Letter From Spain
GLADNICK, ROBERT
A COUNTRY OF CONTRADICTIONS Letter from SpcliXlBY robert gladnick Madrid The contradictions in Spain today make one's head whirl. The Spanish Communist Party denounces Lenin. The Socialist...
...But then one is even more confused than before...
...Aword, in conclusion, about the CNT...
...At most it would get 15 per cent of the vote...
...And unlike the Caribbean where every 93 cents of every tourist dollar leaves the islands to pay for loans, building materials, food and services, in Spain over 98 cents remains in the country...
...Meanwhile, the Communist press has been carrying equally revealing reports on the progress of the government committee writing a constitution...
...If elections were held tomorrow, the PSOE and Felipe Gonzalez, its leader, would receive a majority...
...But it is Carrillo's belief that the underlying power in Spain still rests with the Armed Forces, the Guardia Civil and its urban arm, the Fuerzas Mobiles, the heavily armed police...
...The official Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) is for all practical purposes an appendage of the German Social Democratic Party...
...Need one say more in the light of Spain's history...
...It turned out that the local CP was boycotting pro-Soviet events and my friend only came because he was given a complimentary ticket at the University, where he is a professor...
...Returning to Madrid, I found that the Soviet Army Chorus and Dancers —all 300 of them—would be appearing in the Sports Palace...
...The same is of course true of the Communists...
...It was a party for "participants, " and proudly the others covered their glasses with their palms...
...In my usual loud voice I asked whether any oldtimers were present...
...As both UGT and Workers Council groups attempt to sign industry contracts at the factory level they are rejected by the workers who are led by the CNT...
...They consist of, and are led by, returned exiles whose philosophy can best be summed up as "Don't trust anyone under 60...
...The CNT—opposed, incidentally, by the nonsyndicalist Anarchist Federation of Iberia—maintains factory committees and is still influential...
...As for the Army, Navy and Air Force, the PCE refers to them as "Our Boys...
...It is the younger officers in all three branches who favor joining the Western alliance, and the Spanish Eurocommun-ists have tipped their hand by laboring long and hard to convince them that there is another source for war materiel—Moscow...
...The com-paneros ("Camarada" is used only by Communists and Falangists) told me that the use of a telephone is the first step toward bureaucratization...
...Actually, a large sector of the Air Force and Navy is pro-nato, while the Army, heavily dominated by aging Civil War veterans, is anti-nato...
...We saluted each other and drank...
...Its politics may be summed up as "holier than the Pope...
...I then offered a drink to everyone in the bar, but there were no takers...
...For example, the prelates of the Catholic Church were asked to submit their thoughts on church-state relations...
...He smiled and said, "Be my guest...
...Besides," one added, "during the dictatorship we functioned quite well without one...
...To understand Spanish politics, one must read at least 20 different newspapers and magazines and talk with hundreds of people of differing political opinions...
...No sooner did this become public knowledge than lo and behold the Communist-controlled Union of Teachers of Alicante and Barcelona "volunteered" to give up their summer vacations to tutor the youngsters...
...Soon after arriving on my first visit since the Civil War, I rented a car to visit the battlefields outside the capital...
...still have a large albeit uninfluential sector outside their ranks, a group called los histdricos...
...The Catholic Carlists demand (at the top of their voices) a Left-wing Workers Republic...
...I went opening night, buying seats high in the gallery so as not to give them too many of my hard-earned dollars...
...The one battlefield left untouched was at Jarama, where so many members of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion as well as Spaniards lost their lives...
...I couldn't even find a trench...
...So much for the theory that only under Socialism (read Communism) can underdeveloped countries be industrialized...
...Are we to call this an "evolutionary metamorphosis...
...They described to me how as children they had hidden out in the hills while the town was being bombed and shelled...
...Spain is Spain...
...Tourism, one of the best sources for balancing the foreign oil deficit, is once again booming...
...Their blood must have been very fertile, for everything is obliterated by heavy growth...
...The Comisiones Obreras (Workers' Councils), run by the Communists, and the Union General de Trabajado-res (UGT), run by the Socialists, received about 65 per cent of the vote, with the rest split among various factions all the way from Trotskyites to Falangists now called Fuerza Nueva (New Force), and using the swastika for a symbol...
...In Barcelona I met with the Secretary General and Director of Organizations at the CNT national office, where they did have a telephone...
...Its members are crazy but lovable people...
...In Italy or France I would have been mobbed...
...Everyone agrees, however, that the most adroit political force in the country is the Spanish Communist Party (PCE...
...I asked one of the "proletarian" types why so few had come to see los camaradas rusos...
...Strolling into a crowded bar late one afternoon, I set down a bottle of Johnny Walker and asked the young bartender if it would be all right to offer a drink to anyone who had survived the death and destruction of the village back in 1937...
...The Socialist Workers Party renounces Marx...
...General Secretary Santiago Carrillo realizes the PCE does not have any chance of taking office via the electoral process...
...And the Bourbon king turns out to be a shrewd student of history...
...The Socialists, who have just united, Robert Gladnick, a new NL contributor, recently returned from Spain...
...I do not want to betray the prejudices of los historicos or appear influenced by them, yet it is a fact that up until a few years ago most PSOE members were big shots in the youth section of the Falange...
...The syndicalists did not participate in the national trade union elections because they were supervised by the government...
...Although the country's problems play into the hands of the PCF, not all is dark...
...They are of course all for this, and are very interested in the history of the kibbutzim, but shy away from discussing them because of their ties with extremists in Western Europe who are anti-Israel...
...He replied, "Because they represent the military...
...The state-owned auto company, seat, also is in the black for the first time...
...I was amazed (and appalled because of the smog) at the tremendous industrialization achieved by Franco...
...In Madrid their regional office, located in the bohemian quarter of the Calle Li-bertad, has no telephone...
...Alas, they have been covered by factories, high rise apartment buildings and garages...
...As the anti-police terror increased in the Basque country, the Guardia Civil families living in that area withdrew their children from the local schools, fearing the Basques might vent their anger on the children...
...The PCE courts these elements shamelessly...
...The Communists on the committee then insisted upon adding the following preamble: "We recognize the great historical role played by the Roman Apostolic Catholic Church and the strong ties of the Spanish people with their church...
...The others, opportunists all, are swept along by events and scrap their principles from day to day...
...Nonetheless, one is sympathetic to them because they adhere to their principles and still hold to their old 1930 concepts of brotherhood founded on individual liberty...
...Only the anarcho-syndicalist Confederation National de Trabajo (CNT) runs true to form with its battle cry: autogestion (self-management) and down with the state...
...Unfortunately, I spent too much time with these old comrades-in-arms...
...If not, the PCE will come to power under the tri-cornered hat of the Guardia Civil...
...Five men came forward and I poured each a good three fingers...
...The place was three-quarters empty...
...When the Basque underground army recently killed two officers of the Guardia Civil, the Communist press waxed indignant because the government did not proclaim an official day of mourning for the "two martyrs of law and order...
...A youthful image and millions of Deutsche marks would carry them to power...
...I just can't feel at ease with ex-Falangists...
...If the economic crisis can be at least partially resolved and the Basque issue settled by agreement, Spanish democracy will survive...
...In the village of Jarama I had a taste of the old noble traditions of the poor Spanish peasant...
...When push comes to shove, apparently, Carrillo and Leonid I. Brezhnev will get together, never mind Eurocommunism...
...I spoke to the leaders about the need to set up co-ops similar to those the CNT had organized in the Aragon at the beginning of the Civil War in 1936, and like the kibbutzim in Israel...
...In a reply that makes the mind boggle, they declared that they want the constitution to proclaim a non-parochial state with all religions equal...
Vol. 61 • September 1978 • No. 18
