Eloi Gummà: "We agreed with Pujol that Aliança Catalana is a great threat to Catalanism"

BarcelonaThe doctor in contemporary history from the UAB Eloi Gummà (Barcelona, 1995) narrates in the book From anti-Francoism to Pujolism. The struggle for hegemony (Akal) the factors that caused the left, despite leading the opposition to the dictatorship, to end up losing to Convergència, which governed Catalonia for more than two consecutive decades.

Why does Jordi Pujol win, in the end?

— A very central factor is his tactical and strategic ability. He is invested with the votes of UCD and ERC. But there is also the factor that Pujol counts on the intervention of a series of political actors, conservative and of great economic power who, faced with a threat of a left-wing government in the Generalitat, decide to bet on Pujol.

He states that he had a lot of support from the employers' associations, also from Madrid. Does it contradict the maxim "España antes roja que rota"?

— A little, because Pujol didn't mean a broken Spain either. broken. For the Spanish and reformist economic elites, the great threat was a left-wing Catalonia. In the end, they have no choice but to accept nationalism and Catalanism, even if it is in conservative terms. It also receives a lot of votes due to a very intense fear campaign that said that if the left won, people would have their cars and houses taken away, and they wouldn't have a plate on the table.

You dedicate the book to the convergents of all parties. Where is the DNA of Convergència found now?

— Pujol's legacy is in all the parties. His vision for the country was hegemonic for many years and has ended up permeating the way Catalan society understands itself. The PSC wants to take a part of that idea. There is also a part of Junts that wants to clearly reposition itself there. And, even, in a certain left-wing nationalism. When Esquerra reaches the Government it emulates a bit what Convergència did and, in fact, any party when it comes to govern captures a bit of what Pujol did.

And inside Aliança Catalana?

— Also. There were certain theses from certain sectors of Convergència that sometimes had exclusionary or more exclusionary visions of Catalanism. In certain positions of the Nationalist Youth of Catalonia during the eighties, there was talk of expelling the 'xarnegos'. Even so, and I believe by conviction, Pujol never lets this vision predominate in the party. He understood that the construction of the nation, if you were to do it in the terms proposed by Aliança or certain sectors of the old Convergència, would end up causing a civil confrontation in Catalonia.

Why do you think Aliança Catalana is growing so much and so suddenly now?

— It is understandable if you look at how politics and the economy have been transformed on an international scale. It also stems from the same frustration that the Procés has generated and from a certain idealism or childishness that has operated within Junts over the last few years. I believe that Junts has continued to engage in politics as if the Procés were still ongoing, and they have missed the reading of the Catalan reality. In many cases, they have not treated people like adults, and this has allowed Aliança to grow very quickly.

Does Aliança Catalana endanger the legacy of the Catalanist right?

— It attacks the heart of all the consensuses of Catalanism that have operated since the sixties, it didn't matter if it was led by the PSUC, Convergència, or the tripartite. There was a shared idea that Catalonia is one single people and everyone who wants to work in Catalonia is Catalan. If the theses of Aliança or certain sectors of the former Convergència triumph, Catalanism will cease to aspire to address many sectors of Catalan society. It can provoke a type of reaction similar to what the Lliga generated, which is Lerrouxism. It was a very conservative party and it caused a large part of the working class to rebel against Catalanism. Lerrouxism is a ghost quite constructed by the Lliga.

Do you think that a kind of Lerrouxism is currently awakening?

— I do not agree with what is being said, that Gabriel Rufián is a Lerrouxist. Lerrouxism, to me, is understanding Catalan society as a binational community and not a single people. Both Ciutadans and someone who considers that we Catalans are a national minority in Catalonia and that only those who speak Catalan are Catalan can operate in Lerrouxist terms.

Have you been able to talk about the book with Jordi Pujol?

— I received a personal and very lovely letter from President Pujol. He told me that he had read the book with great attention and invited me to his home to have a conversation. It was a long, affectionate, and endearing meeting. He is very old, but he has some moments of great lucidity.

What did you think of the book?

— He had it very well worked on, underlined, with annotations and bookmarks on several pages, and also all the printed clippings of the interviews and reviews that have been published about the book. He told me that it was very serious and objective, and that it reflected very well everything that happened. I confessed to him from the start that I considered myself a Marxist historian; he told me that he had already noticed, and added: "Nowadays you don't scare people so much, do you?" He strongly remarked to me the respect he had for the PSUC and acknowledged that Josep Tarradellas had been Adolfo Suárez's card to neutralize the victory of the left in 1977. I replied that I believed something similar happened with him in 1980, and that the role of Foment del Treball in the elections was decisive. He acknowledged that a part of the economic power approached CiU, but that this did not explain everything.

Did you talk about current events with Pujol?

— I commented to him that I believed the main problem contemporary societies face is that, since the eighties, when neoliberalism was established, the rich have become increasingly richer. Also that I was very concerned about the consequences a PP and Vox government could have for Catalonia, and that Aliança is a major threat to Catalanism as a whole. Their response was clear and forceful; we agreed on it.