#BenvingudaRepública (Welcome Republic): this is the hashtag being used to organise mobilisations today, Oct 10 in Barcelona, when the Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, will address Catalan Parliament about the results of the independence referendum on Oct 1. Those organising the mobilisations have two aims: to push Puigdemont to actually declare the Catalan Republic and also to defend and protect the session of the Catalan Parliament (the Spanish Constitutional Tribunal already ruled on Friday that a session which was to take place on Monday had to be cancelled).

El proceso independentista catalán se encuentra en un momento crítico. La disyuntiva es avanzar o retroceder. El Tribunal Constitucional ha prohibido la celebración del pleno del Parlament de Catalunya del lunes, que debía ratificar el resultado del Referéndum del 1-O y proclamar la República catalana. Desairando el discurso Real, han surgido iniciativas de diálogo por todas partes, con escasa probabilidad de salir adelante. Por su parte, la burguesía catalana se ha alineado abiertamente con el régimen español, y ha iniciado una guerra mediática de amenazas económicas contra su propio pueblo.

Catalonia’s Independence Referendum on October 1 has opened up a major regime crisis in Spain. Braving brutal police repression, hundreds of thousands occupied and defended polling stations so that 2.2 million people could vote on the day. There were images of police officers using hammers to break through the doors of polling stations and then snatching polling boxes from the hands of the people, of police officers using batons against unarmed civilians, including elderly ladies, of police officers throwing people downstairs.

Ayer 3 de octubre, Catalunya vivió una protesta gigantesca contra la represión del Estado, en un clima insurreccional en algunas partes de la comunidad. El gobierno del PP quemó en apenas 15 días todo su arsenal represivo en su intento vano de abortar el Referéndum sobre la independencia del 1-O, y lo hizo arrojando gasolina sobre el fuego en un pastizal seco, provocando un incendio de dimensiones colosales. La acción directa de las masas en la calle ha maniatado todo intento del Estado de aplastar el movimiento por la autodeterminación. Desairado por todo un pueblo, y suspendido en el aire sin apoyos parlamentarios sólidos, el Rey ha acudido en ayuda del gobierno del PP y de

The Catalan masses are gearing up for a massive strike movement today, as key unions commit to a nationwide ‘stoppage’ after facing brutal repression by the Spanish state during the referendum on Sunday. The referendum movement is developing a radical, working-class character under pressure from below, putting a Catalan Republic on the agenda. This is opening up a crisis with the potential to topple the Spanish regime.

Brutal police repression failed to stop the Catalan independence referendum faced with the determination of hundreds of thousands to overcome all obstacles to participate. What we saw yesterday in Catalonia was on the one hand the real ugly face of the Spanish regime created during the so-called “Transition” at the end of the Franco regime, and on the other the mass mobilisation and self-organisation of the Catalan people to exercise their right of self-determination.

The moment that hundreds of uniformed Barcelona firefighters joined the 90,000 -strong student demonstration in Barcelona is an indication of the level of class conflict developing in Catalonia. These scenes are reminiscent of other periods in history, such as May 1968 when the workers and students came together.

Yesterday, (Wednesday, 27 September) students in Catalonia were out on strike and on the streets in many towns and cities. High school students blocked dozens of roads and highways. Most polling centres for Sunday are schools, so the students are called on to play a decisive role in the ongoing events in the build up to the referendum on Sunday.

This morning (Sunday, 24th September), there were mass rallies all over Catalonia. The one in Barcelona was attended by thousands of people. This is significant, because this weekend is the Mercè festivity, which is a very important holiday and one would not expect big demonstrations.

We publish here a statement of the International Marxist Tendency on the crisis in Spain. The Catalan independence referendum challenges Spanish 1978 regime. It has been met with heavy state repression on the part of the Spanish state. The IMT supports the Catalan people's right to self-determination. For a Catalan Socialist Republic as a spark for the Iberian revolution!

Yesterday morning  (Friday, 22nd September) thousands of students from the University of Barcelona, whose staff and students are staging an indefinite general strike, occupied the institution's historic building in the city centre in opposition to repression and in defence of the referendum.

The situation in Catalonia keeps accelerating. This morning [yesterday, Thursday, September 21st], students and staff at the universities walked out and staged a rally attended by 5,000, and at many schools classes have been cancelled. University staff and student unions have declared for an indefinite general strike.

The decision of the Catalan Parliament to convene an independence referendum on October 1st has been received with repressive measures by the Spanish state. These measures are increasing in intensity as the days go by, and reveal the profoundly undemocratic nature of the 1978 Constitution which was imposed in an agreement between the old Franco regime and the leaders of the workers’ parties in order to bring to an end the revolutionary crisis engulfing the country.

11 September, the national holiday of Catalonia, saw a round of mass protests and rallies for the right to self-determination of Catalonia and against the banning of the referendum by the central government. In the morning, there were several gatherings by various political parties. In the afternoon, there was a huge pro-independence demonstration, which according to the police, was attended by one million people. In the evening, a mass rally was held by the radical left, pro-independence Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP), under the slogan of “self-determination: independence, socialism, feminism”.

Spain never saw a genuine bourgeois revolution, and today important democratic tasks are still pending: the abolition of the monarchy, the separation between church and state, the cleansing of the state apparatus of Francoist residues… But undoubtedly the most pressing issue is the national question.