The emergency measures taken by the Franco regime on January 22nd 1969, are the outcome of a trend to increased repression which was already very marked during the whole year 1968. They express the bankruptcy of the so-called 'liberalisation' of the regime, which had created some illusions in reformist and neo-reformist layers of the labour movement.
Given the worsening of the economic situation as the result of the West German economic recession of 1966-67, and given the radicalisation of important sectors of the anti-Franco movement, the margin of manoeuvre of the decaying dictatorship became so small that even the miserable concessions made in the previous years had to be taken back.
The key sectors of radicalisation during the period immediately preceding the emergency measures had been: the mass resistance of the people of the BASQUE regions, which combines the struggle for national self-determination with stubborn defence of workers' rights in the factories: the mass struggles of the ASTURIAS MINERS, whose jobs and livelihood are more and more threatened by the crisis hitting the coal industry; the emergence in MADRID, BARCELONA and other university towns of STUDENT COMMANDOS which transfer violent agitation onto the streets: the growing use by the WORKERS COMMITTEES (the illegal self representation organs elected by the workers in the factories) of political demands; the occupation of churches by waves of political prisoners, to demand the liberation of their husbands; the intervention of a great number of lawyers and intellectuals to PROTEST THE USE OF TORTURE by the police against political prisoners; the growing agitation of agricultural workers in SOUTHERN [illegible].
Fearing a snowball effect of all these movements, the Franco regime has stepped up its repression as a desperate attempt to stem the tide. It is probable that this decision is the outcome of internal discussions and differences among the ruling groups, with some "die-hard" officers and fascists clashing with those circles in favour of a prudent pursuing of the "liberalisation" policy. But this is not the main aspect of the crisis. The crisis expresses a deterioration of the relationship of forces between the ruling group as such and the toiling masses, much more than the modification of the relationship of forces between the various cliques participating in the Franco Government.
The magnificent answer of the Bilbao workers to the emergency measures, going on strike not only against the wage stop but specifically for the withdrawal of the emergency laws and the liberation of political prisoners, has been picked up by workers all over Spain. At the time this declaration is written, one hundred and fifty thousand Spanish workers are on strike. Far from having suppressed the forces which work towards the maturing of a pre-revolutionary situation in Spain, the stepped up repression of the Franco regime seems objectively to accelerate that process.
The United Secretariat of the Fourth International sends its fraternal greetings and expression of full militant solidarity to the revolutionary workers and students of Spain. By courageously developing the struggle against Franco, they can strike today at one of the weakest links of European capitalism, and thereby weaken the whole system. The overthrow of Franco which they try to bring about, should only raise the curtain for a socialist revolution, which should direct itself against the capitalist system and the centralised bourgeois state as such. The attempts to unify all revolutionists into a revolutionary marxist party fighting for such a perspective should be accelerated given the ripening of the objective situation.
The United Secretariat of the Fourth International calls upon the revolutionary workers and students of Europe and the international labour and anti-imperialist movement to actively express their solidarity with the Spanish workers, students, intellectuals and peasants, who are so courageously broadening and deepening their struggle against the Franco regime. Everywhere, demonstrations, meetings, militant actions should be directed against that dictatorship and its representatives in the various countries. A big protest movement should be launched for the liberation of political prisoners in Spain, and against any form of help or assistance given the Franco Government by capitalist powers or the bureaucracies of the workers states.
Down with the emergency laws! Down with the Franco dictatorship! Full solidarity with the Spanish workers and students! Forward to the socialist revolution in Spain!