Francisco Frutos
Encyclopedia
Francisco Frutos Gras (Calella
Calella
Calella is a seaside town on the Costa del Maresme, 58 km north east of Barcelona, in Catalonia, Spain. It is located on the coast between Sant Pol de Mar and Pineda de Mar...

, Barcelona
Barcelona (province)
Barcelona is a province of eastern Spain, in the center of the autonomous community of Catalonia.-Overview:It is bordered by the provinces of Tarragona, Lleida, and Girona, and by the Mediterranean Sea....

, 6 September 1939) is a Spanish politician who was since 1998 until 2009, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE).

Son of peasants, Frutos worked until the age of 25 in agriculture, emigrating later to Germany and returning to Barcelona where he got in touch for first time with trade unionism in a textile factory in Blanes. There he was an organiser of the then clandestine Workers' Commissions
Workers' Commissions
The Workers' Commissions since the 1970s has become the largest trade union in Spain. It has more than one million members and is the most successful union in labor elections, competing with the socialist Unión General de Trabajadores , with the syndicalist Confederación General del Trabajo ...

 (CCOO). In 1963 Frutos joined the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia
Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia
The Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia , was formed on July 23, 1936 through the unification of four left-wing groups; the Catalan Federation of Spanish Socialist Workers' Party , the Partit Comunista de Catalunya , the Unió Socialista de Catalunya and the...

 (PSUC), the fraternal party
Fraternal party
Fraternal party literally means brother party. The term refers to a political party officially affiliated with another, often larger and/or international, political party or governmental party....

 of PCE in Catalonia
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...

. In the 1970s he was elected organisational secretary of the Workers' Commission of Catalonia, and represented the union in the Assembly of Catalonia. Frutos was also a member of the Confederation Executive Committee of CCOO. In 1980 Frutos was elected a member of the Parliament of Catalonia
Parliament of Catalonia
The Parliament of Catalonia is the unicameral legislature of Catalonia. It is formed by 135 members , who are elected every four years in ordinary period, or extraordinarily upon dissolution and call of elections by the President of Catalonia, by universal suffrage in proportional lists with four...

 and in 1981 General Secretary of PSUC he would remain in those positions until 1982 and 1984. During that period Frutos saw different disputes between Leninist and eurocommunists
Eurocommunism
Eurocommunism was a trend in the 1970s and 1980s within various Western European communist parties to develop a theory and practice of social transformation that was more relevant in a Western European democracy and less aligned to the influence or control of the Communist Party of the Soviet...

, that lead to the expulsion of the Leninist majority including Chairman Pere Andarica, that would later become the Communists' Party of Catalonia.

After the resignation of Santiago Carrillo
Santiago Carrillo
Santiago Carrillo Solares is a Spanish politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of Spain from 1960 to 1982.- Childhood and early youth :...

 as General Secretary of PCE and the election of Gerardo Iglesias due to the poor results in the 1982 elections
Spanish general election, 1982
General elections were held in Spain on 28 October 1982.PSOE and PSC presented two different lists of candidates: with the PSOE contesting most of Spain and the PSC only standing in Catalonia...

, Frutos transferred to Madrid to work within the Structures of the Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...

 of PCE. After the Creation of United Left
United Left (Spain)
The United Left is a political coalition that was organized in 1986 bringing together several political organisations opposed to Spain joining NATO. It was formed by a number of groups of leftists, greens, left-wing socialists and republicans, but was dominated by the Communist Party of Spain...

 (IU) in 1986 Frutos was also a member of the Presidium of IU. In the 12th Congress of PCE in 1988 Frutos who went was elected Organisational Secretary of the Party. In the 1993 elections
Spanish general election, 1993
-Results:-External links:*...

 Frutos was elected a deputy for Madrid
Madrid (Spanish Congress Electoral District)
Madrid is one of the 52 electoral districts used for the Spanish Congress of Deputies - the lower chamber of the Spanish Parliament, the Cortes Generales. It has the largest electorate of all the 52 districts. Madrid is the largest city...

, In the 13th Congress of PCE in 1995 Frutos rose to the position of Secretary of the Federal Committee, a position that substituted the position of Deputy General Secretary. In the 1996 elections
Spanish general election, 1996
General elections were held in Spain on March 3, 1996. The Prime Minister Felipe González of Spanish Socialist Workers' Party lost the elections to Partido Popular and their leader José María Aznar....

 Frutos was second on the Madrid List of IU and succeeded in being re-elected. In 1998 the then General Secretary of PCE and General Coordinator of IU Julio Anguita
Julio Anguita
Julio Anguita González is a Spanish communist politician. He was Mayor of Córdoba, Spain from 1979 to 1986 and coordinator of United Left between 1989 and 1999 and General Secretary of the Communist Party of Spain from 1988 to 1998.-Biography:A member of a military family, he broke with familiar...

 suffered a non fatal heart stroke. Following that he announced his intention to gradually abandon active politics. In December of that year the 14th Congress of PCE was convened, with Frutos elected to the position of General Secretary. In 1999 following Anguita's second stroke, Frutos was asked to be IU's Candidate for Prime Minister in the 2000 elections
Spanish general election, 2000
Legislative elections were held in Spain on 12 March 2000. The incumbent People's Party of Prime Minister José María Aznar was elected to a second term in office, converting its plurality of seats in the Congress of Deputies into a majority, and increasing its lead over the opposition Spanish...

. Prior to the elections Frutos signed a polemic agreement with Spanish Socialist Workers' Party
Spanish Socialist Workers' Party
The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is a social-democratic political party in Spain. Its political position is Centre-left. The PSOE is the former ruling party of Spain, until beaten in the elections of November 2011 and the second oldest, exceeded only by the Partido Carlista, founded in...

 (PSOE), then led by Joaquin Almunia
Joaquín Almunia
Joaquín Almunia Amann is a Spanish politician and prominent member of the European Commission, currently responsible for Competition under the second mandate of President Barroso. He was previously responsible for Economic and Monetary Affairs in Barroso's previous mandate...

. In those elections IU fell from 21 deputies to 8. Later in the Year Frutos unsuccessfully disputed IU's General Coordination to Gaspar Llamazares
Gaspar Llamazares
Gaspar Llamazares Trigo is a Spanish politician. He was the leader of the leftist coalition Izquierda Unida from 2001 to 2008, in the post of General Coordinator. He is a member of Communist Party of Spain ....

in the 6th Assembly of IU. Remaining as a deputy until 2004, Frutos was re-elected general Secretary of PCE in the 16th and 17th Congresses of PCE.
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