In addition to the actions of the imperialist, capitalist and oligarchic forces that continued to threaten "international peace and security", all States were in agreement in the condemnation and repression of revolutionary subversion, whose spectre has never stopped making the authoritarian world uneasy. Society responded to attacks on the established order with its security forces. In most nations, the word "security" took on a very precise meaning: that of the repressive power of the State, a huge and complex police apparatus. Thus, thanks to peaceful co-existence and detente, "the great international of police forces currently establishing itself cannot simply be reduced to an understanding, to similarities and a coexistence in space. It is a true international: a system of cooperation and collaboration, a mutual insurance benefit company for the security of States."¹

Faced with this international police conspiracy, which is the practical expression of political and economic compromises at governmental levels, revolutionary "subversion" was forced to hide in an increasingly rigorous clandestinity. This was how the revolutionaries of ETA had to claim Operation Ogro; in conditions of absolute clandestinity in France.

"The operation carried out by ETA against the apparatus of Spanish oligarchic power in the person of Luis Carrero Blanco must be interpreted as a just revolutionary response by the working class and by all Basque people to the murders of nine comrades of ETA. (...)"

In Spain, if the composition of Arias Navarro's Cabinet did not represent stability, because of the resignation of Lopez Rodo and his team (Opus Dei), it at least guaranteed the continuity of the Francoist system. Actually, apart from the rumours and comments about the conflict between the hard-liners and the liberals -- with General Diez Alegria² in charge -- and the application of severe repressive measures -- whose point of greatest intensity was the death sentence handed down against the young Catalan anarchist Puig Antich³ -- political life followed its normal course ... The fact is that, despite the psychological shock caused by the death of Carrero Blanco, neither the peaceful opposition nor the active opposition managed to channel the situation toward an effective resurgence of anti-Francoism.

On February 16, when the decision of the Supreme Council of Military Justice was made public, confirming the death sentence against Salvador Puig Antich, the Belgian newspaper La Libre Belgique published the exclusive statement of the Minister of Information and Tourism, Pio Cabanillas, entitled: "There is an Urgent Need to Perfect the Mechanisms of Active Political Participation in Spain":

"Apart from tiny groups of extremists that develop violent and subversive actions, the regime is open to all Spaniards (...) It is true that there is an urgent need to perfect the mechanisms of active political participation (...)"

Two weeks later, despite the many petitions sent to Franco by national and foreign institutions and personalities demanding a pardon for him, Salvador Puig Antich was executed by garrote vil.⁴ On March 4, the Archbishop of Bilbao, Msgr. Anoveros, who defended the rights of Basque people in a sermon read in the churches of the diocese, was compelled to leave the country.⁵

Despite Francoism's barbaric behaviour, certain people still continued to attribute a love of democracy to Arias Navarro; but in opposition circles, and especially among libertarians, not only did they not believe in his intentions, they feared other death sentences would be handed down during the second trial, which was due to take place against Puig Antich's comrades.⁶ In order to prevent the Francoist regime from committing new crimes, support committees for the MIL prisoners and libertarian activists continued their efforts to mobilize international public opinion.⁷

Right in the middle of the Watergate scandal, the political context seemed more and more inclined toward precariousness and paradox.

The publication, at the end of February, of the book "Portugal and Its Future", written by General Antonio de Spinola, and leading to his removal from the post of Assistant Commander of the General Staff and that of his immediate superior, General Francisco Costa Gomez, shows that the Portuguese dictatorship was going through a critical period due to its catastrophic colonial policy. On March 16, in a barracks of Caldas de Reinha, in the northern part of the country, a regiment attempted to march on Lisbon in order to protest the "resignations" of Spinola and Costa Gomez, but the government could declare that "order reigns in the country", without specifying the care with which they put an end to the mutiny in the army. From then on, the proximity of a test of strength ⁸ against the Portuguese fascist regime became apparent.

As for revolutionary activism, in addition to various actions of international importance carried out by Palestinian commando groups⁹ in cooperation with the Japanese Red Army Group, the attempts by Latin American revolutionary movements searching for new perspectives of action¹⁰, and the more sporadic actions by European autonomist movements¹¹ and the Greek anti-fascist resistance¹², the most significant event was the appearance of the Symbionese Liberation movement in the southern United States. This group, which introduced itself on February 4 by kidnapping the daughter of American press magnate Randolph Hearst -- who was forced to distribute food totalling several million dollars to poor families in San Francisco -- was composed of black militants and young white university students, among whom were many militants of the women's liberation movement. The revolutionary principles advocated by this movement were anti-racism, prison abolition and the destruction of the capitalist system by means of armed struggle and raids on banking institutions, in order to "return to the people the money they were robbed of". The big surprise for the American bourgeoisie was Patricia Hearst's decision to join her kidnappers in the struggle against capitalist society. From then on, the American police tracked the Symbionese Army with the firm intention of exterminating it.¹³ The event created great uneasiness and insecurity in America's privileged classes, because, as the press said: "There has been an ideological subversion of a significant scion of high society with a simple little speed course."

In Italy on April 18, Mario Sossi, a Prosecutor of the Republic, who managed the trial of several militants of the Red Brigades, was kidnapped by them; they continued trying to organize an armed resistance to oppose the fascist peril.¹⁴

On April 25, the army, led by a group of young captains who had returned from the wars in Africa -- into which Portugal threw nearly half the national budget for a period of thirteen years -- chased from power the heirs of the Salazarist dictatorship, who did not want to remove the country from the colonial morass. After having exiled the former leaders to the island of Madeiros and conquered the resistance of the political police -- the fearsome PIDE -- a military junta was installed, composed of six officers, and presided over by General Spinola. He announced:

"(...) We guarantee all the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens, particularly freedom of expression. We authorize the creation of political parties, and we will organize free elections (...)"

Political prisoners were released, and agents of the PIDE replaced them in the cells. On April 28, Spinola embraced Mario Suarez, Secretary-General of the Portuguese Socialist Party, shortly after his return from exile; and the next day, he welcomed the Secretary-General of the Communist Party, Alvaro Cunhal, who returned from his exile in Moscow. In Lisbon, the First of May was celebrated by more than 300,000 people. On May 15, the military junta appointed General Spinola President of the Republic, and formed a "provisional" civil government, "led" by a moderate Prime Minister of the center-right, and joined by Mario Suarez and Alvaro Cunhal. Contrary to what happened in Chile, in Portugal, it was the army that not only re-established democracy, but also permitted the Communist Party -- the only one in Western Europe -- to integrate with the power structure. At the end of May, Spinola gave a severe warning to "partisans of disorder and anarchy", and with the help of the Communist Party, which accused "leftists" of "fomenting disorder so as to provoke a fascist coup d'etat", the strike movement that had overwhelmed the new union leaders¹⁵ was slowed down, and the workers had to be satisfied with wage raises set by the authorities. On June 7, although leftist movements had ceased all spectacular actions for several days, the editor of the newspaper Lucha Obrera, the organ of the PRP, a movement of the extreme left, was arrested. Little by little, serious disagreements appeared between the moderates and the left inside the government, including the military junta, over a series of economic and social measures. On July 9, Prime Minister Palma Carlos and four moderate Ministers resigned over their disagreements with representatives of the left in the government. And on the 11th, General Spinola dismissed all members of the government. On the 17th, after many secret meetings, negociations and difficult arbitration between representatives of the movement of the "captains", who were the true inspiration and actors of the April uprising, and the generals closest to Spinolism, the formation of the new government was announced. It was headed by Colonel Goncalvez, and included three representatives of the captains' movement, alongside the socialist and communist Ministers, who kept their portfolios. Mario Suarez defined it this way: "Our first government was in the center, but leaned to the right; the second will stay in the center, but looking to the left." Nonetheless, on July 18, as the new ministerial team took over, Spinola declared that "anarchy will be considered a crime against society from now on." Goncalves declared that his policy would be "the program of the Armed Forces Movement and nothing else." The communists said they were satisfied, and declared that "the present government offers a unique opportunity to ensure a democratic regime that is stable and chosen by the people" (...). Despite the disconcerting unknown quantity presented by the presence of the authoritarian General Spinola as head of State, the end of Portuguese fascism seemed an irreversible fact, both in the policy of decolonization and in the orientation of internal politics in the direction of genuine democratization -- within the framework of bourgeois institutions.

Although only three months after the liberating coup d'etat it would be somewhat premature to form definite conclusions about the real intentions of the leaders of the Armed Forces Movement, it was quite clear that the new regime did not want to make the revolution. Yet the revolutionary extreme left could not justify disinterest or opposition to the process of democratization then in progress, although the act of not withdrawing solidarity and not opposing it implied tacit collaboration by the revolutionaries in the consolidation of bourgeois democracy. Such was the dilemma that the re-establishment of democratic legality posed for Portuguese revolutionaries, also serving as a lesson for the future to Spanish and other revolutionaries ...

It is obvious that these events could not go unnoticed in Spain, and that from the highest circles of the regime to the opposition, they were followed with great interest. The national press, which was right in the middle of a process of "informational thawing", widely diffused news and commentaries on what was happening in the neighbouring country. In certain cases, it even dared to discuss the consequences for the Spanish people, which provoked furious reactions from the hard-line milieu. In reality, far from stimulating the policy of openness by Arias Navarro's team, the situation in Portugal compromised it, for the hard-liners, backed by the Pardo camarilla, obtained the suspension of most of the liberalization measures and the strengthening of the repression. This explains why, faced with an immanent court-martial against the militants of the MIL and the prospect of a new death penalty, the anarchists organized a spectacular action outside Spain to sensitize public opinion to this and force the Francoist authorities to moderate their repressive posture. On May 3, the director of the Bank of Bilbao in Paris was kidnapped. On May 5, an Agence France-Presse dispatch sent from Madrid and reproduced by the international press specified:

"Octavio Alberola Surinach, a Catalan born in Mexico, was reported today by two important Madrid newspapers to be the possible brain behind the kidnapping of Balthazar Suarez" (...). ABC said: "The Spanish police informed the French police that Octavio Alberola Surinach, once one of the most ferocious killers serving in the IV International, was in France. This individual participated in the failed attempt to kidnap Emilio Guarriguez (...) which led the French authorities to expel him from the country. The paper insisted that everything seemed to indicate that those responsible for the kidnapping are members of an Iberian anarchist union, and that the co-ordinator might be Alberola (...)".

On May 9, another communique from the same agency declared that:

"The Internationalist Revolutionary Action Groups (GARI) announced in a communique sent today (May 9) to the AFP that "the kidnapping of Balthazar Suarez in Paris is our response to the current repression against the Spanish revolutionary movement." The GARI which, this Tuesday, claimed the kidnapping in Paris of the director of the Bank of Bilbao, made its first demands (...) and declared: "After the murder of Salvador Puig Antich, we will not permit new executions (...)."

Indeed, the GARI's demands and the meaning of this action were clearly defined in the document released by the Libertarian Anti-repression Committee during the clandestine press conference of May 7 in Barcelona:

"1. The publication in Spanish newspapers of all communiques, texts and documents.
2. The temporary release of Santiago Soler Amigo, who is gravely ill and involved in the MIL affair.
3. Publication of the charges against the alleged militants of the FRAP, arrested in relation to the events of May 1, 1973 (...) and facing possible demands for the death penalty.
4. The application of temporary release for all political prisoners who are presently in the period of extension of their sentences. The non-application of this conditional release is considered a kidnapping by the regime of all political prisoners.

FOR AN ANARCHO-SYNDICALIST MOVEMENT:

We belong to a libertarian nucleus working for the reconstruction of the anarcho-syndicalist movement. We have undertaken to fulfil our responsibilities, to explain and claim the kidnapping of Angel Suarez, carried out by the Internationalist Revolutionary Action Groups (...). In publicizing the action, the Libertarian Anti-repression Committee has no other objective than that of circulating this news by explaining it openly and ensuring its veracity (...). We think that this action is one of the varied nuances that can be adopted by the current struggle, and this is why we are trying to widely circulate its real content and objectives."

On May 20 in Bilbao, the police announced that the commando of ETA activists which was discovered when it attempted to land at a beach in Fuenterrabia, intended to kidnap Juan Vollner, the manager of the factory at La Palmera.

On May 22, that is, three days after Giscard d'Estaing's electoral victory over Union of the Left candidate Francois Mitterand, the GARI released banker Balthazar Suarez.

Reflecting the feeling in official circles, the Spanish press congratulated itself on the results of the French elections, affirming its "confidence in the consolidation of good relations between the two countries" and in "the adoption of severe measures against Spanish terrorists who have taken refuge in France." As it happened, a dispatch of the EFE news agency reported, concerning the Spanish banker's release:

"Among the people arrested in Paris and Avignon shortly after Suarez's release, there was an Englishwoman. Their names have not been revealed, but the news from Madrid says that one of the anarchists is Octavio Alberola (...). It is also stated that Alberola's friend, Ariane Gransac, is also under arrest." And during the month of June, the press announced the imprisonment of eight anti-Francoists in Barcelona by the Rogatory Commission of the examining magistrate of the Suarez affair in Paris (...).¹⁶

A few days after the banker's release, and in the middle of a police crackdown, the GARI released the following communique:

"The Suarez affair, as a spectacular event, is in fact over, as the press affirms, content to see the wrongdoers punished and the innocent victim recovered safe and sound. What is not over is the confrontation between our revolutionary will and Francoist power, our fight and our power of intervention in a capitalist world that pretends to see us as desperados, rather than a group of people determined to act so as to destroy it, in association with all those who struggle. Whether there was a ransom demand or not, our procedure was clear and our political goals were also (...). As for the arrests which took place in France and the searches underway to try and hunt down the "guilty ones", they clearly indicate the real direction of French policy (...). Never before have we seen such total French-Spanish police co-operation: Mitterand, in the lead, intervened with Franco to avoid Puig Antich's execution; today, now that our companion has been murdered and several others risked the same fate before we intervened, the French right unleashed its police and dared to arrest people accused of having supported an action which proved to be effective in obtaining a result hoped for by many. As for the infiltration of our groups by the police, and their triumphant communiques, they make us laugh (...). We have aided our companions threatened with death, which your laws and your moral principles advocate (...). We have kept our end of the bargain; now it is up to the Spanish government to keep theirs within the specified time period."

On June 14, it was announced that General Manuel Diaz Alegria had been replaced by General Carlos Fernandez Vallespin, who fought with the Division Azul on the Russian front. According to foreign commentators, "the resignation of the man who, in military circles, was considered the leader of the liberal wing of the Spanish armed forces, can be explained by the desire to re-establish the balance of tendencies inside the army." The next day in Barcelona, Arias Navarro made a speech in which he declared that: "political associations will arise inside the Movement, because it is our right, on account of our political development."

On June 21, the French press announced the results of a press conference, made by Santiago Carrillo in the suburbs of Paris, to a group of Spanish journalists with credentials in the French capital. During the conference, and after having affirmed that the "Portugalization" of Spain was obvious, he advocated the participation in Spain's future political life "of a series of personalities who, although they come from the regime, deserve, both for their personal value and for their behaviour in recent years, to participate in the democratization of our country." In a "monster" meeting that took place in Geneva on June 23 with the aid of the Swiss Communist Party, la Passionaria and Carrillo sang the praises of "the renewed Church, with a progressive hierarchy and thousands of priests who, by their behaviour, are reconciling the people with the Church" (...); they continued by doing the same for the military, "who must have technology and means allowing them to play the role the nation must give them in its own interest (...)" and finally, closed with this exclamation of powerlessness: "Will a hand open the door of the fascist fortress, so as to avoid the inevitable violence?"

On June 26, the Opusdeist Rafael Calvo Serer, in exile in France, wrote in Le Figaro:

"Today in Portugal, tomorrow in Spain, the right can no longer call upon the arguments it used during the cold war to exclude the Communist parties from the government."

On July 9 ¹⁷, it was announced that Franco had just been admitted to Francisco Franco Hospital for an operation on a phlebitis of the right leg. Immediately, rumours and speculation of all kinds circulated, and pressure groups began their manoeuvres with a view to the succession, which seemed imminent. On the 19th, when the press announced that "General Franco has transferred power to the Heir Juan Carlos", rumours and speculation reached their climax. On July 22, in a press conference in Paris, Santiago Carrillo called for the formation of a provisional democratic government of national reconciliation ... Meanwhile, in Spain, Franco recovered his health and the court-martials continued to function: on July 24 in Barcelona, José Oriol Solé¹⁸ and Jose Luis Pons were sentenced to 48 and 24 years' imprisonment respectively. On July 30, as Franco prepared to leave the hospital, Calvo Serer and Santiago Carrillo announced, in Paris, the formation of a "democratic Spanish Junta" that "would remain open to all" (...)¹⁹ and appealed "to the Spanish people to prepare for national democratic action."

For the Spanish communists, the Caudillo's reinstatement was considered a mere re-adjustment of the dates of the "inevitable democratization process of the country."

At the end of June, preparatory to Nixon's next visit to Brezhnev, a conference on East-West trade took place in Moscow, with the participation of the heads of several hundred large industrial firms and banks from thirty-two western countries, which showed that detente continued to open up new perspectives. Apart from "a few" autocratic islands and the fascist threats in Italy,²⁰ it seemed that "democratization" was the new prevailing trend in history ... Actually, as a result of the failure of their adventure in Cyprus, the fascist generals who ruled in Athens lost out and called on Caramanlis to form a civilian government, and thus put an end to seven years of fascism in Greece.

"(...) The junta's stinging defeat and the possible return to a certain form of democracy doubtless means good news for all victims of the generals' dictatorship. It is still true that throughout this affair, Greece was not even treated as a protectorate, but as a colony. Despite his popularity in public opinion, Mr. Caramanlis is returning to Athens as a foreigner, in a sense, and the formation of a government of national unity might not be enough to prevent a powerful outburst of nationalism." (Le Figaro, 24-7-1974)

After the return of the exiles, the liberation of political prisoners and the re-establishment of "fundamental democratic liberties", Caramanlis formed a government of national unity with the centrists, re-established the constitution of 1952 and promised to call elections before the end of the year.

But to complete the picture of the international democratic "renaissance", nothing was more timely than Nixon's surprising and pathetic resignation, replaced by the "sportsman" Gerald Ford, whose accession to the Presidency brought no fundamental change to White House policy. Meanwhile, on the same day that Ford was sworn in as President, the Moscow newspaper Izvestia published a poem by Evgeny Yevtushenko, entitled "International Detente".

Cold War, you are dead,
Although sometimes your hand occasionally,
Lifting the lid of the rusted coffin,
Tries to grab us.

I have faith; I believe that no one has
The Power to separate
America from Russia
With a new tide of icy water (...)".

Then came the final commentary of the "Voice of the Kremlin":

"With young America, we march without frowning. We talk, we do not agree; then we come a little closer to each other. There is no contradiction between that and the class struggle (...)"²¹

At the end of 1974, East-West detente seemed to be the fact governing relations between the two great blocs. This policy will have great consequences for the future of all peoples, for it presupposes the willingness to perpetuate the world status quo of the present authoritarian Order. Yet events have shown that the world is not homogenous, and that, affected by "unforseen and unforeseeable" circumstances, local conflicts -- at least -- allow us to glimpse new revolutionary possibilities now and then. Unfortunately, socialism via the vote or together with the military persists in abandoning the revolution by adapting to hierarchical society.

The great paradox is that the "sickness of present-day capitalism" requires a socialist solution, while socialism is increasingly alienated from the structures of capitalist culture. Thus, when it is urgently necessary to broaden its definition and specify its categories, so as to understand the full extent of oppression and give a revolutionary orientation to the struggles that are being prepared, socialism doesn't know how to do anything except renounce the Revolution²² and offer to correct the errors of capitalist management by ensuring growth, full employment and a rising standard of living ...

The "optimists" hoped that the then-current economic crisis would bankrupt the capitalist system, but detente between the East and the West, by facilitating the coordination of a considerable volume of trade, laid the foundations of extensive cooperation with a view to maintaining the then-current balance between the two camps. For even communist China, which had just celebrated the 25th anniversary of the triumph of the Maoist revolution, increased trade and diplomatic relations as much as possible with all nations, without distinguishing between political regimes.²³

It was in this depressing international political context that 1974 drew to a close:

In Latin America, although the guerrilla struggle was the most spectacular, the most heroic, and the most generous in recent history, the path of the revolution seemed to be blocked. This was due to the great disparity of means available to oligarchies facing revolutionary forces and the constant vigilance of American imperialism, but also to the lack of effective coordination of solidarity and a common strategy among the revolutionary movements that still continued to struggle. To such a degree that, except in Argentina, where revolutionary activism seemed to be capable of responding more or less effectively to the repression²⁴, in the rest of the continent, the few guerrilla nuclei were going through critical periods. Particularly in Mexico and in Santo Domingo, where the most recent guerrilla actions (the kidnapping of important political and diplomatic personalities, in order to demand the release of political prisoners) led to the massive mobilization of the army, and ended in bloody failures in Mexico and in a fiasco in Santo Domingo. In Chile, in October and November, after having murdered several leaders of the MIR, Pinochet's repressive forces broke up the few groups who were laying the foundations of armed Resistance. In Nicaragua, on the other hand, a revolutionary commando won the liberation of fifteen political prisoners and a ransom of a million dollars in exchange for important personalities they were holding in the residence of the Minister of Agriculture in Managua.

As for European revolutionary activism, it continued to intensify its marginalization, and showed the same strategic incoherence that had characterized it until then. Thus, the two strongest and most structured activist movements, the IRA²⁵ and ETA²⁶, were either incapable of, or did not want to (because of their exaggerated nationalism) create the basis of an effective cooperation and solidarity with other revolutionary activist groups, which were continually appearing and reappearing, and making themselves known through acts of solidarity, but excessively varied, intermittent and at times inadequate ones. A character that made things easier for the partisans of Order, who were anxious to distort them and present revolutionary violence as violence for its own sake, without any real objective or goal. This was proven during the spectacular reappearance in Europe of the activism of the Japanese Red Army, with the operation against the French embassy in the Hague. This reappearance coincided with the recognition by the UN of the Palestinian Resistance, which seems completely alienated from the diplomatic interests of the Arab ruling classes, whose sole preoccupation, through the recognition of a Palestinian state, is their preservation in power in their respective countries.

Yet from these extremely violent actions -- whether or not they are justifiable in moral or revolutionary terms -- we can learn the lesson that States only understand and respect the dialectic of force.

At the end of 1974, revolutionary activists were still unable to integrate their actions into the framework of struggles against the repressive excesses of domination and collective aspirations for justice and freedom. In spite of this, they were still the only ones to prove their total adherence to revolutionary solidarity and the cause of the revolution.

With this aim in view, anarchist revolutionary activism continued the fight to bring international solidarity to revolutionaries imprisoned outside and inside Spain:

"... At present, whether comrades declare themselves responsible for acts attributed to them or refuse to, they are all imprisoned by Power in the name of certain steps taken by the GARI. If it is not a matter of making a flag out of the GARI group, neither is it a matter of denying, even for a moment, the general direction of its activity and the concrete applications which those who drew their inspiration from it were able to make, and who are presently accused of that (...) It is a matter then, GARI or not, of actively defending all those who have struggled for these reasons, or who are accused of having done so (...) Whether inside or outside Spain, GARI or no GARI, Spanish or not and with varied means, our will and our motives remain the same. If enemies and oppressions are increasing, we know that individuals and autonomous groups are developing as well, and will be able to take part in the struggle for life and freedom, individually or together."
-- (Taken from the pamphlet Abduction in Paris, published by the new autonomous groups close to the ex-GARI)

After the restoration of "democratic legality" in Portugal²⁷ and Greece²⁸, it is logical to suppose that the struggle against Spanish fascism will once again be the principal new politico-moral objective of revolutionary activism in Europe. Not just because solidarity with the victims of a savagely repressive regime requires it²⁹, but also because, against all of the soothsayers and the illusions of those who already find themselves playing the same role in Spain that the Suarez's and Cunhals played in Portugal, the hard-liners' firm decision not to leave office³⁰ fully justifies the intensification of action needed to effectively support all the other forms of opposition to the dictatorship. As a result, it is a matter of creating widespread and serious agitation both inside and outside Spain against Francoism; if not, the national situations of the principal countries that support it and the international politico-economic context will continue to favour the continuity of Spanish fascism, with or without Franco.

¹ Taken from the article by Claude Roy, "L'Interpol Diplomate", published in Le Monde, 27-6-1973.
² The foreign press emphasized the role played by General Diez Alegria, the Chief of Staff, in preventing certain hard-line elements, civilian and military, from "taking advantage of the situation in order to do certain things ..." in the hours following the bombing of Carrero Blanco.
³ The death sentence handed down on January 9 by the Military Court of Barcelona against Puig Antich, and the "administrative measures" against Basques in France caused many protests inside and outside Spain against the Francoist regime. These protest demonstrations lasted until the Supreme Court of Military Justice confirmed the sentence in March and left the final decision in Franco's hands. On January 18, four members of the MIL were arrested (a Spaniard and three Frenchmen); they wanted to seize an Iberia airplane in Geneva, to prevent the execution of the young Catalan anarchist.
⁴ Demonstrations were organized immediately in the principal European capitals, and even in the university campuses of Barcelona and Madrid. At the same time, there occurred various bombings of official Spanish centers outside Spain.
⁵ He was notified of this order one week after the arrests of 14 young Basques accused of belonging to ETA. But in the end, the ecclesiastical authorities and the government agreed on a "discreet move to the countryside".
⁶ Although the sentences asked for by the prosecutor had not been announced, the defence feared the authorities would demand the death penalty for Oriol Solé.
⁷ In the latter half of March, following the announcement of the arrests in Barcelona of 22 anarchists from the autonomous groups, the railways linking France and Spain were sabotaged. The Autonomous Intervention Groups claimed the operation, denouncing at the same time the "democrats and leftists who keep quiet while Pons and Solé risk the death sentence." The fear of seeing the Francoists attempt another act of vengeance increased when a Civil Guard was killed in the streets of Azpeitia on April 3; an action which was claimed by ETA.
⁸ The Revolutionary Brigades, who carried out most of the violent actions against the Cataenist dictatorship, affirmed: "General Spinola is a fascist, but if anyone in the bourgeoisie has a political future, he definitely does. For it, Spinola represents the means of preserving itself in Power, in another form (...)"
⁹ The attack against a Shell refinery, and the hijacking of a ferry in Singapore. Also, the hijacking of a BEA airplane at Schipol airport in Holland.
¹⁰ In mid-February, the MIR (Chile), the Tupamaros (Uruguay), the BLN (Bolivia), and the ERP (Argentina) formed a Junta of Revolutionary Coordination to "internationalize" the struggle and "confront American imperialism throughout the continent".
¹¹ After a series of bombings and arrests of autonomists, the French government decided, in late January, to break up four autonomist movements: EMBATA (French Basque), the FLB and FLBNS --socialist -- (Breton) and the FCCL (Corsican). During the month of March, the IRA drew public attention once again to the situation in Ireland with the bombing of the Old Bailey court in London.
¹² In the latter half of January, in Athens, four bombs exploded under the cars of three American diplomats and one Romanian diplomat. The press linked these actions to the ones of the week before against American installations, to protest against "American collusion with the Greek military regime".
¹³ Indeed, on May 18, a sizable contingent of police and FBI agents attacked a squalid building in the black neighbourhood with tear gas and submachinegun bursts, where five militants of the SLA had hidden. Five bodies were taken from the ruins of the building, which was totally burned. But none of them matched Tania (Patricia), whom the press would "locate" from time to time in various places in America and Europe.
¹⁴ As a matter of fact, a few weeks earlier, with the imprisonment of an important group of fascists implicated in the Rose of the Winds plot (which had a considerable arsenal at its disposal) the fascist plot finally began to be taken seriously by the representatives of democratic legality.
¹⁵ Grouped in a trade-union federation which a trade-unionist sympathetic to the SP, Marcelo Curto, defined as follows: "This organization is purely and simply a by-product of the corporative institutions of the previous regime. The vertical structure and geographical divisions were retained, and a different political strategy merged into this mold."
¹⁶ Four of the eight libertarians were arraigned in the Court of Public Order, charged with illegal association and illegal propaganda: Luis Andrés Edo, David Urbano Bermudez, Luis Burro Molina and Juan Ferran Serrafin.
¹⁷ On the same day, Kissinger arrived in Madrid to meet his Spanish counterpart and sign a "joint declaration confirming the cooperation between the two countries".
¹⁸ In order to prevent new death sentences, the GARI carried out several actions -- shortly before this trial -- to sensitize public opinion, taking advantage of the presence of a Spanish delegation at the "Tour de France" bicycle race.
¹⁹ The next day, at another press conference, the FRAP affirmed that "the constitution of the Junta is part of the manoeuvres of continuity, whose sole purpose is the perpetuation of the oligarchic dictatorship, along with American imperialism". A few days later, in Madrid, spokespersons of the Mesa democratica declared that "although we are in agreement on certain points with the Junta democratica, we do not belong to it."
²⁰ The Italian fascists continued to plot, organizing, in particular, the August 7 bombing of the Italicus train, which killed 9 people.
²¹ Taken from the Express of August 19-25, 1974.
²² In their desire to appear respectful of bourgeois democratic legality, the Western communist parties have even managed to suppress all references to the "dictatorship of the proletariat" from their programs.
²³ The most significant cases were the exchange of ambassadors with the Spanish fascist regime and the regime of the Brazilian gorillas.
²⁴ Although the guerrillas of the ERP and the Montoneros are increasingly harassed by the army and the pistoleros of the AAA (the parallel police), who murder militants and personalities of the left.
²⁵ The IRA continues to carry out numerous and bloody attacks in reprisal against the brutalities committed by the British military, especially after the death of one of the Irish militants who was on hunger strike with the Price sisters, and following the deaths of several prisoners during mutinies and collective escape attempts in the internment camps. At the end of the year, the IRA negociated a cease-fire and obtained the liberation of 25 prisoners.
²⁶ During the most recent gunfights, the police killed two ETA militants and arrested a considerable number of them.
²⁷ Although General Spinola's forced resignation and his replacement by General Costa Gomez ("I have confirmed Portugal's membership in the Atlantic Treaty, all the more because it was part of the program of the first Provisional Government formed by the Armed Forces Movement") did not cause all of the ambiguity surrounding the Armed Forces Movement to disappear.
²⁸ Although the triumph of Caramanlis, with his coalition of conservative right-wingers, in the hurried and tightly-controlled elections of November 17 resembles a "democratic" perspective that is openly authoritarian and against the interests of the Greek working class.
²⁹ Using the (unclaimed) bombing of the Cafe Rolando in Madrid's Puerta del Sol as a pretext, the police made many arrests, including those of many women, among them Alfredo Sastra's wife Genoveva Forrest Farrat, whom they also wanted to implicate in the bombing of Carrero Blanco.
³⁰ The last demonstration of this "obstinacy" was the firing of the Minister of Information, Pio Cabanillas, who appeared to be one of the most "fervent advocates of an 'open-door policy' inside the present government" as well as approval of the legal status of the Law of Associations, in which the "univocal position of associative life" inside the National Movement is stated precisely.