still being felt in every corner of the Spanish state. able. issue of amnesty. a city-wide assembly.
revolutionary militant outlines the new situation after Vitoria. A violent revolutionary wind has penetrated the country, pushing its way through the fissures of the miserable political concessions' the Francoist reform has been compelled to 'tolerate' on its road toward democracy'. This wind will not die down so long as a shadow or threat of exploitation and oppression remains.
Since the first silent peaceful demonstrations for amnesty, a new and striking phenomenon has taken shape. The masses are entering into political action, making their presence felt in the streets. People who have never - 'never meaning during forty years of dictatorship - 'acted politically' have taken to the streets and met thousands of others like themselves, people struggling for the same objectives, confident of winning them by themselves, through their own actions. The heroic workers' struggle in the Basque city of Vitoria has profoundly affected the whole political situation in Spain today, and its effects are Within the ranks of the dictatorship it has opened up the divisions between the far right, who are determined to return to the most brutal repression before the breach opened at Vitoria grows wider, and the "reformers', who argue the urgent need to make concessions to the working class in order to defuse the struggle before its power grows unmanageAmong the middle class and reformist opposition circles, it has created an awareness that unless they can rapidly produce some tangible results they are in danger of losing their leadership over the mass movement. This has driven the two class-collaborationist 'fronts' of the Communist and Socialist Parties (the Democratic Council and Democratic Platform) to unite into a common organisation, and to modify their "softly, softly' policy designed to conciliate the 'liberal' elements of the dictatorship by calling mass demonstrations in Madrid and Barcelona for 4 April on the The struggle in Vitoria - despite the repression with which it met -has inspired the working class to even more determined struggle. As one militant told a general assembly of Barcelona engineering workers: We know that the same thing that happened to the comrades in Vitoria can happen to us. But we have to continue the struggle anyway.' Now the Barcelona engineering workers are planning a general strike for 31 March in connection with their wage claims, to be prepared for by mass factory meetings and In the following excerpt from the current issue of Inprecor, a Spanish are replacing or combining with these older bodies in the course of action, always seeking the road capable of providing the greatest degree of representativity, the greatest coordination, the greatest extension of action. mobilisations.
are broadening, becoming unified, It now also means the rehiring of bly of delegates took the lead in the The slogans orienting the struggles factories. and radicalising. Amnesty has broadened its content to the social terrain.
all those fired or laid off for political reasons since 1939. At the BabcockWilcox factory in Vizcaya this demOne of the barricades erected by striking Vitoria workers against the police attacks class trade union is felt by millions of workers; it is being discussed in detail in the assemblies of many In Spain today, nobody dares assert that it is possible to 'reform' or 'take over' the CNS, the hated fascist vertical trade union. There is unanimous agreement on the necessity of destroying it. When The 'reform' projects of the Government are stillborn; they belong to prehistory at a time when the masses are already writing history. The Government proposes that sixteen conditions be met before a demonstration is organised; but every day there are dozens of demonstrations in the immense majority of the cities of the country, called for thousands of reasons by every