a government of
order portugal by C. MICHALOUX & A. UDRY The sixth provisional government was formed on September 19. It took nearly three weeks to get out of the government crisis and establish on arrangement whose fragility escapes no one, The composition of the government expresses its plans rather well: four ministers of the Socialist party, two ministers of the Partido Popular Democrático (PPD-Popular Democratic party), one minister of the Communist party, to which have been added some representatives of the so-called group of nine, which already holds a majority in the Council of the Revolufion. Pinheiro de Azevedo, the new prime minister, and Costa Gomes, the president, at least have the merit of not hiding their intentions. In his presentation of the political platform of the goverment, the prime minister declared: "(What is needed is) o strong and Firm democratic authority, for peace, order, tranquility, and respect for liberty. "Politically, he stressed *the drawing up of severely repressive legislation against the civilion armed groups (which means: against the embryonic workers militias), a halt to abusive purges (which means: purges stimulated by the mass movement), and a return to balanced functioning of the courts. " Economically, he announced a "pause: the closure of the phase of nationalizations and the reanimation of the private sector, "as well as "the strengthening of economic relations with all countries, especially with the EFTA (European Free Trade Association) and the EEC (European Economic Community, the Common Market)." During his presentation of the government on September 19, Costa Gomes declared: "Our society is not yet adapted to a new style of life in liberty....Authority, social stabilization, refloating of the economy, peace, security, order, and liberty are the desires of the Portuguese people. " (Diario de Noticias, September 20.) Pinheiro de Azevedo, following the president, indicated the keystone of this stabilization: "The cohesion of the MFA (Armed Forces Movement) and the discipline of the armed forces are the basic factors that will determine the success or failure of the revolution."
Such is the outcome on the level of the government and the state apparatus of the process unleashed by the offensive of the Socialist party - which created propitious ground for the reactiviation of the PPD -and the officers who signed the Melo Antunes document. (See INPRECOR, No. 33, September 11, 1975.) More than one formula has been directly drawn from the document of the SP secretariat called "Conquer the Crisis, Save the Revolution" and from the document of the nine, formulas about the authority of the state, discipline in the army, and the dissolution of the workers and people's militias. Thus, this government makes no mystery of its plans: The point is to restore the authority of civilian and military bourgeois institutions and thus to push back the mass movement by attacking its democratic rank-and-file organs (the workers commissions, tenants commissions, and popular assemblies), as well as the nascent committees of selforganization of the soldiers (SUV-Soldiers United Will Win). Spectrum of support It is thus no accident that a broad range of national and international forces are offering more or less complete support to this project. The reasons impelling these various forces to do so differ. For the Social Democracy it is a question of stabilizing a bourgeois parliamentary democracy. Thus, Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme affirmed in an interview with Jornal Novo: "For the solution to your enormous political problems it is indispensable to reestablish the authority of the state as represented by a government of national unity....1 think that Portugal is a problem of fundamental importance for all Europe. It is absolutely necessary for Portugal to prove that it is possible to move from fascism and colonialism to conditions of a stable democratic state. " (September 16.) As for the Spanish falange, Arriba, its official daily, did not hesitate to write in an editorial: "Portugal's democratic chance is at hand if the language of the
PORTUGAL ballot box - which gave a majority to the socialists (the SP and the PPD) - is reflected in the constitution of the government." (September 18.) The critical support of the CDS (Partido do Centro Social-Social Democratic Center) to the sixth government responds to Arriba's concern and indicates that the CDS sees this government as a first barrier against the tide of the mass movement, a barrier that wuk better enable it to crush the whole organized workers movement in blood, including the SP. The rump MFA assembly of September 5 and the massive demonstration of the SUV in Porto September 10 (20,000 people, among them 1,500 soldiers) express, each in its own way, the deep crisis that afflicts oll sections of the Portuguese army. The MFA, forn at the seams, is manifesting its inability to homogenize and draw together the whole armed forces. After initially being driven back, the traditional hierarchy in the military is now taking advanrage of its positions of strength to launch a new offensive. The Melo Antuneses, after receiving a boost, are now seeing that the support their document received is a cover for the desires of the hierarchy, which, in addition, does not hesitate to give underhanded support to the paramilitary activities of the foscists. Both the beginning of an open attack by the military hierarchy and the conscious break of a section of the soldiers with the MA's framework of unonimity herald future confrontations and divisions within the army, where the banner of the MFA will be up for grabs in a clique struggle that will prefigure the official breakup of the MFA. Necessity and possibility of unity "The activity of the members of the Portuguese Communist party in the sixth government will be especially complex," noted on editorial in the September 18 Avante, weekly of the CP. "As in the previous governments, especially the first one, which was tightly controlled by Spinola, the members of the CP will have to wage a difficult battle against the predominant tendencies, specifically against a practice that tends to reabsorb the revolutionary process into a Social Democratic practice."
For the CP, the failure of its investments in the MFA and the state apparatus has to be seen in relation both to a (geographically limited) development of the mass movement toward self-organization and to the offensive of the social and political forces trying to restore the authority of bourgeois institutions and push back the rise of the workers. That is where the basic reason for the CP', oscillations during the month of June lies.
Today these oscillations are concretized in a position of semi-opposition to and semi-participation in the
14 government. For instance, in a communiqué published at the time of the formation of the sixth government, the CP central committee affirmed that "the CP has given its party members authorization to participate as ministers and state secretaries, although not as official representatives of the CP. " (Diario de Noticias, September 20.) Without doing so officially (L), the CP hopes to offer evidence of its desire for conciliation and above all to maintain its positions within the state apparatus. Nevertheless, the pressure the CP is feeling even within its own ranks also compels it to take some distance from the government and to make a show of opposition, which includes participating in mass mobilizations and even giving an impetus to them. In the Alentejo, for example, the CP, responding to the maturation of the combativity of the agricultural workers, stimulated the organization of a general strike (September 16) for the defense of the gains of the agrarian reform and to promote ils extension. The CP even has to take account of the weight of the workers commissions, tenants commissions, and popular assemblies and of the dynamic of the movement of soldiers and the audience of the revolutionary organizafions. At the very moment when he was explaining the CP's participation in the government, for example, Cunhal was forced to assert: "We are sincerely interested in strengthening the links and forms of unity of action with the parties and groups of the left oriented toward revolutionary action (that is, the organizations of the FUR, Front of Revolutionary Unity: the FSP, LCI, LUAR, MES, and PRP-BR*). We are sincerely interested in promoting, strengthening, and supporting united rank-and-file bodies like the corkers commissions, tenants commissions, vigilance committees, and popular assemblies, the richest forms of mass organization, whose role in the revolutionary process in increasing day by day as the expression of the unity of the working class and popular masses. " (Speech by Cunhal at the Campo Pequeno meeting in Lisbon, reproduced in Avante September 18.) Hence, the CP, walking a tightrope, will continue to negotiate a turn, which will heighten the contradictions in its own ranks and consequently increase the effective possibilities for revolutionaries to successFully apply a united-front toctic.
The SP is not completely free of problems either. The obvious organization of the fascist offensive and the
* FSP: Frente Socialista Popular-Popular Socialist
Front. LCI: Liga Camunista Internacionalista--Internationalist Communist League, sympathizing organization of the Fourth Internutional, LUAR: Liga de
União e Acção Revolucionária-League of Revolutionary Unity and Action. MES: Movimento Esquerdo Socialista-Left Socialist Movement. PRP-BP: Partido
Revolucionário do Proletariado-Brigadas Revolucionários-Revolutionary party of the Proletariat-Revolufionary Brigades.
reactivation of the right, developments that were lurking behind Soares's anticommunist demagogy, are now provoking disquiet among leadership circles of the party and resistance, and even limited fissures, among the rank and file. For the first time since April-May 1975, the question of unity is beginning to be posed, even among the ranks of the SP. It is important to note that the secretariat of the demonstration for Garmendia and Otaegui called in Lisbon by the SP and the Young Socialists for September 18 (the same day as the demonstration of the workers and tenants commissions in the industrial belt) canceled this demonstration in order not to "break up unity. " Concurrently, the secretariat of the demonstration of the workers commissions declared itself prepared to support the mobilization of solidarity with the struggle of the Spanish workers against the Francoist dictatorship. For its part, the Socialist youth proposed that all organizations join in a united campaign for the release of the prisoners in Spain. Once again, this modification in the attitude of the reformist organizations, still limited of course, sharply underlines the possibility and necessity of unity in acfion. The coming test The relationship of forces between the classes is for from assuring the government project any real chance of success. The economic and social crisis is continuing to fuel the movement for workers demands. The metalworkers, for instance, have announced a general strike to demand that contracts be respected. In many sectors there is a proliferation of assemblies of workers to discuss various demands and to demand an extension of the measures of nationalization, economic reconversion, and so on. This prefigures the possibility of a rise of the workers this autumn centered around demands for the generalization of workers control and socialist planning. Concurrently, a tendency toward the unification of the organs of rank-and-file workers democracy is taking shape on a local and regional scale. Of course, these processes are often marked by the divisions introduced by the reformists and the Maoist currents (the UDP and the MRPP*), which are seeking to make instruments of the workers and tenants commissions, Nevertheless, the extension and centralization of these organs is increasingly on the agenda. This dynamid will be repable of being accelerated to the extent that revolutionaries coordinate their efforts in the iwafold direction of a unification and a centralization of the structures of self-organization. * UDP: União Democrático Popular-Popular Democratic Union. MRPP: Movimento Reorganizativo do Parrido do Proletariado-Movement for the Reorganization of the Party of the Proletariat.
This conjunction between the rise of the mass movement and the crisis in the army has given rise during the past several weeks to the emergence of structures of self-organization of the soldiers outside the contraining framework of the MEA. The SUV demonstration in Porto was symbolic in this respect, because of the linkup that was made between the soldiers organized in the SUV and the workers commissions, tenants commissions, etc. The extension of the SUV to the Lisbon region and a clarification of its programmatic basis -which puts the emphasis on the formation of soldiers committees independent of the MFA - constitute a decisive step in breaking through the projects aimed at restoring order in the army. The self-assertion of the workers and tenants commissions and the emergence of the soldiers committees of the SUV provide the developing Portuguese revolution with the two features common to every revolutionary upsurge. If the constitution of the sixth government reflects a clear turn to the right and an accentuated attempt to consolidate and restore the authority of the bourgeois state, it nonetheless remains the cose that the working class has not suffered any defeat up to now. In addition, the cornerstone of the Azevedo-Gomes operation may continue to be chipped away. Discipline and unity in the army will be very difficult to restore in the short run. Finally, the translation of the government's options into action requires a confrontation with the workers vanguard. But the combination of the economic and social crisis and the reaffirmation of the movement for economic and political demands among broad layers of workers could create a situation that would facilitate the fusion of this well organized workers vanguard with the bulk of the working class. Coming weeks will permit the relationship of forces between the classes and the real value of the hopes of the sixth government to be tested in practice. September 20, 1975 CORRECTION An error of translation appeared in the "Text of the August 25 Accord" published in the last issue of INPRECOR. The meeting, obviously, did not take place on May 1. May 1 is the name of one of the participating organizations.
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