AN IMMEDIATE and massive response by the Basque workers movement has forced the release of 154 members of the Trotskyist LCR-ETA[VI] arrested on 20 November.
This mass arrest, the largest since the arrest of a Workers Commissions assem. bly in 1968, was seen as a test of strength by the regime. This test has been decisively won by the Basque workers in defence of one of their organisations.
The arrests came as a delegate assembly of the Basque members of the LCRETA(VI) (Spanish sympathising organisation of the Fourth International) was meeting at the monastery of Aranzazu in Guipuzcoa. Police surrounded the monseveral hours with their hands raised, under the threat of machine pistols.
Some two thirds of those arrested were members of the Workers Commissions, many or men readers regional level. Many had already served long prison sentences under the Franco only being released in recent weeks. Among these was Antxon Carrera, conviced artie burcos tas 1 y/u.
Also arrested were fraternal delegates from the Communist Movement (MC), Organisation of the Communist Left (OICE) and the Communist League (LC another sympathising organisation of the Fourth International).
The comrades were eventually separated and sent to the various regional police commissariats. Those who were taken to the Vizcaya Commissariat in Bilbao and the Alava Commissariat in Vitoria were subjected to beatings and torture.
It is clear that this is part of a systematic attempt by the Government to smash the organisations of the far left in order to ensure a smooth passage for its reform' plans. It is no coincidence that these arrests came at the same time as the announcement of the referendum on the consulutional mcasures.
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Red Weekly has already reported on a circular from the Martin Villa, calling for a clampdown on the revolutionary left. An internal police circular spells this out even more clearly. The PTE, the largest groups, and the LCR are singled out as the main targets for repression. In recent weeks about 90 PTE militants have been arrested and released. Then anack on the LOk.
The police should have known better Workers in leading engineering and building comDaniesn NavatTa strike, including the firms of Immenasa, Torfinasa and Nepansa. There were student strikes in many Basque, Catalan and Spanish universities.
Un une lent bank or tne kiver Nervion in Bilbao a vigilance committee was convened, while the neighbourhood associations of the right bank held a demonstration. In each of the four Basque provinces there were workers to organise the fight back. In San Sebastian, a mass postering and demonstration was fired on by police The most important aspect of this response was is united character. All Ene organisations of the working class and the nationalist left wing, including the Communist and Socialist parties, name to posters and leaflets distributed trousnout me tour Drovinces ano co operated at a national level to organise the solidarity actions.
Confronted with an upsurge of this scale, the authorities were forced to back an attempt to defuse the opposition while the central leadership of the LCR remained in captivity. But the resistance did On 24 November the remaining 35 were released with a total line or ow u pesetas (£5,000). 700,000 pesetas was working class areas of alone.
This backdown is a big defeat for the Government. Its immediate plan to wipe out the LCR-ETA(VI) has been frustrated - though we may be certain that it will try again — and the unity of the oppoInterior Minister, of the centrist came the went on Struggle' on 12 November capitalist class.
assemblies of inherited from the Franco regime.
answer to the problems facing Spain.
put thei ENTRY the struggle of the masses militant virus of the Spanish workers. respective Communist Party Within three hours collected in necolate San Sebastian through Organisations'.
The terrain or the Poor. per fusion of the LCR and •a vicious school for many revolutionary militants