AGAINST CAPITAL & REACTION:
PROLETARIAN UNITY!
The following is the text of a leaflet distributed in Lisbon, particularly at the July 19
Socialist party demonstration, by the comrades of the Liga Comunista Internacionalista
(Internationalist Communist League), the Portuguese sympathizing organization of the expropriations, and land occupations) and respecting foreign commitments. A government with such a program, if it did not fall apart from within, would be hard put to contain the hostility of the workers, who are tired of the class collaboration that is paralyzing their forward march. If, on the other hand, the next assembly of the MFA, which has already been postponed twice and is now scheduled for July 27, continues along the lines of the preceding assembly by giving way in face of the determination of the workers, then it is the MFA itself that will be torn apart. A military government with which "competent revolutionary personalities" are associated would find in its cradle the gauntlet thrown down by the most right-wing sector of the MFA. In one form or another, this right-wing would ally itself with the SP, or even with the reactionary right itself, to activate discontent and create an atmosphere of permanent polit-
Fourth International. In just a few days the situation has become tense once more. The greatest confusion reigns, fed by the most diverse rumors. The LCI believes that it is its duty to try to bring some clarity to this situation in order to plan out an overal! response with the workers - all the workers, regardless of the party or current of the workers movement to which they adhere. 1. The incapacities of a government that tries to mix oil and water - the interests of the workers and guarantees for the bourgeoisie that exploits them - have just miserably concluded with the rout of the fourth provisional government. There is no more government in Portugal today. Everyone knows and every worker feels that only a government defending the interests of the workers and peasants, all those who are victims of capitalist oppression, can bring the country out of the crisis. To bring this about, we must put an end to the sort of hesitation, compromise, and shilly-shallying that ical crisis propitious for the government's overthrow, peacefully if possible, violently if necessary.
In either case, we can be sure that the crisis will rebound and become more serious than ever.
What is going on now is a real race against time.
Workers power exerted through the workers National
People's Assembly must manage to take over from this defeated regime before the powerlessness of five provisional governments gives rise to the usual reactionary push toward bourgeois "law and order, " in the absence of a working class organized to assert its determination to put an end to the permanent crisis. There is not a single day to lose in winning this battle. The fate of the Portuguese revolution is at stake, and with it the destiny of the European socialist revolution. July 21,1975 tries to patch up what has been defeated by the very combativity of the workers. To bring this about, we need a government determined to bring down capitalism by basing itself on the immense power of the workers organized in their workers commissions, tenants commissions, and popular assemblies, a government responsible to a National People's Assembly that represents the whole of the working class, the peasants, and the soldiers. 2. It is clear that the Social Democratic leadership of the SP rejects this perspective. Whatever words they may use to appease the spontaneous aspirations of those who still place confidence in them, the leaders of the SP walked out of the government to struggle against the self-organization of the workers, which the assembly of the MFA was forced to recognize. That is the truth of the matter. Furthermore, the leadership of the SP is using the campaign it has launched to try to make the next MFA assembly go back on its decision, or at least moderate it. It is seeking in this way to guarantee its potential positions in the future government and even to strengthen those positions.
9
On July 24 the LCI organized a meeting of solidarity with the political prisoners and workers of the Spanish state. It was held in the Lisbon Sports Palace and was an enormous success. Between 5,000 and 6,000 people participated. Because of the importance of the most recent events in Portugal itself, a speaker from the Political Bureau of the LCI opened the meeting with a presentation of the strategic and tactical course proposed for the Portuguese proletariat in the present revolutionary upsurge by the sympathizing organization of the Fourth International in Portugal. The crowd responded with a standing ovation.
PORTUGAL The leadership of the SP prefers the possibility of parliamentary combinations in the Constituent Assembly to the development of the power of the workers, both in and out of uniform, organized in their work places and neighborhoods. The leadership of the SP prefers its alliance with Social Democrats like Schmidt, Wilson, and Palme, loyal managers of European capitalism, to the extension of international solidarity with the Portuguese revolution across the borders of the bourgeois states that are now threatening to crush it. But is that really what the hundreds of thousands of workers, members and sympathizers of the Socialist party, wanted when they placed their confidence in the SP? We are convinced that the answer is No. The Socialist workers — whatever illusions they may have, which we want to dissipate - desire the abolition of the capitalist system of oppression and exploitation of man by man and are sincere partisans of the construction of a classless society in which the workers will exercise all power and benefit from all socialist liberties, which brook no comparison with the formal "liberties" of bourgeois democracy. 3. The reformist and Stalinist leadership of the Communist party bears an important part of the responsibility for the division within the workers movement that we are witnessing today and that threatens to become tragic for the future. Instead of working toward the unity of the proletarian front against the reactionary bourgeoisie, which is now raising its head, the leadership of the CP is trying to use the popular mobilization as a pawn in its political game with the MFA. Instead of doing everything to assemble the workers and revolutionary forces where they must be assembled - in the work places and neighborhoods - the leadership of the CP is trying in a sectarian manner to pose as the sole revolutionary force, pushing the workers of the SP into the arms of the right.
Meeting of the LCI in Lisbon 10
Communist, Socialist, and revolutionary workers all have the right to organize in their various parties to express their opinions about the ways to do battle against capitalism and the ways to build socialism. 4. We will always unconditionally defend the right of workers organizations to hold meetings and organize demonstrations, whatever disagreements we may have with their objectives. From this point of view, the maneuvers of the CP leadership these past two days - into which they have vainly tried to draw the FSP, the MES, and the LCI - in no way contribute to building the Workers United Front. But the workers of the SP must not allow reaction to make use of these initiatives in order to move to the attack against workers organizations in Aveiro, Rio Maior, Lorinho, Porto de Mos, Cadaval, and Batalha. Together with their class brothers, they must break the back of the fascists by organizing popular vigilance in the headquarters of the workers parties and trade unions, by uniting around the independent organs of anticapitalist struggle, and by preparing self-defense in close alliance with the soldiers and sailors. The workers must not permit the discussions and debates that are legitimate within the workers movement to facilitate the offensive of the counterrevolution. The LCI addresses itself to all the workers, and especially to the Socialist and Communist workers: at this decisive moment proletarian unity must carry the day! *All united in our workers commissions, tenants commissions, united assemblies, and people's assemblies for the construction of a National People's Assembly, organ of workers power! For a workers government! * Against capital and reaction, proletarian unity! Vigilance! *Forward to the socialist revolution! July 19,1975
Executive Committee of the Liga Comunista internacionalista