Despite the retreat involved by the government in commuting the death penalty on the six Basque revolutionaries, the repression continues in Spain. This is directed particularly against the leaders who launched a strike movement in the Basque province the day after the verdict. Many of them have been arrested.
Thus the government draws the lessons of the recent events. Aware of the process of radicalisation taking place among broad layers of the Spanish class, it takes advantage of its only trump card, namely the organisational weakness of the workers movement. It practises a selective repression, aimed especially at the workers vanguard which has developed with the mobilisations over Burgos, thus hindering coordination of the whole strike movement.
In fact, the Franco dictatorship knows well that that is only a temporary solution. The politicisation of the workers struggles as well as the instability which lies in the heart of the regime itself points towards a dark future for the Spanish ruling class.
Franco's "mercy" and his end of the year speech In relation to the crisis of the regime, Franco wanted to present a less tragic picture of it to the population: thus both by his "mercy" and in his speech at the end of the year he tried to go back to the politics which the Spanish bourgeoisie has preached since the beginning of the 1960s. In other words, to continue to use the "hard" wing to get things ready for the "technocrats" who would pursue the politics of opening the country to foreign investment, that does not prevent the "hard" politics from coming to the fore whenever social tensions put in jeopardy the projects of big business.
Hence the mobilisation of the Falangists to give fascist salutes at the time of the recent upheaval was accompanied at the same time by a measure of "clemency", and Franco's clear affirmation of the inevitable integration into the European and American market.
In fact, only this blend of politics, resting This drawing of a firing squad is by an imprisoned Basque militant. It was smuggled out of Spain and was first shown on the BBC programme Panorama. on the complementary nature of the two wings of the government can temporarily delay the final agony of Francoism. But the picture is not the same as it was at the beginning of the 1960s, either from the economic point of view ur from that of the workers struggles, The optimistic panorama offered by European capitalism at that time has changed unfavourably for Spain. On the other hand, the mobilisations over the Burgos trial were in many ways a dress rehearsal for the fairly wide and militant strikes in the coming months.
All this shows that the crisis of the regime will continue to get worse. Therefore the conservative Catholics and various reactionary forces pursue their criticism of "technocratic" ministers and demand to be allowed to take part at once in a new government. It is obvious that these forces behind the demand for a governmental reshuffle don't for a moment find an audience among the leading circles of the big bourgeoisie, which sees itself better served by the "Europeans" than by people who have reservations regard ing integration into the Common Market, and about overtures to the Eastern European countries. It would only be in the last resort, and with the aim of strengthening its alliance with other sectors of the bourgeoisie that big business would accept a new political change.
The Politicisation of the Workers' Struggles The strike launched in the Basque province the day after the Burgos verdict, just like the continuation of this same strike in the face of the arrest of several of its leaders, is the clearest example of the degree of radicaliss. tion that the workers movement is moving towards.
The retreat of the government over the Burgos trial constitutes a first victory over Francoism: the Spanish working class, used to subjection by systematic blows for so many years, sees for Itself today that the struggle pays off, and that only this struggle will allow it to obtain new victories, That is why we must anticipate in the months to come new strike movements which, in spite of repression, will push forward the process of reorganisation in the working class, It is with this perspective in mind that the construction of the revolutionary party, whose absence has been brought into broad daylight with the recent events, constitutes the contral task towards which the revolutio nary extreme left should work.
Gerardo Ferrer