A Left Unity activist in Madrid, Jordi Escuer, explains the view of PorelSocialismo on the forthcoming general election in Spain…
People on the left have lived on an emotional roller coaster for a long time. A few days we woke up thinking that it is possible to defeat the right and others when it seems impossible. To know what surprises are in store for us in the next few weeks. The victory of the right is not inevitable: it depends on the mobilisation in the electoral field.
The consequences of a victory of the [right wing parties] PP and Vox are known: an attack on social, labour and democratic rights in all respects. Public services, from health to education, will face more privatisations. Access to housing will be even more difficult. Pensions and wages will be further reduced. Rights like abortion will be challenged. We must vote, even if it is only in self-defence.
Defeat the PP-Vox – essential but not enough
The problem is that the leadership of the [Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party] PSOE lacks a real alternative to the problems that the majority of the working class face. Housing is the best expression of this: in eight years it has not provided any solution because many of its leaders are themselves part of this rentier structure, although the vast majority of its activists and, above all, of its voters, are on the other side of the barricade.
Of course, a government of Pedro Sánchez is preferable to one of Feijoo-Abascal. But if the Executive is in the hands of the PSOE, everything will remain the same and, sooner or later, the disappointment will open the doors to the far right. The right-wing attacks on Sanchez do not alter that fact.
Consequently, rebuilding an alternative left is a vital necessity for the working class and that can only start from what exists. Can we take advantage of this election campaign to fight to defeat the right and, at the same time, build an alternative for the future? The Broad Front can be a principle to achieve that goal. We must make it concentrate on it all the support of those who do not want a PP-Vox government, but we know the limits of the PSOE.
The merit of the Broad Front [see inset] is to have achieved the greatest possible unity, and we must take advantage of it, but we must not ignore its shortcomings: it is not a movement built from below, around a program developed collectively, nor through the democratic participation. It will be said that there has not been time, but that is only half true, because we did not have to wait for elections to be called, but should have had the will to put it into practice much earlier.
The road to Berlin (or New York, Sao Paulo and Belgrade)
We look with envy at the election campaign of Die Linke in Berlin, where thousands of people have campaigned door-to-door and managed to make big gains for that party with 25% of the votes, double the SDP and overtaking the far right. Earlier, we saw how Zohran Mamdani became mayor of New York with similar methods.
A few days ago, we saw Lula’s victory in Brazil, against all odds. In this case, attempts to gag him were compensated by the popular involvement of millions of people, in the street (with 1,700 demonstrations in weeks) and in the networks, encouraging initiative and popular creativity.
We have also seen how the Student List in Serbia, established two months ago, won the elections by an absolute majority against all the power of the state apparatus and the main ruling party. In two months, they approved a program and made their nominations in countless assemblies. In all these processes, the key has been the commitment and actions of hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions. And the experience of joint mobilisation of recent years has been equally important.
What conditions are essential to build a commitment here? The first is to trust the working class, starting with those who are already active and mobilised. The second is unity, not uniformity. The third, a program that brings together the aspirations and needs of the working class and unites them in a programme to overcomes capitalism, which is at the root of the crisis we are experiencing.
And the fourth: we must understand that in addition to voting, we must organise and fight, so workers feel that their voice counts and they decide in everything that affects them. Only in this way can an active commitment arise. If the hundreds of thousands of people fighting on a multitude of fronts did so in a unified way, with democratic methods and the right to criticism, they would become an overwhelming force, because the majority of the population sympathises with their aspirations.
The famous phrase of [former Prime Minister] Aznar – he who can, let him do it – which has spurred the ruthless war against the coalition government, could inspire us. The dominant tendency is to see the left out of step, to think that there is nothing we can do and to see the division that we suffer today, for the benefit of the extreme right.
Yes, our organisations have bureaucratic habits, a tendency to institutionalise themselves and, also, to be sectarian, to consider themselves infallible and to worship the leader (some more than others), and not to trust in the activity of the working class (although it is declared otherwise). In general, they all do little to explain how a socialist and democratic society could be built in the 21st century. There are no favourable winds for those who do not know where they are going. Finally, too many leaders lack a transitional approach that joins the struggle for the immediate needs of workers with the need to overcome capitalism. All that is missing. But not the willingness of the people to fight.
Therefore, rather than just expressing regrets and waiting for the “leaders” or their organisations to meet all our needs, we have to start with workers’ aspirations and doing what we can with what we have.
The Broad Front should not be spoiled as simply an electoral alliance, suffocated by power struggles of the various apparatuses. It should be a starting point, to move towards a unified and democratic political movement of the working class, built from the bottom up.
But no matter what happens, in the communities and neighbourhoods, for whoever becomes part of the Broad Front, we believe that we must work with these criteria: unity around a common program, without uniformity and with the right to criticism, with mutual respect and democratic methods, without renouncing our own ideas and organisations, trusting people, learning to build collectively and encouraging initiative and creativity. Each person, in terms of the activity and time they have, in a community that educates them to do things differently, to prepares to transform society by transforming ourselves.
By this means, we can be working to defeat the PP and Vox at the polls. No one can predict if our efforts will be enough to defeat the extreme right on November 29. But no matter who wins, we will have been working for the future, building an alternative capable of defeating the right and opening the doors to real change.
Letting the genie out of the lamp
It is in that spirit, that we must face the electoral campaign. If we manage to defeat the reactionary organisations, we will need that same power demonstrated electorally to be built in the neighbourhoods, in the workplaces and on the campuses, to fight further in the interests of the working class.
The priority of the Broad Front and the organisations of the left cannot be limited to negotiating concessions from the PSOE, which it will then resist fulfilling. The priority is to build a mass political movement that is a real transformative left alternative. Up to now, we have failed to do that in all the left organisations, inside and outside the coalition government.
The leadership of the organisations of the Broad Front will want to re-establish the coalition without any doubt but should open a debate to the active membership before making any decisions. In my opinion, it is not the only possible or necessarily desirable option.
We must always support in the establishment in parliament of a left majority before that of the right. Neither by action nor by omission can a PP-Vox government be allowed to take power. But a concrete left program is needed — to ensure access to housing, living wages, public health and education, social care and democratic rights, with adequate resources.
After the big movements over evictions and housing, we cannot continue to play hide and seek with the necessary measures. To do that would only mean postponing the victory of the PP-Vox. We must see that the atmosphere has changed in these past years: workers’ struggles have begun to recover and this tendency will only increase, because the demand for it will increase. The genie is out of the lamp and cannot be put back in. The general strike is the first practical consequence of that change in the situation of the working class, but is only the beginning.
Always, always, the priority is to build organisation, that great political and social movement that is able to fight effectively for a socialist program.
If, finally, we fail to defeat the far right on the 29th, that solidarity that we build in the coming weeks and months will help us to face the reaction that will unleash a relentless war against the left and the rights of the working class. We have nothing to lose and everything to win. The change begins now.
This article is an edited version of the original on the Spanish socialist website, Porelsocialismo, which is here.
