This past Saturday, April 6, the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain held its debut
in Madrid with a big presentation of the organization, under the slogan: Once again, the
Communist Party.
A meeting with international scope that took place in the auditorium of the Ateneo of
Madrid bringing together more than 300 people, exceeding the capacity of the legendary
cultural institution of Madrid.
The event involved prominent representatives of workers' collectives in struggle, such as
Óscar Abanades, from the trade union section of Workers' Commissions (CCOO) in
PSA-Peugeot, Natacha Sánchez, from Carrefour in Struggle, Víctor Manuel Pascual,
Secretary General of the trade union section of CCOO Telefónica Madrid , or Daniel
Andrés, from Coca Cola in Struggle.
Addresses were also made by Javier Martín, General Secretary of the Collectives of
Young Communists (CJC), and on the part of the international delegations: Rafael
Zequeida, representing the Communist Party of Mexico: Guido Ricci, member of the
Political Bureau of the Partito Comunista (Italy); Giorgos Marinos, member of the Political
Bureau of the Communist Party of Greece; and Kemal Okuyan, General Secretary of the
Communist Party of Turkey.
Finally, Ástor García, General Secretary of PCTE and candidate of the Party to Prime
Minister of Spain intervened. In his speech he presented the master lines that define the
project of the Communist Party, on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, and the proposal of
the PCTE not only for the elections but for all the struggles, under the slogan “A country
for the working class". With regard to the motto of the meeting, "Once again, the
Communist Party", Ástor García enumerated the great number of reasons for forming
and reaching a strong Communist Party again in Spain, as well as to avoid the false calls
to unity with the old and new social-democracy that have no other objective than the
management of capitalism.
With this meeting, PCTE highlights the strength with which its acronym breaks into the
Spanish communist movement, becoming the main communist candidacy for the
General Elections.
The speech of Ástor García
Dear comrades, dear fellows who are joining us today, dear members of the international
delegations,
On behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain,
thanks to all of you for your attendance here today.
To the members of the Party, who have mainly traveled hundreds of kilometers, who
have got up early, who will later have to jump on the road to arrive tired to your homes,
at night, I want to express you the acknowledgement of the central leadership for your
answer to the call of this event which is highly important for the Party
To the Communist Youth, our CJC, quarry of communist cadres, school of
revolutionaries, present and at the service in every task the Party requests to you, I want
to thank you for your so positive answer to the call we made in last March 3, in your 10th
Congress, right after you just closed three days of discussions addressed to place you
at the forefront of the working-class and popular youth from our country
To the comrades who are on safety and logistic tasks, sincere thanks for your effort
and your work. This event could not be held without you.
Comrades from the international delegations, representatives of our siblings from
Mexico, from Italy, from Greece, from Turkey... Who can be better comrades, who can
be better trench fellows than those who have proved, with facts and not only with words,
that they are able to receive one or one thousand bullets, whether made of plumb or
poisoned words, for us, for our common and shared proposal on the defence of MarxismLeninism, of the need of the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism, of the tireless struggle
against those who only want to prevent the working class from accomplishing its
historical mission.
Comrades Rafael, Guido, Giorgos, Kemal, convey to your parties our most fraternal
greetings, the sincere embrace and the eternal friendship of Spanish communists.
Fellows of the staffs of Carrefour, Telefónica, Coca-Cola, Peugeot, and many others
who have not been able to come, but support this event from the distance, receive our
respect and admiration for giving your all for the rights of the working class at your
workplaces.
You fill with significance the word solidarity, workers' struggle and defence of the dignity
of one class that, in spite of the many blows it daily receives, rather sooner than later will
rise up and seize in its hands everything it produces, will end up once and for all with the
exploitation and the relentless robbery capitalists subdue us to.
To the rest of attendants, Party friends or just curious people who have come today
because you want to know first hand what the PCTE says, I want to give you the most
sincere thanks for filling today this Ateneo of Madrid, for recovering together with us these
walls and these rooms for the communist and revolutionary speech.
With a difference of almost 100 years, communists are back at the same Ateneo of
Madrid where Mikhail Borodin, delegate of the Comintern, met with PSOE members, in
the first months of 1920, to lay the foundations of what would become the first communist
party in our country.
Near here, in April 15, 1920, the Spanish Communist Party was established and, already
being the Spanish Section of the Communist International, it was called the “Party of the
Hundred Children” due to the youth of its leaders. Yes, comrades, those who gave the
starting signal to Spanish communism were very young members. Whenever somebody
criticizes you or underestimates you for being young, tell them that Pasionaria
established the Spanish Communist Party when she was 25 years old...
In April 13, 1921, also in this city, the Spanish Communist Workers' Party (PCOE) was
established, with prominent working-class leaders like Isidoro Acevedo, who broke up
with the 2nd International and adopted as their own the internationalist principles lighted
by the October Revolution and bolshevik Russia.
Few months after that, on November 1921, the merge of these two organizations,
sponsored by the Comintern, gave birth to the Communist Party of Spain, Spanish
Section of the Communist International too, the historical acronym of communists which
gave glorious examples of revolutionary and workers' struggles in our country for
decades.
Comrades, fellows, friends, the Communist Party is born in Spain in light of the October
Revolution but, mainly, and nobody must doubt at all that we proudly claim it, Spanish
communists are son of the International!
We are the outcome of the necessary and compelled split from social-democracy in the
beginning of the 20th Century, due to the shameful support of the 2nd International parties
to “their” bourgeoisie, to “their” landowners, to “their” imperialists against the rest of
workers from other countries.
Therefore, there is in our DNA not only the bolshevik experience that led to power the
working class in Russia, but also the open struggle against those who betray the working
class and end up leading it to submission to capitalists, to become cannon fodder in the
rows between capitalists.
Nowadays, our Party does not have the same name that almost 100 years ago. But
nobody must doubt at any moment on our commitment with the working class' struggle,
on our commitment with the overthrow of the capitalist power and on our commitment
with the construction of one country for the working class.
We do not have more commitments, we do not have more ties, just like then, our only
aim is to lead forwards the coherent revolutionary struggle to proceed to the construction
of socialism-communism in Spain. Once again, Communist Party. Once again, the
Communist Party
And today, much as the capitalists' propaganda may say, the Communist Party is a need
for our class and for our people.
One party, one organization, is not the Communist Party only because it calls itself like
that, because it gives that title to itself. It is that because it has a strategic goal, the
construction of socialism-communism, to which it subordinates all of its tactics. It is that
because it has the ability to express the independent stance of the working class in the
political and ideological struggle. It is that because it does not submit, at any moment, to
the interests of other classes or other social groups.
Comrades, friends, how is the Communist Party not going to be necessary?
We openly state our goals and our raison d'être: we exist to take the working class to
power, we exist to end up with the capitalist power in Spain, we exist because the social
majority, those who produce it all with our work, see ourselves systematically deprived from that wealth, which mainly serves to satisfy the need of a few ones. We live in a
system based on the organized and systematic robbery to the working majority. How is
the Communist Party not going to be necessary?
If those who produce are the majority, the majority are those who have to decide what is
to be done with the outcome of our work, with the wealth we produce. Thus we must take
over the country, over the society, recover what belongs to us and end up once and for
all with the robbery and the plunder capitalists have condemned us to.
There are voices that tell us there is no longer the need of the existence of communist
parties. Some of those voices come even from ancient communists. There are people
who affirm we are antique objects, we are stagnant, outdated, we are something from
other century and that, in the 20th Century, there is no longer sense for our existence.
Comrades, the more you hear that, the more reasons there will be to struggle. The more
you hear that, it will be because we will be doing a better work, because our opponents
will need to use even more all of their efforts to discredit us, to disparage us, to try to
divide us and to delay our growth and our progress.
To those who cast doubt on, or are surprised of, there is still the Communist Party, to all
of those who think capitalism is the only possible system, that the only parties to be
seriously taken are the capitalist parties, address to them with calm, with confidence,
and pose them some of these things I am going to mention now:
1) The capitalist parties tell us that the economic recovery has arrived. That we have
overcome the crisis. However, data show that, in Spain, poverty increased during the
crisis 4 times more than what it has been reduced during the recovery. Therefore, there
is no recovery for the majority of the working class and the popular strata in general. Is
the Communist Party not necessary?
2) The capitalist parties call us to trust in the system, to postpone our claims for tomorrow.
However, data say that what they call the middle class has nowadays 10 points of the
national income less than it had in 2010. Who have governed in this period in Spain?
The PP and again the PSOE. And along with them the political forces that support them
or will support them, their crutches on the left and on the right. Is the Communist Party
not necessary?
3) The capitalist parties tell us that we can progress with individual effort, i.e., to become
bourgeois. However, data say that if one person is born in a high-income family will earn
about 40% more than children born in lower-income family cores. In other words, poverty and richness are inherited. Whoever is born as a poor is practically assured to stay poor.
Is the Communist Party not necessary?
4) The capitalist parties tell us that bourgeois democracy is the system which guarantees
the more and the better respect to human rights. However, data say that the difference
in life expectancy between the richest and poorest neighbourhoods of Barcelona reaches
up to 11 years, and up to 7 in Madrid. In other words, the bourgeoisie lives between 7
and 11 years more than workers, which constitutes a true social genocide. They steal to
us the outcome of our work and they steal to us life itself. Is the Communist Party not
necessary?
5) The capitalist parties tell us everything must be subordinated to recovery and
economic growth, but data prove that “since the beginning of the recovery the richest 1%
has 24,42 out of 100 euros, while the poorest 50% has to share 7 out of 100 euros”. The
recovery and the growth are recovery and growth for capital, not for the working people.
Is the Communist Party not necessary?
6) In the same sense, homes without any kind of income are increasing in Spain and, at
the same time, multi-billionaires as well. There are 617.000 homes without incomes and
1.690 people with more than 40 millions of euros, a bunch of families. Is the Communist
Party not necessary?
7) The capitalist parties agree to make our country completely dependent on energy.
They close our thermal power stations and demonize our energy resources such as coal,
but press media entitled in last February 20 that more than 40% of Spanish population
suffers from energetic poverty. And it subtitled that energetic poverty in Spain could be
responsible of some 7.100 early deaths per year. Besides, according to Eurostat, last
year the cost of electricity was 745,90 euros per person, 55,6% more expensive than 10
years ago. Have your salaries increased 55,6% in the last years? NO, they have fallen
three points in that periods. Is the Communist Party not necessary?
8) The capitalist parties talk about State Pacts against child poverty, but data say that
28% of under-16 minors (2,1 millions of children) live at the risk of poverty; 700.000 of
which do it under a situation of severe shortage, i.e., they do not have assured food or
stuff as basic as light or heat. And it went on saying that half of those children repeat
grades, against 8% of the rest of students. Let's ask around us, let's ask to that supporter
of capitalism and to capitalists: Is that situation tolerable? Is the Communist Party not
necessary?
9) All over the world, the wealth of billionaires increased 12% in the last year – 2.500
millions of dollars everyday – while the wealth of the poorest half – 3.800 millions of
people – decreased 11%. Is the Communist Party not necessary?
10) Every week, in our country, almost three millions of unpaid extraordinary hours are
worked. THREE MILLIONS.
Does still anybody have the courage to tell us the Communist Party is not necessary?
This, friends, is capitalism. It is the outcome of capitalist management, carried out in our
country by social-democratic and conservative governments. We can keep on providing
data on every aspect of the life of our class and our people, data on the youth, on women,
on pensions, on temporary hiring, on whatever you want, and all of them tell the same.
They tell us there is no way out within capitalism, that capitalism is a dying and exhausted
system whose survival means a death threat for humanity.
This is why, comrades, this is why, friends, there is the historic and urgent need for its
replacement for socialism-communism.
Therefore, how is the Communist Party not going to be necessary, when it is the only
party, it is the only organization, which openly says it has a model of country where these
things do not happen, where these things are not tolerated, where these things are a bad
memory from a past we do not want to go back to!
This is why the Communist Party must be strengthened, why we have to organize
ourselves in the Communist Party and to develop it to the maximum in the places where
we work and live, making us increasingly stronger to resist the attacks of capitalists and
their parties. To strengthen the Communist Party is a necessary pre-requisite to make
today's resistance become tomorrow's counter-attack.
But there are those who, even though they call themselves communists, they bear the
name of Communist Party, forget this reality. When the communist parties become a part
of what they are compelled to destroy, it is when they lose their meaning.
We have a large experience in Spain: the communist movement has given several
examples of situations of renounce to the only mission which gives sense to our
existence. Because of betrayals, because of incapacities, because of how overwhelming
the task was, it does not matter any more, the truth is that our movement has been on the verge of demise.
But luckily it has not done it. Humbly, but loudly and clearly, we claim that within the
PCTE live with strength the ideas and desires of our comrades
• who established in 1920 that Party of the Hundred Children,
• who established in 1921 the PCOE,
• who established on November 1921 the PCE,
• who fought in the National-Revolutionary War against the fascist beast, who
became the only real force of opposition to Francoism,
• who resisted the eurocommunist betrayal,
• who created in the 1984 Congress of Communist Unity a party that aimed to
defeat Carrillism and who defended with vehemence the experiences of socialist
construction and proletarian internationalism,
• who claimed Marxism-Leninism through thick and thin,
• who said no to the deceptions of social-democracy on NATO and the EU...
The communist movement in Spain is quite alive, the Communist Party is quite alive,
and at an international level we are quite alive as well. We can proudly say we are the
only Spanish party present at all instances of the International Communist Movement,
we are in the International Meetings of Communist and Workers' Parties, we are in the
International Communist Review, we are in the European Communist Initiative, who else
can say that today?
Comrades, our commitment is to keep and develop the people's and workers' struggle
for socialism-communism.
We are not going to allow anybody to entertain us, to distract us or to tell us what we
have to do or what we have to defend.
Our history, our blood, our experience and the communist principles are our guide.
Whoever wants other proposals, other experiences or other ideologies, will have to
search elsewhere.
Comrades, nowadays the political situation in Spain is determined by the subsequent
electoral calls. More than three months of electoral circus, of proposal merchandising, of
spectacle meant for revalidating the deception of toiling masses which must not make
us lose sight of the fact we are in a highly important moment.
Yes, but it is not because it is at stake what capitalist bloc occupies Moncloa in the next
period, but because we are going towards the consolidation of an enlarged two-party system which is going to set some aspects of class struggle in Spain in the next years.
The exploitation of our class and our people is going to be still produced after these
electoral calls, but on a renewed way, a bit different from what we knew until now.
Unfortunately, we are not strong enough yet to be decisive in this electoral period. We
are the first communist candidacy in Spain, but beyond the momentaneous satisfaction
such fact can give to us, in practice it is absolutely not enough given the huge challenges
in front of us. Very few workers know about us, there are still few people willing to support
us.
In workplaces and study centers, in the working-class and people's neighbourhoods, we
are neither strong enough yet. We are laying the foundations, we are stepping on the
throttle, but it is still too soon, we are still on the early stages, the conscience of workers
is still dominated by possibilism, by the lesser evil, by the acceptance of the lies spread
by social-democracy.
In spite of all the data previously exposed, our class and our people are still trusting in
capitalists. They are still drifting by their deceptions, and if they react against these
capitalist parties, they do it many times in a reactionary way, by surrendering to the most
radical versions of capitalist parties. But without breaking with capitalism.
Comrades, fellows, capitalist radicalism is useless and is dangerous. It serves as the
escape valve of people's frustration and rage, but also to consolidate the two-party
system, even to enlarge it. Capitalist radicalism, on both sides, is a demonstration of the
ability of the bourgeoisie to recompose and reorganize its domination in a moment like
the current one, when it needs the bigger unity possible to secure its model of
exploitation. And yes, that essential unity is going to be still given even if we find a
Congress of the Deputies with more parties than ever after April 28. There will be PSOE,
PP, Podemos, Ciudadanos, Vox, Mareas, confluencies, agreements and disagreements,
PNV and Esquerra, Bildu and the PdeCat – or whatever its name is now –, Canarians,
Valencians... And so?
Will anybody dare to say there will be any force in that Parliament which is not capitalist?
No, comrades, we are going to have from the programme of maximum goals of the
bourgeoisie to the siren calls of social-democracy, but if we are not there the programme
of maximum goals of the working class is not going to be there. This is why the PCTE
has to be strengthened! To face them, to oppose our programme of emancipation to their
programmes of domination and exploitation!
Yes, comrades, times demand us to talk about the programme of maximum goals of the
class. To use our specific and immediate proposals not as measures to discuss in a
chamber, but to bring the struggle in factories, in workshops, in the industrial parks, in
the neighbourhoods, together; to explain our class siblings we have to start from the
specific and the immediate to arrive, rather sooner than later, to build that country for the
working class where we will not have to bear more exploitation nor more plunder any
longer.
Comrades, fellows, these are times of dilemmas, of taking brave decisions. Here, now, I
say really clear and really loud that for the Communist Party, for the PCTE, the dilemma
is not to choose the way our exploitation is managed, the dilemma is not between which
section of the bourgeoisie imposes its programme.
I tell you here that they are not going to make us choose the colour of our chains, nor
are going to entangle us with their calls to the false unity, that one they only remember
when the electoral processes are approaching.
We are big supporters of unity, indeed we want unity, indeed we want the class to be
united against those who want to divide it by reason of language, of feeling of national
belonging, of seniority or type of contract!
Indeed we want unity! Communist rally for unity:
− The unity of workers in workplaces.
− The unity of students in the defence of their future.
− The unity of worker women in struggle to preserve and extend the rights of
women.
− The unity of the working class in all the struggles fought so our people has a
future.
− The unity of those who think all the wealths of the country are subordinated to
the collective interest.
− The unity of those who consider work is a right and a dury, of those who think
there is no reason for which poverty is spread, salaries do not reach to live or
there are homeless people in a country of empty houses.
− The unity of those who will never accept that in the working-class neighbourhoods
of Barcelona our people's life expectancy is 11 years less than than bourgeoisie's,
or that we live 7 years less than capitalists in the case of Madrid.
− The unity of those who oppose to the imperialist war, of those who defend that
the peoples must be free to decide their future, of those who abide by the
principles of internationalism and solidarity.
Unity is a need for workers, we have no doubt on it.
But the unity that others proclaim is something different. It is submission to their
programmes to sustain and continue the capitalist system.
It is the time for them to listen to this:
− We do not want unity with those who only aim to manage capitalism.
− We do not want unity with those who do not question the European Union nor our
country's belonging to NATO.
− We do not want unity with the responsibles of the deindustrialization and the
labour reforms, with those who introduced in our country the temporary work
agencies and spread the objective dismissal.
− We do not want unity with those who reformed article 135 of the Constitution on
a summer to completely subdue the country to the needs of capital.
− We do not want unity with those who privatize, with those who cut our rights and
freedoms.
− We do not want unity with those who support coups d'état in third countries and
place themselves at the service of foreign powers, as they have proved quite
recently in Venezuela, with the howling silence of some.
Comrades, unity with the capitalist parties would mean to become accomplices of their
actions against the working class and the peoples, and they will not see us there,
because we are not born to subordinate to capitalists, we are born to end up with
capitalists.
Friends, I think I have said it quite clear, I think I have left no room for doubts. But as
these are times when one has to be really explicit, I am going to say it in other way:
We are fed up with the call to the useful vote, we are fed up with the calls to the “leftist”
vote, we are fed up with being frightened and with their attempts to continuously deceive
us with calls to support the lesser evil, to support the old or new social-democracy.
Somebody has to say it and it is us:
The PSOE is a party of traitors to our class: from the support of socialists to Casado's
coup d'état in Madrid, which enabled the triumph of fascists 80 years ago, to their
rejection to the guerrilla and clandestine struggle against Francoism, which was almost
exclusively carried out by communists; from their funding by German social-democracy
in the Transition to their betrayal to the Saharan people; from the industrial reconversion they boosted to the GAL State terrorism; from their “NATO, no to entry” to their labour
reforms, the legalization of the TWA, the Corcuera Law, the participation in imperialist
wars (Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya), the reform of article 135 of the Constitution
or, very recently, their cynicism as of the matter of the refugees or their role as a loyal
lackey of imperialism in Venezuela.
Is it not really clear yet that the PSOE is an enemy of workers and peoples?
Unity with them? But what are those who are calling us to unity with this people talking
about?
And what about PODEMOS and the confluences? Those who have resigned to be the
support of the PSOE, those who have totally surrendered to the old social-democracy,
to suggest formulas for a “modern and efficient” management of Spanish capitalism,
those who said they wanted to assault the sky and have ended up crawling in offices and
carpets. What do their calls to unity materialize in? Do they not want to be alone in their
surrender to PSOE? Do they not want to have anybody who tells them that there were
no need of so many saddlebags, nor so much bombast, nor so many false illusions, to
make this trip?
They do not have to expect us in that false unity, comrades. We are building it wherever
it is important, in workplaces, in the neighbourhoods, in study centers. There they will do
find us.
Comrades, I am fully conscious that, in these times of false dilemmas and superficial
dichotomies, there is somebody who can be tempted to take advantage from my words
to say that, as we do not support PSOE and PODEMOS, we are providing air to PP,
Ciudadanos and VOX.
The old dichotomy social-democracy likes so much. With me or against me. They must
know that it is not going to be useful with us. It is not us those who say we want to settle
a government with Ciudadanos, nor those who say that maybe we were wrong in 2016
for not supporting the Sánchez-Rivera tandem for Moncloa.
Those ones are not us, Pedro; those ones are not us, Pablo. It is you.
We have clearly said it, VOX is a expression of the programme of maximum goals of the
bourgeoisie, they are those who want to end up with healthcare and public pensions,
they are those who want to cut down to the minimum the taxes on business incomes andbenefits, those who want to make every soil an urban land and to privatize education,
just to give some examples. What the PP does not dare to say, VOX says it while they
wrap themselves in the flag, making true again something Machado already said:
In the hard trances, masters invoke the fatherland and sell it;
the people does not even name it, but buys it with its blood and saves it
They, bourgeois, capitalists, have VOX.
I say here, loud and clear, that the workers of Spain have, once again, the
Communist Party.
Comrades, fellows, friends, this event has no other claim that to openly say to everybody,
communists are really alive, we do not hide, we are going to become again a decisive
force in the history of this country. As Celaya said:
We nurtured of what it was, we grew up by transforming ourselves and thus we are who
we are, blow after blow and dead after dead.
We come from far away and now what we want is you to join us there where we are
going.
Towards a place where education, healthcare and all the public services serve only and
exclusively to improve our lives, and not to fatten business benefits.
Towards a place where industry feeds again millions of families.
Towards a place where you work to live, and not on the contrary. Where dignity is not a
price to pay to put a dish in a table. Where the right to a house is unalienable. Where a
woman does not have to work eighty days more than a man per year to earn the same.
Where our youngsters do not have to move far to live from their work.
We are going to a country which does not belong to multinational companies, which says
NO to a European Union that plunders us, which says to monopolies it is ENOUGH.
Which says to NATO: not a single dead man more on behalf of us.
Once again, Communist Part.
Communist Party to repeal all the labour counter-reforms.
Communist Party to lower the age of retirement at 60 years old.
Communist Party to make the unemployment benefit have an undefined and
unconditioned nature.
Communist Party to illegalize temporary work agencies.
Communist Party to nationalize energy, banks and assurances.
Communist Party to close betting houses.
Communist Party to expropiate houses in the hands of the bank and vulture funds.
Communist Party to expel companies from healthcare and education.
Communist Party to break up with the EU and NATO.
Communist Party to start building a country for the working class.
Comrades, fellows, friends,
To the street! It is time to wander our body and prove that, as we live, we announce
something new.
Reinforce the ranks of the Communist Party, support the Communist Party in the
electoral campaigns,
create Party structures in your neighbourhoods, in your locations, in your workplaces,
fight with all your forces against reactionaries, against all the enemies of the working
class, against those who deceive us and exploit us,
and never give up being in the first line of the struggle for the rights of the working
majority.
Fellows, friends, comrades,
as we live, we announce something new,
We announce a country for the working class.
Long live the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain
Long live the international communist movement
Thank you very much.
