In order to analyze what’s happened since April 28 we have to talk about the wider situation in the Spanish state in recent years. Our analysis is that the pro-independence and anti-capitalist left and the Catalan independence movement are not in a position to mount a frontal offensive against the Spanish state like the one attempted with the referendum of October 1, 2017, with the material forces that would require. Nonetheless, what happened in that referendum and subsequent months has totally reshaped the reality facing both left- and right-wing forces in Catalonia and the Spanish state, as concerns the defense of the right to self-determination.

Another key element, in all this, is the capacity of the organized people not only to win rights for itself but also to be a constituent subject, able to shape the forms of poltiics. In Catalonia in recent years – and the referendum was a highpoint in this regard – there has been a collective exercise of mass civil disobedience, organized collectively and horizontally. On October 1, 2017 this was focused on self-determination, but it’s also a political praxis that takes place daily when housing unions and the PAH (“Platform for those Affected by Mortgages”) block evictions, or in the new trade unionism and the feminist movement.

Added to these developments is the persecution of dissent in Spain and the sentences to be passed in the trial of pro-independence leaders. These elements provide the framework for the state management of dissent, in Catalonia and in the rest of Spain.

All this helps us understand what has happened since April 28. The PSOE won the elections in what was a situation of crisis for the regime — a crisis that has become evident since 15M [the anti-austerity protests beginning in 2011] and the fight over Catalan independence. Pedro Sánchez’s party was victorious in a situation where the [right-wing] Partido Popular (PP) has been hit by corruption cases and no longer serves as a conservative right able to act as a cohesive force. The PSOE has become the new instrument for reconstituting the regime and the state apparatus.

There is another central point, here, regarding the European Union as a whole. Faced with Brexit in the United Kingdom, which has shaken its stability, the latest election results in Italy [i.e., successes for Matteo Salvini’s Lega] and the advance for the far right in France, Pedro Sánchez and the PSOE have become a decisive actor in sustaining the stability of the European Union. This has strengthened the PSOE greatly, but objectively it faces a very difficult challenge in guaranteeing stability and smooth governance. It wants to generate consensus for a “second transition,” but with the substantial difference that after the 2008 crisis in Spain there is no economic boom and there is conflict everywhere.

Within this logic, the Spanish left has played a very complex role. Indeed, the Catalan conflict is striking at the belly of the beast — the Spanish Congress. Here, the Spanish left is trying to take what is, in fact, a very awkward position, a kind of democratic neutrality in which it defends the right of self-determination in the abstract but at the same time — and in more practical terms — clearly condemns what is actually taking place in Catalonia.

Rather than defend a clear, radical, left-wing logic — even if a social-democratic one — the Spanish left’s battle over the formation of the government has been entirely lukewarm. All criticism of the European Union, debt policy, and the state’s border policy is left by the wayside. It wants the PSOE to count on the Left, just like the geringonça arrangement in Portugal [where the Socialists have relied on the external support of the Left Bloc and Communists]. For its part, the Esquerra Republicana — the Catalan social democracy — has tried to play the role of a party of state [by backing the PSOE unconditionally], like the historic role of the PNV [the Basque right]. Meanwhile the Catalan right has broken into many factions.

In this situation, we thought it obvious that the negotiations on the formation of the government would fail, because the PSOE was not interested in them succeeding. What interested this party was, instead, to provoke fresh elections where the historic two-party system of PSOE and PP would be strengthened, at the expense of third parties like [the liberal and Spanish-unionist] Ciudadanos, which all polls predict will lose heavily on November 10.

This is a battle that goes far beyond concrete questions of government. It’s a matter of fighting for the stability of the regime and, indeed, of the European Union. For its part, the pro-independence left has decided that it will occupy all available political and media space. When the Catalan left decided to commit itself to self-determination and independence, it saw this process as a vector for democracy in the Spanish state and in Europe. The real-world developments have proven our argument correct.

At both the CUP’s Political Council in March — the first time the pro-independence left discussed whether to participate in the Spanish Congress elections — and the last Political Council, where it did decide to participate, the arguments for and against were the same. This illustrates the contradiction in which the pro-independence left finds itself caught.

In March, the Political Council decided against participating. Many argued that if we did make it to Congress, we would not have — or would only insufficiently have — the necessary basis in a movement able to build organization and generate the necessary popular power to impose itself on the state. In September, a similar assessment was made. But faced with a growing repressive offensive in the Spanish state, the argument that had already been made in March — that is, the need to occupy all possible political space — won out.

Our stance is that we cannot put all our eggs in the institutional basket. At a time when communists are being thrown out of institutions around the world, the pro-independence left has to clearly fight for socialism as its political approach. This means a socialism for the twenty-first century, which puts human life at its center and in which feminism, anti-racism, and environmentalism are not ornaments gathering dust in the corner, or mere slogans, but central political proposals.

This approach translates into the construction of a tactical political program [for the November 10 elections]. First this means the demand for amnesty — understood as an amnesty for all those in jail, exile, and facing charges. It mustn’t involve them seeking “pardon” for their “crime” — rather, it means wiping the slate clean. However, while we emphasize the fight to release the prisoners and against repression, just as the moment demands, we also clearly link this to a defense of the right of self-determination.

Self-determination was central to the beginning of this conflict, and as a political framework it is also the umbrella for many other civil and political rights. This also means attacking the direction of travel in the European Union, with its drive toward the centralization of power, decision-making, and sovereignty. What self-determination does is restore the ability to decide — that is, it gives sovereignty to the people, and is thus a battering ram that causes cracks in both Spain and the European Union.

The Catalan Countries have been broken by the crisis. To guarantee the rights of all, we need to develop a socialist, feminist, environmentalist, and anti-racist project. Especially in a part of southern Europe punished by a troika determined to do everything to guarantee the free market and economic growth. These stances — amnesty, self-determination, and the guarantee of rights — are not our strategic program, but a tactical one with which we will go to the Spanish Congress.

Surely it did hurt, from a purely electoral perspective. But neither the CUP nor the pro-independence left have ever just done politics in electoral terms. And at that time militants considered the best thing to do was to build a movement, prepare for the [prison] sentences [against Catalan leaders], and prepare the organization and the movement so as to later be able to take the fight to the Spanish state. Now, militants have decided that as well as building a movement it is also right to stand in the elections. But given a certain communist and libertarian political culture which we have — indeed, one that characterizes us as a country — such decisions are not taken to get more votes but rather in correspondence to a certain political analysis.

No. Honoring their disobedient, horizontal, and collective culture, CUP and the pro-independence left make decisions in strategic terms. Each decision is analyzed on its own terms and in a strategic key. This time, militants have decided that it is correct strategically to go to the Spanish Congress, but future electoral participation will be decided on a case-by-case basis.

The CUP is going to the Spanish Congress to do politics, and that means making concrete proposals in a generous spirit. I’d say it won’t be the pro-independence left causing a blockage — that’s something that exists in Spain already. Indeed, the PSOE has encouraged this situation in order to provoke early elections and pick up more votes. The blockage is something generated by the regime in its attempt to close the opportunities opened up since 2011 [i.e., by forcing a return to two-party politics].

Another factor in this situation is the constant threat of a possible tripartite right-wing coalition uniting the PP with Ciudadanos and [the far-right] Vox. This is a fundamental element that the PSOE and the Spanish left have used to justify their own coalition attempts and electoral campaigns. There’s a fear of the Right, the far right, and unfortunately, we now find ourselves with twenty-odd fascist MPs in Congress.

Our reflection connects with what Costas Lapavitsas has repeatedly said in his analysis of the Left in Europe: that is, there is no radical-left party in Europe that is making a radical critique of the European Union. Nobody is clearly stating the truth that the European Union is a machine to kill people at sea, to generate evictions and suicides, and to centralize sovereignty.

If there is not a strong left to oppose the European Union, we are merely handing over terrain to the far right. We see this in France, in Hungary, and, indeed, throughout Europe. The fear of the far right must not stop the Left doing its own politics. So, we will go to the Spanish Congress to do left-wing politics, without fear or embarrassment, and to explain and teach people about socialism, even if people say that this is crazy. What seems crazy to us is to continue supporting the EU and capitalism, which systematically murder women, workers, and migrants at sea.

There was no time to build broad coalitions for the election, after CUP militants decided to run. But when we do politics in the institutions, we see them not as a comfortable space, but as a battlefield. In the institutions the working and popular classes always lose, not only because these institutions are built to reproduce privilege but also because they operate according to individual, liberal, and conservative forms of representation.

In the elections we will, formally speaking, be standing alone. But within the organization and the movement we will articulate the alliance policies that define the CUP’s stances in the Spanish Congress. The decision on the CUP MPs’ tasks in the Congress will involve a whole political space including the organizations of the anti-capitalist and pro-independence left.