ODANICH CTATE SPANISH STATE. The mass movement revives around the peace issue The Spanish state's entry into NATO took place in the shadow of the 1979 "twin-track decision," and was marked as well by the "warning" given by the February 1981 attempted coup d'etat. Since 1979, the question of NATO and the no less important one of the Yankee bases have been in the air. By a fortunate combination of circumstances, therefore, it was possible to translate this still vague sense of unease in the society into the first antibloc demonstration in the Spanish state, the First March on Torrejon. (1)
Approximately 15,000 persons responded to the call issued by the then virtually unknown Comision Gestora de la Primera Marcha a Torrejon. The reason for this success has to be sought in an effective combination of an issue - a question that was being talked about in the streets - and the touching of a American feeling in the country. Antonio FLOREZ
This first action exceeded the expectations of those of us who took part in founding and building the Comision. The call brought a success that put the forces of the revolutionary left at the beginning of a situation drastically different from the conditions it has been experiencing up to now, that is, since the start of the transition to parliamentary rule. For the first time, a demonstration proved successful on an issue whose full importance has been perceived only by the most highly conscious sectors. Many thousands of people came out in response to a call supported initially only by the forces of the revolutionary left and independent sections of the vanguard environmentalist associations, etc.
In addition, there was another factor besides the timeliness of the call for this demonstration that explained its success. The objectives were coherent, they were firmly maintained, and the forces issuing the call had the prestige of belonging to the only sector that did not endorse the Reforma [that is, the rules the bourgeoisie laid down for the transition to parliamentary rule] and did not yield to any of the blackmail that followed. Moreover, since this struggle had been abandoned in advance by the reformist parties, the Social Democrats and the Communists, the whole field was left open to the only ones who were prepared to act.
To a certain extent, we have to ask ourselves if this support for the mobilization was not favored by the attitude of a lot of the "disillusioned" that, on this question at least, we did not have to give in. The feelings of this extensive sector of exmembers of collapsed left parties, independents close to those parties or to the left parties that still exist, and left sections of mass organizations could sensitive nerve - a deepseated antirange from a deep anti-imperialism to a vague nationalist aspiration for real sovereignty.
However, what is certain is that such a possible amalgam of motives could be focused behind coherent, firm, and radical proposals, thanks to the role that the revolutionary left played in this demonstration and the following ones. This fact was recognized implicitly by all those who worked with the committee, which later came to be known definitively as the Madrid Anti-NATO committee.
For the first time in the recent history of the Spanish state, the revolutionary left was able to take the leadership, to serve as the cohesive element in bringing together a broad vanguard that had been quite disoriented by a political process that had dashed the hopes of the majority of the population for a clean break with the old regime.
In this respect, it was important from the outset to defend intransigently a radical program. Linking the question of the bases with NATO was criticized by the reformist parties and even by moderate sections of the unions, as well as by some of the peace organizations that began to proliferate. The fact that the organizers were able to stand up to this pressure for watering down the content of the demonstrations, which required in the beginning a battle to keep the question of the bases from being separated from the question of NATO, is the secret that explains why more and more people came to follow this radical sector and did not fall in behind the other confused or indecisive forces. The radical sector was the only one that could carry this struggle all the way.
Nonetheless, like so many other things, the whole business could have ended 1. Torrejon de Ardos is an American air base near Madrid.
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up as nothing more than a mirage. In the still recent past, there was strong popular pressure for demands that were not won, and this pressure was dissipated by the Reforma and the disenchantment that followed. Why did not the definitive entry of the Spanish state into NATO, carried through under the government of Calvo Sotelo, put an end to those mobilizations? Why did this not spread demoralization and why did not the radical struggle give way to "realistic" proposals from the reformist sectors?
No single reason can be given. Once again a series of factors combined perfectly to assure the persistance and continued growth of this infant antiwar movement. In the first place, the attempted coup of February 1981 had an effect. On the one hand, the parliamentary parties yielded to the blackmail of the state apparatus and accepted deals on a series of basic laws - administrative devolution, antiterrorist legislation, economic measures, etc. On the other hand, the feeling of impotence in many sections of the vanguard and other sectors as well in the face of the attempted coup and its subsequent consequences led these elements to see no other way of expressing themselves than participating in whatever mobilization developed, and there was no other than the anti-NATO actions. Another factor was that many people were beginning to distrust the policy of pacts, given the dismal results it produced.
A role was played as well by the growing awareness of the importance of the question of NATO and the bases, the problem of the blocs, the dynamic of the arms race, and the threat of war. The attitude of the Social Democratic party itself, the PSOE, which was then in opposition, was also important, although it was clearly electoralist and opportunist. The enormous rally in November 1981 in Madrid, called by the PSOE, was the answer of a contender for power to the indefensible maneuvers of a government that had, for reasons of state already become caught in the toils of the pact. But at the same time, it had a major effect in drawing the attention of a lot of people to this question, in arousing the interest of large sections of the population in it, and in launching a public debate. All of this was to end as another broken election promise, along with the POE's pledge to create 800,000 jobs.
However, there should be no mistake. The PSOE only hitched itself as cautiously as possible to a wagon that the radical left had already set in motion, and which in a very short time had assumed a top importance for any proposal for an alternative government. The mobilizations on this issue forced the PSOE itself to line up behind the already famous slogan "NATO, no for a start!"
But it is significant that from the outset this slogan proved very unpopular because it had a double meaning. And, of course, it was also highly significant International Viewpoint 1 July 1985 vierte en lo tuyo
Porel cambi
PSOE
The changes promised by the PSOE government never came (DR)
ST9TS1 UBT that this big rally called by the PSOE ended up being taken advantage of by the radicals, inasmuch as the slogan most changed was the one most feared by the PSOE - "NATO, no! Bases out!" It was the first time that the reformists experienced the great difficulty of diverting this movement behind moderate and ambiguous propositions. Building a national movement
This is the way we explain the unusual fact that the mobilizations did not end and that the political level did not drop. But how can you explain the growing over of this popular feeling against NATO and the bases into a movement with a broad and radical range of objectives, which has gradually organized itself and proved capable of throwing off balance a government that enjoyed an extraordinary electoral mandate?
Of course, as I already pointed out the objectives adopted were in themselves sufficiently timely and sufficiently important. The work of agitation and explaining the importance of these aims was a key to popularizing the struggles and giving them a mass character. But a qualitative step forward is taken when steadily growing nucleuses of people go from simply letting themselves be organized, turning out for demonstrations, to organizing themselves, to becoming activists to a certain extent. This process, which is the most interesting thing, had a lot to do with the attitude and the style of work of those who educated the movement politically and organizationally.
I have talked about the unquestionable importance (which is recognized today by parties such as the CP and was from the beginning by the government itself of the participation of the revolutionary left in building this movement. However, the organizations of the revolutionary left have a reputation, and not only in the Spanish state, for being sectarian or tending to sectarianism. So, the secret why steadily growing nucleuses of independent vanguard sectors, environmentalist organizations, anti-nuclear organizations, etc., and finally the unions themselves and the CP were drawn into the movement must be sought in the dynamic, in the style of work undertaken and pursued by the revolutionary left.
This style of work can be summed up in four basic aspects: - A dynamic of unity. From the outset, the Madrid Anti-NATO committee, as well as other bodies with similar characteristics in the rest of the state, offered the possibility for participating in action and discussion on bases scrupulously tailored to the needs of unity, without any attempts to push people around or manipulate them. There was also the golden rule that there should be unity on something worthwhile. There was no attempt to achieve a fictitious or useless unity which would mean simply trying to include everybody by reducing the movement to the lowest common denominator. Rather, unity was built on the basis of radical and coherent demands, which had already shown that they could unite and mobilize the masses. - A nondogmatic dynamic. Very shortly after the mobilizations had revealed all their importance and after the issue had become the subject of general interest, All-Spain Forums were held in which the participants tried to define a certain "program," expressed concretely in a series of demands for the mobilization. In these discussions, a radical wing took form, and a moderate one.
However, the style of the discussions, which established points of general agreement, without posing the others as an obstacle to unity in action, was the key that enabled a movement as broad and heterogeneous as the one that was then taking form to maintain its coherence and not be pulled apart by the tendeney of the various organizations to operate on their own.
Undoubtedly important in this was the common reference point for all, the slogan "NATO no! Bases out!" Despite the insistence of the moderate wing on the need to separate these two questions, the popular support that both had won together and also the intransigence of the radical wing in defending the link assured that this dual slogan would be maintained. It remained as a bulwark withstanding all the reformist attempts to water down the political content of the mobilizations.
So, a style of debate began to take shape that made it possible to work together to build the actions around the slogans backed by the majority and at the same time to continue discussing the questions raised by collectives in the movement on which there was not yet a broad enough consensus. - Work and let others work. But, of course, the other great contribution of the radical vanguard of the movement was to make sure that it did not stay comfortably settled into this small area of common agreement but that it continued to develop its positions on a growing number of issues -dissolution of the military bloes, opposition to militarization; anti-imperialist solidarity; opposition to nuclear energy for either civilian or military purposes.
Moreover, at the same time as deepening the discussion of these questions and proposing that the other organizations in the movement take them up, above all the radical vanguard was acting on these questions. That is, a system emerged that enabled those who had adopted certain slogans to put them forward in the mobilizations, without this meaning a break with other sectors that had not yet come to see their value. This model of work, which can be summed up in the phrase "work and let work," made it possible for the radical wing to "convince" other sectors gradually of the need for adopting those positions.
If the radical wing had tried to impose these positions on others in the discussion, it would have been certain that the coordination of those organizations and sectors would have suffered, thereby bringing discredit and distrust on itself. - To measure organisational steps very carefully. In turn, it was possible to achieve all this inasmuch as there was then no stable organizational structure. Thus, the actions and mobilizations built by the radical wing were not seen by other sections as an aggression against them, since it was quite clear that they were called by some and not by others.
It is evident that once the program of the radical wing started to gain acceptance because of its coherence and the firmness with which it was put forward, the time had come for putting pressure on less consistent or out-right reformist sectors to take up the radical demands. So, when the radical wing had carried out enough mobilizations of a different type and had started winning the support for them of widening sections of the 24 population, it began to pose the need for structuring and organizing better the efforts of all the peace, antimilitarist, etc. organizations in the Spanish state.
This led to the formation of the Coordinadora Estatal de Organizaciones Pacifistas (Spanish State Coordinating Committee of Peace Organizations). This body continued to be characterized by the freewheeling coexistence within it of various tendencies. Its fundamental aim was to organize the mobilizations on the Spanish-state level, thereby raising them to a qualitatively higher level on which they would cease to be mere expressions of protest and start to become the coordinated expression of mass pressure for the whole radical program.
It was such mass pressure, and nothing else, that forced the then candidate Felipe Gonzalez to make his election promises, one of the most important of which was that a referendum would be held on whether or not Spain stayed in NATO if he won the elections. The least important question is whether this promise was the result of a misestimation of how much this issue had penetrated into the popular mind or of the belief that in spite of everything, once he held the reins of government and all the means that offers, he could control this tide of public opinion. The fact is that the promise was made (he even said that if the bourgeois UCD government took us into NATO "by the backdoor," we could go out the same way, and it probably brought him a good part of the more than ten million votes that he won.
Naturally, the whole movement seized on this promise quickly and made it the theme of the biggest campaign of pressure that any government has had to face in the recent period. When PSOE leaders themselves talked about a siege of the government, regardless of the truth about this, it was clear that was the feeling that the administration actually had.
The conditions were ideal because the organizations in the movement only asked for, and called on the people to ask for, what was in the PSOE's election platform. Of course, care was taken from the start to warn the public that if the promised referendum were held the question might be formulated in
BASES FUERA a tricky way se that the Executive could interpret the result to suit itself.
So the central campaigns in 1983 and 1984 were focused around the demand for 'A clear referendum now!' since the government refused to indicate when the referendum was going to be held or what its character would be. Gonzalez under pressure
The mobilization for this objective involved two important advances. On the one hand, around it the movement managed to forge the first all-Spanishstate action, which was called by the Coordinadora Estatal de Urganizaciones Pacifistas. And this country-wide mobilization pointed up the fact still more clearly that the great majority of the people wanted a referendum, withdrawal from NATO, and the dismantling of the bases. Moreover, on the organizational level, the mobilization involved a qualitative advance for the moment consolidating the prestige and political authority of the Coordinadora, which represented the entire movement, and buttressing it against attempts to push forward tame "interlocutors from outside the movement."
After June 3, 1984, the date of the first big countrywide demonstration, Premier Gonzalez had no choice but to make some statements pledging that the referendum would be held. However, he still failed to set a date, and so this promise remained as dubious as the one made earlier for the sake of winning the elections.
All that was gained was that the movement confronted the government's attempts to create confusion (statements blowing hot and cold about whether the referendum would actually be held, trial balloons about moving up the date for the general elections and thus avoiding the plebiscite). But that was no small thing.
Months later, in a Discussion on the State of the Nation, Felipe Gonzalez, launched his most serious diversion, his celebrated Ten Points. They included not only the proposal to remain in the civilian structure of NATO but not the military one, whatever that could mean, but also the call for the rest of the parliamentary forces to forge a consensus on this question. In this way, the government was trying to play a double game. It sought to build up a parliamentary wall against the will of the people. At the same time, it sought to dilute its responsibility for any measure adopted, which would mean avoiding the referendum or rigging it.
Shortly afterwards, the movement again demonstrated its organizational capacity, calling out hundreds thousands of persons in the various cities throughout the Spanish state on December 2. This, together with the rejection by the various parliamentary forces of the premier's proposal, forced
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Felipe Gonzales to reaffirm his promise to hold the referendum and to pledge to set the date in a short time. As the crowning touch, often the last march on Torrejon, which brought out a hundred thousand people from Madrid alone, the authorities began to advance actual dates, for the opening months of 1986.
Besides this summary of the history of the mobilizations for the referendum, I should point up the importance that this issue has for the movement, the government, and the system the Spanish state, and the rebound effect it can have on the other European countries. The test of a referendum
When the radical sector of the movement (which, it should not be forgotten, can be said to have played the most important role) launched the mobilizations for the referendum, it had two advantages. The demand was a basic democratic one that could easily unite broad sectors of the population. At the same time, this demand had the virtue of giving the best concrete expression to the struggle against NATO and the bases.
However, at the same time, from the start we realized that there were dangers in concentrating everything on this issue, because the government always has the means for stalling on the question until the life of this legislature runs out or for moving up the date of the elections, which will mean that the referendum will not be held. In both cases, if the movement focused exclusively on this question, it would run the risk that while the PSOE and the other parties could lose credibility and votes, this would not prevent them from following orders from Reagan to integrate the country into the NATO system.
If that happened, the movement would be defeated, because it would have failed to achieve its sole aim. It would disappear, or become an ambiguous current harmless to the system, since in that way the major factor of instability would have been removed. And un• doubtedly the system would be in a better position to reconsolidate itself.
Therefore, we insisted on deepening and extending other objectives parallel to to the referendum campaign. The most important of these was active neutrality. This issue arose as a positive response to the accusation that we offered no alternative to the system of defense planned by the government.
Moreover, we managed to extend more and more an antimilitarist consciousness. This was made easier by the experience of the peoples of the Spanish state with the army as the heir of Francoism, whose almost sole purpose is to keep the population under control, as was shown in the attempted coup of 1981.
At the same time, the extent of military spending, given the anger over International Viewpoint 1 July 1985
ND unete а почат ontra GIAN Canarias ere-Cenaria Bati-OTAN the country's steadily deteriorating economic situation, has been attracting the unions and citizens associations to the struggle against the arms race.
Finally, the consciousness about the problem of women's oppression that has been created by the mobilizations for full legalization of abortion made it possible to introduce the issue of the militarization of women (there is a scheme for military service for both sexes) into the feminist movement, along with some specific implications such as hierarchy, machismo, etc.
In the last analysis, this involved spreading the idea that the fight for peace can be seen as a perspective for eliminating oppression and repression, and any kind of exploitation, and that this of course implies solidarity with the peoples oppressed by imperialism who are fighting precisely for that kind of peace.
Only on this basis can the peace movement in the Spanish state face the test of the referendum without having to fear the possible consequences. Because it will have other issues on which it can continue its advance, regardless of what it may face with respect to the referendum and regardless of the outcome of any referendum.
It would be wrong, however, to conclude that the government is going to have an easy time in dancing around the referendum question and that, even at the cost of losing credibility, it can get through this test basically intact. You have to start, to the contrary, from the fact that at present every possible way out that the government has involves paying a high cost, except the unlikely one of changing public opinion, holding the referendum and winning it by a comfortable majority.
The most important is that while the continuation of the movement depends to a large extent on what the government does, the regime has to face the fact that close to 60% of the public are against NATO and the bases. Its basic handle, which is its ability to use all the means at its disposal to change this state of opinion, is being obstructed by the fact that public opinion as a whole is quite alert to the possibility of manipulation, and very resistant to letting itself be influenced by such maneuvers.
While it is clear that up until now, the government has made only some small gestures, the results of these tests could hardly have been more discouraging for Felipe Gonzalez. The statements made early in the year by various political and military figures about the wrongness and impossibility of leaving NATO (from the king to the chief of the General Staff, including the minister of defense accompanied by the familiar commentary of the press) were answered immediately by the mass turnout for the last March on Torrejon, which was called shortly after these statements. The action mobilized more than twice the number that the previous one did (more than a hundred thousand as opposed to 50,000).
The march made such an impac that even the press and the media in general, which are more or less pon NATO, had to recognize the mu ness of the turnout. Shortly after tin Emperor Reagan, who wanted to sh that it was impossible to escape from th long arm of the world's most powert country, had still worse luck. The demonstrations against him drew the unprecedented number of more than a million people in the Spanish state as a whole, and they were not only against him but for withdrawal from NATO, ete.
Other methods, now classic, have not gotten better results. For example, recently we have seen a proliferation of movies and TV films playing the virtues of the "Free World" and the need to defend it by tooth and claw. But when Reagan came, the result of all this was that he was most often compared to the "baddies" in these films - exactly the opposite of what was intended. Possibility of early elections
Undoubtedly, after all this, there is a clear possibility that they will more up the date for the general elections thereby avoiding holding a referendum The objective would be to shift the discussion away from the referendum toward the elections, bringing into play more issues where the parties would have more influence. At the same time, calling elections could threaten to provoke chaos that could lead to a general collapse of stability.
Moreover, the government's lack of credible alternatives for the other problems (unemployment, social security, abortion, education, industrial reconversion, democratic rights, ete) makes the possibility of calling early elections still more impracticable. What "goody can any of the parties offer to get people to forget about NATO?
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