The Communist Party of the Workers of Spain (PCTE) and the Collectives of Young Communists (CJC) have joined the nationwide housing protests sparked by the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen, forcibly removed on September 23 from the Madrid home where she had lived for more than 70 years. Her eviction triggered protests across Spain and further mobilizations over the increasingly acute housing question.
For the communists, Maricarmen’s eviction is not an isolated tragedy, but an expression of the deeper class conflict over housing. PCTE and CJC militants have participated in the mobilizations, while the party has welcomed the growing protests and called for working people to strengthen their organization in workplaces and neighbourhoods.
In a statement issued on September 29, the PCTE argued that popular pressure in the streets had forced Spain’s coalition government to approve two new housing decrees. While describing measures such as extending rental contracts, temporarily restricting purchases by speculative funds and suspending certain evictions as “small but necessary steps,” the party stressed that they remain temporary and incapable of providing a structural solution.
At the heart of the problem, the PCTE stressed, is “the commodity character of housing.” As long as housing remains subordinated to capitalist property and profit, the party argues, the struggle cannot be reduced to regulating the real-estate market. It must be connected with wages, workplaces and working-class organization in the neighbourhoods, building an independent workers’ opposition to capital.
From In Defense of Communism via This RSS Feed.