JPRS ID: 10244 WEST EUROPE REPORT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: JPRS
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP82-00850R000500020013-0
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• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 47
• Document Creation Date: November 1, 2016
• Sequence Number: 13
• Content Type: REPORTS

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= JPRS L/ 10244
8 ~lanuary 1982
- ~1/est E u r~o~~ Re o rt
~ p
CFqUO 1 /82)
- ~
_ FBI$ ~OREIGN BROADCAST INFORMATION ~ERVICE
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NOTE
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= newspapers, periodicals and books, but also from news agency
_ transmissions and broadcasts. Materials from foreign-language
- sources are transl.ated; those from English-language sources
are transcribed or reprinted, with the original phrasing and
other characCeristics retained.
Headlines, editorial reports, an~ material enclosed in brackets
are supplied by JPRS. Processing indicatcrs such as [Text]
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mation was summarized or extracted.
Unfamiliar names rendered phonetica~.ly or transliterated are
enclosed in parentheses. Words or names preceded by a ques-
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The contents of this publication in no way r~present the p~li-
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N'UR UFb'ICI~L U~G UNLY
; JPt2S L/10^44
8 January 1982
WEST EUROPE REPORT
~ (FOUO 1/82)
CONTENTS
TERRORISM
SPAIN
Detentian of Ke;r TPrrorist May Frustrate New ETA Strategy
(CANIBIO 16, 23 Nov 91) 1
POZITJCAL
FEDERAI, REPUBZIC OF GERMANY
Juso Chief Piecyk Interviewed on Pacifism, SPD
(Willi Piecyk Interview; CORRIERE DEZLA SERA, 9 Nov 81).. 8
FRAIVCE
Regis Debray Reflects on Political Philosophy
' (Re~is Debray Interview; LE NOUVEI, 4BSERVATEUR, vaxious
- dat~s) 12
ITALY
Makno Opinion Poll on Present Government
(Donato Speroni; IZ MONDO, 13 Nov 81) 21~
PORTUGAL
Portuguese Economic, Political Circumstances Surveyed
(Carlos Caceres Monteiro; CAN~IO 16, 16 Nov 81) 34
- a - [III - WE - 150 FOUO]
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h'uK uh~r~~'~Ai, uar, u~r.r
SPAIN
Ordonez Explains Desertion F`rom UCU, New Paxty's Ideology
k (Francisco Fernando Ordone~ Interview; CAMBIO 16,
15 Nov 81) 36
Carrillo Defends His Methods of Running PCE
(San~iago Carrillo Interview; CAMBIO 16, 30 Nov 81) 40
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~ TERRORISM SPAIN
;
DETENTION OF KEY TERRORIST MAY FRUSTRATE NEir? ETA STRATEGY
Madrid CAMBIO 16 in Spanish 23 N~v 8'. ^p 55-(~!;
[Text] If the Antiterrorist Central Brigade, a branch of the General Headquarters
of Information, had not ar.rested Juan Antonio Madaiiaga Erezuma, the head
of the information commands of the military wing of ETA [Basque Fatherland
and Liberty] in ~fadrid, just 12 motith~ ago, a bus filled wit_h commissioned
and noncammissioned army officers would have been blown to bits before this
coming 20 November, the anniversary of General Franco's death.
The mil.itary wing of ETA had chosen as its target one af the buses that
leave the tirmy "~nistry on Prim Street every morning between 0730 and 0800
hours and after picking up various groups of commissioned and noncommissioned
officers in downtown Madrid, take Castellanz Avenue to Castilla Square and
~ then cor.tinue along Colmenar Viejo Highway to the E1 Goloso Barracks.
~ According to CAMBIO 16's information, two of the army's most important units
are quartered in these barracks: the "Alcazar de Toledo" and "Asturias 31"
- regiments, both belonging to Armored Division No 1.
This divisien, which has more than 14,000 men, 210 tanks, 66 cannons, 122
artillery pieces, 290 armored vehicles and more than 1,500 support vehicles,
is the Span~sh Army's most important unit, and it could take Madrid militarily
in a matter of 2 hours.
The ETA terrorists' planned assassination of some 50 commissiened and non-
commissioned officers from the Armored Divi~ion was nothing more and nathing
less than a bid to achieve what ultraconservative sectors had been trying
to do long before 23 Febrvary: "move" the army against our democracy and
_ constitution.
Appointment in France
"Dictatorships are obviously the best medium in which terrorists can engage
in proselqtism," a high-level Interior Ministry official told CAMBIO lb.
The plan to dynamite the bus carrying the army officers was communicated
to the information command of ETA's military wing in Madrid last September
by the Basque terrorist organization's three top leaders: Domingo Iturbe
Abasolo, alias "Txemx.n," tb.e number one commander of the military machine;
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Lorenzo S~ntiago Lasa Michelena, alias "Txiquierdi," the head of the illegal
commands, and Jose Luis Ansola Larranaga, "Pello el Viejo," the head of
the information division.
Maria del Carmen Gonzalez Penalva, one of the members of the information
' command in Madrid an~ who is currently being sought by the police, was in
. charge of contacting the ETA leadership in France.
� After a rendez-vous in a cafe in Saint Jean de Luz, "Txomin," "Txiquierdi"
~ and "P~llo el Viejo" ordered Gonzalez Penalva and her co~panion, Juan Antonio
Madariaga ~,rezuma, to put aside all plans that they had under way and to
l devote themselves exclusively to the search for a bridge or a sewer along
Colmenar Viejo Highway into Madrid where they could place between 100 and
150 kilos of "goma-2" to dynamite one of the army buses heading for E1 Goloso.
The information had to be in ETA's possession by mid-October in erder for
it to have enough time to decide on the fznal positioning of the charges.
Jose Antonio Madariago Erezuma, the head of ETA's information commands in
the Spanish capital, was unable to carry out the plans. Ten days after
the Basque terrorist organizati~n's top leaders had met in southern France,
agents of the Central Information Brigade captured him on Orense Street
in Madrid. His companion, Maria del Carmen Gonzalez Penalva, fled Spain
with the police hot on her heels.
Change of Strategy
Madariaga Erezuma's arrest did, howe�~er, help State Security I'orces [o famil-
iarize themselves with ETA's plans in Madrid and, in particular, with their bssic
guidelines, ~ahich at present entail a major ~hange of strategy. According
to the studies done by the Interior Ministry on the information gained from
Madariaga, the ETA's military wing plsns to abandon isolated attacks on army
afficers, commanders and generals and to assault them as a group.
"The ETA, which has so far gone about shooting at individual Armed Forces
officers and generals," one of the Znterior Ministry's main analysts pointed
- out, has now realized that picking off victims one-by-one is not going
to 'move' the Armed Forces and that they need t~ undertake more ambitious
activiti~s. Therefore, they are going to attack the Armed Forces as an
institution."
The government has charte~d its own strategy to counter ETA terrorism. For
the past 2 months the police has focused all of its efforts on wiping out
all of ETA's infrastructure in the interior. The terrorists' operational
capacity has thus been greatly reduced, as well as their chances of iaunching
a major attack in which several commands of action would take part simul-
taneously.
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'I't~e iac~ that ~;'TA all~gedly intends to attack the army as an institution
does not mean that it is going to stop killing individual military officers.
~ The State Security Forces are well aware of this, as they found more than
50 file cards on army and navy colonels and generals among the papers that
Madariaga Erezuma had in his apartment on Madera Street in Madrid.
Throuo~? Madariaga Erezuma, ETA's military wing had maintained almost permanent
surveillance of the army officers living in the military housing on Santa
Engracia and San Francisco de Sales streets and were familiar with practically
all of the vehicles they used, the routes they took, their work h~urs and
their established habits.
For example, the terrorists knew that a major general who until a short
time ago lived on Santa Engracia Street took the same car every day: a blue
Seat-124. They were also familiar with his routine: He left home between
0945 and 1000 hours, got in his official car and then, a couple of hundred
mPters past his house, turned right onto Maudes Street.
After studying his route thoroughly fQr a month, Juan Antonio Madariaga
Erezuma marked one of the "yie~d right of way" signs on Maudes Street with
a cross. This was the exact spot to assassinste the general, because his
car had to come practically to a stop there to let the cars coming in the
opposite direction pass.
The King as a Target
Also found in Madariaga's possession was a similar plan to assassinate Army
Chief of Staff Jose Gabeiras Montero; ETA knew where he lived, the kind
- of official car he drove and the number of police escorts who accompany
- him everywY~ere .
Two other high-ranking military officers were also under "permanent surveillance"
by the information commands of ETA's military wing: Generals Jose: Juste
Fernandez, a 63-year old native of Madrid and the former commander of Brunete
- Armored Division No l, and Felix Alvarez-Arenas Pacheco, a 68-year old former
army minister.
But the terrorists were giving "priority attention" not only to the army.
Among the documents that the police seized from Madaria.~a in his apartment
at 57 Madera Street in Madrid was a gray folder with the words "Royal Family."
Inside it, agents from the Superior Police Force found an extensive report
- on King Juan Carlos's overseas trips and a detailed study analyzing the
security measures that the inonarch customarily takes during his vacations.
In other folders the police found extensive documentation on the suppliers
to Zarzuela Palace, the royal residence, as well as detailed information
on a number of persons close to the royal family. One of them is the Marquis
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1'Vl\ 1 iV~[~u.1 U.JL v~~ua
1
of Alburquerque, Beltran Osorio y Diez de la Rivera, Juan de Borbon's secretary,
- who was undex surveillance for a mont:i and a half. Madariaga sent the infor-
~riation on all his movements to ETA leaders in France.
By all indications, the ETA's military wing wanted to set its gunsights
on King Juan Carlos or well-known figures close to his family or professional
circle, as happened las~ May with Lt Gen Joaquin de V1lenzuela, the commander
of his military picket, in order to forcP the monarch to institu~e harsher
rule in the country, whicii would benefit ETA's interests.
~urveillance of 600 Individuals ~
In addition to the king and ranking military afficers, some 600 others have
been under surveillance by the terrorist group, which was planning attempts
on their lives. The reports on these individuals (politicians, judges,
newsmen and businessmen) were found in a more than 2,000-page file divided
into 45 folders of different colors, which the police discovered in Madariaga's
- possession when they arrested him.
- Accorling to police estimates, these 45 folders contain the license plate
- numbers of more than 1,000 official, ~inmarked aad private vehicles and the
addresses of at least 800 homes that the ETA had put on its '.ists so that
_ it could later selec:t its targets.
The police also found ir~ the Madera Street apartment detailed diagrams of
_ Carabanchel, Herrera de la Mancha and Zamora prisons, as well as two huge
maps of Madrid 3ottPd with four different color thumb-tacks. The map showed
the exact loca~ion of the homes of the four categories of persons whom ETA
was planning to assassinate. The red tacks rPnresented jud~es; the green
- ones, Super~or Police Force officials; th~ bl.:e ones, military officers,
and the black ones, jour~ialists.
The file, considered the most important confiscated from ETA over the past
10 years, alsa contained some surprises. For example, the BasquE terrorist
group kept an up-to-date index-card system on the country's main political
parties: the Democratic Center Union, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party,
the Spanish Communist Party, Popular Alliance a1d New Force.
Party Headquarters
- These cards listed the sites of the various party headquarters, the arrival
and departure schedules of their main leaders, the model and license plate
number of their vehicles and the security measures that some of them employed.
- This information seems to indicate that at some point ETA might h~ve entertained
the idea of firing on Manuel Fraga Iribarne, Santiago Carrillo oY Felipe
Gonzalez.
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r�~~~. ua~r~lcini. u~~: c~Ni.t�
In late March 1980 the Basque terrorists also had plans to take the life
of Fernando Abril Martorell, who was then economic vice president under
Adolfo Suarez's fourth ~dministration.
According to the information that this magazine had access to, in mid-February
Madariaga Erezuma, the head of the ETA information comman~ls in Madrid, happened
to disc~ver where Abril Martorell lived in the northern part of Madrid.
For a month and a half, Madariaga kept the former vice president under surveillance
once or twice a week (so as not to arouse suspicions among his escort car
drivers), and he learned that Abril Martorell's vehicle, a Seat-131, left
Pedro Muguruza ~treet between 0930 and 1000 hours and fo?lowed the same
route: Pedro Muguruza-?adre Damian-Paseo de la Habana-Paseo de la Castellana.
Driving his own car, Madariaga covered the same route as Abril Martorell's
official car some 20 times and came to this conclusion: The ideal spot to
assassinate him was at the entrance to the tunnel that connects Paseo de
la Habana with Castellana.
Prime Minister Adolfo Suarez beat ETA to the punch, howeveX, In the summer
of 1980, he renounced his confidence in Vice Pre~ident Abril Martorell,
who thus left the administration, and the terrorists automatically abandoned
the plans they had formulat::d to kill him.
Magistrates
National Court Magistrate Siro Garcia Perez also had a terrorist command
on his heels for 2 months. Madariaga Erezuma had located his home on Rosario
del Pino Street in mid-1980. Garcia Perez, who had a police escort, according
= to the ETA report, drove a yellow Seat-124 at the time and often changed
routes to his office at the National CourtYiouse.
Sometimes he went by Cuzco Square, down Castellana and up to Colon Square,
and other times he detoured onto Orense Street.
_ "The best spot to execute him," Madariaga Erezuma wrote to ETA leaders,
"is a'yield right of way' sign on Orense Street." ETA was unable to carry
out its designs, however.
Shortly after the report got t~ the group's leaders in France, Judge Siro
Garcia Perez moved, and the terrorists were unable to locate his new home.
- They did, howe~~er, find out where Ricardo Varon Cobos, the regular judge
, in Cour*_ No 1 at the National Courthouse, lived.
Varon Cobos was not listed in the 1980 Madrid telephone directory. But
the ETA military wing knew that prior to his post in the National Courthouse
he had been assigned ~o other courts in Madrid. The terroYists then looked
in past telephone directories and found out his address and telephone number.
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L'Vl\ v~lLVitLL/ N~u V~~r+~
Ricardo Varon lived at the time in the Ventas district. Outside his house
was a newspap~r stand, and every 2 or 3 days Madariaga Erezuma bought a
p9pe: there. As he leaned against a doorpost and read his paper, he watched
the C~urt~No 1 judge get into his official car and head for Salesas Square.
the site of Madrid's courts.
- On 25 September, when the police arrested Madariaga on Orense Street in
Madrid, he had just been conducting surveillance on Prosecutor Miguel Ibanez
Garcia Velasco and Police Commissioner Andres Gomez Margarida, the former
superior chief of poli~e in La Coruna and adviser to the Single Antiterrorist
Command .
Some months before, the commando chief had also been following other judges
and prosecutors, among them 3ose Maria Gil Albert, the government attorney
general, and Ricardo Hijas Palacios and Jose Antonio de la Campa, Madrid
court judges, whom ETA intended to aseassinate.
In contrast, they were planning to kidnap Eduardo Aznar Coste, a businessman.
~ The ETA military wing had even pinpointed the spot: at the door to his office
on Alcala S:.reet, between Independencia Square and Cibeles. It remained
for them only to set a date.
The terrorists, who had been monitoring his every movement, knew that the '
director of Aznar Shipping lived in a housing development on the outskirts
of Madrid, where it would be very difficult to accomplish their plans without
the po.lice being alerted within 5 minutes. They also knew that he arrzved
at his office around 1100 hours and usually left at 1300 hours.
_ According to the ETA information command's report, Eduardo Aznar drove a
green Mercedes and was almost always accompanied by a Renault-12 as an escort.
By referring to the 1977 Finance Ministry lists and "Dicodi," the "heraidic
guidebook" of Spain's entrepreneura, the ETA military wing knew of the Aznar
family's fortune and had found out that Eduardo was the president of Ferarco,
Nacional Hispanica Aseguradora and Compania Espanola de Pinturas "Inter-
nacional." Iie was also an adviser to the Urquijo Bank and the managing
director of Aznar Shipping.
Other Businessmen
The same kidnaping-for-profit scheme included other Madrid businessmen:
Luis Valls Tabener, a member of Opus Dei and president of the Banco Popular
Espanol; Santiago Foncillas, president of the Businessmen's Club, Preciados
Galleries and the multinational corporation Westinghouse; Antonio Enrich
Valls, president of Carten and Aceros de Vizcaya and a board member of Bank-
union and Union Levantina, and Eloy Censano Martinez, the director general
of Michelin.
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' The most complete file card, however, was on Basque businessman Luis Olarra,
the owner of Bodegas Olarra, Aceros Olarra and a former royal senator.
To judgP by the information in the dossier that the terrorists were keeping
on him, the ETA was interested in all of his movements around Madrid, where
the businessman fror? Vizcaya, whom the organization has threatened on several
occasions, generally takes ler.g~hy vacations, ensconced in the home of relatives
or friends and surrounded by bodyguards.
The terrorists had all this kind of ir..formation on CAMBIO 16's main executives,
- on the editor of DIARIO 16, Pedro J. Ramirez, and of EL PAIS, Juan Luis
Cebrian, and on the political correspondent of the Miguel Yuste Street paper,
Miguel Angel Aguilar, the former editor of DIARIO 16.
Among the bit~ of information found in ETA's possession (five pages hand--
written by the head of the Madrid information commands) were the license
~ plate numbers of offici.al CAMBIO 16 cars, the arrival and departure times
of the magazine's top executives, and their home addresses and phone numbers.
The ETA military wing also had extensive reports on the editor of EL PAIS
and on journalist Miguel Angel Aguilar, reports drawn up over a period of
several months of investigation and surveillance around Madrid.
_ "All of this clearly shows," one of the newsmen in question told CAMBIO
16, "that the blind terrorists in ETA's military wing ace worried about only one
kind of press, the only press in this country thaC has the democratic legiti-
macy to combat them with the only weapon that jourr~alists have: their type-
writers."
COPYRIGHT: 1981, Informacion y Revistas, S.A.
8743
- CSO: 3110/44
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~l
POLITICAL ~ FFDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY
JUSO CHIEF PIECYK INTERVIEWED ON PACIFISM, SPD
Milan CORRIERE DELLA SERA in Italian 9 Nov $1 p 2
[Ii~terview with Willi Pie~yk by Pietro Sormani: "We Don't Want World War III To
_ Start in Germany"]
[TextJ Willi Piecyk, "Jusos" leader, explains the success of
the pacifist movement. He believes that Bonn can do some- .
thing to disa~sociate itself from Reagan's policies.
Bonn--The wave of pacifism which has beset West Germany in the past several mor~ths
has surprised political observers by its amplitude, and raised a number of ques-
tions, some of them disturbing, on the fate of the nation. Many persons have
- interpreted the movement as a rebirth of German nationalism, aiming to reunite
the two German states by virtue of their neutrality.
' I have asked Willi Piecyk, one of the leaders of the pacifist movement and presi-
dent of the Social Democratic youth organization, for his o~,inion on the matter.
The "Jusos," as his organization is generally known, number 350,OOQ and speak for
the party's radical wing. On various occasions in the past they have given their
leadership a good deal of trouble and, still today, they openly dispute policies
followed by the government and Chancellor Schmidt.
- A self-educated former policeman, Piecyk looks younger than his 33 years. Under
his seeming ingenuity, however, lurks a considerable political acumen.
Violence and the Left
[Question] The 1 October demonstration in Bonn was a great success--but a suc-
czss for whom?
[Answer] For everyone. For us ~ecause we had to combat the opposition forces of
the party. Our greatest success was a total lack of violence.~ A lot of people
associate the Left with violence, and they hoped that some untoward incident
would afford them a pretext to denounce the demonstratian.
- [Question] Has it changed anything?
[Answer] Certainly. The Christian Democrats had been talking about creating a
"popular front" but, with that enormous crowd that turned out for the
~
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hUK UNr~c.tAL. U1~ VIVLY
demanstration, they had to call off their plan. Schmidt must have realized that
the pacifist movement is much stronger than he thought. The demonstration, too,
started a discussion on our security policy, and made people understand that a
nucl.ear war is indeed possible, and that it can be limited to ~urope, just a~
Reagan pointed out.
[Question] You don't think, then, that the demonstrators' attitude was purely
negative?
- [Answer] Absolutely not. How can you say an attitude is negative when it calls
for a denuclearized zone in Europe? If anything, some of our slogans were too
idealistic, but that is only natural in manifestations of the kind.
[Question] Is pacifism part of a broader movement, witk~ armaments only one of
its preoccupations?
[Answer] Pacifism should be put within a global political context: the dialogue
between North and South, and the battle against social differences, both in .
Germany and on the international scale. But right now, we consider the most
urgent issue to be the stockpiling of arms in Europe by the two superpowers. ~
The National Question
- [Question] Pacifism is common to many European countries, but in Germany it has
differ~ent characteristics. Would you say that it could be a short cut to
reunification?
[Answer] In the past, the national question in Germany was monopolized by the
Right. Adenauer often spoke of reunification but, in fact, he carried out a
policy that divided the country more than ever. All over the world, the Left
has always upheld people's right to sovereignty, from San Salvador to Chile, but
that has never happened in Germany. Yet, neither of the two German states
- enjoys full sovereignty, and Reagan showed that in his decision on the neutron
- bomb. Reunifying Germany and setting up a der~ucZearized zone are part of SPD's �
p rogram, even if Schmidt forgets that sometimes.
[Ques tion] Is it true, as we read in the papers, that a new nationalism, also
leftist, is becoming entrenched in Germany?
[Answer] Not in the strict sense of the word. But people have come to realize
that another war, if it comes, would break out in this country. It happened
twice in the past, and it can happen again in the future.
[Question] By opposing Euromissiles, are you harming SPD by playing into the
hands of the Christian Democrats, who favor them? Isn`t this a contradiction?
[Answer] The SPD is not the government. The problem is to maintain the party's
- identity, not to keep it in power. A question like that of NATO missiles must
transcend political interests.
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NOR OFHI('IA1, IISF; ONI,Y
[Question] There is a lot of talk about "Operation Zero." Would the USSR
accept it?
- [Answer] I hope so. We do not know how much the USSR is willing to ca~:~ede;
therefore, in order to find out, we must negotiate. The difficulty here is that
negotiations require so much time, and NATO is committed to install the missiles
- by 1983. Even the Americans a~cept "Operation Zero," but it is not clear whether
they really want it or whether they are exploiting it in some sort of tactical
_ ploy.
[Question] Will you stage protest demonstrations during Brezhnev`s visit at the
end of this month?
[Answer] Like other groups, we will undertake some sort of initiative, but we
have not yet decided in what form. We are in favor of Brezhnev's visit, but we
are against the Soviet SS-20's.
[Question] Would you say that SPD has lost contact with the population of
_ Germany, particularly the young?
[Answer] Not the entire party. The government has made many mistakes in the
recent past, thus inducing the people to adopt a psychological attitude that
sparked the pacifist movement. Certainly it is not the government's fault if
Reagan is in the White House, but it can do something to disassociate itself
completely from his policies.
_ Reconstituting the SPD
[Question] Is it necessary to reconstitute the SPD?
[Answer] Yes. While it is still in power, SPD must recover its identity, begin-
- ing at the base. SPD's single alternative is a better SFD. We have no guarantee ~
that if it passes to the opposition, the party would be capable of bettering its
program; to the contrary, the facts show that when it was in the opposition, it
leaned more to the Right than it.does now. In any event, I am not sure that in
1984 (when the legislative term will normally expire), SPD will still be in the
saddle. If it is not, in my opinion, that would be no tragedy. Unfortunately,
most people who vote for SPD are insensitive to the most pressing issues, like
pacifism; they like the small, everyday issues that affect their interests more
dire.ctly. This is true especially of the working class.
- [QuestionJ Is there a leadership problem in SPD?
[Answer] Everyone knows that Brandt and Schmidt differ in their political views.
- Brandt has a broader vision; his "Ostpolitik," for example, has left its mark on
German history. We must realiz~, however, that the situation is more difficult
today. Schmidt errs in behaving as if nothing has changed, as if no economic
crisis existed in Germany and the rest of the world. Instead, he persists in
believing that it is still possible to maintain constant growth. As I see it,
_ SPD today must confront two problems: the pacifist movement and unemployment.
If these problems are not resolved, things could go badly for our party.
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. .
"No" to Euromissiles at the SPD Saar Congress
Bonn--At the Saar SPD Congress last night, the great ma~ority of delegates dis-
approved the installation of inedium range missiles in West Germany, in protest
against the NATO decision of 12 December 1979.
In a resolution passed by 80 percent of the delegates, the Saa.r SPD asked the
Soviet Union to reduce the number of its atomic warheacls aimed against Europe
" to the 1978 level, and objected to the production of neutron bombs as well as
chemical and biological arms.
COPYRIGHT: 1981 Editoriale del "Corriere della Sera" s.a.s.
9653
- CSO: 3104/51
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F'(1R ON'Fl('L�~1. t~tiM: ON1.1'
POLITICAL FR.ANCE
REGIS DEBRAY REF],ECTS ON POLITTCAI, PHILOSOPHY
Paris LE NOWEL OBSERVATEUR in French 10 Oct 81 pp 106, 107, 109, 112, 113, 116,
- 121, 133
[Interview with Regis Debray by Jean-Paul Enthoven: "R~gis D~bray`s~~Long. March"]
_ [Text] From Che to Mitterrand? From the Third World to high
public office? From leftism to social democracy? These, ap-:~.
parently, are Regis Debray's contradictory itineraries. Never-
the less, by publishing, very recently, in the Gallimard publish-
ing house, the book on which he worked for 10 years--"Critique
de la raison politique" (~r~:tique of Political Reason]-~-the
new adviser to the president af the Republic takes:the risk of
finally saying who he is and what he thinks. Jean-Paul Enthoven
met him in his office, in the executive mansion.
Rebi~ Debray: The essential thing, for me, is to know how to differentiate between
what lasts and what does not last. And a book can last. It can--it should--~?old
out against the moods of the momeut. WiCh regard to the rest...
(The "r~st"? In view of the circumstances, it is difficult, however, not to take
it into account. Seated under the president's portrait, behind a desk decorated
with acanthus motifs, and while ministerial limousines come gnd go on the gravel
of the execut ive mansion, Regis Debray is no longer only a young man already less
young and vaguely restless. His moustache, formerly Nietzschean, has been disci-
plined. The knot of his tie has been drawn tight. Everywhere, file folders, tele-
phones, emba ssy calling cards, noiseless presence of secretaries and ushers.)
Regis Debray: Having said tfiat, if one wants, like me, to reflect on politics,
it is not a bad thing to rub shoulders with everyday practice. That is an expe-
rience that an intellectual would be wrong in neglecting.
(Then I say to myself: Debray, but which one? Depending on the date, there are
several ver sions: The comrade of Fidel, of All.ende, or the novelist liked by the
Femina ladie s? The prisoner of Camiri or the irascible essayist who legislates,
in Paris, on the treason of the clerks? The "dangerous leftist" mentioned by Ameri-
can columnist s, or the "adviser" who ~.eceivzd me., one Wednesday, in the palace
where he live s his new life every day? After all, those who knew Malraux in Terruel
before find ing him again, 20 years later, in marble halls, know that nothing is truly
improbable in the f ield of reincarnatior.. Sierra? Bolivia, a lyric illusion?
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1~11R (1h'1~1('1:~1. i~tii~: 11N1.1'
When one has never gone there, it is ticklish to reproach those who come back from
there for no longer being th~re. Regis Debray, the unclesirable, the petit-bourgeois
- caught between two fires and four walls, is from now on a member of high officialdom
ar:' `hat is the way it is. Can it have been forgotten, since the time of the moral-
ists, that meri are somEtimes as different from themselves as from others?)
Regis Debray: I have always thought that an intellectual did n~t taave to produce
"ideas," but rather transform his ideas into p:-actical activities, incorporate
~ them in rea~ity.
LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR: Could that mean,; for you, that nothing has really changed
since 10 May? ~
Regis Debray: What has changed, what has changed me, i~ that I have learned to
be more modest. Since that date, I have discovered how much I did not know. The
state, as a thought category, was familiar to me, but I'hardly knew the everyday
- state.
And if I speak of "modesty," it is purposely. We intellectuals tend to believe
~ that we are entitled to produce the truth. Now., I have discovered that, in the
submerged part of the state, in the so-called "public" administration---and which
is, after all, not very public--there are people never shown on television. People
who, because of this,, are nameless and who conceal a mass of experience, of subtle�- �
ties, of maturity of which I had not idea. I assure you that the breed af the
great civil servants deserves consideration. �
- LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR: Then, from this po3.nt o~ view, might not the "Cr~tiqtie
de l.a raison politique " that you have ~ust published lag somewhat behind you~~-ex-
- perience?
Regis Debray: I~o not think so, insofar as this "Critique" is a theorist's book
and not the book of an intellectual.
LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR: Which means...
Regis Debray: That the theorist is, differently from the intel.lectual, the one
- who telis the truth with no concern for the effects of that truth on his life and
on the life of others. The theorist is a geometrist or a psychoanalyst and he
could in no case be held responsible. In this connection, and to anticipate your
- objections, I take upon myself the cleavage that there may be between my work as
a theorist and my activity as an intellectual. There is the whole difference be-
tween them that separates a manual on geometry fro~ an architect's plan.
(The "geometry manual" weighs, in this case, 468 page3.. You proceed in it by de-
grees through a"dialectics" and an "analysis" that profess to be without conces-
sion. The project? To answer this quesCion: "Why must men talk nonsense as
soon as they live in a group?" Therefore, it is a question, in this "Critique,"
of going back to the source, toward the obscure "situation of the possibility of
collective delirium." Debray, a Kantian in spite of himself, specifies: "For
a long time, politics concealed politics from me Not in the sense in which
one train conceals another, but in which that train conceals the rails on which
it runs. There are many runs, many speeds, but only one railroad---or station of
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h'l1R UI~ H'll'L�~l. I~~h: UN l.Y
the Cross. even adds, moreover, that his long t.racking aims.at nothiag less than
expressing"''mankind's poZitical unconscious." The vastness of the task disconcerts
a possible skeptic. We should tell ourselves: Debray works here in magnificence,
and of all the deliriums that he makes compaCible in his demonstration, the one
� that drives him to rise so high--to rationalize irrationality, to thin~ the uncon-
scious or to name the "constants" in our history, is not the least strange.)
LF NOWEL OBSERVATEiJR: Why is is possible to read, from the first pagp in your
book, that "the one who engages in an action is different from thE one who theor-
izes on the general conditions of that action"? And, farther on,:that "ti.his.~dua.lity
- must be cherished passionately, like a secret weapon?"
Regis Debray: True. But "secret weapon" does not mean capability, held:~in reserve.
of contradicting oneself, of reversing one's judgment. It is simply the "secret
weapon" of freedom and ofone's rationally unjustif iable choices.
- LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR: Then, what can the "intellectual" discover in the fie1-3
of politics of which the "ttieori~t" was still unaware?
Regis Debray: It is less a question of discovery than of verification. And what
_ I verify is that the power is, first of all, an administration of impotence.
LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR: That '~.ind of paradox resembles the rich man's contempt
� offortune, the graduate's indifference toward diplomas.
- Regis Debray: Wrong. When I say that the power is only an administration of im-
potence, I describe it at the minimum. It is, in fact, a system of relative im-
potences that balance each other aad that produce a decision at the end of the
circuit. I knew that the mythology of sovereign, omniscient power was suspect.
Now I know that it is false.
Of course, I would be wrong in measuring the impotence of others by my own. Since
10 May, I have had, personally, no power and I am always surprised that power is
attributed to me. After all, here, in the executive mansion, there is only one
person who, in addition to his authority, has real power: the president. I have
no more to say in this connection.
_ (He had let me know beforehand: "We talk about my book and that is all." The
rest, evidently, comes under the obligation to respect classified information.
Nevertheless, we should like to know what really happened in Angola 5 weeks earlier;
what he said, or did, at the Urited Nations, in the White House, where he was re-
- ceived at the end of September by Dick Al1en, the chairman of the National Security
Council; what he thinks, or knows, about the Franco-Mexican sta:ids on E1 Salvador,
on Cubans in A~rica, on the Cheysson-Arafat meeting. It would be, nevertheless,
less inconsequential than to vaticinate loftily on the summits of a"critique"
that convokes Gregory VII or Emperior Constantine. But Debray does not understand
it like that. He has been in the executive tnansion for 4 months and he has been
writing his book for 10 years. In his opinion, therefore, there is no question
af establishing the authority of a"position" for himself in the machinery of state,
in order to make his theory on politics legitimate. Thus, he will inform anyone
wanting to listen to him that the "president's adviser" does not necessarily ~e-
semble the philosopher that he can be. He has no doubt Chat file folders are not
handled like concepts.)
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- LL NOUVF.L OBSER?IATEUR: When Francois Mitterrand was elected, he put his 7-year
C~rm under che p,azc of tl~ree :I].lustrious deceased persons. At the same moment,
- who were the heroes of your own Pantheon?
_ Regis Debray: At that time, like everyone,~I was in a state of withdrawal, and,
in a state of about to find a forgetten history. Francois Mitterrand helped us ~
find ourselves. Heroes are less important because of what they are than because
_ of what they allow us to remain. And with Giscard, national identity was breaking
up.
Having said that, I reached the point, a long time ago, of respecting, in heroes,
only obstinacy, consistency and capacity for solitude. Therefore, I like the desert
- crossing of a Pe Gaulle or of a Mitterrand. I like the fact that those men were.
scorned for so lang by those who now shower praise on them. But allegiance to
De Gaulle was akin to mystical veneration. Loyalty to MitteY~rand proceeds from
a feeling of respect. I prefer that.
LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR: Basically, in your opinion, politir_al commi.tment de~~~nds
more on feeling than on ideas. Lyricism--or "respec'~"--inspires more decisive
convictions in you than reasoning. ~
Regis Debrary: That has always been true, for me as well as for a society in general.
The "International" has produced more Marxists than reading "Das Kapital." From
this point of view, we are lagging far behind in a knowledge of the emotions--
hatred, love, passions--on which our convictions are based.
As a theorist, I do not have to produce a"truth" superior to other truths. I
' must explain, and only that, why there is belief--collective or individual-�-in a
- "truth" that may be logically weak. It is a question of breaking away fr.om the
attitude of a judge who, on the overhang of history, distributes his blessings or
- his curses. I say, on the contrary: Hitler, Stalin, Khomeyni exist and we cannot
impugn them like exotic monsters. Let us leave the naivety of the Illuminati, who
believed that intelligence can dissipate evil, that it suff ices to pursue Jesuits,
or perverse spirits, in order to give birth to a just, reasonable societ.y. No,
the matter is more complex. Let us ask ourselves, rather: why must men unite .
- not by virtue of a clear, distinct idea, but rather to make concessions to the
least rational part of their nature?
In this sense, actually, politics depends less on logic than on emotion and the
strength of ari idea is derived there, first of all, from its lyric capaci~;.
LE NOWEL OBSERVATEUR: When a person is interested:less in truth than in actual
lies, he is completely cynical.
Regis Debray: The "cynical" tonality is inherent in every activity and in every
project of knowledge. In my book, I have kept only one principle: we must rid
ov.r.selves of the ideal of good and evi~. to understand what happens, in a group,
~ as soon as there is a stake and effects of power. By shunning any value judgment,
I try to conduct myself, with regard to the nature of power, like an anatomist
confronted by a tumor. And I admit, as a premise, what common sense says--�politics
makes one mad, savage, dangerous--and I add immediately: nothing~happens without
- reason.
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~.~c: ~~i t?? t~? ~
Then, ~ahat is the reason for this end~ess irrationality? I state that our age
seems to me more cruel but no less mad than others: Saint Bartholomew or goulags,
reli;ious wars never end. Now, if the atrocity of our customs is ageless, let
us ask ehe only valid critical question: why must men act irrationally? Because
- all that resembles~a history full of noise and furor�`from where does the eterni~.y
- of that noise and that furor come?
- ~.E NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR: In your opinion, there is no question of envisaging the
possibility of a pacified, reasonable society? Not the slightest golden age either
- upstream or ~ownstream?
Regis Debray: The group is misfortune. The collectivity is violence. And we
shall not come out of it. In other words, every project that puts forth society's
self-organization--or the disappearance of power authorities---or self-management
in the quality of inetapliysical strangely resembles concepts devoid of historicity.
Most often, exorcisms of a magic type are what promise us, once more, and under
the outward appearance of a criti.cism of the morrows that sing the Marxist version,
other morrows.singing the Castoriadis version.
These hymns depend on incantation and I do not recognize in them a beginning of
experimental versification. Once more, through them, the impotence of inen in society
to think about their impotence is observed. And then, morality, like discourses,
nauseates me.
LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR: Is it not preferable for men to feel obliged to praise
- good and curse evil?
Regis Debray: That does not prevent morality from starting and finishing only
with action, and not with words.
(When Regis Debray convokes his army of s:iadows, he gives way with.pleasure to
his oldest inclination: to discreciit with a mood, with a word, with a sneer a11
that is not authenticated in the history of inen by heroism and by blood. One feels
judged, then, by the yardstick of a sublime, distant martyrology. One feels that
one is ridiculous and badly judged by :~ie High Cou.rt of Tragedy to which Debray
is admitted. To do what there? Th~se who succeed, like him, in capitalizing on
the misfortune of the world ~l;~ays make an impression. They--he--seem to tell
- us: come now, no salvation witl~ut a cross, no redemption withnut an abominable
execution. I have wondered for a long tim whether Regis Debrr,'s real peculiarity
did not result from that very Christian fondness for suffering and sacrifice under
our de-Christianized latitudes.)
= Regis Debray: Sacrifice is cahat makes sacred and, in order to understand politics,
it is possible, then, to become a theologian without risk. In this respect, the
basic thesis of my "Critique" is that there are two histories in one. Up to the
present time, it has been possible to analyz.e the history of inen in their relations
with nature rather correctly. But the other history, the historq of.man's rela-
tionship with man, is still an ~nigma. While the f irst history is evolutive, the
second one does not budge, does not pass on. That means that the history of man
reverts back to a fixed, circular, repetitive time by immobilizing man.
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I~l)R OI~1~1('IA1. l~til~ (1NI.Y
In this sense., the group's misfortune.is a constant and p.~litics would be.the science
of its management. In this area, the very notion of "progress" is illusory. Today,
no one is a better politician than Demosthenes could be in the 4th century BC or
the Assyrians 3,000 years before us. The time of politics depends on an eternal
present.
LE NOWEL OsSERVATEUR: That "eternal present" greatly resembles the "human nature"
of the philosophers. On the other hand, at present, it is rare to have recourse
to it....
Regis Debray:~ Not at all! At present, return~to nature is in fashion. Let us
not fall from one in.toxication into another, from too much history to too~~cnuch
nature. Having said that, as a reader of Lucretius, Spinoza and the Stoics, the
- "order of things" exists, in my opinion.
LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR: That is an unexpected revelation. Until this recent book,
you were still believed to be a Marxist.
Regis Debray: What does that mean? Obviously, I am not a Marxist when I am a
philosopher. And if I take an iriterest in painting or in death, Ma.rxism has nothing
to teach me.
On the other hand, if I have to analyze the mechanisms of profit, in France, in
the 1880's, or the struggles for power in Argentina, I obviously am a Ma.rxist.
When you construct a triangle, you all are Euclidean. Therefore, when you make
local political analysis, you all a-re Marxist. Of course, with regard to the vision
of the world implied by this local analysis I am not a participant in it.
_ (What is given here as an established fact--"of course"--might surprise those who
still remember some aphorisms of the farmer Lenist-Castroist Debray. But the tiriie~,
are far off when the rhetoric of the Teachers College student was cast in the molds
of a'"revolt~t~.or~ within the revolution," and in the tempo of the attack bugles.
By entering tlie publ.ishing house of;Gallimard, i~ the very prestigious "Bibliotheque
des idees" [Library of Ideas]--where he beaomes the neighbor of Merleau-Ponty,
Koyre, Foucault and Sartre--the militant's style seems to have taken on itself
- more decorum, more strictness. He retains from Marxism nothing more than the tone
and sarcasm of the young Marx, the one whose formula, steeped in Hegel and Feuer-
bach, likes to loop back on itself and to produce small local explosions in reason-
ing. The situationists had already tested the effectiveness of this literary style
that convinces more than it demonstrates and whose harmonics Debra~ ras been ex-
ploring since "Les Rendez-vous manques [The Missed Appointments], his best book,
perhaps, writen 6 years ago "for Pierre Goldman." From then on, our author has
been quoting Saint Paul more often than Lenin and, without departing from the requi-
site sanctities, his new Holy Family no longer has the appearance of the old one.
- Patristics and the history of art are more important to him than the fluctuations
of ground rent. The Councils of Nicea have replaced the congresses of Gotha or
Basle. Believing that Rome, definitely, is no longer in Rome and that Debray---
frantic-;has decided to think, first of a11, against what he was).
Regis Debray: Yes, I did not stop writing this book for a long time, while I was
publishing other books. It is not, I hope, a"book of ideas," but rather a"work
_ bf thought." Not fireworks. A painful childbirth in the ancient manner. An ethics
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_ ~f disappointment, of mov2ment in the wrong direction, had made me postpo#~e its
pub]_ication at the time of the great anti-~Marxist confusion in these last few years.
LE NOWEL OBSERVATEUR: Cauld not Regis Debray lEt himself cease being M.3.rxist
like--or at the same time as---everyone?
Regis Debray: I especially did not want to howl with the wvlves. All the less
so, because their howling resulted more from a political strategy than from a desire
to know. What else was there to do, except remain silent and wait--even if it
means asserting oneself counter to one's own pursuits--in the face of the Misereres
of the unfrocked who were chorusing on the ma~ority stage of the moment?
Therefore, let us be earnest. Marxism was the rule in intellectual circles until
1970. Then the fronts were reversed. The fashion, and even the legitimacies of
- thought were then geared to the distance put between onese!.f dnd Marxism. It was
really too easy to let oneself by carried off by that wave. And then I had no
= desire to become a"new philosopher." That is all.
I suffered greatly from the cliches that I dragged along behind me at that time,
from Lhat archeotioyscout, third-�world "position" to which I had been assigned by
controversial discussions. It was constantly necessary to react, to be in a
hurry: it is law of the environment. Hence the advantage, the immense advantage
of prison.
LE NOUVET, OBSERVATEUR: Where you were, from that point of view, mor2 free than
when you came out?
Regis Debray: In fact, prison is the last place where it is still possible to
think in peace. There is time to ruminate there--remember Nietzsche's "cows"--
to make oneself a double stomach there, and it is all the same more valuable than
to glean among ideas.
And then, in prison, you define yourself with regard to yourself and no longer
with regard to others. There, there is no longer any room for theatricals--anger,
indignation. One day, I shall write a"Praise of Prison," but I can state right
now that one of the causes of the drying up of leftist thought comes, evidently,
from the fact that leftists have no longer been put in prison for the last 40 years.
, Have you observed that everything that has been "thought" in socialism comes from
a jail: fr~om Blanqui to Gramsci, Rosa Luxemburg and Kautsky, not to mention Kuron
and Modzelerski, th~ latest beneficiaries of the privilege of prison introspection?
A great wrong is d~ne to many people by letting them dis~course in Che street, give
five interviews a day and go from one meeting to the next. The pace of political
activity in modern liberal societies produces too many decerebr~ted persons. There-
fore, I am attached to my prison stock.and I indeed hope that one day I shall. be
given an opportunity to replenish my supply.
LE NOWEL UBSERVATEUR: You say that you discovered t~2 importance of the history
of religions in prison at Camiri.
Regis Debray: Chronologically, my liking for the history of r.eligions comes from
my fondness for painting. I have entirely fnrgotten the catechism, but I remember
the smallest museum that I visted as a child. Now, painting--Cimabue, Giotto and,
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~~UK ~/~~/~~\.~l1V ?i~rLi ~~.u.
especially,.Tintoretto--is Christianity~ whether one likes it or not. Were not
the catacombs painted in fresco, which is rather odd, because it was s queation
of struggling against idolators who worshiped emperor`s statues.or pictures? Be-
- sides, as Christians by heritage, we are the beneficiaries of a historical miracle--
the miracle of of the Incarnation--and from which a11 our modernity--and our pc~~ver--
is derived.
- LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR: In what way?
Regis Debray: Chri.stianity gives us the authorization, obliges us, to seek a word
behind all flesh and that is a fundamental innovation. Alexandre Koyre had an
interesting theory in this connection. He said th~t the mystery of the Incarnation
- had made scientific research possible, to the effect that it was no longer, through
it, a sacrilege to find logic in phenomena and a"reason," divine at that time,
~ behind the fa11 of solids. I shall even say t~1at our desire for polit~cal eons~~st-.
, ency--to base our everyday behavior on an idea of the world and to give a sense
to things of the city--is the.small change of the mystery of the Incarnation.
_ Early Christianity '~equeathed us a formidable means of producing theory. Added
to that is the fact that a Camiri: chaplain put in my hands a biography of Gregory
VII. And that enabled me to understand the century. Yes, in Camiri; Z was thinking
of Canossa.
LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR: That does not lack.elevation, but agree that it has only
a remote connection with what you were living.
~ Regis Debray: Wrong. I did not understand communism, that is to say, ideocracy,
until I understood what happened at Canossa. Without an analysis of what is pro-
duced by the theocratic merger o� a temporal power and a spititual power, it is
impossible to find one's way in present-day geographies. It is impossible to under-
srand how and why the sole fact of believing.that one holds a universal truth in-
cites to taking iron and fire to the four corners of the planet.
LE NOWEL OBSERVATEUR: Therefore, from Byzantine caesaropapism to czarist auto-
cracy and to communist "ideocracy" tliere probably is only one single history, ac-
cording to you.
Regis Debray: One single lineage, in fact, that goes back to Constantine, who
- proclaimed the dogma of the Incarnation. After all, Christianity is what has ac-
customed us to the idea the God had only one son. Now, the path is familiar from
unity to exclusiveness and to totality. 7n this connection, I find that they went
a little too fast, in the West, in getting rid of totalitarianism--and of its des-
potic versions--in the East. In this respect, I should like Christians, in general,
- and Catholics in particular, to have a little more memory. They should begin by
' aweeping i'n front of their own door, that is to say by reflecting on Gregory VII,
betore giving lessons of tolerance.
LE NOWEL OBSERVATEUR: Historians, those who deal with facts, with details, are
not going to like that kind of transition from a medieval pope to a party secretary.
Those are somewhat rapid productions, factitious syntheses perhaps.
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- Regis Debray: False process. Wtien a biologist takes the cell's_chemical plant
apart he does not discredit the zoologist. The basic logic of the living being
does not mean that an elephant, man and a nightingale must be confused. There
is, therefore, a history of religiors; but~the religious has no history. That
is what the history of religions teaches.
LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR: Then, nothing has probably changed in our heads, in our
customs, since the great Babylanian myths?
Regis Debray: Why do the statues of Phidias move us? Why does Shakespeare talk
to us today? Nevertheless, the slavery production method has passed, ~ust as de-
finitely as the transition from feudasism to capitalism and, in spite of that,
these works are contemporary for us.
Therefore, an "emotive strdtum" has to subsist in man, beyond the vicissitudes of
~ his history. Then, what causes time to have gaps, fadings, syncopes at certain
times?
LE NOWEL OBSERVATEUR: Therefore, has the relationship between the religious phe-
nomenon and the esthetic phenomenon driven you to reflect on the timeless aspect
of inen's history?
Regis Debray: At any rate, that is the basis for my attempt, in my book, to under-
stand a certain number of things: the group, authority, fanaticism, and so on.
LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR: Let us recapitulate. With Christianity, we have the mystery
of the Incarnation, therefore, the Mediator. Because that is incarnate in the
religious order, it is also incarnate in the pola.tical order.
Regis Debray: The group will never finish with the figure of the Mediator, because
it owes its identity and permanence to him. Everything is there and that is pre-
cisely the point that I wanted to stress and on which to base my demonstration.
- LE NOWEL OBSERVATEUR: That is your "nugget," so to speak.
Regis Debray: Exactly. The fact that a group can $rasp its own identity only
through soineone who represents it--therefore, who become necessarily charismatic
by vir.tue of this--and who offers iC the grace of being in contact itself through
another seems to be an insurmountable fact. 'l~nd that operator of cohesion seems
to me to be, in turn, a constant in every power structure.
LE NOWEL OBSERVATEUR: Therefore, the figur~ of the Mediator is probably one of
- those great immovables of the political phase, a kiild of ice floe always resembling
itself thattravels indifferently from the Agora to Red Square in the form, for
example, of that personality cult from which it is probably impossible to escape.
Regis Debray: We must not exaggerate anything. History can modulate the necessary
cults just as for an individual the fact of growing up and of becoming "normal"
consists in managing the Oedipus curse. It is better to know that something in
us wants to kill papa and marry mama than to discover it at a crossroads. Thus,
the dismantling of the political unconscious does not free us from the curse lying
there. It enables us, nevertheless, to manage it in the best possible way, lucidly.
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When the laws of gravity are known, that does not prevent apples from droppi~g,
but, at least, we know what awaits us if we jump out of the window.
LE NOWEL OBSERVATEUR:. What right do you have to decree like that what is constant
and What is not?
Regis Debray: In the name, precisely, of what histary teaches me. In it, it ap-
pears, evidently, that any society without a strong belief is a dying society.
The religious aspect, therefore the politi.cal aspect, is---if you wish--the disease
- of the group, but the cure for that disease would be the death of that group.
~LE NOWEL OBSERVATEUR: Then, why must there be belief in a group? You just raised
that question without answering it. ~
Regis Debray: That o~ligation of belief :Ls not a moral imperative, but, rather,
- a logical necessity. It is deduced from what I call the group's "nonfulf il~ment."
LE NOUVEL OBSERVAmEUR: That requires some specific explanations.
Regis Debray: With the notion of "nonfulfillment" I am generalizing in tl~e political
' order what Godel's theorPm~ states in the logical order. Now, this theorem demon-
strates that "no system can establish its truth without resnrting to a factor that
- is outside it." In other words, no system is demonstrative of itself.
Therefore, I am trying to illuminate the social systiem in the light of that, because
~ there is a system nature tinere, what, then, is the outside factor that is going
to make it possible to establish its truth? Hence, the f igure uf the M2diator,
that is to say, of the charismatic chief.
LE NOWEL OBSERVATEUR: Then, does that mean that it is ra~ional for there to be
irrationality in a group?
Regis Debray: It is, in fact, a naturalist explanation of the social supernatural.
And, for a materialist like me, that is not a neglible result. It makes it possible
to reject just as well abdication when faced with the ineffable--rapsody on the
"return of what is sacred" and company--as the stupidity of Monsieur Hom.a.is for
whom religion is merely the stupid childhood of mankind. It is possible to expel
~ the Jesuits and even God Himself. They will come back in through the window. That,
- for example, is called "real socialism."
LE NOWEL OBSERVATEUR: Thus.., the Mediator woul:d~~;guarantee the group's closure
by offering it transcendency. But what transcendency?
Regis Debray: There, it is up to politics to come into play and to provide an
- empirical content for that transcendental category: ayatollah, secretary general,
president of the republic, head of free France. Let politics choose. Transcen-
dency can come indifferently from a mystical incarnation, from the socialist myth,
from universal suffrage. It is simply necessary for the Mediator to represent
something other than himse.lf: Proletariat, Justice, Rights of Man, A11ah, whatever
you wish. Political freedom consists in choosing between thc~se capital letters.
Obviously, I prefer the capital letter Mitterrand to the capital letter Brezhnev
or Reagan. A very appreciable technical difference, but the effect of o~e and
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; the same logical structure in which each one is a,"lieutenant"-~-ther.efore."hblds
the place"---of another.
LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEIJR: Hence, the conceru,~for any g.olitician whaever, for pro-~~
ducing--or even of manipulating---transcendencies.
Regis Debray: Hence, especially,t.~ interest of death in p.olitics. As soon as
something dies, it produces, in the system, a hole toward the beyond and transcen-
dency is swallowed up in it. That is why burials are always strong phases in poli-
tical activity. A1Z the people who march then are content., in spite of their af-
fliction, because the3r know that, thanks to death, they form a group. Every society
begi:::, oy being a society of the friends.;of the deceased, because every society
_a needs ~o bAlieve in a transcendency that will terminate it and dissolve it.
LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR: If we admit the validity of that observatioa, what kind
of belief would then have to~;be pro~uced so that "things will go well" in our so-
cieties?
Regis Debray: Precisely, "things do not g~ well," because effective beliefs are
no l~nger produced. Consequently, contraband beliefs are increasing in number--
just as at the end of the Roman Empire--raithout offering any lasting coherence.
For a long time, I believed that Marxism might be the great founding illusion for
- our age. Now, I am indeed obliged to observe that it is makeshift. In the his-
tory ~f religions, Marxism-Leninism is, evidently, a poor relative.
LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR: You used to say, formerly, that the saints and apostles
- of our t.imes were Guevara, Rosa L uxemburg, Trotsky or Politzer.
Regis Debray: It is true that at a specific time communism had a great mythica~.
fertility. It still has it, to a considerable extent, in the Third World. In
this connection, in matters that are socially sacred, Afghanistan and Poland are
undoubtedly opening up a new age.
~ Confronted by that, our democratic societies are confessing an undeniable---and
dangerous--emobional weakness. This tepidness, this lack of capacity for sacri-
fice may cause uneasiness with regard to their future. When the sons of Blum
~ are able to oppose the sons of Lenin with their own Eifth Regiment--the one tha.t
defended the University of Madrid to the death--then, without any doubt, we shall
be able to be a world alternative.
- L~ NOWEL OBSERVATEUT >sa~
,o,.
. ~ 5) ( ~ ~ 8)
Non m , u�~
b,~
r--T'~-
0 6 10 Ii 20 i6 JO 35
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A specific question in the last poll concerned automatic wage indexation. Only one
respondent in ten favors keeping it as is. Some 20.5 percent would like greater
protection for more :~killed workers: essentially, a one~point increase on the basis
of aages. But the largest component (30.7 percent~ was for increased protection for
all categories of workers. It is no surprise that the opinion for differentiating
the wage indexation scale is centered pretty much iri northwestern Iraly, which is
the most industrialized and has the highest office workers' salaries, while an equal
scale for all is most popular in central Italy (41.2 percent).
jGraph No 9] Should Automatic {Vage Indexation Be Changed or Not?
(1) kept as is (4) all categories of workers strengthened
(2) more protection for more highly (S) changed somehow
skilled workers (6) don't know
(3) abolished
11 ~neccanismo delln s~ala mobile
va cambiafo o no3
V~ m~nunuto cod cam'~ ~p,p , ~ 1~
V~ cortetto per tut~lu~
il nddito d~i lavor~tari 20,5 2
. piu' qwlifiuti
V~ Niminato ~ ~'B ~ 3~
V~ nNor:~to ~ I~vore -
di tutte N uteporM ~,7 4
di lavontori ,
V~ eamunQu~ ~ttenwto ~~~6 5
Non so 18.5 l6~
0 10 20 30 %
As we put together the figures on this question, we can see that only 20.2 percent
of the respondents favor elir~inating or weakening the inflation-insurance mechanism,
while a bloc of more than 4U percent wants it kept unchanged and strengthened by main-
taining its present feature of eclual 1id to all. Another 20.5 percent would accept a
revision of wage indexation only if more highly-paid workers could be given greater
' advantage. Therc is, therefore, very little room for finding a solution to the problem
of labor costs due to wage indexation. This shows that the Spadolini government still
has some complicated tasks facing it, even though it has not yet displeased Italians.
COPYRIGIiT: 1L MONUO 1~81
8782
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i
~ "t'OLITICAL PORTUGAL
PORTUGUESE ECONOMIC, POLITICAL CIRCUMSTANCES SURVEYED
Madrid CAMBIO 16 in Spanish 16 Nov 81 p 12
jArticle by Carlos Caceres Monteiro]
[Text] Anticipating what could become a new power bloc in Portugal for 1984 or
1985, each day sees stronger signs of rapprochement between Francisco Balsema.o's
Social Democratic Party (PSD), ~hich is part of the government majority, and the
Socialist Party (PS) of Mario Soares.
On the one hand, after a meeting Mario Soares had with several PSD ministers, the
Portug~,ese press spread rumors that the social democrats are not excluding the pos-
sibility of supporting the socialist leader in his candidacy �or the Presidency of
the Republic in the elections 4 years from now. On the other, in the discussion of
the constitutional revision, which is taking place in the parliamentary committees,
important agreements are taking shape between the government and the socialist oppo-
sition which, for certain, is becoming increasingly divided, particularly with
_ regard to military questions. It was agreed in Parliament that the commander
general of the armed forces will be appointed by the president of the republic but
at the suggestion of the government.
~ Some observers think there is a possibility that a new kind of party may emerge,
called "presidential party," capabZe of bridging the gap between the two majority
formations of Portuguese political 1ife. However, the one who, in principle, would
be called upon to become its natural leader, the c.ur;:ent president of the republic,
Ramalho Eanes, has not given the green light to any initiative.
On the other hand, the government could very we11 be especially interested in not
having an opposition which is too hard at a time when there are increasing symptoms
that ~he economic situation is tending to worsen. Could it be a circumstantial
pact aimed at saving face? Perhaps, but with results which might be far-reaching.
The budget now being discussed may involve very deep cuts, especially in the area
of public spending. That would be one of the more significant consequences. Joao
Salgueiro, aged 47, a liberal technocrat who, 10 years ago, belonged to one of
Marcelo Caetano's regimes, is now the strong man of the economy and finances of
Pinto Balsemao's government and appears inclined, very rigorously, to demand the
~ application of heavy restrictiona in drawing up the next budget.
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Econo~cic Recession
The public debt for 1382 is about 660 billion escudos. The ~3ank of Portugal has
ju$t published a report in which it speaks openly of a worsening af the balance of
payments. The prospects point to a reduction in income from tourism, a decrease
~ in remittances sent by emigrants, a reduction of exports and an increase in imports.
, In short, it is the phantom of econmic recession with all its severity in a year i~:
_ w:zich agriculture did not achieve its minimum production and the management associa.-
tion of industrial enterprises sounded the alarm several timas.
To all these black clouds must be added concern about the process of inembeYship in
the Common Ma.rket. The EEC wants Portugal to accept restrictions on the export of
its competitive textile production and also on the circulation ef emigrants.
Salgueiro recently left a summit meeting of EEC foreign ministers in Luxembourg in
a moment of outrage and considered its demands so unacceptable that he began to speak,
- apparently in all seriousness, of seeking "alternatives to the Common Ma.rket" for
the Portuguese economy. What alternatives? No one knows. But it is certain that
Portuguese public opinion is beginning to view the country's entry into the Common
Market as an increasingly remote reality.
COPYRI(~iT: 1981, Informacion y Revistas, S.A.
8568
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;
I
POLITICAL SPAIN
~
ORDONEZ EXPLAINS DESERTION FROM UCD, NEW PARTY'S IDEOLOGY
- Madrid CAMBIO 16 in Spanish 15 Nov 81 pp 39-40
[Interview with Francisco Fernando OxdoneZ, former minister of justice and UCD
member, by Jose Manuel Arija; date and place not given]
[Te~t] t~any.of those who were, until yesterday, Centrist coreligionists and some of
the party leaders are breathing more freely. He has finally left the party.
Francisco Fernando Ordonez, 5i years old, a lawyer and economist, f irst severed his
- ties with the government--the few he had as minister--and f inally bolted the party.
I Criticized as outspoken and unthinking, accused of personal ambition, he was,
however, the protagonist of the two chief reforms carried out in these past f ew
' years: f iscaI. reform and the divorce law.
Now he is gone, along with nine other deputies and six senators.,to found "Democratic
Action, a future party ideologically sitLSted, he says, "to the right af the PSOE
[Spanish Socialist Workers Party] and to the left of the UCD [Democratic Center
' Union]." He won the race for the position of "buffer party" between the two big
political groups in the country.
' [Francisco Fernandez Ordones] My leaving was in response to a political decision,
a judgment about the country's general situation, rather than to a sum of aggrava-
tions, which would be easy to enumerate, but I do not wish to do so. It is a
question of a conviction: Spain has big problems with no answers, and it continues
to need that political clarification which was begun in 1977.
~ We tielieve the UCD's original idea has exhausted its possibilities. We have carried
- ori a tough struggle within the party to defend our positions. Today those positions
~ have been sidestepped, or when we did succeed in asserting them, it was at a
tremendous or destablizing price, and to this was added the constant attempts of
the traditional Spanish right to make the UCD a classic rightist party.
[Question] And this was demoralizing?
[Answer] In that atmosphere of pressure, we thought it easier to f ight in the same
way for the things we believe in from outside the UCD, and that therefore with our
withdrawal we were contributing to clarifying and stab ilizing the political system.
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- [Quastion] Then it was not a sudden decision?
[Answer] We had been discussing it among ourselves for some time, until I arrived
gt the conclusion that I should leave the Ministry of.Justice. I remained with the
present administration almost exclusively to finish up the divorce law. The
decision to leave the party was made jointly and by persons of the same political
line: what we might call the liberal left or the social democrats, that is posi-
tions which are not socialist, but which do favor cha~ge and reform.
[QuestionJ Did you consider the possibility that the democracy might be destabili.zed
by your withdrawal from the UCD ?
[Answer] The 'JCD made an attemp t at settlement when it created the so-called
"mission of salvation." But the only result was ~ mediocre document, which I com-
pared to prescribing an aspirin f or cancer. That was not the way. The way is
ideological clarification, in which each one tak.es up his position and tells where
he is. That is what we have done, and moreover, with a constructive spirit.
There is only one condition for clarifying areas: that it all be done while
maintaining parliamentary stability, and we will sacrifice whatever is necessary to
preserve that. If the only purpose of our operation is to stabilize the democracy,
it would be ridiculous to produc e the opposite effect.
[Question] From what you say, it appears that the UCD has no remedy, and thaC more
"clarifications" will be forthcoming.
[AnswerJ The experience of the past few days demonstrates that the UCD's problems
were deeper; I have resolved not to discuss the subject of the UCD from this time
forward. It is a matter of inental health. Now, what we are working on i3 formula-
ting the new plan'that we are go ing to propose. We hope that, with our withdrawal,
~ the civilized right will organi ze, because we are in another political spac e.
[Question] Did President Calvo Sotelo understand your withdrawal from the party?
[Answer] Calvo Sotelo saw clearly that we were a f irst expeditionary force for
= the political regeneration of everything that is to the right of the PSOE, or
rather, of everything that is not socialism. It appeared to President Calvo
- Sotelo that all this would have a posi.tive result, if we did it intelligently. What
was ab surd, in my opinion, was to keep instability institutionalized, an,~nstab ility
the people no longer profess to believe in.
[Questionj Have you registered yet as a political party?
[Answer] A~ this time we are an independent political platfarm studying the
eventual formation of a political party. We will study this calmly, because there
is no hurry.
' [Question] What would be the political and sociological prof ile of your party?
[Answer] It would be basically a reform and lay party, which would take the
position of a real center, in the liberal, social democratic and radical area. We
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~ would have to include the aspirations of a youthful public, a high percentage of
women, the urban salaried electorate, cadres, officials, liberal professionals and
certain types of businessmen who are beginning to support us because they are aware
that they must bet on the future in a positive manner and not with a defensive and
coarse business attitude.
[Question] It would be a choice similar to Azana's radical-republican group?
[Answer] We have an Azanist base in the idea of regeneration and moderniza*_ion of
Spain held by Azana's followers, the Free Education Institution or Giner de los
Rios. Here we hav~ what is left of the intellectuals, but we also have another
~ide, which is technocratic: I mys~elf studied economics and finance all my life.
- Spain's current problems are not the same as they used to be. At this time the
problems concern the developed society, industrial reconversion, public administra-
tion, etc.
_ (Question~ How did you choose the name "Democratic Action"?
[AnswerJ That is still a temporary name, but it has the advantage of having echoes
of the old tradition of Republican Action or, more recently, of the party of
Dionisio Ridruejo. Because action gives tne impression of initiative; because it
is a question of trying to construct democracy in its deepest sense and because,
in addition, it has no ideological problems. That is, we don't want to come out as
a social democratic party, to avoid creating identification problems.
You have to distinguish between social democracy as an ideologica'_ base, which is
what we said in our first document, and social democracy as a party. We may have
tl~at base, but we have no reason to play the role of a social democratic party.
We also include the old liberal Spanish le~t, radical groups, etc. To raise only
a partial ideological banner would be to leave out much of the type of group we
hope to form, because there will be people who are not social democrats who will
want to be in on this operation.
- [Question~ What would you say are the points which distinguish you from socialism?
(AnswerJ We are different because of the way our group was created. Socialism
comes from the left and from workers' organizations. Our group comes from the
mic;dle classes, the bourgeois intellectuals and the cadres. On the other hand,
the two have a common goal: reform and change. The problem will be how deeply
and in what kind of reforms we get involved.
' Since we are not socialists, we are concerned from another point of view. For
= example, we do not agree on what we might call the grand program of the PSOE; that
is not our horizon, because we have a view of utopia different from that of the
socialists. We are also different because we are against the nationalizations,
_ although we do have plans for cleaning up the public sector, control of public
expenditure, a change of image for public enterprise, reform of the criminal code,
and to see that fiscal reform is not sidetracked, etc. That is, we are not willing
to play at pseudoreform, but our reforms would be made from more centristpositions.
[Question] With that goal, then, do you not have difficulty in participating in a
coalition with a socialist government?
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[Answer] What I believe is that we cannot continue with Spanish Manicheism, where
a party which is to.our right participates in the government, as for example in
Germany. What is important in political parties is their own structure and their
otm historical background. There would be nothing wrong with a coalition with the
socialists. But our party is not going to be born with a vocation to coalition,
but rather as an independent body.
[QuestionJ To participate in elections one must have substantial economic and
financial support. Do you have that yet?
[Answer] It is true that our oppo~ition and our potential will also depend on the
support we find in that~area. However, we will make aur choice with absolute
generosity, with no cards up our sleeve; therefore we will have to look for economic
support. Fortunately, not all the businessmen are like the leadership of the CEOE
[Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations], and we have young businessmen,
concerned and active, who could support our idea, which is very simple: either
Spain changes and adapts to what is going on in the world, which is a real tech-
nological industrial revolution, or this country will be left to administer a
historic decadence.
[Question] Are you going to hold your Constituent Congress soon?
[Answer] We have not yet thought about that,because we are in the planning stage.
What we want now is for wholesome people to ~oin, people wrio are already politi-
cally formed and who can contribute something. It is nat a~ question of going out
to sign up so many thousand members, not at all. It is a problem of contribution,
of segregating ideas and of making proposals for zhe country. We want voters, of
, course, but just now we want people who will work.
COPYRIGHT: 1981, Informacion y Revistas, S.A. ~
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~
i
~
POLITICAL SPAIN
CARRILLO DEFENDS HIS METHODS OF RUNNING PCE ~
Madrid CAI~IO 16 in Spanish 30 Nov 81 pp 46-47
[Interview with E~CE leader Santiago Carrillo on PCE policies and difficulties, by
CAMBIO 16 correspondent Jose Manuel Ari~a; date and place not given]
[Text] The latest rebellion in the PCE has been settled by expulsions and sanctions.
The renewal sector sought a con~frontation with the secretary general, but Carrillo
read them the statutes and put them back on the right track. Santiago Carrillo tells
CAMBIO 16 his reasons for deciding tio expel the transgressors. "I had no alterna-
tive," he says, "for a party without discipline crumbles."
According to Carrillo, the renewers wanted to establish a parallel leadership and
acted as an organized faction: "No party tolerates those things." A receat experi-
ence, an error committed a few months ago, and the firm intention not to repeat it,
were fixed in the mind of the secretary general of the Spanish Communist Party.
Antoni GUTIERREZ, FORMER LEADER OF THE PSUC [Unif ied Socialist Party of Catalonia],
had tolerated the emergence of factions among the Catalonian communists, and the
result was that the pro-Soviets soon took over the party. The aecision could not
~ be repeated. Acting with legality, a new infantile disease of communism threatened
- the party: democratitis, as Carrillo himself said. Hence, the crisis.
Santiago Carrillo [S.C.]: It was a purely a con~uncturai motive, the crisis which
arose from the so-called new Basque Left. It came from farther back. Tr.e lOth
Congress opted for a Eurocommunist policy and a democratic party without tendencies
or organized factions. But there were two groups, the dogmatics and the renewers,
which were defeated; and the latter did not accept their defeat.
I do not understand how a certain sector of the press can be astonished that fac-
_ tions are not accepted in the Communis Party when no political party in the country
accepts them. However, the fact is that the party which the Lerchundi group is
going to enter not only condemns Eurocommunism but also continues to proclaim its
position against the Constitution and insists that only in terrorism can there be
a cease-f ire and at the same time a maintenance of independent positions. I ask
myself: "If the PCE had accepted a merger with a group which speaks and expresses
itself tht~s, what whould not have been said of the c~ommur~ists!"
CANBIO 16 [C16]: How would you summarize the dif.ferences between the off icialist
Eurocommunists and the renewers?
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S.C.: I believe thar the differences may appear somewhat obscure inasmuch as the
renewers do not maintain a different political plan and even say it is the same.
The differences are limited to whether or not there should be organized factions in
the party, although they even say they do not want factions. In short, in the PCE
we have the impression that the only thing the renewers want is to change the leader-
ship.
C16: They also criticize the lack of internal democracy in the PCE. ,
S.C.: That is a criticism which is easy to answer, for in its preparation and de-
- velopment the last congress was a model of transparency and democracy, and I am
not the only one who says this. All the journalists who attended say the same.
~ What we cannot have in the Communist Party is two leaderships: one elected at r:he
congress and the other which, in fact, is self-~~pointed and which, it appears,
takes different positions. Lack of democracy occurs when the minority tries to
impose itself on the majority. .
C16: Do you believe the differences with the renewers will continue or, on the con-
trary, that there will be a possibility for understanding?
S.C.: We can reach an understanding on one condition: that the party's agreements
and discipline be respected. We shall not make any deals to reach an understanding;
but if they abandon their attitude of open conflict with the party, our will would
be to reach a point where the sanctioned comrades could again be active in the �
- party. It depends on them, for a party without internal discipline crumbles.
C16: Was it necessary to go to the extreme of e~cpelling the Madrid city council.men
from the pa~rty?
_ S.C.: It was a test of strength which I do not understand. I understand that the
councilmen would defend their positions within the party and their qualif ication ~
as members of the same. I must say that those sanctioned by the PSOE [Spanish
Socialist Workers Party] had more of a party attitude, for they preferred to abandon
their positions and continue to hold the party's membership card. In contrast, these
- friends who call themeslves co~unists value position over membership.
That they made this reverse decision, preferring posii~ion to party membership, I
cannot understand and, from the standpoint of PCE ethics, I have never known this
to happen. If, tomorrow, someone said to me or to thousands of militants: "Which
do you prefer: an identif ication card as deputy or an identification card as a
member of the party?" I would choose the party, for, above all, I am a communist.
- C16: Then the expelled councilmen are not good communists?
S.C.: If they were, they could have committed the error and even remained in their
position; but they would not have stood in the way of i.azir replacement in the city
council. And here we have the questton as to whom the elected councilmen repre-
sent--relatively unknown voters or the party? According to political ethics and the
laws, persons elected through a candidacy represent the party and that is how the
voters choose them. They do not wote for them because of their name, for they are
persons who are more or less known, but because they are candidates of the party.
Tney owe their responsibility to the party.
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~16: You say that the renewers are organized, but they deny that they are acting
a faction.
S~C.: But what is a faction? When a periodical, the foremost among the leftists,
is, in fact= its spokesman; when there are horizontal and marginal meetings no~
compatible with the party organization; and when money is collected inasmuch a~s
Lerchundi's activity in Madrid and press announcements cost money; this certainly
spealcs of an organization from all viewpoints.
Obviously, if they admitted that they are organized, they would be aclmowledging
that they are working as a faction; and this they will never confess. But it is
evident that they are orga*~ized and are operating in that manner. The problem is
that they are forming a faction without purpose. I would~understand the dogmatics.
But among friends who assert that they have no political differences, alleging only
internal democracy, their work does not make sense. That labor is going to melt
away like a bx�ittle sugar bar within the party if they do not clarify their attitude
and tell us precisely what they want.
C16: Aside~from the lack of internal democracy, are they not also criticiz ing the
leadership of establishing policy in accordance with the prevailing situation with-
out a clear strategy?
S.C.: The only party which has a line so coherent, so coherent that it is repeated,
is ours. From the beginning we said that the UCD [Democratic Center Union] could
not make the change by itself, and we added that we needed a coalition government
shortly after concentration, and now we are returning to a coalition. That is to
say, a government in which the Left participates. That has been our constant poli-
tical offer and now, since that kind of government did not emerge, the change was
not the profound and serious kind it should have been. I see no sound reasoning
. in that criticism.
C16: If there are no reasons to criticize the internal democracy or the political
line, is it then an open conflict by the renewers against Carrillism?
S.C.: In 1956 there was a crisis in the leadership which caused veteran leaders to
abandon their posts. Afterwards, until 1961, there was also the so-called pro-China
split. And the pro-China group engaged in launching that of Carrillism, for they
thought it was more vulnerable to say Carrillist than to say PCE leadership. Then,
in 1968, after that of Prague, the pro-Soviets made another split and also ganged
up against me.
It was easier to attack Carrillisna~ which does not exist and is not a reality, than
to attack the leadership as an entity. The renewers are pursuing this same tactic,
thinking that to break up the leadership it is necessary to break the code of the
General Secretariat. Today it is I; if tomorrow it were another, it would be the
samc. .
- C16: The present crisis could damage the communists in the next election. Are you
taking that into account?
S.C.: We are restoring order in the party; and the way we would lose the election
is if we continue the pandemonium we have had up to now. But if the party reestab-
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lishes discipline and presents itself united at election time, we shall not only
not lose but win votes.
C16i What is the present situation of the pro-Soviets in Ca.talonia and, in general,
in tha PCE?
S.C.: When we speak of pro-Soviets, I distinguish between those who are carrying
on organized work, more or less controlled from wherever, and a mass of party mili-
tants who, through their training and other factors, may sympathize with some as-
pects of the policy of the USSR. It will be difficult for the organized group which
follows directives foreign to our national interests and to those of the party to
continue, for it has another type of obedience.
The PSUC has entered a phase of normalization. Prior to the Fifth Congress, organ-.
ized factions were pexmitted, which greatly damanged the party and started the crisis.
C16: And you considpred that event when you sanctioned the renewers.
S.C.: Certainly. I do not want what happened in the PSUC to happen in the party
as a whole. There was a disease in the PSUC--democratitis--which managed to permit
the organization of factions and which, when they wanted to take stock, had gained
ground and transformed the party. In no way do I want this to happen now in the
Communist Party.
COPYRIGHT: 1981, Informacion y Revistas, S.A.
8568
CSO: 3110/48 END
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