Twelve thousand supporters of the Spanishi Communist Party flocked to Geneval from all over Europe last Sunday to hear Party secretary Santiago Carrillo and 78-ycar-old Dolores Ibarruri ('La Pasionaria' ) of Civil War fame.
The rally took place at a time of growing upheavals in Spain. Few expect the invalid General Franco to survive for very much longer: yet the ruling class is deeply divided on the formula to guarantee the succession. At the same time the regime is having to cope with an extraordinary rise in the number and militancy of workers' struggles in the last two or three years.
In this'situation the policy of the Communist Party is a question of great importance. Although it remains clandestine, the Spanish CP is extremely well organised, and restoration of democratic liberties would undoubtedly make it the dominant political force in the country. So how do Carillo and Ibarruri see the struggle developing?
BOURGEOIS ALLIANCE The basic perspective of the CP IS to forge an alliance with big business in Spain, offering to keep the working clam movement under control in exchange for the removal of Franco and that in order to maintain its base in ter, the CP has to play a certain role in organising and supporting workers to frighten the 'anti-Franco" sectors of the bourgeoisie back into supporting the dictatorship, rather than face the nightmare of an all-out working class offensive following the dismantling of the dictatorship.
The Geneva rally was intended therefore both as a show of strength and as an occasion on which to renew the pleas for an alliance to the Spanish bourgeoisie.
Carrillo's speech outlined this perspective as follows: "The working class, employees, students, women and youth will develop their protests and struggles, culminating in a national strike... for national reconciliation'! At the press conference which followed the rally. Carrillo was challenged on this patently utopian notion by a Red Weekly correspondent, who pointed out that in Portugal the workers had attempted to enforce media and industry following the fall of Cactano.
Would Carrillo encourage such struggles should a similar situation develop in Spain? It was a com plex' question, answered the Party secretary. He did not know exactly but in general be thought the issue of workers' control was something With these words Carrillo spelt the inclusion of the Party leadership in out the key idea with which the CP leadership hopes to be able to conthe working class as a bargaining con- workers: namely, that at this stage their struggle must not be a struggle for socialism but simply one for struggles; and these very struggles tend democracy. Hence it must not at this stage bring them into fundamental conflict with the Spanish capitalists - according to Carrilio, it is in the interests of the whole Spanish nation (with the exception of Franco and a few hangers-on) to see democracy restored.
explained where the Army - now a central isauc in Spanish politics - fits the lessons of the Civil War the insistence of the reformists on to regroup and launch the counterreal problem lay in the misuse of the army by the dictatorship!
forces as a police corps destined to what had been happening in Portugal, protect it agrinst the popular forces struggling for liberty and justice, he said. The Communists, on the "for a later stage of historical develop other hand, wished to see them restored to their rightful role. "The military must be the guarantors of ty. It must be given the necessary fuse and thus control - the Spanish technology and resources to play the Stole that the nation requires of it in the national interest.
fore support the Army and struggle for a reconciliation between tho people and the Army. More than Part of the wildly enthusiastic audience at Geneva last Sunday ARMY 'MISUSED' At this point the Party secretary into this perspective. Blithely ignoring where treating the Army as "neutral' allowed the reactionary generals led by Franco. them against foreigners and not agrevolution - Carrillo claimed tbut the The regime has treated the armed national independence and sovereignThe Communist Party would thereEurope to Geneva. that-Carrillo complained that the Franco regime was starving the Army of resources. The Communist Party would fight for a new Government to step up miltary spending.
Here Carrillo excelled himself. The problem was that to fight the 'internal enemy", the Spanish people, the Army only needed poor quality weapons; but to fight in the national interest it would need good quality weapons. Therefore, according to Carrillo's brand of dialectics, if the Army had modern weapons it would only use ainst the Spanish people.
Unfortunately this is by no means the first time that such a notion has been put forward. Most recently it was the Popular Unity Government in Chile which claimed that everything would be all right if only the Army was sufficiently pampered with modern weapons and nationalist appeals. The only difference between the two cases — that in Chile there was no previous tascist tradition in the Army, whereas in Spain it is very strong - hardly strengthens Carrillo's argument.
"LA PASIONARIA'
But if it was Carrillo who most clearly spelt out the political perspectives of the Spanish CP, it was the presence on the platform of the legendary OVi: War figure "La Pasionaria" which had drawn "La Pasionaria' on the rostrum in arousing the wildest cothusiasm on the part of her audience in a matter of minutes. Their slogans broke in thunderous waves over the auditorium: "Dolores to Madrid", Long Live Socialism, "Liberty'. A huge banner proclaimed: "Dolores is our banner" Civil war veterans cheered as the tears rolled down their faces.
Yet here, too, the underlying theme was the same. Having evoked such tremendous enthusiasm, whit did "La Pasionaria" urge her followers. to do". Nothing other than to embrace General Spinola and the men like him in the Spanish Army -Spinola, who fought as a volunteer alongside Franco in the Civil War, who fought as a stutt offioer in the fascist Blue Battalions on the Russian front in World Wur Il, and who is now pulting down strikes, maintaining colonial wars, and censoring the press, all with the help of the Portugu ese Communist Party.
'Create two, three, many Chiles' -that was the logic of the plattorm speeches at Geneva on Sunday, a logic which spells disaster for the international working class movement It is one which will he tought unrelentingly at every twist and turn of the class struggle by the comrades of the Fourth International. The fight for socialism is once more on the immediate agenda in Europe. Compromises of the sort outlined on Sunday will only produce defeats