orkers movement from political combinations with the representatives of the bourgeoisie, whether civilian or military.
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But the capitalists and the officers, with the active or passive complicity of the leaderships of the SP and the CP, are trying to rob the Portuguese workers of the fruits of their victory of April 25, 1976. The workers, whether they are Socialists, Communists, members of other currents of the workers movement, or belong to no party at all, are now witnessing the lamentable spectacle of their parties, which won the majority in these elections, being hitched to the wagon of a general whose past and present, whose statements and actions, constitute the most complete profession of faith in the capitalist order. Were the millions of men and women who voted for the workers parties, and above all for the SP and CP, placing their trust in Rama ho tanes, Pinheiro de Azevedo, or Costa Gomes in order to guarantee a future without exploitation and oppression? The leaders of the SP and CP know very well that this is not the case, and it is for this very reason that they are carrying out their maneuvers in the corridors of the government and especially in the Council of the Revolution. Nevertheless, we can have no doubt about the objective of these maneuvers, The leoders of the SP and the CP want to use the confidence they still enjoy in the eyes of the majority of the workers to hand that confidence over to a general who will certainly not be long in using it against the aspirations of the working masses. This policy, which the LCI and the PRT combatted during the legislative elections, represents a grave threat to the independence of the workers and to the future of their struggles. The LCI and the PRT address themselves to all the Portuguese workers, to all the organizafions of the workers movement, and particularly to the SP and the CP, calling upon them to present a united workers candidate in the presidential elections. This is absolutely necessary in order that the workers, by voting for their own candidate, may continue to express the will they exhibited on April 25, 1976, when they elected a left majority to the legislative assembly. And in spite of their probable differences with the platform their votes to those of millions of workers, who would thus assure the victory of this candidate against all bourgeois adversaries, whether in or out of uniform. In presenting their candidate right now, the LCI and the PRT have no intention of blocking this road, but on the contrary of holding it open until the last minute.
The presence of a worker candidate consfitutes a guarantee from the LCI and the PRT that in the absence of a candidate presented by the SP or the CP - or, better still, by both parties together - they will be able to vote for a workers candidate not linked to the bourgeois parties, the state apparatus, or the military hierarchy.
The two organizations are prepared to discuss the platform of this candidacy, or any other platform that may be presented, with all the forces of the workers movement. But the LC| and the PRT consider the following points, upheld by their joint candidate, as minimum tion to strengthening the indispensable unity of the workers:
a) The candidate calls for the establishment of a government representing the will of the workers as expressed in the elections to the Assembleia da República. In voting for the SP and the CP the mass of Portuguese workers renewed their support for the two majority parties of the working class and their support to the formation of a government without capitalists or generals. With this objective in mind, the candidate pledges that in the event of his or her election, he or she will charge Mario Soares, secretary general of the SP, or another Socialist leader chosen by the SP, to form a government representing the majority will of the workers, that is, a government without capitalists or generals, based on the left parliamentary majority and on SP-CP unity in the struggle and in the mobilization of the worken. In taking this position, the candidate does not agree with the programs of the SP and the CP, but on the contrary affirms the determination, in spite of the political differences, to respect the will of the workers as expressed in the 53% of the vote that went to these two parties.
b) Respect for the will of the workers implies breaking with all compromises with the bourgeoisie. Through their votes for the workers parties, the workers voted against class collaboration with the bourgeoisie, its parties, and its civilian and military institutions. In
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PORTUGAL calling upon the 5P and the CP to break with collaboration with the bourgeoisie and to annul the anti-worker pact signed by the Council of the Revolution and the major bourgeois and workers parties, the candidate pledges to struggle so that the government, like the left majority in the Assembleia da Repüblica, may govern and legislate freely, independent of all the condifions and obligations the pact imposes on the government and on this majority because of the exceptional powers conferred upon the Council of the Revolution and the president of the republic.
c) The candidate will intransigently defend the necessity of the unity of the workers movement and its organizations against the common enemy of the toilers: the bourgeoisie, civilian and military. During the campaign, the candidate will defend the necessity of the workers united front in which the SP and the CP will have the greatest responsibilities, in the struggles, in the Assembly, and in the government. The candidate will tell the Socialist and Communist workers that only a break by the SP and the CP with the bourgeoisie and the anti-worker pact, only the unity of their organizations, only a government of their majority parties based on the united mobilization of the workers can open the way to allowing the workers to respond to the present capitalist crisis.
In calling for an SP-CP government representing the great mass of workers through their two majority parties, the candidate will explain that such a solution can be an important step forward on the road to the unity and independence of the working class. The presence of ministers of the CP, however, or of those of the SP, does not in itself guarantee the anticapitalist character of the government. Buf at least it makes the leadership of the CP and of the SP assume their joint responsibilities to the workers.
It is for this reason that in the event of the formation of an SP government, the candidate will respond to the
SP leodership's ambition to "govern alone" by challenging the SP to form a government withou capitalists or generals.
In any event, the formation of such a government would have to respond to an essential condition: that the SP, as well as the CP, break with the pact between the
Council of the Revolution and the parties and that instead of the collaboration it has practiced with bourgeois forces up to now, the SP work for the unity of the workers and their organizations, that is, an SP-CP accord to defend the interests of the laboring masses.
Pd) But the emancipation of the workers must be the work of the workers themselves. Their liberation from exploitation and oppression depends not on a good president of the republic, but rather on their daily battle against capital and its state, parties, and generals,
The workers of the cities and the countryside themselves must now work out the immediate demands that must
16 be satisfied in order to guarantee their standard of living in face of the crisis of capitalism. The demands put forward in many trade-union and workers' commission platforms must lead to the elaboration of an emergency plan of struggle for all the workers. These measures include the following, among others:
* Immediate wage increases of 2, 000 escudos a month for all; * Minimum wage of 6,000 escudos a month;
*Against the rising cost of living, for a sliding scale of wages; against unemployment, for the sharing of all available work among all able-bodied workers;
*Prohibition of any layoffs and application of a plan of public works; *Against the attempts to impose the authority of the employers in the factories and of the landlords in the countryside, defense and generalization of national izations, workers control, and agrarian reform;
* Against militarist discipline, democratic rights for soldiers; *Against terrorist attacks on the organizations of the workers, for workers self-defense;
*Against the exploitation and oppression of women:
- equal pay for equal work, - Iiberation of women from household tasks: for child-care centers, laundromats, and canteens subsidized by the state, - free contraception and abortion on demand.
e) The candidate will support the convocation of a democratic congress of all the trade unions to discuss and democratically elaborate this plan of struggle. Beyond this, the congress must devote itself, within the framework of free discussion among all the tendencies of the workers movement, to the transformation of the
Intersindical (the trade-union federation) into a genuine united and democratic trade union of all the workers.
Moreover, the congress must demand that the government take responsibility for the application of this plan of struggle discussed and voted on by the workers.
f Concurrently, the candidate will defend the necessity for the coordination and centralization of the workers commissions - regionally, by industrial branch, and nationally. These are indispensable conditions for the masses' extending their anticapitalist mobilization, coordinating and deepening their experiences in workers control and self-defense and, through their own organs of power, overthrowing the bourgeois state and initiating socialist management of society, with socialist planning of the economy.
In presenting their common candidate in the presidential elections, the LCI and PRT are conscious that they are taking a step forward in their common activity, a step that must lead these two organizations as rapidly as possible to the unification of their forces in order to build the Portuguese section of the Fourth International.
Lisbon, May 9, 1976 Liga Comunista Internacionalista
Partido Revolucionário dos Trabalhadores
The political impotence of the first government of the Francoist monarchy is decidedly evident. Its activity is subject to implacable laws that determine the following scenario: great mass mobilization; savage repression by the police; announcement of "acceleration" of the program of reforms; publication of the corresponding draft laws; rejection of these draft laws with rare unanimity on the part of all the political sectors of the country, including the political groups linked to the ministries in office; outbreak of government crisis. Then the cycle starts again. In reality, these implacable laws are clear and well known: Their origins Tie in the relationship of forces between the bourgeoisie and proletariat that now exists in the country, the real battering ram that has wrecked the Francoist "reform." The referendum has suffered the same fate as the projects that preceded it. (See INPRECOR, Nos. 50, April 29, and 51, May 13, for descriptions of the referendum on "constitutional reform. ") What aggravates the situation is that before the referendum the present government still retained the possibility of resorting precisely to a referendum as a magic formula capable of overcoming the obvious crisis of the Francoist reform. " But since the concrete content of the referendum was announced, there are no longer even any magic formulas, In its present form, this referendum is a beautiful lead lifebuoy for the drowning Francoist monarchy. Thus, the king had to enter the scene. All the king's men The king had a specific role to play in the project of the reform of Francoism. He was supposed to "represent" power but not "exercise" it. He was supposed to stand apart from the concrete polifical decisions, as the only way to obtain if not some authority at least a minimum: of consensus among all the bourgeois political factions. Only the king could occupy the center position in a new balance of interbourgeois forces, the creation of which was the government's task. But the government was a direct product of the "old" balance of forces. It corresponded to the "era of Franco" and was intrinsically incapable of creating a new balance. All its projects were the result of an "inter-Francoist" pact and not of an "interbourgeois" pact. The king thus had to begin to act as a "Bonaparte" if he wanted to hang on. And the least one can say is that up to now he has not run into the slightest obstacle from the "opposition." In fact, some representative figures of the "democratic opposition" (Gil Robles of the Christian Democratic right, Garcfa López of the Social Democratic right, Ollero of the liberal monarchists, etc.) have had audiences with the king and have emerged from the palace like medieval courtesans recounting marvels about the "profound love for democracy" evidenced by the king. Even more significant audiences have been announced 499 for the future. Tiemo Galvan (Socialist leff) has indicated that he is "open" to contact with the king. Felipe González of the Partido Socialista Obrero Español
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