After June 7

Organización Comunista Libertaria statement on the future of the revolutionary left after the recent European Parliament elections, through building popular power from below, and the unity of those who struggle. [Castellano]

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After June 7

This election campaign was marked by the arrival onto the scene of Iniciativa Internacionalista – La Solidaridad entre los Pueblos (II-SP)[1], speaking the language of the class struggle and promoting the demands of the Spanish State's independentist left-wing parties, made up of known militants and, above all, demonstrating clear opposition to the Law on Parties [2] and explicit support to those who have suffered under it.

As libertarian communists we believe that it has been one of the most interesting popular initiatives of recent years and we salute its promoters for the tenacity they have put into it and for its capacity and its militant quality. We believe that although it was unsuccessful in winning seats, the relations and dynamics that the campaign itself generated are its main contribution. And despite the failure to combine the most significant forces on the revolutionary left into a single candidacy, there was a very healthy process of convergence around a broad, inclusive project (albeit an electoral project). We believe that this can be maintained and further developed if there is the breadth of vision required for the historic moment in which we find ourselves.

We know that many anarchists voted for SP-II in these elections; we also know that many others opted for other candidates or for active abstention, active in the sense that they carry on militant work day by day in those areas where they are present, and did not dedicate their energy to hampering other sectors of the revolutionary left with different approaches to their own.

Other anarchists were unable or unwilling to read the situation or assess what SP-II represented correctly and campaigned with the simplistic message "they are all the same", which if applied to other circumstances is not true anyway and on this occasion was even less so, since the rationale behind the candidacy of SP-II was not to win seats in Brussels in order to govern, but to bring to light and provide visibility for opinions reflecting disaffection with the dominant bloc and concerned about the process of bunkerization of the bloc in power in Spain, as well as to act as a mouthpiece for and in solidarity with the popular Basque movement.

In any case, we believe that the work initiated by SP-II should be continued where it was born and developed, within the popular movement, directed at the rest of the working class, and that it is an area where all the various expressions of the revolutionary left can meet, without exclusion and without sectarianism.

In this regard, as libertarian communists we propose continuing to work towards a democratic workers' and popular front the following bases:

• Continued class solidarity with the Basque working class, rejecting in stronger terms the new laws of the State designed to crush dissent, to keep on strengthening the people's wall to prevent any further advance of these laws into the rest of the Spanish State, and also to combat the culture of silence and fear that prevents us from openly criticizing it and launching a frontal attack against it. This is everyone's struggle, this is a struggle for basic civil and political rights.


• To move forward in every aspect of the struggle (labour, community, territorial, anti-patriarchal, students), to coordinate those in struggle, creating working relations and networks above labels and the revolutionary traditions that each of us recognise.

Let us continue in that endeavour without any form of sectarianism, in the neighbourhoods, towns, workplaces and study centres in order to build popular power, self-management and solidarity.

In this task you will find the libertarian communists working side by side with everyone who is willing to fight; and this is why, in the face of all those who, whether because of a lack of strategic vision or because of dogmatism, try to build fences between comrades, try to shun their solidarity duties and deepen the gaps instead of looking for agreements that will allow the advance of the popular movement, we will keep saying loud and clear: Long live those who struggle!

Organización Comunista Libertaria

OCL-Estado español

Translator's notes:

1. Internationalist Initiative – Solidarity Between Peoples, an electoral coalition supported by a myriad of small leftist parties and groups, which stood in the 2009 European elections despite being initially banned by the supreme court. It states its aims as “social justice, full democratic liberties, opposition to discrimination by reason of gender, and the right of self-determination of some of Spain 's nationalities”.

2. The “Ley de Partidos”, passed in 2002, has at its core function the “need to prevent political parties from repeatedly and seriously attacking the current democratic regime of rights, from justifying racism and xenophobia or from giving political support to violence and the activities of terrorist groups”.

Translation by FdCA-International Relations Office