[page 15]
CRISIS IN THE SOUTHERN EUROPEAN SOCIALIST PARTIES By Roger Silverman On 24th and 25th January, 1976, in Paris, a Conference was held of Southern European Socialist Parties affiliated to the Socialist International. Called on the initiative of Francois Mitterand (France), it was also attended by delegates from Spain, Portugal, Italy and (for some reason) Belgium, and several observers, notably Andreas Papandreou of the Greek Party PASOK (which is not yet affiliated to the SI).
This marked a new development in the post-war history of the European labour movement. But its participants were anxious to play down its significance. Mitterand summed up the Conference as "a friendly get-together, a comparison of experiences and an ideological discussion," and stressed: "There is no question of putting any geographical barrier between the Social-Democrats of the North and the Socialists of the South...nor to establish a new organisation in juxtaposition to the SI for at least as long as the SI remains faithful to its aims...but this Conference was dictated by the common characteristics of the situation existing in Southern Europe where there are strong Socialist and strong Communist Parties.
But as Le Monde commented: "Mitterand...didn't want to raise the subject of a new International. However, isn't there the fear of a split within the heart of the 13
[page 16]
SI?...For many delegates... the question is quite clear: Social-Democracy = the USA.
Despite the fact that the meeting of the SI itself a few days earlier had been deadlocked on the issue, with Wilson and Schmidt opposing cooperation with the CPs, the meeting resolved "to co-operate with the Communist Parties and other progressive forces and with the trade unions"; to "remain faithful to the building of democratic Socialism and to a break with capitalism" and to "build a European Socialism based...on the struggle againsı the monopolies and multinational corporations."
These ringing resolutions papered over serious differences on every practical issue. People who in bygone days were happy to apologise for the French colonial wars in Algeria and Indochina, or to participate in capitalist governments in Italy and Creece, have found themselves playing, in these troubled times, with varying degrees of conviction, the role of left-wing demagogues. Others faced with the challenge of a living revolution, have shrunk back. horror. Thus, Mario Soares sent his apologies on the grounds that "he had to be in the USA to meet Dr. Kissinger," together with a message praising the "enormous appeal" Social-Democracy in Northern Europe. His stand-in Manuel Allegre. spoke of "the violent confrontation
between the two conceptions of
Socialism" in Portugal, and rejoiced
at "the defeat which has befallen the
CP. " In deference to the mood of his
audience, he added that "the Socialists in Portugal always offer a hand
towards the Communists"-but, as
we see, this does not extend to a
proposal for a coalition government
on a platform of Socialist democ-
The Portuguese drew the hostility
of other delegates. Claude Estie (France) sharply remarked: "If the
Portuguese SP renounces the unity of
the people's forces...it is clear that
such a move would not be reconcilable with our orientation and everything that we are fighting for in France. " Papandreou told Le Monde: "When Soares linked up with America he made a fateful decision. I hope that the PSOE will not follow his example.
De Martino, leader of the Italian Socialists, was absent because of the political crisis at home, but his representative, Zagani, praised Carrillo and Berlinguer as "two Communist leaders who are in favour of pluralism and democracy and reject the principle of the one party state," while regretting the "historic compromise.
Papandreou used crude nationalist arguments to drive a wedge into the gathering. He commented later: 'The multinational corporations which are linked with the state and military structure of the West, such as NATO, are imperialist powers which exploit Southern Europe just as they exploit the Third World. France isn't in the Third World, and there are two Italies-the North and the South...Portugal, Spain and Greece belong to a different community from that of Northern Europe."
The discussion centred exclusively on tactical questions. Nowhere was
there any attempt at a review of
economic perspectives, the divisions
within the ruling class, the morale of the workers, the attitude of the
middle classes, the meaning of the
new twist in CP policy, the lessons of
Chile or Portugal, the problem of the armed forces, etc.— only a grudging
recognition that history had given
them a kick in the pants and they
had to sidestep leftwards.
For all the jarring discord, all the
Parties participating in the Confer-
ence represented different notes
along the scale of left reformism and
centrism. different stages in a pro-
cess which is dragging all the parties
of the Socialist International towards
the left. The geographical limitation
only expresses the fact that Southern
European countries-éver since the war the Achilles' heel of the metropolitan capitalist powers—have been thrown into greater pandemonium by the recent world slump. Underlying all the specific anomalies, the crisis has been brought to a head by such manifestations of the recession as the slump in the tourist trade and the unemployment among emigrant workers on whose remittances the economies of Southern Europe have depended. Revolution in Portugal,
thetracted fire replosionary crisis in
Italy, turmoll in Greece, the collapse of Gaullism in France... Ihe workers are demanding a solution, are stepping on to the stage in the tens of millions in the effort to shape their own destinies. Some political force has to fill the vacuum.
But put to the test, the Communist Parties, traditionally the principal workers' parties in these countries, have clung like grim death to policies diametrically opposed to the
workers' real interests. In France in
1968, the CP's sole concern was to end the revolutionary strike at any price, and return to "normality" '. In Spain and Italy they can dream of no greater glory than entry into a coalition with the capitalist
parties. Even in Portugal, it took the fait accompli of the nationalisation
of the banks by the Armed Forces
Movement under the workers' relentless pressure to shift them from
denouncing the slogan of nationalis-
ation as "Fascist provocation." In
reply to a question on nationalisation
in December 1974, Cunhal had
explained: "If it were a question of
producing solutions out of a hat, I
would answer 'yes'. Objectively it is
inevitable and economically necess
ary. But it that solution is doomed to
be impracticable-not having been
written into the MFA programme-
another will have to be found."
Hence, the military dictatorship
itself proved more sensitive to the
workers' pressure than did their own
traditional Party! Since the March
1975 events in Portugal, the CPs
have been at even greater pains in
Italy, Spain and France, to reassure
the capitalists of their dependabil-
ity-and even more so since the
leftward turn of the Socialist Parties.
The CPs can cling for longer to
such policies, because in the eyes of
the mass of politically inert workers,
they are still bathed in the distant
glow of October. With their rigid
internal regime, their roots in the
tradition of the degenerated Russian
CP, and their distorted links with the
1917 October Revolution, they have
a weighty anchor of authority,
heavy inertia. The Socialist Parties
on the contrary lack their discipline
and authority. Paradoxically, be-
cause their leaders inspire, less
confidence within the Party ranks,
they are more vulnerable to shifts of
SUBSCRIBE NOW!
MILITANT IRISH
MONTHLY
6 ISSUES .£0.55 12 ISSUES .£1.10
remittance to The Business
Militant Irish Monthly
32 Brickfield Drive
Dublin 12
[page 17]
mood within the working class. Where the current is pulling strongly to the left, and the CP has dropped anchor, the SPs are tossed helplessly into the stormy seas. They either drift along with the tide, or drown.
Even in countries where the social crisis is less immediate, so shaky are the political foundations of the Socialist, Labour and Social Democratic Parties, that molecular changes have long been at work undermining the position of the right wing. Feeling the ground beginning • to shake beneath their feet, the right wing have split way in Italy, Denmark, Holland, Australia, Luxembourg and Japan, and there have been important individual detections in Britain, Germany etc. Radical ideas have swept through the youth of these parties, crystallising in some cases in Marxist tendencies. There have been impatient splits to the left in the Scandinavian countries and in France and Italy there were breakaway groupings which took on a
centrist colouration.
The impressionability of the Socialist Parties is greatest of all where they are essentially new, or at least newly-revived. This is the case with most of the parties represented at the Conference. The French SP in its present form is five years old, the Portuguese two years, the Greek even younger. They are not 'experimental' and they did not drop from the skies-they are in the oldest tradition of the working class, commanding deep loyalties. But in their structure they are untested, in their compostion they are young. Without a stable bedrock of support and without an apparatus of experienced cadres, they have no option but to fight for support, to strain to articulate the workers' unspoke: aspirations, to appeal above all to the the young and previously uncommitted. It is this that makes them volatile parties, lurching sharply from right to left and back again, as the waters of revolution swirl around them.
Francois Mitterand, leader of the French Socialist Party.
federation, but already swept into a radical position. Taken over by the flood of 1968 militants, it became the piggest trade union. Following the post-1968 lull, it was the CFDT which stood at the forefront of the new wave of strikes.
In the summer of 1971, the relics of the Socialist tradition came together "to build a single Socialist Party," and it soon issued invitations to other parties to begin negotiations for a Common Programme. The CP eventually accepted. The PSU (Unified Socialist Party)—a breakaway group of intellectuals which split away in 1965 and occupied a centrist position in 1968, later to be swallowed up in the revived SPboycotted the talks. The pro-capitalist Radical Party split on the issue. creating the 'Left Radicals' which commanded negligible support but served as a Trojan Horse inside the Popular Union bloc of workers' parties.
Recognising the need for a political voice, CFDT militants joined the new SP and pushed it into a radical stance. The majority of the PSU also seized the opportunity to join the new party. Driven by the need to adopt a distinct identity and whip up a political base and under the concerted pressure of a young membership consciously working to bend the party to its will, Mitterand —formerly a Minister knee-deep in the blood of Algerian freedom fighters- found himself cast in the unlikely role of a rabble-rouser.
"We must marvel, dear comrades, "he said in October 1974, "with joy in our hearts and with certitude dans l'esprit that only the Socialists gave an answer to the industrial world 150 years ago... We know that so long as Socialism has not been won war and the class struggle will exist...Nothing is possible so long as we have not done with the tyrannies of money, monopoly
15
FRANCE
The first tear in the veil of Western European capitalism for more than twenty years came in France in 1968. Throughout the turmoil of the Fourth Republic, the Algerian war and De Gaulle's putsch, the leaders of the labour movement remained passive. But in 1968 the storm broke. len million workers struck and occupied their factories. Power lay in their hands. The ruling class hid in the shadow of a general, a senile caricature of the first Bonaparte. The labour movement summoned up the power of a workforce three times the existing trade union membership. While the revolution was in full flow, the middle class refused to support the old order and its most volatile stratum, the students, demonstrated in bizarre forms their primitive revolt against the establishment. De Gaulle told the new American Ambassador Sargent Shriver: "The game's up." All that was needed was a party which could link the factory committees and draw on the energies of the working population to create a new society. Only the treachery of the Communist Party prevented a peaceful transfer of power.
It is this that lies at the root of the
spectacular resurrection of the Socialist Party.
The old Socialist Party, the SFIO, was tarnished with the corruption and inefficiency associated with national and local government under the ramshackle Fourth Republic. The advent of Gaullism, under which the role of the National Assembly was eclipsed by the power of Presidential decree, severely curtailed • the SFIO's scope for parliamentary manoeuvre, and their trade union base (Force Ouvriere) atrophied. By 1968 the SFIO had crumbled into obscurity under an ageing and feckless bureaucracy.
How did the right-wing rump that refused to go with the rank and file into the Third International in 1921; the Party of Blum and of Mollet, become the strongest party in France in the mid-1970s?
History finds its way around all obstacles, though sometimes by the most circuitous routes. Disgusted at the strike-breaking role of the CGT (the CP trade union) many militants left its ranks. Dismissing Force Ouvriere as an even more rotten carcase, they poured into the CFDT —formerly the Catholic trade union
[page 18]
A mass demonstration in Paris in 1972, called jointly by the CP-controlled General Confederation of Labour [CGT] and the Socialist-orientated Democratic-Labour Federation [CFDT] to demand a 1,000-Franc guaranteed minimum monthly G CHICA ROD • RETRAITE A 60 ANS wage and retirement at 60. power and super capitalism." Secure in the knowledge that the CP will provide him with a permanent alibi, he can indulge in the luxury of such lyrical speeches. But the rank and file eagerly seized on his words and pressed home the need for deeds.
The 1975 Party Congress stated: 'The crisis of world capitalism is the occasion for an accentuation and broadening of the class struggle. It creates the conditions to rally the majority for a break with the system of monopoly capitalism. The basis for this is constituted by a class front resting above all on the working class which is the hardest and most exploited, directly and the big majority of salaried staff—employees in the private and public sectors, Small technicians and engineers.
and middle farmers, manual labourers and direct producers, who are equally victims of capitalist exploitation, also have their place in this class front...The conquest of power requires the adherence and conscious support of the majority of the people. More concretely, the socialist transformation of society will not be achieved only within the framework of the existing institutions, but by the mobilisation of the masses in every field."
Fine words-but when it came to the 1974 Presidential Election, Mit- Irand was running around soothing the anxieties of the business community, assuring them that "France is part of a free market economic instem, which cannot be altered by the present generation...My econ- 16 DANIAN ES SARE RATES FU omic policy will be based on what is possible.
The ease with which the SP has outflanked the CP in 'the last five George Marchais, General Secretary of the French Communist [PCF] years-during which the SP membership has doubled while that of the CP fell, and the SP is now winning over a quarter of the votes in its own right—has provoked the CP into the - METALI URGIE C most neurotic behaviour.
First the CP welcomed the Socialists as allies and joined forces in the 1974 election alliance which won 13 Tilen, votemed at findith oil. Then, at finding alarmed outstripped politically and electorally, it mounted a furious campaign against them. CP leader Marchais warned: "Let us always remember that the SP is a Social-Democratic party and has always tended towards big business... The SP and the CP are different. We Communists, we are the implacable enemies of big business, the faithful servants of the working class."
Finally the CP apparently reconciled itself to leaving the Socialists to their newly-conquered territory to its left and instead threw all its energies into a nauseating appeal to the ruling class acknowledge its to greater reliability. That is the meaning of the sudden decision to the last trappings of renounce Marxism, and replace the goal of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" with the "union of the French People". This latest twist prompted Mitterand to pour withering scorn on the new slogan, and comment ironically on "misunderstanding"
the apparent that caused the split of 1921! In the context of the revolutionary upheavals impending on France's Southern borders, to say nothing of France itself, the present line of the CP can only lead to further degeneration and a renewed activity within the Socialist Party.
[page 19]
PORTUGAI
In the convulsions of the revolution, the Portuguese Socialist Party has lurched drunkenly from one position to another. Up to 25th April, 1974, it vas a clique of emigrés on the right wing of the SI, with no underground apparatus inside Portugal. When Caetano took office in 1968, Soares collected signatures for a petition stressing that "they are not violent revolutionaries, but moderates," humbly beseeching the new dictator to grant at least a few token reforms, "acknowledging the danger of extreme right wing reaction if reforms are made too rapidly, but promising our full support to Caetano if he presses ahead with a policy of amelioration," and warning prophetically of "an uncontrollable explosion of discontent" if their views went unheeded.
Greeted with an undeserved hero's welcome on arrival in revolutionary Portugal, Soares spoke in, glowing terms of joining "a front of national unity, an alliance of many forces... conservatives, Catholics, liberals, Socialists and Communists, all working together in the new civilian administration."
But from the first day of the revolution, every step forward was forced by the unyielding pressure of the working people. Hungrily devouring the fruits of liberty, raising red flags, chasing out fascist managers and informers, striking • and occupying their workplaces in a magnificent struggle to raise their families above starvation level, the workers came up against a brick wall. The CP, with its traditional industrial base, denounced these spontaneous manifestations of the revolution as "the provocations of fascists and ultra-left extremists trying to break the unity of the people with the armed forces." To develop a mass base, the SP was forced to outbid the CP and to express at least guarded sympathy with the strikers. The SP rapidly snowballed into the biggest party. The new militants pouring into its ranks tore it out of the grooves of an alien emigre mentality. Within a month of the coup, the SP was talking in terms like the following
extract from a report of its trade union and labour commission, which exposed the deceitful prattle of Spinola and his CP allies:
"If the Portuguese economic situation is grave, we would ask: the situation of which class? Of the working class? Of the petty bourgeoisie? Of the capitalist bourgeoisie? We need to make Marxist, objective and concrete analyses of the situation of the classes in conflict, and of the conditions for the development of the class struggle, leading to a Socialist society...We consider that the fundamental obstacles in the way of the working class are the big capitalist monopolies."
Alvaro Cunhal leader of the Portuguese Communist Party [PCP]
The first Provisional government collapsed within three months, largely due to the "irresponsible demagogy" of precisely those Socialist statesmen who had been deliberately built up by the capitalists in order to weaken the CP. The Financial Times (9/7/74) reported that "the Socialist Ministers...have raised objections to much of the proposed legislation on the economy, thus adding a new dimension to their unhappiness about the ruling military junta's cautious approach to decolonisation and
its tough attitude towards press freedom...Not surprisingly, the Communists are said to have adopted a much more pragmatic approach towards working with their military masters of the Junta of National Salvation."
The real temper of the rank and file was shown at the Socialist Party Congress in December 1974. Here is a selection of the delegates' demands:
"We want Socialism, not Social Democracy, a society without classes. Social Democracy means a compromise with capitalism. It stabilises capitalism, puts the working class to sleep...Only revolutionary action can implement Socialism... The working class want left wing deeds, not reformism... Attempts are made to blame the workers for the economic crisis. Who is responsible? Not the workers. The economy is being sabotaged. The old capitalists still control the enterprises; they must go. The SP must live up to the aspirations of the working class. The working class is the backbone of democracy. Workers' assemblies are the key to the action of the working class...The rank and file want the complete elimination of capitalism... The Marxist basis of the Party must be clearly and explicitly stated in the Party programme... We must transform society, end capitalism, begin a classless society. Only Socialism can guarantee democracy... The workers in the Party must always fight to ensure that a Socialist path is adopted, not reformism or retreats...It is necessary to control the leadership and guard against careerists... The monopolies have not yet been taken over: that is the real key to economic progress...Portugal must really belong to those who produce."
Manuel Serra, leader of the left, said: 'We must leave this congress as a great Socialist Party capable of carrying through the revolution of 25th April, capable of leading the working class, the only revolutionary class, to a Socialist society."
In the heat of the Congress, Soares had to appease the Party with earnest assurances that the SP was "clearly based on Marxism". In a frightened and defensive reply to the debate, he hedged with assertions like: "We want to achieve Socialism quickly. But as members of the government we must not let slip imprudent words which may endanger the revolution!"
Out of 740 votes cast, the Foreign Minister with all his prestige won a majority of only 94 for his slate for the National Committee. The aspirations of the rank and file were unmistakable. Here were the human raw materials out of which a great revolutionary party could have been built. A Marxist tendency could have won the overwhelming mass to
[page 20]
AF victory of the revolution. But Manuel Serra, former guerilla hero, tian Marxist"
walked out of the Party in a fit of pique three weeks later, abandoning the rank and file to reformist Soares.
(Popular Socialist Front) became an of the CP, impotent satellite more impotent sect passively whining from the sidelines. Without any adversary with exploited the vices of the CP. As the CP used its hardened underground influential positions, insinuating its cadres into the Intersindical, municipalities, Armed Forces Movement itself, the mass of workers grew suspicious and wary of falling prey to a Stalinist dictatorshiP basis, loudly swearing allegiance to the new programme of nationalisation, Soares sailed to a 38% victory in the Constituent leader of the Portuguese Soares, Mario Socialist Party.
18 JAIDOC Demonstrating workem demand Socialiat Revolution Assembly elections. A campaign of provocations by the CP was launched. Transmitting its dictates through the Socialist International and above all the German SPD leadership, which had showered money on the Portuguese SP, world reaction has tried to bend the SP to its will. So at certain stage in Russia when a reaction was impotent, the counterrevolution sheltered behind As Spain trembles on the brink of the greatest revolutionary upheaval since Russia in 1917, world reaction has nervously pinned faint hopes on the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), hoping that like Portuguese Socialist Party, it may prove malleable. But in Spain the Socialist Party has swelled into the biggest party, under the impact of a young and radical rank and file, even in advance of the downfall of the old Cireece, where the police state fell te captains Flot, the invasion of Cyprus —in Spain the dying régime, steeped in the blood of a million workers, clung on right to the bitter end. The revolution has matured over years of struggle, germinating through factory walkouts, local barricade fighting, to entire regional general strikes involving hundreds of thousands, the becoming enriched at every stage. In Portugal and Greece the Labour Movement was caught unawares by the downfall of a centrist Mensheviks.
But it was demonstrated at recent elections which still gave the PSP 35% of the votes that a sizeable section of the workers still, for want of an attractive alternative, support the SP. A tendency in the traditions of the Bolsheviks could unite the CP His head further swelled by his has convinced himself that he has a future as a Portuguese Wilson! As he "The tactics and strategy of the Socialist Parties of Southern Europe are necessarily different from of the Social-Democratic Parties of Northern Europe. But the peculiarity of the Portuguese case is that we are heading for a situation political characteristics app roach those existing in the North id lusy back to his squirming his way natural habitat, while the revolution is becalmed in a temporary lull. The new squalls that are coming will a crescendo of criticism from the Party rank and file. SPAIN at the first of the dictatorships lexing of its muscles. In Spain, likt in Russia in the years before 1917 the workers have had ample opportunity to turn over perspectives in their minds, to thrash out their strategy and tactics. The fragmentation of the innumerable sects, turmoil within the CP, its authority weakened by countless splits, above all the sharp leftward swing in the PSOE, all bear witness to the long process of molecular change that is now accelerating throughout the underground Labour Movement. The Socialist Party was smashed after the Civil War. In a few pockets and there-but mainly exile-a few ageing and isolated UGT (General Workers Union) militants survived. Today it is estimated that under free elections the PSOE would win half the votes, together with the CP, two-thirds. It has matured over years of internal debate. Because of its relatively loose this has resulted violently fluctuating political line.
[page 21]
During the 1960s a trickle of youth began into the Party and the UGT in its furmer strongholds, in Andalusia, the Asturias. the Basque country.
Socialism began the universities, circle grew up Tierno Galván, party's Marxist awkward postu leaders, and he :
form a small clique.
This defection impetus to the worker activists
to be fashionable in
too. An academic
around Professor
who scorned the traditions and the res of the emigré plit away in 1968 to
Social-Democratic
gave welcome
confidence of the in the interior, who
.... eno
themselves came into increasing conflict with the old emigré leadership based in Toulouse. The revival of PSOE as a genuine underground party culminated in the expulsion of the emigré leader Llopis from the party at the 1972 Congress. A new leadership was elected, based in the interior and more sensitive to the feelings of the activists in the localities, who were more and more immersed in the rising tide of strikes. By the time of the 1974 Congress, the morale of the delegates boosted by the Portuguese revolution, the fall of the Greek junta, the rise of the French Socialist Party and the Italian divorce referendum, to say nothing of the spectacular fissures opening up in the Franco régime, the PSOE was by now a fully fledged national party. It took a further lurch to the left by electing in place of the new leader Castellano a 32-year-old lawyer who had attracted attention at the 1972 Congress as a "Marxist" and leader of the left wing, Felipe Gonzalez.
These successive Congresses marked a genuine shift in the direction of independent class action, a first groping by the rank and file towards Marxism-a mood which has been partially reflected by their leaders.
Their
to the Conference
Polya Grazala bador of the Speakeh Et: Workers' Party [PSOE).
TEAL Tling workers 10 a mees meeting He sirecis oll arcelona, l'ebruary 1070.
of Southern Europe SPs "renounced the easy short-term policies of class collaboration and the management of capitalism in crisis" and spelt out the need for a "break with capitalism". • Unfortunately, they are failing to live up to this promise in deeds.
In securing for itself a social mooring which could rival the base of the CP, the PSOE had to fill the vacuum left by that party's strike breaking activities. The workers and youth who were attracted to the PSOE in their turn further reinforced this trend.
The UGT correctly denounced the opportunism of the CP-dominated Workers' Commissions in working exclusively through the Fascist sindicatos and upheld the principle of independent trade unions. Fearful of a repeat of the Portuguese CP's policy in imposing a tame and regimented "Intersindical" federation, under the cover of the slogan for trade union unity, PSOE has fallen into a trap and reacted defensively by insisting on a multiplicity of rival unions. Instead of turning the UGT into a model of workers' democracy and appealing tor voluntary unity on the basis of delegate conferences, the right of recall, no privileges for officials, and freedom of tendency, the PSOE has been manoeuvred into protecting its right to a trade union "all its own" • a bureaucratic appendage.
On the key issue of the Popular Front, under the pressure of the rank and file, who instinctively hate their liberal fairweather friends, the PSOE denounced the CP's strategy of a "Liberty Pact" as class collaboration. But it was a different matter once the CP began putting it into effect by forming the "Democratic Junta" in tandem with Galván, the Carlists and other mavericks from the ruling class like the monarchist Calvo Serer and Franco's former Chief of Staff, General Diez Alegria. Suddenly the PSOE leaders panicked at the prospect of an agreement being sealed over their heads, leaving them "out in the cold" . They denounced
the Junta as a "CP front" , promptly set up a rival alliance, the "Platform of the Democratic Convergence" and found themselves rubbing shoulders with equally • unsavoury characters, like Ruiz Jiminez, formerly a Fascist Minister of Education, Don Ridruejo, author of the words of the Falangist anthem, and Gil Robles the ageing "clerical Fascist" against whose entry into the Government the Socialists staged an armed uprising in 1934! The Platform easily lured away from their tenuous alliance with the CP tentative liberals like the Carlists and various Christian Democratic factions, who felt naturally uneasy and distrustful of the CP (especially after the left turn in Portugal), and who, grateful and relieved, grasped the PSOE's extended hand. It gave the most farsighted strategists of capitalism a glimmer of hope that all the ringing resolutions of PSOE congress might not matter so much after all, that perhaps they could still keep the Socialist card up their sleeves.
Originally, the PSOE leadership pledged itself against participation in any future Provisional Government. Then it modified its stand and promised to call a Special Congress after the "democratic break" (that is the euphemism by which the beginning of the revolution is designated) to resolve the issue. That was already a shamefaced method of seeking a mandate to renege on its previous commitments from the mass of raw, naive recruits flooding into the Party under those conditions, their ears ringing with euphoric cries for "popular unity" , swamping the steeled cadres of the underground.
The alliance was supposed to last only up to the day of the "democratic break" • Following the fall of the dictatorship, an implacable struggle would be launched against yesterday's "progressive" allies. Always an implausible argument, it has apparently been forgotten as the PSOE leaders become intoxicated by the flattering attention they are suddenly receiving from emissaries of the
[page 22]
ruling class, nationally and internationally. After months of bickering, the two alliances have fused into a single "Democratic Co-ordination" which calls for a provisional government composed of "all democratic forces.
So lightly does the class enemy dimiss the speeches and documents of the PSOE leaders, that one faction of the dying regime is toying with the idea of legalising the PSOE along with the liberal parties, while maintaining the ban on the CP and "extremist" groups, in a futile attempt to steer the Socialists back to the precarious arrangement of the seven years of the Primo de Ri:ra regime.
Santiago Carrillo, leader Spanish Communist Party [PCE].
Filipe Gonzales, leader of PSOE, attending a meeting of the "Platajunta" [the Democratic Junta and the Democratic Converzencel.
its members are many who have braved bullets and built revolutionary assemblies. When Gonzalez enters a government alongside former fascists, they will be at least as eager to support an alternative Marxist programme, provided it is offered, as were the rank and file of the Portuguese SP. On that basis, they will remember the role that Spinola played across the border. They will hark back, not to the shame of Socialist collaboration with de Rivera, but to the finest traditions of Pablo Iglesias (who, for all his shortcomings, denounced as a crime all collaboration with any capitalist parties), of the Asturian commune, of Largo Caballero (nicknamed the "Spanish Lenin"), of the Young
Socialists' attempted turn towards Marxism in 1935, of the initial refusal of the Socialists to join the Popular Front Government in February, 1936, and the recent declarations of PSOE. Already the JSE (Young Socialists) have stated that "the struggle against Fascist reaction is none other than the struggle for socialist revolution," called for "a revolutionary General Strike," and "nationalisation of the banks, monopolies and multinational subsidiaries under workers' cn; trol and without compensation. Although arbitrary punitive action has been taken against the JSE, its radicalisation is a good omen for the future of PSOE.
The retreat of the PSOE leaders is partly the effect of international pressure. The strongest sections of the Socialist International have used considerable resources in the attempt to tame and bridle the PSOE before it grows into a rampaging revolutionary monster. Hence the concerted effort-supported in Britain by 'Labour Weekly' and 'Tribune' -to belittle PSOE and inflate the authority of reactionary cliques like that of Galvan, Llopis, Garcia Lopez and even the Carlists.
Bowing to the campaign, the PSOE National Committee, in January, passed a resolution proposing unification with Llopis' faction, which was vomited out in 1972, and even held out an olive branch to the renegade Galvan.
Assured that the Trojan Horse would gain entrance into its upper councils, the SI within days of this decision, solemnly promised PSOE its support. They realise that, inevitably, without a Marxist programme, the PSOE will be forced to play the same role as did the Portuguese SP across the border. They will enter a Provisional Government. But among
20
GREECE
The fall of the Greek junta in July, 1974, open the floodgates of mass activity. As the strategists of the ruling class had warned, by their adventurism the colonels had only pushed all Greece to the brink of revolution. In the last two years, Greece has been in the throes of a social crisis as deep as that of Italy. Long and bitter strikes have rocked the economy, involving as many as one fifth of the labour force in the first three months of 1976 alone. The peasants are in violent revolt. To cope with the masses' mood Karamanlis, the arch-reactionary of the 1950s, has dressed himself in the garb of "social-democrat" -only to
be attacked by the industrialists for allowing a plague of "socialmania" to infect Greece! Having tricked the electorate into allowing him to impose a Gaullist constitution, he dare not try to implement its powers. He cannot even assume his designated office as President for fear of the governmental crisis that would follow his departure as Premier. The ruling class cannot decide which way to turn. Playing for time, it is beating the drum of Greek chauvinism to divert popular feeling against the external enemy. Looming ahead is the prospect of a Popular Front, brought to power on the crest of a wave of strikes and occupations,
[page 23]
in which given the absence of a stable
trade union apparatus new organs of
struggle can be thrown up. As in
Spain, a situation of dual power
could materialise.
The fall of the junta also marked a
turning point with regard to the
Labour Movement. It found the
traditional opposition fragmented.
The liberal Centre Union was dis-
credited and the EDA (formerly the
front of the banned CP) hopelessly
compromised by their treacherous
vacillations before the coup. The
underground CP split after the 1967
defeat into a reformist wing trying to
reach an accomodation with the
Centre Union in the style of Berling-
uer and Carrillo and an orthodox
wing which retains a certain indust-
rial base but which is distrusted for
its Stalinist record and its ties with
Eastern Europe.
Into the vacuum stepped Andreas
Papandreou, who on 3rd September
1974, proclaimed the foundation of
the Panhellenic Socialist Movement
(PASOK). Papandreou before was
not even a Social-Democrat but a
radical demagogue from the Centre
Union, a liberal and a Harvard
economist. But the irresistible pres-
sures of the approaching revolution
have forced him into the position
where he presides over a mass
centrist party. The new party was
greeted warmly by a working class
and especially the youth, looking for
a party untainted with the betrayals
of the past, capable of articulating
their interests. Once again, this was
no random experiment: during the
great constitutional crisis of 1963-67
it was the CP which had built up
Papandreou's popularity among
the workers.
PASOK's subsequent history sho-
ws the explosive development of a
new Socialist Party in the ferment of
a pre-revolutionary crisis. The origi-
nal Declaration of 3rd September
was a fairly modest statement plac-
ing emphasis on the fight for
national independence. But the militants who flocked into PASOK from the beginning tore ever more sweeping demagogy from its leaders lips, creating PASOK as a magnetic pole of attraction to ever wider strata.
Although the active party membership is still relatively small, without doubt, PASOK commands the support of the majority of workers. Four months after PASOK's foundation, Papandreou was already talking a new language.
"We are not Social Democrats... The difference between Social-Democracy and Socialism is a qualitative and not a quantitative one. It is like •black and white...Social-Democracy must be judged not by its proclamations. It must be judged by its actions...It has supported...monopoly capitalism in Western Europe... Our Socialist movement, in contrast, is based on the principle that we
must, pass beyond capitalism to a
socialist transformation...Capitalism
today has entered a phase of
decline... Without doubt, the work-
ing class... will come to realise in the
period which approaches that their
economic demands are not going to
be satisfied if they do not become
politicised and join the course...
towards social liberation...The foun-
dation uf PASOK coincides with a period of great change in the West... The fact that we have chosen a democratic path does not mean that we are historically naive...We put the burden on the shoulders of the opponent... When the hour of majority comes, as it will come, for the majority to rule, and they refuse it to us, they will have abolished the political order...PASOK aspires... to create such an organisation at the base to act as a counterweight to the schemes of the foreign and domestic establishment."
Unfortunately, these stirring words, spoken in the cloisters of a Central Committee meeting, are not matched by a public call to action. Papandreou responded to the threat of a war with Turkey, not with an internationalist class appeal to the workers of Turkey and Cyprus, but in words that could have come from Karamanlis: "We are ready, regardless of the policy of our party, to shout 'present!' in every national struggle. The Greeks will defend their right to national independence, our territoria. integrity, whatever the price might be...The time has come for the nation to find its soul and the people their course."
The grotesque political contra-
dictions within PASOK are reflected
in a saga of organisational con-
vulsions. PASOK still has no Consti-
tution. There are no horizontal links
between branches and regional com-
mittees are being appointed from
above-in some cases including non-
party members! Three times the
National Conference has been postponed; now a new date has been fixed...for May 1977! Arbitrary expulsions have abounded, against the Right, Left and Stalinist wings. Now the Organisational Committee has itself been disbanded.
This internal chaos reflects the instability of a mass centrist party, and the panic of being called to account by a rank and file thirsting for deeds, for a consolidation of PASOK as a revolutionary party. But the dead hand of bureaucratism has provoked a counter movement from the local branches. They are appealing for PASOK to live up to its original promises of internal democracy. Papandreou said in January 1975: "It is imperative that differences and tendencies exist. If they did not exist—if somehow we had managed either with brainwashing or with policing-these are the only two methods I can imagine—to agree unanimously, then we would end up with a bureaucratic type arrangement, 'something which our movement condemns explicitly. For then we would have found a home in some Communist Party of Greece." But increasingly the rank and file are drawing the conclusions from PASOK's lack of democracy and are pressing for Marxist policies.
PANHELLEN IK
DKIALIST
UVEMEN I
JAZOK
PASOK gained an immediate response from the youth and workers: now it needs Marxist ideas to give them a way forward.
[page 24]
ITALY
The Italian Socialist Party (PSI) is
the latest to embark on a leftward
course. During its long history it has
many times spawned left currents, in
1914,1920,1948 and most recently
in 1965 when the centrist PSIUP was
formed after a split provoked by a
short-lived reunification with the
ultra-right Social Democrats. But for
most of the last decade the PSI, in contrast to its counterparts in Southern Europe, has shared the fruits of office with the Christian Democrats in recurrent 'centre-left' coalitions-in a country where office is synonymous with corruption and bureaucratism. The ageing leadership is unchanged since the war. The party's 85-year-old President, Nenni, has been a leader since becoming General Secretary 'at the age of 25. The PSI seemed out of step with its neighbours.
But the pre-revolutionary crisis of the last eight years has seen wave upon wave of strikes, token general strikes involving 12, 15, or even 20 million workers, demonstrations of hundreds of thousands, the ugly activities of the MSI fascist gangsters, quixotic military conspiracies, a popular rebuff to the Christian Democrats in the divorce referendum, strong advances by the Communist Party (PCI) and PSI, and now the collapse of the 38th postwar government and the opening of an era of Popular Frontism. The PSI like every institution, has been shaken to its roots. Riddled with inner faction fights which have even broken out into fist fights at Party Congress, the social tensions have torn apart its uneasy alliance with the Christian Demo-
In sudden outbursts of bureaucratic petulance, the PSI withdrew its support to the CD minority government in January 1976, complaining that the government was consulting more with the CP opposition than with its PSI allies. The PSI leaders were no longer prepared to keep silent and bear odium for CD policies, enjoying the benefits neither of government nor opposition, while the CP could indulge the luxuries of both! This reflected their impatience at being squeezed out of a responsible role.
22
One PSI leader, Cassola, claimed: "In practice, the PCI (Communist Party) has been in the Government since 1969, but without paying the price." Certainly, the PSI has paid the price for its willingness over the last decade to become enmeshed in the corruption and nepotism of a Christian Democrat-dominated regime. When the Christian Democracy suffered its shock 60-40 defeat in the 1974 divorce referendum, the PSI found it prudent to withdraw from participation in the Government. By January 1976 the PSI could no longer agree to prop up the minority Christian Democratic government from outside.
/Nenni, old leader of the PSI
The PSI leaders hoped that one gesture would be enough to restore their credit. But the PSI is as discredited as the old French SFIO. It cannot follow the meteroic path of Mitterand's Socialist Party without going through a metamorphosis. It needs to be shaken from top to bottom into a new party, first. The feminist ginger-group, the Radicals, unsuccessfully asked for inclusion on the PSI lists. The PSI ex-mayor of Milan, Aniasi, has ambitions to play
ine role or an italan Mitterana. I ne reverses sustained by the PSI in the General Election in comparison with
last year's regional elections are its
old leaders' just deserts, and the
rank and file know it. In anticipation
of pressure from the ranks, the
leaders have begun to inch slowly
leftwards.
So the PSI has discovered 'la
alternativa socialista." Consider-
ations of prestige here too combine
with the mute pressure of the
workers' interests to force the Socia-
lists left. That is the only territory
that the CP has left vacant. With the
biggest CP in Western Europe, in
Italy above all the Socialists' policies
are dependent on it. The Italian CP
has gone furthest of all in breaking
the umbilical cord with the Kremlin
and occupying the classic position of
reformism. The only role left to the
PSI is to fill the vacuum to the CP's
left.
The PSI began by demanding that
the CP be invited into a "grand
coalition," taking its share of resp-
onsibility for the appeal for "Sacrifice from the workers. But obviously the PSI requires more justification for existence than simply calling for greater responsibilities for its rival party. Hence a road has been opened up to the left.
The PSI has a long way to go before it reaches the radicalism of even the French Socialists. That was revealed at the 1976 Party Congress, where the jangle of conflicting ideas was deafening. The official resolution stated: "The old policy is finished forever. The centre-left is buried." But De Martino amply expressed its confusion: "It seems impossible to us to look for a transition to socialism through the vision of the historic compromise... The PSI places itself in that complex of civil and human values called 'the West', while rejecting however the capitalist system...Liberty and socialism are indissoluble terms...Our position must be elastic. Even the hypothesis of a Christian Democrat-PSI government could be good or bad, according to conditions."
Lombardi, leader of the left faction within the leadership, judged more shrewdly the mood of the rank and file, with a contribution greeted by a 3-minute ovation and rapturous chants of "al-ter-na-ti-va!" Socialism must be put forward as the cure for the problems of society...Let us immediately open up a discussion with the PCI on socialist perspectives."
But even Mansholt, Vice-President of the Socialist International, expressed disappointment at the leadership's vacillations: "I was expecting more clarity on general pol- ¡tical perspectives and more courage on the so-called moral questions (i.e. corruption)...Only after hearing Nenni did I understand that the Italian Socialists really are looking for a left alternative...The historic compromise is contrary to the alter-
[page 25]
native. In any case, in one way or another the Communists must be made to participate in the government of the country and De Martino didn't say it clearly enough."
It was left to the French fraternal delegate Dominique Taddei to denounce the historic compromise: "We are absolutely opposed to it. We think it is illusory and dangerous to ally oneself with the most conservative forces in the country."
rignt wing sull controis ine party machine. Lombardi's "alternative" is still only a pale pink reformism.
In the wake of the recent PSI electoral disaster, its deputy secretary Mosca, has resigned and later the entire leadership followed suit-opening up the first crack in the ageing Old Guard. Younger and more slippery operators will come to
ine tore, voicing oI distinct and thus radical, line.
But within this morass, inexorable pressures will push the rank and file towards Marxist conclusions. A Marxist current within the PSI could have a powerful influence on thinking members of the CP during the shocks of the new era opening up.
necessity a inevitably
more more
sU
PARTITO ¡TALIANO
ACIAL/S>_
Franceaco de Martino, leader of the Italian. Socialist Party [PSI].
However, the distinct positions of the two mass workers' parties were shown when both sent fraternal delegates to the Congress of the PDUP—a fusion of the relics of two earlier centrist formations, the PSIUP and the Manifesto group, both of which have been largely swallowed up by the PCI. Tortorella from the PCI turned up, pale and awkward. with a written speech full of warnings of the "danger of reaction" , and apologised for wasting time. The PSI was evidently keener to make an impression and perhaps absorb the PDUP, as the French Socialists absorbed most of the PSU. Their delegate, Landolfi, described the PSI as "radical— revolutionary rather than reformist" and called for "workers' control and expropriation of the means of production" '. As the PDUP paper commented wryly: "He wants to outflank us on the left."
That is the only possible future for the PSI. De Martino harks back to a cosy alliance with the Christian Democrats. Bonacina, formerly a PSI executive member, has detected to the PCI, pointing to the attack on the lira as confirmation of the need for the historic compromise. The old chameleon Nenni, in the 1920s a right winger who opposed a United Front with the PCI against fascism, in the 1940s a Popular Frontist and more recently a "centre-leftist," has inched leftwards again. Four factions are vying for control. The old
CENTRIST
TRENDS
All these Parties have been obliged to ake their first timid, tentative steps away from orthodox reformism. While the CPs are breaking the stranglehold of the Kremlin and trying to play the traditional role of reformism-hence the muted attacks from the Russian CP which is anxious to retain the services of its unpaid diplomats abroad-the Socialist Parties are moving in a centrist direction. The process is like the period 1916-21, when mass currents and even whole parties of the Socialist International moved from reformism to centrism.
Centrism represents all the gradations in the huge gap separating reformism from Marxism. Trotsky pointed out that it is not enough to characterise a party as centrist—it is necessary to put an arrow above it to indicate in which direction it is
moving. While a little pseudo- Marxist centrist sect can last almost forever, by its very nature centrism as a mass phenomenon lacks'a stable base. Reformism is based on the privileges of the labour bureaucracy; Stalinism on those of the Russian bureaucracy; Marxism on the historical mission of the working class. But centrism is a transition, either of formerly Marxist parties sliding towards reaction, like the Social Democracy before 1914 or the Communist Parties up to the mid- 1930s, or (as in the present case) of reformist parties dragged by the impetus of a rank and file straining towards Marxism. And despite the fact that so far none of the Southern European SPs has advanced beyond a very mild form of centrism and some are still only hovering on the border between left reformism and
THE 1 ENERAL
GENERAL STRIKE
Articles by:
Leon Trotsky
Ted Grant
& Peter T
Price 30p
)rr
der From:
WORLI
London
› BOOKS, 375 Cambridge Heath Road E2 9RA.
[page 26]
wwin - —
centrism, they have embarked on a course which will create historic opportunities for Marxism.
A mass centrist party, like an unstable radioactive element, can only change. If it is not transformed into a steeled revolutionary vanguard, then it can only disintegrate, get swallowed up by the CP, or if conditions permit, decay back into reformism. It can lurch from ultraleftism to opportunism from day to day.
The most determined and conscious elements within its ranks can win the mass of its active layers to Marxism, as was the case with the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, the German Social Democracy, the French and Italian Socialists, etc. Without such forces, a centrist party can enjoy spectacular freak growth, only to disintegrate, if it fails to make the last inches to Marxism. The British ILP had the support of 100,000 workers in 1931. Five years later it was already a tiny irrelevant sect. The Spanish POUM in 1937 grew from a few hundred to 75,000 within weeks, only to fade into obscurity just as quickly after entering the Catalan Popular Front. The Spanish Young Socialists in 1935 were gobbled up by the CP giving it a mass base with fatal consequences, due to the failure of the Marxists to give them the lead
74
they were thirsting for. More recently in France the PSU and in Italy the PSIUP and Manifesto group became prominent centrist parties, only later to be absorbed into the French Socialist and Italian Communist Parties. In Chile the SP split into five factions and the majority of the activists took the lead in building the "cordones industriales" and stocking the factories with arms. At the same time the centrist MIR won thousands to its banner, serving tragically to divert the SP militants from reaching genuine revolutionary conclusions. An organised Marxist tendency in the SP with clear perspectives could have saved the revolution. But without Marxism as a guide and a compass, suciu parties face destruction. Like fireworks they can light the heavens and make a big bang, but a moment later they are burntout scraps of paper.
The Southern European SPs share common features with classical centrist parties. They have an active and largely youthful rank and file, concentrating all their energies into building the party. They have a narrow leadership, nervous at the consequences of its own reckless demagogy and conscious that without a broad entrenched apparatus it rests on quicksand and prone therefore to arbitrary but ineffectual administrative measures. And bet-
ween these poles is a shifting mass of jostling, colliding adventurers, careerists looking for a niche, reformists there by accident, lawyers, actresses, cranks and eccentrics, which the leadership try to play off against the workers. The leaders lack conviction and are anxious for a stake in the established political scene. But they are sitting on a volcano. Goaded by the intolerable pressures of capitalism, the rank and file will fight to transform each of these parties from a wordy, amorphous shambles camouflaging their opportunist manoeuvres under a cover of flowery speeches, into united bold parties capable of arousing the workers with fighting demands.
Some at least of these Socialist Parties hold the key to the creation of a mass Marxist tendency. With raging polemics and sharp polarisations in prospect, they can become like hothouses forcing a rapid flowering of ideas. Armed with clear perspectives, the best activists and Party militants can burst open the pale bud of centrism, revealing the brilliant colours of Marxism so far hidden within.
[page 27]