Portugal is unfolding in a context characterized by a series of factors: the majority won by the parties of the working class in the elections to the Assembly of the Republic; the continuation of a crisis of bourgeois political leadership (in spite of the current rallying of the bourgeois parties to the candidacy of Chief of Staff Ramalho Eanes); a profound economic crisis; the continued manifestation of the capacity of resistance of the working class. The bourgeoisie, after relatively consoldiating Its forces of repression, is now aiming on the one hand at getting Eanes elected by a large majority in order to neutralize its defeat of April 25, 1976, and on the other hand at rolling over the CP. While the dominant sectors of the bourgeoisie are indicating their agreement with the Soares government project - he promises to apply a program of "dynamization of the private sector" and "profitization of the public sector" (Opção, June 17-23) - they are openly asserting that as soon as the first government crisis breaks out, priority will be given to a "government of national union. "Eanes has promised this, for there certainly will be a government crisis. This rapid description indicates the problems that will be on the agenda tomorrow: formation of a government and its future crises; unionization and the holding of the first trade-union congress (in order to establish a real central union federation for the first time); the breadth of the workers resistance to the government's plans to prune the economy, with consequent repercussions on the SP. The various campaigns being waged by the candidates for president must be evaluated on the basis of these questions as well as on the basis of the very uneven process of development of the consciousness of the Portuguese toiling mosses and of the necessary conquest of their independence. For Eanes and Azevedo, things are clear. They are the candidates of the employers, although the latter does embarrass the former by his untimely outbursts. The candidate of the Communist party, Octavio Pato, while he declares in advance his respect for the future president, is centering his campaign on this theme: "What is in question today, the same point that was posed in April (1976), is who will govern the country. A rightist holy alliance against the interests of the workers or a leftist alliance with the workers?" Carvalho claims that his "party is the people" (A Copital, June 9) and that "the parties divide the people. " He proclaims his total independence of those who sup24
VOTE PATO! port him. But he admires Eanes, chief of staff of the of the army in which he, Carvalho, is a major: "Eanes is an honest man, who can be used by the forces of the right. If Eanes is really and honestly engaged in construction of a democracy of the type I favor, then it will be difficult for the parties of the right to manipulate him. " (O Jornal, June 9) The campaign of the organizations that support Carvaho (UDP, MES, PRP) is first of all misaxised in relation to the real problems that are posed now or will be posed for the workers tomorrow. Second, it is being conducted under the illusion that Otelo will win an electoral victory (he will, however, get a large vote), and it reproduces many of the myths for which the Portuguese working class has already paid dearly. J.A. Fernandez, editor of a weekly that supports the campaign, had to write: "At the risk of shocking some organizations and workers, it is useful to say that Otelo is not going to win....(lt is serious) to cultivate the illusion that an electoral victory would resolve the people's problems. " The slogans on the two Carvalho posters, which bear the colors of the Portuguese flag, are "April 25 for president" (this one shows Otelo in his general's uniform) and "A friend for president. Finally, while the campaign has relaunched the theme of "popular power, * it locates this power in the organs established for the elections (the GDUP-Dynamization Group of Popular Unity). This induced the editor of Gazeta, who is nevertheless a supporter of Otela, to say: "The revolutionaries do not have a clear aiternative to the strategy of the CP....At bottom, they stand side by side with the CP, as though they had broken with its theory and practice only to come up with a new leftist version of it. The first part of the text below, a national leaflet distributed by the Liga Comunista Internacionalista (LCI - Internationalist Communist League), describes the project of Eanes and the SP and raises the slogan, No votes for bourgeois candidates! The LCI then explains its central political choices and its slogan of a vote for Octavio Pato of the CP.
Against the candidates who represent November 25, Ramalho Eanes and Pinheiro de Azevedo, Otelo Carvalho counterposes April 25, In fact, his campaign slogan claims that what he wants is to put "April 25 in the presidency. " Otelo respects the "April 25 of the captains so much that he declares: "In truth, I admire Ramalho Eanes very much for his professional competence and his character. The whole problem is that the political parties that support him are trying to make use of his name and prestige. " (O Jornal, June 9-15, 1976.) He also speaks of the unity, cohesion, and discipline of the army. " It is this army, with its Eaneses, Jaime Neveses, and Pires Velosos, that he promises to "place in the service of the people. " This army will never be in the service of the workers; November 25 proved that. There can be no illusions. Why doesn't Otelo take a stand clearly in favor of the only things that would allow the soldiers to stand side by side with the workers in the future battles against the bosses and their state:
*the right of the soldiers in uniform to express themselves and discuss freely in the barracks, which is now forbidden, even while the generals make themselves clarions of reaction;
* the right of soldiers to organize themselves in a union (linked to the workers unions) and into commissions in order to work ouf and defend their demands. The cause of this silence lies in the respect Otelo manifests for an army and hierarchy out of which he has emerged and of which he is still a member. Moreover, Major Carvalho, while insisting on his respect for the officers, has not failed to stress his complete independence of the organizations that are supporting his candidacy. It is no small paradox that a candidate who claims allegiance to the working class takes greater distance from the workers parties than from the bourgeois officers. But is "April 25 in the presidency" really what the workers need? The working men and women who are now supporting Otelo's candidacy know very well that the strengthening of the workers commissions, the broadening of the independence of the tenants commissions, the development of soldiers commissions, and the construction of a democratic and independent trode union ran and still run counter to the tutelage symbolized by the "MF A-people alliance. " In continuing to represent that alliance, Otelo holds out no other road for the toiling masses except the impasse into which they have already been plunged by the MFA. It is true that the unity of the workers is a decisive objective. But this unity - against the bourgeoisie, its state, and its parties - must be constructed: *in the workers commissions, by making sure that they function democratically, that they are elected, that all the currents of the workers movement can express themselves within the commissions with no exclusion; * in the trade unions, by making sure that they are independent and that they respect the right of tendency, by fighting for a democratic congress of all the unions in order to define a workers plan of struggle against capitalist cooptation.
*among the parties of the workers movement, on the basis of precise objectives that stimulate the mobilizations of the working class, the workers response to the offensive of the bosses and their state. That is a concrete response to the division of the class! On the other hand, the "non-partyist" proclamations -which tend to erase the class difference between workers and bourgeois parties and thus tend to minimize, not to say deny, the importance of the majority won by the workers parties in the elections to the Assembly of the Republic - generate illusions in providential solutions and de-emphasize the necessity of a response of the workers organized in their commissions, unions, and parties and united around a plan of struggle. It is only by building this unity and by repudiating "nonpartyism" that the "rank-and-file popular organs" can be dynamized, that workers control can be extended and defended, that the agrarian reform can be deepened; this is also the only way Eanes, and reaction along with him, can be beaten. Pato: Won't confront Eanes Octávio Pato, candidate of the Communist party, the only candidate linked to a workers party, claims allegiance to the majority won by the candidates of the working class in the legislative elections. It is true that the votes of the workers in these elections expressed the desire to defeat the PPD (Popular Democratic party) and the CDS (Social Democratic Center), to defend the conquests of the workers and continue the struggle for socialism, for the democracy of workers councils. In voting for the workers parties, the workers voted against the bosses and the military hierarchy. Now, today, the candidate of the CP claims that he doesn't want to "antagonize" Eanes and Pinheiro, In addition, he affirms his respect for the pact between the Council of the Revolution and the parties, which hands Eanes, candidate of the bosses, a club with which to "pacify the factories, " to impose the bosses" will, if necessary over the head of the left majority, on the Assembly and the government. The unity of the workers which Pato Invokes cannot be the simple result of an addition of the deputies of the CP and SP or the product of pressure on the SP. This unity of the working class will be constructed only on these conditions:
*if unitary demands overcoming the barriers among various categories of workers, between men and women (equal pay), are defended with determination;
*if, against the attacks of the bosses, clear projects for dynamizing, broadening, and coordinating the workers commissions and for strengthening and unifying the trode unions are put forward. Of course, it is the class struggle that divides the Portuguese people. But it is the sectarian and bureaucratic methods that contribute to dividing the Portuguese workers; it is the declarations of confidence in the "officers loyal to April 25" that demobilize the workers.
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PORTUGAL Finally, at the moment when the American, German, French, British, and other bourgeoisies are openly supporting their friend Eanes and when the workers of the Spanish state are dealing the sharpest blows to the heritage of Franco, Otelo and Pato have made themselves the defenders of "national independence. " They are not campaigning:
*for rejection of the Iberian pact;
*for active solidarity with the struggle of the working class of the Spanish state against Juan Carlos, against reaction, and for socialism. Prepare tomorrow's battles The bourgeoisie, ofter its defeat in the legislative elections, is now regaining its courage. With the aid of the SP leadership, it hopes to assemble the greatest number of votes around Eanes (and it will also count the votes of Azevedo as indirectly its own), in order to wipe out the unfortunate results of April 25, 1976. *Not one vote must be locking in the fight to defeat the Eanes operation! * All the workers will manifest their rodical opposition to "what he promises to do" and thus they will also express their rejection of the program that future prime minister Soares proposes to implement! * If the workers must above all have confidence in their own struggles, in their ability to organize themselves more solidly in the workers commissions and the unions; if the workers will place no confidence either in the new attempted compromises proposed by the CP or in the "non-partyism" and miraculous solutions of Otelo; if the workers know that their battle in the factories will have to be continued after June 27, they must nevertheless use their votes to extend the electoral victory of April 25, 1976, and thus prepare the way for the assertion of independent solutions for the toiling masses. * Against the projects of a government of national unity, the workers will also, through their votes, pronounce themselves for a government of the SP and CP, which reflects the worker majority that came out of the legislative elections, a government that applies a program of defense and extension of the gains won in struggle, a program defined by a democratic congress of all the unions and expressing the workers' will for independence of the bourgeoisie! The LCI maintains that:
*to vote for Octavio Pato does not in any way imply supporting his program; in the context of these elecfions, it is the only way to manifest the workers' will to struggle for these objectives, the workers" will for independence, against the policy of Eanes and all those who support him;
*to vote for the only candidate of a workers party also represents the possibility of the workers' demanding of this party, within the workers commissions and the unions, a united policy of struggle against the generals and capitalists. Vote Octávio Pato! 26
LEBANON THE