No to Article 155! Solidarity with the Catalan people!
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On Oct. 27, the parliament of Catalonia voted for inde pendence from the Spanish state. However, on the same day, the central government in Madrid, citing Article 155 of the constitution, dissolved the Catalan parlia ment and nullified its vote.
Below is a response to those events, issued on Oct. 30 by the Izquierda Anticapitalista Revolucionaria (IZAR), an organization of revolutionary socialists in the Span ish state that is in solidarity with the current inside the Fourth International supporting the “Platform for a Revolutionary International.”
What economic growth is in danger?
In this escalation of the sharpening of the conflict between the Spanish state and Catalonia, the ruling classes continue pressing in order to paralyze the process. With the interests of the Catalan bourgeoisie threatened due to the increasing polarization between the Catalan government and the central government, a large part of it has begun to align its discourse with that of the Spanish bourgeoisie, pointing out that con tinuing to follow the road map of the DUI would place the entire economic recovery in danger.
This recovery has been exclusive to capital, with es timated benefits for the IBEX 35 companies this year of some 43.4 billion euros, while the situation of the working class continues to worsen day by day due to the cuts and the job insecurity that we have suffered from the beginning of the crisis.
It is indeed ironic to listen to members of the PP [People’s Party, the main party in the Madrid parlia ment] talk about the detrimental effects of instability in Catalonia on pensions, when they have spent years in cutting them, or to listen to the PDeCAT [Catalan European Democratic Party] and ERC [Republican Left of Catalonia] denounce the PP’s adjustment poli cies, when during all these years their own policies have hardly been better than those of [Spanish Prime Minister Mariano] Rajoy.
However, we must try to see beyond the politics of fear when we analyze the relocation of the headquar ters of more than 1000 companies outside the terri tory of Catalonia, or when they speak of the brake on foreign investment and the fall of tourism in Catalo nia and its catastrophic repercussions in the Spanish economy.
The extension of the budgets of 2018, with a fore cast of a GDP below 2.6%, or the drop in public spend ing on education and health to historic lows in the forecasts for 2018, show that the capitalists want to continue making us pay for the crisis while they earn money. And the consequences of this new economic recession will be none other than a new attack on the working class to alleviate it.
The instability in Catalonia will be simply the mantle that they use to cover up the structural weaknesses cilors, and the designation of newly created figures for the ministries; the disqualification of the parlia ment for any function that is not administrative, and the capacity of Rajoy to suspend it leaves the Catalan Chamber as a merely decorative element.
For now, we do not know how long this situation can last—set for six months at the maximum and suppos edly ending with the call for new elections in Catalo nia, and leaving in doubt how they will avoid the tri umph of a new pro-independence candidacy.
The hypothesis that we in Izquierda Anticapitalista Revolucionaria (IZAR) are putting forward is that it will serve as a prelude to a constitutional reform with a marked reactionary character, with a strengthening of state centralism in all its forms—not only territorial but also in repressive matters. There are numerous historical examples of how exceptional governmental measures were applied in a more generalized form to suppress social struggles.
In fact, beginning in 2011, when the social response to the cutbacks policies arose, the response was a hardening of repression through the Gag Law. Con sequently, in the face of new cuts and adjustment policies that can be glimpsed on the horizon, there is no doubt that the bourgeoisie is preparing to pre vent possible responses from the working class and youth. We need to understand state repression in the sense that, while today it is the Catalan people, surely in the distant future it will be the rest of the working class in the Spanish state.
Mobilization for the power to decide The workers in Catalonia are the only ones who can assume the right to decide, at the same time that they are the ones who can best counteract the repression of (continued on page 5, in “Drexel professor suspended following right-wing attack”)