Opening Speech of the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain

Dear comrades,

First of all, on behalf of the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain (PCTE), I would like to thank all the Parties present for their attendance. I would also like to take a moment to remember our comrade Tibor Zenker, President of the Labour Party of Austria, whose absence will undoubtedly be felt in the activities of the European Communist Action. We deeply regret his passing and extend our most sincere condolences to the Austrian comrades.

I would like to begin this teleconference and our contribution by emphasizing that, for the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain, the topic we are addressing today is of primary strategic importance. We consider the exchange of experiences among our Parties to be a fundamental tool for the development of our political practice. The accumulated experience of the international communist movement is a necessary condition for correcting mistakes, raising the level of our intervention, and advancing the development of revolutionary positions in our respective countries. For this reason, today’s contribution from our Party aims to present to our comrades the difficulties we face in developing Party organization in workplaces.

In Spain, as in other European countries, the influence of Eurocommunism marked a historical period whose consequences remain present. Eurocommunism entailed, among other aspects, a progressive detachment of the Party from the fundamental spaces of working-class life. In particular, the abandonment of the efforts to build and sustain independent organization in workplaces and working-class neighbourhoods effectively led to the disappearance of a communist presence in the places where the contradictions of capitalism are most directly expressed. Our assessment, shared with the other Parties of the European Communist Action, is clear: when the Party ceases to be present where the class is, it ceases to act as the organized vanguard of the class and instead becomes a structure of a predominantly institutional character, detached from everyday struggle.

We start from the premise that the centrality of workplaces is unquestionable. It is within the process of production that the exploitative relationship between capital and labour is materialized, and it is there where the working class can develop its consciousness through the collective experience of struggle. Therefore, rebuilding communist organization in factories, logistics centres, offices, and other productive spaces is not, for us, a tactical matter but the core of a consistent revolutionary strategy. The existence of Party base organizations and structures in these areas enables not only intervention in the defence of the class’s immediate conditions, but
also the elevation of those conflicts toward a broader political understanding aimed at overcoming the capitalist system.

Similarly, working-class neighbourhoods constitute decisive spaces for the organization of the working class. It is there that relations of solidarity, forms of collective life, and the direct consequences of exploitation—housing problems, access to services, and precarious living conditions—are developed. The loss of organized communist presence in these areas has facilitated the advance of individualistic, clientelist, or even reactionary dynamics. For this reason, rebuilding organization in working-class neighbourhoods cannot be understood as a task separate from work in workplaces, but rather as a complementary and necessary dimension of the same strategy.

Based on this analysis, our Party has developed the orientation we call the “working-class turn.” By this term we refer to a conscious and systematic reorientation of our forces toward prioritizing intervention in the productive sphere, accompanied by the rebuilding of organization in the residential spaces of the working class, overcoming the harmful dynamics of Eurocommunism.

The working-class turn is a line of work aimed at restoring the organic connection between the Party and the class. In this sense, we are not speaking of intervening in “society in general,” but of concentrating efforts on those sectors and territories where the working class has a decisive weight and where the relationship between workplace and neighbourhood is most direct.

Moreover, the working-class turn seeks to overcome another tendency that has long been present in Spain and within our Party: the conception of Party work as a passive presence in workers’ struggles. Our conviction is that it is not enough to simply “be present” in the struggles of the class; it is necessary to build an independent organization capable of giving those struggles continuity, direction, and political perspective. Only through stable communist structures is it possible to develop class consciousness, articulate the various partial struggles, and link immediate demands to a socialist-communist horizon.

However, the development of this orientation is not without difficulties. Our Party faces both objective and subjective conditions that shape its practical implementation. First, we must consider the current configuration of capitalist production in Spain. The productive structure is characterized by high levels of precariousness, labour turnover, subcontracting, and workforce fragmentation. Added to this are phenomena such as remote work and the geographical dispersion of production centres. These conditions greatly hinder the creation of stable militant nuclei in workplaces and require more complex and sustained forms of intervention over time. Where large workplaces do exist, we face the presence of strong trade union organizations that pose different challenges.

Second, we start from an accumulated weakness spanning decades. The rebuilding of communist organization in the spaces of life and work of the class is not immediate. It requires trained cadres, practical experience, and an organizational capacity that must be developed progressively. We are therefore confronted with the need to recover ground lost over several decades, which demands sustained and planned effort.

Another particularly complex area is the relationship with the trade union movement. In Spain, intervention in workplaces is heavily mediated by large trade union organizations with consolidated structures and their own internal dynamics. For our Party, the question is not whether to intervene in the trade union sphere, but how to do so. It is necessary to find a balance that allows participation in concrete struggles without diluting our political profile, avoiding both isolation and subordination to logics alien to a revolutionary strategy.

These difficulties are compounded by a political and ideological challenge. Formulating the centrality of the working class is relatively easy; what is truly complex is maintaining that orientation in everyday practice. Pressures from the political context—whether institutional, media-driven, or linked to other social dynamics—can lead to a dispersion of efforts or confusion of priorities. Maintaining a consistent line of intervention in workplaces and working-class neighbourhoods therefore requires a high level of organizational discipline and strategic clarity.

In this context, our Party believes that immediate tasks must focus, first and foremost, on the concentration of forces. In the face of dispersion, it is necessary to prioritize certain sectors of production where conditions are more favourable for implantation—whether due to workforce size, relative stability, or the level of existing conflict. This concentration allows us to accumulate experience, consolidate militant nuclei, and generate practical examples of effective intervention.

Taking these elements into account, our Third Congress approved that the subsectors in which the PCTE will focus its organizational efforts in the coming years are as follows: the automotive industry, the chemical industry, the food industry and distribution chains, rail and air transport, large logistics platforms, healthcare, education and social services, ICT, and defense.

At the same time, it is essential to strengthen cadre training. Political will, while necessary, is not sufficient. Our militants must be prepared to intervene in workers’ struggles with a concrete understanding of conditions and trade union dynamics. They must be capable of distinguishing between the tasks of the Party and those of the trade union sphere, as well as assessing at each moment how trade union intervention can contribute to Party development—something that is not without its difficulties.

Closely linked to this is the need for a clear tactic toward the trade union movement. This implies establishing criteria regarding participation in existing structures, forms of intervention within them, and the limits of such participation. Without a defined orientation, each conflict risks being addressed in an improvised manner, hindering the accumulation of experience and the construction of a consistent line of work. Since 2020, our Party has had materials approved at the Third Conference on the Workers’ and Trade Union Movement, which guide our work in this regard and established two organizational mechanisms: sector commissions, to plan organized Party presence in priority sectors, and “red fractions,” to organize communist work within different trade union organizations.

Finally, it is essential to strengthen the connection between workplace activity and intervention in working-class neighbourhoods. Communist organization in workplaces must be supported by networks of socialization, solidarity, and collective life developed in the residential spaces of the working class. This translates into concrete tasks: organized territorial presence, work around living conditions, the articulation of support networks, and the linking of these struggles with those taking place in the productive sphere.

In conclusion, given the existing conditions, the “working-class turn” is a strategic necessity whose development requires time, effort, and clear orientation. However, it is an indispensable condition for the Party to recover its character as the organized vanguard of the working class and to effectively contribute to the struggle for socialism- communism.