The CCOO's subjection to the various tactics adopted by the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) between 1976 and 1982, and, concretely, the successive social pacts signed "to help the consolidation of democracy" exacted a high price in terms of loss of membership; as a result the CCOO lost the preeminent position it had held at the start of the transition from the Francoist dictator-
UGT rides Socialist wave
For the UGT, on the other hand, the close links with the PSOE were key to its leap from being a marginal force in 1976 to becoming the leading union in terms of the number of delegates obtained in the union elections in 1982, just after the PSOE election victory.
Both the high hopes and the close political links were to be reversed in the first five years of the Socialist government.
It was already clear by the end of
THE election victory of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party
(PSOE) in October 1982 was greeted by much of the union movement, and obviously by the Socialist UGT union, with high hopes in the promises made during the campaign.
JOAQUIN NIETO & PAULINO RODRIGUEZ
HESE hopes involved both the
1 improvement of workers' conditions and the role of the unions in society including their ability to influence public policy the legal working week to 40 hours.
The unions' thinking was dominated
1983 that the promised "left turn" was not being carried through, being completely alien to a government team which fully accepted the prevailing liberal economic orthodoxies.
Their main priority was the carrying through of industrial reconversion postponed by rightwing governments lacking the
Est necessary social support. Launched under
making.
An expression of these expectations Union election results was the rapid achievement of the InterConfederation Agreement (AI) for 1983 between the UGT, the CCOO (Workers Commissions - close to the Communist Party) and the bosses without direct government participation.
One reason for the ease with which agreement was reached was the practice that the unions had accumulated over preceding years in making social agreements. However another factor was that, for the first time in several years, the government of the day made no attempt to insert a reference to wage rises for 6 1983 and had promised a reduction in
1982 UGT 51,672 CC.00 47,016 ELA-STV 4,642 INTG-CIG 1,651 OTHERS 18,765 GRUPO TRAB. 17,024 TOTAL 140,760
1986 1990 66,411 99,737 56,065 87,730
5,372 7,488
1,062 3,527 22,393 16,903 10,833 8,407 162,298 237,261
December 7, 1992
At the same time, it became clear that the policy was to reduce job security and demarcation as far as possible; this was expressed in a series of decrees signed in 1984 dealing with such matters as reductions in social security, including a reform of the pension system which took effect two years later.
The first distancing from government policy and the first critical reactions came from the CCOO. The failure of the PCE in the 1982 elections and its subsequent disintegration meant that the union, not wanting to share the party's decline, took an increasingly indepen-
Furthermore, the splits in the PCE, especially the one that gave rise to the Communist People's Party of Spain (PCPE), meant increased pluralism in the CCOO, increased influence for radical views, previously restricted to the somewhat closed circles of the Union Left (Izquierda Sindical - IS).
At the time, the CCOO started an ongoing campaign of opposition to government policy. Its attitude to the industrial reconversion was ambivalent - with elements both of opposition and acceptance — expressed in a policy mainly aimed at negotiating a softening of the traumatic effects of closures.
Meanwhile, the CCOO made the significant gesture of refusing to sign the Economic and Social Agreement (AES) alongside the government, the employers' organization and the UGT.! It also opposed the decrees lessening job security which the government approved with the blessing of the UGT.
The most significant expression of CCOO opposition to government policy, however, was the calling of a general strike on June 20, 1985 against the pension reform. However, the CCOO's opposition was conducted within strict
The UGT, meanwhile, for the first five years of the Socialist government, opted for support for government policy, providing, indeed, its main source of
The UGT explicitly supported the government's industrial reconversion policy. The signing of the AES could only be interpreted as a statement of backing for a government policy which implied big attacks on broad sectors of highly relevant; the desire to outstrip the CCOO and become the country's main union force. This ambition rested on apparently reasonable assumptions: firstly, the possibility of translating electoral support for PSOE into members for the UGT — meaning a substantial crossover from the CCOO; secondly, the impact of the profound disarray in the PCE on the CCOO, and finally, the existence of effective support from the government for the UGT's preten-
1984-86 saw the highest level of confrontation between the two big union confederations since the start of the transition. Attacks succeeded one another and always in the same direction, by the UGT on the CCOO.
The first insistently repeated that the latter was a "Communist union" driven by a "belligerent attitude to the Socialist government that was never shown to the previous rightwing governments." The COO was accused of being "incapable of negotiation" and "indifferent to the interests of the workers owing to its anti-Socialist sectarianism"
In this respect, the AES was of crucial importance in the UGT's strategy; the exclusion of the CCOO from the collective negotiations was meant to pave the way for the proposed objective.
Evaporation of illusions
There are two specially interesting facts that are relevant here. The first
SPANISH STATE place at a time when the anti-NATO movement was at its height. The social climate was marked by the evaporation of illusions in the PSOE's promises and growing opposition to various aspects of government policy.
The second was the results of the union elections in 1986. While this showed both a relative and absolute strengthening of the UGT - which increased its lead over the CCOO by three percent — it did not bear out the UGT's expectations for the collapse of its rival and the establishment of its primacy. At the same time the UGT's majority was overshadowed by evidence of widespread electoral fraud in smaller enterprises and the fact that the CCOO still came out in front in the larger enter-
In 1982, the UGT got 36.74% of the total number of delegates, and the CCOO 33.33%; in 1986 the respective figures were 40.92% and 34.49%. In 1990 they were 41.62% and 36.98%.3 1. What the AES was all about was well expressed by Felipe Gonzalez himself, who explained before the negotiations: "I am asking for the same sacrifices for my government as those made for the previous rightwing governments". 2. The AES capped the collective negotiations for 1985 and 1986. Most of the conventions were to have effect over two years with provisions for wage revision in the second year. Many of the conventions were "of limited scope", signed only by the employers and the UGT although in practice they 3. The figures are interesting from a number of points of view. On the one hand they show the increasing concentration of union influence in the hands of the CCOO and UGT. The total of delegates the working class.2
Another aspect of the UGT's supportive attitude to the PSOE government was
Annual growth of Gross National Product
(adjusted for inflation)
1986
1987
1988
5,48%
6,30%
3,11% was the considerable success (in the circumstances) of the June 20, 1985 general strike called by the CCOO. This took
1991
1989
1990
5,04%
4,42%
4,41% from these two big confederations rose from 70% in 1982 to 78% in 1990. Most of the gains were at the expense of smaller unions and the so-called "workers' groups".
On the other, we find a different development in Euskadi (the Basque Country) and Galicia. In the first case, the nationalist ELA-STV has become the leading union in the Basque autonomous community while in Galicia, the INTG-CIG made a big step forward in 1990, obtaining 23.9% of Galician delegates.
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7
• proportion of economically active population in each sector
International Viewpoint # 240 • December 7, 1992
SPANISH STATE
The 1986 figures are the background of the changes that took place in the union world and in union/government
At the centre of these changes was the split between the PSOE and the UGT and the adoption by the latter of a policy of opposition to government policy along with a tendency towards united action by the unions in place of their previous confrontation.
Apart from the results of the 1986 union elections, the change in the economic cycle played a crucial part in these developments. 1986 saw the start of a long period of expansion which lasted until 1991 (see table). The change in the economic situation did not however mean a change in the government's economic policies; these remained firmly based on monetarist and neo-liberal principles and were profoundly anti-
Pressure continued on the workers, said to be the main culprits for inflation and job security continued to be undermined. State expenditure continued to be squeezed while unemployment fell only slightly to remain at a very high level.
The new period of relative economic prosperity was favourable to sudden -and scandalous - enrichment in some quarters and a growth in social inequality. Union proposals for a change in government policy, meanwhile, were bluntly rejected.
All these factors led to the reversal by the UGT of its long standing policy of close alliance with the PSOE, and the same factors were behind the general strike of December 14, 1988 which marked both the culmination and possibly the outer limit of the confrontation between the unions and the government.
Effects of 1988 general strike
The December 1988 strike made a big stir in a society unaccustomed since the start of the Transition to challenging authority — aside from the episode of the anti-NATO movement. The same event also saw the disappearance of the last remaining hopes for any positive social action from this government. People contemplated for the first time the possibility of a social movement that would fight directly for reforms by putting intense and constant pressure on the various social forces that appear on the scene.
However, if the unions were to play such a role, they would have to work tirelessly to develop a social culture of militant opposition to the authorities, of a measure of control over representatives in elected bodies and involvement in organized mobilizations within civil society. Such tasks were beyond the union leaders.
The raising of demands for a "social changes and the struggle to compel such a change soon gave way to the union leaders' obsession with controlling the effects of the general strike. Eighteen months had to pass before that translated itself into a few concessions - such as negotiations over public sector pay that time has shown to be without content or of only short duration.
Meanwhile, the Socialist government gained the time needed to retake the initiative. Now, this has reached the point where, under the guise of meeting the provisions of the Maastricht Treaty on European union, a comprehensive antisocial programme is being pursued.
The half day general strike of May 28, 1992, called to oppose the latest government measures, was characterized more by the consequences of developments in the unions after the December 1988 strike than with the spirit of that earlier stri-
A brief episode of confrontation was succeeded by renewed efforts to limit the must brutal aspects of the measures without any challenge to their underlying logic. In this context, plans for social partnership schemes have flouri-
A rapid retrospective of the past decade can help us to see the pluses and minuses of the situation of the unions.
On the plus side is the passing of the confrontation between the two big confederations and, even more positive, the reality of unity in action. At the same time, this new ability to act has
Breakdown of national workforce* 1982 1990 Agriculture 7.65% 5.02% Industry/ Construction been accompanied by greater centralization of decision making by the union leaderships to the detriment of rank- and-file participation.
It is also all to the good that the dependency on the "fraternal"
has been much weakened and that the unions have acted independently. While the present situation can be reversed, this is a substantial change.
It is also the case that the past decade has seen real rises in the incomes of regularly employed workers covered by collective contracts, thanks to the rise in real wages since 1987. However, this advance has not been felt by less well situated workers, who have seen a 5% fall in the real minimum wage, not to speak of the legions of the unemployed
As far as the attitude to other social movements and issues is concerned, the unions, and especially the CCOO, have started, with all kinds of hesitations, to address such questions as women's rights and defence of the environment.
It would also be reasonable to note the carving out by the unions of their space in society at least in terms of membership. This is even more true if we remember the strong pressure against unionism in recent years especially
Rise in CCOO membership
The CCOO saw a rise in membership of 34% between 1982 and 1990 (see table) This bulk of this growth was between 1988 and 1990, under the impact of the December 1988 general strike. At the same time, closer analysis of these affiliation points to some serious pro-
The whole of the CCOO's growth has been recorded in the service sector (where it has risen three times) and above all in the public sector, where affiliations have risen sevenfold. However membership in industry and construction has remained stagnant.
Breakdown of CCOO membership* 1982 1990 4.10% 3.13%
41.95% 38.42% authorities to affect its behaviour.
50.40% 56.56%
Trade unions take on a decisive importance from that point of view.
They are the only organizations capable of taking the initiative in such a move-
8 ment and giving expression to the
Services
Others
---
* composition of CCOO membership according to sector
75.50%
59.74%
14.03%
29.99%
6.96%
7.19%
SPANISH STATE
Building communities of resistance
December 7, 1992
While it is true that employment in services has been growing much faster than in industry and construction, this latter sector has none the less registered a 10% growth.
The CCOO's growth patterns are explained first of all by the entry into full-time employment in the public sec- IN 1982, the PSOE appeared to many social movement tor of a large number of relatively activists as a possible ally, especially around three young people and by the new forms of questions: leaving NATO, winning a woman's right to union representation, and to some extent abortion and changing the thrust of the National Energy negotiation, in the public sector. The stagnation in industry and construction reflects a decline in big enterprises in favour of small and medium sized firms and the spread of insecure jobs which are hard to unionize.
It also has to be said that, at least in the case of the CCOO, the process of affiliation has become much more passive and the union itself more bureaucratized, while both the UGT and the CCOO have become increasingly financially dependent on public investment schemes, which weighs in the balance against their mounting any sustained challenge to the authorities.
The unions have not been able to hold back not to speak of reversing - the tendency for the share of profits in the Gross Domestic Product to rise at the expense of wages. In 1982, the latter was 51.3% of GDP and profits 44.4%; in 1991 the percentages were 45.9% and 46.1% respectively.
### Unions suffer striking defeat
In the same way, they have failed to halt the dizzying advance in insecure jobs.4 Life has not been made easier by the fact that, in its time, the UGT formally agreed to the legislation undermining job security. Overall, the unions have suffered a striking defeat in their stated aim of reducing the social inequalities accumulated over recent years.
But the most basic defeat, which involves all the others, is the failure to obtain a serious change in government policy. This is not because its efforts have not been crowned by success, but because the necessary perseverance has not been there in pursuing the proclaimed objective.* 4. According to Ministry of Labour statistics on employment, 94.6% of contracts registered in 1991 involved various types of insecure working. Statistics worked out by Eurostat for 1989 (since which time things have worsened) put the Spanish State in first place in Europe for insecure employment. They show 30% of such jobs to 70% permanent posts. Next in line is Portugal with 13% and 81% respectively.
Plan. MANUEL GARÍ
HE electoral victory soon provoked new tensions inside the movements, around questions such as the initial proposals for an abortion law, the nuclear moratorium of 1984, the co-opting of feminists onto the Women's Institute, the creation of new government departments dealing with the environment, and the delay in dealing with membership in the Atlantic Alliance.
This conflict would be centred on the relationship developed by the Socialist government - or, rather, by its supporters in municipal and autonomous governments - with the social movements that flourished in the big cities, especially those "new social movements" that exist as separate entities alongside the trade union movement, the nationalist movements and the international solidarity organizations.
For the far-left, whose growth occurred outside the institutions, the growth and evolution of the social movements through the 1980s has been and continues to be of great interest, insofar as these movements have provided an important challenge to the government's programme. This has been an ideological and ethical challenge as well as a practical challenge (campaigns, struggles) which has created space for political activity outside the institutions the revolutionary left has thus increased its ability to take political initiatives, to mobilize and to establish close links with a wide array of social forces.
From a wider strategic view, it is necessary for proponents of a revolutionary alternative to make a detailed analysis of the evolution of the social movements and the autonomous popular organizations -for they represent the embryo of a civil society with its own voice representing a new majority in society, without which any project of social transformation is simply unviable.
The victory of the left in the 1979 municipal elections, and the PSOE-PCE (Communist Party of Spain) alliance, led to the demobilization of those forces which until then had constituted the principal nontrade union urban social movement. Institutional work replaced mass work, and soon came into open conflict with it. A large number of local activists became involved with the running of local administrations in place of their grassroots
In 1983, the PSOE once again took an interest in the popular associations, with the aim of converting them into mouthpieces for its institutional work in society. Now the PSOE has a majority in the Confederation of Local Associations of Spain (CAVE), and it has reduced the role of the associations to that of consultation with no real participation - mediating the application of the Law on Local Governments and regulating municipal decrees flowing from this law.
On the other hand, abandoning all socialist policies in the area of land and public housing, the PSOE has empowered the associations, along with the trade unions, to enter directly into the real estate market to create and manage cooperatives — while depriving them of any activist function or limiting them to issues which do not come into conflict with the government (campaigns against drugs and for public security, and so forth). Moreover, given the local associations' real poverty, the PSOE has made them depend for their survival on the subsidies from the various administrations.
### Marginalizing feminist activism
Before 1982 the PSOE was not interested in the women's movement, neither through its work as a party nor in its political programme. It only gave into pressures of the movement around a few questions relating to the Statute on Workers and the Constitution. After the formation of its government and during its ten-year tenure it has tried to develop an institutional feminism (supported by the media) and, through subsidies, nurture a kind of nonconflictual association — thus marginali- 9 zing feminist activism.
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International Viewpoint # 240 • December 7, 1992
SPANISH STATE
The creation of the Women's Institute (with little executive power and concerned mainly with the production of studies and the creation of new women's associations), the obligatory implementation of the directives and community accords that made up the Equality and Positive Action Plans, and a certain amount of financing from the municipalities and communities - all these reflected the implicit recognition that the women's movement was able to achieve. The governmental initiatives were intended to absorb or neutralize this movement.
### Weakening fabric of social movement
The same association policy, which has some positive aspects insofar as it extends the organization of women, seeks to weaken the fabric of the social movement and see to it that it does not grow and come into conflict with the government's social and economic policy. It seeks to create, on one hand, an elite feminism and, on the other, its mass version, a vague controlled and elementary feminism.
There are two reasons why the feminist movement was able to resist the Socialist's policy. On one hand, there was the weakness of the law on abortion, which was limited to mere de-criminalization. On the other hand, there was the ongoing selfaffirmation of the autonomous movement - against the government's discriminatory policies - through its own campaigns and debates.
The limits of the government's policies became clear: a highly underdeveloped network of social services (as much in healthcare compensation for abortion as in the shelters for battered women and the literacy and cultural campaigns); limited legislation after 1986 in the area of violence against women and for the reform of the penal code on abortion; growth of insecure and part-time employment for women workers; and considering as a gain for the entire society those measures which only applied inside the PSOE - such as happened with the "women's quotas".
The environmental movement, which an agreement with the right, which it made a privileged interlocutor in 1987. It also worked with the newly-born Greenpeace until 1983 around the question of dumping nuclear waste in the seas.
The development boom of 1985 created a divide between the government and the radical ecology movement and organizations such as CODA and Greenpeace — which up to that point had been on good terms with the government. The talk of modernization, the aggressive policies around infrastructural and industrial development — showing no respect for natural spaces in Riaño, Anchuras and Cabañeros - jolted a large part of the movement back into autonomous organizing.
The radical wing, represented by organizations such as AEDENAT, grew in strength and widened its alliances to include "conservationists" around socio-political themes such as urban pollution, transportation, the energy question, the garbage problem and the question of what attitude to take into the Rio Forum - which provided a wide audience for its criticisms of the European Communities weak-kneed recommendations and the effects of the Maastricht Treaty.
Currently, the Spanish State is the worst environmental offender in the European Economic Community. A good measure of the attitude of the PSOE towards the environmental movement is found in the proclamations of the Secretary of State for Water and the Environment, Vincent Albero — who warns of the dangers of "ecological radicalism and fundamentalism."
Atter the electoral promise to hold a referendum on NATO membership, and the alliance between the peace movement and the PSOE - expressed in the Act of November 15, 1981 - the October 1984 government declaration and the PSOE congress two months later led to open conflict with the peace movement, thus beginning the decline of peace organizations with links to the PSOE
Described as the final battle of the transition period, the issue of the Atlantic
Alliance gave the peace movement centre stage, and it was joined by a wide array of forces in an intensely political conflict. When pressure in the streets surpassed that exerted by the military, Felipe González was obliged to organize a referendum and the movement took on an openly anti-NATO and anti-government character that politicized the general atmosphere and enabled radical anti-militarists and the far-
One of the results of the referendum was that the demand for participatory democracy was headed off by a plebiscitary form that the government put forward - with the resultant frustration of the more conscious elements of the society driving them into the ranks of what has been called "the new political abstentionism".
After the referendum, the expectations created in 1982 came to an end - a wide gap formed between the ensemble of social movements and the government; and new forms of political action emerged (during the student movement of 1986-87 and the general strike of 1988), including an anti-war culture that was able to express itself once again during the Gulf War.
### Civil disobedience
But it also had a more far-reaching effect, much to the dismay of the government - the growth in forms of civil disobedience around questions of defense and security. The most developed form this took was conscientious objection, and then insubordination, among youth.
The anti-militarist movement against the 1984 Law on Conscientious Objection, the rejection of sentences passed down by the Constitutional Tribunal in accordance with this law and opposition to the 1988 Regulation on Social Benefits - all these forced the government to give amnesty to thousands of objectors and introduce a new Law on Military Service in 1991.
The government hopes to de-legitimize a movement which has gained wide support and an undeniable social and moral legiti-
OTAN NO had grown on its own both in the big cities and in the countryside, suffered its first blow in 1982, leading to the entry of a large part of its activists into the Socialist erreferendum orain administration. The second blow came with the PSOE's ambiguous stance on nuclear energy, after the adoption of the bases tuera moratorium.
The Socialists failed in their attempt to create their own associations, but not in its drive to attract a large part of the "conservationist" sector, which criticized certain measures but took the PSOE as its political
10 reference point. The government came to
Racist murder in Madrid
LUCRECIA Perez, a thirty-three year old Dominican left her country, her daughter and husband three months ago to come
December 7, 1992 • # 240 International Viewpoint macy. Government policy has been to suppress, divide and isolate the movement; when unable to do this, it has resorted to repression through the courts. The intransigence of the objectors and the general unpopularity of military service forced the
SPANISH STATE to Spain and work as a domestic in a rich Madrid neighbogovernment to free the Armed Forces from rhood. Like other Dominican immigrants in the Spanish state, the work of judging the objectors in their her goal was to work, save some money and return to her tribunals — in order to prevent them from becoming further discredited. This produ-
On Friday, November 13 of this year, she was murdered by a ced tremendous confusion among civil terrorist attack in the Four Roses, an abandoned discotheque judges when their turn came to apply the that served as home to her and other Dominican immigrants in full repressive weight of the Law.
a neighborhood where many old right-wing aristocratic families
Before taking office, the PSOE showed
There are about 15,000 Dominican immigrants in the Spanilittle interest in the social movements, and sh state. Eighty percent are women like Perez who work mostly when it did it was primarily concerned with harnessing their vote-getting potenas domestic servants, are between 25-45 years old, have small tial. Its 1982 electoral platform reflected children and come from the Barahona region in the south of this superficial self-interested approach.
The Association of Dominican Women in Spain (AMDE) and other Dominican immigrant associations have laid responsibili-
Party and society ty for the attack on the municipal authorities and the Interior
For the party leadership and intellecministry as well as the right wing forces who have led an antituals, civil society was only sufficiently immigrant campaign around the slogan "Stop immigration.
developed to allow the citizenry to express its institutional preferences through media-
In fact, the bullets used to kill Perez were manufactured in tors and through elections. Some Socialists the Santa Barbara factory - the same place from which the even went so far as to identify the re-buil-
Spanish state security forces and army get their weapons. Furding of the PSOE and the UGT union thermore, the killers assumed regulation military stances as confederation as a prerequisite for the building of a new civil society - confusing
A series of mass protests against the murder have been the needs of the old social-democratic project with the needs of society as a whole.
With the arrival in power and the subsequent break with the UGT, the civil society theme only interested the Socialists insofar as it meant strengthening the position of the state in society, and strengthening their position within the state.
The new social movements in the Spanish State emerged at a different time and in a different manner than in the rest of the
Western countries — as a result of the
Franco dictatorship, the late introduction of the welfare state and the centrality of the social conflict between classes.
The speed of economic growth and social change is the main reason why movements and individuals hold values marked by a cross-section of both economic and social concerns. This reflects, as
Murillo has noted, that Spanish society "is passing from a pre- to a post-industrial phase without having even gone halfway through the industrial phase itself."
But above all, the new and traditional social movements in the Spanish State of the 1970s are distinguishable from the rest of the Western countries in that they had not yet gone through the experience of the representative democracy in which they had such great illusions.
In 1982, the distinguishing feature changed: the ensemble of social movements had not yet gone through the experience of the social democrats in power.
After the initial discouragement with the first moves of the PSOE government, the country.
the Dominican Republic. Spanish first!". they fired on the immigrants. taking place. * new social movements began in an uneven fashion to re-orient their intervention in society. Simultaneous to the "modernization" proposed by the PSOE there appeared an "updating" of the ideas and the aims of the organizations of the new movements.
More clearly than in the pre-October and as critics of a model of growth and society. The popularity of the demand for what became known as "the third generation of rights and liberties" presented grea responsibilities to certain of the social movements that had not only lost their innocence but also had to swim against the tide right in the middle of the ReaganPope John Paul Il era.
Unconventional activities
This could explain why these movements became "reactive" movements in the 1980s, as opposed to their "pro-active" status of the 1970s. Almost from the beginning of the Socialist mandate, the movements created new forms of unconventional political activity that involved a sizeable minority of the politicized part of the population.
The new social movements, particularly the peace movement, became in the 198386 period what Claus Offe has called "channels for demands not taken up by the system". Thus they became new political actors who, without basing their legitimacy on the ballot box, struggle for political objectives that affect not only their own group, but also society in its entirety. This is the central challenge the social movements posed to the PSOE. In its strategy towards the government, the movements have scored few successes; however, they have created social networks steeped in a new culture and involving wide layers of society.
A very positive feature of this decade has been the experience of alliance and convergence between the "old" and "new" movements — during such times as the Gulf War, the general strikes and the Rio Forum. The movements have shed light on the contradictions of modern society and the limits of the welfare state; and they have achieved social legitimacy thanks to is polite hich go beyond the 1 1 limits set by the State.*
takes". By this he means the strategic formulas of 1967-68, years when the party was formed, from which, according to this argument, ideas introduced later were "deviations". He attacks weighty groups in his own organizations such as the regional leaderships on Mindanao, the Visayas (a group of islands in the centre of the archipelago) and Manila-Rizal (the region around the capital) as well as the networks in Western Europe and North America. He is initiating a "rectification campaign" that smacks of a political purge.
The second document published in Kasarilan criticizes Liwanang's positions and calls for "resistance" to the "totalitarian tendencies" in the CPP. It puts forward one of the various points of view of those who hope to
"go beyond" the party's "historical tradition", still embodied by Jose Marie Sison, the party's first president
Many critics are currently demanding the calling of a democratically organized congress to draw the lessons of contemporary experience, both national and international. In fact, the CP has not held a congress since it was founded 23 years ago. Aside from the questions of Stalinism and strategy the issue of democratic