MOVES TO
CD BACKS HIM UD
PORTUGAL REPRESSION. •• by A. UDRYOn June 10 the following announcement was made on Portuguese television screens: "The broadcost hos been suspended by orders from above. " Forty-seven days after the "coup, " the junite was showing in the most direct way that it intended to "take things in hand. " On June 14 it took direct control of television broadcasting. That measure was rounded out on June 21 by a law-decree instituting new censorship. Concurrently, the "heod of government" threatened to use troops to break the strike of the postal workers - the same troops that intervened against the strikers at the American Timex watch trust and against the workers of the "Lisbon Water Company. " To prop up measures like this, the government is preparing antistrike legislation and intensifying its repression against the far leff. All these decisions taken by the junta or by its front, the "provisional government, " have been supported by the Portuguese Communist and Socialist parties. This support has been all the more necessary for the junta in that its failure to quickly achieve a cease-fire in the colonies requires that it win the greatest possible latitude on the interal front. Support from the CP and SP offers the junta a greater possibility of temporarily conserving a broad enough social base to dea! with the difficult negotiations on the "status of the overseas territories." One advantage: low wages After the initial strike wave that followed the giant May 1 demonstrations, the government's decision to set the minimum wage at 3,300 escudos a month (about US$145) underlined the contradiction between the interests of capital and the most immediate demands of the workers. In effect, in terms of its plan of integration into the Common Market and its appeal to foreign capital, Portuguese capitalism commands but one substantial advantage: the lowest wages in Europe. If is consequently a certainty that Portuguese capital will not casily agree to discard the only real trump card it holds in its hand. Inflation is accelerating and is reaching o gallop: For 1973 the inflation rate was 23%; From March 1973 to March 1974 it rose to 30%; and the National Statistics Institute (INE) has announced that the rate could reach 70% in 1974! The balance of payments deficit seems to be growing as well. This results from the combination of the increase in the prices of raw materials and oil with the fall in the amount of currency sent back to Portugal by immigrant workers (in 1972 the money sent back by immigrants reached 22,388 million escudos) and the slowdown in tourism (in 1971 the income from tourism amounted to 5,313 million escudos). Rumors about a coming devaluation of the escudo and the mystification maneuvers of certain Portuguese commercial banks are considerably slowing down the shipments of money back to Portugal by the two million emigrants. The tourist industry is suffering from a 10 conjunctural downturn. According to the Financial Times, the crisis is making itself felt in the southern tourist province of Algrave and in Lisbon. A hatel with 660 beds, normally full this time of year, is now less than one-third occupied. To these elements must be added the structural crisis Portuguese industry is experiencing. This is asserting itself with all the more force in that a more or less aggravated recession is hitting most of the European capitalist economies and is therefore intensifying interimperialist competition. Concentration of capital is very pronounced in Portugal; "168 companies, or 0.4 percent of the 40,051 that were active on the continent in 1971, hold 53 percent of the total capital of the whole society, " wrote M.B. Martins in "Sociedades e grupos em Portugal" (p. 16). But the structure of production is even more backward. Only 0.5% of factories engaged in manufacturing employ more than 500 persons; 21.5% employ between 11 and 500 persons, and 78% are either artisanal workshops or very small production units employing less than 11 persons. The process of reconverting Portuguese capital does not promise to be easy. The measures that have been taken to support the small and medium-sized enterprises appear much more as means of assuring the integration of some of them into the monopolies than as means of saving them and defending employment levels. Unemployment, which has forcefully reappeared, will grow. In the construction industry in the South more than 4,000 workers have lost their jobs in recent times, according to the June 28 Financial Times. The return of immigrant worker who are losing their jobs because of the general rise in unemployment in the Common Market countries will exacerbate this increase in unemployment. Under these conditions, the junto and the employers are not prepared to make big concessions, especially since the Communist party is assuring them of its support. Too big a wage increase, a rodical reduction in the workweek, or a drastic increase in special costs would place in question the foreign investment that is less interested in the rather limited internal market than in wage advantages. If these wage advantages cease to exist, various companies could decide not to invest in Portugal any more, especially companies producing parts for complex products that are assembled in other countries. The opening up of certain markets in Eastern Europe (for the moment, 65 percent of Portuguese exports are sent to capitalist Europe, most of these to the Common Market countries) cannot offer real alternatives. The loans that have been offered by the Common Market countries can ease the immediate situation, but certainly cannot resolve the essential difficulties with which Portuguese capitalism is confronted. The last country to be affected by the expansion of European capitalism after the second world war, Portugal is seeking to take to the road of reconstruction just of the time that European capitalism is entering a period of acute crisis. That is the major obstacle! Hence, the options chosen by capital are predictable and have already been announced: attack on the buying power of the workers, affack on employment, and re-
strictions on independent trade-union organization and the right to strike will be the backbone of the policy of the junto and its facade, the "provisional government." The limits of a movement We have already stressed the breadth of the strike movement that developed after the May 1 mobilizations. (See INPRECOR No.2.) While a workers vanguard emerged from these strikes, and while the strikes triggered a rapid development of the consciousness of certain layers of workers, it is important not to close our eyes to the weaknesses of this movement. First of all, since the first world war, the Porluguese workers movement has not had the experience of a national mobilization that would hove allowed it to really express its power and would have led to a central political confrontation with the bourgeoisie. Second, the fragmentation of the workers movement has been intensified and fostered by the corporatist regime. The number of craft unions was very high. The unions were sfructured along district lines. Thus, just in the Lisnave shipyards in Lisbon, there are still, after the "coup, " Twenty: four separate craft unions. In 1969 some 80 percent of the unions had average memberships under 1,616. Only eight unions hed slightly more than 20,000 members. A study of the trade-union structure under the "old regime" concluded: *The description of Portuguese trade-union structure allows us to conclude that there has been a deliberate atomization." (Analisé social, 1972, No. 33, p. 180.) To be sure, the figures cited must be viewed with caution, for they count paper membership and all those who were forced to pay dues. in addition, resistance to the corporatisi unionism made only a limited impression on the workers. But it is no less true that the working class is still marked by this fragmentation. This lack of a centralized movement explains in the final analysis the failure of siruggles to become generalized during the upsurge after the beginning of May. On this besis it is understandable why the junta was so trenchantly determined to end the first national strike in decades: the strike of the postal workers. The Communist party, thanks to its implantation and audience, was the only organization that could have been capable of generalizing and centralizing the struggles. But it did just the opposite. Not only did it adapt to the old structures of the trade unions, it also deliberately isolated the strikes after May I that represented the highest points yet attained by the workers mobilization in terms of goals, methods of struggle (the Messa typewriter factory, Timex), and political stakes involved (public transport, Carris in Lisbon, the postal strike).
Thus, to understand why in spite of the very high level of combativity in many factories and in a sector like the postal workers, and in spite of the emergence of a workers vanguard, the many measures taken by the junta and the policy of the
CP have not triggered a decisive response (at least for the moment), one must start from the inexperience and lack of politicization of the working class, the real betrayal of the
CP, the uneven development of the mobilizations on a notional scale, and the quantitative and political weakness of the for left. Furthermore, many workers won what they considered real victories during the first strike wave, and this has also had an effect in the general retreat of the mobilization since the end of May.
The way the junta intervened to break the postal strike and the Timex strike and the policy followed by the CP in these struggles allows us to get an idea what the alignment of forces will be in the coming months.
Two key strikes... broken In the postal sector, at least in the capital, a certain milifancy had been manifested since the end of 1973. Woges were very low: of 35,000 workers, 21,000 made between 2,000 and 7,000 escudos a month (that is, about USS88308). Since the beginning of May, workers on a national scale had been trying to build a union. Thus, on May 5, some 1,000 workers met in Lisbon and decided to set up a "trade-union commission" and to begin to wark out a series of demands. The "trade-union commission" was later to be expanded by the addition of delegates elected in general assemblies in the main postal centers throughout the countryWhen the government refused to accept the demands drawn up by the "commission" (6, 000 escudos minimum wage, immediate thirty-five-hour workweek, one month paid vacation, doubletime for overtime, revision of the job classification system), the strike was declared of midnight on June 17. This strike, unlike many of the others, immediately appeared as a confrontation with the goverment. Already during the public transportation strikes in Lisbon (Carris), the government had given proof of its determination not to give in to wage demands. So there was no doubt that the postal strike would be a test of strength with the government, which would try to make an example of the postal workers, as the employers were demanding. In addition to the above-mentioned demands, the strike also demanded the right to a strong and democratic trade union. The whole organization of the strike, and the preparation For it, showed that in this sector the workers would not easily accept the bureaucratic operation led by the CP of creating a union from the top down by utilizing the Union Federation. In fact, in addition to the "national strike committee" that grew out of the "trade-union commission, " various commissions were set up: news and propaganda, organization of the strike and of strike pickets, medical and social aid, mobile brigades to make contact with various centers, and so on.
The workers set out to explain their case to the population, especially in Lisbon, The response of the junta was predictable. The response of the CP went beyand what could have been imagined.
The government started a campaign to denounce the strikers
"who were disturbing the normal life of all Partuguese." In an official message conveyed to the strikers on the night of
June 19-20, the goverment declared: "The government has decided to call upon the intervention of the Armed Forces, which, in complete accord with the govemment decision, are preparing to intervene on the morning of June 20 in order to assure the functioning of the postal services." (Expresso,
June 22.)
Portuguese metalworkers. "Fighting for our rignis."
11
PORTUGAL
But while the government was preparing the intervention of the army, it left it to the CP to denigrate the strikers and even to organize demonstrations against the strike. On June
19 the Lisbon regional leodership of the Communist party made the following declaration: "The objective (of the strike) is this: to oppose the workers to the provisional government and to bring on an atmosphere of discontent and revolt that benefits fascism and reaction." (Avantel June 20.) And it added that the "trade-union commission" -- which had been elected democratically -- had not accepted the intervention of the Union Federation, which perfectly revealed the aims of the strikers I In Porto a demonstration was organized against the strikers and the union office was occupied, thanks to the CP's agitating the population agoinst the strikers! One of the results of this CP policy was precisely that it favored the First demonstration of the right against strikes, as was verified of Viseu. In view of the isolation of the workers that the "communists" and "socialists" were organizing, it was only logical that rightist elements would feel reassured and would initiate their antiworker campaign, utilizing the theme of the "economic crisis." When the intervention of the army was announced, the 260 delegates from Lisbon and the provinces decided after a tense discussion to end the strike, in spite of the very small gains that had been made (increases ranging From 80 to 100 escudos a month). They decided to continue the struggle under another form (working strictly "by the book"). The relative isolation of the strikers -- in spite of the intervention of the Left Socialist Movement and the Liga Comunista Internacionalista (Internationalist Communist League, Portuguese sympathizing organization of the Fourth International), which initiated solidarity actions and were followed by the other for-left groups -- could only facilitate the government's victory, even though the workers combativity remains intact, as evidenced by the "by the book" operation. Furthermore, the CP continued its campaign of vilification, declaring: "It is counterrevolutionaries who, posing as defenders of the workers' interests, are preventing a solution to the postal crisis. " (L'Humanite, June 29.) The first national strike thus ended in a relative defeat for the workers movement and strengthened the position of the junta and the employers in the battles to come. The government understood the situation quite well, and, the day after the end of the postal strike, the armed forces entered the Timex factory, which had been occupied since June 4, forcing the workers to agree to the presence of the management in the general assemblies of strikers, secret ballots, limitation of discussion, and so on. Here again the relative isolation of the strike and the policy of the CP, the SP, and the Union Federation, made the struggle turn out badly, which is an example that can be assimilated by the workers vanguard in order to prepare for coming confrontations. To be sure, combativity was not broken. On June 24 the workers went home early, putting the forty-hour workweek into effect themselves. But a strike that ends this way has a negative effect. Not only was the test of strength against the junta's policy that was possible not made -- a test that would have been generalized in other struggles -- but also the most contradictory reactions can crop up in a young and combative working class that lacks any trode-union and political frodition. The reactionaries want strikes The criminal role of the Portuguese Communist party in this situation can be especially illuminated if it is placed in the context of the CP's perspective during the period prior to the April 25 coup. Before that date, the CP, which commanded a rather large audience in the factories and was working within the structures of the corporatist unions, raised the slogan of minimum monthly wage of 6,000 escudos, a slogan 12 that it violently rejects today. This slogan had been widely taken up during the struggles at the end of 1973 and the beginning of 1974 in the construction, electrical, textile, and glass industries, In relation to the previous mobilizations, the workers participation in the trade-union assemblies (called, in fact, by the CP) immediately after April 25 was significant, This mass mobilization on the trade-union level (with a view toward creating a fighting trade union), resulted in much reticence within the Union Federation about militant unionists participating in the government. Nevertheless, the
Armed Forces Movement would not have accepted the CP's participation in the goverment unless the CP trade-union wing was also to be involved in governmental participation.
The Armed Forces Movement wanted to cover all bets!
The CP leadership succeeded in carrying out a sort of "coup" inside the Union Federation, and Avelino Pacheco Gonçalves, trade-union leader of the banking sector in Porto, acceeded to the post of minister of labor. One of the functions of the CP become obvious: to control the workers movement, limit the mobilizations and strikes as far as possible, cover up the enaciment of legislation that would restrict the right to strike and the autonomy and independence of the trade unions, etc. This policy has led the CP to take positions that place it in the vanguard of the struggle against the mobilization of the workers even for their most immediate domands. It is significant that the correspondent of a British omployers' newspaper (the Financial Times, June 18) has written: "The minister of labour, Avelino Concalves, nevertheless works hard at settling conflicts that seriously affect production, and it is extremely important to note that it is nearly only the Communist who are counselling caution in the use of the strike weapon of this fime." This observation is all the more relevant in that Jose Vitoriano, a member of the CP Central Committee, stated: "Today it is the fascists and reactionaries of all stripes who want more strikes. Yesterday they repressed them with blood and iron. Today they are their principal promoters. " (l'Humanité, June 21.) This policy is complemented by the attempt to construct -from the top down and on the basis of the old trade-union structures -- a centralized trade-union apparatus. This instrument is intended to become the privileged interlocutor with the government and to gradually implant itself in the factories in which it has not yet a base, exactly by utilizing its centralized weight. In places where the CP could not directly transform the "workers commissiong" _ bodies that led the struggles in most factories during May and June -into "trade-union commissions" it simply tried to create "trade-union commissions" parallel to the workers commissions. Given time, and because of its hegemony in the contra! union federation, it hopes to be able to impose such bodies. The success of this operation depends on many facfors, among them the scale of the future mobilizations in face of the crisis of unemployment and inflation and the ability of the far left to develop an alternative counteroffensive (as it partially succeeded in doing during the postal strike). Nevertheless, one effect of the CP policy could be the emergence of an antipolitical, or even anticommunist, tendency that would draw its strength from the lack of tradition and political weakness of layers of workers who are combative but totally disoriented by the policy of the CP and the Union Federation. This could provide some room for the development of "autonomous and nonpolitical" trade unions that would play the govemment's game by dividing the workers movement. The reaction among certain layers of young postal workers after the halting of their strike suggests signs of such a tendency. So it is all the more important that the revolutionary, vanguard not allow itself to be led astray by the nature
of the period and the consciousness of the worker mosses but develop systemmatic work for the formation of fighting trode unions democratically controlled on the basis of a break with the craft structure of the corporatist unions. If this task is not fulfilled there is great risk of a weakening of the class as a whole and of the, CP's role on a general level remaining uncontested. Moreover, it is in being able to respond to these questions, among others, that the revolutionary vanguard will deepen its Influence among layers of workers that are going beyond the CP. Spínola: preparing for the future Since the beginning of June Spinola has been putting the emphasis on reconstructing an apparatus with which he can control the situation through asserting his own Bonapartist role in preparation for new elections. One of the most penetrating analyses of the post-April 25 situation appeared in the employers' review Tempo Economico of May 25: "It is obvious that there is nothing radical in the program of the Armed Forces Movement. In the synthetic statements of its platfor one cannot even find a specific attack on the class division of Portuguese society, or on the traditional existence of a ruling class, or even on the composition of the bloc in power...." And it continued, "The fact that the military hos been able to play a decisive role in the destruction of the political regime is a new guarantee for the maintenance of the interests of the holders of economic power. The authority that is always associated with a military government will be very useful in stabilizing a social and political situation that inevitably will be turbulent after the military coup." Thus, the journal that represents the "Business Week" or "Entreprise" of Portugal understands very well the function of the army and the role of the junta, which clearly illuminates what the policy of the workers movement must be in face of the armed forces. Moreover, Spfnola is taking many initicfives toward the Armed Forces Movement. His visit and the speech he mode to the Calde de Rainha infantry regiment -the regiment that launched the "premature" atlack of March 16 -- indicated his desire to limit as far as possible the contradictions between the Armed Forces Movement and the junta and to win a decisive influence in the AFM. That is the policy that he and his clique have been following since November 1973, when it seems that they began to get their fingers into the "captairs' movement. " All the measures aimed at "bringing in new blood" allow for integrating sectors of the AFM into the state apparatus and at the same time for recomposing this apparatus. Hence, while it is true that the AFM is not homogeneous, Spinala's whole policy is designed to increase the weight of the sector of the AFM that is substantially in agreement with the junta's decisions. These are the forces that can stabilize the situation in the armed forces and thus lend the bourgeoisie a decisive instrument. It is instructive that on June 12 at the demonstration for the release of Saldanha Sanches (a leader of the Mooist MRPP), the military police for the first time intervaned "calmly but firmly" to prevent soldiers and sallors from joining the demonstration. Concurrently, Spinola made a tour of the provinces -- in the capital his audience is much smaller -- in order to assure himself of a certain base. At the same time, on the interotional field, Spinolo met Nixon in the Azores and offered him all possible assurances about the "decolonization process, " about Portugal's new diplomatic policy (opening toward the Soviet Union and the Comecon countries), and about Portugal's NATO responsibilities. As for Nixon, he undoubtedly assured the chief of the junta about American imperialism's interest in the decolonization process in Angola, Mozambique, and the Cape Verde Islands, where the United States has military bases. Given the prospect of a crisis in the cease-fire negotiations and an explosion of prices and unemployment, the junta, which lacks any other real power in Portugal, is working out a policy that will rely on utilization of the army to break strikes, impose censorship, press for the passage of "labor legislation, "and carry out repression against antimilitarists. The bourgeoisie is thus preparing for coming confrontations, for dealing with possible mobilizations of the The decision June 10 of Major Femandez, a member of the junta, to interrupt the television program showing Cardina! Cereijeira giving his blessing to a cop from the PIDE-DGS (the secret police) augured the censorship measures that would be taken on June 21. Symbolically, it indicated that "certain institutions cannot be abusively criticized." Some of the television workers reacted. They released a communiqué in which, according to the June 15 Sempre Fixe, they affirmed their will "to continue resolutely their mission of informing and forming the public, a mission for which they are working and that they place above all else, and they reiterated their adherence to the Armed Forces Movement. • The declaration indicates the limitations of the reaction of the television workers. The June 21 law-decree, issued under the authority of the "socialist" Roul Rego, was aimed at all the "flash points" of the present situation. Thus, the following "infractions" can be punished: incitation, even "indirect" incitation, to military disobediance; offenses against the president of the republic, the members of the state council, or the govemment; inciting strikes, work stoppages, or unauthorized demonstrations; publication or distribution of "inexact information." The legal machinery to undertake an attack on the far left, or more generally on the workers movement, has thus Antistrike legislation has not yet been published, but it seems to be comparable to the measures instituting censorship. According to the June 15 Expresso, the legislation pression and defends the right to strike as well as regulating the rights of associations of workers and employers' bodies in the framework of the principles of the Armed Forces Movement." The June 26 Financial Times was more pracise. It
"Reliable sources affirm that the (antistrike) measures will be tough and that they will considerably restrict the room available for the development of labor actions. " The junta is carrying out the orders of Antonio Champalimaud,
"The workers are too free. A brake will have to be put on the demands of workers, who cannot be working less hours and making more money than anywhere else in
Europe. " (Le Figaro, June 26.) It looks like the trusts don't want strikes as badly as the CP claims they do! Finally, the junta is taking mecsures against the movement in the army and is trying to reestablish control over the troops The continuation of the war can only engender the greatest tension, both on the battlefields (fraternization, refusal to fight, desertion) and in Portugal itself (action against the departure of troops, draft refusal). It is thus a top priority for the junta that the traditional organizations (the CP, the SP, the Union Federation) block the mobilizations within the army and put out all sorts of declarations affirming attachment to the "program of the Armed Forces Moven. which can allow the junta more maneuvering room to try to regain control of the army. As "compensation" the junto c allow the "provisional government" to drop a few crumbs in the financial area (increase in direct taxes that are the lowest in Europe, while preserving indirect taxes) or in the area of social security, which has hitherto been nonexistent. Obviously, these few concessions will be presented by the SP and CP as important victories. The double function of the CP and SP is being affirmed more than ever: * to act as the instrument the bourgeoisie needs for controlling the mass movement after the coup d'etat; * to be useful in obtaining a cease-fire in order to try to institute a neocolonial solution in collaboration with imperialism, which takes time; this is all more true in that they represent an instrument capable of assuring pressure from the "good offices" of the Soviet bureaucracy on the liberation movements. The CP has partially fulfilled the first of these functions. But there are some important hitches, and there is no doubt that within the junta some have already drawn some conclusions for the future as to the CP's overestimation of its ability to AFRICA the liberation