Spain’s left is rising

In a further advance for the European left, Spain’s Izquierda Unida (United Left) is rising in the opinion polls, as support declines for Spain’s major parties. Kate Hudson looks at the origins and development of Izquierda Unida (IU) and its relationship to PSOE – the social democrat-turned neo-liberal party comparable to Labour here in Britain.

A recent survey conducted by Spanish newspaper El Pais, shows the conservative Partido Popular (PP) declining from 37.1% to 22.5% support over the past year while backing for Labour’s sister party, Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) has declined from 25.9% to 20.2%. IU on the other hand – the Spanish counterpart of Syriza in Greece, Bloco in Portugal and Die Linke in Germany – has risen from 12% to 16.6%. This increasing popular approval results from its opposition to the devastating cuts taking place in Spain and the neo-liberal economic policies of both PP and PSOE. While not yet on the scale of support for Syriza, this development indicates a further blow to the dominant two-party pro-austerity model that afflicts Europe.

Although IU is probably less well-known in Britain than its political counterparts like Syriza or the French Front de Gauche, it was actually the first major manifestation of the left realignment which has emerged as the new European left over the past two decades. The Communist Party of Spain (PCE) had been legalised in 1977, following the end of the Franco dictatorship, during which it had been the most effective and organised opposition force, winning undoubted prestige for its courage. But it was unable to translate this prestige into electoral support and had swung to the right under the leadership of Santiago Carrillo. He embraced the new liberal democracy in Spain and did not press for concessions to the labour movement, rather accepting the restoration of the monarchy and supporting restrictive trade union legislation. He espoused Eurocommunism which caused splits within the party, many of whom considered his concessions to the bourgeoisie – in the form of cooperation with the conservative government of Adolfo Suarez – as treasonous.

The PSOE under Gonzalez, which received funding from the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Socialist International during the 1970s, was initially able to position itself as a more radical and popular force, winning around three times as many votes as the PCE in general elections in 1977 and 1979. One of the oldest parties in Spain, PSOE was founded in 1879 as a party to represent the industrial workers and had a strong radical and Marxist tradition within it. It was banned by Franco in 1939, persecuted during the dictatorship and legalised in 1977. Despite its radical credentials, however, its leader Felipe Gonzalez, from the more reformist wing of the party, worked to break PSOE from its Marxist heritage and orientate towards a more mainstream form of social democracy, supported by other west European parties. Despite opposition and division within the party, Gonzalez was successful in this goal, and by the end of 1979, the party had broken with Marxism.

The disintegration of the right led to a PSOE victory in the 1982 elections, winning 46.1% of the vote, gaining an absolute majority in parliament. According to Donald Sassoon, PSOE was elected, ‘to modernise the country, solve the economic problems and establish a welfare state’.[i] With the PCE in crisis and winning only 4% of the vote, PSOE no longer ran the risk of being outflanked on its left and became one of the first socialist parties to embrace neo-liberalism. In government it prioritised reducing inflation which was paid for by a rise in unemployment from 17% in 1982 to 22% in 1986.

This early shift to the right of the Spanish socialists in government created the political space for a left to emerge which would oppose PSOE’s anti-working class policies. After its electoral disaster in 1982, the significant political divisions which existed within the PCE were forced out into the open, particularly against the rightist line pursued by Carrillo in the late 1970s. There were two main groupings within the party that opposed him. The first was a straightforward right-left split over the political direction of the party over Eurocommunism and attitudes towards the Soviet Union. The second was based on the rejection of Carrillo’s authoritarian style of leadership and comprised a group of renovadores (renovators) who agreed with his political orientation but wished to democratize the party. Opposed from all sides, Carrillo stood down in favour of Gerardo Iglesias.

The PCE then went through a process of splits which subsequent developments in many west European communist parties were to closely mirror. Carrillo left to form his own group which became the Spanish Labour Party, received virtually no popular support, and eventually joined PSOE in 1991. Thus Carrillo moved to the right, through Eurocommunism to social democracy, like the majority of the Italian Communist Party with which he had close links in the 1970s. Carrillo made his position completely clear in September 1991, saying: ‘the Communist movement as such has completed its historical cycle and it makes no sense trying to prolong it.’[ii]

Two other organisations emerged out of the PCE crisis: to the left, a pro-Soviet split, the Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain (PCPE) under the leadership of Ignacio Gallego, and to the right, the Progressive Federation (FP), a group of renovadores under the leadership of Ramon Tamames. As a result of these splits, the PCE was more politically homogeneous than before, but in urgent need of re-establishing its political role in Spanish society.

From 1984, the PCE advocated a process of convergence with other left forces, to fill the political space opened by the rightwards move of PSOE but the real opportunity to bring this about came as a result of PSOE’s U-turn on NATO membership.  Shortly before the 1986 general election the PCE put together a coalition called the United Left (IU), born out of a mass campaign during the first PSOE government on NATO membership. Before entering government, PSOE had opposed NATO membership and had promised a referendum on membership, changing its position when in government. A broad committee, including communists, pacifists, feminists, human rights groups, Christians and the far left – with the exception of Carrillo’s group which refused to participate – coordinated a vigorous campaign, which in spite of media saturation and huge pressure for a ‘yes’ vote, actually won 43% of the vote – nearly seven million – against NATO. Criticism was levelled at the government’s phrasing of the referendum question, which asked, ‘Do you consider it advisable for Spain to remain in the Atlantic Alliance?’ followed by a number of provisos, including the lessening of US military presence in Spain.[iii]

The term NATO was not used. One of the key leaders of PSOE at this time was Javier Solana, who went on to be Secretary General of NATO in 1995. It was this anti-NATO campaign which provided the basis for the founding of the IU in 1986. The main components of the IU were the PCE, the PCPE, the Socialist Action Party (PASOC) – left dissidents from PSOE, the Republican Left (IR) and some smaller left groupings, subsequently including members of the Trotskyist Fourth International. Although it initially made little advance on the PCE’s result of 1982, it remained the foundation for the IU’s relaunch in February 1989 and a more than doubling of its votes in the general election of October 1989 with 9.1% of the vote. According to Gillespie, it ‘provided the major success story of the general election’.[iv] By the general election of 1996, its support had risen to 10.5% taking 21 seats.

However, the right wing Popular Party (PP), of Jose Maria Aznar, defeated the ruling Socialists (PSOE) by 38.8% to 37.6%. This defeat, which led to the first right-wing government in Spain since 1982, provoked a crisis within the IU about its relations with PSOE, particularly regarding its policy of ‘sorpasso’ – overtaking PSOE – which had led both to hostility towards PSOE and to political attacks upon it, which may well have contributed to its defeat. The debates focussed on the basis on which alliances with PSOE might be forged. A minority within IU, which had previously supported the Maastricht Treaty, argued for alliance with PSOE without pressing for any political change. The leadership position was that it was not in principle opposed to forging an alliance with PSOE to form a new left majority, but the alliance had to be on the right political terms. The IU leadership wished to use an alliance to push PSOE to the left and on this basis, IU went into the 2000 general election having signed an agreement with PSOE but both parties did very badly – PSOE on 34.16% and IU on 5.45%. Aznar’s PP was again victorious with 44.52% of the vote. As Luis Ramiro-Fernandez observed, writing prior to the 2004 election, ‘The competition for left-wing votes is nowadays more difficult, since the Socialists are in opposition to the centre-right government. Somemessages of IU’s discourse are likely to be adopted by its main competitor.’^[v]

In fact, there were two particular factors which led to a victory for PSOE over the PP in 2004. Firstly, the opposition of PSOE’s leader Zapatero to the Iraq war, which had been backed by Aznar. According to Joan Guitart, ‘When on March 16 Aznar joined the “Azores three” alongside Bush and Blair, a month after the huge mobilisations of February 15 against the war, the rejection was very large, but it expressed more a “public opinion” than a social movement. In these conditions, it was easy for the PSOE to be its “political expression” and the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq became the major issue for Zapatero at the general elections of March 2004.’^[vi]

Secondly the way in which the PP had tried to manipulate the tragic Madrid Bombings – which took place three days before the election – to their own ends. PP claimed it was an ETA bombing when in fact evidence suggested it was a militant Islamic attack, possibly linked to the Spanish government’s backing for the Iraq war. The result was that PSOE polled 43.3%, PP took 38.3% and IU 4.96. Zapatero proceeded to form a minority government and both IU and the Republican Left of Catalonia gave their backing, giving Zapatero’s government an effective majority. PSOE won again in 2008, whilst IU, in coalition with Initiative for Catalonia-Greens (IC-V), lost three of its seats, now reduced to 2 seats and 3.77% of the vote.

Under its new leader, Cayo Lara Moya, elected in 2008 after the election disaster, IU has pursued a path that is strongly critical of the measures taken by the PSOE government to deal with the economic crisis – massive public spending cuts having a devastating impact on the living standards of working people and the increasing number of unemployed. As Cayo Lara stated on 31 December 2010, ‘The PP and PSOE defend the same neoliberal model. Posing a left alternative to the savage neoliberalism is the task that lies ahead.’^[vii]

It is this opposition to the economic policies of both PP and PSOE – and the posing of a left alternative – which accounts for the increasing support for IU. There is no doubt that Labour in Britain has now moved rightwards in the same way as PSOE. Unlike Spain, however, we do not yet have a mass party to occupy the left space which it has vacated and to pose the urgently needed political and economic alternatives. I urge all those who would like to help found and build a new left party in Britain, to get involved in Left Unity. Why should we go without?