Enver Hoxha on the Transition in Spain and the PCE

After the death of Franco, King Juan Carlos came to power in Spain. He is the representative of the Spanish big bourgeoisie, which, seeing that during its long rule the fascist regime had plunged the country into a grave crisis, came to the conclusion that Spain could no longer be governed as in Franco’s time. Therefore certain changes had to be made in the form of government and Franco’s discredited Falange could no longer be kept in power. After a series of changes of heads of government, the people most trusted by the new king, the continuers of the reformed Francoism, took power.

Demonstrations and strikes broke out in Spain as never before. Through them the people demanded changes, naturally, not this “change” that took place, but deep-going and radical changes. The strikes, demonstrations and clashes there did not cease and are still going on. The masses are demanding freedoms and rights, and the different nationalities autonomy. In this situation, in order to mislead the masses in revolt, the government of Juan Carlos also legalized the revisionist party of Ibarruri-Carrillo. The heads of this party have become obedient flunkies of the Spanish monarchic regime, have turned into scabs to hold back the great revolutionary drive which has built up in the existing situation and, in conjunction with the bourgeoisie, to suppress all the elements with revolutionary ideas from the Spanish War and admirers of the Republic.

— Enver Hoxha, “Imperialism and the Revolution”