Registered with the Post Office as a newspaper. Published by Relgocrest for Red Weekly, 182 Pentonville Road, London N.I. (01-837 6954) NAME..
Printed by Prestagate Ltd., Reading, Berkshire Red Weeky SUBSCRIPTION RATES DOMESTIC: E7 per year £3.50 for six months FOREIGN: £9 per year surface mail £12 per year airmail Write to RED WEEKLY (distribution), 182 Pentonville Road, London N. 1 Is it 'democratic' to kill and attack workers fighting for their rights?
working class has been held in check by ferocious repression. Even after the massive blood-letung or the civil war years, the regime had to build up a massive repressive machinery to do this work - the political police of the BPS (Political-Social Brigade), and the semimilitary Civil Guard and Armed Police.
out by the army, these forces have replied with murders, beatings and torture ing class struggle. As a result of the importance of their work, these forces have become a crucial part of the dictatorship - the main base of its most reactionary, die-hard wing. unem stands une army, wien in tne absence of organised political representatives of capital such as political parties, serves as the most authoritative voice of the capitalists in times of political crisis.
'COSMETIC capuansm woud tum to in the race or a rising tide of mass struggle would be one in which these forces, carefully created over the decades to serve the ruling class's needs, would be preserved. It maur be necessary to do a nue cosmet ic' work on them, make them pull their horns in temporarily, but the capitalists would still need them, both to act as a final line of defence in the event of the working class struggle going 'too far", and to keep in reserve for an eventual attempt to ron back une victones or we workers movement For these reasons the capitalists would be vehemently opposed to any For the past forty years the Spanish InsutuTons.
Backed up by repressive laws, special to every independent expression of workAnd behind The sort of democracy' that Spanish mana or sancamento notion that the murderers and torturers orne ranco reane snowie oe caree to account for their crimes against the working class. The responsibility for such crimes is spread throughout the repressive machinery, and the punishment of those involved would undermine the very foundations of those DIFFERENT AIMS The working class has very different aims in this situation. The democracy they seek is one in which all the repressive machinery that has kept the dictatorship intact for tour decades would De swept away, and those responsible for criminal actions would be brought to justice before the masses.
This is not a matter of spitefulness or levense — is a matter or survival For how is it possible to talk of dem ocracy wren a unv cabitalist minonly continues to hold in the palm of its hand all the weapons of violence? And how can any polltical gains be consider ed secure when the most determined chemes or suon Changes. wno nave res orted to the most brutal methods to prevent tem coming about, stull nol positions of power and influence?
This is something the Portuguese workers understood when they aunched massive campaigns around the dethe purging of all those complicit in the repressive poncies or une dictatorship. his severely weakened the reactionaries and allowed the working class to win victorles over them. Unfortunately. ther did not succeed in abolishing the repressive ponce torces uke me repubucan Guard and the Public Security Police: they are paying the price for that failure today, when these forces are once again shooting peaceful demonstrators and attacking workers in struggle In Spain, the Communist Party-domnarea Democrane counce and me sod ialist Party-dominated Democratic Platform are again trimming their sails to the capitalist wind. While they call for reforms in the legal system, they do not take a clear stand for the abolition of all repressive laws and special courts, and say nothing at all about the dissolution of the repressive police forces. On the question of purging reactionaries they specifically oppose this - insisting that their demand for amnesty' would apply not only to anti-fascist fighters, but also to the enemies of the working class and democracy!
They talk onlv about the need for a "professional' army that would not inter vene in politics (ignoring the fact that the "profession' of the capitalist army is pre cisely to intervene in the interests of capital - as did the professionals of the Chilean army), and say nothing about tne democranc rignts or the arm rank-and-file. ABOLITION The forces of the Fourth International in Spain base themselves firmly on the need of the working class to attack the props of capitalist dictatorship in order to conquer democratic rights and ensure their survival. They thus fight for the total abolition of all repressive laws, political courts, and special repressive forces; for the purging of reactionaries from the state machinery and for all those guilty of crimes against me working class to be brougnt to pop ular justice; and for full democratic and political rights for the rank-and-file in the army, against capitalist military dis cipline, for the formation of democratic soldiers committees, and for the linking up of these bodies with the workers mon movement