GROWING PAINS OF SPANISH SOCIALISM: I: LEFT TURN, RIGHT TURN, OR WHERE?
Martin, Benjamin
In Spain, the democratic transformation continues to have a churning effect on many aspects of life. The vicissitudes of change are having their greatest impact in the political sector, as the...
...As in other West European countries, a consumer economy prevails...
...The PSOE needs a half-million additional votes (it now claims more than 5 million) if it is to become Spain's foremost party...
...The city of Madrid, for example, which contains a large middle-class population, gave the PSOE a plurality in the recent elections...
...Rank-and-file membership consists largely of young people—highly motivated, impressionable, and politically inexperienced...
...But since the party's transformation took place within an extremely brief time, a disparity of views has developed between the leadership and many rank-and-filers...
...These three can count on the occasional support of Enrique Tierno Galvan, a prestigious intellectual who headed the Popular Socialist party, which merged with the PSOE last year...
...This is the question at the heart of the controversy...
...Since then, however, both the responsibility for directing a mass movement and the sobering experience of dealing with the formidable problems of a society in the state of democratization have had a tempering affect on the leadership...
...When it became evident during the congress that he had mishandled the situation and could not prevail, Felipe Gonzalez decided to recoup his losses by refusing, on both moral and political grounds, to run for reelection as general secretary...
...Catapulted into the role of principal opposition party, the PSOE experienced a period of extraordinary, rapid growth...
...The 28th Congress of the Spanish Socialist Workers party (PSOE), held in Madrid last May, was to have been the party's gala celebration of its 100th anniversary...
...A Spanish sociologist characterized the 28th congress as "the last of Francoism and clandestinity," and this observation accurately depicts the situation...
...But still, General Secretary Felipe Gonzalez and the party's Executive Committee persisted in believing that the expected opposition could be contained within manageable proportions...
...Clandestine life under the Franco regime, indeed had been a congenial atmosphere for the PCE...
...The congress then voted to schedule an extraordinary convention set for late September 1979, to reestablish the party's basic orientation and elect a new leadership...
...Felipe seems sure that he will be returned to his former leadership role at the forthcoming special congress, though it is likely that he will suffer some erosion in his former authority...
...But many in the ranks are having difficulty adjusting to the responsibilities and constraints imposed upon a party that has become the conscience of Spain's emerging democracy...
...The prevailing national mood, the economic slump, and an overriding concern for the consolidation of democracy have also imposed a posture of moderation on the entire left...
...In the factory works-council elections held last year, 34 percent of the elected delegates represented the Workers Commissions Trade Union Confederation (CCOO), and 22 percent the UGT...
...The restructuring of the executive authority of the party's leadership, therefore, is necessary in order to render it more responsive to this organization that encompasses so many varied interests and points of view...
...Gradually, an organizational infrastructure is being established...
...How is it possible for a party that came so close to winning the March 1st parliamentary elections to induldge in such a chaotic, self-destructive display...
...This also served to convince many workers that a trade union with socialist orientation was a viable alternative, and soon thousands swelled the ranks of the UGT...
...Political retardation also ended with the death of Franco...
...Instead, the PCE proposes a government of "national concentration" that would include all parties...
...During the early'70s, however, a new generation of postCivil War leaders had emerged inside Spain and gained control of the party...
...At the time the Spanish socialist movement was fragmented and uncertain...
...Because of the present low ideological level, political discussions are frequently conducted in a crude "radical" jargon, a practice inherited from the hothouse years of clandestinity...
...But even if the PSOE were politically so disposed, it would still remain chary of extensive collaboration with the Communists, for to embark on such a policy with its largely immature and impressionable membership would jeopardize the party's cohesion...
...The divisive affect of the 1936 Popular Front government is still present in the national consciousness, and both Socialists and Communists are careful not to advocate its revival...
...Instead of discussing the major issues that confront the country, as befits a party with pretensions to assuming power in the near future, the congress focused mainly on the "issue" of Marxism...
...Socialist strategy envisages the establishment of a coalition of moderate left and 433 regional political groups as the basis for a PSOE-led government...
...Throughout most of its history, the PSOE has been a movement of broad embrace, containing Marxists and non-Marxists...
...Since becoming secretary general in 1974, Felipe has directed party affairs largely in collaboration with a small group of intimates, mostly fellow Sevillians...
...Although actual membership in both organizations may be appreciably lower than the official figures, the growth is still awesome...
...435...
...The leadership, after all, could point to a record of extraordinary accomplishment...
...The manner in which "Felipe"—as Gonzalez is commonly referred to—has run the organization is a matter of controversy, played upon with some effect by the leaders of the party's left wing...
...The moderation of the PCE makes it less attractive than the Socialists to many young people...
...Such an approach, however, runs counter to the PSOE doctrine of the post-Franco transition era...
...After all, most parties have only attained this at the end of an extended process involving a gradual blending of theory and experience...
...Relations with the Communists is one of them...
...The repressive role of Spanish Stalinism during the Civil War has not been forgotten nor forgiven, particularly since PCE leader Carrillo and many of his closest collaborators are men of the Civil War generation...
...Just what kind of a party should the PSOE be...
...This is not to say that the policy is necessarily wrong or exclusively moderate...
...What does take place is more serious...
...A large urban middle class, the product of this transformation, has become, perhaps, the arbiter of Spanish politics...
...But, nonetheless, the issue of internal democracy has become a major concern within the party...
...Amidst consternation and tears, Felipe Gonzalez, the party's charismatic idol, declared it his moral obligation not to seek reelection as general secretary, since he saw the decisions as a 430 repudiation of his leadership and policies...
...There is a visible and legitimate desire for a greater measure of internal democracy...
...As the best organized force in the anti-Franco opposition, the PCE attracted substantial support from intellectuals and among Catholic activists who underwent radicalization in the '60s...
...For the Spanish Socialist Workers party, this is especially urgent...
...From modest numbers of supporters with dubious prospects several years ago, the party has undergone a near-miraculous rise in membership...
...For these reasons, the outcome of the first postFranco parliamentary election, held in June 1977, proved to be a stunning upset...
...diversity...
...Close to two-thirds of the 1,000 delegates to the May congress had less than a year's membership in the party...
...The platform that was adopted at the party's first post-Franco congress in 1976 fairly bristles with radical rhetoric...
...d) the manner in which Felipe Gonzalez and his close associates have directed party affairs in recent years...
...Bustelo's differences tend to concern the absence of ideological content rather than a critique of past policies...
...The party's tradeunion ally, the General Workers Union (UGT), had only a few dispersed islands of influence, principally in the mine fields of Asturias and the metal-working plants of the Basque region...
...WHAT WENT WRONG...
...In a recent book about modern Spain, Raymond Carr observes that what really counts in a democratic society is the internal stability of parties...
...and the PSOE was specifically qualified as "Marxist," although by tradition and practice it had always been a movement in which both Marxists and nonMarxists have coexisted...
...Few controls have been employed in determining eligibility for PSOE membership, so that all sorts of far-left elements have entered, including organized Trotskyist groups...
...Difficulties in the past have arisen when one or the other sought to impose their views on the party...
...The enriching diversity of socialism should be able to express itself with equality of opportunity...
...With respect to the PSOE's makeup, therefore, Gonzalez argues, A truly socialist program is not conceivable if it is not capable of responding to...
...The PCE strongly favors unity of action between the two parties since, in the long view, the Communists would be the principal beneficiaries...
...After the violent polemic over Marxism at the congress, the long-time German Socialist Max Diamant, who has been closely associated with Spanish Socialist affairs since the Civil War, observed that it seems to be a question "of faith, and this is characteristic of Spain...
...Among these left-wing leaders, the most outspoken is Francisco Bustelo, an exponent of the orthodox Marxist outlook...
...No definitive solution of the ideological issue seems possible in the foreseeable future...
...c) the setback experienced in the March 1st parliamentary elections...
...Its loyalties are divided between the center-right UCD and the PSOE, and both parties strongly compete to attract the support of the "vital center...
...The more serious problem confronting the PSOE remains the gap between a leadership that has come to terms with the realities of power and a membership that has not...
...The leadership, however, could not have been more mistaken in its expectations of general acclaim...
...As the date of the congress approached, signs of a gathering internal storm grew stronger...
...Bustelo, for example, advocates a strategy of political collaboration with the PCE, envisaging ultimately a government of the left...
...Despite four decades of dictatorship, the long historical tradition of the Spanish socialist movement persuaded most Spanish workers and many in the middle class to give their support to a reborn PSOE...
...Little serious thought has been given thus far to adapting traditional Marxist theory to present-day Spain...
...It is not politically relevant for a party as large as the PSOE...
...These results permitted several important conclusions...
...With this goal in mind, Gonzalez last year announced 432 his intention to eliminate the Marxist label that had been assumed at the 1976 congress...
...Felipe and most of the party leadership indeed share a deep-seated aversion for the PCE...
...A modern socialist party has room for all, from a rigorous Marxism to a radical non-Marxist solution, including a socialism with a Christian commitment [which is frequent in the countries of Southern Europe], a socialism that arises from anthropological outlooks [ecologists, Krausists, humanists, etc...
...A third is Pablo Castellano, who was a major figure in the party hierarchy during the'60s and early'70s, until his defeat by Felipe in a contest for the post of general secretary...
...During the Franco years, ironically, the Communist party (PCE) had gained control of the Workers Commissions (CCOO), the leading opposition movement operating within the government-controlled labor oganization...
...Now Socialist mayors preside over most of the country's cities, and the PSOE counts more than four times as many elected city councilmen among its membership than was its total five years ago...
...It now boasts a constituency second only to the governing Union of the Democratic Center (UCD...
...Thus Spanish trade unionism was transformed into a bipolar movement, a development that has prevented the PCE from attaining the trade-union 431 power the Communists hold in France and Italy...
...The leaders of the party's left wing are more united by their opposition to what they perceive as the back-sliding of the present leadership than by an articulated policy alternative...
...But the arbitrary manner in which he did so had a galvanizing affect on those who view the Marxist badge as sacrosanct...
...In the trade-union field especially, the Workers Commissions Trade Union Confederation strives to persuade the UGT to enter into collaborative ventures...
...The quotidian and episodic are insufficiently linked with the historic objectives of socialism...
...The PCE, to its chagrin, received only 9 percent of the vote and so was consigned to the role of a marginal parliamentary group...
...This bold move had the desired effect of persuading the delegates to vote for a special convention to review policies and elect a new leadership...
...a day-to-day policy is conducted without due concern for basics...
...The underdevelopment and grinding poverty that characterized "the two Spains" of the'30s and '40s have become a historic memory...
...This and other decisions had the effect of disowning the leadership and contravening the very strategy that has made possible the party's successful rise...
...Galvan now serves both as honorary party president and as mayor of Madrid...
...it now lays claim to 1.35 million...
...The Communists are not considered appropriate collaborators in such a venture, at least not in a formal capacity...
...Because of the 40 years of Franco and illegality, the Spanish socialist movement now finds itself with one of the lowest cadremember ratios experienced by a mass movement in a Western industrial society...
...The sterile debates of the May congress tended to obscure the crucial policy problems that confront the party...
...The exaggerated expectations concerning the March 1st elections had caused unhappiness in the organization and undoubtedly had played a significant part in triggering the growing turbulence...
...The leadership has tried to shape the party along realistic, moderate lines...
...The PCE and even the two Maoist parties are generally pursuing policies not so different from those one would expect of Social Democrats...
...By a two-to-one margin the delegates voted to reject a compromise formula that would have included Marxism as one of the various sources of party doctrine...
...The few members with political organizational experience are forced to assume disproportionately heavy burdens...
...THE PARTY'S SPECTACULAR EXPANSION persuaded Gonzalez to broaden the PSOE's appeal by modifying its platform, and so to win the moderate left middle-class and professional vote, which is crucial to the further electoral progress of the Socialists...
...Besides, during the March parliamentary campaign, Carrillo devoted most of his energies to lambasting the PSOE rather than criticizing the parties of the right and the center-right...
...The fact that recent members often have only barely begun reconciling rhetoric and reality has prompted a leading party veteran to observe that the violence of the criticism of the leadership at the May congress stands in inverse proportion to years of party membership...
...those in the leadership echelons of the party usually serve simultaneously as members of parliament, mayors, officers of UGT, and in the leadership of local, provincial, and national party organizations...
...Marxism, a theory understood by few, is enthusiastically embraced by many who wear it as a badge of ideological machismo...
...In an open democratic election, however, "historical memory" turned out to be an asset of much greater value...
...As the Franco regime entered its terminal phase, PSOE's prospects were hardly promising...
...In 1974 Felipe Gonzalez, a young labor lawyer from Seville, was named general secretary...
...The many years of sterile isolation under the leadership of exiles, a gerontocracy operating from France, had reduced the party inside Spain to scattered enclaves...
...A remarkable achievement...
...The PCE, with its superior organization and resources and its role as the principal opposition under Franco, had good reason to expect that it would emerge in the postFranco period as the dominant party of the left...
...But the Socialists kept steadily gaining strength as the post-Franco period began in 1976, though they continued to lag behind the PCE in membership, organizational resources, and trade-union influence...
...There were, of course, plans for discussions of major policy issues, and the leadership was confident that this could be managed without excessive difficulties...
...Party membership in 1974 was down to about 4,000, divided equally between exiles and members within Spain...
...In 1976 the UGT had about 25,000 supporters...
...Spanish society indeed has undergone great changes since the '60s...
...The announcement also placed many who consider themselves Marxists but also supporters of Gonzalez in an uncomfortable position...
...b) the nature of political change in the post-Franco transition...
...It found itself outvoted in a tumultuous and emotionally searing congress unique in the party's 100 years' history...
...This has led to increasing unhappiness in some party circles...
...The Marxist issue will probably be resolved through a compromise solution acceptable to 434 most sectors of the party...
...Today too, a balance must be struck that permits doctrinal coexistence...
...Another is Luis Gomez Llorente, the principal Marxist spokesman on the party executive committee...
...People tend to argue issues involving faith, but in reality it is something secondary that does not affect the fundamental problems...
...It also came as a sharp disappointment to the leaders of the left wing who were thus prevented from assuming control of the party...
...The answers must be sought in (a) the legacy inherited from the Franco era...
...Socialism today cannot have the working class as its sole reference because it is the class structure that differentiates us from the 19th century...
...He argues that there is a lack of Marxist analysis...
...THE PSOE'S MAY CONGRESS was the most open and democratic assembly held by any political group in the post-Franco era...
...On Marxism he observes: The frontiers of socialism today go beyond the orthodox Marxist analysis that some advocate...
...The ensuing problems of consolidation, cadre formation, and political education are staggering...
...Within months, it became transformed into a great popular movement...
...The vicissitudes of change are having their greatest impact in the political sector, as the various parties now strive to align ideologies with the new situation...
...The PSOE estimates that its membership— which was 4,000 in 1974—now has reached 200,000...
...Cornering 29 percent of the vote, the PSOE not only emerged as the country's second most important party, it came close to upsetting Prime Minister Suarez's governing Union of the Democratic Center party...
...Workers' wage standards lag behind those of other European countries, but they have greatly advanced since the '60s...
...Merely to provide training facilities for the 37,000 elected works-council delegates of the UGT and the 15,000 city councilmen of PSOE, for example, is a formidable undertaking...
...The Spain of today is highly urbanized and ranks ninth among the world's industrial nations...
...Instead, the PSOE was categorically proclaimed to be "Marxist and a class party, democratic and federalist...
...Is the party to be defined as exclusively "Marxist"—or as having a more pluralist outlook...
Vol. 26 • September 1979 • No. 4
