Spanish nas announced its new electoral law, which elections planned to be held in the summer.
ne announcement canch al atmosonere which was Tar Trom democratic. ine bascue country is still in upsurge after the murder of a demonstrator by police Most solemn proceed Importality Le Tribuna nave retused lecal status to all the organisations of the far Among denied legality and participation in the elections Is the _CK. •Danisn sympanising section of the rourn intemanon ah. This of asceeding top or mably because, munist Party (PCE], there was not much question about ine resuits of the hearing.
The judges were most disturbed to find mention of workers power in the LCR's constitution. From their long experience of questions they were able to pronounce unIs arsenminatory anti-cemocratic oiner reasons given for denying legal status were its affiliation the Fourth Interits fusion in 1973 national with ETA (Sixth Assembly)
HORRIFIED The court managed to find othe evidence of _CR's On examining the cratic activity. constitution was horritied find that the Central Committee was empowered to co-opt 15 per cent of its membership!
The electoral law is more or less What WaS CAUCULOU! ine most oovious y unemoGdu features or the election continuing repression and ine illegality of most of the workers parties — weighted in tavour the most conservative areas or ine country By seats hi province one seats for each province ine Government is over-rep resentation of the rural areas a the expense of the working class in the industrial areas.
The Government and the Spanish capitalist class nope use these elections to establish a strong state model DosT-War West Germany.
analist Germany i will Have e Berufsverbot - ine mecay and persecution of workers parties -out with formal structure of bourgeois Germany the remaineo weddi A une reoressive tures of Francoism will be various formal limited concessions will be made in other areas. TOT exambie. minimal 'autonomy for the oppressed nationalities.
Although the elections contorm to certain formal aspects of capitalist democracy they are primarily seen as the means to these ends Thus. despite their illegality, ine workers parties nectect mem their peril. The PSOE, the Socialwhich has been legalised, its own campaign while anticipates casanon. plans to run a slate.
The political bureau of the LCR circulated a declaration calling for working class unity in the It criticises the decisior erections. of the PSOE and PCE to run ther own campaiens ano calls united slates of representatives of the workers neighbourhood women sane youtn organoalvile ne con blogoses unity in ine elections around d four-point platform:
* For total amnesty and demoEven extensions or ine amnesty do not meet the nee to tree all do tica Quite apart from amnesty takes the form of a pardon, which Inab crimes WelC committed manv militants of ETA scue croanisation or me LCR) will remain in prison.
For the right of self-determinaoppressed nationalihes. nis means autonomy. It entails the freely what re atonsniD each nationality shall have to the Spanish state all forms of 'social pact. Inis means the tree night or all working class organisations to Hor elections Constituent Assembly which will prociaim ine repuonic. the presen elections may be an innovation out tney are not consutuent oiner wores inev reoresent break with the past constitution of Francoism.
Inis plattorm presents ine rea possibility of workers unity in the capitalist The LCR stresses that within this eacn orcanisation nave ne ullest rians to liont tor the entirety of its own programme.
• Socialist Press Workers Socialist League, Jew pearis of wisdom to ojjer in us issue of 2 March. appucation legar status commented: "Asking a government can do nothing but give and remamacto mar government.
Leaving aside the question of whether the Suarez Government is fascist, the demand for legalisation is not a request for the right exist. The LCR exists already, has done so for some years under conditions oj clandestinity, will continue to do so.
The real question is the tremendous opportunities opened up for revolutionaries by the possibility of legal work. The communist movement has always shown its readiness to seize on even the opportunities offered by the bourgeoisie in this respect. Of course, even if the LCR had been legalised [of which there was no chancel its legal work would necessarily have continued to be combined with illegal activity.
LOSS Red Weekly is at a loss to see how the refusal of the Government to legalise the LCR has given that Government greater legitimacy in the eyes of the masses.
Like On the elections, Socialist Press correctly describes them as mockery of democracy, but impl icitly concludes that this means they must be boycotted on principle. West Again, we are not Party this principle comes from. I Is certainly not from the experience STrUC of the communist Although the parallel is not an exact one, the participation of the Bolsheviks in the Tsarist Dumas, which were considerably democratic than the proposed new Cortes, was seen as an opportunity parties.
WIll paper of the had a On the LCR's more