Spain

Italy’s billionaire “playboy” prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is coming under increasing pressure to step aside as his country slips ever-closer towards economic crisis. Berlusconi’s opinion rating dropped to a record low of 22% after a rally on 6 November. Italian left party Rifondazione called last week for immediate elections, to act as a referendum on the economic policy forced on the country by the EU and carried out by Berlusconi. Even Berlusconi’s Northern League coalition partner leader Umberto Bossi called on him to resign before a crucial budget debate as the interest rate on Italy...

The Spanish Revolution and Civil War broke out 75 years ago. "The stars are dead. The animals will not look. We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and History to the defeated May say Alas but cannot help or pardon." --- The Spanish Revolution and Civil War broke out 75 years ago, in July 1936, with the revolt of clerical-fascist generals against the Spanish Republic, amongst them General Franco, who would be Spain's dictator for the next four decades. People from all over the world flocked to Spain to fight for the Republic against fascism. W H Auden was one of them, who...

By Sacha Ismail Last night, myself and another Workers´ Liberty supporter, Esther Townsend, attended some of an indignados meeting in the Puerta del Sol, one of the main squares of Madrid. The indignados movement has been holding meetings and protests across Spain for several months to protest against corruption and cuts and demand "real democracy" (see here for the international website they are part of and here for our somewhat limited coverage). It seems to be diffusely anticapitalist and left-leaning, though politically fairly unformed. This meeting was to discuss the Pope´s visit to Spain...

Some say that the recent protests in Spain are similar to the upheavals in the Arab world. Much of the agitation has come from the 15 May movement, a “movimiento de indignados”. They advocate more participation by the ordinary people in government. They cite the pernicious influence of banks and major corporations. They have a slogan “No somos marionetas en manos de politicos y banqueros” — roughly, “We aren't puppets in the hands of politicians and bankers”. From as early as March this year, student unions have been holding demonstrations in centres like Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia...

The Spanish 15-M movement, called after the starting point on 15 May, is at present passing through a crucial stage. The continuing protests are uncomfortable for Spanish capitalism as it struggles to project an image of bourgeois respectability to the international markets. But the “Genuine Democracy Now” movement is uncomfortable not only for them. In the offices of the UGT and CCOO (Spain’s largest trade union federations), the movement is also making some nervous. Since the general strike of 29 September last year, when over 10 million workers downed tools, many on the left have...

The youth protests — going under the banner of “Real Democracy” — which began during May as a public outcry denouncing political corruption and unemployment have swept across Spain. In the last week of May French youth have also taken to the streets. With no end to the economic crisis and with the government forging ahead with its cuts programme, this protest has the potential for this to be the start of something much bigger. Spain has a 21.3% unemployment rate — the highest in the EU — rising to 45% among youth. Some Spaniards who do have jobs are going for months without pay as the bosses...

"This is a protest they will never understand" said one youth, as he, along with around 2,000 other young people, camped out in Puerta del Sol square in Madrid, defying a ban on demonstrations in the days before municipal and regional elections on Sunday 22 May. Bourgeois democracy in Spain is less brittle than the Mubarak dictatorship in Egypt, and can "deal with" movements such as these youth demonstrations even if it can’t understand them. But the inspiration from Tahrir Square is obvious. The Establishment sees free-market capitalism as sitting at the end of a visible thread running...

Large demonstrations have been taking place across Spain calling for "Genuine Democracy Now". A blog post here with some background and videos.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Among comrade Trotsky’s archives were found a rough draft and fragmentary notes which we now publish in the form of an unfinished article. The extent to which the working class movement has been thrown backward may be gauged not only by the condition of the mass organizations but by ideological groupings and those theoretical inquiries in which so many groups are engaged. In Paris there is published a periodical Que Faire (What To Do) which for some reason considers itself Marxist but in reality remains completely within the framework of the empiricism of the left bourgeois...

Introduction: Revolution and Betrayal in Spain Spain by WH Auden The Spanish Revolution and Those Who Killed It: a Chronology Trotsky: A "Diary" of The Spanish Revolution and the Civil War 19936-39 Workers' Control in the Spanish Revolution 1936-7 How the Stalinists Killed Workers' Control in the Spanish Revolution Issues in the 1936-7 Spanish Revolution Spain 1936-7: A Study in Workers Power Marxism and Anarchism Hobsbawm's Miserable Apology for Stalinism The Spanish Revolution George Orwell: Eyewithness in Barcelona: 1936-37: With the International Brigade The Scottish Volunteers in the...