and anti-bureaucratic aspira tions of the mass movement exclusively with bourgeois liberal democracy assure itself a place in any provisiona covernmen But it was clear from the beginning that every stride forward by the mass move ment would widen the gap between the members of CD. That gap clearly opened in recent weeks as the advance of the mas struggle has begun to pose demands which go far beyond the reformist projects of the PSOE and PCE - let alone thi schemas of the various bourgeois parties in the CD This is the spectacle which will greet Jack Jones and his delegation as they visit Spain this week: a mass movement which is beginning to break all the bounds set al a loss for a strategy waich will estabus! its socialist credentials, is snuggling up to the Government of the Francoist dicta
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Last Friday saw Spain's first co-ordinated national strike action. This was organised by a unified body of the Workers Commissions and the UGT and mobilise Spanish workers in a concerted attack on This week Jack Jones leads a TUC delegation to Spain to reinforce those very reformists of the Socialist Party [PSOE] who failed to build united
discusses the failure of the 'day of struggle' while David Gardner examines the background to Jack
As such it failed to Below Juan Aguirre