Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Liberty)

 E.T.A or Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Liberty) was a Basque nationalist and socialist organisation that lead an intense armed struggle against the Spanish state being created in 1959 with a fairly reactionary character being ideologically based with in Catholicism by the 1960s the most advanced elements of the group had become inspired by communism. In 1975 with Franco's death the group became fully committed to Basque independence and had created a truly popular base. E.T.A went through a number of splits within its long history over a number of issues, an example of one of these splits was the autonomous anti-capitalist commandos these Commandos viewed the strategies developed by the currents of ETA as reformism. Euskadi Ta Askatasuna would capitulate in 2017 with its disarmament and complete dissolution would happen in 2018. For a more in depth history on E.T.A visit here https://materialisme-dialectique.com/eta-le-parcours/

  

"Long live the free Euskadi
Long live the Socialist Euskadi”

 

 Euskadi Ta Askatasuna: The proletariat in the face of the national oppression of Euskadi (1970)

By way of introduction

"Whoever expects to see a pure social revolution," said Lenin, "will never see it."

And he will be nothing more than a junk revolutionary who understands nothing of what constitutes a real revolution. ”

In his Letter to American Workers, he said: “No one may “recognize” the revolution of the proletariat, if not on condition that it takes place with ease and without difficulty, that one immediately arrives at the common action of the proletarians of all countries, that the possibility of defeat is excluded a priori, that the revolution follows a broad, clear, very right path, that this is not a revolutionary. ”

The history of the E.T.A. is undoubtedly the opposite of a rectilinear, clear, error-free trajectory.

In 'utik' 72 we have spoken of this contradictory and shaky approach and the ambiguities that have marked our twelve years of existence as a result of the nationalist-inter-classist ideological framework in which we operate.

Breaking with nationalism

During the last period, a rupture, a hiatus occurred at the E.T.A.; a moment culminating in its history, but also, in a sense, “turnover against it.”

It was a break with nationalist ideology and the manifestations of this ideology in political practice.

It is certain that, without previous partial progress, such a break would not have taken place.

And that is why it must be stressed that it should not happen “necessarily.”

Let us not forget that the fractional group excluded from the E.T.A. a year ago is the product of the same story.

Attempts to change along our organizational trajectory have so far been kept within an ideological framework and doctrinal assumptions who, while ensuring cohesion in all of our activities, have nothing to do with a revolutionary organization of the proletariat and directly concern bourgeois nationalism.

“Morceous nationalism and proletarian internationalism,” said Lenin, “are two irreducibly opposed slogans that correspond to two major groups of classes in the capitalist world and that reflect two policies (and more: two conceptions of the world) on the national question. ”

We need to be very clear on this point.

We deliberately used the word “break”.

A criticism from the current positions of our previous practices is qualitatively different from the one we could make in 1967, for example, with regard to the e-crisis policy for four or five years.

In this case, we would be to be self-criticating because of certain concrete errors, more or less cyclical faults and omissions in the consistent application of the principles that served us as the basis.

Today, it is no longer possible to criticize these mistakes without rejecting all these principles, without refuting them globally.

Let us say it once and for all: no criticism without attacking the traditional doctrine of the E.T.A. and its concrete political activity.

That is why we are talking about not a step in the course of an evolution without a solution of continuity, but, at the foot of the letter, of a split, of a break, the split of the E.T.A. with nationalism.

We must already be aware of the fact that we are aware of the fact that we should devote a number of zuti. to explicitly refute Basque nationalist ideology can only shock and scandalize some.

If, nevertheless, we continue to do so, it is because we are convinced that at that moment the progress of the revolution in Euskadi lies in the fight against the main manifestations of nationalist ideology in the field of political practice: the class alliance, as well as chauvinism and any other form of pettiness and nationalist exclusiveness.

We are also convinced of the need and urgency to avoid any ambiguity and ambiguity in this regard.

(a) People and class

By the nature of ideology in general and that of nationalism in particular, nationalist ideology is historically manifested as a force for cohesion between the different classes that make up the oppressed national community.

If we exclusively emphasize what is common between these classes within the nation (culture, history, tradition, etc.), we hide, to varying degrees, the real contradictions between these classes.

The Communist Party, for example, a political expression of the interests of the Basque non-monopolist bourgeoisie, has historically tried to drag all the Basque people behind the nationalist standard, to defend their own class interests, and has come to create its autonomous yellow union.

The aim is to integrate into the same clan the Basque working class and “its” bourgeoisie, which presented themselves as the spokesman for the national rights of our people.

And it is precisely here that the ideological break we were talking about lies.

Breaking with the “inter-class” alliance inherent in nationalist ideology.

Throughout our history there have been successive approaches to this breakup.

For example, the text “Official Ideology of the E.T.A.”, elaborated at the second sitting of our Fifth Assembly (March 1967), says in an attempt to define the idea of “revolutionary nationalism”: “National liberation... (is) the total negation of a current oppressive reality, which only the Basque working people (P.T.V.) can achieve because of their exploited class status. ”

It was in the same sense that, in the March 1969 issue of zuik, we said that “our national liberation is our class liberation.”

And also: “The national character of our oppression and that of our struggle are given to us by the very fact of being workers.”

However, the Communist Party continues to be regarded as a revolutionary agent of change, about which there are different definitions, often contradictory, depending on the tactical needs of the moment.

During periods of organizational weakness, when the main emphasis is placed on the frontal directives, the P.T.V. is made up of “all non-monopolistic classes and social strata”.

On other occasions, these are more restricted “those who sell their labour force in a situation of national dependence”.

These ambiguities were not only due to theoretical incoherence, or lack of scientific rigour.

These were, so to speak, necessary ambiguities in the sense that they were historically determined by the nationalist ideological framework in which we operated.

That is, “Nationalism as an ideology necessarily leads to these ambiguities. ”

Lenin says, "Marxism is irreconcilable with nationalism, even with the most "just" nationalism, the most "pure", the most "final and civilized". ”

In front of the military court that would sentence them to death, Eduardo Uriarie and other comrades said unambiguously, unambiguously: “We are Marxist-Leninists. ”

The E.T.A. was to formally ratify this statement in Berriak-2, dated 29 December.

However, no one is Marxist-Lenist on the basis of a single statement.

It is on the real-life ground of the practical struggle, on the subject of class struggle, of the daily struggle against the enemy that the assertions and slogans will prove to be authentic and will express their true content.

We are what we do, we define ourselves by our action.

It is in this sense, and without, for this purpose, we exhaust the content of the expression, that being Marxist-Leninist implies a concrete objective: the struggle for the proletarian revolution.

That is to say, according to Marx, "the struggle for the liberation of the proletariat and the abolition of wage labour".

And not, in a more or less generic form, the struggle for “national interests” or “the liberation of the people,” or even more abstractly for “the oppressed,” but very concretely the struggle for the interests of the working class and for their total liberation.

This does not mean that there is necessarily a contradiction between the interests of the Basque people as such, and those of the working class, between oppressed Basque nationality and the proletariat as a class.

At each historic stage, there is a class in the vanguard, a class that carries within it the germ of social upheaval, the germ of revolution.

In this sense, this class is the express voice of the interests of society as a whole.

It is important to make it clear now that this should not mean forgetting the important, albeit subordinate, role that certain sectors of the petty bourgeoisie – and not just students – are bound to play in future revolutions.

Particularly in the case of oppressed nationalities, Marx recalls this, in the letter to Annenkoy, pointing out, however, the necessary contradictions and ambiguities that make the petty bourgeoisie a hesitant and insecure ally.

What is needed is to understand how important it is for the leadership of the struggle to be ensured by the revolutionary class alone in a substantial way until the end, how important it is that the proletariat (and not only its representative, the party) should exercise its historic mission of agotainguard class.

In our view – and as we will try to show through this series of articles – the conditions are finally given in Euskadi that the working class will pull out of the hands of the nationalist bourgeoisie the flag that it was monopolizing, and that it should direct the struggle for national freedom within the global process of struggle for socialism.

Moreover, we believe that it is only to the extent that this will happen, to the extent that it will be the proletariat that will lead the struggle of the Basque masses (by taking the most progressive sectors of the people, and not on the contrary by letting itself be carried away by them), that the Euskadi will be free.

In conclusion, it is exclusively on the basis of the specific interests of the proletariat as a class that our analyses and our concrete practice of struggle will have to be carried out.

Depending on the ultimate goal (e.g. emancipation of the working class and abolition of wage labour) and not according to the “national interests of the Euskadi”, “what the people want”, etc., we will go with certain sectors of the bourgeoisie, we will or will not bow, at a given moment, for separation, we will establish and we will realize our strategy, our tactics, our daily political practice.

(b) Nationalism - internationalism

The split with nationalist ideology is not only a break with the class alliance, if not, at the same time, in the clear affirmation of the class solidarity of the proletariat at an international level.

This is both between workers of the various nationalities subject to the same bourgeois state and between workers from different states.

For the working class, internationalism is not a mere relationship of abstract fraternity, a problem of affinity between human beings, but a necessity, the precondition for its total emancipation.

This necessity is imposed as much by the nature of the working class’s historical purpose as by the very character of the enemy.

To the “Imperialist International of Capital,” Marx proposed to “not speeches about fraternity, but the true fraternity of the working class.”

His position, like that of Lenin, is as far removed from the abstract internationalism of those who, like Proudhon, considered that the national problem “is nothing but a bourgeois prejudice”, as from bourgeois nationalism, which tends to subordinate the interests of the working class to “national interests”, in whose name one tries to camouflage the true contradictions between a part of the nation (the exploited) of the nation.

In Marxist theory, the subordination of the rights and general interests of the working class and of revolution is the central idea in this regard.

But this cannot be interpreted in no way as a nihilistic abandonment of the problem. The working class, faithful to its liberating mission, cannot remain indifferent to any form of oppression.

It must resolutely combat any privilege granted to a nation or language, against any form of national inequality.

It must fight for the equality of all peoples by unequivocally affirming, unambiguously, the unity of the working class on “national interests”, over pettinessivism, and nationalist chauvinism.

Before entering the heart of the matter permanently, a few methodological remarks should be made:

1. The title of work (“The proletariat in the face of the national oppression of Eu-kadi”) indicates what its concrete theme is.

Although we really need to refer to more general themes, the purpose of this work is not the “national question”, but rather one of its aspects, as it stands politically at present and in Euskadi.

2. We are aware that “a quotation is by no means a demon-ment”, but it illustrates the text, where the framework of argumentation will be followed.

If, on this occasion, we introduced, contrary to our usual practice, quotations from Lenin, Marx, etc., it was in this "illustrative" intention.

The “concrete analysis of a concrete situation”, which must serve as a basis for any Marxist research, is indeed the opposite of the method – which we have encountered more than once – which consists in changing political lines on serious problems (for example: split or non-secission), without the analysis of the real situation varying in the least, because we have found new citations of Lénin.

3. 3. When we talk about “nationalism” or “nationalist ideology,” we must avoid confusing it with the concept of “patriotism.”

This distinction could be refuted by etymological arguments: homeland derived from -fratia which, from the eighteenth century (amount of liberalism), takes the ideological meaning of “fraternity, kinship between brothers”, between all citizens, regardless of their class membership.

The dictionary itself, however, adds a chauvinistic nuance to the concept by defining patriotism as "exaltation of the subjective values of the homeland".

Moreover, in the Slavic and Central European countries, where the idea of nationalism has developed politically, the term “nation” has an anthropological meaning.

In Slavic countries, narod expresses as much the idea of “people” as that of “nation,” and the narodnost derivative, which is usually translated as “nationality” is also used in the sense of “ethnicity” in the context of cultural anthropology.

In any case, we will maintain this distinction that has become classic now in Marxist literature, especially on the basis of the fascist offensive of the 1930s.

In Berriak 7, we said that the main element of cohesion of fascism at the ideological level is precisely a furious materialism, which crackles above all in the petty bourgeoisie, which constituted the social base par excellence of fascism in Mussolini’s Italy, in Nazi Germany, etc. Significantly, all historians of the Spanish Civil War speak of “Republicans” on the one hand and “nationalists,” referring to Francoists, on the other.

Undoubtedly, it is necessary to distinguish between great-power nationalism (“Spain has an imperial vocation”, reads the Phalange program) and the nationalism of an oppressed nation, which normally, as in the case of Basque nationalism, has a general democratic content.

However, the ideological trunk (nationalism) is the same and it is maintained on the class alliance, over a supposed unity of interests of the different “national” classes. In order to strengthen this unity, it is necessary to stress, in a chauvinistic manner, the national differences in absolute terms.

It is in this sense, in that it is based on dissimilarity, on particularism and not on the equal rights of all peoples, that nationalism is the ideological opposite of internationalism.

ORIGIN OF NATIONAL OPRESSION

National oppression, like all oppression, is class oppression.

In other words, the particular form of man-made oppression, national oppression, is a manifestation of class struggle.

The existence of classes is united with determined historical phases of production development. Similarly, the concrete manifestations of the class struggle are united with the concrete historical developments of production relations.

Therefore, national oppression is not only a class op-ion, but very concretely a historically determined class oppression.

National oppression as such has not existed for all time.

It appears at a specific moment in the development of productive forms.

As soon as the forms of feudal production are essentially liquidated, the rising class, the bourgeoisie must at the same time liquidate the forms of superstructures (administration, laws, ideology – especially in the form of a Catholic religion) that had fossilized in society as the vestiges of the earlier stage.

These fossils are a brake on economic expansion.

At the ideological level, the medieval conception that considered politics and economics as branches of morality (it is enough to recall the loan with interest considered as a “weurous squad”) is replaced by the new ideology of reason, of the homeland (fratio), of freedom, etc.

At each historical stage, the rising class, in order to become a dominant class (and later, in order to maintain itself in this position), must “universalize” its own class claim and, to that end, extend to the whole of society its own conception of the world.

The bourgeois philosophers of the 14th century developed (by making it universal) their class ideology: freedom, equality, fraternity became the myth-emblem of the French Revolution of 1789.

The bourgeoisie used its own myths to lead the whole people to follow and fight. It was the "low people" of Paris who took the Bastille, which struggled to overthrow the monarchy, to establish the Assembly, "democracy", "freedom".

And without the latter being suspected, this freedom in general was the pure and simple ideology that concealed freedom of trade, in concrete terms, freedom of exploitation: freedom for the bourgeois and the sacrificialization of their private property.

As for equality, individuals are “equal to the extent that they are their capital” (Engels).

For the bourgeois, this ideological representation is not only received as a ruse that he uses lucidly to abuse others.

He must first believe in his own myth. The image that reality sends him daily from his concrete attitude (bourgeois and exploiter) would be unbearable to him unless he disguises his real relationship in society in an imaginary relationship thanks to his ideological reputation.

Its maximum claim will be the national state.

At the same time, maximum mystification will be.

What is in fact the political expression of its particular class interests and, consequently, the machine responsible for repressing the exploited classes over which its domination is exercised, will be proposed as the impartial arbiter of the great quarrels between citizens.

Adam Smith, the greatest liberal economist, says that from “the junction of many particular egoisms results in the welfare of society as a whole,” if the state is given the role of arbiter to establish and enforce the rule of play that these “particular selfishnesss” will clash.

In this way, at the same time the free competence, morality and neutrality of the State will be justified.

The determination of the framework in which this State performs its function is also the expression of the interests of the dominant class at each stage of its historical development and of development, of the productive forces.

The birth and formation of “national states” (mostly multinational in Europe) reflect these interests at the bottom-up stage. At this stage, the bourgeoisie must, on the one hand, establish rigid borders in order to protect itself from the rivalry of the other States and, moreover, the singleer of markets large enough to offer an outlet for its own productive power and ensure a suitable rate of expansion for this power.

These “national” markets are formed on the basis of the existence of the common interests of the bourgeoisies, which have arisen locally in every economic unit of the feudal era. Thus, in Europe, different national peoples have been integrated into multinational state-owned units or, as is the case for Euskadi, are divided into two different states.

In order to strengthen the unity of these States, the bourgeoisies of the various nationalities who are integrated into them undertake to eliminate (because they have a common class interest) everything that can oppose this unity: they are keen to block the history and culture of these nationalities, starting with the national language.

Administrative and legal unification is undertaken by eliminating any local law, all freedoms, franchises, or privileges.3]

It is not that this rising bourgeoisie suddenly appears, with the creation of the first counters.

In the 18th century, it became the dominant class, but its origin is much older.

Capitalism (and with it bourgeois capitalism) was born within feudalism.

It was not until capitalist forms of production were established that the feudal political superstructure broke.

Sometimes the process was gradual, but capitalist production relations always appear primarily in industry; feudal constraints in agriculture are eliminated later, with the political superstructure being liquidated.

In Euskadi, from the appearance in the 13th and 14th centuries of a nascent Basque trade, based on the trade in wool and iron with the Baltic and settled in the cities (villas), until the definitive liquidation of franchises in 1876, which happened, this rut the slow confrontation of the capitalist social form with the feudal social form.

The class that represented historical progress at that time, the bourgeoisie, therefore, imposed, and it could only be so, its particular class interest and, by the same token, the forms of superstructures corresponding to the mode of production it represented.

Thus, when we said that Euskadi’s national oppression is a historically determined class oppression, our aim is to indicate how, at a given stage of the development of the productive forces, the bourgeoisie had to oppress the Basque people in its nationality in order to be able to realize, and later maintain, the interests it represented as a class.

DIFFERENT CLASSES NATIONAL OPRESSION

The national oppression, which we have just seen, is the cause of class, is exerted on the whole of the national community. However, the responses that the different classes will oppose to this oppression will differ. In the case of Euskadi:

The great bourgeoisie, which was consolidated at the end of the century as a result of the merger of industrial capital and bank capital, was never nationalist, not even statist, if not ferociously centralist, as was the great Catalan, Castilian or Andalusian bourgeoisie.

Their interests have always been linked to the unity of the Spanish State, which provided them with a broad market, a labour force of the underdeveloped rural areas and protectionist tariff provisions.

The small or middle bourgeoisie (i.e. the non-monopolistic bourgeoisie) Basque, whose rise is linked to the rise of the great bourgeoisie, is, however, opposed to the latter in that the monopolistic concentration that the latter represents presupposes its liquidation as an autonomous class.

On the basis of its contradictions with the monopolistic bourgeoisie, the national feeling arises in it.

This national sentiment, persecuted by the great bourgeoisie, is transformed into a nationalist ideology and class alliance.

This is how it will try to train the oppressed national community in defence of its class interests, which pit it against it – we insist on this – both for the great capital and for the proletariat.

The particular characteristics of the country’s industrialization process (1. speed; 2. as a basis for financial capital; 3. rapid concentration) mean that there is barely a small margin for a bourgeois average, such as that which constitutes the social basis of Catalan nationalism.

But at the same time, these characteristics and, at the same time, the process of early concentration a hundred times the number of accountants, small traders, rentiers, bank employees, owners of small auxiliary workshops, etc., social strata that join the basertraarras (small farmers and peasants) and the arrantzales on the one hand, to the clergy and liberal professions on the other hand.

The working class appears to be divided in the face of the problem of national oppression.

First, a significant fraction of the proletariat of Basque origin is being carried away by the clerical, patriotic and anti-communist ideology of the bourgeois of the Communist Party, to whom it leaves it to find the solution of the problem. The creation of a Christian trade union federation implies clearly integrationist intentions on the part of the P.N.V. (the S.O.V. in 1911).

This does not prevent this from causing certain left-wing tensions to the other way of the nationalist family at the periods of convulsive agitation of the struggle of class (for example, in 1934, during the Asturias insurrection).

Moreover, another consequential fraction of the proletariat quickly assimilates the experience of class struggle and asserts itself, with the miners of Asturias, like the most combative working class on the peninsula.

Introduced 1890 and 1906, four general strikes broke out ("state of war" having been decreed in May 1890 and in the summer of 1903) and seventeen major partial strikes.

The center of gravity of these fighting is in the mining and industrial zone of the left bank of the Nervion.

The most influential political organization of the time was the Socialist Party, the first center of which was established in Bilbao in 1886.

In 1904, Tomas Meabe, who represented the nascent socialist patriotism, founded the "Socialist Youth (Juventud socialista).

However, neither Meabe, nor Arteta, nor: the other socialists of the time were able to change the overall policy of the CEO with regard to the problem of national oppression; which is envisioned as a bourgeois attempt and has nothing to do with the working class. Thus, the fight against national oppression is stagnatingly damaged at the hands of the middle classes, which through the Socialist Party will take advantage of this circumstance to train large sectors of workers in the defence of their class interests.

Inability of the small and middle bourgeoisie to solve the problem of national oppression

The industrialization of the Euskadi and, with it, the definitive establishment of the capitalist mode of production and the appearance of the proletariat as the strongest class numerically occurred in the last third of the nineteenth century and were definitively consolidated after the First World War. Because of the particular conditions of this development, the economic and social revolution is not accompanied at the political level by the corresponding bourgeois democratic revolution.

The problem of national oppression, which had been solved as best as it was well enough in the majority of countries that will carry out their bourgeois revolution in the nineteenth century, remains a hanging issue and is part of the general democratic demands in countries where the capitalist mode of production has been established, such as in Tsarist Russia or the Spanish State, in autocratic political forms.

This is to say that the industrial revolution in the Basque Country is happening:

(a) Without the corresponding democratic-bourgeois political revolution.

(b) Lately. Not at the competitive phase of rising capitalism, but at the imperialist phase of capitalism.

Each of the classes which, as a whole, constitute the oppressed national collectivity acts, in relation to the national claim, with the same characteristics that differentiate them in the democratic struggle in general, of which this claim is a part. These characteristics are determined by their class interests and these, in turn, by their place in production relations.

Each of these classes tries to “universallyize” its own claim.

In this way, the Basque non-monopolist bourgeoisie is trying to universalize its class claim under the guise of a mystification of the kind of “national interests”, “self-management of capital and labour”, “let us first realize the free Euskadi, we will decide later whether it is capitalist or communist,” etc.

Further on, it will show to what extent this universalization is simply ideological. What is important to stress here is that, at the level of history, the only class that has assumed the Basque national claim politically has been this non-monopolistic bourgeoisie, and that its failure is not fortuitous but, on the contrary, necessary.

As we have already said, at every historic stage, there is a class that works in the direction of history defending its own class interests, and that assumes, so to speak, the responsibility for the future of society as a whole.

Hence Marx in the Manifesto, the important revolutionary role played by the bourgeoisie.

But once this stage is over, classes that cling to the past (whether to maintain their privileges or to reclaim them) become reactionary.

By defending what is obsolete, they oppose the progress of humanity and history, and destruction becomes their inevitable and necessary destiny.

They are revolutionary only to the extent that they abandon their particularist point of view and adopt, in the face of the imminence of change, the point of view of the rising class.

The carlist peasants who took the maquis, towards the middle of the last century, in order to defend their past privileges, formulated their demands in a reactionary manner: they claimed the return to the past, to feudal society, to monarchical absolutism, to the ideology and clerical organization of the community, for the privileges presented at that moment as a legal obstacle to the development of the productive forces (remember the article on the

In this day and age, in the era of imperialism (the supreme stage of capitalism), only a socialist society is a possible solution to the current system.

The return to competitive capitalism of free competition is now impossible; it would mean “a step back” in history.

The situation of this non-monopolistic bourgeoisie in all production social relations (opposite both the great bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the triumph of which would imply its total elimination as an exploitative class) determines its political alternatives. It is therefore absolutely not a question of saying that “the bourgeoisie has done wrong” or “it has betrayed the Basque people”.

It has only limited itself to defending its particular class interests. Given the original form of the capitalist mode of production in Euskadi, all the possible battles that the non-monopolist bourgeoisie would have in the form of an attempt at autonomous choice are already doomed to failure.

His hesitations.

His behaviour was always hesitant and will always be hesitant.

When, after the final leap of the war of 1914, the less backward sectors of the industrial bourgeoisie claim to carry the coup de grace to the agrarian dictatorship of the great landowners, still influential in the organs of government, the small and the Catalan and Basque bourgeoisie mean, are joined in principle in the struggle, but in front of the spectacle of the proletariat in the street (occupations of factories in Barcelona,

And it was precisely the “Cataladian” bourgeoisie that had triggered the movement, which promoted the Captain General of Catalonia, Primo de Rivera, to the rank of dictator of the state.

Barely a month with the Prime de Rivera coup, an illustrious representative of “Vasquismo gradualistà” Eduardo Landeta, on the other hand, delimited, with a laudable frankness, “to what extent the Basque bourgeoisie is willing to advance” by being nationalist, and by simultaneously fighting the revolution [5

National oppression is the fruit of capitalism.

Only the destruction of the system, the destruction of the state in the first place, can overcome this oppression. That is: revolution. But the “make” she (the bourgeoisie) has revolution is no less than her rejection of absolutism.

Hence his hesitations, his ambiguities in the struggle for democratic claims of which national freedom is part.

This class, Lenin says, “fears the complete democratization of the political and social regime.

It can always coordinate an alliance with absolutism, against the proletariat.

The petty bourgeoisie has, by its very nature, an equivocal attitude: on the one hand it is attracted to the proletariat, and democracy; on the other hand, it is attracted to the reactionary classes; it tries to stop the course of history, it is capable of being dragged on by the experiments and coquetties of absolutism, it is capable of coordinating an alliance with the dominant classes. In Euskadi, these average social strata that we are talking about do not always stand in the same way, in the face of the same alternative.

And, just as in Catalonia, it is the bourgeois mean that sets the tone for the whole of Catalan nationalism (a nationalism that is not one, but at most autonomy or regionalism), in Euskadi, it is the petty bourgeoisie, closer to the proletariat, which marks from its imprint the Basque nationalism which, consequently, is much more “nationalist”. The middle bourgeoisie, whose representatives are still embedded in the P.N.V., is generally willing to send the "principles" to the archives6, which gives rise to tensions and divisions (1910, 1923, 1930...).

This bourgeois average is above all anti-socialist, and to ideologically strengthen its class alliance strategy, it particularly emphasizes the country’s traditional religion and clericalism.

Whenever this class succeeded in controlling the P.N.V. and forged closer relations with the right-wing parties, the most advanced sectors of the base, mostly petty bourgeois, reacted by causing divisions.

The splitists invariably presented themselves as a non-confessional tendency to the fundamentalism of the P.N.V.

The main ideological support for this trend, itself much more radical in the problem of separation, is anti-Spanish chauvinism, chauvinism, which sometimes takes the form of true racism 77.

The preponderance of one or the other of these currents is generally manifested by a more or less marked penchant towards interventionism in the politics of the State (pacts with the Mauraists, the jaimists, with the Catholic Action ..., participation in the elections), or by a penchant for “abstentionism” in relation to the politics of the State.

However, none of these currents poses the fundamental problem: that of the destruction of the system.

The class characteristic of Basque nationalism always leads him to this contradiction of having to reconcile the radicalism of his claim with the maintenance of his social status.

From the position of those who, through their post of deputy, reduced their “patriotism” to the defence of the privileges that the flat-rate economic agreement of 1875 granted them, to the most radical formulas of petty-bourgeois nationalism, through the “reasonable and peaceful expectation of a more smiling future”, when the status of autonomy will be the remedy for all evils, all the formulas proposed by the

But enjoying this power means tearing it away from those who hold power today. Let us insist more: in our time, it meant the revolution. Hence the possibility of the coexistence of profound radicalism in the declarations and even in the methods and of a generally centrist policy, such as the one we were talking about in our zunik. 52, on the former E.T.A.

Hence again the hesitations and ambiguities of these middle classes in the struggle for national freedom and other democratic demands. Hesitations and ambiguities as necessary as their historical failure.

For, although these sectors sometimes face the repressive apparatus of the authoritarian state with decision-making and violence, they lack, by their class status, an autonomous and homogeneous response. Let us not forget that historically the social base par excellence of the fascist movements was given by the petty bourgeoisie (Nazism in Germany, poujadism in France, Italian fascism, phalangism, etc.).

In this way, while it is true that determined sectors of these middle classes are called upon to play a role in the revolutionary struggle for Euskadi’s freedom, the crux of the problem lies in the proletariat’s ability to organize and organize this struggle by taking the lead.

And only to the extent that the working masses will lead the revolutionary movement as a whole, leading to these hesitant sectors, that Euskadi will be free.

The working class must take the lead in the fight against national oppression

Let us briefly summarize the above:

National oppression has a class origin, and only a class response will give a fair solution to this problem.

The great bourgeoisie is the only one to find its interest in maintaining the national oppression that is exerted on our people.

The rest of the bourgeois classes adopts, as far as national oppression is concerned, different positions; but they are all hesitant and equivocal.

This is due to:

(a) the overall content of its class claim, determined by its class position, which pits it against both monopolism and the proletariat;

b) its class alliance ideology reinforced by Chau-Venitoristic and Clerical principles.

In order to conclude on these points: under the current conditions, only the revolutionary establishment of total democracy (which implies socialism) can put an end to national oppression once and for all.

It is not a question of having to push the fight against national oppression back to a stage after the establishment of socialism (as claimed certain opportunistic interpretations that Lenin himself himself opposed); but it is a question of inscribing this struggle, as a struggle for any unsatisfied general democratic claim, within the overall process of struggle for socialism8.

As long as capitalism is maintained, there can be no true democracy, nor true equality between different peoples and nations. But no one should be deduced from demobilising slogans as regards the democratic struggle, of which the national claim is a part.

“He who practically forgets that his duty is to be the first to propose, deepen and resolve any general democratic question is not a true communist9]. ”

The social revolution does not happen all at once, thanks to a favourable economic situation, but it is the pinnacle of a series of partial struggles: “Political revolutions are inevitable in the process of the socialist revolution, which should not be seen as an isolated act, but as a time of violent political and economic concussions10]. ”

“The insurgency itself, the culminating phase of the revolution, can erupt not only as a result of a large wave of strikes, or a military uprising against a de-mocratic-bourgeois regime, etc., but also because of any political crisis such as Dreyfus or zabern, or a referendum on the autonomy of an oppressed nation11]. ”

That is why the proletariat, the revolutionary class of our time, must support and try to take the lead in any struggle for democratic claims, including the struggle for the national freedom of the oppressed nations.

But, in reality, it will become a ruling class of these democratic transformations precisely to the extent that it will not give up its own point of view, since, while maintaining its class independence, it will move forward.

These “political transformations carried out with an authentic sense of democracy cannot under any circumstances, and under any circumstances, eclipse or weaken the instruction of the socialist revolution12].”

Otherwise, the revolutionary power of the working class would not turn into a revolutionary practice.

The fact that the working class is the most consistent revolutionary class does not depend on any magical reason.

Conversely, it is only the result of its material living conditions: because it is the most exploited and oppressed class, the largest and the most organized.

Social classes are the product of all the political, economic, ideological structures ... of a given social organization and of the relationship that these structures maintain between them.

Under the conditions of our struggle, the material situation of the working class makes it the most organized, skilful and decided class in the struggle. Its concrete situation means that, day after day, indignation and rage necessarily accumulate, the inevitable effect of the arbitrary exploiters, and constitute his class instinct.

This instinct, transformed into consciousness through the experience of struggle and under the influence of the revolutionary Tavant-garde, is transformed into the engine of the revolution.

Let us take an example: at the time of the great mobilization of December, who therefore went on strike, who fought in the demonstrations and on the barricades, who was imprisoned during the repression that followed the trials?

There is no doubt that the emotion caused by the stupidity and cruel arbitrariness of the fascists has reached large popular sectors beyond the working class.

Despite everything, what is the social class that has constituted the bulk of the forces that have been able to materialize this popular emotion into concrete acts of struggle against the fascists?

We will no doubt be told that this was normal, that it was self-evident, that it is not the bosses who are going to go on strike, even the most “democratic”, including the cooperative.

We will also be told that it was logical that in areas of great industrial concentration, where workers are more organized in their combative attitude to the enemy, confrontation should be wider, strikes and general solidarity.

It is precisely this and nothing else we claim/We insist that these are by no means magical reasons, but the conditions of existence of the working class, which are determined by the current development of forces and relations of production.

That is to say, the workers are gathered in large companies, which gives a high level of concentration; the working class is the largest, it is the most exploited and therefore the most combative at the time of the confrontation, and the most clever to materialize indignation and rage against oppression and exploitation in concrete acts of the struggle.

It is capitalism by its very logic that created these material conditions.

Hence Marx’s statement: “The system has spawned its own gravediggers. Hence the revolutionary power of the proletariat, which “has nothing to lose but its chains, but which has a whole world to gain.”

Since the revolutionary power of the working class depends on its material conditions of existence as a class, the proletariat will take the lead in the revolutionary process to the extent that it will not give up its own point of view.

That, for example, in December, other popular, non-proletarian sectors (arrantzales, small traders from semi-rural regions, students, etc.), courageously join the fight, is due to the fact that, at the current stage of capitalism, they too, are, at a different level, victims of oppression by the system.

The proletariat must therefore try to drag them with it into the struggle.

But since these sectors and these social strata lack an autonomous and comprehensive option, their practice will be revolutionary only to the extent that it will join the global struggle of the proletariat, the fight for socialism and internationalism, that is to say, for the suppression of all kinds of exploitation and inequality between the people and the nations.

In conclusion, the working class will take the lead in the struggle against national oppression (only and only way to obtain the freedom of our people) if, by joining the struggle betrayed hitherto by the hesitations of the middle classes, it does not give up its particular class interests, but on the contrary, if it relies on them; if it does not give up its own point of view, but, on the contrary, if it does not give up its own point of view;

“By stressing the solidarity of the opposition groups with the workers, the communists will always point out and explain to the workers the temporary and conditional nature of this solidarity, they will always defend the particular interests of the proletariat like those of a class that can tomorrow oppose its allies today. ”

We can be told: will such a statement not weaken all those who are fighting for political freedom at the present time?

Only those who fight with genuine interests clearly understood by specific classes are strong.

Anything that can make class interests opaque, which already play a dominant role in today’s society, can only weaken the fighters (...on the other way) in the fight against absolutism.

The working class itself must put itself forward, for it alone is consistent to the end, and alone, it is the unconditional enemy of absolutism; the compromises between itself and absoluteism are impossible; only the working class can be the ally without restrictions, without indecisions, without going back, of democracy.

In 1905, in the midst of the struggle against tsarist absolutism, Lenin asked himself: "Can the conscious worker forget the democratic struggle in honor of the socialist struggle, or the socialist struggle in honour of the democratic struggle? No. The conscious worker is called a social democrat because he has understood the relationship between the two struggles. ”

Working class contribution to fighting national oppression

"For the working class," we said in zuik. 52, it is not just a question of resuming the national struggle of the bourgeoisie. For the latter, national liberation is a political objective with which class exploitation can be maintained. For the working class, the end of national oppression is a democratic goal to be achieved for the benefit of the entire people in their process of struggle for socialism. ”

That is to say, not only does it live in an existing struggle, but it also transforms it, giving it a revolutionary, socialist content. Once the time limit for the bourgeoisie had to find, as we said above, a solution to the problem, the working class, the only unconditionally democratic class, must not limit itself to supporting the general (non-socialist) democratic content given by the middle classes to its fight, vantained, first of all, it must take the bourgeoisie away from the bourgeoisie the prerogative of the exclusive defence of this content and lead its consequences.

How can this materialize?

What is the contribution of the working class to the national struggle when it takes away from the bourgeoisie the prerogative of the struggle that the latter had previously claimed to monopolize, and that it takes the lead of this struggle?

The working class brought its particular, revolutionary, scientific conception of the struggle and at the same time destroyed the bourgeois ideological representation of the struggle. That is to say, it destroys the ideas, myths and falsifications that the bourgeoisie used to abuse the Basque masses and drag them into a fight that was not theirs.

In Euskadi, the first “great Spain” nationalism is one of the manifestations of the ideology of the ruling class, the great bourgeoisie.

In response to this ultra-reactionary nationalism, the Basque middle classes have built another ideology, the Basque nationalist ideology.

The middle classes, with a focus on difference rather than equality, are trying to extend to all popular sectors of the nationally oppressed community its particular forms of social awareness, its particular ideological conception.

The ploy preferably used is that of “national interests”.

They present as such their special antiproletarian and anti-monopolist interests.

In a very significant way, the appeal that the “Basic Government” of Leizaola directed “to the whole Basque people,” at the time of the Burgos trial, advocated, so that there was no doubt possible: “We appeal to the bosses and the workers ...”

The nationalist bourgeoisie is perfectly aware of the fact that, all alone, that is to say without the support of the largest and combative class, the proletariat that it tries to train when presenting another solution in the alternative to Francoism, its strength is zero.

His class position both made him desirous and fear the strength of the working class. If the working class does not mobilize, monopolistic capitalism will continue to impose its law.

The nationalist bourgeoisie knows that this means that it will continue to be pushed back from the group that manages the economy, and to be relegated to the last wagon of the exploiters.

But the nationalist bourgeoisie also knows that if the proletariat mobilizes against the oppression to which it is subjected, it runs the risk of being overwhelmed by the latter’s revolutionary action, and of seeing the end of its exploitative class privileges.

It is for this reason that the nationalist bourgeoisie has and will always have a hesitant attitude, and will apply a centrist policy.

In the appeal of the “Basque Government” to which we have just alluded, the desire was evident that the gestures of protest against the Burgos judgment “remain within the norms of the proprieties that have always characterized the actions of the masses of the Basque resistance”.

From this need both to train and contain the revolutionary masses stems from the inability of the nationalist bourgeoisie to lead a struggle, whatever it may be, for the freedom of Touskadi. If, as we have already said, any ideology tends to be transmitted to other classes, for nationalist ideology this characteristic appears particularly clearly.

The call for “bosses and workers” reflects this conception of class alliance: Basque bosses and workers and, as such (we want to believe it), with converging interests.

“Let us first make the Euskadi free and we will see later that it is socialist or capitalist,” it is often said to be repeated, even by so-called “socialist” organizations. But let's ask the question: what will this Euskadi be, for now?

That is to say, if we postpone the social transformation of Basque society, this Euskadi, for what we are fighting, what will it be, not being “socialist or capitalist”? And, if not yet, it can only be capitalism.

We therefore bet on man's maintenance of the exploitation of rahumans.

Let this man who exploit the others be Basque does not console us at all. Are they not Basques also who exploit us today?

National oppression is taking place throughout the nation.

This does not diminish or alter the contradictions between the various classes that make up the national collectivity: “As for the democratic elements in oppressed nationalities ... everyone knows and sees that within these categories of population the class contradictions are much deeper and stronger than their solidarity with each other against absolutism and in favour of democratic institutions [14, p. ”

Let us understand: it is not a question of abandoning, as a matter of principle, trying to integrate the democratistic-bourgeois elements of oppressed nationality in the fight against national oppression and other forms of political oppression.

But, on the other hand, we must avoid being integrated into the reformist struggle of these elements.

In tribute to the support of a few thousand small traders, lawyers, technicians, small industrialists, etc., the proletariat cannot give up its independent point of view and from time to time lower the objectives of the struggle to prevent the desertion of these allies. A policy based on concessions to avoid the disbandment of these allies would only provoke the contagion of the proletariat itself from the hesitation that is the cause.

Such a policy would in fact mean abandoning, once again, the leading role of the working class in favour of the bourgeoisie.

“Only the proletariat can be the vanguard fighter for political freedom and for democratic institutions because, in the first place, political oppression falls on it, with the utmost harshness, without anything attenuating it15].”

In the face of chauvinism, class solidarity

As we have said, class alliance is the basis of nationalist conception. This class alliance is reinforced by chauvinism, both in the sense of glorification of what is indigenous as in the rejection of what comes from outside, which is considered to be bad in itself.

In The Surgreection in Euskadi published in 1964, it is said "Spanish, of whom it does not matter, as Spaniards, whether right or left".

In Sarrailh's article "Revolutionary Nationalism" published in Branka (No. 1, 1966), there are two poles of the fundamental contradiction: the Basque pole - progress, to the Spanish pole - reaction.

In a table summarized, the Basque Country is identified in the sense (language, character of what is) Basque, socialism, social property, “euskaldunity”, progress.

At the other pole, Spain represents: Castilian, feudalism-bourgeoisie, bourgeois and feudal property, hispanity, reaction. Even today, some nationalist currents have “solved” the problem of reconciling nationalism and Marxism by means of the outright identification of the reaction and “the Spaniards”, to the point that the Basque exploiter bourgeois cease to be (basque) because “they lack a true national conscience”.

The old clichés can thus be used, and the struggle can be presented as a struggle "between the Euskadi and Spain". The stratagem is as basic as it is effective.

As one understands that some Basques are enemies, their naturalization is called into question and they are included in the other painting. They are no longer Basques, but "objectively Spanish".

As these “left-wing” nationalist currents (where our organization has trampled for a long time) are progressing, under the pressure of the development of the revolutionary struggle, towards more radical attitudes, we will see how all those who were still yesterday important allies are on the table next to the “Spanish.” The P.N.V. is already being reproached for being a bourgeois party and therefore “as a result” Spanish.

From Sabino’s ultra-reactionary racism, we have arrived at more refined forms of class alliance.

Religion, this ideology that tends to identify magically rich and poor, was at one time, as was racism, the weapon; the main of the alliance of clans.

Today, it has lost some of its importance, but chauvinism, especially anti-Spanish chauvinism, continues to be on the agenda, including, as we have seen, in the most advanced currents of current nationalism.

"The chauvinism of the bourgeoisie," said Marx a hundred years ago, "is nothing but vanity that attributes a national physiognomy to all its pretensions.

Chauvinism is a means... (to) enslavement of producers in all countries, by exciting them against each other, against their own brothers in other countries; chauvinism is a means of preventing the international collaboration of the working class, a prerequisite for its emancipation15]. ”

In the Great Miners' Strike of 1890 that we talked about, one of the main demands was the destruction of the barracks where the workers were housed.

These wooden shacks, located near the seams of the mines, grouped the workers according to their geographical origin: Aragones, Galicians, Basques, etc. Foremen continually excited them against each other to divide them and to oppose each other. “The Aragonese are jeans-beam who do not want to work,” they told biscain minors. And to those who came from afar: "What the Basques want is you to drive you out of the Basque Country. ”

The bosses provoked these clashes knowing very well how sensitive they were, both, to this kind of demagogy.

Some of these bosses (the most notorious of them in the Somorrostro region, Gallarta, La Arboleda... were the "Basquiste" - el Vasqitista - Lezama Lezama Leguizamon) mocked a few years later in the ranks of the party founded by Sabino Arana.

He wrote, four years after the great strike, in the chronicle of the events published by the newspaper Bizkaitarra: "It was not very long since there was a conflict in one of the mines of the West, between Eukeran workers and maketos strikers ... The latter, lazy by nature and desirous of having a salary increase, wanted to force ours to interrupt their work. ”

In a recent issue of Aidea, the P.N.V. bulletin, we were reminded that the first internal objective was “the destruction of ideologies and foreign organizations”.16]

Any conception that does not fit the interests of these middle classes that the P.N.V. represents can, thanks to this ruse, be regarded as a “foreign” ideology.

"Enough of these socialist ideas, which are anti-Christian, and anti-basic," Sabino Arana advised his co-religionists in 1897.17]

The proletariat, taking the lead in the fight against national oppression, must above all combat all these forms of social consciousness emanating from the bourgeoisie and this entire system of imaginary representations. With regard to the recognition of class struggle, nationalism takes on different positions, all of which are idealistic: from those who simply deny it, to those who admit it in general, but consider our case to be a “historic exception”.

Various bourgeois ideologues were responsible for mounting the scaffolding necessary for this construction.

Thus we hear the words “the ancestral democracy of the Basques” as a historical category; it is also that we deduce from certain characteristics of the development of the feudal cycle in Euskàdi exceptional consequences intended to demonstrate that, in our case, the revolution is not necessary in order to achieve equality and justice.

“For justice and equality to be achieved in Basque society,” said Arana, “it is not necessary to come to socialism ... these sacred words are indelibly engraved in the history of our race, in the theories of our ancestors, on the nationalist flag. ”

At present, the wording is less primary, but the ideological trunk is still the same.

Mr. Uzturre told us in the April issue of Aidrai: “Let us say it from the outset, not everything is just a class struggle in our people18]. ”

Today, it is accepted that socialism is necessary (to those who proclaim the opposite), but this fight is being postponed to a next stage.

Moreover, since the proletariat’s predominant role in the process of struggle is not indicated, it is not explained how the working class can play this role if it must conceal the specificity of its class interests in an attempt to conquer the “national bourgeoisie.”

Behind the “interests of the people”, the very real contradictions that exist between different classes of the national community are hidden (or magically hidden).

We will insist on this: only revolution can overcome the national oppression that crushes our people.

And revolution does not mean concealing class confrontations, but, on the contrary, that they are exacerbated, that they are made more acute.

At the same time, since the revolution is going through the destruction of the Spanish bourgeois state (task that concerns all the peoples of the peninsula), the contradictions of superstructures created between countries resulting from interests that are not their own, cannot be exacerbated but, on the contrary, resolved.

Contradictions and interppulse confrontations exist. But while for the chauvinist it is only to see and notice them, the socialist revolutionary must try to find the cause. It is from such a perspective that we are asking the question.

Does the Spanish worker find any interest in maintaining national oppression in Euskadi? Does the Andalusian peasant derive any benefit from the linguistic oppression to which the Basque little peasant is subjected? Is it not rather the interests of the ruling class (i.e. the great bourgeoisie of the peninsula, whether Castilian or Basque, Andalusian or Castilian) that provoke national oppression on our people?:

In any society, the dominant ideology is the ideology of the ruling class. That is why Grand Spanish chauvinism is rooted in important sectors of the Spanish popular masses.

But we must not just note this fact.

We must analyse this chauvinism and try to find out whether the masses of the people of the rest of the peoples under the Spanish bourgeois state benefit from it.

And, conversely, the fact that, in the face of Spanish nationalism, the Basque middle classes have opposed an equally nationalistic and chauvinistic ideological response must not make us forget the workers and popular masses of the other peoples of the peninsula that there is absolutely nothing in the interests of the Basque proletariat and the working people who push them to adopt the “anti-Spanish” arch-reactionary chauvinism that has characterized all the world-savvyists.

Nationalism, both that of the dominant nation and that of an oppressed nation, has helped to create dams between peoples, making their understanding difficult and causing mutual suspicion.

This suspicion will disappear only once for oneself only with the elimination of his cause, that is, ultimately, of national oppression.

But, as early as now, the revolutionaries must strive to educate the workers and popular masses of the dominant nation, as well as those of the oppressed nation, to inculcate in them the principles of internationalism, emphasizing the absurdity of any chauvinism, on both sides, and to gradually eliminate suspicion and distrust19].

This education must be given to the workers and the people of the oppressed nation in order to combat all forms of national selfishness, insisting on the need for their class solidarity with their brothers of the other peoples of the State, insisting on the interest of the voluntary union directed not only against the common enemy, but also by thinking of the construction of the future socialist and communist society which, as Marx points out, can only be international.

"The communist of a small nation... can speak out in favour of his nation's independence as well as in favour of enlistment with the neighbouring state...

But, in any case, he will have to fight against pettiness and national narrowness, against national isolation, against particularism, so that Ton takes account of the total and the general, and that particular interests are placed on the generals. ”

At the same time, the conscious revolutionary must educate the workers and popular masses of the great nation against all forms of chauvinism. With particular emphasis on “the freedom to separate from oppressed countries. Otherwise, there is no internationalism. We have the right and the duty to name the imperialist and scoundrels to all the national democrats of a nation that do not realize such propaganda21]."

The fight against the national oppression of the Euskadi also affects the workers of the dominant nation, especially its most conscious fighters. Lenin placed particular emphasis on this: “The essence of the problem of the self-determination of nations lies precisely, in our time, in the attitude of the socialists of the oppressive countries22]. ”

This, as we saw at the beginning, because the problem of national oppression cannot be at the 'geographical' level, on the margins of classes, as the result of the centralism of a given region.

Centralism is not the monopoly of Castile, or any region, but the inevitable result of the development of the bourgeoisie and capitalism. Centralism is a set of political, economic, financial and military interests of a class; interests common to the exploiting classes of all the peoples of the State.

That is why the revolutionaries must strive now to eliminate all suspicions, defiances, fears, etc. that would help to pit the workers of the oppressed nation between themselves. In trying to coordinate as many forces as possible against the class enemy, who is truly responsible for the suspicion and its deepest cause, the very existence of national oppression.

In the face of pacifism, revolutionary violence

The best-illustrating policy of pacifist attitude is the P.N.V.’s traditional “prophone,” which is characterized by a humble prayer addressed to a hypothetical future bourgeois republic – or perhaps to a “less troglody, more civilized” post-Francisorshipism (Areilza) – to obtain certain concessions, which, without complicating things, could contain the revolt of the masses.

A standby policy that, since the war, has gone through two phases.

In the 1940s, the hopes of the P.N.V. bourgeoisie focused on the “imminent” intervention of the supermen, of North American democracy; who were preparing to “permanently strangle the Franco regime” with the help of their English associates.

The President of the “Basque Government” stated in 1942: “The triumph of the democratic camp ... will ensure the benefits of freedom for all, by the guarantee that the great American nation united to the British Empire offers in the first place23]. ”

Imbibé of this policy, the leaders of the P.N.V., who are increasingly bureaucratized, limited themselves to organizing, from within, the distribution of town halls and other key posts “for the great future”.

With regard to youth, the proposed objective was to “maintain the nationalist flame in it”.

No concrete objectives for the fight.

External actions are above all “feelings of testimony”, which has characterized the P.N.V.’s trajectory for fifty years.

The mobilization of the masses is not conceived as an action in the struggle, but as a demonstration of the number of members. From the time of the monstrous pilgrimages to Lourdes, to the Aberri-Eguna of Guernika, for example, the Jelkids of the P.N.V. never knew what to do with these masses that had been summoned. And even less the day after the protests.

On the contrary, “diplomatic” activity has been their specialty.

No effort was spared to please the "paladins of 24]democracy".

When they launched the “cold war” offensive and anti-communism, Lean-dro Carro, who had replaced Astigarrabia as the Communist Party’s representative in the “Basque Government,” was excluded.

Even today, the leaders of the P.N.V. are accustomed to explaining this measure as something “invitable” given the international context.

Once the hope of an allied intervention and the diplomatic “braumatization” of Francoism has vanished, the P.N.V.’s bureaucrats do not dwell in their instructions to refrain from fighting. In recent times, their traditional policy of waiting has been reinforced by the spectacular capitulation (everyever more spectacular) of the opposition sectors.

They deduced (or they thought they could deduce from it) that they are even more right than they had imagined, and they prepare with hope to return to the polls.

The pacifist, demobilizing instructions that have accompanied their proclamations on the Aberri-Eguna in the last three years are not surprising. If the Basque (el Vasco) remains inactive during 1969.

And even now when, after Burgos, they had no way out but to call for demonstrations, they did so with slogans like those that the Gudari due in March offered: “Against provocation: calm; against repression: firmness; against false news: Radio-Euskadi. ”

The proletariat must fight this worn-out policy of the nationalist right, a political attitude that flatters the power and strives to reassure it, in order to try to compete in “democratic” elections with the least narrow-minded elements (Lop. Bravo, Areilza and cie).

In Berriak 5, we reproduced the statements of a former leader of the P.N.V.: “We are fighting for Spain to have a structure similar to that of the German Federal Republic. A Basque Land in a way, in the kind of present-day Bavaria. ”

It is important that we know how to understand the last reason, the “class” reason for this attitude.

In the current circumstances, the Euskadi’s national freedom presupposes the revolution. The nationalist right is afraid of revolution.

That is why, necessarily, it procrastinates.

Necessarily, because wandering and prevaricating is the very principle of its class claim, and constitutes the essence of its class nature.

When it comes to the revolutionary pressure of the masses on the one hand and the system on the other, it is essential to believe in the evolutionary possibilities of the latter.

That is to say, he must believe that the system can give in voluntarily, by itself, without shocks and without violence.

But that hope is strictly illusory, ideological.

The working-class and popular masses know from their own experience that the one in power will never voluntarily renounce his privileges. That in order to defend his privileges (of exploiter and oppressor) he has a powerful apparatus: laws, police, army ... which, as a whole, constitute the State.

Without destroying this state, no real democratization is possible.

At most, the old fascist edifice could be embellished with a few retail concessions. But the Euskadi’s freedom is much more than “a concession of detail.”

The process of scraping the struggle in recent years has itself confirmed to us absolutely that the freedom of the Euskadi is not possible without breaking this cycle of exceptional measures, repressive laws, police, fascist propaganda, etc.

It is in no way a question of replacing a bad court with another less bad one; the bourgeois army, with another bourgeois army; the police with another “non-repressive” police. All these instruments constitute the mechanism, the apparatus of the State, whose mission is, precisely through repression, to curb and curb the revolution.

In the face of systematic, institutional terror, only the destruction of the state through revolutionary violence can give us democracy and national freedom. Only in this way will the Euskadi be free.

“We must spread the armed insurgency in the great masses without concealing the problem by foresight, without resorting to subterfuges. To conceal from the masses the urgency of a fierce, bloody, exterminative war ... is to deceive oneself, and it is to deceive the people26].

We will add this further: to hide from the masses that no magical solution will come to an end to exploitation, but that, on the contrary, it is they, and they alone, which, by their struggle, will shake the yoke of repression; that this struggle will not be short-lived, nor easy, but long, ruthless, complicated ...

It is to delude oneself and deceive the people.

For the individual heroism of a few is not enough; only is urgent, massive revolutionary action of thousands of conscious men is urgent.

Iraultza ala hil. Mundu guztiko language
Ta herfi zapalduak
Elkartu gaitezen

E.T.A.
Euskadi ta Askatasuna.

 

 

 Euskadi Ta Askatasuna: press release of June 1977

After 40 years of absolute personal domination, Europe’s last dictator dies.

Franco will leave us as a legacy of countless deaths, tortured, prisoners and exiles: a people, ours, which, on the very edge of the genocide, cries loudly on the ashes; a political legality without parties, without trade unions or freedoms of any kind; a monarch by the divine grace and not that of the people; and a Parliament which, representing no one, if not an oligarchy, decides the destiny not only of the Spanish people.

It will be this Parliament that will approve, not without serious internal difficulties, the new State Political Reform Act.

The Basque people, once again, will show the absence of the so-called unity of Spain. By defending his right to decide on his destiny, he refused to recognize the authority of the Spanish and Fascist Legislative Chamber, by the strongest abstention in the referendum.

The Political Reform Act will decide on the new legislative bodies, reserving the right, at the last moment, to give effect to the electoral law, which indicates the ways in which popular participation in the elections of Congress and the Senate.

The elections are coming together, and ETA as all Euskadi’s political forces must give their opinion.

The Suarez Government claims to make us believe that these are democratic elections simply by admitting universal secret and direct suffrage. The differences between these approaching elections and those of a democratic regime are obvious, at least in Euskadi;

The Monarchy cannot be called into question;

Some members of the Senate are directly appointed by Juan Carlos;

parties representing the socialist abertzale line are not legalized, their public action is not tolerated;

trade unions are illegal; our language remains prohibited without the recognition of its identity;

The Basque people continue to be politically institutionalized;

Prisoners and exiles continue far from their families and their country;

People's organisations are brutally repressed in their public demonstration;

detentions and imprisonment continue to occur in an arbitrary manner;

torture, although more selective than at previous times, continues to be practised in police stations and barracks in the Guardia Civil;

Spanish repressive forces continue to occupy our territory, making it impossible for any security guarantee for the aberta-socialist militants and any formula for peaceful coexistence.

The Suarez Government has tried with some success the integration of the Spanish people into its political reform plan.

In Euskadi, this attempt failed, and today he repeats it through the elections.

The Basque people want peace.

This requires the creation of minimum democratic paths through which one's aspirations can materialize without the need to resort to violence.

These paths can only be the positive solution to the negotiations that have been set out before; solutions that we believe are given in KAS’s alternative program.

Assuming that this programme cannot now be offered by the Suarez Government, there are at least two things that cannot be postponed because without them, the Spanish Government’s promises to begin to walk the path of democracy offer no credibility.

These two points are:

1) Total amnesty.

But be careful, it is not enough to take prisoners out of prisons.

We are hearing with insistence on a Government project that Basque prisoners accused of executions are exiled or relegated to any remote location in the Spanish State.

We want to make it clear that this solution is not valid.

The Basque people have fought a great deal for the freedom of its militants, and the relationship of forces in the current situation is clearly favourable to him.

TOTAL AMNESTIES SUPPOSES THE RIGHT OF ALL PRISONERS AND REQUIREMENTS TO BE IN THEIR FOYERS WITH ALL THEIR RIGHTS OF CIVID.

And, please, let us not be told that the government cannot guarantee their safety.

If that is the problem, we offer them a solution: that they remove from Euskadi the Civil Guardia, the Armed Police and the General Police Force, and the Basque people themselves will create bodies in charge of defending citizens.

2) Minimum democratic freedoms, such as the absolute freedom of assembly, association and expression of all political tendencies existing in Euskadi; the right to demonstration and equal access of all Basque political forces to official mass media and State subsidy.

Without these minimum conditions, the Basque people cannot consider open or even forgotten, the path to the democratization of the state.

Nor can he legitimize by his vote a regime that is maintained by the sole force of arms.

If the government did not meet these conditions at the latest one month before the election date, ETA calls on the Basque people to abstain and declares its willingness to revive the armed struggle until the success of the K.A.S. alternative program.

The Basque people want peace, but it demands freedom.

It is possible that some Basque parties, hiding behind a thousand excuses (there are always reasons even for treason) felt tempted to go to the legislative elections without the fulfilment of the two conditions, taking refuge behind the privileges offered by the defence of interests foreign to those of the Basque people's strata in order to seek power: let them know that they do so on the fringe of the popular consensus freely expressed,

And that these Basques who would help these parties know that with their vote they help maintain a dictatorship that, for almost half a century, tried by the bloodiest means to put an end to our people and to perpetuate the exploitation of the workers, arrantzal (fishermakers), baserritarra (landscapes), technicians, employees, small traders, etc., of all those who win their hand.

 

The Basque National Question 2004

This is an interview with comrade Walter who is from the organization named Askapena (Basque Solidarity With the People). Comrade Walter came to India to attend the WSF conference in Mumbai

PM: This is People’s March calling. We want to know of the movement in the Basque country. We would like to know of the past and present of the national movement of the Basque people. What is its origin, what is the history of the Basque people so that our people, who are unacquainted with this national movement in the heart of Europe, might get a glimpse? Most of the people here think that the national question is resolved in Europe. But time to time some reports of the Basque national liberation struggle and that of the Irish national movement do come, but we see that as far as the national liberation struggle of the Basque people is concerned the people know very little. So, please let our readers understand about your people and appreciate their struggle.

Comrade Walter: Well! The first thing we have to say every time is that the people of the Basque country, the Basque people, we call them Euskalerrio, the Basque land. Euskalerria, is a land where the people speak the Basque language. And this is important. It exists. It is important to say this, because all the media, especially the French and Spanish mass media, insist in ignoring the existence of the Basque people. The Spanish say you are Spanish people and the French say you are French people. Yes. That is why they can accept all the documents, for example of the United Nations, which speak of the self determination of the people. Yes. Also the Spanish government and also the French Government accept these documents of the UN and of the entire world because they simply say that we don’t have any problem with the people inside their lands. We don’t exist for them. We simply don’t exist. So, we insist and are saying that we do exist. And we are a people. We live in a territory which is split up between two states, the French republic and the Spanish monarchy. The northern part of our country is in the French republic and the bigger part is in the Spanish monarchy. Also the southern part is split off in two different administrative areas of the Spanish government with different laws and different local governments. One of our big problems is that we don’t have one territory. So, we insist every time that we exist and we have a right to self-determination. Yes, this is the first point, which is not negotiable. We will not negotiate on this right. When we speak of the self-determination of the Basque people we speak of all the people who live in the territory where the Basque language is spoken. Our language has been repressed for very very long years; especially during the forty years of the dictatorship of Franco it was absolutely forbidden to speak our language.

PM: That must have been the worst period for you!

W: The worst period for us, yes. It was forbidden the language to speak everywhere. It was the young people, the students who spoke our language and were imprisoned. It is almost like the Kurds in Kurdistan. It is the period of the dictatorship of Franco when it was also forbidden to organize trade unions, to organize social organization, sports. Everything was forbidden for us. All things were imposed on us. When the dictator died and there was what they called the democratic transition; we call it a democratic lie and the democratic lie of especially the Spanish left. They failed because they accepted the monarchy, and the new ‘democratic’ consti-tution of the Spanish government, where one of the six articles says that the Spanish military must guarantee the unity of Spain.

PM: The most undemocratic thing in a democracy.

W: Yes. And this makes it absolutely impossible only to think about self-determination.

PM: Right.

W: We insist on two things: the right to self-determination and territoriality. Territoriality means that all the people who live there must have this right to decide by themselves. And it applies to all the French people and all the Spanish people who have immigrated here since all these years. There were forced immigrations under Franco, for example. And then more subtle immigration because of certain laws and certain possibilities to have jobs there by the Spanish administration and the French administration. In the French part, for example they reversed the process to root out a lot of Basque people form our country; because of economic reasons they were forced to troop outward so that more than, I think, sixty percent of the Basque people that live in the north are outside of our country. They sold a lot of land to tourists in the north part of our country in the tourist areas. Yes. In spite of this in the south part, especially under the so-called socialist government of Felipe Gonzales, they made a law of counter insurgency because they made an alliance especially with the oligarchy. Then they destroyed all the industrial network of our heavy industry which was working very well in the Basque land. They destroyed it and shifted it to Madrid and Valencia and other towns. So this resulted in a lot of people being without work. Yet they are unable to extinguish the Basque liberation movement, the Basque national social liberation movement. They used, what we call, the dirty war of state terrorism. They killed about thirty-nine of our persons, either directly by policemen, or by certain criminals with money to carry out this task.

PM: Contract killings?

W: Yes. About thirty nine persons were murdered in this way by the state, by the Spanish socialist government. We must say it is social democratic and, I think, in certain ways worse than the rightist parties. Because of its failure their in this task, and in other things as well, and also their failure in controlling the Basque land, the socialist party failed in gaining in the elections of ’97. And power went to the party of Aznar. Now, in Spain, since ’97 the government is run by Aznar. Now there is more repression, a little bit different repression.

PM: What sort of?

W: Different because they do some things that the socialist party was afraid to do. They have destroyed absolutely the basic principles of democracy in Spain; that is the separation of legal power, the executive power, and the legislative and the judicial power. Now there is no difference between the church, the police and the politician. They make common cause, common strategies so that the oppression is very legal. For example, they made a law to illegalise a lot of the Basque social organisations and the Basque parties. The Akatasuna party which takes up institutional struggles, was illegalized about one and a half years ago with this law. This law was made exclusively for that. That does not mean the government will not use this law against other parties when they make them angry, especially the left parties, the small left parties will be illegalised with this law also. But it was made especially to illegalise the Basque left parties. So, we have a situation in the Basque land where almost, I can say, the whole movement is illegal and there is a lot of struggle. There are seven hundred political prisoners. This is a lot. The whole population of Basque land is less than three millions. So, seven hundred political prisoners is very high.

PM: If you compare this with the Indian population you get 2,80,000 political prisoners here. That is a very high figure definitely.

W: Yes. These prisoners are tortured and hidden. In Spanish and French constitutions there is dispersion politics. The Spanish and French constitutions say a prisoner must be in a jail which is nearest to his family so that the family can regularly visit him. The social relations of the prisoner with the family are not to be broken down completely. But they violate their own laws. And they disperse all the Basque prisoners in about ninety different jails all over the Spanish and French territory, so that the families and the friends are forced to travel more than seven hundred kilometers to visit a prisoner.

PM: Why are they distributed so thinly?

W: They distribute them to extinguish their identities, so that they cannot have discussions. Seventy percent of all Basque prisoners are isolated. They cannot speak to anybody but the jail walls and jail employees. This policy began when the socialist party was in the government. Then the Basque nationalist right hand party approved this. And well, it began in ’82-83. We are now in two thousand and four. So, for over twenty years they have this policy; yet they have not gained anything. Today the collective spirit of Basque political prisoners is stronger than ever. They now have made it, don’t ask me how they did it, but they did it. Really did it. They conducted discussions with all the Basque prisoners and made it manifest with a new organization inside all these jails.

PM: Fantastic! Very good.

W: Yes. (Laughs). And now we have this organization in jails. These prisoners, a lot of these prisoners, are from armed organisations. Not all. A lot of them are from the youth organisations. A lot are from our other social organisations. The media that was closed, the directors of newspapers, the radios, that are inside the jails and are a part of this collective of political prisoners. So not only the [people from] armed organisations are in prison but also a lot of other people are working in this liberation movement. They have not done anything violent. Even we can say some people were against this armed strategy because they thought, "well we have to try another strategy". And even these people who had publicly for years opposed armed struggle — saying that, I think we should do this in another way, that armed organisations should have ceasefire, an absolute ceasefire, they should disappear etc. — even [They] are [now] in jail, accused of being part of the armed organisations even though through years they have opposed this strategy.

PM: Yes.

W: This is now the situation in the jails. I must say that there are a lot of women also and the women everywhere in the jails have more problems than the men, because, they have, well, …sexual tortures and they have very very big problems to r[a]ise their children. Yes.

PM: Does the majority of the Basque people feel that without armed struggle and armed revolution they cannot succeed in…

W: No. that is not true. The majority… well, I think it will be better to make a little map, a social map, of what we have in the Basque land, in Basque society. It is important to say that in the Basque society all the people that live there, except the Spanish and French policemen and the Spanish and French military and the high [officials of] the governments of Spain and France, are not locals. Basque society is a society that has even more than 40% immigration. 40% of the people of this society have come from outside, especially from Spain and France. The problem is that the Spanish people and the French people who come into the Basque land don’t feel that they are immigrants because they say it is our country. It is Spain or it is France, we are not immigrants. They think the immigrants are the black people and the Latin American people from Columbia and from Nicaragua. They say that these are the immigrants, we are not. But we say: you are immigrants like the others. There is no difference. You have the same rights. But we want them because they are mostly from the working class. So,we want to have a good politics relations withthem; with all the immigrants. They can be Chinese or they can be from Andalusia, from Spain, or from Madrid. It does not matter. We can make a good politics with them and find solutions to the problems of immigration. We want to have immigration with the integration into the Basque society but not assimilation. Because we don’t want that you forget your roots. You must have your culture, you must have your language, you must have all what is yours. But you must integrate this with the Basque society. You must also be Basque and you can be Basque. You can learn the Basque language and you can mingle with us, with our culture and you must not forget your’s. It does not matter if you are from Spain, if you are French, if you are from Columbia, from China, from Morocco, from Algeria, from anywhere. We know it is a problem, it is very difficult all over the whole world to integrate without assimilation without extinguishing the other part, but it is possible. It is for this that we have to recite our politics, our immigration politics. But we can’t, because the decision of all these politics is either in Madrid or Paris. So we ask them too, help us to get independence, to get our right to decide things and toge-ther we will decide how we can solve it best.

And I think that is an example, the only example that demonstrates that the Basque people are not racial. There is, however, a campaign that the Basque are involved in ethnic cleansing.

PM: There is a campaign going on?

W: There is a campaign in the Spanish newspapers and radio. The Spanish intellectuals say this. That is absolutely not true. The thing we cannot understand, I can’t understand, why the lefts in Spain, the lefts in France, will make a common cause to support the politics of the right, of the so-called socialists of Spain, with their politics against the Basque land. So, we do know that the left in Spain, the left in France is not our enemy. Our enemy is capitalism, imperialism, also the imperialism we call it from Spain, from Madrid and from Paris. We know that. But our problem, our real problem is the left of Spain, the left of France that supports the right’s politics, when Basque politics is concerned.

They support the right’s politics. They speak about self-determination but, in practice they go against it.

PM: We too have such kind of people who say: right to self determination is okay, we support that right but as far as the North-Eastern peoples and the Kashmiri people are concerned we won’t give them independence. They too call themselves Socialists and Marxists!

W: Yes. A similar problem.

PM: Of course.

W: That is one thing. I think it is a good example. We can also speak of the economic and financial campaign in the last years that the media in Spain, all the great intellectuals of the Spanish left and right are writing and saying — that an independent Basque country is not viable economically. This is absolutely false. And I will state it very simply and clearly.

The Basque economy is over and above the average of Europe. So we have a good functioning economy, the capitalistic economy, I must say this. In their own terms it is a good functioning industry and economy. The average Basque financial income is over the average of Europe, and even Spain. So, Spain cannot be European without the Basque and Catalonian industry and economy. That is the first thing. The second thing is, with taxes and others, I don’t know how it is in English, the Basques pay, every year, six thousand millions of Euro, more or less dollars, to Madrid which doesn’t come back. If we are independent with this money we can do miracles.

PM: Given that there is no capitalism!

W: Yes. All the negotiations with Brussels regarding the Basque, that is with the European Union, is done by the Spaniards at Madrid and the Frenchmen at Paris. We cannot speak directly; we cannot negotiate directly, with Europe. They will do all negotiations, concentrating every time more and more richness in Madrid, and making all the negotiations with Europe to get the Basque people and also Catalonians poorer and poorer and poorer. Only for their own interests in Madrid. If we are indepe-ndent we will be making our own negotia-tions with Europe and we will be, I think much better off. I know that these negotiat-ions are capitalistic because Europe is capitalist. We don’t need to give away six thousand millions of Euros every year and especially we can regain all the industries that have been extinguished and transpor-ted to other towns. We can regain this because this was not so extensive in the last years; yet it all goes to the big money making industries and banks of Madrid.

What they have done is the absolute destruction of Basque industry and they did not totally succeed in it. More than a hundred years ago the Basque people were mainly fishermen. But with the industrial revolution we built up heavy industry to make especially ships and other things with metals. And the industries were destroyed by the socialist party of Spain. Now, the Basque oligarch tries to build up industry of technology, the vanguard technology. In spite of all this, the industry of Basque is continues.

PM: Let us get back to the point of armed struggle once again. Would you please tell us as to how the Basque people can achieve their liberation? Whether it will be through the armed struggle or by only putting pressure on the Madrid government through peaceful struggles?

W: We have to say something. We had to change our strategy in 1995. We have changed it basically because until 95 our strategy was of national and social liberation and the main effort we did for the society and for the movement of the people was to press the Spanish and French governments, especially the Spanish government, to make negotiations between the armed organisations and themselves, to gain the right of self determination. But we saw there were a lot of problems with this strategy. The people would get tired in this. This was one reason. The other reason was that all the processes in Latin America failed. Because there, a lot of Guerra got into the democratic processes and peace processes like in Guatemala, like in El Salvador, like in Columbia and we saw the results of these negotiations and the results were very bad. Really very very bad. We analysed why. We saw that it is not possible that a Guerra, that an armed organisation, makes its negotiation because the governments and oligarchies; the capitalists never will respect the results of these negotiations. They violate every time all the agreements. In the case of Spain and France it will be the same. So, we said there is no other power in the world anymore that can obligate the Spanish Government not to violate the agreements. Because, earlier there was a power, because the Soviet Union, we can say, that could obligate the government not to violate the agreements. The Soviet Union broke down and that is not anymore possible. And we also saw that we must give our people something more than only the illusions to succeed in these negotiations and only afterwards build our political projects. This will be too far away and we will lose our people in this struggle when we say first the negotiations and then construction. So, we changed the strategy. Okay! national social liberation is good, and continued, the struggle against repression continued the struggle against imperialism and colonialism continued — but also build from now our own independent and our own projects. That means we build up new national institution from the basis from now itself.

PM: What kind of national institution?

W: An institution that has not borders imposed from France and from Spain. It is an institution not legal but an institution that is also not illegal because that has not any borders inside, for all people in the Basque land. And this will be the basis of a beginning of a new Basque Parliament. We call it an assembly of the city councillors. We say all the city councillors that were democratically elected, voted in different elections, Spanish and French elections. We don’t accept these elections, but well, as you were elected in these elections you are accepted in this assembly, form part of this assembly and this is the beginning of this new institution. If we consider all the elected city councillors we are the second force. We are not the first force. We cannot do many things but we can do a lot. And we said, "Good! we build our base." We also built up our organisations in the same way. Our organisations from all over the country must come together and unify so that there are not two international solidarity organisations; one in the north and one in the south. Not two but one. We made only one. And then a project of a new university, a Basque university, our own laws, a form of functioning. And so on, de facto we build up our own society. If we build up such a society the people themselves would see what they are struggling for. Not for negotiations, not for something nobody knows what it is; something abstract. No, you see, tactically, you are struggling to get the right to self determination. To get realized all these things really, you are progressing in that direction. That we want self determination. Not for something utopia, but for what we are already building. So the people see this, and they continue struggling. And on the other hand, the Spanish and the French governments see inside their states the reality and must destroy the reality that is developing. Now, they not only say that the Basque people want to destroy Spain and they are terrorists. No, if they must all be the terrorists they must destroy this project, this assembly, this university, these unified organisations. And they did that. They destroyed and illegalized the assembly of councillors, they illegalized the party and they illegalized the youth organisation, several organisations of social movements, they closed newspapers, radios, all because of this. That is total repression. With the same justification they say, ‘well, you want to build up a new country as organized armed organisations’. The terrorists too want to build up a new country. You have the same aim. You are the same and so you are a part of it. And that is the legal reason to put all these people in jail. That is Spanish legality!! Yes, it is legally absolutely absurd.

PM: In fact, that was a peaceful method to achieve independence that failed.

W: I don’t think it failed.

PM: then what?

W: We are not finished. We are continuing. We are continuing, no doubt, with a lot of problems, which are much harder to work to deal with. But we think this is the right way. And the Spanish repression proved that this is the right way. If it was not right, if it would fail, there would not be so much repression. Because the repression in Europe is something a little bit foolish. Like, all over, it is not look good that a government has seven hundred political prisoners that are struggling against repression and so on. And torture and illegalization of a party is not very acceptable. They don’t see it but they must do it because we must not regain independence and if we regain independence then the Basque oligarchy will no more get the support of the Spanish oligarchy. And then we are not the second force in the country, we are the first force. And then we can make our socialist project legally and democratically and peacefully.

PM: In your whole of presentation you have talked about the socialist or the traditional left of Spanish society that have betrayed the national question in Europe as well as in the whole world as such. And in the Basque country we could not have expected better from them. The right to self-determination which these forces used to claim and uphold have now abandoned that principle practically and even theoretically. Let us approached this point in a different way. Let us suppose that the socialist party had not gone that way. Had it remained a revolutionary organisation and really had granted right to self determination to the Basque people the struggling people of Basque country and the working class of Spain and France would have united in a single struggle for the liberations of the nationalities and for the nations and the working class. That would have been the best solution and I think that would have been the only solution. Presently it is not there now. So, I think that one task is left for the Spanish and French working class to re-establish their revolutionary credentials and to aggress upon a path that leads to this type of liberation.

W: Yes, I think, as I have said earlier, our great problem is the Spanish and French left. We know that we must continue to struggle along with them but we cannot. They are not ready for this. And so, we will continue our efforts on this side, we will try to work more internationally to find allies in the left in Europe, of the European peoples and of the world to clear this hurdle. The Spanish and the French left need to be pressured from the outside. We cannot pressurise them because what we say is absolutely blocked by the argument, "you are little bourgeois nationalist and all nationalism is bad, is fascism, we are the real left, you are not left, you are making a bad thing because you want a state". We can say that yes, we actually want a state, we are concerned with ourselves, so that we are a state in Europe so that we can negotiate, decide by ourselves, have our own decisions in our own country. This is only possible in the actual situation of a state but that does not mean that we want to be a state. That only means that it is necessary until we get this left alliance with the working class in Spain and with the working class in France, and with other countries, with other peoples. And all the big powers of Europe and the people must have this self-determination and use this right, respect this right to decide their own things. Then we will have a Europe of the peoples. The unity of the peoples must have people who decide their own things and it would be very different of the Europe of the states that we have now. And it is also very different of the Europe of economic regions. That is the other model for Europe from especially the progressive capitalists, that is, from the so-called socialists and of the rightwing Basque nationalists. They want a Europe of the economic regions and economic region means they will destroy the cultural tradi-tions but only keep the economics. And different oligarchies will dominate different regions. This we don’t want but we have now. We want a Europe of the Peoples.

PM: That means that the left has to be revolutionary. It is not there but it should be. That is a big problem in the whole of Europe. Going by the Yugoslavian experience their liberation struggle did not lead to the emancipation of the people. There is no change in the system.

W: That is a problem with nationalism. The right uses nationalism as an instrument for their own interests. So, the Germans have used their nationalism to create a situation in Yugoslavia that we know was war and suffering all-over, on the one hand. On the other they created this. It was much easier and without so much suffering but without gaining money from this, without destroying all this part when the people themselves struggle to get their right of self-determination inside Yugoslavia as they decide — without Germany, without France, without all these other imperialistic or super-imperialists… I think a lot of people, a lot of organisations, a lot of the people of the left in Europe does not understand exactly this that you cannot be internationalist without being nationalist. This is the thing that very very many people of the left do not understand or they understand wrong because they have other experiences. We have the experience and we are absolutely convinced that you cannot be internationalist without being nationalist. But being nationalist does not mean to be right, it means in reality if you are real nationalist and real internationalist to be left you cannot be right. It is impossible to be nationalist and internationalist and being on the right. It is impossible. You cannot be nationalist and on the right. It causes a lot of suffering.

PM: This is sufficient to introduce the Basque national struggle to our people. I hope that in future whenever you launch a big struggle against reactionary Spanish bourgeoisie, the French and Spanish imperialist bourgeoisie please just bring that to our notice or you just send the material to our paper and we will be happy to publish that in our paper.

W: I will send you information and what happens in our country.

PM: Through our paper we send you warm revolutionary greetings to the struggling people of your country that the Basque people will achieve the liberation of their country and advance towards their emancipation.

W: We will. I don’t know how much time it will take.

PM: We support you and we are in solidarity with you.

W: I hope to learn a lot of this staying here in India. I think we will bring back to our Basque country a lot of information, the problems, the proposals and the projects you have here in India to solve the conflict and to make a real new society and a new revolution.

PM: We, on behalf of the revolutionary people of India, greet the people of Basque country with revolutionary greetings and wish them success.

W: We will have a beautiful bridge between India and Euskalerria. Thank you.

 

  https://materialisme-dialectique.com/euskadi-ta-askatasuna/

http://www.bannedthought.net/India/PeoplesMarch/PM1999-2006/archives/2004/april2k4/basque.htm