On Sunday 19th June there were massive demonstrations in more than 60 cities across Spain. According to some figures there were 140, 000 in Madrid, 100,000 in Barcelona, 60,000 in Valencia, 25,000 in Seville, 8000 in Vigo, 20,000 in Bilbao, another 20,000 in Zaragoza, 10,000 in Alicante and 15,000 in Malaga.

The strength of numbers is impressive enough, but even more important was the context. In the last two weeks, politicians and the media, with the help of Real Democracia Ya from within, have been putting pressure on the movement to come up with ‘concrete proposals’, with the aim of sucking it into the swindle of democratic reforms, but on Sunday the 19th the organisers had to give this mobilisation a ‘social content’ and the demonstrations themselves showed this tendency; in Bilbao the most used slogan was “violence is not being able to make it to the end of the month”. In Valencia the lead banner was “The future is ours”, while in Valladolid it was “Unemployment and evictions are also violence”. In Madrid the demonstration was called by the Assemblies of the Neighbourhoods and People of South Madrid - the area where unemployment is most concentrated. The banner was “All together against the crisis and Capital”, and its demands were “NO CUTS IN THE WORKFORCE, PENSIONS OR SOCIAL SPENDING; AGAINST UNEMPLOYMENT; WORKERS’ STRUGGLE; DOWN WITH PRICES, UP WITH SALARIES; INCREASE TAXES ON THOSE WHO GAIN THE MOST; DEFEND PUBLIC SERVICES, NO TO THE PRIVITISATION OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, SAVINGS BANKS AND OTHERS NO MATTER WHERE THEY ORIGINATE, LONG LIVE THE UNITY OF THE WORKING CLASS”

A collective in Alicante adopted the same manifesto. In Valencia the Autonomous and Anti-capitalist Bloc, composed of collectives active in the assemblies, defended a manifesto which said “We want an answer to unemployment. The unemployed, those in temporary employment along with those working in the black economy meeting in the assemblies give our collective agreement to the following demands and their implementation. We want the withdrawal of the Law on Labour Reform and the atrocious ERE and the reduction of redundancy payments to 20 days. We want the withdrawal of the Law on Pension Reforms since behind this is a life of privation and poverty and we do not want to be thrown into yet more poverty and uncertainty. We want the stopping of evictions. The human need for housing goes beyond the blind laws of business and the maximum profit. We say NO to cuts in education and health, to the new lay-offs which are being prepared in the regional and city administration following the recent elections”

The Madrid March was organised into various columns composed of the people from 7 towns or neighbourhoods on the periphery. It gathered up increasing numbers of people as they went along. These “snakes” took up the proletarian tradition of the strikes between 1972-76 (as well as in France in May 68) of starting out from proletarian concentrations – such as the “beacon” Standard factory in Madrid. The demonstrations would then draw in growing masses of workers, neighbours, the unemployed and young as they converged on the centre. This tradition re-emerged in the struggles in Vigo in 2006 and 2009.

In Madrid, a manifesto was read to the gathering calling for the “Assemblies to prepare for a general strike”, and was greeted with massive cries of “Long live the working class”.

A moment of transition

In the article ‘From Tahrir Square to the Puerta del Sol’, we said that “Although it has given itself a symbol, the so-called 15M movement, this mobilisation did not create the movement but rather simply give it its first shell. But this shell in reality contains a utopian illusion around the idea of the ‘democratic regeneration’ of the Spanish State”. Significant sectors of the movement have tried to break from this shell, and the demonstrations of the 19th June went in this direction. We have entered a new stage. We do not know how and when it is going to manifest itself concretely but it is orientating itself towards the development of the assemblies and struggle on a class terrain against spending cuts; towards the unity of all the exploited, breaking down barriers between sectors, firms, origins, social situation etc, an orientation that can only fully move forward within the perspective of the international struggle against capitalism.

It is not going to be easy to concretise this. Firstly, this is due to the illusions and confusions about democracy, about citizenship and ‘reforms’, which weigh heavily on many parts of the movement; and they are reinforced by the pressure of the DRY, politicians, and the media, who are taking advantage of the existing doubts, the immediatist search for ‘quick and real results’, the fear faced with the magnitude of events, in order to keep the movement imprisoned in ideas about ‘reforms’, ‘citizenship’, ‘democracy’; ideas about being able to gain a ‘certain improvement’, a ‘truce’, faced with the savage unleashing of the attacks hitting us all.

Secondly, the mobilisation of the workers in the workplace will be something heroic, given the level of fear, the fact that the loss of income can be the difference for many families between an acceptable life and one of poverty or even between eating or not. In these conditions, the struggle cannot be the fruit of ‘individual decisions’, as the unions and democratic ideology try to pose it. It has to come from the development of collective strength and consciousness which can see the role of the unions who at present appear to ‘disappear in the struggle’ only to be very much in evidence in the workplace spreading their corporatist poison, struggling to keep this or that sector or firm imprisoned, opposing any attempts at open struggle.

It is probable that we are already heading towards the explosion of more or less open struggles, which will be confronted with considerable obstacles. The best contribution we can make to this process is to try and draw up a balance sheet of the unfolding situation from the 15th May to the 19th June and to draw out some perspective for the future.

These are our strengths

In the last few years a much repeated phrase has been: how is it possible that nothing has happened given everything that has happened?

When the present crisis broke out we underlined that the first struggles “would probably, in an initial moment, be desperate and relatively isolated struggles, even if they may win real sympathy from other sectors of the working class. This is why, in the coming period, the fact that we do not see a widescale response from the working class to the attacks should not lead us to consider that it has given up the struggle for the defence of its interests. It is in a second period, when it is less vulnerable to the bourgeoisie’s blackmail, that workers will tend to turn to the idea that a united and solid struggle can push back the attacks of the ruling class, especially when the latter tries to make the whole working class pay for the huge budget deficits accumulating today with all the plans for saving the banks and stimulating the economy. This is when we are more likely to see the development of broad struggles by the workers. This does not mean that revolutionaries should be absent from the present struggles. They are part of the experiences which the proletariat has to go through in order to be able to take the next step in its combat against capitalism” (Resolution on the International Situation, 18th International Congress of the ICC).

This “second stage” is beginning to mature – not without difficulty – with a series of movements, such as those in France against Pension Reforms (October 2010), that of the youth in Britain against the increase in tuition fees (November/December 2010), the big movements in Egypt and Tunisia to which can be added the present struggles in Spain and Greece.

For more than a month, assemblies and demonstrations have shown that we can unite, that this is not some utopia but rather on the contrary is a great stimulus, an immense joy. A search on the internet has brought up the following eloquent testimonies about the 19th June: “The atmosphere is that of a real festival. We marched along together, people of every age: twenty somethings, retired, families with children, those that are not in those groups... and at the same time neighbours standing on their balconies applauding us. We return home with a smile from ear to ear. Not only having the sense of having taken part in something, but something that went very well indeed”.

Faced with the social earthquake that we have been living through we have read a lot that ‘the workers are not moving’ and this has even taken the extreme form of the radical idea that ‘humanity is evil by nature’, etc. Today we are seeing the birth of solidarity, unity, collective strength. This does not mean underestimating the serious obstacles that arise from the intrinsic nature of capitalism – life and death competition, a lack of confidence between everyone – and that work against unification. This development can only come about through enormous and complicated efforts based on the unitary and massive struggle of the working class, a class that is the collective and waged producer of society’s riches; a class which has within itself the ability to reconstruct humanity’s social being.

In contrast to the bitter sense of impotence that predominates, this living experience is forging the idea we can have the strength to face up to capital and its state. “With the collapse of the eastern bloc and the so-called ‘socialist’ regimes, the deafening campaigns about the ‘end of communism’, and even the ‘end of the class struggle’ dealt a severe blow to the consciousness and combativity of the working class. The proletariat suffered a profound retreat on these two levels, a retreat which lasted for over ten years...it (the bourgeoisie) managed to create a strong feeling of powerlessness within the working class because it was unable to wage any massive struggles” (Resolution on the International Situation, 18th International Congress).

As a demonstrator in Madrid said “It is very interesting to see the people in the square, discussing politics or struggling for their rights. Doesn’t this give the sensation that we are retaking the streets?” This retaking of the streets shows that a sense of collective strength is beginning to mature. The road is long and hard, but the bases for the explosion of the massive struggles of the working class are being laid. This will allow the working class to develop confidence in itself and an understanding that it is a social force capable of facing up to this system and building a new society.

The 15th May cannot be reduced to an explosion of indignation. It has provided the means for being able to understand the causes of the struggle and the way to organise of the struggles: the daily assemblies. A demonstrator on the 19th June said “the best is the assemblies, speaking is free, people understand, think at a high level, thousands of people who do not know each other come to common agreements. Isn’t that marvellous?”

The working class is not a disciplined army whose members can be very convinced but whose role is to follow orders from a great leader. This vision of the world must be placed in the museum of history as an old piece of junk! The working class has to be seen as a mass that thinks, discusses, acts, organises in a collective and fraternal manner, combining the best of each in a gigantic synthesis of common action. The concrete means of implementing this vision are the assemblies. “All power to the assemblies” – this was heard in Madrid and Valencia. “The slogan ‘all power to the assemblies’ which has emerged from within the movement, even if only among a minority, is a remake of the old slogan of the Russian revolution: ‘all power to the soviets’”.

In an even more embryonic way, the movement is posing the necessity of an international struggle. On the demonstration in Valencia there were shouts of “This movement has no frontiers”. Initiatives along these lines have appeared elsewhere, even though still timid and confused. Various camps have organised demonstrations “for a European revolution”; on the 15th June there were demonstrations in support of the struggle in Greece. On the 19th June there were internationalist slogans: a placard declaring “A happy world union”, and another in English “World Revolution”.

For years, the so-called ‘globalisation of the economy’ has been used by the left wing of the bourgeoisie to provoke nationalist sentiments, with its talk about ‘stateless markets’, ‘national sovereignty’, that is, calling on workers to be more nationalist than the bourgeoisie itself! With the development of the crisis but also with the growth of the use of the internet, social networks, etc, young workers have begun to question this. A sense that faced with the globalisation of the economy it is necessary to respond with an international globalisation of the struggles, faced with world poverty the only possible answer is a world struggle.

The movement has had wide repercussions. The demonstrations that have been developing over the last two months in Greece have followed the same ‘model’ of concentrations and mass assemblies in the main squares, which have been directly and consciously stimulated by the events in Spain. According to Kaosenlared on the 19th June “thousands of people of all ages have demonstrated this Sunday in Syntagma Square, in front of the Greek parliament, on consecutive Sundays in response to the so-called pan-European movement of the ‘indignant’ in order to protest against the austerity measures”.

In France, Belgium, Mexico, Portugal, there have been regular assemblies, though smaller in scale, which have expressed solidarity with the indignant and tried to stimulate discussion. “About 300 people, in the majority young, marched on Sunday evening to the centre of Lisbon called by the “Democracia Real Ya”, inspired by the Spanish ‘indignant’. The Portuguese marched calmly behind a banner which read ‘Europe arise’, ‘Spain, Greece, Ireland, Portugal: our struggle is international’; in France “The French police arrested about hundred “indignant” when they tried to demonstrate in front of Notre Dame, in Paris. In the evening, there was a spontaneous sit down demonstration in order to protest about what had happened along the lines of what happened in Spain”.

Faced with an unbearable situation prepare new struggles!

The sovereign debt crisis worsens by the moment. The supposed experts recognise that in place of the oft-announced ‘recovery’ the world economy could be undergoing a new collapse worse than October 2008. Greece is a bottomless pit: rescue plan leads to other rescue plans and still the state is on the edge of defaulting, a phenomenon that is not confined to Greece but even threatens the USA, the world’s main power.

The debt crisis shows the endless crisis of capitalism, which makes it necessary for the ruling class to impose savage austerity plans that mean unemployment, cuts in social spending, wages cuts, increases in exploitation, increase in taxes... all of which leads to a reduction in the solvent market, which means new austerity plans!

This spiral means that there is no other road to take than massive struggle. This struggle can and should be pushed forward by the intervention of the widespread minority in the assemblies which is distinguished by its defence of a class positions, the independence of the assemblies and the struggle against capitalism. The camps are breaking up; the central assemblies are not taking place; there is a contradictory network of neighbourhood assemblies. However, this minority cannot allow itself to become dispersed. It has to maintain its unity, coordinate itself nationally and if possible establish international contacts. The forms of these collectives are very varied: struggle assemblies, action committees, discussion groups.... The important thing is that they provide a means for the development of discussion and struggle. There is a need to discuss the numerous questions that have been raised in the last few months: reform or revolution? Democracy or assemblies? Citizens’ movement or class movement? Democratic demands or demands against cuts in social spending? Pacifism or class violence? Apoliticism or class politics? It’s a struggle to impulse the assemblies and self-organisation. It is necessary to develop the sense of strength and unity in order to respond to the brutal cuts that the regional governments are preparing in education and health, and the other ‘surprises’ that the government has hidden up its sleeve.

“The situation today is very different from the one that prevailed at the time of the historic resurgence of the class at the end of the 60s. At that time, the massive character of workers’ struggles, especially with the immense strike of May 68 in France and the Italian ‘hot autumn’ of 69, showed that the working class can constitute a major force in the life of society and that the idea it could one day overthrow capitalism was not an unrealisable dream. However, to the extent that the crisis of capitalism was only just beginning, a consciousness of the imperious necessity to overturn this system did not yet have the material base to spread among the workers. We can summarise this situation in the following way: at the end of the 1960s, the idea that the revolution was possible could be relatively widely accepted, but the idea that it was indispensable was far less easy to understand. Today, on the other hand, the idea that the revolution is necessary can meet with an echo that is not negligible, but the idea that it is possible is far less widespread.” (Resolution on the International Situation, 18th International Congress of the ICC).

In the assemblies there has been much talk of revolution, the destruction of this inhuman system. The word ‘revolution’ is no longer frightening. The road may be long, but the movement that developed from the 15th May to the 19th June has shown that it is possible to struggle, that it is possible to organise ourselves for the struggle and that this alone will enable us to grow into a force against capital and its state, while at the same time giving us joy, vitality, and allowing us to get out of the terrible hole of daily life under capitalism.

“Both for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness, and for the success of the cause itself, the alteration of men on a mass scale is, necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution; this revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew.”

In this sense, the movement we are living through is grist to the mill of this change of mentality and attitude. This great change, of society and ourselves, can only take place on a world scale. Through searching for solidarity and unity with the whole of the international proletariat, the proletariat in Spain can undoubtedly develop new struggles and take forward this perspective: the future is in our hands! 

ICC 24/6/11

The May 15 movement in Spain (15M) initiated by Democracia Real Ya (DRY), which is backed by the ‘alternative world’  group ATTAC, has also had some offspring in France, notably in Paris, with the objective of “taking the Place de la Bastille”. In the assemblies in Paris, some ICC militants went to defend class positions and not as simple “citizens” claiming “real democracy now” in the framework of preserving the capitalist system.

Our comrades also brought along a table for showing our publications in the public area where the assemblies were taking place.

May 29, the organisers of DRY came after us protesting with the following arguments:

• that this movement was “apolitical” and accepted no party, no political group and no unions;

• that the distribution of our press could only “divide” the movement.

A minor altercation then broke out between militants of the ICC and some militants of DRY who asked us, quite scathingly, to pack up and go. Here are the arguments that we used against this attempt to shut us up:

• No movement of social protest is “apolitical”. The apoliticism of DRY is just a pure hypocrisy. We know perfectly well that behind the banner of DRY lies ATTAC and its followers who hide behind its ‘alternative world’ ideology;

• We are not a political party and still less an electoral party;

• DRY does exactly the same thing as the Stalinists in trying to turf us out of public areas considered by them as their back-yard, their “territory”;

• Contrary to DRY and all the other bourgeois groups, unions and political parties present in this movement, the ICC doesn’t hide its colours (even if when we speak in the Assemblies we don’t talk in the name of our political organisation);

• Even the cops, present at the scene behind their shields, seem more “democratic” than DRY, since they didn’t demand that we moved on. When we insisted on the irony of this situation of a Democracia Real Ya more coercive than the French forces of state repression, the members of DRY were particularly discomforted.

We thus refused to allow ourselves to be taken hostage by the law imposed on us by DRY and remained in the Place de la Bastille and moved aside a little in order to make way for the assembly.

On Sunday June 12, an assembly organised by DRY took place in the boulevard Richard-Lenoir in Paris. Our militants were also present and again brought their table for the press.

Same scenario: some militants of DRY came across to make a scene and get us to clear off with the same arguments. We told them that we had come back from Barcelona and that in Catalonia Square the “indignant” were pleased that we were showing our press. The “logistical commission” had lent us two trestles and boards in order to display our publications. One of the “indignant” from the “art commission” even lent us a megaphone so that we could organise a discussion around our press table.

In an outburst, a militant of DRY didn’t believe us and demanded some “proof”. We showed her our video camera to demonstrate that we weren’t bluffing. We had filmed in the square in Barcelona where one could clearly see the ICC’s press display on the table. But this militant of DRY made like an ostrich and refused to look at our video. She then demanded if the “indignant” of Barcelona had given us... “papers” authorising our press table! Perhaps DRY wanted papers stamped by the local police authorising us to distribute our press?

In reality what the militants of DRY did not want to see above all was the indignation of the “indignant” of Barcelona against the manoeuvres of DRY who, under cover of apoliticism and a-partyism, sabotaged the debates by muzzling the voices who did not sing the praises of citizenship and the bourgeois republic. Here’s the real face of the “real democracy” of DRY!

Truly, the “international extension” of 15M is only a masquerade behind which DRY tries to dragoon the exploited and the young generations of the working class into a “popular front”, shoulder to shoulder with citizens belonging to the left and the right of capital (and even the extreme-right, as this very militant “citizen” of DRY told us).

Against the dictates of DRY, against its reactionary “popular front”, the exploited must oppose a class front!

ICC, June 14th, 2011.

Over recent weeks the squares of the main Spanish cities have seen thousands of people coming together in assemblies where anyone who wants to can speak and can talk with confidence about the lack of a future we are faced with and what we can do about it. And they will be listened to with respect. There is discussion everywhere, in little groups, in bars, between the different generations, the young and the retired; and this has created a collective sense of excitement, of unity, creativity, reflection and discussion around the need to come together in order to understand what we can do about the “no future” capitalism offers us.

What is going on? Are those who say that from the beginning this was a just citizens’ movement for democratic reform, a set up, being proved right? Or is there an attack going on against the assemblies, a sabotage in order to put an end to this massive coming together, this discussion and reflection, because the state is scared and under pressure?

Mass assemblies: not “for democracy” but “despite democracy”

Two days after the brutal repression of the demonstrations of 15th May (the movement of the “indignant” which in Spain is known at the “15-M movement”) the setting up of a camp in the Puerta del Sol served as example for other cities. Ever-increasing numbers of people took part in a completely spontaneous movement of assemblies and discussions. There is a cynical lie being put about that the ¡Democracia Real Ya! Movement began this movement. These same “exemplary citizens” were very concerned to make it clear at that point that the movement to set up camps was nothing to do with them. Or as is said in a text by some anarchists from Madrid: “they distanced themselves in the most disgusting way possible from the events that happened after the demonstration and fingered those who were involved in them”.

On the one hand: the worsening of the attacks on our living conditions, unemployment, evictions, cuts in social spending. On the other hand, the example of Tahrir Square and North Africa, the pensions struggle in France, the students in Great Britain, Greece, the discussions in the workplaces or among revolutionary minorities, the comments on Facebook or Twitter, and of course all the expressions of being fed up with corruption and parliamentary antics... All this and more, has brought about the explosion of discontent and indignation, the unleashing of a torrent of vitality and struggle, ripping open the passivity and the voting of democratic normality.

Thousands and at times tens of thousands of people have come together in the central squares of the most important cities in Spain, turning them into real “agoras”. They have come after work, camped, with their families, searching... and they have talked and talked. Speech has been “freed”[2] in the assemblies. Even the most anti-state have recognized that this movement is not within the channels of the democratic state, as the above anarchist text says: “It is as if, suddenly, passivity and everyman for himself has broken down around the Puerto Del Sol... In the first days there were small groups talking about things, people gathered around to listen, to say something. It was normal to see people arguing in small groups. The work groups and general assemblies were massive events bringing together 500, 600 and 2000 people (sitting, standing, coming together to listen to something) etc. And apart from this, this permanent sense of a good atmosphere, of ‘this is something special’. All this reached its peak on the Friday/Saturday night when a day of reflection began. 20,000 were heard shouting ‘We are illegal’ like children enjoying breaking the law, this was invigorating and impressive”.

The movement has certainly not posed the question of an open confrontation with the democratic state. In fact, each attempt to arrive at concrete demands has deviated towards “democratic reform”, towards introducing the slogans of “Real Democracy Now!” And this is normal, given the working class's lack of confidence in its ability to launch itself into struggle, its lack of clarity about the perspective, and above all given the need for the working class to recover its class identity as the revolutionary subject, and thus its ability to become the head of a revolutionary offensive. However, discussion, reflection and the attempt to take the struggle in hand are precisely the way to gain confidence, sharpen clarity and recover class identity. This has been seen, particularly in Barcelona, in the efforts by striking workers to unite with the assemblies, and the calling of united demonstrations around workers’ demands in Tarrasa[3]. The real confrontation with the democratic state has been taking place in the self-organized and mass assemblies that have spread throughout the country and beyond.

And this is just what the state cannot tolerate.

The response of the state: re-establish the democratic channels

After the first attempt to put a brake on events at the end of the election week on the 22nd May[4] - legally banning the gathering, which was flouted by the massive demonstrations in the squares at the hour when the law came into force, i.e. the early hours of Saturday the 21st May -  the strategy has been to combine the natural weakening of the movement due to tiredness and the difficulty to put forward a perspective for the struggle with sabotage of the movement from the inside.

When the movement began to weaken, a week after the municipal elections, the state unleashed a strategy of media recuperation in Madrid and Barcelona.

In Madrid the complaints of small businessmen and shopkeepers around the Puerta Del Sol were given free reign in order to make the campers feel guilty for the crisis. Support was given for a strategy of dismantling the massive camp and just leaving an “information point”.

In Barcelona, the calculated intervention by Catalan police[5], while initially leading to an increase in the numbers taking part in the gatherings[6], eventually led to the complete derailing of the discussions toward the democratic demand for the resignation of the Catalan interior minister, Felip Puig, joining in with the opposition against the new government of the right and the nationalists.

None of this would have had the same impact if it had not been for the work from the inside by Real Democracy Now!

Sabotage from within: the dictatorship of ¡Democracia Real Ya!

In the first few days, faced with the avalanche of assemblies, ¡Democracia Real Ya! (DRY) had no option but to keep a low profile, but this did not mean that it did not try to gain positions in the key commissions of the camps and to spread its positions about citizens reforming the system, such as its famous “Ten Commandments” and similar things; of course, without openly showing its face and defending apoliticism in order to prevent those with other political opinions spreading their ideas, while DRY were left free to spread theirs (unsigned).

The anarchists in Madrid already detected this ambiance at the beginning of the movement: “In many commissions and groups we are seeing everything from the accidental loss of minutes, personal ambitions, people who cling to being spokesmen like glue, delegates who remain quiet at general assemblies, commissions that ignore agreements, small groups who want to maintain the refreshment stand etc. For sure many of these are the result of inexperience and inflated egos, others however appear to be directly taken from the old manuals on how to manipulate assemblies”.

We had to wait until the first symptoms of the reflux of the movement before seeing the real offensive of the “citizens' movement” against the assemblies.

At the Puerta Del Sol they (DRY) accepted the complaints of the shopkeepers and hastened the dismantling of the camp in order to leave an “information point”. They filtered the interventions at the assemblies, which were already only discussing the proposals of the commissions, which they controlled. They openly presented their positions as the expression of the movement, rather than having them discussed in the assemblies. DRY called coordinating meetings of the neighborhood assemblies without having been elected as delegates to represent the assembly. They even held a national coordination assembly on 4th June that no one in the general assemblies knew about... And the same dynamic could be seen in all the large cities.

In Barcelona freedom of speech has been kidnapped: the assemblies simply have to pronounce on proposals formulated behind their backs. Conferences of intellectuals and professors have replaced discussion. One of the most obvious symptoms of this offensive against the assemblies has been the increasing weight of nationalism. In the week after the 15th May thousands of people packed into the Plaza de Cataluňa and discussed in different languages, translating into various languages the communiqués issued and received. There was not a single Catalan flag. Recently however, it has been voted that Catalan is the only language used.

In Valencia it has been more of the same but on a wider scale. The text Control of the Assemblies in Valencia, which has circulated anonymously, makes this clear “Since the 27th the internal dynamic of the camp and the daily assemblies has changed radically... and in them it is already almost not possible to talk about politics and social problems... It can be summed up as follows: the commission of ‘citizen participation’ and another called the ‘judicial’ commission, in total 15-20 people, have taken absolute control of the moderation of the assemblies; they are ‘professional moderators’ who impose themselves though cliques and commissions... All the placards with any political, economic or simply social content have been removed from the square. Now it is a kind of alternative fair... There is no freedom of speech in the square or assembly. In the commissions they have been able to install the dictatorship of the system of ‘minimum consensus’ with the result that you can never arrive at any substantial agreement. They have presented a document, which they claim has already been adopted, called ‘Citizen, Participate!’ which contains many beautiful things but establishes that only the commissions have the right to present proposals to the assemblies. In this text, it is established that it will be obligatory for the commissions to function by minimum consensus... this is total control in order to empty out the content of the movement.” And things have not stopped there: today a demonstration against attacks on pensions was converted into a protest against article 87.3 of the Constitution: whilst the retired shouted “for a minimum pension of €800” and “for retirement at 60”, the citizen movement shouted “prisoners since 78”[7] in order to demand a more representative Constitution.

However it has been in Seville where the DRY has exposed itself most clearly. It shamelessly asked for a blank cheque from the assemblies, to do with what it wants according to its whim. It has even dared to call upon the participants to hold their assemblies under its initials.

What is at stake?

It is increasingly clear that the strategy of DRY, in the service of the democratic state, consists of putting forward the idea of a citizens’ movement for democratic reform, in order to try and avoid the emergence of a social struggle against the democratic state, against capitalism. The facts have shown however that, when the enormous accumulated social discontent finds even a small area to express itself, it pushed to one side the moaners about the “perfect” democracy. Neither DRY nor the democratic state can stop the development of social discontent and militancy, but they can put all kinds of obstacles in its way.

The drive against the assemblies is one of them. For a “large minority” (if we can be allowed to use paradoxical terminology) these assemblies are a reference point of how to look for solidarity and confidence, of how to discuss, in order to take charge of the struggles against the terrible attacks on our living conditions. Continuing discussing, like in the assemblies, even if these meetings are only small, is the way to prepare the struggles. Organising mass and open assemblies each time there is a struggle is the example to follow. DRY's sabotage and the imposition of a citizen’s movement could make a part of this “growing minority” become disillusioned and think that “it was all a dream”. They cannot erase history like Big Brother, but they can confuse our memory.

Therefore the alternative is to defend the assemblies where they still have some vitality; to struggle against and denounce the sabotage of DRY; and to call for the continuation of the struggle where possible, to fight for taking control of the discussion and struggle. To do this, the most determined minorities in the assemblies during struggles need to get together.

The struggle against capitalism is possible! The future belongs to the working class!

International Communist Current,  03.06.2011

A inoffensive protest was called against the new Valencian Regional Government. It asked the politicians not to be corrupt and to listen to the citizens: it was thus caught up in the folds of the illusion that the state “expresses the will of the people”.

The response of the state was very salutatory: demonstrators were beaten, dragged about, and subjected to arrogant and brutal treatment: 18 wounded and 5 arrested. They were not treated as “citizens” but as subjects.

News of this provoked strong indignation. A demonstration was called for 20.15 at the Colon metro (in the center of Valencia), in front of a regional government office. The demonstration grew little by little; a second march came from the Plaza de Virgen -where there had been a gathering held using the Valencian language – which joined up with the demonstration, to great applause. It was spontaneously decided to go the central police station where it was assumed the arrested were being held. The demonstration grow by the minute: people from the Ruzafa neighborhood joined the march or applauded from their balconies. “Free the arrested” “Don't look at us, they also rob you” were shouted. When they arrived at the centre of Zapadores the crowd came together in a large seated gathering, shouting “we are not leaving without them”; “if they are not sent out we will come in”... News of solidarity from the Barcelona assembly[1] arrived and also that the Madrid camp had held another solidarity demonstration in front of Parliament[2]. In Barcelona the shout went up “No more violence in Santiago and Valencia” (in Santiago there had been a police charge).

An hour later, after receiving news that the arrested -they had been transferred to the Central Courts- would be set free, the demonstration broke up, and several hundred went to the Central Courts to await their release, which happened after midnight.

We can draw some lessons from these events.

Firstly the strength of solidarity. The arrested were not abandoned. It was not left to the “good will of justice”: we took this in hand ourselves, because they were our own. Throughout history solidarity has been a vital strength of the exploited classes, and with the historic struggle of the proletariat it has become central to its struggle and a pillar of a future society, the world human community, communism[3]. Solidarity is destroyed by capitalist society which is based on its opposite: competition, each against all, every man for himself.

Along with solidarity there has been a growing indignation against the democratic state. Police charges in Madrid and Granada along with the inhuman treatment inflicted on the arrested in Madrid sparked off the 15th May movement. The cynical and brutal police attack in Barcelona showed the true face of the democratic state, which is usually hidden by the theatrical scenery of “free elections” and “citizen participation”. The repression in Valencia and Santiago on Friday, and today, Saturday, in Salamanca, shows this yet again.

It is necessary to reflect upon this and discuss it. Are the events in Madrid, Granada, Barcelona, Valencia, Salamanca and Santiago “exceptions” due to excesses or errors? Will the reform of electoral law, the LIP (Popular Legislature Initiatives) and other propositions for “democratic consensus” put an end to these outrages and place the state in the service of the people?

In order to answer these questions we have to understand what role the state carries out. In every country the state is the tool of the privileged and exploiting minority, the tool of capital. This applies as much to Spain, even though it uses democratic deodorant, as it does to the foulest smelling dictatorship.

The state is not held together by “citizen participation”, but by the army, the police, the courts, the prisons, political parties, unions and bosses etc; that is to say, an immense bureaucratic network in the service of capital which oppresses and feasts on the blood of the majority and is periodically legitimised by the electoral puppet show, popular consultation, referendums etc.

This “hidden face” of the state is covered over by the multicolored lights of democracy. This is clearly seen in the laws such as the pension reforms, labour reforms, and the new measures recently adopted by the government, the ERE (Expedient Regulation of Employment), which removes regulations around laid-off workers and also reduces redundancy payments to 20 days pay for each year worked, rather than the previous 45 days. Or as when the police share out their batons “in order to avoid problems” as Rubalcaba[4] euphemistically put it. Repression is not the heritage of this or that party or this or that ideology. It is the necessary and conscious response of the state each time the interests of the capitalist class are threatened, or whenever these interests need to be strengthened and propped up.

Immediatism, the pressure “to do something concrete”, led an important part of the assemblies -encouraged by groups such as Real Democracy Now! – to have confidence in the illusion of “democratic reform”: electoral laws, open lists, popular legislative initiatives... This looks like an easy, “concrete” road, but in reality it does nothing more than reinforce illusions about being able to improve the state and “put at the service of everyone”. This only results in bashing our heads against the armour-plated walls of the capitalist state.

In the assemblies there has been a lot of talk about “changing this society”, about putting an end to this social system and economic injustices. This has expressed the aspiration for a world where exploitation no longer exists, where “we are not commodities”, where production is in the service of life and not life in the service of production, where there is a world human society without frontiers.

But how do we achieve this? Is the Jesuit maxim “the end justifies the means” valid? Is it possible to change the system using the means of participation they deceive us with?

The means used have to be coherent with the desired end. Not every thing is valid! The atomisation and individualism of the ballot box isn't, nor is the delegation of these things into the hands of politicians, nor are the sordid machinations of daily politics – in short the usual methods of the democratic game. These “means” are radically different from the ends. The means for drawing us closer to our objective -although it is still far away – are the assemblies, direct collective action in the street, solidarity, the international struggle of the working class.

ICC 11.6.11

While the media has been full of Obama’s ‘triumphant’ visit to Europe, or the scandal about Dominique Strauss-Khan, they have not told us much about the real earthquake hitting Europe: a vast social movement which is centred in Spain but which is having an immediate echo in Greece and threatens to break out in other countries as well.

The events in Spain have been unfolding since 15 May with the occupation of the Puerto del Sol Square in Madrid by a human wave made up mainly of young people rebelling against unemployment, the Zapatero government’s austerity measures, and the corruption of politicians. The movement spread like wildfire to all the main cities in the country - to Barcelona, Valencia, Grenada, Seville, Malaga, Leon – making use of social media like Facebook and Twitter, and videos uploaded onto Youtube; and that’s largely how we have got information about the movement outside of Spain, because the bourgeois media have pretty much imposed a black-out on the events. If they would far rather have us thinking about Obama, or Dominique Strauss Kahn, or the travails of Cheryl Cole, it’s because this movement represents a very important step in the development of social struggles and of the combat of the world working class faced with the dead-end that is capitalism.

The premises of the movement

The movement of the ‘indignos’, the ‘indignant’, in Spain has been fermenting since the general strike of 29 September 2010 against the planned reform of pensions. This general strike ended in a defeat mainly because the trade unions sat down with the government and accepted its proposed changes (which involves workers who have been active for 40-45 years getting 20% less when they retire than they had expected). This defeat gave rise to considerable bitterness within the working class. But it also provoked a profound anger among the young people who played an active part in the strike movement, in particular by expressing their solidarity with the workers’ pickets.

From the beginning of 2011 the anger began to take shape in the universities. In March, in Portugal, a call-out to a demonstration by the group ‘Precarious Youth’ mustered 250,000 people in Lisbon. This example had an immediate impact in the Spanish universities, especially in Madrid. The great majority of students and young people under 30 have to live on 600 euros a month by taking on part-time jobs. It was in this context that a hundred or so students formed the group ‘Jovenes sin Futuro’ (Young People with no Future). These impecunious students, who come mainly from the working class, called for a demonstration on 7 April. The success of this initial mobilisation, which brought around 5000 people together, incited the Jovenes sin Futuro group to plan another demo for 15 May. In the meantime the collective Democracia Real Ya (Real Democracy Now) appeared in Madrid. Its platform denounces unemployment and the “dictatorship of the market”, but claims to be “apolitical” - neither left nor right. Democracia Real Ya also launched an appeal to demonstrate on 15 May in other towns. But it was in Madrid that the procession had the greatest success, with about 250,000 demonstrators. It was meant to be a well-behaved march that would end tranquilly in Puerto del Sol.

The anger of the ‘no future’ youth spreads to the whole population

The demonstrations of 15 May called by Democracia Real Ya were a spectacular success: they expressed a general discontent, especially among young people faced with the problem of unemployment at the end of their studies. Everything was due to end there, but at the end of the demonstrations in Madrid and Grenada some incidents provoked by small ‘Black Bloc’ groups led to a police charge and about 20 arrests. Those arrested were treated brutally in the police stations, and afterwards they formed a collective which issued a communiqué denouncing the police violence. The publication of this communiqué immediately provoked an indignant reaction and widespread solidarity against the forces of order. Thirty totally unknown and unorganised people decided to set up a camp on Puerto del Sol. This initiative immediately won popular sympathy and the example spread to Barcelona, Grenada and Valencia. A second round of police repression lit the touch paper and since then increasingly massive gatherings in central squares have been taking place in over 70 towns.   

On the afternoon of Tuesday 17 May, the organisers of the ’15 May movement’ had envisaged holding silent protests or various dramatic performances, but the crowd that had come together in the squares shouted loudly for the holding of assemblies. At 8 in the evening, assemblies began to take place in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and other cities. From Wednesday 18th, these assemblies became a real avalanche. Everywhere gatherings took the form of open general assemblies in public spaces.

In the face of police repression and given the prospect of municipal and regional elections, the Democracia Real Ya collective launched a debate around the theme of the “democratic regeneration” of the Spanish state. It called for a reform of the electoral reform in order to put an end to the two-party system monopolised by the Socialist Party (PSOE) and the right-wing Popular Party, calling for a “real democracy” after 34 years of “incomplete democracy” since the fall of the Franco regime.

But the movement of the ‘indignos’ to a great extent went beyond the democratic and reformist platform of Democracia Real Ya. It did not restrict itself to the revolt of the “600 euro generation”. In the demonstrations and the occupied squares of Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Malaga, Seville etc, on the placards and banners you could read slogans like “Democracy without capital!”, “PSOE and PP, the same shit!”, “If you won’t let us dream, we won’t let you sleep!”, “All power to the assemblies!”, “The problem is not democracy, the problem is capitalism!”, “Without work, without a home, without fear!”, “Workers awake!”, “600 euros a month, now that’s violence!”.

In Valencia a group of women shouted “They tricked the grand-parents, they tricked their children too – the grandchildren must not allow themselves to be tricked as well!”

Mass assemblies, a “weapon loaded with the future”

In the face of bourgeois democracy which reduces “political participation” to every four years “choosing” between politicians who never keep their election promises and who just get on with implementing the austerity plans required by the remorseless deepening of the economic crisis, the movement of the ‘indignos’ in Spain has spontaneously re-appropriated a working class fighting weapon: the open general assemblies. Everywhere massive urban assemblies have sprung up, regrouping tens of thousands of people from all the generations and all the non-exploiting layers of society. In these assemblies, everyone can speak up, express their anger, hold debates on different questions, and make proposals. In this atmosphere of general ferment, tongues are set free; all aspects of social life are examined (political, cultural, economic...). The squares have been inundated by a gigantic collective wave of ideas that are discussed in a climate of solidarity and mutual respect. In some towns “ideas boxes” have been set up, containers where anyone can write down their ideas on a piece of paper. The movement organises itself with a great deal of intelligence. Commissions on all sorts of questions are set up, and care is taken to avoid disorganised clashes with the forces of order. Violence within the assemblies is forbidden and drunkenness banned with the slogan “La revolucion no es botellón” (rough translation: “the revolution is not a piss up”). Each day, clean-up teams are organised. Public canteens serve meals, volunteers set up nursing centres and crèches for children. Libraries are put in place as well as a “time bank”, where talks are given on all sorts of questions – scientific, cultural, artistic, political, and economic. “Days of reflection” are planned. Everyone brings along their knowledge and skills.

On the surface, this torrent of thought seems to lead nowhere. There are few concrete proposals or immediately realisable demands. But what appears clearly is first and foremost a huge sentiment of being fed up with poverty, with austerity plans, with the present social order; and at the same time a collective will to break out of social atomisation, to get together to discuss and reflect. In spite of the many illusions and confusions, in what people say as well as on the placards and banners, the word “revolution” has re-appeared and people are not afraid of it.

In the assemblies, the debates have raised the most fundamental questions:

-          should we limit ourselves to “democratic regeneration”? Don’t the problems have their origin in capitalism, a system which can’t be reformed and which has to be destroyed from top to bottom?

-          Should the movement end on 22 May, after the elections, or should it continue and develop into a massive struggle against the attacks on living conditions, unemployment, casualisation, evictions?

-          Should we not extend the assemblies to the workplaces, to the neighbourhoods, to the employment offices, to the high schools, to the universities? Should we root the movement among the employed workers who have the strength to lead a generalised struggle? 

In the debates in the assemblies, two tendencies have appeared very clearly:

-          a conservative one, animated by non-proletarian social strata, which sows the illusion that it is possible to reform the capitalist system through a “democratic citizens’ revolution”;

-          the other, a proletarian tendency, which highlights the necessity to do away with capitalism

The assemblies that were held on Sunday 22 May, the day of the elections, decided to continue the movement. Numerous speakers declared: “we are not here because of the elections, even if they were the detonator”. The proletarian tendency affirmed itself most clearly in the proposals to “go towards the working class” by putting forward demands against unemployment, casualisation, social attacks. At Puerta del Sol, the decision was taken to organise “popular assemblies” in the neighbourhoods. Proposals were made to do the same thing in the workplaces, the universities, the employment offices. In Malaga, Barcelona and Valencia, the assemblies posed the question of organising demonstrations against reductions in the social wage, proposing a new general strike: “a real one this time” as one of the speakers put it.

It was in Barcelona, the industrial capital of the country, that the central assembly at Catalonia Square seemed to be the most radical, the most infused by the proletarian tendency and the most distant from the illusion of “democratic regeneration”. Thus, the workers from the Telefonica, the hospitals, the fire-fighters, the students battling social cuts joined up with Barcelona assembly and began to give it a different tonality. On 25 May, the Catalonia Square assembly decided to give active support to the hospital workers’ strike, while the assembly at Puerta del Sol in Madrid decided to decentralise the movement by convoking “popular assemblies” in the neighbourhoods in order to put a participatory, “horizontal” democracy into practice.    In Valencia, demonstrating bus workers got together with a demonstration of local residents against cuts in the schools budget. In Zaragoza, bus drivers joined the assemblies with the same enthusiasm.

In Barcelona, the “indignos” decided to maintain their camp and to continue the occupation of Catalonia Square until June 15.  

The future is in the hands of the young generation of the working class

Whatever direction the movement goes in, whatever its outcome, it is clear that this revolt, initiated by a young generation confronted with unemployment (in Spain 45% of the population aged between 20 and 25 is out of work) is definitely part of the struggle of the working class. Its contribution to the international movement of the class is undeniable.

It is a generalised movement which has drawn in all the non-exploiting social strata, and all the generations of the working class. Even if the class has been part of a wave of “popular” anger and has not affirmed itself through massive strikes and specific economic demands, this movement still expresses a real maturation of consciousness within the only class that can change the world: the proletariat. It reveals clearly that, in front of the increasingly evident bankruptcy of capitalism, significant masses of people are beginning to rise up in the “democratic” countries of Western Europe, opening the way towards the politicisation of the proletarian struggle.

But, above all, this movement has shown that the young people, the great majority of them casual workers or unemployed, have been able to appropriate the weapons of the working class struggle: massive and open general assemblies, which have allowed them to affirm their solidarity and take control of the movement outside the political parties and trade unions.

The slogan “all power to the assemblies” which has emerged from within the movement, even if only among a minority, is a remake of the old slogan of the Russian revolution: “all power to the soviets”.

Even though today people are still fearful of the word “communism” (owing to the weight of the bourgeois campaigns after the fall of the Stalinist regimes of the old eastern bloc), the word “revolution” doesn’t scare anyone, on the contrary.

But this movement is in no way a “Spanish Revolution” as the Democracia Real Ya collective presents it. Unemployment, casualisation, the high cost of living and the constant deterioration of living conditions for the exploited are not at all a Spanish specificity! The sinister face of unemployment, especially among the young, has made its appearance in Madrid as in Cairo, in London as in Paris, in Athens as in Buenos Aires. We are all together in this downward spiral. We are all facing the decomposition of capitalist society, which expresses itself not only in poverty and unemployment, but also in the multiplication of disasters and wars, in the dislocation of social relations and a growing moral barbarity (which expresses itself, among other things, in the growth of sexual aggression and violence against women both in the “Third World” and the “advanced” countries.

The movement of the “indignos” is not a revolution. It is only a new step in the development of the working class struggle on global scale – the only struggle that can open up a perspective for the youth “with no future” and for humanity as a whole.

Despite all the illusions about the “Independent Republic of Puerta del Sol”, this movement is evidence that the horizon of a new society is taking shape in the entrails of the old. The “Spanish earthquake” shows that the new generations of the working class, who have nothing to lose, are already becoming actors on the stage of history. They are precursors of even greater storms that will clear the road to the emancipation of humanity.

Through the use of the internet, of social networks and mobile phones, this young generation has shown that it can break through the black-out of the bourgeoisie and its media, laying the basis for solidarity across national borders.

This new generation emerged on the international social scene around 2003, first in the protests against the military interventions of the Bush administration, then with the first demonstrations in France against the reform of pensions in 2003. It reappeared in the same country in 2006 with the massive movement of university and high school students against the CPE. In Greece, Italy, Portugal, Britain, young people in education made their voices heard in response to the future of absolute poverty and unemployment that capitalism is offering them.

The tidal wave of this “no future” generation recently struck Tunisia and Egypt, resulting in a gigantic social revolt which toppled Ben Ali and Mubarak. But it should not be forgotten that the decisive element which forced the bourgeoisie in the main “democratic” countries (especially Barack Obama) to dump Ben Ali and Mubarak was the emergence of workers’ strikes and the danger of a general strike movement.

Since then, Tahrir Square has become an emblem, an encouragement to struggle for the younger generation of proletarians in many countries. This was the model the “indignos” in Spain followed when they set up their camp in Puerta del Sol, occupied the main squares of over 70 towns and drew all the oppressed social layers into the assemblies (in Barcelona, the “indignos” even renamed Catalonia Square “Plaza Tahrir”).

The movement in Spain is, in reality, much more profound than the spectacular revolt which was crystallised in Tahrir Square in Cairo. It has broken out in the main country of the Iberian Peninsula, a bridge between the two continents. The fact that it is unfolding in a “democratic” state in Western Europe (and - what’s more - one led by a “socialist” government!) can only help to undermine the democratic mystifications deployed by the media since the “Jasmine revolution” in Tunisia.

Furthermore, although Democracia Real Ya describes this movement as a “Spanish revolution”, hardly any Spanish flags have been flown, whereas Tahrir Square was awash with national flags[1].     

Despite the inevitable confusions accompanying this movement, it is a very important link in the chain of today’s social struggles. With the aggravation of the world crisis of capitalism, these social movements will more and more converge with the proletarian class struggle and contribute to its development.

The courage, determination and deep sense of solidarity displayed by this “indignant” generation shows that another world is possible: communism, the unification of the world human community. But for this old dream of humanity to become a reality, the working class, the class which produces the essentials of all the wealth of society, has to rediscover its class identity by developing massive struggles against all the attacks of capitalism.

The movement of the “indignos” has once again started to pose the question of the revolution. It is up to the world proletariat to resolve the question by giving the movement a clear class direction, aimed at the overthrow of capitalism. It is only on the ruins of this system of exploitation based on commodity production and profit that the new generations can build a new society, achieve a really universal “democracy” and restore dignity to the human species.         

Sofiane, 27.5.11