Spanish State – Lessons from Carabanchel: Defend the houses with punches and kicks!

We hereby share an unofficial translation of an article published by Servir al Pueblo. The described events developed in Carabanchel, a southern workers’ neighborhood of Madrid.

Yesterday was reported that, in Carabanchel, residents who are squatters, took courage to expel the fascist gangs from Desokupa [Translator’s note: company of fascist paramilitary armed thugs used by real estate companies and banks to expel residents from their homes and to harass the housing movement] with belts and household tools. Both the company (Desokupa) and the real estate company suffered a deep humiliation.

The news brings joy to workers fed up with seeing how this bunch of thugs carry out the dirty work of police work. Companies like Desokupa are shock troops of financial capital, and are part of the militarization plan of the Spanish State. It is not strange to see their collusion with the police because, in fact, their role is to work as auxiliary forces of the police.

The defensive tactics of the neighbors represent how the proletariat instinctively resorts to the principles of guerrilla warfare. They numerically outnumber the enemy and throw punches and kicks against the thugs who are stronger and better armed, but they are few, and the proletariat is much more numerous. It is not that it is a guerrilla, of course, but the tactics are representative of this form of struggling. Struggle when you have a numerical advantage, and demonstrating that what matters is not weapons, but people.

Now that the neighbors have expelled the invaders, the bourgeoisie cannot help but feel some fear and defame by saying that: “they are gang members” [Translator’s note: the squatters] and “they squat luxury apartments”, placing special emphasis on the nationality of the neighbors. Throw these “journalists” into the middle of Carabanchel without resources or housing! We will see if they care if the empty houses are more or less luxurious. In fact, these luxury houses are empty for financial speculation.

Unlike hustlers and opportunists of all kinds, the masses do not reject violence. There are thousands of struggles that prove it, and this struggle also confirms it. Faced with these situations, revolutionaries must ask themselves which path to follow. The path of increasing combativeness and upholding the need for revolutionary violence, becoming increasingly linked to “the deepest and broadestin imperialist society as Lenin would say, or the path of the peaceful accumulation of forces and linking to the worker aristocracy, increasingly further from the true heart of the masses. Some lessons should be drawn from the expulsion of Desokupa from Carabanchel.

We revolutionaries struggle with reason, advantage and limitation. We establish what victory we can obtain, and what cost we are willing to assume. We can stop an eviction temporarily, but the State will send reinforcements and will end up executing it. Only the New Power can make the temporary permanent. Again, revolutionaries must learn lessons. If they want to bring this position to the masses, the revolutionaries will have no other way than to live with the masses, work with the masses, and struggle with the masses.

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