The legalization of the Communist Party of Spain on Holy Saturday 1977 is considered to be one of the most significant milestones of the transition. On the eve of the constituent elections that June, opening the door for the communists to participate in the first free elections held in Spain since the Republic was a risky bet for the Government of Adolfo Suárez. However, democratic normality could only come in this way, as Santiago Carrillo, general secretary of the formation, pointed out in the discreet meeting in which this historic decision was matured.
Suárez obtained from Carrillo the firm commitment that the PCE would not only accept the democratic rules, but would even renounce the republican flag that it had continued to fly at all its public events along with the red flag with the hammer and sickle on its almost four decades of exile. What’s more, he would display the red flag in all his actions in pursuit of a new era of reconciliation among the Spanish people.
But what did the street think, oblivious to these negotiations? Despite the sense of State demonstrated by the general secretary and, with him, the entire Central Committee of the party, how would the Spanish accept the normalization of the Communist Party after its outstanding role in the defense of the Republic during the Civil War and after decades of demonization by the Franco regime? At a time, furthermore, marked by the Cold War and the influence of the Soviet Union on the formations grouped in the Communist International.
To evaluate it, the Institute of Public Opinion, the predecessor of the current Center for Sociological Research, carried out a demographic study in January of that year on a universe of 1,130 people over 21 years of age from 102 municipalities throughout Spain, including Madrid and Barcelona, ??keeping the proportionality of interviews to the population of each of them.
That legalization was controversial was clear in light of the data shown in the study, since if a slim majority of 29% of those surveyed responded that, indeed, PCE should be legalized, a not insignificant 25% were clear that it should not. take this measure. Conciliation, which came through the induced response “yes, with conditions” – without specifying which ones – was in the minority (11%). The rest (35%) preferred not to get involved, pointing to the appellant’s “doesn’t know” and “doesn’t answer.”
Due to the sectors defined in the study, the generational and class differences – using the lexicon of the moment – ??in this positioning were extremely striking. On the one hand, those who were strongly in favor of legalization were the students (78%) and, in the distance, those who were grouped in the “junior and service personnel” section (49%). On the other hand, the most reluctant were the “entrepreneurs of medium industry, commerce and business” (41%), followed by the “owners of small businesses and independent workers” (32%).
In this same section, it was still significant that retirees and pensioners were mostly against legalization (27%), but above all that both they and the women grouped in the “their jobs” section were the only two groups in which “does not know” and “does not answer” were the majority: 47% and 43%, respectively.
Territorially, those who most clearly positioned themselves in favor of the legalization of the Communist Party were, paradoxically, Galicians and Basques (both with 46%). The most opposed were those surveyed from Eastern Andalusia (Málaga, Jaén, Granada and Almería), also 46%, followed by those from Aragon (39%). In any case, what there was a broad consensus on was that, if there was legalization, it should occur before the elections. This was indicated by 75%, which reached 96% in the case of students
Whether it was legalized or not, and although the majority of those surveyed preferred not to speak out or claimed ignorance, a significant 34% considered that the PCE was not a democratic party, compared to a minority 15% who did believe that it entered into the game of democracy that Spain was about to play. Those who most supported this last position were, once again, the Galicians (29%). On the contrary, 55% of those surveyed from Old Castilla (Santander, Burgos, Logroño, Soria, Segovia, Ávila, Valladolid and Palencia) stated that it was a non-democratic formation.
Likewise, when asked about the degree of confidence that the Communist Party itself inspired when it came to respecting the rules of the democratic game, although the majority chose not to take a position, of those who did, the majority (28%) said that They had no confidence and many others (17%) had “little confidence.” Only 5% fully trusted that the PCE would abide by the rules, while 12% showed “some confidence.” Once again, the most distrustful were in Old Castile.
Regarding the dangers of the “internationalism” of this formation – which in other words referred to the risk of it being directed or following the instructions of the Soviet Union – although again the majority chose not to take a position, those who did Respondents believed in their independence and that their actions were different in each country (31%), although a significant percentage (19%) did consider that it was a monolithic party.
What the respondents did not seem to have doubts about and did respond mostly to was their proximity to the postulates of the Communist Party, so that 47% indicated that they were far or very far from what it advocated and only 8% felt close or very far. near. The furthest away were those who responded from the designated municipalities of Eastern Andalusia (57%); the closest, the canaries (26%).
In this climate of uncertainty and suspicion, the Ministry of the Interior registered the Communist Party of Spain in the Official Registry of Political Associations on April 9, two months before the momentous electoral event. After the holidays, Santiago Carrillo, supported by the entire Central Committee, appeared announcing that the constitutional flag would from then on be that of the party, which was officially renouncing the republican tricolor. Likewise, the Spanish communists abided by the parliamentary Monarchy as a regime of consensus and unity.
In coalition with the PSUC – legalized on May 3 – and led by Carrillo himself, the PCE obtained 20 seats and 9.2% of the votes in the June 1977 elections, behind the UCD and the PSOE. . Candidate for Oviedo, Dolores Ibárruri returned to Congress four decades later. Figures such as Rafael Alberti, Marcelino Camacho, Jordi Solé Tura and Ramón Tamames were also among the communist deputies.
The Communist Party took on a fundamental role in the drafting of the Constitution and in the Moncloa Pacts, although its positions were discussed internally both within the PSUC and from the sector headed by the also deputy Ignacio Gallego, which ended up triggering various splits that weakened it when Spanish society had already assumed its political role normally.
