The elements that are missing from the frequent criticisms of the 'Regime of '78'

In 1918, following its defeat in the First World War, Germany opened a new chapter in its history with the arrival of a new regime.

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That regime, known as the Weimar Republic, was endowed with a liberal Constitution, approved on July 31, 1919, which established universal suffrage in the country for the first time (until November 30, 1918, only men could vote). For the first time, Germany was endowed with a democratic government (until then, the head of the executive was elected by the Emperor and did not answer to Parliament).

The new regime faced many problems from the beginning. In January 1919, the far left launched an armed rebellion, the Spartacist Uprising, supported by communists and radical socialists, which sought to liquidate the nascent German democracy just as the Bolsheviks had liquidated the nascent Russian democracy in November 1917. Fortunately, the coup failed due to the rejection of the right, the centrists and the social democrats of the SPD.

In addition to the tensions generated by the communists of the KPD and the National Socialists of the NSDAP in the following years, German democracy faced a serious economic crisis caused by the war reparations imposed by the victors of the First World War. The economic crisis served as a breeding ground for political extremism between 1919 and 1923, with several coups d'état: the Kapp putsch in March 1920, the communist insurrection of the Red Army in the Ruhr immediately afterwards, and the Nazi putsch in Munich in November 1923, which led to Hitler's imprisonment.

Obviously, German democracy wasn't perfect, but it was far better than the communist and Nazi alternatives. By then, under Lenin, communism had turned Russia into a dictatorship far worse than Tsarist absolutism, with levels of repression and torture unprecedented in Europe. In 1933, the Nazis came to power and destroyed German democracy, establishing a reign of terror that led Germany to a war and genocide that still shock us today due to the level of vileness and inhumanity displayed by Hitler and his criminal gang.

Just as happened in Russia with the Bolshevik coup of 1917, the experience of interwar democracy in Germany should serve as a lesson when it comes to listening to the siren calls of those who promise a better regime than the one we have from maximalist and unrealistic positions. I am reminded of that historical chapter every time I read criticism of the "Regime of '78", as some call the parliamentary democracy that emerged from the first referendum held in Spain to approve a Constitution, the one currently in force.

These criticisms are common from both the far left and the far right, and with both expressions I'm not referring to left-wing or right-wing positions that legitimately criticize the flaws in our democracy (after all, there is no, nor has there ever been, any perfect democracy or political system), but rather to those positions that are based on hostility to the very idea of democracy. In fact, the elements that are missing from the frequent criticisms of the "Regime of '78" are those that explain what alternatives are proposed to it. Of course, I'm not sacralizing the regime. Like many Spaniards, I believe that our democracy and our Constitution should be corrected where flaws have been detected, within a healthy reformism.

What I don't find honorable is using these failures to propose throwing out the baby with the bathwater, as Francisco José Contreras, a leading figure in Spanish conservative liberalism, is fond of saying. When certain political positions launch these criticisms of the "Regime of '78" but don't explain what is being proposed instead, that's when alarm bells should ring. I haven't forgotten, for example, that many demonstrations against our parliamentary monarchy are called by communist groups that support dictatorships like Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and communist China. Similarly, on the other side of the political spectrum, it's also common to see criticism of our democratic regime from admirers of a dictator like Putin, who has established a mafia regime in Russia that is perpetrating all kinds of war crimes and crimes against humanity in his invasion of Ukraine.

For my part, I am very clear: if some people's alternative to the "Regime of '78" is a communist or fascist regime, even if it is hidden under certain disguises so as not to generate so much rejection, they have my complete rejection. We need to reform what we have to correct errors, not overthrow the regime and bring in something worse. For the rest, I want to appeal to sensible people (among whom I do not count either communists or fascists) to reflect on the consequences that a change of regime would have today in Spain. Does anyone seriously believe that it would be possible to approve a Constitution better than the one of 1978 today? Please, look at the distribution of forces in the Congress of Deputies, where the parties that uphold the most ridiculous progressive dogmas are the majority. Do you seriously expect that from this political panorama a constitution better than the one approved by our parents and grandparents 47 years ago will emerge?