Spain's General Strike Threat Amid Escalating Violence

Mikel Buesa warns in La Razón that the path toward a general strike in Spain is increasingly marked by violence that currently eludes Pedro Sánchez’s government. The article links this scenario to the Marxist-Leninist tradition of viewing general strikes as a means to seize political power.

Economics professor **Mikel Buesa** writes in **La Razón** that the process leading to a general strike in Spain is becoming enveloped in violence that, for now, escapes the control of Prime Minister **Pedro Sánchez**. His central thesis suggests the Executive has allowed certain fringe groups to act, even encouraging them by restraining police repressive actions, betting on electoral benefits. Buesa qualifies this interpretation as a mere hypothesis that may not materialize.

## The General Strike as a Revolutionary Tool

Buesa begins by recalling that, within the Marxist-Leninist imaginary, the general strike is a fundamental aspect of class struggle and thus the engine of history. According to this tradition, the general strike allows workers to move beyond economic demands toward seizing political power. It forms the basic core of the revolutionary process that, if successful, leads to the emancipation of the oppressed under a socialist regime from which a classless society will emerge.

The article reviews the October 1917 revolution in Russia as an example communists view as proof of their aspirations' historical viability. Buesa nuances this reading: the process that handed power to the **Petrograd Soviet**, skillfully usurped by the Bolshevik party, depended on numerous contingent elements that could have thwarted **Vladimir Ilyich Lenin**’s totalitarian ambitions. Failure was, in almost all cases—from **Rosa Luxemburg**’s Spartacists onward—the result of the supposed revolutionary science inspired by Marx and Lenin used to emulate the events leading to the Soviet Union.

## From the Transition to Current Fringe Groups

The text connects this background to present-day Spain. According to Buesa, amid the confusion created by the Maricarmen affair, some Bolshevik fringe groups, aided by unions **UGT** and **CCOO**, long to resume the experience of the two communist parties—the Marxist-Leninist and the reconstituted one—that, on the eve of the Transition, with their respective armed groups, the **FRAP** and the **GRAPO**, launched into revolutionary war.

The claim about the role of unions is the author's thesis, not an established fact. Buesa argues that Sánchez, believing it will benefit him electorally, has let these groups act and even encouraged them by slowing police repression. He adds that the President likely thinks he has everything under control, though this remains a mere hypothesis that may not hold true.

## Violence Getting Out of Hand

The article's conclusion gives the piece its title. Buesa states that the process leading to the general strike is being wrapped in violence—in **Madrid**, **A Coruña**, **Barcelona**, and **Bilbao**—that, for now, slips through Sánchez’s fingers. He does not quantify this violence or provide figures on incidents, arrests, or damages. The warning remains in the realm of political diagnosis.

It is important to separate analysis from forecast. Whether a general strike is called, whether such a call is legal or illegal, and whether it results in violent episodes are distinct issues, none resolved in the text. The legal classification of a general strike depends on the specific call and compliance with legal requirements, not on labels applied before it exists. Any reading of this debate in terms of investment or political risk should be taken with caution and cross-checked with official legal and statistical sources.