Spain. The Common Experience of Transition and a Military Coup.

Lexington Books

A division of

R oWMAn & L ittLe FieLD PUBLis He R s, inC.

Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

Solidarity?

Western European Trade Unions and the Polish Crisis, 1980– 1982

edited by idesbald goddeeris

00_Goddeeris10_FM_pi-vi.indd 3 8/2/10 4:33:22 PM

Published by Lexington BooksA division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706www.lexingtonbooks.com

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction: Solidarity, Ideology, Instrumentality, and Other Issues 1

Idesbald Goddeeris

Chapter 2 Sweden: Focus on Fundamental Trade Union Rights 19 Klaus Misgeld

Chapter 3 Spain: The Common Experience of Transition and a Military Coup 51

José M. Faraldo

Chapter 4 Italy: Diversity within United Solidarity 75 Sandra Cavallucci and Nino De Amicis

Chapter 5 The ICFTU and the WCL: The International Coordination of Solidarity 101

Kim Christiaens

Chapter 6 Great Britain: Between Avoiding Cold War and Supporting Free Trade Unionism 129

Stefan Berger and Norman LaPorte

Chapter 7 The FRG: Humanitarian Support without Big Publicity 159

FriedhelmBollandMałgorzataŚwider

Chapter 8 France: Exceptional Solidarity? 191 AndrzejChwalbaandFrankGeorgi


vi Table of Contents

Chapter 9 Denmark: International Solidarity and Trade Union Multilateralism 219

Bent Boel

Chapter 10 Belgium: The Christian Emphasis 243 Idesbald Goddeeris

Chapter 11 Austria: An Ambivalent Attitude of Trade Unions and Political Parties 269

OliverRathkolb

Abbreviations 289

About the Authors 297

Index 00


51

Chapter 3

Spain

The Common Experience of Transition and a Military Coup

José M. Faraldo

The Spanish reaction to Solidarność was very diverse, depending upon politi-cal values, religious beliefs, and even interest in foreign affairs. It was partly colored by communist loyalty or anticommunist conviction. Just as in other countries, perceptions changed with time, the declaration of martial law on December 13, 1981, being a very clear breakpoint. However, the Spanish view on Solidarność did have some peculiarities, caused by the recent history of the country.

This article explores the standpoint that Spanish trade unions had toward their Polish counterparts, analyzing it within the broader histori-cal context of Spanish reception of Polish dissidence.1 It focuses on the years 1980– 1982 because of the specifics of the Spanish situation: its own transition into a democratic regime, and the problems that were involved with this. It is mainly based on the national and trade union press, and on interviews and correspondence with some protagonists, such as Pedro Jarillo, Józef Przybylski, and Manuel Zaguirre. Archival research in the Fundación 1 de Mayo in Madrid, and the Ośrodek Karta in Warsaw, did not lead to important findings. Secondary literature on the subject is scarce; no academic research has been done on the Spanish reception of Solidarność or Eastern European dissidence in Spain. Some information can be found in books about the Polish crisis, most of them written by journalists or radical left- wing politicians. But even the dissertation by Mercedes Herrero on Solidarność, based on a great deal of material and interviews with Polish protagonists, does not examine the Spanish percep-tion of the Polish crisis.2

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52 Chapter 3

FRANCO, TRADE UNIONS, AND 23- F

At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War (1936– 1939), Francisco Franco ’s nationalist and antiliberal government forbade all trade unions in the territory it controlled.3 By the end of the war, no legal independent trade unions were left in Spain. Being inspired by the Falangist ideology of nacional- sindicalismo (national- trade unionism),4 Franco instead founded the Spanish Trade Union Organization (OSE): a compulsory trade union where employers and employees had to work together.5 The OSE was a main part of Franco ’s “organic democracy” and one of the system’s instruments with which to integrate the masses. Its sindicato vertical developed into an elaborate bureaucratic machine with elections on a regular basis, a large and diverse web of diaries, journals, and bulletins, and a huge patrimony of edifications and properties. It was hierarchically structured, decisions being made at the top, but it gradually gave many workers the opportunity to obtain a first experience in labor politics, by voting or debating.

The two most important pre- war trade unions, the socialist General Workers’ Union (UGT) and the anarchist National Labor Confederation (CNT) suffered enormously under Franco’s dictatorship. The structure of both organizations was totally destroyed and properties confiscated, including archives that were used by the police for the prosecution of former members. Many former union leaders were imprisoned and killed, though some of them escaped and tried to oppose Franco from exile in France, albeit with minimal success. The CNT, which had been Europe’s most important anarchist trade union before 1939, was even unable to restore its former standing after Franco’s death in 1975. Not only was it divided into different organizations because of dispute on political tactics, but also lost its social basis after the transformation of the Spanish economy. After a period of relative popularity, the CNT had become marginal by 1981.6

The biggest trade union before the war, the socialist UGT, also only played a minor role during the dictatorship. Its direction in exile excluded any compromise with the Francoist system, forbidding its representatives in the country to collaborate with official trade unions. This closed any possibility of an effective competition with other organizations. However, contrary to the CNT, the UGT did succeed in growing again after Franco ’s death. Its restored tradition, a series of good politics, and the fact that it was the alterna-tive to the “communist” trade union made it one of the most important work-ers’ organizations in democratic Spain.7 Nevertheless, its importance became politically decisive only after 1986, due to its fight against the neo- liberal politics of Felipe González ’s socialist governments.

The Spanish Communist Party (PCE) was the most important political opposition group after 1939. It created an illegal union, the Workers’ Trade


Spain 53

Union Opposition (OSO), but this achieved only very poor results. After the Party’s Soviet- inspired change of strategy from 1948– 1950, and the strikes of 1951, Spanish communists began to infiltrate the official unions. This strategy proved successful, and the party succeeded in growing and consoli-dating itself underground. Communists endeavored to use the system to its maximum in an effort to improve the workers’ situation and to make pro-paganda. This tactic developed throughout the 1960s.8 In the end, however, communists were unable to control the growing opposition of workers. The OSO disappeared within the wider movement of the Workers Commissions.

On the other side of the ideological spectrum, there were some Roman- Catholic associations rooted in social- Christian traditions that were supposed to “evangelize the workers.” The Workers’ Fraternities of Catholic Action (HOAC) and the Young Catholic Workers (JOC) played an important role in the socialization of many workers, bringing them up in the tradition of social justice, which had not only a social- Catholic but, ironically, also an anarchosyndicalist background. The liberal tendencies that grew within the Church after 1956 inspired many young Catholic laics and priests to oppose the regime. In this way, the Workers’ Fraternities of Catholic Action (HOAC) and the Young Catholic Workers of Spain (JOC) began a process of politi-cal engagement and mobilization of the working class in the main Spanish industrial centers.9

The opposition from Catholic organizations was a serious setback for the regime. In spite of some fascist moods and limited attempts to build fascist structures, Franco ’s rule was based on Catholic conservatism and strongly supported by the Catholic Church.10 The regime’s ties with the Church ran so deep that education, media censorship, and many fields of everyday social control, particularly in the countryside, were put in the hands of the Church. The political liaison of the Church with the regime, together with certain cultural patterns of traditional Spanish anticlericalism, which was a sort of folk subculture, produced a negative attitude of many workers against the Catholic hierarchy. However, on the other hand, the growing opposition from parts of the Church against the regime, which was expressed even openly in the 1970s, presented the opportunity of cooperation between Catholics and the antireligious left.

With the fast growth of the working class during the economic develop-ment from the end of the 1950s onward, the necessity of independent trade unions became self- evident. After 1958, spontaneous workers’ commissions began to appear in big firms. These ad hoc delegations of workers debated with employers in order to resolve problems or to push through strikes.11 Usually, such commissions disappeared after their task was fulfilled, but out of this milieu of disappointed Falangists, young Catholic workers, and


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old members of former organizations, some permanent organizations arose. They became more and more coordinated until a powerful union was finally created: the Workers’ Commissions (CCOO). It became the main workers’ organization in Spain after the trade union elections in 1966.12 The Spanish Communist Party (PCE), which was the only party that was agitating success-fully underground, tried to obtain influence in this spontaneous phenomenon and progressively developed a certain dominion over the CCOO. In time, the CCOO came to be the “official” communist trade union, being identified as a “communist” union since the beginning of the 1970s. However, the loss of importance of the communist party from the 1980s onward liberated the CCOO of such a dependency.13

One of the first new (illegal) trade unions since 1939 was the Workers’ Trade Union (USO), which was founded in 1960.14 With many of its initial members coming from Catholic organizations, the stigma of a “Christian” trade union remained for a long time. Ideologically, the USO was for self- management with almost anarchosyndicalist characteristics, although it developed over time a Marxist discourse, albeit always heterodox and anti- Stalinist. From the beginning, it declared itself to be an “antitotalitarian” organization and it openly avoided being dependent on Moscow or Spanish communists. In 1977, the USO suffered an important division when a huge part of its membership joined the social- democrat UGT. The latter’s fast resurrection after 1975 indeed convinced many members of the USO that the best way to fight for the rights of the workers was to merge with the now more powerful social- democrat union. Later, in 1980, a smaller number of militants joined the CCOO, the mainly communist trade union by then. Due to this double exodus, the USO became a small union with only relative importance in some sectors and regions, but still with symbolic relevance in the Spanish workers’ world.

In 1976, the official Francoist OSE was dissolved. Some months later, the democratic trade unions were made legal. By 1981, there were also some minor trade unions, most of them with regional meaning and of left- wing nationalist color.15 The multinational composition of the Spanish state and the development of cultural and political nationalism of every kind during the 1970s, stimulated the trade unions’ strong regional differentiation.16 The nationalist Basque trade unions were of especially great importance: altogether they had held the majority in the three Spanish Basque provinces since the 1920s. With a deep pre- war tradition Euskal Langileen Alkartasuna, Solidarity of Basque Workers, (ELA- STV) was a moderate nationalist trade union.17 In the Basque country, it competed with the Langile Abertzaleen Batzordeak, Nationalist Workers’ Committees, (LAB), a small but influential left- wing nationalist and separatist trade union.


Spain 55

Finally, there were of course also some professional associations without defined political relations and even a marginal right- wing trade union, the National Force of Labor (FNT), formed by nostalgic ex- members of the Francoist trade union. Their discourses were voiced in the radical- right press, which continued to have some influence for a time.18 However, the part of the Francoist elite that was reluctant to change the authoritarian model after Franco’s death, was in the end unsuccessful.

Most Francoists took a different path. They managed to lead Spain’s transition into a liberal democracy, transforming the system from the inside and canalizing the opposition into a consensus that was rooted in the trauma of the Spanish Civil War and in the anti- Francoist opposition’s firmly rooted conviction of not repeating the terrible bloodbath of 1936– 1939. The principal political actors— post- Franco elites, King Juan Carlos I, and the very fragmented opposition— agreed on one essential: the “normalization” of Spain according to the European context. The first part of the transition process ended in December 1978 with the referendum on the new, democratic constitution. The new system was now fully democratic, even though resi-dues of the past were still going to be present for a long time, and no process of real change was achieved within the police force, the judiciary, or other elites of the dictatorship.19

Still, the economic, social, and political situation remained uncertain. Violence came onto the street, fascist factions, left- wing terrorists, and national- liberation regional guerrillas fighting the newly born system. The shadow of the army covered the whole process like an ominous watchman. High ranks of the army repeatedly prepared conspiracies or wrote manifestos against the democratization.

On February 23, 1981, a muddled conspiracy of armed forces and civilians attempted to stop the democratic transition. An armed group of the Guardia Civil, led by Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero , took Parliament and held the deputies hostage. General Milán del Bosch , the military governor of Valencia, put tanks on the streets and assumed all power within the region. But the rest of the conspiracy failed. No other region followed del Bosch ’s example, and the group that took over the central television station surren-dered very quickly. After the king had appeared on television condemning the armed coup, the rebels went back to their quarters. Only Tejero resisted from within Parliament, finally capitulating after he had received immunity for his troops.

The failed putsch left a deep impression on Spanish society.20 For a while, it had seemed possible that things could once more roll back to the past of the dictatorship. The shock forced Spanish politicians to be more cautious, particularly the moderate left who now had an alibi for softening down some


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standpoints. But the coup’s failure also illustrated that a return to the past was impossible. After the social- democratic Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), one of the losers during the Civil War, won the elections a year later, the transition could be considered complete.21

The end of the transitional period, however, did not now mean that Spanish politics became quiet. Tension with the Catholic Church on issues such as abortion and the divorce laws added to many other conflicts, such as the continued violence of Basque separatists and the dirty war of the state against them. For the trade unions, habituated within the underground, the real struggle now began. After some years of erratic social- democratic politics, Felipe González ’s socialist government turned to a neo- liberal economic deregula-tion, closing old fabrics and privatizing state- run concerns. Trade unions now found themselves fighting a left- wing government, indeed having for a long time been the only real opposition to the PSOE. So, between Solidarność’s rise in 1980 and its re- legalization in 1989, Spanish trade unions were suffer-ing a complex process of change, struggle, and reorganization.22

SPANISH SOCIETY AND EASTERN EUROPEAN DISSIDENTS

It was in this turbulent setting that Spaniards watched television, amazed at how a mass of Polish workers prayed in the middle of a strike and attended protest marches with images of the Pope and the Black Madonna of Częstochowa in their hands. As such, Polish workers’ objectives were not so unlike those of Spaniards who had fought Franco ’s dictatorship. However, all these religious symbols were looked upon with disdain, not only by the Spanish left- wing elite, but also by broader masses. For people who only some years previously had been unable to find a job without the local priest’s positive opinion, the presence of the Catholic Church at the Gdańsk harbor was strange to say the least. Spain was a very Catholic country, but the alli-ance between the dictatorship and the Church had destroyed much of the latter’s legitimacy. True, the aggiornamiento of the Second Vatican Council had enabled some change in this perception, a part of the priesthood was very much engaged in social issues, and clandestine meetings of the CCOO had taken place in churches and religious facilities. But still, Solidarność’s religi-osity was too traditional and too direct for most Spaniards.

In general, the Spaniards’ attitude toward Eastern European dissidence was very cold. The regime had used anticommunism as its main ideological weapon since 1936, and anticommunism was the official reason for Spanish participation in Hitler’s war against the Soviet Union. The experience of the


Spain 57

Blue Division, the Spanish volunteers who had fought side by side with the Germans against the Soviet Union, had marked Spanish perception of Eastern Europe for a long time.23 After 1945, Spain was a sanctuary for many Central and Eastern European émigrés, including a certain number of prominent Nazis and European fascists.24 Some of the émigrés were intellectuals and writers and, although often collaborating with Francoist anticommunist propaganda,25 they did bring knowledge about Eastern and Central Europe and of the situa-tion under communist rule. Romanians and Croats founded publishing houses in Spain, Poles had journals in the Spanish language for the promotion of Polish culture among the regime’s elite, some Hungarians played soccer, and some Slovaks found work at the university. In this way, they contributed to the construction of the Spanish perception of Eastern Europe. However, by the 1970s, the few émigrés who still had some public relevance were seen by most of the Spanish population as relics of the past.26

The ideological hegemony of left- wing politics undoubtedly played a role in this. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Francoist Weltanschauung had been substituted by a strange mélange of different kinds of Marxist and leftist discourse. By 1975 there was a broad social consensus about democ-racy, which was mainly understood as anti- Francoist and vaguely left- wing. This continued to exist until attitudes polarized after the social- democrats’ electoral victory in 1982, which radicalized a minority but led to most escap-ing from politics. The right, by contrast, was identified as being at one with the neo- fascists, demonstrating violently against freedom and shooting people indiscriminately on the streets. Only many years later did Spain’s right- wing Prime Minister José María Aznar (1996– 2004) speak of “a Spanish right without complexes.”

Because of this left- wing dominance, the new Eastern European dissidents who gained more and more popularity all over Europe became increas-ingly disapproved of by Spanish public opinion. In Spain, they were only welcomed by the anti- Stalinist and anti- Russian left and the anticommunist right. According to most Spaniards, however, Eastern European dissidents represented not only anticommunism, but also, above all, a reaction against cultural change and modernity. The Spanish left had just identified itself with left- wing nationalism, gender issues, sexual liberation, and ecology. All of this was challenged (at least, this was the perception) by the dissidents from the other side of the Iron Curtain.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ’s case is a good illustration of this development. From the very beginning, his work was widely published in Spain. After his expulsion from the USSR, many books informed the Spanish reader of his traditionalist, even reactionary worldview.27 The initial Spanish recep-tion was positive, but this changed dramatically when the Russian dissident


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visited Spain in 1976 and praised Franco and his regime in a television inter-view that was very well orchestrated by the Spanish propaganda machine. Solzhenitsyn ’s arrogant words saw to it that most intellectuals lost all hope of understanding dissidents.28

Although there was contact in Spain with Eastern European dissidents, and even though the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) was Euro- communist and anti- Stalinist, many intellectuals considered themselves as fellow travellers of the Soviet experience. There were obviously other views, such as that of the former communist Fernando Claudín , who warned of real socialism and wrote good and very appreciative books on dissidence, among those a well- received one in 1981.29 However, Claudín was a special case as he had lived in the USSR for many years and had traveled extensively in communist countries.

What is also important to consider is the fact that Eastern Europe was not central in the mind of most Spaniards. It was perceived with a feeling of detachment. Even Latin America or the Middle East was closer in their perceptions of the world.30 Although the election of a Pole as head of the Catholic Church did a great deal in bringing Poland nearer to Spain and increased interest in the country, this was not nearly enough by 1980.

As a result, the Spanish social reaction to Solidarność did not differ funda-mentally from the one it had shown to other Eastern European dissidents. Of course, it was not monolithic.31 For the Spanish right, the rise of Solidarność meant a confirmation of its thesis about the evils of communism.32 The influ-ential extreme- right newspaper, El Alcázar, presented the situation in Poland with articles explaining Solidarność in an anticommunist way.33 It had a tradi-tion of mentioning dissidence within the socialist bloc, but the Polish union was considered as so important that El Alcázar gave it the front page even before the proclamation of martial law, which was very unusual in Spain.34

Most of the Spanish left, by contrast, had an ambivalent attitude toward the Polish opposition movement. As mentioned, this was probably caused by its open Christian character. The social- democratic media, who were antagonists of the communists, followed the Polish crisis with awareness. The Madrid journal El País, which was in a certain way the unofficial voice of the PSOE and was (at that time) beginning to grow into one of the most important Euro-pean journals, copiously informed thanks to its correspondent in Bonn, José Comas . After the proclamation of martial law, Comas was able to cross the Polish border disguised as a truck driver.35 Afterward, he wrote a book about the phenomenon of Solidarność.36

The radical left was divided. Anarchists and Trotskyites saw in Solidarność an anti- Stalinist workers’ revolt and expressed their support almost from the beginning, while Stalinists and Maoists thought of the Polish revolt as a contrarevolution.37 The Liga Comunista Revolucionaria, a Trotskyite


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organization, organized a solidarity campaign with the Polish workers and did not hesitate in using the example of Solidarność as a discursive weapon against Stalinism.38 In a famous article, Ryszard Kapuściński included an amusing characterization of two Spanish Trotskyites who had visited the Gdańsk strike because they thought that it was a workers’ revolution. Kapuściński makes clear that the Spaniards had no real idea of where they were and what the people were fighting for. Obviously, the solidarity of Anarchists and Trotsky-ites posed a problem for Kapuściński, in that it could expose Polish workers to attacks from communist officials and damage them.39

The most important transfer between Solidarność and Spanish society had a musical character. The unofficial hymn of the Polish August, and the later underground, was the song Mury (“Walls”), popularized by Jacek Kaczmar-ski . Although the song is not about politics, but about a solitary creator’s fear for the masses, it was interpreted as an antiauthoritarian protest song. Mury was very popular at the time, being covered by many artists and played every-where. Kaczmarski’s version was based on a song composed by the Spanish songwriter Lluis Llach , L’estaca (“The Stake”), which in turn was one of the unofficial hymns of the Spanish anti- Francoist movement. Carlos Marrodán Casas, son of a Spanish communist émigré in Poland, gave Kaczmarski an LP that included the song.40

In general, the elite’s attitude toward Solidarność was really more of undefined disagreement than an active refusal. For Spanish politicians who were trying to promote their country as a new and dynamic democracy, Solidarność could be a matter of contempt. While tension was growing between Solidarność and Jaruzelski’s government in Poland, follow- up ses-sions of the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) took place in Madrid (November 1980– September 1983). The Polish revo-lutionaries talked about “big issues” with an angle on human rights.41 For many Spanish politicians, expansion was something between governments, in which civil society had no voice: the Spanish transition had been managed in a similar way, with pacts from the top. Western leaders may well ask their communist colleagues for democratization and human rights, may indeed write diplomatic notes, submit petitions, and sign treaties. But as for the Pol-ish workers, with their grassroots- revolution, they were unwelcome.

EARLY TRADE UNIONIST RECEPTION

The Spanish trade unions of the Transición period perceived Solidarność with the same ambiguity as the left- wing political parties. The CCOO had followed the Polish situation with a certain interest. Although it was clearly


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connected with the communist party by 1980, it still had a tradition of open-ness and plurality that other, older communist unions lacked. The main union paper, Gaceta Sindical, even reported sympathetically on Solidarność. Marcelino Camacho (general secretary of the CCOO) and Serafin Aliaga (secretary of international relationships) were in Poland in August 1980 and wrote a positive article. In a communiqué of August 20, 1980, the CCOO sec-retary declared its solidarity with the Polish workers, who were “affected by the same social and economic difficulties as all other European workers,” but were praised for their “sense of responsibility, realism, and serenity.” During the second congress in the same summer, the CCOO noted that it had “rela-tionships with the USSR, Yugoslavia, and the other communist countries and that it had made contact with the Polish trade union Solidarity.”42 Solidarność was not perceived as an “antisocialist” organization, but as a way to renovate and transform socialism. This sympathy continued to exist in 1981. CCOO and PCE member Benito Barrera described the Polish situation very posi-tively in a long article about his meeting with the Solidarność railway branch in Wrocław. The many problems and shortages of socialist economy were compared with the same problems under Franco: even for a communist, the parallels between both dictatorships were evident. Barrera also wrote about the anti- Russian sentiments of the Polish people, which he considered to be “patriotic” and not “ideological.”43

The very marginal right- wing trade unions took some interest in Poland, but its experience of self- management and democratic decision- making was not particularly acceptable for them.44 Interestingly enough, the Falangists looked to Solidarność in a different way, which was not only anticommunist, but was also rooted in traditional Falangist syndicalism. They suddenly hoped that their national- union’s “unfulfilled revolution” may actually take place in a communist country. For example, the radical Falangist José Luis Alcocer wrote of the Polish problem in a deeply unionist manner: “Walesa knew how to wake up the faith in syndicalism and in unionist arguments” and “the government and the party know perfectly that an autonomous revival of trade unionism means an erosion of the communist system.” For Alcocer , who even quoted Vladimir Lenin , there was “an unsolvable contradiction between Marxism and syndicalism, namely, between a certain way of conceiving power and a material expression of freedom.”45

Yet, the most positive reception of Solidarność was displayed by the USO. The trade union that had been founded by the Spanish underground in 1960 almost immediately began to collaborate with Solidarność. General Secretary Manuel Zaguirre went to Gdańsk in August 1980, and the USO received a Solidarność delegation in Madrid at the end of 1980.46 The Polish independent trade union’s objectives and methods were perceived as very


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similar. Both trade unions argued for self- management, were anti- Stalinists, and were rooted in Christian values, although not as deep in the case of the Spaniards. “Trade unionist independence does unite us,” as the USO wrote in its main journal Unión Sindical.47 The collaboration with Solidarność was also tactical. The USO had grown under the dictatorship, becoming what was probably the second largest Spanish trade union by the beginning of the tran-sition. However, with the radicalization of other unions and the USO’s own discourse on trade union unification, a defection to the socialist UGT and the communist CCOO had taken place, as previously mentioned. The USO hoped to stop this by distancing itself from other unions and accentuating its alterna-tive identity. The heroic fight of the Polish workers radiated to the USO. It made use of this symbolic capital to remind Spaniards that they had fought the Spanish dictatorship and that now they continued to fight other dictatorial regimes. The USO was not only a professional union with limited objectives, but also a part of an antitotalitarian movement.

Since the USO was not a traditional pre- war trade union with an exile section mediating with other Europeans, it had been very difficult to connect with international organizations. After many attempts, the USO joined the World Confederation of Labor in 1980. Following the WCL 20th congress in November 1981, the USO’s internal press stressed for the participation of Solidarność members and for the re- election of Jan Kułakowski, an emigrated Pole, as general secretary.48 Kułakowski seems to have played an important role in the relationship with the USO, Manuel Zaguirre even writing that con-tact with the Polish union had begun with Kułakowski’s intercession.49

THE DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS OF THE COUP D’ETAT

Everything changed dramatically after the night of December 12 and 13, 1981. An article in El País on the 12th reported that “Moscow thought that Poland was in a state prior to an insurrection.”50 The day after, the news-paper’s front page carried news that the police had occupied the site of Solidarność.51 There was not yet word on martial law, but El País already understood clearly what a dangerous step the communist power in Poland had made. Interestingly enough, the left column of the front page covered the situation in Spain, where the King had met with high- ranking members of the military after a demonstration by some officers had revealed large disappoint-ment within the army, bringing back the shadow of the putsch (the so- called “Manifest of the hundred”). On the front page of the next edition of the paper, on Tuesday the 15th, (there were no Monday papers in Spain at that time), the events in Poland were now clear: it was a coup d’état. The paper bore


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the headline “Uncertain resistance against the coup d’état in Poland,” and in other articles (nine pages were devoted to Poland) the term was repeated many more times.52 Spaniards saw this as an attempt by the army to crush the opposition, and in so doing, put the clock back in the same way as their own experience had done 10 months earlier. In most reaction to the Polish conflict, it was evident that trade unions and political organizations were looking at Solidarność through Spanish glasses. The repeated discourse of the coup d’état in Poland was always connected, sometimes very clearly, to the Spanish experience of February 23.

Santiago Carrillo, the general secretary of the Spanish Communist Party, put this very clearly in a speech on December 16, 1981. While condemning Jaruzelski ’s act strongly, he said, “For what moral legitimacy does the PCE have while denouncing the armed coup in Spain if we are not opposed to the mili-tary regime in Poland?” He spoke of a “communist tradition of fighting coups d’état” and repeatedly referred to the disappointment of the Spanish military.53 On that very day, the first demonstrations were held. The socialist organizations (the PSOE party, the youth organization JJSS, and the trade union UGT) called for a rally at the Polish embassy in Madrid. Only 2,000 people participated, not just because the embassy was situated in a suburban area and that it was a cold night, but also due to political problems. The communists, both the PCE and the CCOO, were not present, although they had strongly condemned the coup. As Carrillo put it, they “did not want to take part in an anticommunist campaign.”54 Carrillo had condemned the crush of the Prague Spring in 1968 and was one of the leading figures behind Euro- communism, nevertheless, his party was still very much connected to the Soviet Union. The party press continued to praise the USSR and the “brother party.” In this context, it is not strange that Carrillo tried to find a balance between an internal necessity— solidarity with the Polish workers— and external relations with the KPSU.

In its main article of December 18, El País questioned Carrillo’s con-tradictory statements that, on the one hand attacked the coup, while on the other warned of anticommunism. But at the same time, the newspaper asked for “more solidarity with Poland” and criticized the socialist leader Felipe González for continuing his tour of Latin America instead of returning to Spain to symbolize the importance of the crisis. The PSOE made good use of the circumstances to combat their most direct opponent, the com-munists. In the weekly El Socialista, a photograph of some Polish soldiers with bayonets was put under the title “Poland: the night of the bayonets.” A cartoon presented a tree with the name “Poland” and three words “freedom, solidarity, socialism,” being cut off by a sickle (with a hammer) used as bayonet. Well- informed articles (some of them even written by Solidarność members) revealed the authoritarian reality of communism. This was


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obviously directed against the Spanish communists: the (Polish) communist party was called a “minority bureaucratic organization” and the prohibition of Solidarność “an assault on democratic socialism.”55 Furthermore, in an article on the crisis of the communist party, El Socialista accused Carrillo of “using the cases of Poland and Turkey” to avoid discussion of the PCE’s internal problems and political struggle.56

The Trotskyite weekly Combate published a long catalogue of solidarity action with Solidarność on January 15, 1982.57 It mentioned meetings and demonstrations in places like Hernani, Amorebieta, Alsasua, Vitoria (all in the Basque Country), Valencia, Zaragoza, Barcelona, and Madrid, with a participation of 200 or 300 people at each of them. It wrote of communiqués of solidarity from many factories and trade union functionaries, especially from the Basque country (where the CCOO had a great deal of influence, but where the Basque- national trade union the ELA- STV was decisive). It mentioned the special efforts of the anarchist CNT to mobilize the workers in the Michelin factory. However, all in all, there were as many attacks on orthodox communists as in the pages of the radical right- wing El Alcázar. Not surprisingly, the paper accused the Trotskyites of hypocrisy for being part of the same Marxist world they were criticizing.58

The Spanish Democratic Right (Alianza Popular) responded peculiarly to the crisis. Their rhetorical condemnation was similar to the evaluation of others, but their youth organization also spoke of “the incapacity of a Marxist regime to evolve toward a regime of civil liberties.” This was an indirect way of saying that a right- wing dictatorship— the Spanish one— was indeed able to evolve.59 The radical right and the supporters of Tejero ’s putsch also elabo-rated this comparison with Jaruzelski, though in another way. El Alcázar (whose direction council was presided over by General Milán del Bosch , one of the main actors in Tejero ’s conspiracy) wrote extensively against the connection between the Spanish “movement” and Polish “oppression.” It believed Tejero and his fellow conspirators had attempted “to save Spain” and that they were the real patriots who had been brave enough to do what the silent majority of Spaniards had wanted to, but had not dared: rising in arms against communism and separatism. In Poland, an opposite development had taken place: “the attack of the communist power against a people that is fight-ing for its independence.”60

Indeed, for the radical right, there were parallels, but they were beyond appearances. Rather than Tejero , it was Spanish capitalism and the monarchy that should be compared with Jaruzelski and the role of the Soviet Union in the Polish conflict. In a provocative article in El Alcázar, the journalist Ismael Medina put the position of Spain within the “capitalist world” and of Poland within the “socialist bloc” in the same light: “The Spanish people are a victim


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of parliamentarian capitalist centralism, in the same form as the Polish people are of communist democratic centralism.” He claimed that the press was “using the Polish tragedy for its own partisan targets,” misleading the population by “comparing a military putsch with an armed attempt to destroy the Polish free-dom movement.” In this way, they filled Spaniards with the fear of “the phan-tom of antidemocratic ‘putschism’ in order to justify purges, and repression similar to Jaruzelski ’s measures.”61 Some days later, another right- wing jour-nalist accused opponents of wanting “to blame General Franco for the conflict in Poland.”62 Interestingly enough, a demonstration in support of Solidarność by the radical- right party Fuerza Nueva (New Force) was forbidden by the regional branch of the national government. The reason was a legal formality, but it is evident that the authorities feared that anticommunist slogans could lead to incidents and conflict on the streets with left- wing militants.63

In this way, the future development of solidarity with Solidarność in Spain was sealed very quickly after December 13, 1981. Spaniards did not work together in supporting the Poles. Neither within the left, nor between left and right was there consensus, because Solidarnośc was used as a weapon against communists. As a footnote, it should be stressed that right- wing organizations had become marginal by 1981.

Still, in spite of this division, there was a real and full- hearted solidar-ity with the Polish workers. The clearest reaction came probably from the USO. On December 13 it issued “a condemnation of the coup d’état.” On the 14th, the USO executive board warned of “the perils for world peace and for the future of détente and coexistence in Europe” that the annihilation of Solidarność could bring, consciously stressing its “fraternal links” with the Polish independent trade union. In the bulletin of December 15, the USO narrated how it had tried to contact the other Spanish trade unions about joined actions of solidarity with the Polish workers. However, “the official socialist family” (the PSOE, UGT, and Young Socialists of Spain [JJSS]) tried to monopolize the “suffering of the Poles” for their “publicity stunts.” These “sectarians and partisans” did not consequently want to collaborate. The USO, by contrast, claimed to have “its mind on Poland and not on the Spanish situation.” Of course, these words show that the USO was legiti-mately trying to use the crisis for its own objectives too.64

SOLIDARITY FROM 1982 ONWARD

Over the following months, the USO developed a real campaign of aid to Poland. It alleged to have prepared “thousand of sticks, posters, and badges” with the Solidarność logo in order to collect money for Poland. It asked its


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members to send clothes and food through the Red Cross and to buy badges in support of the Polish opposition. It promoted action in regions such as the Canary Islands, Rioja, Aragon, and Catalonia. It paid regular attention to Poland in its press, publishing the Solidarność logo in its bulletins as a sign of solidarity,65 and publishing resolutions of the WCL on Poland.66 It also even paid for advertising in El País to promote Solidarność. On several occasions, for instance on the second anniversary of the Gdańsk Agreements on August 31, 1982, it sent letters to the Polish embassy to protest against the repression of Solidarność. It was also in contact with Polish exiles abroad and invited Piotr Chruszczyński, a member of the Solidarność Coordinating Committee in Paris, to its third congress.67

The USO also profited from the Mundial, the soccer world cup taking place in Spain in the summer of 1982, making propaganda for the whole world to see. The game between the USSR and Poland on July 4, 1982, in Barcelona especially received attention. During the Soviet hymn, USO militants and some Polish immigrants in the stadium unfurled three large Solidarność banners in front of the cameras.68 The Soviet ambassador, who was also in attendance, pressed the police to force the protesters to take them down. Allegedly, Polish television was unable to avoid showing the banners of the banned union to the whole country.69

The USO’s solidarity with Solidarność did not stop at the end of 1982. The Spanish trade union continued collecting money and publishing news on Poland in its bulletin on a very regular basis. Its press reminded members of almost every anniversary of an important event in Poland, such as the foundation of Solidarność, by issuing manifestos and by advertising in other newspapers.70 The USO carried on practicing different forms of solidarity until the legalization of Solidarność, an occasion that it proclaimed proudly in its press.71 The support was, of course, not as important as five years pre-viously, but the USO’s recollection and attention contrasted with other trade unions’ silence. When the re- legalized Solidarność held its second congress in Gdańsk in April 1990 a delegation of the USO was present. It was not the only Spanish representative, but it claimed to be so.72

Indeed, the USO considered itself as the only “legitimate representative” of Solidarność in Spain after it had criticized the failure of other trade unions in setting up a common action.73 However, although the USO blamed the UGT and the CCOO of insufficient mobilization, both trade unions effectively helped Solidarność with money and, probably, support in international orga-nizations. Yet, this was clearly on a lower scale. Moreover, in spite of some declarations, meetings, and alleged financial help,74 Solidarność quickly disappeared from their public consciousness. While there was always a place for Nicaragua, Cuba, Angola, Chile, Grenada, and even the former Spanish


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Sahara in the ritual enumerations of persecuted workers and peoples “ menaced by North American imperialism,” this was not the case for Solidarność.75 The CCOO regularly covered contact with Eastern European trade unions in its press, but this always concerned official communist unions.76

All in all, apart from the USO, there was no general long- term solidarity in Spain. Most left- wing organizations (communists as well as social- democrats) seemed to accept the Polish military’s official reasoning for the prohibition of Solidarność. The Polish workers’ alleged radicalism, which was perceived as dangerous for the Polish economy and for world order, was added to the détente warriors’ arguments for realpolitik.

CONCLUSION: PERCEPTIONS AND OPTIONS

The key to understanding the specifics of the Spanish perception of Solidarność lay on the perceived similarities between both countries.77 If until 1981, comparison between Poland and Spain, as Joachim Lelewel’s famous one, had almost exclusively been done by the Polish side, there was now, for a time at least, in informed Spaniards’ mind a connection with Poland, a feeling of a “parallel path” for the two nations.78 It was a very short phenome-non, which would only be repeated during the period of perestroika, when the megalomaniac Spanish politicians tried to sell the “Spanish transition model” as a solution for Poland and the other Eastern European countries leav-ing communism behind. “Transitionology” developed in Spain into a very fashioned discipline that left a strong footprint on the whole of Eastern and Central European studies.79 There were even some state- run programs and activities for improving transition in Eastern Europe in a “Spanish way.”80

However, this perception of Spain as a model for Poland was also per-sistently exposed by the Polish anticommunist opposition, both on the right and on the left side of the political spectrum. Liberal and left- wing dissidents such as Adam Michnik considered the Spanish transición, with its pacts and consensus and without the persecution of the communists, as the best way for post- communist Poland. When, at the end of the 1990s, Spanish society began to question the “pact of silence” regarding the crimes of the dictatorship, and to demand a revision of the past, former dissidents did not understand fully what was going on. They fiercely attacked the new social- democratic prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, whom they regarded as a dangerous populist that was breaking the transitional consensus.81

It was without doubt the “23- F,” the failed Spanish putsch of February 1981, that made Spaniards more sensitive to the tragedy of Poland in December of the same year. Strictly speaking, the proclamation of martial


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law in Poland was not a coup d’état. But the intervention of the army and the images of tanks on the streets were enough for the Spaniards to develop a similar feeling of anger and helplessness. The reporter Manuel Leguineche wrote a book on armed coups in 1982, in which he called the Polish crisis a “new kind of coup d’état.” His emotional and, at the same time, accurate language, expressed very well what many Spaniards felt.82

The concept of ‘coup d’état’ was also a good justification for Spanish communists. It helped them to heap blame on the army and on the bureau-cracy, while avoiding an attack on socialism as a whole. Comparison with the Spanish situation had the same function and responded to a similar view of transition: Polish workers, just like the Spanish people, were fighting for more democracy against the remnants of old bureaucracies. It was for this reason that the Spanish extreme- left sympathized with the Polish opposition. On the other hand, the PCE did not attack real socialism but only “its errors.” It used an ambiguous and a not very persuasive discourse, but it was the only one that it could maintain without destroying itself.

This criticism of the “old system” was the reason why the narrative of the coup d’état was rebuffed by the Spanish extreme- right from the very beginning. They read the events as follows: the old system in Spain was good and an inter-vention of the army was necessary to restore it, while the old system in Poland is bad and the intervention of the army (which was always called “communist”) to stop its destruction was also bad. The comparison was not accurate.

However, for most Spaniards, the similarities between the two different attempts of rolling back political reforms were clear and obvious. They saw the destruction of Solidarność with Spanish eyes. Also for Spanish trade unions, this perception of a similar fate was central. Trade unionists were not different from the society where they lived, but in the end other consid-erations came to be essential. The rivalry between the three most important trade unions in the process of the Spanish transition played a decisive role in the solidarity campaign with Poland. Only the USO reacted immediately and without conditions to the Polish crisis, and was able to maintain a continuous discourse of solidarity with the Polish workers until the fall of communism. Ideological and even personal relations between both Polish and Spanish trade unions were of course decisive for this sincere solidarity.83 But the relationship with and the help given to Solidarność, also gave the USO the possibility of presenting itself as an alternative for Spanish workers.

The CCOO could have developed a similar narrative of symbolic mean-ing, remembering Solidarność and supporting it openly. As we have seen, the CCOO was rather atypical for a “communist” trade union, initially showing solidarity with Poland too. A CCOO member even commented that they helped Solidarność, although they knew “that they were a Trojan horse of


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imperialism. But they were workers, just like us!”84 In the long term, how-ever, the CCOO did not include Poland into its mental sphere of solidarity. The union was unable to deny its links with communism, which was, in the end, the tradition and ideology of most of its members at that time.

NOTES

1. I want to thank Beata Wojna (PISM, Warsaw) and the archivists of Fundación 1 de Mayo in Madrid for their help and advice.

2. Mercedes Herrero, “El papel de Solidaridad en la transición democrática polaca” (PdD diss., Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2000, to be found on http://eprints.ucm.es/3840). The publication of a reduced version is in preparation.

3. On the Spanish working class under Franco: Sebastian Balfour, La dictadura, los trabajadores y la ciudad. El movimiento obrero en el Área Metropolitana de Barcelona (1939– 1988) (Valencia: Edicions Alfons el Magnànim, 1994); José Babiano, Emigrantes, cronómetros y huelgas. Un estudio sobre el trabajo y los trabajadores durante el franquismo (Madrid 1951– 1977) (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1995) and Carme Molinero y Pere Ysàs, Productores disciplinados y minorías subversivas. Clase obrera y conflictividad laboral en la España franquista (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1998).

4. This was based on the idea of a corporative system and influenced by Italian fascism and Portuguese Salazarism, and gave a strong role to trade unions. On Falange, see: Sheelag Ellwood, Spanish Fascism in the Franco Era. Falange Española de las JONS 1936– 1976 (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1987); José Luis Rodríguez Jiménez, Historia de Falange Española de las JONS (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2005) and Arnaud Imatz, José Antonio: entre el odio y el amor. Su historia como fue (Madrid: Áltera, 2006).

5. On the OSE see: M. Ludevid, Cuarenta años de sindicato vertical ( Barcelona: Laia, 1976); M.Á. Aparicio, El sindicalismo vertical y la formación del Estado franquista (Barcelona: Euníbar, 1980); Alvaro Soto Carmona, “Auge y caída de la Organización Sindical Española,” Espacio, Tiempo y Forma. Serie V, H. Contemporánea 8 (1995): 247– 76; Rosario Sánchez López, “El sindicato vertical: dimensión teórica y ámbito pragmático de una institución del franquismo: el ejemplo de Murcia” (PhD dissertation, Murcia: Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publica-ciones, 2001) [CD- ROM].

6. Ángel Herrerín López, La CNT durante el franquismo. Clandestinidad y exilio (1939– 1975) (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 2004); José Elizalde Pérez, “Anarcosindicalismo y partitocracia ante la transición política en España: Análisis critico de una observación participante,” Revista de Estudios Políticos, 23 (1981): 169– 84.

7. Abdón Mateos, Exilio y clandestinidad. La reconstrucción de la UGT, 1939– 1977 (Madrid: UNED, 2002).

8. Francisco Erice Sebares, “La política sindical del PCE en los orígenes de las Comi-siones Obreras: las confusiones en torno a la OSO,” in Historia del PCE. I Congreso 1920– 1977. Vol. 2, ed. Manuel Bueno, Carmen García, José Hinojosa (Madrid: FIM,


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2007), 107– 19; José M. Faraldo, “From Guerrilla to Infiltration. The Spanish Communist Party in Exile and at Home (1939/1945– 1950),” in Krzysztof Persak and Łukasz Kamiński, The Communist Movement, 1944 to 1956 (Warsaw: IPN, in print); Abdón Mateos López, “Comunistas, Socialistas y Sindicalistas ante las Elecciones del Sindicato Vertical 1944– 1967,” Espacio, tiempo y forma 1 (1988): 379– 412, here page 383.

9. J. Dominguez, Organizaciones obreras cristianas en la oposición al franquismo (1951– 1975) (Bilbao: Mensajero, 1985); José Babiano, “Los católicos en el origen de Comisiones Obreras,” Espacio, tiempo, forma 8 (1995): 277– 93.

10. Julian Casanova, La Iglesia de Franco (Barcelona: Crítica, 2005); A. Álvarez Bolado, El experimento del nacionalcatolicismo (1939– 1953) (Barcelona: Laertes, 2003).

11. El camino que marcaba Asturias. Las huelgas de 1962 en España y su reper-cusión internacional, ed. Rubén Vega García (Oviedo: Ediciones Trea, 2002).

12. Francisco Erice Sebares, La política sindical del PCE, 116, and Sergio Gálvez, Gustavo Muñoz, “Historia de una colaboración política durante el franquismo: las relaciones PCE- PSOE (1944– 1974),” in Historia del PCE. I Congreso, 1920– 1977. Vol. 2, ed. Manuel Bueno, Carmen García, José Hinojosa (Madrid: FIM, 2007), 45– 58, see 49.

13. David Ruiz González, Historia de Comisiones Obreras (1958– 1988) (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1994²).

14. On the early USO, see: Pequeña biblioteca sindical. USO, Unión Sindical Obrera (Madrid: EFAS, 1983); U.S.O. (en sus documentos): Unión Sindical Obrera (1960– 1976). Recopilados de documentos C. N. Hoac (Madrid: Hoac, 1976); José M. Zufiaur, Unión Sindical Obrera (Barcelona: Avance, 1976). A brief evaluation of its history: A. Martín Artiles, “Del blindaje de la sotana al sindicalismo aconfesional (Breve introducción a la historia de la Unión Sindical Obrera (1960– 1975),” in La oposición al régimen de Franco. Vol. 2, ed. Javier Tusell, Alicia Alted, and Abdón Mateos (Madrid: UNED, Departamento de Historia Contemporánea, 1991), 165– 87.

15. See: Gabriel García Becedas, “Sindicatos y patronales en el bienio 1978– 1979 (Materiales para la historia inmediata del sindicalismo español),” Revista de Política Social 139 (July– September 1983): 7– 49.

16. Xosé Manoel Núñez Seixas, Los nacionalismos en la España contemporánea (siglos XIX y XX) (Barcelona: Ed. Hipòtesi, 1999).

17. One of its tasks at that time, as exposed in its congresses, was the realization of national freedoms for the Basque Country, joining political with purely trade- unionist claims. See: Gabriel García Becedas, “Sindicatos y patronales,” 28.

18. See: Gabriel García Becedas, “Sindicatos y patronales,” 8; Aurora M. Lorite Checa, “La pervivencia del Movimiento en la transición: Fuerza Nueva en Almería y Jaén (1976– 1982),” Historia Actual Online 14 (Autumn, 2007): 133– 46, especially 136– 38; Pedro Carlos González Cuevas, Historia de las derechas españolas. De la Ilustración a nuestros días (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2000). For a description of the FNT in early Solidarność times see: “Comenzó el II congreso de Fuerza Nacional del Trabajo, El Nacional Sindicalismo sigue vigente, Jaime Alonso, jefe nacional,” El Alcázar, December 19, 1981, 25.


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19. On Spanish transition see: Transición política y consolidación democrática en España (1975– 1986), ed. Ramón Cotarelo (Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas 1992) and Historia de la Transición (1975– 1986), ed. Javier Tussel and A. Soto (Madrid: Alianza, 1996).

20. Jesús de Andres, “«¡Quieto todo el mundo!» El 23- F y la transición española,” Historia y Política 5 (2001): 55– 88.

21. Javier Tusell, La transición a la democracia. España, 1975– 1982 (Madrid: Espasa 2007).

22. José Babiano, “El sindicalismo español en el último cuarto del siglo XX,” in Movimientos sociales y Estado en la España contemporánea, ed. M. Ortiz Heras, David Ruiz, and Isidro Sánchez (Cuenca: Universidad de Castilla- La Mancha, 2001), 425– 43.

23. Xosé- Manoel Núñez, “Als die spanischen Faschisten (Ost)Europa entdeckten— Zur Russlanderfahrung der »Blauen Division« (1941– 1944),” Totalitarismus und Demokratie 3, 2 (2006): 323– 44.

24. Carlos Collado Seidel, Angst vor dem “Vierten Reich,” Die Alliierten und die Ausschaltung des deutschen Einflusses in Spanien 1944– 1958 (Paderborn et al.: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2001) and Xavier Casals, Neonazis en España. De las audiciones wagnerianas a los skinheads.(1966– 95) (Barcelona: Editorial Grijalbo, 1995).

25. José M. Faraldo, “Patronizing Anti- communism. Polish Émigrés in Franco’s Spain (1939– 1969),” in Patronage and Cultural Transfer, ed. Andrew Chandler, Katarzyna Stokłosa and Jutta Vinzent (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2006), 189– 200.

26. José M. Faraldo, “Peripheral Europeans. Polish Émigrés in Franco’s Spain (1939– 1969),” in Poland and Europe: Ideas and Reality, ed. Thomas Lane and Marian Wolański (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 2007), 129– 50.

27. For example: Alexander Soljenitsin, Soljenitsin acusa. (Sel. de Leopold Labedz) (Barcelona: Ed. Juventud, 1974); Alexander Solyenitsin, Entre el autoritarismo y la explotación. Discurso de Estocolmo. Una candela al viento (Barcelona: Península, 1974); Alexander Solyenitsin, Solzhenitsyn el Creyente. Cartas, Discursos, Testimonios (Barcelona: Edic. Paulinas, 1975).

28. Kontinent (Spanish edition), Vol. 1 (Madrid: Unión Editorial, 1976).29. For instance: Fernando Claudín, La oposición en el socialismo real. Unión

Soviética, Hungría, Checoslovaquia, Polonia: 1953– 1980 (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1981). For a contemporary critique of Claudín’s book from the point of view of a politician and historian at those times connected to the democratic right see: Javier Tusell, “Los disidentes del este vistos por la izquierda,” Cuenta y razón 3 (1981): 164– 66.

30. For this see: José M. Faraldo: “‘Ad marginem.’ Historische Osteuropaforsc-hung in Spanien. Ein Überblick,” Osteuropa 56, 3 (2006): 95– 103.

31. Very different examples of the reception of Solidarność in Spain: Fernando Claudín, La oposición; Jesús Infiesta, Este es Walesa, lider de un sindicalismo nuevo (Madrid: PPC, 1982); Pere Jódar Martínez and Andreu Lope Peña, Polonia: por qué luchan los obreros (Madrid: Revolución, 1982); Ricardo Martín de la Guardia, La Polonia de Solidaridad (Madrid: Historia 16, 1995).


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32. On the Spanish right during the transition, see: José Luis Rodríguez Jiménez, La extrema derecha en España: del tardofranquismo a la consolidación de la democ-racia (1967– 1982) (Madrid: Universidad Complutense, 2001).

33. For example: J.L. Gómez Tello, “La puerta se ha cerrado en Polonia. Después del último pleno del cómite central del Partido Comunista, se han decidido medidas aún más duras,” El Alcázar, December 2, 1981, 14.

34. “Walesa convoca una huelga general en Polonia. Solidaridad desafía al gobierno comunista. Protestas por el asalto a la Escuela de Bomberos de Varsovia y por la detención de alguno de sus líderes,” El Alcázar, December 3, 1981, 1.

35. “Obituario José Comas, periodista,” El País, March 22, 2008.36. José Comas, Polonia y Solidaridad (Madrid: El País, 1985).37. For an example of the Spanish radical left- wing nationalist’s reception of

Solidarność see: Xaquín Pastoriza, “Os referentes internacionais da esquerda naciona-lista galega, 1964– 1989” (Unpublished paper, University of Santiago de Compostela, 2005). I would like to thank Xosé Manoel Núñez for sending me this interesting paper.

38. An example: “El crepúsculo de los burócratas,” Combate: Órgano de la Liga Comunista Revolucionaria. Organización simpatizante de la IV Internacional, September 24, 1980, 14.

39. See Ryszard Kapuściński, “Notatki z Wybrzeża,” Kultura (Warsaw), October 14, 1980 (reprinted in Narodziny Solidarności. Opowieść o polskim Sierpniu. Bezpłatny dodatek do Gazety Wyborczej (Warsaw: Agora 2006), 24– 25).

40. http://www.kaczmarski.art.pl/tworczosc/zapowiedzi/mury_podworko.php (accessed October 7, 2008).

41. El País, December 2, 1981, 3, and December 12, 1981, 4, and, above all: Javier Ruperez, “Madrid, Polonia y la CSCE,” El País, December 20, 1981, 7.

42. Gaceta Sindical 5 (1980): 14 and 42– 44.43. Benito Barrera, “Visita a Polonia,” Gaceta Sindical 15 (1981): 56– 58.44. José Luis Rodriguez Jiménez, “Origen, desarrollo y disolución de Fuerza

Nueva (Una aproximación al estudio de la extrema derecha española),” Revista de Estudios Políticos (Nueva Época) 73 (July– September 1991): 261– 87.

45. José Luis Alcocer, “La izquierda nacional. Un pulso en Polonia,” El Alcázar, December 4, 1981, 4.

46. Manuel Zaguirre’s letter to the author, February 2, 2007.47. Unión Sindical 5 (December 23, 1980): front page.48. Unión Sindical 32 (December 15, 1981).49. “Jan Kulakowski en exclusiva para Unión Sindical. Polonia, entre la angustia

y la esperanza,” Unión Sindical 82 (October 8, 1989) and Manuel Zaguirre’s letter to the author, February 2, 2007.

50. El País, December 12, 1981, 4.51. El País, December 13, 1981, 1.52. El País, December 15, 1981, 1.53. El País, December 17, 1981, 6.54. El País, December 17, 1981, 6.


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55. El Socialista 236 (December 1981): 13 and 16– 22.56. El Socialista 240 (January 1981): 19.57. Combate 255 (January 15, 1982): 7.58. El Alcázar, December 15, 1981, 16.59. El País, December 15, 1981, 7.60. “No hay golpe militar en Polonia, sino una brutal acción represiva del

comunismo,” El Alcázar, December 15, 1981, 15.61. All quotes in Ismael Medina, “Crónica de España, De las maneras de aplastar

la libertad,” El Alcázar, December 15, 1981, 8. More about it in the same edition, pages 15 and 16.

62. Fernando de Sandoval y Coig, “Pobre Polonia,” El Alcázar, December 18, 1981, 11.

63. “Por el gobierno civil de Madrid. Desautorizada la manifestación de Fuerza Nueva contra la represión marxista en Polonia,” El Alcázar, December 18, 1981, 9.

64. “Atentado a Solidarność y a Polonia,” Unión Sindical 32 (December 15, 1981): 1– 2.

65. Unión Sindical 34 (March 1, 1982): front page.66. “Resolución de la CMT sobre Polonia,” Unión Sindical 36 (May 15, 1982): 7.67. Unión Sindical 40 (October 30, 1982): 9.68. Manuel Zaguirre’s letter to the author (February 26, 2007) and conversation

with Józef Przybylski, Solidarność member who lived in Spain for some time and participated in the action (Brussels, December 7, 2006).

69. “USO con Solidaridad,” Unión Sindical 38 (September 1, 1982).70. Examples: “El segundo aniversario de Solidarnosc,” Unión sindical 39

(September 30, 1982); “Tratamiento delictivo para Solidarność,” Unión sindical 43 (Febrary 1983); “Solidarnosc vive,” Unión sindical 15 (September 1985); “¡Solidarnosc vive!,” Unión syndical 53 (January 1986); “Solidarnosc vive y lucha,” Unión sindical 72 (May 1988).

71. “Solidarnosc vuelve a la legalidad. Otra oportunidad para Polonia,” Unión sindical 79 (May 8, 1989).

72. “Solidarność y Polonia en la encrucijada,” Unión sindical 88 (May 1990): 8.73. “Solidaridad con Solidarność,” Unión sindical 33 (January 15, 1982).74. “Un dirigente de Solidarnosk [sic] visita a CCOO,” Gaceta Sindical 16 (1982):

43. Conversation with Pedro Jarillo, former CCOO member (Madrid, November 24, 2007).

75. For example: Gaceta Sindical, May 1, 1984, 2.76. Examples: Gaceta Sindical, June 1984, 8; Gaceta Sindical, November–

December 1984, 5.77. José M. Faraldo, “Pamiętając własny gniew,” Historia w Tygodniku. Tygodnik

Powszechny, December 17, 2006, 17.78. For Lelewel and the Polish tradition of comparing Poland and Spain, see: Jan

Kieniewicz, Hiszpania w zwierciadle polskim (Gdańsk: Novus Orbis, 2001).79. A simple look at the proceedings of the Encuentro español de estudios de

Europa Oriental, the most important meeting of Spanish researchers on Eastern


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Europe, is enough. See: Actas del I Encuentro Español de Estudios sobre la Europa Oriental. Cuadernos Constitucionales de la Cátedra Fadrique Furió Ceriol 26– 27 and 28– 29, ed. Carlos Flores Juberías (Valencia: Universitat de València, 1999); Estudios sobre la Europa Oriental, ed. Carlos Flores Juberías (Valencia: Universitat de València, 2002); Actas del III Encuentro Español de Estudios sobre la Europa Oriental. Cuadernos Constitucionales de la Cátedra Fadrique Furió Ceriol 41– 42, 43– 44 y 45– 46, ed. Carlos Flores Juberías (Valencia: Universitat de València, 2004); De la Europa del Este al este de Europa, ed. Carlos Flores Juberías (Valencia: Universitat de València, 2006).

80. Probably the most comical examples were the seminaries patronized by the Universidad Complutense of Madrid in 1991, in Moscow, where prominent activists of the Spanish transition— including the then President Felipe González— reported to Russian experts and politicians about their transitional experiences. See, for example: “Viaje del presidente del gobierno a la URSS, La transicion devora a sus protagonis-tas,” El País, July 10, 1991, and A. Díez and P. Bonet, “Malestar en el Gobierno y la oposición por el desarrollo de los cursos de Moscú,” El País, July 12, 1991.

81. See: José M. Faraldo, “Rozmówki hiszpańsko- polskie,” Polityka, June 23, 2007, 52– 55.

82. Manuel Leguineche, “Un golpe en el Este,” in El estado del golpe (Barcelona: Argos Vergara, 1982), 307– 18.

83. For example, the exiled member of Solidarność mentioned, Józef Przybylski, told me that for some months he was living in a USO’s members home (interview in Brussels, December 7, 2006).

84. Interview with Pedro Jarillo (Madrid, November 24, 2007).


Spain. The Common Experience of Transition and a Military Coup.

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Transcript of Spain. The Common Experience of Transition and a Military Coup.