International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

Remembering the Carnation revolution

Brais Fernandez, Dave Kellaway — 2024-04-24T06:29:34Z

This week sees the 50th anniversary of the Portuguese “Carnation” Revolution that erupted in 1974 and was finally tamed in 1976 with the election of a government led by Soares from the Socialist Party(SP). The moderate SP consolidated many reforms won in the previous two years but also restored the capitalist order.

- IV591 - April 2024 / Portugal, Historical events and figures

From impasse to the road to reaction: an urgent assessment of the political scenario

Brais Fernandez — 2023-06-01T10:08:36Z

“Those of us who are committed to another path, based on class conflict, even though today it is a minority one, must prepare ourselves for the challenges that come, seeking a coming together with all the emancipatory movements and putting at its centre a strategy of accumulating forces to overthrow this political regime.”

- IV581 - June 2023 / Spanish state

Brief strategic notes on the defence of public health in Madrid

Ánxel Testas, Brais Fernandez — 2023-03-09T12:21:17Z

“The objective should not be the consultation itself, but to turn it into a moment of social organisation, inside and outside health centres and hospitals, involving all sectors of the working class.”

- IV578 - March 2023 / Spanish state, Public services

Political assessment of the failed repeal of labour law

Brais Fernandez — 2022-01-03T08:45:19Z

“Modernization is nothing more and nothing less than a reorganization of the ruling class in its struggle against the working and subordinate classes.”

- IV564 - January 2022 / Spanish state, Trade unions/workplace organizing

Madrid: Rise of the Right, Defeat of the Left

Brais Fernandez — 2021-05-10T19:24:12Z

“In my opinion, the possibility of moving forward as a whole will depend on the resurgence of a social and political force outside the official left and progressivism. Or, at least, not retreating too far.”

- IV556 - May 2021 / Spanish state

Breaking with bad politics

Brais Fernandez — 2019-02-14T07:40:43Z

The implosion of Podemos in the Community and the City of Madrid has been a surprise in terms of the time chosen, but for any minimally informed observer it was implicit in the situation. Currently the most naive or malicious opponents are pretending to be shocked by the shameful crisis of the Madrid left, but if we do a quick review of some political events of recent years, we will see that not everything that happened is an “aberration” or a “disgrace”, but the logical and inevitable consequence of a whole trajectory. Neither is it a psychodrama in which two friends are fighting, or just a bureaucratic dispute that is emaciated by power, though obviously it is also that. It is the end of a cycle for the transformational politics of this country.

- IV529 - February 2019 / Spanish state

Vox: the new face of the far right in the Spanish State

Brais Fernandez — 2018-11-26T10:34:46Z

Until recently, Spain was uniquely free of neofascism. Not anymore.

- IV526 - November 2018 / Spanish state, Far Right

Why the conservatives fell in the Spanish state

Brais Fernandez — 2018-06-06T13:52:04Z

Mariano Rajoy, the conservative president of the Spanish state, was forced out June 1 after the parliament voted for a motion of censure (similar to a vote of no confidence) put forward by the biggest opposition party, the center-left Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), and supported by the left-wing Unidos Podemos and the nationalist parties Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV) and Partido Demócrata Europeo Catalán (PdeCat). PSOE leader Pedro Sánchez became the new president.

Rajoy, the leader of the conservative Popular Party (PP), was brought down after the PP was implicated in a corruption scandal for which several members were sentenced to prison in May. But the wider backdrop to Rajoy's downfall involves deepening social conflicts in the Spanish state, including the independence referendum in Catalonia late last year, which was violently repressed by the PP-led central government. The self-organization and mobilization of the Catalan people was squelched when the Spanish state imposed Article 155 of the Constitution, annulling the referendum results in favor of independence, and punished participants in the process, including elected Catalan political leaders.

Brais Fernández, an activist in the revolutionary socialist organization Anticapitalistas in Madrid and member of the editorial board of Viento Sur magazine, talked to Eva MarÃa about what led to the downfall of the conservative government and about perspectives for the Spanish left moving forward.

- IV521 - June 2018 / Spanish state

Anticapitalistas hold second congress

Brais Fernandez, Juan Tortosa — 2018-01-07T09:45:10Z

Anticapitalistas (the section of the Fourth International in the Spanish state) held its second congress in Madrid (December 7-9, 2017). To understand the context and the challenges, Juan Tortosa met Brais Fernández, a member of the group's leadership.

- IV516 - January 2018 / Spanish state, New parties of the left, National question, Catalonia

Podemos Under Pressure

Brais Fernandez, Eoghan Gilmartin, Jorge Moruno — 2017-12-21T12:39:46Z

With the Catalan standoff emboldening the Spanish right, can Podemos revive its populist alternative to the status quo?

- IV515 - December 2017 / Spanish state, New parties of the left, National question, Catalonia