In 2020, during the Covid-19 crisis the Spanish economy suffered a decline in output of 10.8%, the biggest since the Civil war. The IMF, having initially predicted an increase of 6.2% for 2021 which would only have taken the Spanish economy back to pre-pandemic levels in December reduced the figure to 4.8%. Even in September, Spain’s economy was lagging the furthest behind in the EU in recovering from the pandemic. It had lost 22% of its activity and was 8.4 percentage points below the pre-pandemic level.
According to the Bank of Spain, the Spanish economy will recover its pre-pandemic levels in mid-2022, half a year later than the euro area. Now, the latest economic health revision may mean that the road to recovery may take even longer, which will have important political implications.
The economic future is far from certain. Although 235,000 more people started working over the summer months, due to the easing of foreign travel rules, it is still unclear whether many of the workers who remain on the government’s ERTE job retention scheme which has been prolonged until February 2022, along with workers in the tourism industry who were hired for the summer season will stay employed.
In 2020, the Socialist Party (PSOE) and Unidos Podemos (UP) government raised the limit on spending by 53% in order to cover extraordinary expenses derived from the coronavirus pandemic, including the ERTE scheme, financial aid for small businesses and transfers to local and regional governments to help them with health and education measures.
The 2022 spending ceiling has been capped at €196.1 billion, a 0.02% rise from the previous year and the highest on record. The deficit now represents 11% of GDP or around €125 billion. The plan is to reduce the deficit to 5% in 2022 which has political and social implications. For this reason, the EU has proposed to suspend deficit and debt rules for all member states in 2022 — just like in 2020 and 2021. However, the EU will, further down the road, attempt to control the spending of the Spanish government but in the new situation, it will remain to be seen how successful they are.
Escalating poverty
The social reality for the working class and now increasing numbers of middle-class people living under weak Spanish capitalism is another story. The statistics for poverty levels for 2021 have just been published. In the Spanish state 9.5% or 4.5 million people live in a situation of severe poverty. That is one million more people than 2008 prior to the social explosions around the ‘indignados.’
The Canary Islands, Valencia and Asturias have the highest percentages of people living in absolute poverty, ranging from 12.2% to 16.7% of their total population.
The pandemic has hit the working poor hardest. The likelihood of infection and the profound economic consequences affect the poorest people worse. People living in poverty, eat worse, have more illnesses, live in underfunded or small dwellings and most of those who manage to work, do so in jobs that require face-to-face activity which opens them up to infection. Bus drivers, supermarket workers and cleaners do not have the luxury of working from home.
This has made them more susceptible to the virus and to the economic effects of social control measures and points to a significant increase in poverty and severe poverty rates and a deterioration in material living conditions during the Covid-19 crisis.
Poverty is reaching ever growing layers of society who were previously immune. The profile of people in severe poverty is very different from the one that is put forward by the right-wing Peoples’ Party (PP) and far-right VOX: 72% are Spaniards, with a medium (53%) or high (17.9%) level of education, with a job (27.5%) and with housing (95.2%).
Protests breaking out all over
The weakness of Spanish capitalism has again been underlined during the summer of 2021. In just one month people’s lives have been turned upside down by the increase in energy prices. The wholesale price of electricity soared to its fifth consecutive historical record. The anarchy of the free market and speculation has piled misery upon misery in the middle of the Covid-19 crisis. Protests are breaking out all over and the government has been forced to intervene, such is the anger at the price hikes.
This is the context of the push against neoliberal orthodoxy, imposed up until the Covid-19 crisis, by the EU on states like Spain. The neoliberal dogma which has been dominant in the European Union for decades has maintained the thesis that the ‘success’ of economic activity had to be based on the austerity of public social expenditure, achieved through cuts that have left the countries affected by the pandemic such as Spain without the necessary means — such as health and social services — to protect themselves. It is not surprising that, in general, those countries where such neoliberal policies have been most severely implemented are now also the countries where the damage caused by the pandemic is the greatest. This fact has not been lost on the front-line health workers and the working class as a whole who will not stand for neoliberal business as usual from now on.
The enormous inadequacy of the market and destructive neoliberal policies has been shown up in front of millions and is creating widespread popular protest, demanding that ‘priorities’ are changed. The simple demand for well-funded, publicly owned health services is having an enormous impact on the political and economic order and is bringing the neoliberal ideology crashing down, as the reality lived during the Covid-19 crisis by the working class, clashes with the austerity discourse of big business and their political representatives.
There is already a growing popular demand for the public authorities to put the common good before everything else. This was reflected in the daily 8 o’clock applause, during the worst days of the pandemic in honour of the health professionals, who are risking their lives to save the lives of coronavirus sufferers. But this will only be possible by doing what was previously unthinkable, namely breaking away from the economic straitjacket of the neoliberal mindset. The idea that people, the sick, the old and society in general come before profit never really went away but is being voiced more loudly and confidently now.
It is true that the leaders of the old social democracy and even trade unions in countries like Spain accepted the neoliberal norms and set the limit for what policies were acceptable. Neoliberalism has been not only an economic policy but also a regulator of political thought. Economists who put forward policies of public investment were treated as heretics and former working-class parties like PSOE actually privatised public services. Is it any wonder that the pandemic has been so devastating in Spain?
The first blows dealt against Neoliberalism
However, ideologically, the doctrine of neoliberalism had already suffered major blows to its credibility, pre — Covid-19 and the idea that the market can decide everything. The first blow was in 2008 with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the resultant chain reaction around the world. Governments bailed out the banks and only the most fanatical believers in neoliberalism said that the banks should be left to fail.
These events led to the Occupy movement around the world and the ‘Indignados’ in Spain. New left parties like Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain were formed and enjoyed spectacular support. The slogan, “We are the 99%!” became common parlance around the world on protests. It is an important slogan in that it encapsulates the rage over the hyper-inequality between rich and poor that neoliberal policies have brought.
Today, in Spain representatives of the 1% who have benefited from the privatisations over the last few decades have gone cap in hand to a PSOE-UP government begging for hand-outs! The significance and irony of this is not lost on the working class who were told that their insecurity and poverty was down to their “inflexibility”.
According to the World Inequality Report, governments around the world have lost almost all public capital to the private sector. Spain is the country with the most private wealth compared to public resources.
This rise in private wealth has occurred in all countries, but Spain is the country that has seen the greatest increase in private wealth which has risen by almost 700% compared to public wealth, which is negative.
The number of millionaires continues to rise. During the pandemic the poorest people lost proportionally, up to seven times more income than the richest. Incredibly, it has been announced during the pandemic that Spain now has more than one million millionaires. Wealth has never been concentrated in fewer hands. The idea that ‘we have all been in it together’ during the Covid-19 crisis is a sick joke and millions of working-class people are not laughing.
As always, the capitalist class needs to restore profitability to maintain their system in the long run. In general, they were not investing because they were not getting the return. But the money exists and is sitting there.
Tax havens collectively cost governments between $500 billion and $600 billion a year in lost corporate tax revenue. The IMF’s Coordinated Direct Investment Survey in 2018 found that a stunning $12 trillion — almost 40 percent of all foreign direct investment globally — is completely artificial: it consists of financial investment passing through empty corporate shells with no real productive activity.
Socialists have no illusions in Keynesian economic policies. Shifting away from neoliberal norms will not solve the problem of profitability in the long run for capitalism. More state investment in public services and other measures seem likely following the Covid-19 crisis for two main reasons: neoliberalism is not working for the capitalist class, and they also fear the class antagonisms being provoked by the naked ‘greed is good’ of neoliberal policies.
The class struggle will decide who pays
Who pays for state investment and infrastructure is at the end of the day a political question, dependent on a living struggle between the capitalist class and the working class. The question is, can the labour movement and the trade unions step in to offer a socialist alternative to the mass of people or is it inevitable that after a suitable respite due to the Covid-19 crisis, capitalism will try to resume normal neoliberal service?
There is an argument that because of the failure of new left formations like Syriza and Podemos, and the defeat of Jeremy Corbyn, then there is nowhere for the anger to go and probably ultra — right parties like VOX in Spain will gain, as they have in parts of Eastern Europe. VOX launched a yellow scab ’trade union’ which signals their desire to take their ultra-right politics to the streets. They have a big presence in the Spanish parliament and some regional assemblies, and they may continue to grow electorally.
However, every process has its dialectic. The rise of VOX is provoking a radicalisation amongst the youth especially in the Basque Country and Catalonia. In 2018 when Ciudadanos, PP and Vox provocatively held a rally in the Basque town, Alsasua in support of the Guardia Civil over the jailing of a group of innocent young people by the Spanish State on trumped up charges, the whole town rose up against the right. At a later demonstration the town was taken over by the people and the state forces chose not to enter the area. Security and safety on the march was organised by the townspeople themselves.
When VOX initially gained an electoral foothold in the Adalucian regional parliament, it was the youth and students who mobilised immediately in the streets against them. The particular history of Spain means that openly fascist formations quickly polarise the political situation. VOX trying to muscle in on the worker’s movement will not go unanswered by the young workers especially.
Recently there has been a wave of homophobic attacks in the Spanish state. There has also been an increase in all hate crimes and the domestic violence against women is an epidemic.
The narrative of VOX is an attempt to ‘normalise’ hate crime. The role of the PP in excusing their partners is another polarising factor.
Will a new left formation necessarily appear in the next period?
Socialists campaign for and will play a role in the formation of new left and socialist parties around the world, but this process is not the same everywhere and not at all clear how it will come about at this time in the Spanish state.
However, nothing is automatic or preordained in the class struggle or politics. It is not the case that we have to wait for fully formed new worker’s parties before serious struggles break out. The failure of parties like Syriza and Podemos does not mean we are back to square one as far as consciousness is concerned. In the Spanish state all the pillars of the 1978 constitution are discredited, including the monarchy which is embroiled in corruption scandals. The unions are intact and beginning to fight back against redundancies and thousands of new people, especially women and young people have become active in campaigns against evictions, for women’s rights and climate change. We can say the balance of class forces is potentially in favour of the working class at this stage. Although, the class as a whole is not consciously aware of it.
The worldwide uprising of women, the youth on climate change and BLM shows that the most oppressed sections of the working class are trying to find a way to struggle against the system. There is also an important international element to these struggles. The BLM protests spread like wildfire around the world during the pandemic from the USA. These struggles cannot be seen in isolation and apart from the need for new worker’s parties, but are an integral part of the process. We do not put one before the other in a mechanical manner.
What can be learned from the lessons of Podemos in Spain?
The recession of 2008 brought into being the ‘Indignados’ and 15 of May movement which echoed around the world. City squares in the whole country were occupied. Unemployment stood at nearly 5 million at the time with youth unemployment at 43.5%. The government proposed labour ‘reforms’ which made it easier to sack workers and implement rubbish contracts. They also proposed to increase the retirement age from 65 to 67. At first the main unions opposed the measures and called a general strike in 2010. However, they made a deal over the retirement age and the PP government pushed forward their ‘reforms’ bit by bit, using the salami tactic.
From ‘Indignados’ to ‘Podemos’
The youth exploded onto the streets and in 2011 the ‘Indignados’ movement was born. There were many factors in the mix including the feeling that the youth had no future under the system, the endemic corruption and lack of real democracy. An important factor was that the youth felt let down by the official parties and even the trade unions. It was noted at the time that even though Izquierda Unida (United Left) publicly supported the movement, they were unable to connect with it, being seen as ‘part of the problem’. There was a palpable ‘anti-party’ mood amongst the youth.
For that reason, a group of intellectuals around Pablo Iglesias launched Podemos. They realised that something completely new would be needed to take advantage of the movement around the ‘Indignados.’ Podemos enjoyed initial spectacular success and support especially amongst the youth, who moved onto the political plane after the movement had been cleared from the streets by the state.
An important point to consider is that although Podemos was born out of the ‘Indignados’ movement, it was a paler, safer reflection of the movement which had had revolutionary elements. At the height of the ‘Indignados’ movement there were more than 8 million people, overwhelmingly young people, involved in demonstrations and occupations of city plazas. People organised themselves into ‘working groups’ and debated and developed radical policies in the streets.
Ultimately, the leadership of Podemos never developed a clear socialist programme, and neither did they base the party on the organised working class. All these momentous developments only happened over the last few years. The young people and workers who participated in the struggle as ‘Indignados’ and in Podemos will have learned the lessons well. Nothing is lost in nature or indeed politics. The important point about Podemos, which is now in a coalition government with PSOE, is that it was born out of a struggle on the streets which no-one predicted, but which shook the Spanish State severely.
To put things in perspective, not one of the fundamental problems which ignited the movement have been solved and in many ways the situation is worse after 10 years. The Covid-19 crisis has only sharpened the divisions in Spanish society. The potential for another explosion of the youth especially is always in the background. Women have also risen. The youth want to save the planet, organise against low pay and fight for their future. Although not as large as in previous years, the 2021 Climate Strike in the Spanish state was significant.
We cannot predict the exact march of events but clearly the after-effects of the Covid-19 crisis, which are ongoing, will provoke movements on a higher level than after 2008.
Struggle against privatisation
In the years after the ‘Indignados’ movement there were also wave after wave of workers who struggled against privatisation of public services. The movement was particularly strong in Madrid but the PP regional government managed to privatise hospitals resulting in the sorry state the public health system is in Madrid today, which has caused so much misery in the Covid-19 crisis for the working class. The perverse scandal of the old people left to die in the private retirement homes at the beginning of the crisis is causing a burning indignation in society.
Pensioners in the Basque Country have been the most militant in mobilising for decent pensions and conditions for retired people. The idea that an economic system which has literally left the old to die alone and unattended in their beds will just continue as before is unthinkable. Pensioners held a successful demonstration in Madrid in October.
National Question ebbs and flows
The national question will come up again and again in the Spanish State as it will elsewhere. Only three years ago on 1 October, 2017 the Catalan people voted for independence in a referendum which the Spanish State, despite brutal repression, was unable to stop. The subsequent ‘semi’ declaration of independence by Catalan leaders caused a constitutional crisis, leading to the jailing of elected politicians and others forced into exile. The tensions between the Catalan people and the Spanish State continue. At base the desire for an independent Catalonia has been the yearning for a better life, especially on the part of the youth. Capitalist Catalan independence parties such as Convergència and JxCat had in fact previously carried out vicious neoliberal policies when in government.
Catalonia remains ‘disobedient’
One perspective is that the present Covid-19 crisis and its aftermath will ignite the Catalan struggle once again. If any of the various Catalan left parties develop a clear and bold socialist programme linked to the right to self-determination and for a Catalan socialist republic, they could fill the vacuum. There is an ongoing anger in Catalonia over the political prisoners and the trampling of democratic rights. The Spanish supreme court removed the elected Catalan premier Quim Torra from office for ‘disobedience’. Torra described the action as a coup and called for new elections and a “a democratic rupture” as the “only way to advance” towards independence. More repression from the Spanish state could spark a new political crisis.
On 11 September 2021 over 400,000 took the streets in Catalonia in the Diada, the Catalan national day. Political differences are coming out into the open in the Catalan government, about how best to achieve independence.
In this context the Spanish premier, Pedro Sánchez has initiated talks with the Catalan government, led by the Catalan Republican Left (ERC). Ahead of these talks Sánchez took a decision to pardon the pro-independence leaders who had been tried and convicted by the Supreme Court for their role in the 2017 independence drive. The jailed politicians and civil leaders included the leader of the ERC and former deputy premier of Catalonia, Oriol Junqueras. The PP and VOX cried, ‘treason’, condemned Sánchez and further polarised the situation.
The PSOE — UP government does not have a parliamentary majority and relies on smaller parties like the ERC to get bills passed. The upcoming budget is another reason why Sánchez has launched talks with Catalonia.
The situation was further complicated when former Catalan premier Carles Puigdemont, who made the declaration of independence (later withdrawn) in 2017, and who has been on the run in Belgium was arrested while on a visit to Sardina.
The leader of the right-wing Popular Party (PP), Pablo Casado, published a message on Twitter calling on Puigdemont to be tried in Spain for his “coup against constitutional law.”
Puigdemont is a leader of Together for Catalunya (Junts per Catalunya) who are in coalition with ERC in Catalonia and who are slightly more hardline on the question of Catalan independence.
The mood on the Diada was highly sceptical over the talks and many around the left-wing CUP are in complete opposition to them. Dolors Sabater, an anti-capitalist MP, stressed that “the arrest is another example of repression and the position of La Moncloa (The Spanish PM’s residence in Madrid) is nonsense”. “Their position shows that they do not want to solve the conflict. The alternative is the struggle for amnesty and self-determination”, she said. “With this framework of repression, dialogue is not possible”, added Carles Riera, another CUP MP.
The social movements behind the 2017 independence movement are also highly critical of the talks at a time when up to three thousand people are still facing the prospect of legal action and sanctions for the parts they played. Elisenda Paluzie, president of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), said that the arrest is an episode of “intensification” of repression and called for mobilisation. Jordi Cuixart, president of Òmnium Cultural, declared that “it is an incomprehensible arrest, a persecution by the Spanish state”.
In December 2021 the Spanish Supreme court (TSJC) published a judgement attacking Catalan linguistic rights, which is already provoking protests.
The Basque Country
Historically, the various unresolved national questions in the Spanish State have been an enormous problem for Spanish capitalism and still are. Events in Catalonia feed into the situation in Euskal Herria and vice versa. At the moment a neoliberal Basque party PNV is in power but to the left is Euskal Herria Bildu, (former Herri Batasuna). Since ETA gave up the armed struggle Bildu has gained steadily electorally. In theory they stand for an independent, socialist Euskal Herria but over the last few years they have edged closer to PNV, calling for a ‘Basque National consensus’ and a road map to independence. Socialists oppose pacts with neoliberal parties like PNV and campaign for BILDU not to water down their programme.
Euskal Herria has always been one of the most industrialised parts of the Spanish state and there are still important industries like automotive, aeronautic and engineering. The area is heavily unionised and militant, fighting unions like ELA have the majority of workplace delegates (shop stewards), especially in education and public services. In the education sector there has already been a successful general strike in protest at the unsafe conditions when education workers and children were forced to return to school in the middle of the pandemic. There are also a series of disputes taking place over enforced redundancies through the government scheme ERTE. One workforce, Tubacex in Vitoria-Gasteiz, was on strike for over 255 days and workers have faced violent police attacks on their picket lines. Many women workers in care homes, and also cleaners are striking all over the Basque Country to achieve decent pay and better conditions.
Workers in other industries are mobilising to defend their jobs under threat in the present round of redundancies. There has been a sharp increase in days lost in strikes. There is always the possibility that national tensions could rise up again in such a volatile situation.
Defeat for Pablo Iglesias and Podemos in Madrid
As explained at the time, the defeat of Pablo Iglesias in the Madrid regional elections was a blow to the left and does raise some fundamental questions which Marxists need to address seriously. The question must be asked, do the election results represent a shift to the right in Madrid and the Spanish State?
ISA in the Spanish state argued at the time of the formation of the PSOE / UP coalition government, that instead of joining, UP should have supported the formation of a PSOE government from the outside to block the right, while retaining its political independence in opposition.
Government opinion polls at the end of August, 2021 showed a clear 4%–5% lead for the PP over PSOE, which would open up the possibilities of a PP government with the support of VOX, a situation which would have huge political and social implications in the Spanish state. However, the volatile political and social situation does not guarantee a right-wing victory at the next elections. An open battle has broken out in the PP between the national leader Casado and the leader in Madrid, Ayuso, for control of the party. This has affected the standing of the PP in the latest polls which predict no overall majority for the nightmare scenario for the working class, namely a PP/VOX coalition. In an attempt to attract VOX voters Casado and the PP made a sharp turn to the right at their last congress. This is a risky game to play given the strong opposition to a PP/VOX government particularly in the Basque Country and Catalonia.
As a further indication of the volatile situation, in the last opinion polls of 2021, the PP only held a 0.7% lead over PSOE. VOX is benefitting from the PP crisis. Commentators speak of “a scenario of enormous political instability”.
What kinds of struggles lie ahead in Spain?
Spain continues to be a highly polarised society and the Covid-19 crisis has only exacerbated that polarisation. The fact that PP/VOX could win future elections is not an indication of the rejection of left-wing ideas or the desire for fundamental change but a sign of the failure of reformist ideas and especially the Podemos project.
The last PP government introduced a far-reaching repressive law in 2015 which has come to be known as, ‘the gagging law’ (La Ley de Mordaza). It has resulted in massive fines and even jail for rappers, punk rock singers, actors, and many ordinary citizens for Facebook posts, jokes on Twitter and criticism of the monarchy and police. In an Orwellian twist people have even been fined for demonstrating against the said law! The police have sweeping powers to body search people and impose fines for showing ‘lack of respect’ to the police, which has included people asking why they are being stopped and searched!
Before the pandemic, almost 80 people a day were being sanctioned using the most repressive parts of the law. During the pandemic the law has been used extensively to clamp down on protest. Amnesty International has noted that if Spain was applying to join the EU in 2021 this law would impede its entry. The law is even too repressive for the EU! But due to the storms of protest on the horizon on many issues, the Spanish ruling class feels it necessary to keep these repressive and anti-democratic laws in place. The deeper the economic and social crisis, the more the state relies on its repressive tools.
The law has been used to protect the royal family from criticism about numerous financial scandals involving the present King’s brother-in-law, sister and father Juan Carlos, who received Euros millions in kick-backs from the theocratic Saudi regime. According to his lover at the time, the ex-King used to travel with a money counting machine on his trips abroad! The King’s brother-in-law was jailed for embezzling public money and his sister, Princess Cristina narrowly and conveniently escaped jail time on a technicality.
Capitalist and state institutions are discredited and so the establishment have used repressive laws to try and keep a lid on protest, but this will not work forever, as the street protests which broke out around the ‘Indignados’ a decade ago showed.
Disgracefully, PSOE voted with PP, Vox and Ciudadanos in the present parliament, to block an attempt to remove sedition from the gagging law.
Powerful movements in the post Covid-19 period are entirely possible, including mass explosions on the scale of the ‘Indignados’ and the Catalan independence movement.
The coronavirus crisis has yet again revealed the fundamental weakness of Spanish capitalism and the outline of what will be massive political upheavals are beginning to be seen.
A recently published report on poverty in Spain graphically outlines the miserable conditions millions of people live under in 2021.
The very young are hardest hit. Severe poverty is highest among children and young adults. 14.1% of people aged 17 and under are in severe poverty, compared to 8.6% of the rest of the population. These are the conditions which are creating a timebomb for Spanish capitalism.
Women of all ages are suffering disproportionally. Severe poverty is also extraordinarily high among people in single-parent families, the vast majority of whom are headed by women. By 2020, 18.7% of all single parents were in severe poverty. This has been a factor in the burning rage of women as shown in the feminist movement which has erupted onto the streets of the Spanish state. Not only do women suffer misogyny and sexist violence, they are also discriminated against economically in the workplace and society. Women in the Spanish state have been in the frontline in the rising feminist movement. Undoubtedly, if it had not been for the pandemic, March 8th would have developed into a day of strike action.
There was another sign of things to come when 3,500 Mercedes workers, both women and men staged the first symbolic strike on the issue of sexist violence, when a worker at the factory in the Basque capital, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Erika Tavares was murdered by her ex-partner. This will continue to be one of the central issues which socialists have to address and campaign on urgently.
The 2020 ‘State of the Poverty’ report showed that 33% of those who are poor and of working age are actually in work. These high figures show that even when people get a job it does not enable them to escape from extreme poverty. Over 988,000 people, mostly young people and women, are in work and at the same time in severe poverty. Coming out of the pandemic, struggles of low paid workers for a minimum wage will be on the agenda.
However, it must be pointed out that economic depression and poverty does not automatically bring about massive movements of the working class, but the general uncertainty prevalent in society can have and has already had major political repercussions, even during the pandemic. The strikes and struggles to defend jobs, particularly those which are taking place in the Basque Country at the moment, could be the music of the future in the whole of the Spanish state.
In fact, there was a clear sign of what is to come in the magnificent metal worker’s strike in Cádiz in November. Cadiz Metalworkers Show Way Forward for Whole Working Class in Spanish State The strike was extremely significant in that it was a revolt of the workers from below for all that they have suffered during the pandemic. The metal workers and their families tightened their belts for the common good, yet the bosses continued to make profits. The strike escalated very quickly and had 98% support! The PSOE/UP government sent riot police and incredibly, tanks to restrict the right to picket and extend the strike.
The whole of the city and region was rising up and students came out on strike in support. Hairdressers barricaded themselves into their salons in the city protesting at the 21% IVA/VAT they are forced to pay. This is a massive issue in the Spanish State, as there are thousands of ‘false’ self-employed workers such as cleaners, who pay a fifth of their meagre earnings to the state, while luxury hotel chains only pay 10%!
The government realised the Cádiz struggle was acting as a catalyst in society and so strained every nerve to sabotage it. Massive pressure was put on the union bureaucrats to call off the strike and they managed it by undemocratically forcing through a pre-agreement. However, the final word has not been spoken and the potential for further strike movements still exists.
After the strike the national police carried out a huge deployment in the Rio San Pedro neighbourhood (Puerto Real) to arrest workers who took part in the big metal strike. This repression is an attempt to criminalise workers and unions who struggle. This repression is carried out under a supposedly ‘progressive’ government! It is a further sign that the ruling class feel they need to ‘get tough’ now in preparation for the inevitable coming struggles in the Spanish state.
In the Basque Country there had been a commitment from 1 May 2021 to call for a general strike due to the many various strikes taking place in industry and the demand for well-funded public services. The two main Basque unions could not agree on a date for 2021 but sooner or later they will have to, given the anger under the surface.
As we said previously, we cannot precisely predict the course of political events arising from the new economic and political crisis, but on the basis of events after 2008, it is clear there will be fundamental changes. After 2008, in addition to the ‘Indignados’ movement, there was the historical clash between the Catalan masses and the Spanish state. A combination of intertwining and overlapping struggles are all possible. The recent environmental protests against the expansion of El Prat airport near Barcelona is feeding into the Catalan independence movement.
The apparent failure of the Podemos project at this stage needs to be analysed and discussed more deeply and by wider layers. Trade unionists, youth and left-wing activists feel the threat of the far-right party VOX, which is taking bolder actions on the streets demonstrating and harassing the left, with its sexist, homophobic, anti-immigrant and pro-business message. The real and present threat of a PP/VOX government is already having a polarising and radicalising effect.
The tasks of the ISA in the Spanish state are to thoroughly discuss and analyse developments to best orientate ourselves and to be forearmed against ‘surprises’ and to take to the streets in support of all movements of the youth, women and oppressed groups and the whole of the working class with a clear socialist program for the uniting of all struggles and for the socialist transformation of society. In this way we will rebuild revolutionary Marxist forces, that are necessary on a global scale if we are to overthrow this rotting capitalist system and replace it with a genuinely democratic, socialist world.
