Under monopolism there is no room for the parliamentary and peaceful illusions
A dark future for the oligarchy
Summary:
Under monopolism there is no room for the parliamentary and peaceful illusions
A dark future for the oligarchy
Monopolism, as Lenin proved, tends towards politic reaction and not towards democracy. The revisionists and other opportunists of their same sort can shout themselves hoarse talking about the politic "evolution" of the Spanish fascist and monopolist regime towards "democratic" forms. Nobody with a minimum consciousness will believe them any more. If any change in the politic situation of our country takes place, this will not be due to the very dynamics of the regime, but in spite of it, against it and by the pressure of the mass movement. Something similar takes place in other capitalist countries. The economic basis of politic liberalism, the free-competence economy, has been superseded and it will not come back again, and monopolism tends towards the control by an exiguous minority and the subordination of all the economic, politic and social life to its interests. Only under the conditions where revisionism is strong, where bourgeois ideology has conquered important positions among the working-class ranks, can the monopolist bourgeoisie afford to maintain an appearance of freedom.
In those countries, the revolutionary Party of the proletariat is compelled to use the parliament, the trade unions, the current legislation, with the aim of organizing and disillusioning the masses that still trust in the repressive and exploiting bourgeois machinery. The struggle, up to this moment, takes place within the frame of legality and adopts relatively peaceful forms. The aim of the Party is, as we have already told, to organize and to educate the masses better each time, to defend and to increase their conquests and to get ready in this way for the violent overthrowing of capitalism. The conditions for that overthrowing are ripening clearly and they will take place sooner or later.
Let's take now the example of the colonial and semi-feudal countries. In those countries there is no parliament, nor worker trade unions nor politic traditions proper of any developed society. The masses live there under conditions of the most abject poverty, exploited and oppressed by imperialism and the intern reaction. Under such conditions, the only way of liberating themselves consists on developing from the beginning the armed struggle, the formation of an army and of an ample people's and national front.
It is evident that Spain is not a colonial nor a semi-feudal country. There are neither any liberties nor legal worker trade unions. The strikes and other forms of struggle are forbidden and, for this reason, any mass action that takes place, inevitably becomes politicized very easily and points out directly against the State of the finance oligarchy. Spain is a State monopolist capitalist country which has a strongly centralized fascist regime without any kind of defence that preserves it from the revolutionary tides. This explains the latent state of confrontation of the people with monopolism and the State which is exclusively at its service. Besides, in our country a glorious tradition of struggle remains; the parliamentarianism and the bourgeois legality, those wrecks of capitalism, have completely collapsed; the fascist regime itself has broken them into pieces and it cannot recompose them no matter how many efforts it makes in this sense.
Under such conditions, which methods of struggle are the most suitable? The parliamentarianism, the "quiet" bourgeois liberal society or any other modality of the bourgeois dictatorship is better than the fascist regime. We, communists, could work more and better or, at least, our labour would be less difficult. The masses could organize themselves, etc. But, why making vain illusions? In Spain there cannot be anything else but a more or less uncovered form of the fascist regime or a true democracy of a popular character. This does not mean that it is not possible that a crisis takes place which may allow us, during a short period, to work more openly, to strengthen ourselves and even to open an even bigger breach in that way.
But, can anybody still believe that the newly-born "associations", even in the case that they acquire the formal aspect of parties, with their fatuous names of "popular", "democratic" and other wonders of the imagination, will be able to confound many people? We doubt it. A civil war that still persists and 40 years of a fascist regime are not anything, they always leave a trace. Specially if the current "democrats" made and still make war to the people. Nor will Ruiz Jiménez, Gil Robles, Fraga and Carrillo (no matter if they act together or independently) be able to play a better role than Solís, Arias, Cabanillas, etc. Is there any other "replacement team" with enough prestige among the masses and the necessary confidence of the oligarchy?
No country in the world and no revolution have followed the same path. For that reason, those who are clung on schemes without analysing the conditions of their country, their history, the psychology of the masses that inhabit it, etc., can only harvest failures. But, besides, we are not the only ones nor the first ones to conceive things in this way. Lenin already dealt with the problems of the struggle that would appear in a "prison" as it is our country under fascism: "When private property on the means of production is maintained, all the steps towards a bigger monopolization and nationalization of the production are, inevitably, accompanied by a growing exploitation of the working masses, by an increase of repression, of growing difficulties to oppose resistance to the exploiters, by a growth of reaction and military despotism"(*). Is it possible, under such conditions, to speak of the old methods of struggle, of parliamentarianism, of legalism, of the "pacts", "alliances" or "historic compromises"? Naturally, it is possible to speak of all this, but only with an intention: to sustain the shaky bourgeois regime.
Even if Spain is not a colonial nor a semi-feudal country, the class struggle acquires more each time the form of a struggle of all the people, headed by the working class, against an exiguous isolated oligarchic minority that, in order to maintain itself in power, is compelled to use the methods of a foreign fascist occupant. The only possible via of struggle in Spain is to foment the resistance against that enemy of all the people, to isolate him completely, to strike him everywhere, to create him any kind of difficulties, to make impossible his "government" of terror and plundering so that all this becomes a powerful people's resistance movement led by the working class.
This does not mean that we reject the use of any possibility of legal labour, or that we leave in the hands of the opportunists the banner of the struggle for the achievement of improvements. The recent agreements taken by our Central Committee do not give place to any doubt as regards this. But the margin is going to be so narrow that, even to snatch a little vindication, it will be necessary to fight a true and prolonged social battle. What must we tell the masses? That everything will be very easy? That the efforts and the most bitter struggle will not be necessary? That they must not get ready for that? Or, will we ask the comrades and friends that are shot and pursued when they hand in leaflets or place a poster to go with empty hands?, will we tell the masses and the comrades not to demand anything, not to do anything?, is that what we should do!? It seems that the monopolist regime does not leave any other way out. But it does exist, and it is not as desperate as it seems.
In the framework of the reality that we have described there is little room for what we call "classic struggle", parliamentarianism, legalism, etc., and to tell the truth, there is no reason to lament it. We know that more than one will be shocked in front of such a categorical affirmation. We have already provided the data that have taken us to make this affirmation.
The fascist regime in Spain has two alternatives: to continue as it is or to change its facade. In neither of these two cases nothing is going to be solved and, as it is logical, the oligarchy is not going to suicide; it will not renounce to its privileges, it will not return voluntarily to the people what it has robbed them with the arms and it will not demolish the monstrous bureaucratic-repressive machinery that it has created throughout time. Therefore, it is very logical and natural that the masses, and even less the working class, will not toe the line of these two alternatives. Does this mean that there is no other alternative? In no way. But this other alternative is not properly an alternative of the regime; it is an alternative against the regime: democratico-revolutionary Provisional Government, people's and worker councils, nationalization of the industry and the finance capital, right to self-determination of the nationalities in Spain, etc. Such is the alternative that our Party proposes to the people. With it, all the problems will start to be solved. It is clear that this cannot be achieved without having overthrown and demolished to its foundations the rotten fascist-monopolist regime.
Now the following question can be made: will we be able to overthrow fascism and to accumulate the strength necessary to march towards socialism without going through a stage of bourgeois parliamentary regime? We affirm: yes, we are able and it is perfectly achievable. The working class in Spain, headed by its Party (and it will become so in a little time), attracting the poor peasants and other people's layers with its resolute struggle, is more than enough to overthrow fascism, to create a regime of full liberty for the people, without fascists and monopolists, and to march towards socialism without going through the bourgeois parliamentarianism. This stage cannot take place again in our country unless we renounce to any improvement and any right. In that case, what will parliamentarianism serve for? Only for one thing: to legalize fascism washing up its face.
That rottenness, that old wreck of parliamentarianism, is necessary for nothing, it has died and it is well dead. It will be a comedy to resuscitate it. The masses, due to the very necessities of the struggle, have completely done without it and have created new, superior forms of struggle.
When the moment will come, the people will provide themselves with a politic form of Power a thousand times more democratic and economic than the most "democratic" bourgeois parliamentary form. How? We will see to that later. One thing is very clear: it is a complete mystification, a falseness on which the revisionists have insisted, to suppose that there is no other form of revolutionary struggle nor any other way to reach socialism than the parliamentary and legalist one.
(*) V. I. Lenin: "Speech delivered in the II Congress of the Komintern".