The red flags appear again in the streets. They have been seen in recent weeks in Madrid, in the mobilizations for housing at Puerta del Sol or in the student protests. Hundreds of kilometers away, in the Navarrese town of Elizondo, thousands of young people exhibited them a few days ago in a massive meeting organized by EHKS, the acronym of the Socialist Council of Euskal Herria.
The concentrations in Madrid and the meeting held in the Baztan Valley of Navarra are expressions of the same phenomenon: the emergence of a Marxist-inspired movement that began to take shape in the Basque Country in 2018. This current has achieved a remarkable capacity for mobilization in Euskadi and Navarra and, although it is a minority, its emergence invites us to wonder about the motivations that lead thousands of young people to seek answers in old utopias.
Ludger Mees is a professor of Contemporary History at the University of the Basque Country and has witnessed, in his own faculty, the emergence of the self-proclaimed Socialist Movement (MS). "This phenomenon is born from a global context: there is a disenchantment among young people, who see how their aspirations occupy a marginal place. Western societies have become societies of old people and for old people. Politics is made, to a large extent, based on their needs, and youth are displaced."
Mees also appreciates "a certain failure of traditional parties" when it comes to constructing "a story that can excite young people and explain to them the reasons for some policies": "Thirdly, young people look for ways of emotional connection and construction of identity in a society in which the individual is blurred. It seems that we are permanently in communication, but the reality is that young people are very alone. They look for affiliation."
The Socialist Youth Coordinator (CJS), which has become a protagonist in Madrid in recent weeks, is part of a movement that has been very visible in the streets of the Basque Country for years. The origin dates back eight years. A group of young people linked to the union Ikasle Abertzaleak (Abertzale Students) broke with the official line of the sovereignist left and embarked on their own path around GKS (Basque acronym for Socialist Youth Coordinator).
In a few years they put together their own discourse and went from constituting a split of the Abertzale left, initially close to its postulates, to forming a movement with a differentiated political identity, ideologically and strategically redefined. A left with a Marxist character and focused on material demands that came to confuse EH Bildu. In December 2023, they presented the EHKS match in Eibar.
In parallel, this movement has sought to expand. First, in Catalonia, through Horitzó Socialista. Later, in Galicia, with Creba Socialista. And finally, in Spain as a whole, through the CJS and attracting militants from the PCE youth.
Eneko Ramón, a 24-year-old political scientist and communications consultant, has experienced the rise of this movement among the most politicized sectors of youth in the Basque Country. "The driving force of the movement is youth disenchantment. Many young people have found in Marxism the explanation for the problems that affect them: housing, low salaries... Faced with a series of unfulfilled promises, they have found answers. The movement has been skillful in capturing this discontent and creating an aesthetic and identity appeal. They work a lot on communication: messages, design, videos on the networks and even aesthetics."
On an ideological level, Eneko Ramón sees a “very elastic” ideology, focused on criticizing capitalism. Ludger Mees goes one step further: "It is a very diffuse and sometimes contradictory ideology. We do not know what its model is. It is a common trait to other movements in Europe. Being in favor forces you to define yourself; being against does not. I also appreciate feedback on their ideas on networks and little contrast with others. There is an idealization of a past that in many cases they are unaware of and the promise of a golden future."
At the meeting held in Elizondo, EHKS called to “build a European Communist Party.” "That aspiration is in their messages, but in the short term I do not see them in the conventional party struggle. The parties are institutionalized and, in fact, the emergence of this movement comes from disenchantment with formations that they see as too institutionalized," explains Eneko Ramón.
At the moment, this movement appears more focused on neighborhood struggles, against evictions or precariousness. Also in the construction of a renewed identity that draws on old utopias. Although its emergence says much more about the uncertainties of the present.
