at before Christmas, Rolane Wijeweena, hey loader of the now hand Sid Fantan Mary organisation, to J17 was SHAN DUE CAN ENO defence-which included curting off legal adviser Bala Taurhor in the middle of movement, rejecting the churget of conspiracy and 'terrorism an a frameмр.
an international campaign to secure his release. Below we print a fetter seeled out ar the end of her year from the jail in which Wieweeru and other political pric AN IMPORTANT -if partialvictory was won by the Spanish workers movement last week when the Supreme Court reduced the scatences handed out to leu leaders of the underground workers comm issions over a year ago.
The "Carabanchel Ten', as they are known (after the notorious Carahanchel Prison in which they have been held for the past two and a half years), had their sentences redAND ANTONI 3rS.
ACTORS But even this limited victory would not have been won had it not heen for the magnificant displays of solidarity mounted by the Spanish working class. On the Sunday before the appeal opened 3,000 people demonstrated their solidarity in Madrid. 100 of whom were arrested, The following day hundreds of workers and students again braved the wrath of the police to dernonstrate outside the Supreme Court. Still undeterred by police attacks and the drafting of tanks and helicopters into the city to maintain public order 100,000 city workers struck the following day in solidarity with the Ten, who had launched a hunger strike and were calling for an amnesty for all political prisonThis mass solidarity with the dictatorship's opponents came at the same time as many groups of workeis were going into struggle. For a week before the appeal all Madrid theatres were closed as actors and actresses struck to back up demands for trade union rights. Popular supp ost for their struggle was widespread When an actor at one theatre went on stage to annoutice that the cast was stopping the play in soldarity with their striking comrades the audience greeted him with applause!
On the day the appeal opened secondary schools were shut down across the country as teachers struck over job security. Two days later 5000 construction workers in the city of Malage went on strike to protest aguiast unemployment. Police in the Hasque city of Bilbao demonstrations. One university has been shut down by the authorities for the rest of the year This massive wave of discontent has given the ruling class something to think about. Increasingly some sections are beginning to think it dose of democracy now tban lo have large quantities of it shoved down their throat by the working class later on.
AFRAID The Government, however, 1s afraid that the workers will try to use any new freedoms wlich are concoded to push the struggle forward for luther democratic rights and to advance their own class demands. The regime has thus launched • full scale attack on the organisations of the revolutionary left, to try and break their influence before any political concessions are made.
The Communist Party has for some time now been at pains to convince the ruling class that they are 'responsible, and would not actually use political rights to fight for 'unreasonable working class de mands, They would seemn to have made some progress in this, since the regime has not recently bestowed the same attention on them as on the revolutionary lett, and a number of capitalist opposition parties (including the Christian Democrats) agreed to co-sign a letter to the Prime Minister along with the CP calling for democratic Whatever happens over the next few months one thing is sure: the Spanish working class is not likely to remain content with any phoney face-lifting of the present dictator ship, and is bound to use any concessions wrung from the ruling class to push for tar more than the capitalists will be prepared to grant.