Statement of the Central Committee of the PCTE
The 11th Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the PCTE, met in September 7-8, 2024, after assessing the economical, political, and social context in which the class struggle is being carried out in Spain, wants to convey the following reflections to the ensemble of the working class and the popular strata in our country.
1) The capitalists have mainly focused their concerns on the increase of labor productivity. This essentially means that they are redoubling their efforts to obtain greater yield from labor force, to extract more surplus value, as a means to place themselves under better conditions for the competence in the different markets and obtain larger profitability for their investments. The increase in productivity, under capitalism, means a larger exploitation of the working class.
All those forces defending capitalism, on the right and on the left, have made such concern of capitalists their own. This is why they are proposing various measures aimed at advancing on this path, either by establishing more mechanisms of inner and outer flexibilization in companies or by promoting a general transformation of the educational system in order to completely submit it to business interests. This can be seen in the foundations and the text of some laws, like the LOMLOE (Organic Law Amending the Organic Law on Education) or the Organic Law for the Organization and Integration of Vocational Training.
2) The experience accumulated after several years of management by Governments of social-democratic coalition headed by the PSOE confirms that the social-democracy is playing an indispensable role in this process, since it is presenting what are nothing but mechanisms designed for the general worsening of life and labor conditions for the working class as “new rights” or “new conquests” for the working-class majority.
The best example of this are the changes made in the system of labor relations, where the Labor Reform has served to “improve” the figures of hiring and employment, while the conditions for hiring and employment have worsened. They are subduing the workers even more to the needs of capitalists at every juncture.
But such trend is also verified about the question of retirements. All the social-democratic forces —both political and trade union— are limiting themselves to attempt to make up the clear commitment to the indefinite delay of the retirement age, while the conditions to access to worthy pensions have worsened. All of this is headed towards the opening of a new multi-millionaire market niche for banks and insurance companies.
In the Spanish political and economic panorama there is one single speech, expressed in different ways by each political, trade-union or business organization. All of them share the goal of ensuring the continuity of the capitalist exploitation, even though they have differences regarding the depth and orientation of the measures required to reach such goal. This communion between political, trade-union, and business organizations passes off the interests of one exploiting minority as the general interests of the society as a whole. It also favors the demobilization of the working class and blurs the class contradictions which comprise the essential core of the capitalist path of development.
3) The margins for the capitalist management are narrow. The acceptance of such margins, coming from the concept of capitalism as the only possible path of development, means the acceptance of the essential mechanisms for capitalist exploitation and prevents the implementation of measures capable of reverting this growing subordination of the working-class majority to the interests of their exploiters.
This reality implies that the daily political and economic discussions are not about the different possibilities to approach the social problems generated by capitalism, but about what can be done without questioning nor putting into risk the bases of capitalist exploitation. The working class is therefore permanently facing the false dilemmas that have nothing to do with the resolving of their real problems, but rather the promotion —in the most effective way possible— of interests alien to the class.
Besides, in many occasions these false dilemmas —presented as general dilemmas— are just the expression of the clashes between different sections of the exploiting minority and its political managers. As it is seen nowadays in the discussions on the model of autonomous funding, the different managers of the capitalist interests are using the life conditions of the population of their respective territories as a justification in order to attempt to obtain better conditions for the exercise of the exploitation, to attempt to favor the sections of the bourgeoisie living in each territory.
4) On the other side, the capitalists do not only need labor force subdued to the conditions of growing subordination to the productive needs. It also demands to count with a sufficient reserve for facing the different stages of production and justify the worsening of labor conditions. To do so, it is indispensable to count with workers from other countries, whereas the reserve offered by the population in the country is not enough.
In a context of decrease of the birth rate and lack of abundant and cheap domestic workforce, the foreign workforce gains relevance. Such workforce is doomed to migration because of the impossibility to have worthy life and labor conditions in their own country, mainly as a result of the situation imposed by the international division of labor, which assigns different and specific roles to the different capitalist countries.
The migratory phenomenon, under these coordinates, is used by the various capitalist sections according by their interests. They ignore or manipulate the class nature of such phenomenon and all the elements present in it. With it, false dilemmas —like those relative to “orderly or disorderly immigration”, “open or closed borders”, “contribution to the economy and pensions or abuse of benefits”— are popularized. They divert the attention to the objective reasons behind this phenomenon, they justify the negation of determined rights to certain sections of the class, and they contribute to fostering the mistrust and disunion within the class, as they put allegedly national interests before class interests.
5) Some trends headed to favor the disunion of the working class are expressed in practically all the spheres of the current class struggle. These trends have always existed, but in certain moments —like nowadays— they are exacerbated because of the objective realization of the impossibility of a capitalist development that benefits the whole of society.
The capitalist development does not only demand the maintenance of inequality within each country, but also between countries and regions in the world. Furthermore, it demands this inequality to be considered natural and immutable. This creates between the different sections of the working class the pursuit of individual exits that further subdues them to their exploiters.
In this situation, the only possible solution is the strengthening of the class-oriented positions. This means two things: on one side, identifying the class interests present in each conflict; on the other side, prioritizing such class interests against every other consideration and against the arguments hiding alien class positions under a supposedly workerist rhetoric.
Under the conditions indicated, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain declares that the orientation of its political work in this term will be carried out under the slogan “Shoulder to shoulder, class against class”, particularized in the following lines of action:
- The main enemy of the different sections of the working class is the bourgeoisie, as the minority that exists thanks to the capitalist exploitation.
- The working class can end up with the bourgeois dominance only if it is conscious of the economic, political, and ideological mechanisms that secure their exploitation and disunion and, according to it, organizes itself from its position regarding the capitalist exploitation, beyond any other considerations.
- The interests of the working class do not match with the interests of its exploiters. Therefore, the working class cannot trust the representatives of such exploiters, but only in its own organized forces.
- The different sections of the bourgeoisie are making relevant efforts to popularize their worldview and immediate interests between the working-class majority, seeking to speak on its behalf and passing off their specific interests as general interests.
- The impossibility of satisfying today the interests and needs of the working class today is not to be found within the class itself, but within the limits established by capitalists in order to safeguard the capitalist exploitation and the conception that such limits are insurmountable.
- The solution to the problems of the working class does not lay in the trust in the capitalist State as a mechanism capable of correcting social inequalities, because its role is mainly to secure the maintenance of such inequalities within parameters acceptable for the ruling class.
For all these reasons, the Central Committee of the PCTE makes the following appeal to the working-class majority in our country:
- to remain united and organized against all the attacks being carried out by the bourgeoisie and its political representatives,
- to unmask the reactionary, racist, xenophobic stances aiming at dividing our class,
- to develop our own tools, capable of counterposing their class interests to the interests of the different sections of the bourgeoisie,
- to develop unitary mechanisms for the intervention at workplaces, schools, and residences of the class that maintain the political, ideological, and organizational independence against the bourgeoisie and its supporters,
- to identify and fight the appeals to unity based on the opposition between different capitalist management forms, ultimately aimed at maintaining the capitalist exploitation under supposedly less harmful forms.
The emancipation of the working class must be conquered by the workers themselves. The struggle for the emancipation of the working class means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule.
Shoulder to shoulder, class against class!