SPANISH STATE
01/08/2020
The coalition government of PSOE and UNIDAS PODEMOS:
A Popular Front to save the monarchy
and its regime from political crisis
…against an independent Catalonia and a Republic of the indignant
...with a government program of the IBEX 35 and the imperialist Maastricht
After the repetition of the general elections, the regime of the Monarchy of the Spanish State again changes executioners in an attempt to close the crisis of regime that deepens every day with the struggle of the Catalan people for their right to independence in the center of the scene. This time they do it with a coalition government of PSOE and Unidas Podemos with the essential support of the Basque bourgeois party, PNV, and that of the Catalan petty bourgeoisie, ERC, among others. It is a Popular Front government, of class collaboration, which aims to abort the struggle to resume the rise of 2011-2013 and channel the deep hatred of the masses to take it to the feet of the monarchical regime of 78 and its Constitution at the service of the entrepreneurs of Ibex 35 and the imperialist EU.
By the hand of this Popular Front government of PSOE and Unidas Podemos, the left of the Crown, there will be no favorable exit to the working class and the oppressed nations, there will only be a government of the King, the employers and the imperialist Maastricht that will cut and will continue to impose a unity of Spain by force.
Taking part in the government of Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE and taking care of ministerial portfolios and a vice-presidency, Pablo Iglesias and Unidas Podemos whitewash and make PSOE progressive, against which the outraged rose to the cry of “Our dreams don't fit in your ballot box” and “PSOE and PP are the same shit”. Unidas Podemos, that is, PCE-IU (Communist Party-United Left) and PODEMOS (which includes the ex-Trotskyists of Anticapitalists), is putting the dreams of tens of thousands of indignant workers into a government that allows the Monarchy to subsist.
This Popular Front Government is a scam to the struggle of the oppressed peoples of the Basque Country and Catalonia. Its program does not place the right of self-determination, amnesty for reprisals and social rights as main axes. On the contrary, it is a pact against the right to self-determination of nations and to "clean" the King's court so that there are better executioners to pass the plans against the masses and oppressed peoples.
With the labor movement controlled by the union bureaucracies of CCOO and UGT, the PSOE and Unidas Podemos in the government will numb the working class of the entire Spanish state to end up approving the worst plans before the economic crisis and the commercial war that already loom about Europe. And they will do so by covering their policies with some progressive cosmetic measures, when in reality they will follow the dictates of the EU and the employers.
GENEALOGY OF UNIDAS PODEMOS: FIRST, EMPTYING THE STREETS; THEN, SELLING CATALONIA; AND AFTER THAT, GOVERNING WITH PSOE
The role of Unidas Podemos, continuator of the pseudo-theories and program of Stalinism and social democracy, is essential in the perfidious politics of Popular Front. The mission of the "new left" of Podemos in 2013, at its birth, was to expropriate the movement of the outraged that was born shouting "you have stolen too much, now we want everything" to put it at the feet of the bourgeois institutions and thus fulfill the role of preventing the revolutionary irruption of the masses.
With their policy they diverted the cycle of mobilizations that extended from May 2011 with the 15M movement until March 2014 with the Marches of Dignity and channeled the action of these masses to the institutional fold of the system and after several electoral traps, from 2015 to 2019, do only politics in bourgeois institutions, emptying the streets.
From 2017 to 2019, on the subject of Catalonia, Unidas Podemos have played a reactionary role regarding the Catalan struggle for its independence, the protests against the Procés sentence and the repression of the Catalan people. On the October the 1st Referendum, when the PP ruled, Podemos and the PCE-IU raised the white flag of “neutrality” when the repression forces of the King's regime crushed the uprisings in Catalonia, that is, they were placed on the Spanish side. Then, "co-governing from the outside" with the PSOE, Unidas Podemos have guaranteed an open support to the monarchy to defeat the Catalans, advising the Catalans to "negotiate" to get them into the system and thus defeat them better in the end. Later, Pablo Iglesias called to abide by the "procés" sentence and initiate reconciliation, placing himself in the trench opposite the struggle for the independence of the Catalan people and at the feet of His Majesty. When the regime's police beat the Catalans, Pablo Echenique (Podemos) said those repressors were doing their job and Alberto Garzón (PCE-IU) disqualified the youth who were fighting on the streets. Also, when the bureaucracy of CCOO and UGT acted as scabs in the Catalan general strikes in October 2017 and in February and October 2019, Podemos and PCE-IU also aligned themselves with the boycotters of the strikes, covering, as always, the left flank of the 78 regime.
Yesterday, Unidas Podemos betrayed the movement of the indignant of those who said they were heirs, and then they have also sold out the independence struggle of the Catalan people guaranteeing their open support to the monarchy to defeat the Catalans. They are responsible for the isolation of the working class, the students and the Catalan people from the rest of the workers of the Spanish state. Their betrayal ties the working class across the peninsula and prevents them from joining his struggle and leading it alongside the Catalan working class. Unidas Podemos have prevented the working class of the Spanish state from understanding that the struggle of the Catalan people for their independence is the same struggle of the entire Spanish working class against the Crown, for work, pensions, education and housing.
Now, in this 2020, they turn up the notch. After a merely institutional period in the opposition to the government of PP and another supporting from outside the government of PSOE, with Pablo Iglesias as a true vice-president in the shadow, now Unidas Podmeos become part of a government with PSOE taking over a vice presidency and several ministerial portfolios.
That is, Podemos was born emptying the streets and telling the workers that only "real democracy" can be fought within the framework of bourgeois institutions and has ended up managing capitalism with the PSOE of article 135, 155, of Ibex35, of the GAL, NATO and the Monarchy.
THE POPULAR FRONT OF PSOE AND UNIDAS PODEMOS TIE HANDS TO THE WORKERS' MOVEMENT
In all Popular Front, which disarms the working class, it is essential that the trade union and political leadership of the workers’ movement be present to dismantle it. In all Popular Front there is a submission of the working class to the petty bourgeoisie.
After a first step of expropriation of the struggle of the workers’ movement, it was dissolved by co-opting, by Podemos, the reformist left of IU-PCE and its positions in the union bureaucracy of CCOO.
In this Popular Front, the different groups of renegades of Trotskyism also play an important role, submitting and giving opportunism coverage on the left, either being inside or supporting it from outside. Anticapitalists have not yet left Podemos and other groups, such as the Revolutionary Left-The Militant, receive with open arms their desired "progressive government" of PSOE and Unidas Podemos.
In this way, the bourgeoisie achieves the goal of ending all independence and unity of the working class, using the Popular Front instrument. It thus fulfills its function: to control the working class so that it does not overflow and convince the workers to fight only to establish a “fairer” democracy in the abstract within the framework of the municipal institutions of the bourgeois regime.
We, revolutionary Trotskyists, know that you cannot change the content or democratize the institutions of the bourgeois state by ruling. The Popular Front has the only desire to reconcile the working class with the bourgeois state, preventing it from acting independently as a class to achieve its emancipation. It is being prevented that the masses that took to the streets since March 15, 2011 can face the regime, the monarchy and the bosses taking up the path of struggle.
FOR A WORKING CLASS WITH INDEPENDENT ORGANISMS FOR THE CLASS STRUGGLE
The popular-frontist government of the PSOE and Unidas Podemos is an impediment to the emergence of independent autonomous organizations of the working class where workers use workers’ democracy to decide to take the solution of their problems in their own hands, without the corset of bourgeois institutions and its laws that cannot be drawn from within. Within the institutions of the bourgeois regime it is impossible to improve their conditions of existence without facing the capitalists and their property. It has already been demonstrated that Unidas Podemos are the most faithful defender of property and business of transnationals.
The Popular Front denies the class struggle by trying to dilute workers as individuals and citizens, who are only left with the role of expressing themselves politically within the frameworks of bourgeois institutions, thus bending the forces of the working class before the capitalists. Meanwhile, it is the bosses, the government and the monarchy that really decide the fate of the exploited, those who do nothing but make them pay for their crisis by taking away their conquests and laying off thousands of workers.
The employers and the monarchy are defeated with the force that the working class exerts because of its role in production, expropriating the oligarchy as the only way to guarantee that it improves its standard of living, on the ruins of the bourgeois state, with the triumph of the revolution. We must break the shadow of the bourgeoisie by ending this Popular Front that sweetens and saves the pockets of the ruling class. Finding another way is useless, Trotskyist revolutionaries know this and that is why we denounce the pseudo-theories and programs of the "new left." The reformists of Unidas Podemos, a conjunction of social democrats, Stalinists and ex-Trotskyists, know this and therefore act in the opposite way to prevent a revolution.
THE PROGRAM OF GOVERNMENT OF PSOE AND UNIDAS PODEMOS IS THAT OF THE EMPLOYERS OF THE IBEX 35 AND THE IMPERIALIST MAASTRICHT
It was significant that in the presentation of the program, detailed in 50 pages, for the coalition government were present, in addition to Pedro Sánchez and Pablo Iglesias, the main leaders of PSOE, and those of Unidas Podemos, such as Pablo Echenique (Podemos), Enrique Santiago (General Secretary of PCE) and Alberto Garzón (Coordinator of United Left) among others, so that no one stops feeling represented. It was also significant that Pablo Iglesias said that "it will be an honor to have Pedro Sánchez as our President."
The backbone of the program is a commitment to the spending rule. That is, the PSOE and Unidos Podemos will not end up with the article 135 of the Constitution, introduced in 2011 by PSOE together with PP, which says that the payment of public debt is a priority, bigger than the investment in Education, Health or social services. In other words, paying the banks that set us in the crisis goes before any social policy. The program says that fiscal discipline will be met to ensure the sustainability of public accounts. The budget limits established by the EU and its budget cuts will be complied with.
In addition, it is discovered that Podemos and the PCE-IU were lying when they said that they defended the key things that claimed the outraged of the 15M or the movements for the public services. None of these claims appear in the program of this Popular Front government. It is ruled out to set up a public energy company, create a public bank, nationalize the bank, reduce the working day without reducing wages. The principle of stop paying the debt is also ruled out. Everything contained in the program of PSOE and Unidas Podemos continue to guarantee the business of Ibex 35 and the austericidal policies of the imperialist Maastricht of the EU.
On the issue of Catalonia, the right to self-determination will continue to be denied, political prisoners will not be released, they will not end repression as a way to deal with the national political conflict. And every dialogue of the Catalan political conflict will be complying with the opinions of the Constitutional Court and nothing will be left outside the monarchical Constitution. This government program is a great aggression, especially when this investment agreement occurs in a context of acute repression where the Spanish State continues to instrumentalize judicial and police apparatus based on their interests.
The Aliens Act will continue to exist and the CIE (Training Centers for Foreigners) will be maintained. The Spanish State will not abandon NATO and will not bring back the soldiers who are in other countries performing imperialist tasks in which the Spanish army participates.
On the labor reform, the one of 2010, that of Zapatero’s PSOE, will not be repealed, nor the main parts of that of 2012, that of Rajoy’s PP. Free dismissal will continue. On the cost of dismissal, compensation for unfair dismissal will continue to be 33 days per year worked, it will not return to 45 days per year, which was as it was before the labor reform of PP. Nor does it end with the causes of the objective termination of contracts, that is, dismissals will continue to exsit with a reduced compensation of 20 days per year worked. Companies may continue to disassociate themselves from the collective agreement, the administrative authorization for collective dismissals (ERE) will not be eliminated, the temporality (introduced in the Zapatero labor reform) will not end, nor the precariousness and cheap dismissal imposed by the labor reform of Rajoy.
In Education, the anomaly of private-concerted centers will not be suppressed nor is it considered to be incorporated into the public network. That is, private-concerted education, the great business of the Church, will continue to be financed. It does not arise with what to replace the LOMCE, leaving the main thing unsaid, and pending subsequent negotiations of parliamentary majorities. The subject of Religion does not end, although it becomes voluntary and does not count in the general mark, it is maintained, financed with public money and it will not end with the teaching staff of religion being imposed by the Episcopal Conference and without passing an open competitive exam as the rest of teachers.
In Housing, Unidas Podemos have renounced the dation in payment and, in addition, immediate relocations of evicted persons due to lack of economic resources or situations of vulnerability will not be guaranteed. Nor does the compulsory transfer of empty flats in the hands of the bank to make public housing parks. The intentions of "limiting the price of rentals" will be in vain because nothing will be done from the state administration because the powers will remain in the hands of the municipalities and autonomous communities.
In short, the new Popular Front government of PSOE and Unidas Podemos will make some progressive gestures, in terms of gender equality, ecological transition or historical memory, but in the fundamental issues, nothing will exceed any of the limits that the Ibex35’s employer mark and the dictatorial institutions of the imperialist Maastricht of the EU.
Down with this Popular Front government of PSOE and Unidas Podemos!
Down with the pact of the Monarchy with PSOE, PP, Vox, Cs, the Catalan and Basque bourgeoisie, Podemos, PCE-IU and the trade union bureaucracies of CCOO and UGT, which allow the King a change of executioner!
Down with the regime of the Spanish monarchy, sustained in the Pacts of the Moncloa, oppressor of the Catalan, Basque, Galician peoples...!
Make way to the Republic of the indignant!
The only government that may be able to defeat the Bourbons and guarantee the expropriation without payment and under workers' control of the banks and transnationals is a provisional government of the workers' organizations and the poor peasants, a government supported by workers' councils and committees of private soldiers.
Dissolution of all fascist organizations!
Dissolution of the Civil Guard and all repressive forces!
Self-defense committees, labor unions and organizations and private soldiers to disarm the fascist gangs, the monarchy and their murderous officer caste!
We must defeat the collaborationist bureaucracies that want to tie our hands!
Freedom to all political prisoners in Catalonia and throughout the Spanish state!
Out with the hands of the Crown and the regime of 78 from Ceuta and Melilla! Against the plundering of the Spanish imperialist government and its transnationals to the peoples of Latin America!
Independence of Catalonia now!
For a Federation of Socialist Republics of the Iberian Peninsula! For the Socialist United States of Europe!
The liberation of the workers will be the task of the workers themselves
DEMOCRACIA OBRERA of the Spanish State
(adherent to FLTI - Collective for the Refoundation of the Fourth International) |
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