The Party 3rd enlarged Plenum of the Central Committee has deeply studied and has given a just solution to the problem of the fighting methods that are to be applied in the current economic and politic conditions of our country. In relation to this problem, Lenin wrote in 1906: "The European socialdemocracy considers, nowadays, that the main forms of struggle are parliamentarism and the syndical movement, but in the past it recognized insurrection, and it is ready to recognize it in the future, when the situation changes. This is contrary to what the liberal bourgeoises think"(1).
For our Party, the future which Lenin refers to has already come. And this is so because the degree of economic concentration and of politic reaction reached by capitalism, due to the sharpening of all its contradictions and of the class struggle, cannot be combated through parliamentary and syndical methods, proper of other times. For this reason our Party recognizes the masses active resistance to the capitalist exploitation and the revolutionary armed struggle as the main methods of struggle that must be applied in our country nowadays.
It is evident then, that this is a question of the greatest importance and must be widely debated within the Party and among the masses. This is not a new issue for us, but, on the basis of the experiences, we can affirm that it is now when we are in the best conditions to discuss it in all its length and make it easier to understand. Incidentally, we have to point out that also the opportunists, specially the "leftish" ones, have been dealing with it in their own way; that is to say, leaving any principle aside, resorting to dishonest procedures, in some cases making use of dead formulations or of revolutionary experiences from other countries that are not valid for our country. This has happened with the experiences of the Chinese Revolution and the anti-imperialist struggle. It is clear for us that this has been done by the opportunists with the mere intention of confounding and justifying themselves, in order to appear as what most of them are not and will never be.
The opportunists shake of fear only thinking of the harsh revolutionary way and of the sacrifices always imposed by the struggle; only thinking about the perspective of having to hold arms one day makes them tremble. For them, the problem is reduced to finding a way to cheat the masses better, to live at their expenses (without taking any personal risk nor endangering their comfortable social position) and to attack the true marxist-leninist communists and other revolutionary anti-fascists that dare to fight, giving everything for the people and that prefer to die in the struggle to living on their knees. This heroic fighters have all our support, to them we join and, undoubtedly, we will reach victory together.
I
In his famous introduction to Marx's work "Class War in France", Engels states and puts to a severe criticism the old points of view, which he shared with Marx, about the conditions under which the proletarian revolution would take place and about the methods of struggle that correspond to it. This work by Engels has a great value for us and must be studied with attention by all the comrades. Engels wrote in 1895: "1848 fighting method is oldfashioned nowadays in all aspects". The method which Engels refers to is the insurrection of an active minority which drags along the majority of the population and, with their support, seizes power. This method was employed by the bourgeois revolution and still then, as it is logical, was in fashion among the first line proletarian fighters.
The basis of this problem is found in the material conditions of society. Marx and Engels, at first, expected that a new economic crisis like the ones that had broke out in former periods and that had made it easier for the bourgeoisie to reach power, would, in a similar way, make possible the triumph of the proletarian revolution. By then, the time of the bourgeois revolution was reaching its end and the proletariat appeared as an emerging class. Hence, it was easy to think that the new crisis would bring about the revolution and the triumph of the proletariat. But, as Engels points out, that appearance did not correspond to reality. Although the cyclic overproduction crisis which are inherent to capitalism continued to follow one another, it was proved that capitalism had ahead a long period of development and expansion all around the world. The time of the bourgeois revolutions was over, but the conditions for the triumph of the proletarian revolution were still not mature, and this fact had to modify deeply the methods of struggle and preparation of the proletariat to make its revolution.
In that conditions of consolidation of the bourgeois regime and of relatively peaceful development of capitalism, the proletariat experiments new forms of struggle. Little by little the insurrectional attempts are left aside and the bourgeois legality starts to be used, the electoral struggle, the bourgeois parliament, the trade-unions, the cooperatives, etc. "With that efficient use of the universal suffrage -wrote Engels- a new method of struggle which continued to be developed rapidly entered into action. It was seen that the state institutions in which the domination of the bourgeoisie was organized offered new possibilities to the working class to fight against these institutions"(2).
The opportunists have distorted, now and then, these clear teachings of marxism, trying to present things so that it would be believed that socialism will be reached through the bourgeois institutions without destroying them and in a peaceful way. Besides they do not make any difference between a time and another completely different, for instance between the time in which it was still possible to use the bourgeois institutions "to fight against these institutions", and the time in which this possibility is minimal due to the deep reactionary character that these institutions have acquired under monopolist state capitalism. Due to the new reactionary character which the bourgeois regime has acquired, the monopolist bourgeoisie is no longer worried, as it was in the past, about the use of its own legality by the working class and, on the contrary, it tries to attract the revolutionaries and the masses to enter these institutions in order to have them subdued and controlled so that their domination system cannot be endangered. Engels foresaw this situation. He was conscious that the conditions had to change again and, in fact, already at that time, the bourgeoisie started to give clear signs of its great concern for the steps taken by the proletariat on the basis of the use of their own legality and started to claim against these very legality and to take restrictive, reppressive and dictatorial measures against the masses and the peaceful advances of its political movement. "In the end -Engels said- they won't have any option but to break this legality by themselves". But "if they violate the constitution -Engels continues- socialdemocracy is free then, and can make or stop making whatever it wants with them"(3). As it can be seen, Engels did not build up false hopes about the bourgeois legality. He recognized the possibilities offered in the past by that legality for the organization of the working class and the development of its movement through peaceful means, but at the same time he did not doubt alerting about the dangers of reaction, of returning to absolutism, to the dictatorship of the big capital and he called to confront the new situation resolutely.
Engels, as a great dialectic materialist, knew that the politic situation which the working class enjoyed had to change, and in fact, by the end of the 19th century with the rising of monopolism, it started to change in a reactionary way. The verification of this situation made Engels exclaim: "The world is again upside down". And in fact, the world and society, in their development, do not follow a straight path, but a zig-zag one, turning round and round. The opportunists affirm that there "cannot be a back down" from bourgeois democracy and some other foolishnesses which do not correspond to reality at all. They also think that the working class movement will impose itself in a peaceful way, without finding any resistance, and so, in peace and harmony, we will all reach socialism, including the exploiters who will stop being so due "to the pressure" of the majority, etc. Another example that the opportunists usually set is the "democracy" of the European countries, and even they go further when they point out "the evolution to democracy" of the Spanish monopolist oligarchy. Has the world turned upside down again but in a contrary sense of that pointed out by Engels? Are we perhaps back from nazi-fascism and from all the other regimes that supported it? No, that turn is not made by history, in the same way as society cannot go back to the economic regime of free competence. The turn is made in other direction: for instance, at first, the bourgeoisie was revolutionary while nowadays is the reactionary class par excellence, which is opposed to revolution and progress. Here a turn has actually been produced, and this was precisely because history does not stop and marches in favour of the proletariat. This fact has forced the bourgeoisie to go backwards, to eliminate its progressive constitution and declare war to democracy and to the working class.
It would be enough to make a comparison between the first bourgeois politic constitutions and the politic legislation of our time to realize perfectly of what remains of that democracy in the capitalist states. But, not to go further, a single comparison is enough: the one between the politic regime of the II Republic and the "new democracy in the Spanish style" which the monopolist capital tries to impose and make observe in Spain. As it is known, the II Republic was born out of the people's masses struggle against monarchic absolutism and on the basis of their independent organizations, parties and trade-unions, on the basis of the class war and of the liberties conquered by the masses at the cost of floods of blood. These conquests meant a step forward in the long path to the total emancipation of the working class and other people's layers, while the so-called "constitution" which we are now forced to swallow is born out of a counter-revolution, out of the suppression ot the people's conquests, out of more than 40 years of oppression and exploitation and it is destined to legalize and perpetuate this same counter-revolution.
Having a closer look at it, this turn made by the politic history long ago, that step backwards taken by the bourgeois politic regimes, does not imply any fatality, provided that the working class be conscious of the situation and also renew its fighting methods. In fact, as Engels pointed out, this means that the conditions have matured for the development of the armed struggle of the masses and for their triumph over the monopolist bourgeoisie; that communism is also untied of any compromise with respect to the bourgeoisie and that it "can make" and "stop making" whatever it wants as regards to it. This finally means that the conditions are mature to go back to the non-legal and non-peaceful methods of struggle, and that as it has been said, it is not a minority now but the vast people's masses the ones who are interested in the combat and will join it progressively.
II
As we have been seeing, everything but preaching pacifism and entering into the game of the monopolists and their government, is accused by the opportunists of "leftism" and of "individual terrorism". It is clear that for all these people there do not exist any other tactics nor other methods of struggle than those carried out long ago by revisionism and the bourgeois liberals. Everything that implies a consequent struggle against the big bourgeoisie, the unreserved support to the revolutionary people's movement, the difussion among the ample masses of the most advanced experiences of struggle and its application by the revolutionary party, is accused of being "contrary" to the interests of democracy and of being alien to marxism-leninism.
We have proved many times what is hidden behind the "criticism" against the young communist movement which is developing in Spain (which, in fact, is not criticism but calumnies and lies) made by the revisionist ringleaders and their leftish friends. And what they hide is nothing but the treason to the working class and to its socialist cause, its conciliation with the exploiters and oppressors of the people and the unity of all of them without any principles against our Party. Their condemnations of the "individual terrorism" have the same character.
It is true that Lenin criticised individual terrorism, although not in the same way as the opportunists do now, but pointing out the positive aspects and clarifying all the negative ones that terrorism brought about. Lenin was a great admirer of the old Russian terrorists and preached the great revolutionary spirit that took them to the struggle. But, first of all, Lenin attacked the question of individual terrorism as it was a waste of revolutionary energies which went against the organization of the vast masses for the struggle. Besides, Lenin attacked terrorism when it was, effectively, individual and therefore, instead of clarifying the masses and contributing to the organization of the revolutionaries, it confused their minds. For all these reasons Lenin criticised terrorism.
The opportunists have learnt by heart some sentences about "terrorism" and they repeat them as parrots, being not different in this, as in many other things, from the bourgeoisie in general. They do not want to understand that nowadays this kind of terrorism (which was carried out in other times by some aristocrats and intellectuals in absence of a revolutionary situation and of a revolutionary movement) does not exist. Now, in our time, this problem does not exist and, as the official figures about repression show, those who hold arms, form armed groups and promote a vast movement of people's resistance are many thousands of people (most of them proletaries). Has this movement something to do with that "individual terrorism" criticised by the classics of marxism?
In his introduction to Marx's work "Class struggle in France", Engels pays a great attention to the question of the armed struggle and the insurrection, placing this question in different historic conditions and taking into account the degree of development of the weapons and the military technique.
First of all, Engels has no doubt about the necessity of the armed struggle as unique mean to overthrow capitalism, making a pause to analize the new forms that this struggle will adopt in the future. "We mustn't make illusions, Engels repeated, an effective victory of the insurrection over the troops in the street struggle, a victory similar to the one in a combat between two armies, is one of the major rarities".
Engels points out a series of changes that took place from 1848 to the date of his work, in the relation of forces, in the technique and the type of weapons used by the troops and the civilian combatants, completely unfavourable for the latter. Obviously, those differences do not take place nowadays in the same way, being possible to affirm that the development of the armies and the war machinery of imperialism has changed this relationship again.
Generally, today the barricade is not practised, as it was before, however, the guerrilla war is mainly put into practice. The guerrilla war is a result of imperialism. On the other hand, the bourgeoisie, or at least a considerable section of it does not salute nor award the troops sent against the insurrected peoples. The taxes that the bourgeoisie has to endure to maintain the modern armies make it confront the handful of monopolists that benefit from them. In our time the soldier does not see bandits nor looters in the combatant revolutionary ranks, but people from his own class that fight for his own interests too.
This true revolution produced by the development of capitalism, by the imperialist wars and the liberation struggles of the peoples, has modified deeply the correlation of forces and makes useless all the attempts of imperialism in order to improve its position and military arsenal. The ultramodern weapons, in the end, are created, transported and used by men, and these do not scape from the spreading of the revolutionary ideas that are developing all over the world. Moreover, the insurrected peoples can also provide today with certain types of modern weapons suitable for the kind of war they carry out.
However, the central idea defended by Engels according to which an effective victory of the insurrection over the troops in the streets "is one of the biggest rarities", is still valid. But, Engels continues: "Does this mean that in the future the street combats will not play any role at all? None of that. It only means that, from 1848, the conditions have become much more unfavourable for the civilian combatants and much more advantageous for the troops. Therefore, a future street struggle will only be able to win if this disadvantage of the situation is compensated with other factors... and these struggles will, undoubtedly, have to prefer the all-out attack to the passive tactics of the barricades... as it happened all through the French revolution"(4).
In the previous paragraphs, the new insurrectional tactics that revolutions must adopt in a time different to that of the rise of the bourgeoisie and the consolidation of capitalism, that is to say, in our time, the time of the capitalist system decadence and the proletarian revolution, this new tactics is clearly established. To adopt an all-out attack instead of the passive tactics of the barricades struggle, and compensate the disadvantages with other factors like surprise, combining the armed attacks with mass politic strikes, forming small mobile detachments, etc.; such are the main characteristics of the new insurrectional tactics and technique suitable for our conditions.
Lenin, based on Marx and Engels ideas, analised the experiences of the Moscow 1905 insurrection and developed the general theory of marxism with respect to this. "The military technique -Lenin pointed out-nd that in Moscow a new barricade tactics has emmerged. This tactics -Lenin continues- was th is not nowadays the same as in the middle of the 19th century. It would be a foolishness to oppose the masses to the artillery and to defend the barricades shooting revolvers. Kautsky was right when he wrote that, after the Moscow experience, it was high time to revise Engels' conclusions ae guerrilla war. The organization imposed by that tactics was based on mobile and extraordinarily small detachments which were groups of ten, three, even two men"(5).
How far is all this, from the "school exercises" about parliamentarism and other panaceas to which all the opportunists are so keen on! To Lenin, the Moscow insurrection meant "a great historic conquest" and he insisted, against the so-called politics of the mensheviks and others of their same sort: "the guerrilla war, the terror of the masses... will undoubtedly contribute to teach them the right tactics for the moment of insurrection. Socialdemocracy must admit and incorporate to its tactics this terror of the masses, but, undoubtedly organizing and controlling it"(6).
III
From its implantation, the regime -based on organized violence and terror- has centered its propagandistic activity on instilling in the people's masses the belief that fascism is almighty, that the working people cannot do anything on its own to throw off the yoke and that, therefore, it has no other choice but to submit to fascism. The 1939 defeat, as well as the reppression that followed it, have also contributed to foment this belief. On the other hand, in the 50's, the carrillist revisionism appeared with its pacifist and conciliatory preachings, sanctioning in this way, in the name of communism, the biggest falseness that could have ever been invented.
But, some well-conducted and exemplarily organized armed actions have been enough to unmask such a falseness. It has been proved through those actions that fascism is not only weak by nature, but it constitutes the most vulnerable form of power of the monopolist bourgeoisie (we have already talked about this question on other occasions). It has now been proved in practice that the "strength" of the regime is based on the terror that it tries to inspire, dressing with the most clumsy lies and falsifications. Once the fascist State terrorism has been defied and its efficiency made clear, and when the lies are no longer useful but to show the ones that invent them in their ridiculous nakedness, it can be said that the days of fascism are numbered. But if this is so, how was its victory possible? and why has it kept in power for so long? let's see to it.
Among the great number of factors that contributed to the defeat of the people's forces in the Revolutionary War from 1936 to 1939, outstands the enormous disproportion of forces which, from the beginning, existed between the Republic and its enemies. There is no need to say that the fascist rebels were better prepared than the part of the Army that was still faithful to the Republic, they had more resources and a considerable international support. With such a disproportion of forces it was impossible to achieve a decissive victory over fascism in the short term. However, that very important fact was not taken into account by the leaders of the country nor by the military commanders, who were worried about minimizing the problems and keeping the external image of the Republic. That way, it was impossible to establish a just military strategy, adjusted to reality, to the correlation of forces that existed in that moment. They underestimated the enemy forces and they overestimated their own. This was, in our opinion, their main mistake.
The conception which prevailed among the politic and military leaders took them to try to achieve a quick military victory over fascism. Due to this reason the war was lost. The initiative was on the part of the fascists at any moment. Each defeat suffered by the Republic in the fronts, weakened the moral of resistance of the masses, undermined the precarious unity of the parties that formed the People's Front, sowed mistrust and discord among the governors and encouraged the fascists.
It is true that not even an inch of ground nor a soldier of the part of the army that was faithful to the People's Republic could be abandoned to the mercenary troops and to the fascist gangsters. It was necessary to defend by all means the positions and to fortify the regular army. In this sense, for the people's forces, the war seemed to have a classic character, it was a defensive and trench war. But this was only a part of the war, not the totality nor even its main part. Due to the fact that fascism was stronger in the first phase of the war, that it had more resources than the Republic, that it was in the offensive and that it could not be contained in the short term (would it have been otherwise it would not have risen), the people's forces should have combined the defence of positions and the strengthening of the regular army with the preparation of the masses and the creation of an army capable of fighting a protracted guerrilla war. Only the guerrilla war strategy could achieve victory for the people when the conditions would be created for it (as in the course of II World War or just after its end). Only guerrilla war could strike the fascist armies harshly, paralize their offensive, permit the strengthening of the republican armed forces, consolidate their positions and finally take the offensive.
The goverments of the Republic did not tackle the question of the war and its strategy in depth. They did not take into account that it was mainly a people's war that should be based on the masses and apply its own laws. This experience, which we had to pay with flods of blood and with 40 years of oppression, makes us see clearly that in order to defeat fascism and to be free from the chains of exploitation, the working class and the rest of the ample people's masses need an army of their own, and that this army must necessarily apply a strategy of protracted guerrilla war. The people's army with its high moral of combat and its military technique, which is superior to that of any army at the service of the exploiter classes, is formed and tempered in the guerrilla war.
When the Communist Party understood this tough lesson and decided to create and support the guerrilla, it was too late. Undoubtedly, the peoples of the different nationalities of Spain would have defeated fascism earlier than those of Europe if the Party would have beeen seriously concerned about organizing and leading the guerrilla war. The peoples of Spain were the first to hold arms against fascism, they counted with a rich politic and military experience; the World War precipitated the events throwing the imperialist powers against one another. If an organized and armed resistance had existed in our country, the armies led by Franco would not have had the international help that was so decissive for them and, surely, the chief of the fascists that still today oppress us would have fallen at the same time, if not before, that Hitler and Mussolini.
The defeat of the Republic meant a harsh strike for the masses, for their parties and organizations that were worn out. Fascism imposed its regime of terror. In such conditions it was not possible to expect a quick increase of the revolutionary wave. They had to start by reinstating the damaged ranks and raising the moral waiting for more favourable conditions; they had to apply a tactics and methods of struggle which were in accordance to the new situation. This was interpreted by the opportunists (who started to increase in number within the Party taking advantage of the difficult circumstances) in the sense of abandoning the revolutionary methods of struggle, the revolutionary tactics and the armed actions against fascism which, in the long term, have taken them to the most shameful back down and to cooperate with the oppressors closely. They started by abandoning the masses; they destroyed the Party afterwards and now, they have completed their treason stabbing in the back the true communists and other revolutionaries. This is the main reason for the keeping in power of fascism for so long.
It has already been proved in theory and in practice that there is no other way to combat fascism but with the armed struggle combined with the revolutionary movement of the masses. The ones that imposed themselves through arms and that are still in power only by the practice of violence, will only be defeated by the force of arms. Our people understands this better each day and it joins everywhere the all-out and resolute struggle against fascism. Nobody must build up false hopes as regards democracy under the domain of the monopolist capital; nobody must expect a single peaceful concession that really benefits the people's interests; nobody must expect an easy or peaceful way to socialism. Only the revolutionary armed struggle combined with politic strikes, the violent demonstrations of the masses on the streets and other forms of really democratic struggle and organization, will be able to force fascism back more each time, to sharpen its inner contradictions, will destroy its military-bureaucratic machinery and will create the conditions necessary for the organization of the ample masses for the struggle. Everything but to strike harsh blows or to support the revolutionary armed struggle is a treason to our people, a criminal and despicable cooperation with its oppressors.
The war we will have to fight, as the 3rd enlarged Plenum of the Central Committee has pointed out, is going to be a protracted one, it will have a long duration. In the course of this war we will accumulate forces, organize the working masses, forge a politic front which one day will substitute the power of the finantial oligarchy everywhere, we will build up the people's revolutionary army.
The fascist regime is no longer in the position to cheat and repress in the same way as it has been doing before; on the contrary, it has started to receive very harsh strikes on the part of the mass movement and of the armed antifascist and patriotic organizations. This marks the beginning of a new kind of people's movement in Spain. The basis of this new movement, its firmest support, what guarantizes its victory, is found in the armed organizations and in the guerrilla struggle which they practice against fascism. This kind of struggle raises the moral of the masses and, far from obstructing the development of its movement, it stimulates it greatly and paves its way. For this same reason the working class, particularly, must resolutely support these armed actions targeted against the regime and give any kind of help to the armed organizations; such is the position that our Party maintains.
Unlike in the 30's, today fascism will not be able to defeat the people's armed forces on the battlefield nor anywhere else; it will not defeat them because this time they will not be within the range of its artillery nor its air force, nor will it be able to use its mercenaries against them. The fascist army will be in front of an invisible army; the armed and military organized working people will combat it everywhere. As it will be understood, an enemy like this one is impossible to be defeated. It is true that fascism will commit, as it has been doing so, many crimes and all kinds of villainies against the masses, against the vanguard combatants and their families. But in that way it will only be able to widen the front of the people's struggle, it will only be able to stoke up the hatred and the flames of the struggle, make it more radical and extense.
Instead of fascism having the initiative and leading the war according to its plans, it will be forced to make it always in the ground chosen by the people's armed forces. This does not mean in any way that the fascist Army is already cornered nor that it is defending itself on a strategic level. On the contrary, the struggle they carry out is going to have an offensive character for a long time, while on the part of the people's armed forces the war will be, also for a long period, one of defensive strategy. This strategic relationship between the people's armed forces and the reactionary ones is essentially determined by the huge desproportion of forces which nowadays exists between them. Therefore, the reactionary armed forces attack and will try to annihilate the people's forces in the shorter time possible. This takes place on a strategic or general level. But, in each particular combat the revolutionary forces will be the ones to attack and the fascists the ones who will have to defend themselves. This way, the people's forces will transform their strategic disadvantage into a tactic advantage, they will achieve their objective of accumulating forces and will weaken the enemy progressively. Such strategy of people's war will lead to a change in the relation of forces. When this relation will be favourable to the people, then the moment of changing the strategic orientation would have come: fascism will be in the deffensive and we will attack. We will strike them blows of any kind and scale. We will combat not only in small groups, with small commandos but also we will even be able to confront the enemy's forces with superior ones and they will be annihilated. When that moment had come, a powerful workers' army would have already been created, the ample masses led by the Party and other truly democratic organizations will join in the combat and we will overthrow forever the hated regime. In a broad outline, this will be the way that the people's armed resistance in Spain will follow.
In the beginning, as it happens now, the small armed detachments will be the ones to strike blows to monopolism, to its armed forces and to other reactionary institutions. This first stage that the antifascist resistance struggle goes through will be long and tough since the people's armed forces will have to combat in very difficult conditions, as they are relatively isolated, while fascism, although weakened, will still preserve some solidity. Later on, the small groups will be strengthened in technique and in number and will therefore form wider guerrilla groups. These at the same time will be transformed till they form a true people's revolutionary army. If now that we are weak and fascism is relatively strong, it has been possible to create the GRAPO and they have combated so justly and bravely, who can doubt that from now on all the objectives can be achieved?
The peoples of Spain have accumulated a rich experience in the struggle, both on the politic and on the military ground. This time fascism will not be able to overthrow us. Moreover, it will not achieve it, because the national and international situation is not the same as in 1936. Now fascism is the one in power and therefore it has to defend itself, seeing how its difficulties increase everywhere. The people's masses have gone through the tough school of war and of 40 years of terror and no one will be able to cheat nor scare them; they continuously suffer from the most cruel exploitation and reppression, they lack the most basic rights, their best men and women are arrested, tortured and imprisoned and many others have been murdered. These experiences are not useless and have made understand clearly that there is no other way to free from the fascist and monopolist yoke than that of the armed struggle.
Our mission consists of clarifying the workers and other people's sectors, heading them in the struggle, setting example with our effort and sacrifice and organizing the people's armed insurrection. This is going to take us long and we will have to overcome many obstacles, but the victory is assured beforehand if we apply a just military and politic line, if we serve the masses wholeheartedly, if we always lean on them, if we do not spare any effort and we dare to fight.
Notes:
(1) V.I. Lenin: The guerrilla war
(2) F. Engels: Introduction to "Class struggle in France"
(3) F. Engels: Introduction to "Class struggle in France"
(4) F. Engels: Introduction to "Class struggle in France"