The battle between the Spanish state and the Catalan independence movement is not over. We publish here two articles about the fight for a Catalan republic: the first, an analysis by comrades in Lucha de Clases (Spanish section of the IMT); the second, a report by Jorge Martin about the huge general strike seen in Catalonia on this week, on 8th November.
The decision to jail eight members of the Catalan government, and to issue an arrest warrant for the Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, along with a further four members of his government, is an unprecedented and very serious violation of basic democratic rights. But, as Jorge Martin reports, this attack by the Spanish state has revived the Catalan independence movement.
As Brexit negotiations grind to a halt, big business is entering panic mode. A no deal, “train-crash” Brexit – the one scenario that capitalism wants to avoid at all costs – looms large. And caught on the tracks is Ireland, the only country that shares a land border with the UK. Ben Curry looks at the the chaotic perspective facing Ireland, in the North and the South, as a result of Brexit and the global capitalist crisis.
After a week of about turns, indecision and last minute attempts to find a negotiated way out, the Catalan Republic was proclaimed on Friday 27th October. Tens of thousands celebrated in the streets of Barcelona and other Catalan towns and cities. But the newly born Republic was short-lived, with the Catalan leaders failing to mount any real resistance to the Spanish state’s repression.
450,000 marched in Barcelona on Saturday 21st October, demanding freedom for the two Jordis (held without bail on sedition charges) and rejecting the implemention of Article 155, announced by the Spanish President, Rajoy. As Jorge Martin reports, the measures being proposed by the Spanish government amount to a coup against democracy in Catalonia.
Jorge Martin reports on how the arrest of two Catalan officials has reignited the mass movement for independence. The whip of oppression wielded by the Spanish state has driven the masses back into action. The mood is incendiary, and Puigdemont has been left little room for manoeuvre.
Jorge Martin discusses the latest events and developments in Catalonia, where Puigdemont – the Catalan President – has delayed announcing the formation of an independent republic, under pressure from bourgeois public opinion. But the situation is not resolved, as there is still a counter-acting pressure of the masses from below and the repressive Spanish regime to contend with.
At the end of last month, on 23rd September, Mélenchon’s France Insoumise (Rebellious France) organised a massive rally of over 100,000 in Paris against the austerity programme of the Macron government. Jérôme Métellus, editor of Révolution, outlines what the Left and the trade unions in France should do next in the struggle to bring down Macron.
Catalonia’s Independence Referendum on 1st October has opened up a major crisis of the regime in Spain. Hundreds of thousands occupied and defended polling stations in order to vote on the day. Those sights are now burnt into the consciousness of the Catalan people. On 3rd October, a national shutdown paralysed Catalonia with huge demonstrations against police repression.
Despite brutal police repression, hundreds of thousands fought with determination yesterday to vote in the referendum on Catalan independence. The real ugly face of the Spanish regime was clear to see. At the same time, Jorge Martin reports, the mass mobilisation and self-organisation of the Catalan people was also on display.
We publish here a statement by the International Marxist Tendency, along with a series of reports from Arturo Rodriguez in Barcelona about the rapidly developing mass movement for a Catalan independence referendum and against state repression.
A political earthquake is the best way we can describe the federal elections that took place in Germany on Sunday 24th September. For the first time ever in post-war history an extreme right-wing party has been elected to the Bundestag. At the same time, the parties that have formed the “Grand Coalition” – lead by Chancellor Angela Merkel since 2003 – have suffered historic defeats.