The Collapse of the PCE: A Coherent Paradox?
| Published date | 01 October 1985 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9256.1985.tb00113.x |
| Date | 01 October 1985 |
| Author | Paul Heywood |
| Subject Matter | Article |
TurbuZent Priest: PoZiticaZ ImpZications
of
the
Popietuszko Affair
39.
(interestingly enough in view of later events) that even those who
showed great desire to apply force 'generally end their activity by
encouraging others to take precisely such action' (Pol
i
tyka,
1984,
9).
3.
The influential political activist Jacek Kuro;, though, was inclined
to believe that the police were acting subject to an alternative
faction aiming
to
increase their influence over Jaruzelsk'i.
?f
4.
The latter point was strongly made in a long 'letter' to Rzeczywistosc
(1984,
49),
a weekly founded by the central apparatus conservatives
in
1981
and generally held to be the mouthpiece of the security organs.
THE
COLLAPSE
OFTHE
PCE:
A
COHERENT PARADOX?
Paul
Heywood
On
31
Harch
1985,
Santiago Carrillo was expelled from all his official
positions within the Partido Comunista de Espaca (PCE) and denoted to the
rank
of
ordinary party militant: he was refused a platform as official
spokesperson for the
PCE
in the Spanish Cortes, denied access to his office
in the PCE's Madrid headquarters in Santisima Trinidad, and deprived of his
official car and chauffeur. This was an event of some importance, for over
the years Carrillo had in many ways become virtually synonymous with the
PCE.
A
party member since the mid-l930s, Carrillo had been secretary-general of
the
PCE
between 1960 and 1982, and remains the figure most commonly associated
in the public mind with Spanish communism. Thus, this latest turn of events
in the continuing saga of the seemingly wilful self-destruction of the
PCE
came. as something of a surprise to many both inside and outside of Spain.
The official reasons for Carril lo's demotion surrounded his refusal
to accept party discipline.
His
successor as secretary-2enera1, Cerardo
Iglesias, had convened for ).larch an Extraordinary Conference to call for
a
'convergence of the left' in Spain. This was in response to increasing
fragmentation both within the
PCE
itself and within other leftist groups
outside the governing Partido Social ista Obrero EspaTol
Carri
1
lo,
however, backed by a sizeable following in Madrid and in Valencia, refused
to attend, arsuing that such a conference would emasculate communist
identity. instead, he and his backers held
a
press conference timed to
coincide with Iglesias' meeting in which they called for
a
'platform of
communist unity', thereby extending an invitation to the pro-Soviets
ISnacio Gallego and Enrique Lister, both former rerribers of the
PCE,
to brins
their respective parties back into the fold. It
was
this act of
insubordination which earned Carrillo his demotion.
(PSGE).
However, far from being just
a
straightforward disagreement, this
latest event in the recent troubled history of the
PCE
iriarked
the
culn>ination
of
a
process of disintegration which arguably
has
its
roots in the
195Gs.
It
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