Some considerations about the Catalan process

From Network of Communist Blogs (RBC):

The Network of Communist Blogs (RBC) considers it appropriate to point out some considerations about the Catalan process and, ultimately, about the right to self-determination of all peoples.

Like José Díaz, when he advocated, in his speech at the Monumental Cinema of Madrid, for the creation of a " Popular Antifascist Concentration " on the basis of four specific points, the RBC also defends the "liberation of the oppressed peoples by the Spanish imperialism. That the right to freely govern their destinies to Catalonia, to Euskadi, to Galicia and to whatever nationalities are oppressed by the imperialism of Spain be granted ".

José Díaz, Secretary General of the PCE in the years when the Party was a Marxist-Leninist vanguard of the Spanish proletariat - faithful follower, therefore, of Lenin and Stalin - applied the doctrine and principles of what Lenin called "the  double task of proletariat in terms of the right to self-determination " [1] . On this basis, the RBC emphasizes the following points on the so-called Catalan procés , the last link, for the moment, of the historic struggle of the Catalan people for their liberation from Spanish imperialism:

1.- In the first place, the Catalan independence movement is not just a bourgeois movement as many leftist chauvinists point out. From its multiclass character, reflected in an enormous social support, stands out an evident emancipatory, popular and worker component, whose interested concealment seeks, above all, to separate the current Catalan movement from the struggle of the workers of the rest of the State.

2. The Communists, therefore, must not limit themselves to supporting or criticizing it, but, as in any popular or revolutionary movement, they must actively participate in it, directing the masses, especially the proletariat, and becoming their Vanguard.

3 .- The open wound in Catalonia is not going to close and with simple legal or budgetary patches.In the context of political struggle in Catalonia, to which, it is to be expected, other nations of the Spanish State and the most diverse popular sectors will be added, the communists must not contribute at all to the fact that the monarchical regime can take over the situation and suffocate it.For the communists the main task of this day, theoretical and practical, goes through the transformation of the Catalan problem of the Bourbon regime into the problem of the Bourbon regime in the Spanish state as a whole.

4. - As Federico Engels wrote, when, referring to the problem of Alsace and Lorraine, said that such a problem would not exist if France and Germany were socialist states, only the end of capitalism and the construction of free states of exploitation can resolve the issue Catalan national[2] . Ultimately, in the liquidation of the regime of 78, that is, the socio-political and economic system that "tied and well tied" the Francoism is the only possibility of overcoming the "Spain one, large and free" that aherroja to the nations and popular classes of the State.

5.- The objective, then, is to eliminate private property and replace it with the socialization of the means of production, that is, to end capitalism, to end the barbarism that this system represents for workers, peoples and humanity in its set The task of the Communists is to support unambiguously any progress, however small, towards socialism. In this concrete sense, the passage from the monarchy of 78 to the Third Republic, with the deep meaning that this word has in Spain, constitutes a step forward that we must help to give, no matter how bourgeois this may ultimately be. Let us never forget the famous words of Stalin in his Fundamentals of Leninism about the national question and its relation to the struggle against imperialism! [3]

6.- Following Lenin, it is about fighting, first of all, for class unity: All workers, regardless of our nationality, are class brothers! All workers have the same common enemy, which is the bourgeoisie of each of our nations! This does not exclude, in any way, neither the belonging of each worker to a specific nation or people nor their identification with a specific culture, which, as such, can never be enemies of the working class of any other State. In the concrete situation of Catalonia, the only enemy of the Spanish working class is the great Spanish chauvinism, heir to the fascists of 36. The only homeland of the Spanish bourgeoisie, of the parasitic class of the Bourbon monarchy, is its pocket.

7.- Finally, the RBC must mention the lamentable role of Podemos, whose ambiguity demonstrates, once again, that its main objective and raison d'etre is the demobilization of popular protest and the dismantling of the workers' organization. Instead of taking the side of the republican forces in Catalonia, instead of articulating a democratic and progressive political front against the 78 throughout the State, instead of taking to the streets the republican masses of the entire State, Podemos, it has placed, in the least bad of the cases, in the equidistance, that is, on the passive side of the monarchy and of great Spanish chauvinism; has chosen to assume the status quoinstead of putting aside the progressive and democratic aspirations not only of the Catalans, but of the working class of the entire Spanish State; has renounced the construction of a Spain different from the current one; it is his accommodating and servile attitude, and not the legitimate struggle of the Catalan people, which has allowed fascism and chauvinism to reappear through the streets of Spain.
______________________________________________________********

[1] "Such a state of affairs presents the Russian proletariat with a double, or rather a bilateral, task: to fight against all nationalism and, first of all, against Russian nationalism; recognize not only the complete equality of rights of all nations in general, but also the equality of rights with respect to state building, that is, the right of nations to self-determination, to separation; and, at the same time and precisely in the interest of success in the struggle against all kinds of nationalisms of all nations, to advocate the unity of the proletarian struggle and proletarian organizations, their most intimate fusion in an international community, in spite of the bourgeois tendencies to national isolation. Complete equality of rights of nations; right of self-determination of nations; fusion of the workers of all nations; such is the national program that teaches the workers Marxism, which teaches the experience of the whole world and the experience of Russia. "

[2] "We could not take or retain power without compensation for the crimes committed by our predecessors for other nationalities, and therefore without: 1) facilitating the reconstitution of Poland, and 2) placing the population of northern Schleswig that of Alsace-Lorraine in a situation of freely deciding who should belong. Between a socialist France and a socialist Germany there would be no problem of Alsace-Lorraine "(Friedrich Engels, Letter to A. Bebel, October 24, 1891).

[3] "The undoubtedly revolutionary character of the vast majority of national movements is as relative and peculiar, as is the possibly reactionary character of some specific national movements. The revolutionary character of the national movement, in the conditions of imperialist oppression, does not necessarily presuppose, much less, the existence of proletarian elements in the movement, the existence of a revolutionary or republican program of the movement, the existence in it of a base democratic The struggle of the emir of Afghanistan for the independence of his country is an objectively revolutionary struggle, despite the monarchical ideas of the emir and his supporters, because that struggle weakens imperialism, breaks it down, undermines it. On the other hand, the struggle of democrats and "socialists",