On Sun, 14 Mar 2004 22:39:54 -0000 <heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> writes:
> The WEEK
>
> ending 14 March 2004
>
>
>
> SOCIALIST DEFEATISM IN SPAIN
>
>
>
> Tonight Spain’s Socialist Party claimed victory in the general
> elections with 43 per cent of the vote counted as against the
> Popular Party’s 36 per cent. The turnout, of course, was high,
> following popular revulsion at the slaughter of around two hundred
> Spaniards in railway bombings centred on Madrid on Thursday.
>
>
>
> The bombing was peculiarly misconceived, if as claimed, a protest
> against Spanish support for the invasion of Iraq last year. Spain
> saw the largest demonstrations against the war in Europe, making it
> more than likely that anti-war protestors would be among the dead.
How does that follow? On the contrary, if the bombing was done as an act of protest against Spanish support for the invasion of Iraq, then it seems that it succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations. After all, the Popular Party was punished by Spanish voters in reaction to both the Iraqi war and the bombing which reminded voters of the Aznar's support for that war.
>
>
>
> Millions protested around Spain at the action, suggesting to many
> that the right-wing Populists would ride the outrage back to victory
> – but the character of the protests suggested otherwise. The
> vigils were not the kind of patriotic reaction against Arabs one
> might have expected in the past (though that sentiment was
> represented). In many ways they were a continuation of the
> ‘anti-war’ protests of last year. The underlying message
> ‘paz’ expressing a desire to withdraw from a dangerous
> international engagement.
>
>
>
> Under cover of ‘suspending’ party political campaigning on the
> eve of an election, the government hoped to turn popular fear into
> votes. And more recently the Popular Party had restored some
> standing after an economic revival. Last year, though, the WEEK
> reported that anti-war ‘protestors may still claim the scalp of
> one European leader, Aznar of Spain, whose moral support for the
> Coalition was unpopular with ninety per cent of the population’ (6
> April 2003).
>
>
>
> The weakness in the government’s strategy was revealed, though, in
> its attempt to pin the blame on the Basque regional lobbyists of
> Eta, whose low-level campaign of assassinations and bombings
> continues to provoke Spanish conservatives. Despite signing up for
> US President Bush’s ‘War on Terror’ retiring Prime Minister
> Jose Maria Aznar grasped that his party could not gain by heightened
> panic over Al Qaeda. Instead the government got the blame for
> provoking the terrorists into targeting Spain.
>
>
>
> Signs that the wheels were coming of the Populist Party’s
> bandwagon were clear on Saturday night when the vigils gave way to
> protests outside their headquarters. Conspiracy theories abounded,
> with the government being accused of hiding the evidence of Al Qaeda
> culpability.
>
>
>
> The Socialist victory comes with a perverse message. During the
> world wars of the Twentieth Century, Communists developed the
> strategy of ‘revolutionary defeatism’ – meaning that they
> worked for the defeat of their own ruling classes, the better to
> sweep them aside in favour of a new order.
Why should an ex-Trot like you have a problem with that?
>
>
>
> The peace movement in Spain – and the vigils are a continuation
> – is a defeatist movement. It wants Spain to withdraw from
> involvement in Iraq. It sees the railway bombings as the price paid
> for supporting the war.
And no doubt something could have been said about the Russian antiwar movement of 1917 which demanded that Russia pull out of the World War which was bleeding the country dry.
>
>
>
> But it has no positive alternative to the ruling elite. It only
> wants Spain to keep its head down, and play safe.
And no doubt much the same could have been said about the Russian antiwar movement of 1917. Most Russians who supported that movement simply wanted to get out of the war, I doubt that all that many people were thinking about creating a positive alternative either to the czarist autocracy in February of that year or to the Provisional Government in October.
So is your criticism of the Spanish antiwar movement, that there are no Lenins or Trotskys around that are ready to take advantage of the movement to overthrow the state?
>The underlying
> sentiment is one of withdrawal from political life in favour of
> security. The right’s vision of a security state aimed at
> dragooning the public into action. The left’s alternative is to
> withdraw into the stockade. Pinning the blame on Al Qaeda is
> important because it means sustaining the illusion that terror is a
> problem foreign to Spain.
>
>
>
> The vigils succeeded in galvanising a high turnout as a rebuff to
> the attack on democracy. But in other ways the election showed that
> terror did indeed succeed in de-politicising the election. The
> predominant attitude expressed was one that wants to shelter from a
> violent world.
>
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