The autonomous movement was fertilized in the 1960s, from a clash between capital and labor, and stimulated by Franco's development plans. He discovered his first nests in the conflicts of the major factories and, together with these protests, in the massive urban polygons in order to welcome migration. However, exploitation, accumulation, poor conditions or precariousness allowed new experiences of joint organization. Mainly initiatives based on workers' assemblies (in the sense that they were free from political and trade union organisations, so-called self-employed). First of all, they showed their teeth to the bureaucratic forms of representing the working class and expressed their willingness to organize themselves collectively.

Gradually, the movement crossed the factories and spread to the social spheres outside the labor world: assemblies of neighborhoods, young people, women, unemployed, parents or retirees were created, many spaces of struggle. The ceremony took place in the first two years of Franco's death. Food debates were conducted, critical thoughts were structured against the moral and ethical models established by power, based on respect and solidarity. Today ' s benefits, whether labour or social, are largely the result of these practices, the merits of which have often been acquired by politicians and trade unions.

The need arose to merge a large number of social groups, to organize struggles for counties and to coordinate counties, always under the premise of the autonomy of parties and unions. Thus emerged the Autó Coordinators
nomas.Una after the end of the Franco dictatorship, and on the road to transition, the 1977 elections became an inevitable endless debate in those joint assemblies. It seemed to many that the art of perpetuating the ruling class was nothing more than to put aside the models of assemblies and the rejection of the workers’ revolt against capitalism. They called for direct and participatory democracy. Even when the revolutionary Basque strategy presented the KAS alternative, it was rejected and treated as part of bourgeois democracy, especially because it was proposed as a political vanguard and proposed the progressive sovereignty and negotiated by stages of Euskal Herria. And they do not accept any vanguard or any exchange or commitment to power.

The self-employed criticized every authority, especially the Marxist-Leninist tendencies – at that time there was an immense festival of acronyms around these currents – which they considered nullifying the individual in the name of leadership. Troskism, Leninism, Maoism, socialism, anarchism… all got into the same bag, because they believed they were structures of orthodox power. They did not want to be locked up in any ideology, except in the assemblies and in daily freedom. The intention, however, focused on the autonomous movement, anarchism and communism of the commission. They condemned democracy by parties and trade unions and, in that regard, they were nothing but the way to delegate the elections. Teaching structures (school, morality, media) are tools for the decomposition of the human being. They were defined as the only internationalist way to achieve class independence that declared direct democracy, since they did not see any meaning to the limits of state. However, the need to renounce the concept of State was a debate that never ended, because the people believed at the same time in the right to decide their destiny.

In order to put theory into practice, journals were published and experiences such as services were facilitated. The police had reprimanded them all.

The reform after the 1977 elections represented a setback in the “revolutionary process” from the standpoint of class autonomy, as the legalization of parties and unions slowed down the assemblies. Those who wanted to go beyond ideological commitment raised the issue of armed struggle, and that same year the Coordinator of Armed Groups was established. The groups were made up of members from different political backgrounds, including the sector called LAIA – in 1974 ETA militants left the organization and founded the classic Leninist party LAIA. Later, the Revolutionary Abertzal Workers Party was split into two. The LAIA/Bai stream opted for integration with the KAS and the LAIA current did not accept it. They also approached from the OKA and from the Special Commands – armed branch of ETApm. The political leadership was accused of tacitly negotiating with the provisional Spanish government when the organization was dissolved. The latter brought the armed experience to the new organization.

The initial actions of the Autonomous Commands were simple, depending on the capacity of each group and which did not seek the media protagonism properly. Because, at least in theory, the armed struggle had to be done from the bottom up. Fleeing from centralism, they gave representative names to groups, often associated with a given date, person or event. For example, the March 3 Autonomous Command against Capitalism.

The first claim occurred in January 1978, after the installation of an artifact in the former Paisa factory of Rentería, due to the recalification of the site and the plan for the construction of the houses. The people ' s assembly had already revolted against the overcrowding of the polygons and the precarious living conditions. From then on, the communiqués began to produce a chorus: “Armed struggle is a popular struggle.”

Two main trends, many opinions

Almost all the points of his creed were respect for collective will and freedom of action. Groups were not ideologically structured or defined in similar parameters. They were divided into two main tendencies: those that departed from the assemblies and those that came from the Special Commands or Marxist approaches. In the 1980s, the struggles in the factories gradually lost prominence and the demands on social problems became important: antimilitarisms, ecology, urbanism… At this stage new members, young people in general, who did not live politically in the years of the transition were incorporated. Thus, ideological diversification increased a little more.

But this diversity had become a two-edged sword. The Coordinator did not serve to harmonize the differences between the two approaches, let alone to clarify the disputes that the armed struggle itself produced from the outset. The discussion had never ended.

When the repression hit hard, i.e. the GAL, the funds earmarked for reserved funds, the collaboration between the two states and the implementation of all the destruction machinery, they were the promoters of the so-called fight against terrorism: police, barracks, confessions, politicians, everything that would protect the action against the liberation of Euskal Herria. This led them to change the organization and logistics, to more military dynamics, to the concept of elitist armed structure so strongly rejected and, ultimately, to depart from its first principles. The groups set aside the names that characterized them and took the same acronyms to reclaim all the actions. Autonomous Commands would be from now on. The decision was not a consequence of what had already been discussed, the lack of internal analysis did not give them the opportunity to assess where they were going. They were caught in the whirlwind of violence.

Some self-employed people looked favourably at the parties and unions that are part of the Basque National Liberation Movement (MLNV), because they found the approach of the KAS and the self-organization or assemblies compatible. To many others, the new strategy caused a huge contradiction, both for the renunciation of the approaches of the class struggle, and for the action of solidarity with those who were belligerents – the Autonomous Commands to which ETA called as parasites of the armed struggle.

Practice of Autonomous Commands

The main source of income was theft in banks and savings banks, as well as several kidnappings, such as that of the entrepreneur Francisco Limousin (1982) or that of the entrepreneur and militant of the PNV Jesús Guilbert Marcial, owner of the company Usin, S.A.

The first of the deaths of the Autonomous Commandos was Cabo Salgueiro, which was at the Civil Guard Information Services in Arrasate in August 1978. In the same year and in the same place, the head of the Municipal Police was shot one month after the assassination of militants Zapa and Roberto. For similar reasons, Elgoibar inspector and police driver Amancio Barreiro have also been killed in Usurbil. In this locality, a couple of years later, they went to the head of production of the company Moulinex, for acting against the women of the factory. In Navarre, the same destination was for Alberto Toca, a member of the far right institutional and coordinator of the information services. The agency Efe has been attacked for manipulating information and the company Mitxelin de Oiartzun for its alleged involvement in the protests of the workers of the company. To claim that the Bilbao-Behobia motorway was free of charge, the Zumaia toll was collected in 1983. There were also bombs in the Labour and Education Delegations, and in the Post office of Pamplona (two policemen died), in the headquarters of the PSOE, in Lasarte-Oria and in Hernani (the socialist party denounced its responsibility in the GAL); in the French car dealers (two policemen died), in the headquarters of the PSOE, in Lasarte-Oria and Oria. In less than a month he brought back the ambush of Pasaia.

By the time it happened, the forces of the self-employed were already pretty bad. Half a year earlier there had been a split between those who, in the absence of debate, had been accumulating and increasing differences. On the other hand, the few living or free militants had randomly abandoned the armed struggle and had the job of overcoming the burden of secrecy and avoiding the police. In addition, extradition, deportations ...

Insoluble among themselves, almost without social base, with the eyes of the left of the ENAM, and politically banalized after the death of Casas, the worst blow against the Autonomous Commands came at the worst time: The murder of Dionisio Arbelaitz Kurro, Jose Maria Isart Pelitxo, Rafael delas Aizkorbe Txapas and Jose Maria Izura Pelu in Pasaia.

It was the prelude to a ending full of anger, pain, blood and tears. The latest actions were carried out in 1985, in particular with the aim of raising funds.