PREREVOLUTIONARY
SITUATION IN PORTUGAL
Resolution of the United Secretariat them to rally to give the workers commissions the place that they deserve in preparing and pressing forward the coming generalized struggle. Maximum advantage must be taken of these periods of mobilization to build the workers commissions as much as possible. A workers commission in each factory! Organize the democratic coordination of the workers commissions! *We call on all militants of all parties of the working class to unite their efforts in this direction. Nothing must be counterposed to the requirements of the impending mobilization. *We reiterate our desire to reach agreements -even partial or temporary ones - that allow for aiding the potential mobilization in one form or another. We are prepared to reach such agreements RIPENS The abortive coup d'etat of March 11 represented a heavy political defeat for the Portuguese bourgeoisie. The powerful popular mobilization paralyzed the political and military instruments on which capitalist reaction thought it could base itself. Today the bourgeoisie has been thrown onto the defensive, although this does not eliminate the possibility of putschist attempts by certain bourgeois factions. Its crisis of leadership is only intensifying. The degree of combativity, organization and 18 with all parties without exception that base themselves on the working class and in particular with the parties and political organizations that uphold in one form or another the necessity of promoting a broad boycott of the farce of the coming "trade union elections. " We hope in this way to contribute to bringing about unity in action in the development of the struggles of the workers and the oppressed masses. Such is the meaning of this joint dec laration. FORWARD! TOTAL BOYCOTT OF THE ELECTIONS! FOR A GENUINE WORKERS TRADE UNION,
UNITED AND INDEPENDENT OF THE EM-
PLOYERS AND THEIR GOVERNMENT! DOWN WITH THE MURDEROUS DICTATORSHIP! LONG LIVE THE WORKERS COMMISSIONS! document of the Fourth International self-organization, and class consciousness of the workers has taken a new leap forward. Within the army, not only did the soldiers and sailors demonstrate a very great capacity for responding to the seditious elements, but the politicization and process of self-organization of the rank and file also developed forward. The crisis of the army is deepening. This has focilitated the counteroffensive of the so-called socialistic wing of the MFA against the currents more or less explicitly claiming allegiance
PORTUGAL to the Spinolist project. While the grip of the neoreformists has been strengthened, the audience of the revolutionary left, within the framework of the impetuous rise of workers struggles, is broadening considerably - in the factories, the neighborhoods, the trade unions, and the army. This was confirmed during the elections of April 25, in which the workers parties received a majority whose size was virtually unprecedented in the history of the workers movement. Thus, in a little more than a year there has been a progressive radicalization of the rising workers struggles, which is leading to the ripening of a prerevolutionary situation. 1.CRISIS AND ECONOMIC
SABOTAGE Portuguese capitalism is facing a crisis of rare depth. To the structural weaknesses and disequilibrium insa herited from the Salazarist era have been added the effects of the international recession, of decolonization, and of the sudden change in the relationship of forces between capital and labor, Economic sabotage, investment strikes by Portuguese finance capital and by multinational trusts, restriction or suppression of credits to small and middle-sized companies, and the flight of capital have further worsened the economic mess. Sectors as important as the construction and textile industries are going through a virtually generalized crisis. Agriculture, imprisoned in archaic economic structures, is unable to produce a sufficient quantity of food products at low prices. Over the past year, the rate of inflation has officially been 35%, but in reality it is much higher for food products. The buying power of the workers has been heavily affected. Factory closings and layoffs have been proliferating since the beginning of autumn 1974. Some 250, 000 workers are unemployed.
Both the reconversion of the apparatus of production with a view toward accentuated integration into the Common Market and the end of the colonial war required a profound change in the forms of bourgeois domination as well as a channeling of workers mobilizations whose anticapitalist dynamic could only be strengthened in such a situation.
The resistance and counteroffensive of the workers broke through the presidentialist coup d'etat of
September 28, the law on the right to strike and lockout, the law on occupations of houses, and the attempt to paralyze the workers through the creation of a vast army of unemployed. In face of this response of the toiling masses, which nullified the projects of industrial reorganization, capital is more and more utilizing the weapon of economic sabotage, the intention being to rally the support of broad sectors of the petty bourgeoisie by proving that the government is incapable of cleaning up the economic situation. 2. THE RISE OF STRUGGLES Since December 1974 a new phase has opened in the rise of workers mobilizations. First of all, broader and broader sections of the working class are becoming aware of the precarious character of the wage gains that were won at the beginning of the summer of 1974. For example, on January 14 some 300, 000 workers demonstrated in Lisbon. They partially transformed the demonstration -which had been organized by the Intersindical (Trade Union Federation) and the Portuguese Communist party in order to support the MFA and the law on trade-union unity-into a vast mobilization against capHalist exploitation and for the unity of the workers in struggle. Second, the attack on job security, especially in the small and middle-sized companies, has touched off struggles of a new type: occupations, restarting of production, experiments in workers control. Finally, in face of the economic sabotage and the attempts of reaction to organize, many initiatives were taken that prepared the mobilization against the attempted coup. Almost spontaneously and with extraordinary rapidity, the Portuguese working class is taking up, assimilating, and sometimes enriching the most advanced experiences of struggle that have developed in Europe since 1968. This is a result of the conjunction of various foctors. First of all, the acuteness of the structural and conjunctural crisis of Portuguese capitalism limits considerably the objective base for the development of reformist experiments and explains in large part the process of progressive radicalization that has taken place over the past year. Second, since the second half of the 1960s, the working class has been strengthened socially. In the Porto and Lisbon regions a new generation of workers who have lived through the decline of the Salazarist regime has entered production in large numbers. This generation constitutes an essential part of the workers vanguard. Finally, a relative politicization was stimulated among these layers by the struggle of the African fighters; moreover, tens of thousands of worker who emigrated to other European countries not only gained an apprenticeship in workers struggles, but also acquired an understanding of the new situation that has been developing in Europe since 1968. In the framework of the fall of the fascist regime, o very great receptivity to the ideas that had been ferociously combatted by the dictatorship has been added to all this. The combination of the intensification of the
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PORTUGAL economic and social crisis, the rise of struggles, and the permanent atmosphere of political debate creates an extremely favorable terrain for the ripening of anticapitalist consciousness, even though the effects of forty-eight years of fascism on the workers' capacity for independent political intervention have not been fully erased. Thus, beginning in mid-December, various experiences developed that augured the mobilization that was to unfold on March 11 and during the movements that followed. 1) Factory occupations became more and more numerous. Very often, they were coupled with the struggle to purge fascist managers and administrators, the struggle against economic sabotage, and the struggle for the demand for nationalization. Control of inventories, control over hiring and firing, and the opening of the companies' books became weapons that were increasingly utilized by the workers. Obviously, this did not mean that the workers had already assimilated all the richness or political implications of the totality of experiences in which they were actively participating. In addition to factory and bank occupations, there were land occupations in the South; these were defended militarily by the peasants and agricultural workers. 2) The workers went beyond the legal limits and, in reality, shattered the law on strikes, which forbids occupations, plenary meetings within the factories, etc. Similarly, the rank-and-file soldiers organized and held general assemblies in some barracks. 3) A significant workers vanguard reacted forcefully to the attempts of the fascists to reorganize: some meetings of the CDS (Democratic and Social Center), which includes many notables from the old regime, were boycotted, as happened on January 25 in Porto. The administrators of the Salazarist regime in the factories, the press, and the radio were swept away by the initiatives of commissions of workers and trade-union sections. 4) The trade-union movement was strengthened and expanded. Battles for the democratic functioning of the trade unions proliferated. Concurrently, the influence of the workers commissions grew, especially in the big factories in the Lisbon area. These bodies constantly include the workers vanguard and con represent the major part of the workers during times of mobilization, During the September 28 events they took the first initiatives in the workers mobilization. On February 7, more than 30,000 workers participated in the especially combative demonstration organized by the coordinating body of the workers commissions of Lisbon. In the fac20 tories, general assemblies elected committees of workers in order to strengthen the united organization of the workers. During occupations of the social infrastructure (private clinics, hotels transformed into child-care centers or rest houses for workers) management committees were set up, sometimes elected. In certain cases these committees established relations with the workers commissions in order to plan the utilization of the occupied institutions and to "place them af the service of the people. " Popular assemblies, often stimulated by the CP, arose in the popular neighborhoods. They debated problems of sanitation, housing, and transport, and more or less took charge of the organizafion of these social services. In this way there emerged on various levels bodies that could provide the embryo of forms of dual power. 5) The linkup between workers and soldiers was manifested clearly for the first time on February 7. On that day the soldiers of RAL 1 joined the front ranks of the demonstration of the workers commissions and took up the slogans raised by the workers. 6) Manifestations by Portuguese of solidarity with the struggle of their Spanish comrades increased in number. Opposition to the Iberian Pact and Portugal's participation in NATO was asserted more sharply and testified to the advance of proletarian internationalism in the consciousness of broad secfors of the working class. The response to the attempted coup d'etat must be viewed with this backdrop. The mobilization indicated that the lessons of September 28 had been assimilated by tens of thousands of workers. The mobilization itself embodied the richness of the experiences that had begun to mold the consciousness of the workers. But it also had the effect of multiplying the workers' initiatives, since it ended with a crushing victory over reaction and confirmed the confidence of the toiling masses in their own strength. 3. A POLITICAL DEFEAT FOR
THE BOURGEOISIE After the failure of September 28, the dominant faction of the Portuguese bourgeoisie was counting above all on strengthening its central party, the PPD (Popular Democratic party), so as to forge an electoral victory. Later, within the perspective of a deterioration in the relationship of forces between the two fundamental classes of society, the bourgeoisie showed that it was prepared to accept a process of institutionalization of the MFA as an instrument serving as a last resort in controlling the situation and rebalancing the state apparatus. This institutionalization, an expression of the Bonapartist function of the MFA, was supposed to take shape,
according to the wishes of the bourgeoisie, under the cover of an electoral victory for the centerleft, of on offensive by the Spinolist sectors within the MFA, and of a certain degree of control over the process of decolonization, especially in Angola, through lending weight to the FLNA and UNITA. Another faction of the bourgeoisie did not share this view. This faction, made up of the sectors most strongly hit by the fall of the Salazarist regime and decolonization, prepared for a frontal attack on the working class and its social conquests, for regaining a grip on the enlisted men, and for eliminating the most radicalized elements of the MFA. The acceleration of the workers upsurge, the growing crisis within the army, the several Spinolist successes during the MFA elections at the beginning of March, and the lack of ability to sense political opportunities and to judge the real social relationship of forces (after forty-eight years of the corporatist regime) were the foctors that certainly incited these circles to threw themselves into the attempted coup d'etat. There were two significant features to the failure of the coup. The putschists were incapable of effectively organizing coordination between the military and civilian sectors and of assuring themselves direct support from the social layers prepared to back up such a project. The rapidity of the response, its breadth, and the resistance or open opposition of the soldiers and sailors to all the putschist maneuvers of the officers deprived reaction of the possibility of getting control of a significant part of the military and political apparatus in order to carry out its plans. On March 11, after the attempted constitutional coup of July 1974 and the attempted civilian coup of September 28, the bourgeoisie fired a new round - without results, or rather, with results directly opposite to those that had been hoped for. The loss of Spinola, who could have played the role of a rallying point, intensified the crisis of political leadership in the bourgeois camp. The economic emergency plan, which had been approved on February 7 by the council of ministers and reflected the influence of the PPD and the SP, was swept away. The nationalization of the banks and insurance companies, which was not explicitly called for in the plan but was carried out under the pressure of the mobilization of the workers, created a dynamic able to break through the limits within which possible nationalizations had been envisaged by the emergency plan. Within the MFA, the relationship of forces was shifted in favor of the non-Spinolist sectors. The institutionalization, imposed against the coup d'etat, took on an objectively contradictory character. On the one side, if was carried out against the putschist sectors and in this sense tended to foster initiatives by workers and soldiers aimed at purging the fascist cadres; on the other side, the MFA consolidated its position as a body of autonomous power to a certain extent playing the role of Bonapartist arbitrator above the classes and tending to shunt aside the traditional instruments of bourgeois democracy (parties, parliament, etc.). Nevertheless, the failure of the coup represented neither a definitive victory for the so-called socialistic sector of the MFA nor the liquidation of the Spinolist sector of the armed forces. The latter, although weakened, not only continues to occupy position in the High Council of the Revolution itself, buf may recover lost positions inasmuch as the hierarchical structure of the army is maintained. In this sense, while it is certain that the institutionalization of the MA guarantees the stability of the coalition government of class collaboration, this does not eliminate the long-term possibility of a gradual turn toward a rightist regime. Under the impact of the massive mobilization of the workers, and in the hope of receiving financial aid following the nationalization of the banks, the petty bourgeoisie could certainly no longer provide a very stable support to the political formations of the bourgeoisie, which had to give ground to the CP-MDP within the government as well as within the economic and state apparatus. On the defensive, the bourgeoisie after March 11 found itself compelled to accept the measures nationalizing the banks, insurance companies, transport, electricity, and steel, as well as the institufionalization of the MFA in a form that it was unable to have any say in. Confronting the April 25 electoral target date, it had to recover some credibility, with the hope that an electoral victory would permit it to influence the nationalization process and to enclose that process within a framework compatible with the survival of the capitalist system. Under the cover of the signing of the Pact, and in view of the possibility of utilizing the electoral tribune, the bourgeois parties - more specifically the CDS - were able to reorganize their base and prepare for the counteroffensive. In this sense, it would be absolutely erroneous to underestimate the electoral results obtained by the PPD and the CDS, especially if they are compared with those of the CP. Nevertheless, the bourgeoisie as a whole was not going to limit itself to concentrating all its efforts on the legal field alone, although after March 11 it emphasized strengthening itself electorally and
PORTUGAL working toward achieving a certain realignment within the government, which included taking advantage of the anticommunist campaign of the SP. The bourgeoisie's crisis of political leadership, aggravated by the upsurge of the mass movement after March 11, will encourage it to opt for a terrorist tactic of harassment, sabotage, and attacks on the workers organizations and worker militants. On the international field, the bourgeoisie is keeping open two options: did or strangulation. For the moment, the European bourgeoisie, while utilizing various means of pressure and blackmail, seems to have decided to play the card of aid, understanding that in the immediate future economic strangulation could have radicalizing effects. Obviously, this does not prevent it from also directing efforts toward structuring and financing the reactionary offensive both in Portugal and in the colonies, especially Angola. 4. THE ACCELERATION OF THE
REVOLUTIONARY PROCESS The defeat of the putschist project on March 11 by a massive and rapid mobilization of the toiling masses has led to a modification of the relationship of forces on two levels: on the one side between the bourgeoisie and the working class; on the other side between the revolutionary vanguard and the reformist currents. 1) This new shift in the relationship of forces is expressed in the intensification of the crisis in the army - its division and the proliferation of cases of discipline being broken and of the rejection by the rank-and-file soldiers of the "new hierarchy" to which the MFA claims allegiance. Politicization within the army has taken a great leap forward. It is being fed by the linkup that was made in several areas between the workers and soldiers on March 11, to such an extent that arms were distributed to popular vigilance committees. It was strengthened during the electoral campaign by the systematic political debate that went on among the troops. This, added to the problems of the very functioning of the army - weakness of barracks control, debility of officer control, miserable social and materia! conditions - is bolstering the process of self-organization, the open participation of soldlers in the work of the revolutionary organizations, and the rapprochement and common activities between soldiers and workers. Nevertheless, these phenomena are developing at a very uneven rate within the armed forces nationally, and this may facilitate reactionary maneuvers. In the short term, the armed forces thus no longer represent an entity sufficiently homogeneous and tightly enough controlled by the 22 military hierarchy to be easily used in a putschist project. This fact can only contribute to accentuating the general instability and to prolonging the period of crisis of bourgeois political leadership. 2) The massive rising of the workers of the announcement of the attempted coup led not only to the crushing of the seditious elements, but also to a considerable victory for the toiling masses: the nationalization of the banks and insurance companies in the initial period, and later the nationalization of about thirty companies in the transport, electricity, steel, cement, tobacco, and food industries, as well as the new measures preparing an agrarian reform. From the objective standpoint, these nationa lizations may obviously be part of a project that consists of supporting or strengthening the profit margins of certain private sectors within the fromework of a capitalist economy. The nationalized sector would then function as the guarantor of the profitability of the private sector, furnishing raw materials and energy supplies at low prices by granting very low inferest credits or by making pure and simple gifts and socializing the costs of developing the infrastructure necessary for national and imperialist investment. Nevertheless, this series of nationalizations was decided on at the very moment when ters of thousands of workers, beginning in December, were demanding the nationa lization of their companies, occupying the offices of the banks and insurance companies, and threatening to take the transportation sector under their control. Furthermore, the branches of the banking system throughout Portuguese industry create objective conditions favorable to touching off a dynamic going beyond the function that the major part of the MFA and significant sectors of the bourgeoisie initially assigned to the state takeover of the banking system and the various basic sectors. A certain number of conditions must neverthe less be met in order to assure the development of such a process, in order to assure the destruction of cap¡tal's economic power and of all the positions of control and decision-making that capital holds within the economic structure. First of all, it is imperative to nationalize without compensation all the decisive sectors of the economy: heavy industry, the banks, transportation, the energy sector, the distribution sector, and foreign trade. To this must be added the elimination from the nationalized sector of all bourgeois odministrators, the rejection of "co-management" and the generalization of workers control, centralized management of all property and all nationalized companies by a central body placed under the control of the work-
ers organizations and founded on the application of an emergency economic plan drawn up by these organizations. But such measures of expropriation of the bourgeoisie are not possible within the framework of the present bourgeois state, in a context in which the bourgeoisie still holds political power and organizes its response in many forms, economic sabotage and the flight of capital being the preferred weapons in the present conjuncture. The economic crisis that Portuguese capitalism is now going through, the nationalization measures weakening the bourgeoisie, and the rise of the mass movement clearly indicate that the precondition for taking economic power away from the bourgeoisie, for depriving it of its power of economic sabotage, lies in the elimination of its politica! power: It is here that all the initiatives of workers control, the occupation of factories, the restarting of pro= duction under workers control, the coordination of tenants committees to deal with questions of housing and of the social infrastructure take on their full importance and express the more or less conscious will of the toiling masses to take over political and economic power, to pass from a capitalist economy to a socialist one, which can only be achieved by the centralization of the instruments of self-organization of the masses. The very dynamic of the movement goes radically against the objecfives proposed and ceaselessly repeated by the CP and the MFA, summed up as the battle tor production, in a context in which the bourgeoisie still commands the determining decision-making posts and holds power on the economic and political field. 3) The change in the relationship of forces after March 11 and the deep rodicalization, which attained a new stage after December, was also expressed on the electoral field. On March 11 there was a fusion between the workers upsurge and the emergence of the mass movement onto the political scene. This was rapidly reflected in the demand for a deepening of the purge process at all levels - the army, industry, the press - and by the emergence of a more or less confused demand for "popular government, "combined with the demand to expel the representatives of the PPD from the government. March 11 thus functioned as a catalyst for the political consciousness of the toiling masses. Both the feelings of victory and strength acquired by the workers through the mobilization, through winning the nationalizations, and through the acceleration of the purges and the extreme weakness of any alternative bourgeois policy were reflected in the massive vote for the workers parties. Overall, the electoral results can only increase the workers' confidence in their own strength, intensify the anticapitalist mobilizations, and generate among the rank-and-file workers a will for unity in the struggle against the bourgeoisie and its parties. Of course, the votes for the Socialist party came partially from the petty bourgeoisie under the impact of the anticommunist campaign of the Socialist leaders and thus represent votes in favor of a solution of order and of defense of private property. Even some factions of the bourgeoisie encouraged votes for the SP. But it would be totally erroneous to reduce the vote of the SP to that. In its majority, the SP vote represented the primitive will of broad sectors of the workers to struggle against the conditions of exploitation and oppression to which they are subject and to struggle for socialism; it also represented an elementary defiance of the bureaucratic methods used by the Stalinist current. Moreover, it is significant that the SP obtained the most votes precisely in the regions in which the percentage of wage-workers is highest. In fact, the SP vote was the product both of the shift in the relationship of forces between capital and labor and of the still backward level of consciousness of many layers of workers who are radicalizing and becoming politicized slowly and at varying rates. The CP obtained an electoral result that does not precisely reflect its capacity to mobilize and its organizational strength. Electorally, the CP paid a price for its policy of class collaboration, which led it to more or less openly betray many struggles and to subordinate any possibility for unifying the working class in anticapitalist struggle to the possibility of putting pressure on the state apparatus. The fact that the for left and the centrists got one-third as many votes as the CP indicates the scope of the CP's losses on its left. Finally, at the moment when the debate over what model of socialism should be followed is of concern to broad layers of workers, there is no doubt that the CP also paid a price for its unconditional defense of the "socialist mode l" represented by the bureaucratic regimes in the deformed or degenerated workers states. As for the MDP/CDE, it was totally marginalized and hence will more and more appear as a simple cover for the CP and a supporting body of the MFA. Finally, the total results obtained by all the organizations claiming allegiance to the revolutionary left express the progress of the influence and implantation of the various. Maoist, centrist, and revolutionary Marxist currents and the existence of broad layers of workers who are breaking with the policy of the reformist organizations, especially in workers bastions like Porto, Lisbon, Setübal, etc.
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PORTUGAL There is no doubt that the SP will seek to use its electoral strength to intervene within the MFA and achieve a certain reorganization of the relationship of forces and to try to develop a weight within the trade unions and the factories that corresponds to its electoral strength. As for the CP, while asserting itself as the unconditional defender of the MFA, it will have to demonstrate its capacity for mobilization in order to consolidate its position and to counteract the projects of the SP. 4) At first sight, it appears as though March 11 and April 25, 1975, fostered the strengthening of the reformist organizations. During the attempted coup, the CP and the Intersindical took the leadership of the workers movement and succeeded in the immediate sense in capitalizing on a large part of the mobilization. The initiatives taken by the Intersindical and the calls for the general strike - which was a break with what the Intersindical had done on September 28 - placed the trade-union organization at the head of the response and can only strengthen its role as the unique representative of the working class in the eyes of the workers. Obviously, the Intersindical may offer its services to marginalize the instruments of self-organization, to limit somewhat the experiences pointing in this direction, and to increase the credibility of its campaign for the "battle for production." On the other hand, the election results allow: the SP to put itself forward as the principal workers party (on the electoral field) and hence to raise its claims within the government, the municipalities, and the trade unions. Nevertheless, this affirmation of the strength of the reformist and neoreformist workers parties is occurring in a context of the rise of the mass movement, of radicalization of new layers of workers, and of proliferation of independent actions of the masses in the neighborhoods and factories, actions that conso lidate the workers' feelings of strength and independence. Thus, conditions are being created for the exacerbation of the contradictions within the reformist formations themselves and for the strengthening of the revolutionary vanguard and the expansion of its audience among the layers influenced and organized by the reformist parties.
This twofold process is at the root of the leftist tactical adaptations the CP has made since the end of 1974. The time has not yet come for the CP to oppose mobilizations head on. After March 11, for instance, contrary to the policy that was followed after September 28, the CP and the Intersindical demanded nationalization measures and many trade24 union sections took initiatives within this perspective. The adaptations that the CP and the Intersindical have to make to recover, preserve, or strengthen their position nevertheless act to intensify their internal contradictions and modify the relationship of forces with the vanguard. Viewed in this light, the continuation of the relative hegemony of the reformist formations, which is the major negative factor for the future of the revolutionary upsurge, will be subject to many modifications, depending on the independent activity of the masses and on the capacity of the revolutionary vanguard to unify broad layers of workers around its initiatives. During the phase opened by March 11, the CP is thus trying to isolate the struggles of the vanguard and hoid back all experiments in self-organization, whether in the barracks, the neighborhoods, or the factories. Just as it crudely opposed strikes in the name of consolidating the democratic stage during the first period, today the CP is putting the emphasis on the "battle for production" in order to guarantee the "economic and financial stability gravely threatened both by the recession and by the disorganization provoked by economic sabotage." The "battle for production" is replacing the "battle for power," as was previously the case in Chile. The CP thus sticking as closely as possible to the MFA as a guarantee that the "democratic stage" will be consolidated. This line can only strengthen illusions among the workers in the "vanguard role of the MFA" and divert the anticapitalist dynamic of the struggle toward a project of class collaboration. Nevertheless, after waging an electoral campaign with triumphalist overtones, the CP has to demonstrate its capacity to mobilize and its organizational strength, and thus assert its role as the leading party structuring the workers, as opposed to the SP, which is the leading workers party on the electoral field. A certain sectarianism toward the SP rank and file does not make for an adequate response to this problem, especially in that there is real pressure toward unity within both parties. Hence, it will be difficult for the CP to stick strictly to the battle for production. It will have to either participate in or go along with the mobilizations of the workers and peasants, while at the same time trying to control these mobilizations. The CP will not escape from these oscillations very quickly. As for the SP, during the election campaign it found itself torn between its attempt to capture votes from the petty-bourgeois clientele of the PPD and the necessity of reestablishing, preserving, or if possible consolidating its links with the working class. In the post-electoral period, continues to be affected by the same type of contradictions. The program of its leadership consists of trying to chip
off a wing of the MEA that, under the jargon of "Portuguese socialism, *would take measures that could maximally limit the import of the nationalizations, give assurances to imperialism, and "reestablish order. " (It is more interested in doing this than in forming any alliance of a center-left type with the PPD.) The pressures that the SP is subjected to from the European Social Democracy tend in the same direction, and the anticommunist campaign falls perfectly within this framework. Nevertheless, this party has been swollen with thousands of members who have just emerged onto the political scene; they are not marked by the • legalist Social Democratic tradition and are liable to radicalize rapidly. This will. inevitably have repercussions within the party; it augurs the formation of new leftist currents and centrist splits. The themes of workers control and self-management demagogically put forward on the May 1 posters of the SP already indicate the existence of this type of pressure within the SP. In face of the very rapid expansion of the ranks of the CP and the SP, in face of the weakness of the polifical training of the members and their receptivity to the propaganda of the for left in the atmosphere of permanent political debate and of intensified combativity, revolutionaries command very great objective possibilities for expanding their audience among those workers organized or influenced by these parties. This dialectic of relations between reformists, neoreformists, and centrist forces and the revolutionary left is such that the latter already commands sufficient weight to initiate movements that effectively win the adherence of significant sectors of the masses. Hence, the audacious and flexible application of the tactic of united front as developed on various levels - from the factory and the neighborhoods up through the most important initiatives - is decisive for the revolutionary vanguard both in responding immediately to any reactionary offensive, to any challenging of the democrotic rights of the workers movement, and in expanding the influence of the revolutionaries and cutting down on the duration of of the reformists' grip on the working class. By calling for the unity in action of the entire working class and of all its currents without any exclusion, revolutionaries will be able to take advantage of the desire for unity that exists among broad sectors of workers in order to strengthen the anticapitalist front. Any real rupture of this unity in action threatens to profoundly disorient the toiling masses, to generate phenomena of disarray and of the beginning of demoralization, and thus to provoke a stagnation of the revolutionary process that would facilitate
Maio T Maio E Maic
PA O CAPITAL CONTRA D CAPITAL CONTPA O CAP
IVERNO DOs GOVERNO B0S GOVERNO
BALHADORES TRABALHADORES TRABALHA LE LC 1' Maio 1 Maio CONTRA O CAPITAL LCI: "For a Workers Government" a reactionary counteroffensive. That is why the bureaucratic methods used by the CP leaders against workers democracy, the sectarianism of these leaders (obstruction of trade-union elections, the República affair, etc.), and the attempts of the SP leaders to slow down the revolutionary process in the name of defense of bourgeois democracy are now stirring up division within the ranks of the proletariat and constitute real attacks against the interests of the proletariat. Against these sowers of division, revolutionary Marxists struggle for strengthening the unity in action of all the organizations and representative bodies of the working class and for the consolidafion of these bodies through the creation of a network of democratically elected workers, soldiers, and peasants committees that can both guarantee respect for the broadest democracy and assure the Forward march of the revolution. The most urgent task is to move toward the creation of such bodies of democratic and proletarian power. Any de lay in the emergence, coordination, and generalization of these councils threatens to drive back the advancing revolutionary process that was accelerated after March 11, 1975. The disastrous aspect of the policy of the Maoist current, which characterizes the CP as "social fascist" and makes it the main enemy, is especially highlighted if one considers the Fluidity that exists within the very ranks of the CP and the SP and the
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PORTUGAL response that the far-left currents are able to receive there. Insofar as the Maoist current, and more especially the UDP, commands significant influence in the broad workers vanguard, the Maoist policy effectively functions as an element dividing the class and threatening to isolate this workers vanguard from the heart of the class. 5. THE ROLE OF THE MFA In a context marked by an open crisis of bourgeois political leodership, by a real division within the army, by the growing influence of the reformist workers parties, and by the continuing rise of workers struggles, the MFA after March 11 consolidated its position, centralizing the essential legislative and executive priorities. Since April 25, 1974, the assertion of the strength of the MFA has been the fruit not only of the role it played in the organization of the coup d'etat, but also of the crisis in the army generated under the blows of the defeat suffered in the colonial war and of the political weakness of the two fundamental classes of society. On the one side, after half a century of corporatist rule, the bourgeoisie did not command political instruments capable of functioning effectively in the framework of bourgeois democracy in face of a progressive upsurge of the mass movement. On the other side, the workers' lack of political experience after forty-eight years of dictatorship did not enable the working class to immediately give expression to its own solutions. It is the convergence of this twofold political weakness that created the possibility of the MFA's occupying this central place, especially after the failure of the two hasty presidentialist coup attempts in July and September 1974 and after the March 11 debacle. In reality, the MFA represents two different phenomena: on the one side an integral part of the state apparatus (President of the Republic, Council of the Revolution, Army General Staff, etc.); on the other side a movement composed of a part of the officer corps having a base among the noncommissioned officers and soldiers and permeated by all the social and political currents of a Portugal drawn into a revolutiontry process. As an integral part of the state apparatus, it guarantees the maintenance of capitalist relations of production, especially during times when the rise of the mass movement within the context of a deep crisis of political leadership of the bourgeoisie places in danger the very survival of the system of capitalist rule. As a movement, its social composition, petty bourgeois in its majority, implies that it is for from homogeneous ideologically. Likewise, there has been a 26 modification in its composition, a radicalization of certain of its sectors, and, at the same time, a growing polarization among its diverse components. Along with Spinolist currents, which do not occupy stage center during the present phase, there are various currents that are more or less influenced by the reformist ideologies of the workers movement but that possess no organic link with that movement. Most of them are manifesting deep distrust of the mass movement, distrust that is characteristic of this military elite that has established paternalistic relations with the mosses. They are placing the emphasis on strict control of the activity of the masses, on the arbitrator task that the MFA must fulfill, which reveals the will of the MFA officers to perpetuate their Bonapartist role. Moreover, this Bonapartist function is expressed concretely both in the MEA's institutionalization and in the pact that it pushed through between the bourgeois and reformist workers parties, a pact whose objective function is to conceal the exacerbated contradictions between capital and labor, between exploiter and exploited, that are manifesting themselves more sharply every day. Nevertheless, it is difficult to stabilize this objectively Bonapartist function inasmuch as the mass mobilizations themselves on the one hand stimulate The differentiations within the MFA and thus gengrate realignments among the various tendencies and on the other hand necessitate permanent adjustments aimed at more or less controlling the mass movement. Confronted simultaneously with a crisis within the army, an acceleration of the radicalization of the working class, and a deeper and deeper economic crisis, the MEA will find it difficult to preserve its ever more fragile unity, especially since the options that will present themselves will make it increasingly risky to play a game of balancing and of making concessions to both the left and the right. In the event of a convergence between a new wave of struggle on the one hand and a bourgeois offensive taking the twofold form of a campaign of economic sabotage by international capital and a reorganization of the reactionary current within the army on the other hand, a breakup of the MFA is not excluded. In this context, the generalization of forms of self-organization and self-defense and the confrontation of the workers movement with the bourgeoisie could precipitate a new situation characterized both by the emergence of organs of dual power in the factories, countryside, and barracks and by the emergence of the first experiments in coordinating these various organs. In face of this polarization, it is not excluded that some elements of the MFA, influenced by reformist currents and
even by the far-left organizations, could pass to the camp of the working class at decisive moments. But revolutionary Marxists, contrary to centrists, will not passively wait for this possible division to weaken the apparatus of the bourgeois army, nor will they simply wait for the beginning of the mobilization that will lead to the armed insurrection; rather, they will seek to create all the conditions such that this split may accompany the development of the struggle of the laboring masses. Such a split will be strongly stimulated by the generalization of a system of dual power that permits the immense majority of the working class to be won to the camp of the revolution and prepares the final confrontation. From now on, the transformation of the struggle for the generalization and centralization of the instruments of self-organization (resignation of officers, election of committees to control military operations) and the linkup of the organized struggle of the soldiers and sailors with the workers movement will enable the ground for the confrontation to be prepared. On the other hand, in the event that international capital does not strangle the Portuguese economy, that the social and economic crisis is prolonged without any modification in the relationship of forces between the classes, that reformist hegemony is maintained because of the delay in the emergence of a revolutionary pole, and that the mass movement retreats because of divisions within the working class and the absence of precise objectives for advancing the revolution, there could possibly be a relative stabilization of the Bonapartist function of the MFA and a counteroffensive of the currents more or less openly owing allegiance to Spinolism. This could not but find expression in measures aimed at regaining a grip on the army, imposing limits on the activity of the mass movement, repressing the revolutionary organizations, strengthening the hierarchy, and suppressing the organs created by the soldiers. Obviously, this does not imply that the period of instability that resulted from the March 11 victory would end, but rather that the process of upsurge would go through a certain retreat before new confrontations occurred. The not very distant prospect of the fall of the Francoist regime introduces into this overall picture a factor that will be decisive for the future of the Portuguese revolution. A radical change in the political situation in Spain could either relaunch the mass movement in Portugal in the event that there had been a certain pause or combine with the ongoing rise of struggle and create an explosive situation in the whole Iberian peninsula, the fantastic repercussions of which would rapidly be manifested throughout all Europe.
6. THE TASKS OF REVOLUTIONARY
MARXISTS 1) The fusion between the March 11 mobilization and the general rise of struggles since December has accelerated the spread of experiments in self-organization at all levels and in self-defense and workers control and has also raised the level of anticapita list class consciousness. Nevertheless, these experiments remain fragmented and dispersed and hence prevent the potential combativity that was manifested on March 11 from being channeled into a unified effort. In order to safeguard the gains of the victorious response to capitalist reaction, to fully utilize the advantages that the working class commands in the present situation, and to rout any new anti-working-class counteroffensive, it is essential through a flexible tactic of united front to regroup around the initiatives of the proletarian vanguard the broadest layers of the working class, the poor peasantry, and the soldiers and to strengthen the autonomous combat organs with which the toiling masses have endowed themselves during successive mobilizations. In order to do this it is crucial for revolutionary Marxists to make use of all possibilities of coordinating, centralizing, and unifying all these instruments of struggle of the workers and soldiers: workers commissions, building and neighborhood commissions, committees of soldiers and sailors, antifascist vigilance committees, leagues of poor peasants, etc. The democratic centralization on a national scale of all these organs within a structure permitting the linkup with all the workers organizations, trade unions, and parties would be capable of stimulating the emergence and generalization of organs of dual power. In this way a state of affairs would be created limiting or preventing the coopting of the workers upsurge and creating the best conditions for the rapid rise of class consciousness through overall confrontations with the regime and for the construction of the revolutionary party. It is within this perspective that during the election campaign, during the huge demonstrations of May 1, and during their daily propaganda, our comrades of the Liga Comunista Internaciona lista put forward the slogan of a national assembly of workers. 2) In the present phase the LCI, unlike most political currents, is systematically emphasizing:
*the vital importance of the nonexclusive united front of the working class to defend its social and economic gains and its democratic rights and to wage the offensive against capital;
*the necessity of a permanent mobilization of
PORTUGAL
PEASANTS GOVERNMENT, that is, a government of the workers organizations and of representatives of the agricultural workers and poor peasants: a government of the SP, CP, the Intersindical, and other bodies representing sectors of the working class and of the agricultural workers. In order to advance the revolutionary process decisively, such a government would have to base itself on a system of workers, peasants, and soldiers councils. 3) In order to definitively sweep aside capitalist reaction and deepen the workers upsurge and the independent activity of the masses, revolutionary Marxists will wage massive political campaigns around the following oxes.
*for the nationalization without compensation and under workers control of the major industries and sectors of distribution, and for the state monopoly of foreign trade;
*for the generalization of workers control in all sectors already nationalized, which means, among other things, the right to remove administrators named by the state, the right to hold meetings and general assemblies in the work places during working hours, veto right over hiring and firing, etc.,
*for the centralized management of all property and of all nationalized companies by a central body placed under the control of the workers organizations and founded on the application of an emergency economic plan drawn up by these organizations;
*for the expropriation of the large landed estates under workers control and for a radical agrarian reform
*for the strengthening of the antimilitarist movement, the generalization and coordination of the committees of soldiers, sailors, and airmen, in order on the one hand to assure the total purge of reactionary officers, to elect commanders in general assemblies, to control the functioning of all military operations, and to take charge of the defense of the material interests and rights of the soldiers and on the other hand to assure the systematic linkup with the workers organized in the neighborhoods and with the workers organizations and trade unions in order to prepare the most rapid and determined response both to fascist provocations and to any new attempted coup:
*for the dissolution and disarmament of the police of big capital: the GNR and the PSP; 28
*for a central united trade union with respect for the right of tendencies, democratic elections of delegates and officials at all levels, and total independence from the state;
*for the suppression of all laws restricting trade- union action, the action of workers in the factories, and occupations of empty housing, and against any measures restricting the activity of the revolutionary organizations;
*for the generalization of armed self-defense pickets and the arming of the trade unions and workers commissions;
*for Portugal's withdrawal from the Atlantic alliance and for the breakup of the Iberian Pact;
*for the active solidarity of the Portuguese workers with their comrades in Spain in their struggle to bring down the Francoist dictatorship. To deal with all these tasks, the comrades of the LCI will have to:
*assure themselves of an ever broader implantation in the working class;
*extend the influence of the revolutionary Marxists in all the sectors that are now mobilizing and offer them a perspective of struggle for socialism;
*consolidate the organization of hundreds of adherents in order to make the LCI a real political striking force capable of contesting reformist hegemony on the concrete field of class struggle. In face of the workers upsurge in Portugal, an international anticommunist campaign is being intensified and imperialist threats are proliferating. There is no doubt that at the moment of an accentuation of the revolutionary upsurge, especially if it coincides with the fall of the Francoist dictatorship, the imperialist threats will become ever more pressing. The European and American bourgeoisies are not prepared to rest with folded arms when the revolution breaks out on the Iberian peninsula. From this point on, revolutionary Marxists, the Fourth International, must take all possible initiatives of political solidarity with the struggle of the Portuguese workers in order to prepare the broadest layers of the working class and the youth to prevent a counterrevolutionary intervention in the future. The rise of struggles in Europe since 1968, the strengthening of the revolutionary vanguard, and the response that has already been acquired within the European working class by the fight of the Por tuguese toiling masses represent the best guarantees of the mobilization of the European working class against international capitalist reaction. June 6, 1975
MILITARY GOVERNMENT