reform. It represents a test for the minority government and the bourgeoisie. Finally, the 8
-portugalthe agrarian reform: by A. UDRY & C. MICHALOUX use of the threat of intervention by the GNR (Republican National Guard) and the army reflects the extension of November 25, 1975, and the electoral victory of Chief of Staff Eanes. Soares announced the major points of his agrarian policy on August 20 when he presented the government's program: restitution to their former owners of lands of less than 50,000 points (a point is a unit evaluating land on the basis of area and productivity of the soill; concretization of the right of reserve (which allows landlords to preempt a section of expropriated land); compensation for expropriation; elaboration of a judicial status for the Collective Production Units (UCP).
For the time being the government is applying only the first of these decisions. The "dis-occupation" of land concerns only 16,800 hectares of the 1, 100, 000 hectares under occupation, that is, a little more than 1.5 percent. (1 hectare = 2.47 acres.) According to the law passed under the fourth provisional government of Vasco Gonçalves, the total area of land subject to expropriation was approximately 1, 800, 000 hectares. But the present measures nonetheless constitute the first step in challenging the positions that have been won by the agricultural workers and poor peasants of the South. These measures rest on a law that was actually passed after the occupations the government is now trying to roll back, a law that was never able to be applied exactly because of these mobilizations. In addition, the measures reflect a deeper will to reorient the agrarian reform law; this may be concretized in the judicial status of the UCPs, the extent of the compensation that will be decided, and the details of the right of reserve. Concentration and parcelization A few figures may testify to the importance of the agrarian question and the political stakes involved. chero. of the easie plain. of 2,388, 170, some 895, 000 people were employed in agriculture, that is, 29.9%.. In the same year, 9,200 ot -hese plots accounted for 2.5 million hecplots of more than 500 hectares; they accounted for 30.3% of the land cultivated. On the other hand, 480,000 plots included a total of no more than 350, -000 hectares, which means that 54%c of the plots accounted for only 7% of the area under cultivation. The agrarian structure differs in the two major parts of the country. The Tagus River cuts Portugal in two. The South is the territory par excellence of the large landlord. In the four districts that constitute the epicenter of the agrarian reform, the concentration of land and size of the plots of property are greatest: in Setúbal 2.2% of the plots (those of more than 100 hectares) account for 72.6% of the land under cultivation; in Evora 5.7% of the plots cover 87% of the land; in Portalegre 4.4% of the plots account for 79.2% of the land; in Beja 5.8% account for 72.7%. In addition, a process of agrarian concentration occurred in the southern districts during the 1950s and 1960s. Between 1952 and 1968 the number of plots of more than 500 hectares increased 30%; those between 200 and 500 hectares increased 20%, and those between 50 and 200 hectares 36%. Thus, in Beja 117 plots of more than 1,000 hectares each covered an area of 236, 20% hectares out of a total of 753, 984 hectares in the district. In Evora 138 plots accounted for 314, 000 hectares out of 572, 000; in Portalegre 95 accounted for 168,584 hectares out of 469, 958, and in Setúbal 47 plots accounted for 117,230 hectares out of 243,911. The penetration of finance capital into agriculture is related to this sort of land utilization. Beginning in the 1960s, the CUF, the Espírito Santo group, Borges e Irmão, and other trusts stepped up their investments in the rural sector under the impetus, among other factors, of the development of the food industry, the paper pulp industry, etc. Concurrently, many landlords limited their agricultural investments in order to shift some of their capital toward the tourist industry, real estate speculation, banking operations, and so on, which had obvious consequences for soil that is ill-irrigated, left without fertilizer, etc. The process of penetration of finance capital into agriculture created an objective basis for a linkup between the movement for nationalization of the big monopolies and the mobilizations for land occupations áfter the defeat of the attempted rightwing coup of March 11, 1975. In the districts of the North and the Center, on the other hand (Aveiro, Braga, Coimbra, Leiria, Pôrto, Viana do Castelo, Viseu, and Vila Real), small plots predominate. Thus, plots of 0.05 hectares to 4 hectares account for 90.0% of the plots of the Aveiro district and cover 44.8% of the land area, Comparable figures for Coimbra are 88.8% and 49.1%; for Leira 87,6% and 42.0%; for Pôrto 87% and 38.7%c; for Viana do Castelo 92.8% and 53.3%c. In many of these districts the middle-sized plot, ranging in size from 20 to 50 hectares, occupies a relatively important position. In some of the minifundia regions, plots of more than 100 hectares also occupy not negligible positions: more than 12.9% of the land in Aveiro, 13.9% in Leiria. In a district like Bragança, a stronghold of reaction, plots of 20-50 hectares account for 23.8% of the area under cultivation and those of more than 100 hectares account for 15.1%. Thus, in spite of the predominance of small plots, the differentiations in the North remain significant. In a district like Pôrto, for example, the number of very small plots (between 0.05 hectare and 1 hectare) stands at 35;440 out of a total of 62,163 plots, which reflects the existence of a layer of workers who have been integrated into industry during the past fifteen years but who still supplement their need for food by cultivating their own little plots. Finally, one of the characteristics of the properties in the districts of the North (although this is also found in some of the southern districts) is the very great number of plots that do not have a sole tenant. Parcelization is one dimension of the agrarian structure of Portugal; it is linked in large part to the inheritance laws. The rural population These great dissimilarities in the structure of agrarian property in the various districts are also reflected in the social composition of the rural population. Thus, in the districts of the large landlords, where capital ist relations of production are most highly developed (the districts of Beja, Evora, Santarém, Setúbal, and Portalegre), the number of agricultural wage workers, driving lance of the mobilizations for land occupations, is quite large. In 1970 they constituted 77% of the agricultural population of Beja; the comparable figures
9
PORTUGAL for Evora, Santarém, Setúbal, and Portalegre were 83.2%, 72.8%, 81.2%, and 87.0% respectively. The absolute number of agricultural wage workers in these five districts as of 1970 was 171, 775. This is not at all the situation in the districts in which small scale property predominates and in which the development of capitalist relations of production was much less rapid: Aveiro, Braga, Bragança, Viana do Castelo, Viseu, Vila Real, Guarda. Nevertheless, the crisis of traditional agriculture in these districts has resulted in a decrease in the number of small proprietors who employ agricultural workers or very small proprietors compelled to sell their labor power to make ends meet. Meanwhile, the number of "isolated" peasants (that is, peasants who work only on their own small plots) has increased, often considerably. This reflects the acceleration of capitalist development in these rural regions during the 1960s and the resulting process of proletarianization, which, however, has not attained dimensions approaching those of the South. Above all, this process is too recent to have crystallized yet in terms of consciousness and organization. During the first months of the "revolutionary process" the policy of the MFA (Armed Forces Movement), which was supported by the reformist parties and based on empty promises, did nothing to develop the possibilities for a linkup, at least a partial one, between the workers of the South and the wage workers and poor small peasants of the North. The counterrevolution, spearheaded by the large and middle-sized landowners, found propitious terrain for development in this continuing gap. This soon became official in the program of the sixth provisional government of Pinheiro de Azèvedo: The agrarian reform would be applied only in the region south of the Tagus. And it is exactly in this region that it is being challenged today. 10
The occupation mobilizations As of June 1974 the agricultural workers of the South began mobilizing on a broad scale. They possessed a tradition of struggle and clandestine trade-union organization. Agitation and organization for the eight-hour day had been begun in 1940. In 1962 some 200,000 agricultural workers went on strike for this objective. After April 25, 1974, proto-union commissions were immediately formed and signed collective contracts with the landlords of the AL A (Free Association of Farmers). These agreements constituted the first de facto legislation on rural labor in Portugal. Based on the underground nuclei animated by the Communist party, these proto-union commissions arose in the districts of the Ribetejo and the Alentejo (Beja, Evora, Portalegre, Santarém, and Setúbal). The contracts dealt essentially with wages, length of the work day, and paid leaves and holidays; they also sanctioned recognition of the right of the agricultural workers to organize. Faced with the sudden collapse of a regime which, whatever its projects of industrial development and limited "agrarian reform, " had always wound up meeting the demands of the large landlords, pillar of the corporatist state, the landlords were thrown off balance and could come up with no policy except economic sabotage. Flight, the burning of harvests, sales of equipment, refusal to sow crops, refusal to purchase fertilizer, and transfer of herds to Spain or sale of cattle to butchers - such was the initial response of the landlords to the rural proletariat's attempt to organize. The AL A in no way served as a political instrument for a concerted counteroffensive by the landed capitalists. Just as the bourgeoisie lacked political parties, the landlords, who had long been protected by the corporatist regime, were unable to organize their forces and centralize their resistance until autumn 1975, when the Confederation of Farmers of Portugal (CAP) was formed. Faced with the economic sabotage by the landlords, the agricultural workers organized vigilance committees to prevent arson and sales of cattle. They even managed to compel the landlords to increase the area of land under cultivation (which grew 7% during auMarch 11, 1975, represented a turn in the agricultural sector, as well as in industry and political life. The organizational strengthening of the rural proletariat put it in position to respond immediately to the precipitous flight of many landlords after their defeat on
March 11. 'A few days after Spínola's abortive attempt, the union in the district of Beja organized a rally of more than 20,000 agricultural workers demanding the expropriation without compensation of the latifundistas.
Beginning in May and June land occupations spread like wildfire. By the end of 1975 about 1 million hectares had been seized, two-thirds of the land open to expropriation under the "expropriation law" of July 29,
1975.
The reform law This movement of occupations compelled the successive provisional governments to sanction the existing state of affairs with a series of decrees more radical than the measures called for in the "economic and social plan" drafted by Melo Antunes in February 1975. It must be emphasized that these occupations, carried out in response to the economic sabotage and reactionary maneuvers of the landlords, occurred before the harvests, which enabled the workers to raise the funds needed to guarantee the sowing of new crops, the purchase of fertilizer and equipment, the payment of wages, and so on. Since the law on expropriation included no provisions on credit, the occupations that occurred before the harvest not only possessed a more radical anticapitalist dimension, but also had implications for the direct management of the land by the workers themselves. Thus, the mass movement dictated the pace and forms of the agrarian reform and tended to drive it beyond the limits of a simple reformist operation integrated into a project of overall restructuring of Portuguese capitalism. In the key districts of the South the land occupations led to the establishment of Collective Production Units (UCP) within which the workers maintained their status as wage workers. Those farmers and sharecroppers who opted for wage labor joined the UCPs. Among these layers of agricultural workers having a long tradition of struggle, there had never been any tendency toward division and private appropriation of the land. In some cases the system of UCPs was combined with family plots of land. Likewise in the South, agricultural cooperatives sometimes arose made up of large and middle-sized farmers; some of these immediately sought to employ wage labor. The administration of the UCPs, of uneven quality, was generally assured by a coordinating body of workers commissions that strongly tended to coincide with the trade unions. Through this vehicle the Communist party instituted an often rather bureaucratic management. The CP always conceived of the agrarian reform as an instrument in the "battle for production" launched at the beginning of 1975 and thus quickly emphasized the efficiency of the management. This led it to establish a selective network of material and financial support for those UCPs it controlled on the basis of its influence in the big factories of the Lisbon industrial belt and the metal industry in the South. There was a consequent development of tension between those UPs dominated by the CP and those that were under the influence of the far left or were more or less independent. In addition, for the small peasants of the southern districts, the agrarian reform took the exclusive form of the transfer of land from the landlords to the agricultural workers, who received relatively extensive aid. The small peasants found themselves thrust to the sidelines. But these small peasants still constitute a significant portion of the rural population in these regions. In Beja as of 1968 some 6, 420 households out of a total of 20,385 held only 1-4 hectares; in the other southern districts the corresponding figures were as follows: 5,880 out of 17, 325 in Setúbal; 3,580 out of 11, 414 in Evora; 24,850 out of 55, 526 in Santarém; and 5,525 out of 16, 203 in Portalegre. The number of peasant families holding 4-20 hectares is often nearly identical. Hence, the tensions that developed between the UCPs on the one hand and these layers of small and small-tomedium peasants on the other could later serve as a basis for mobilizations against the agrarian reform. Nevertheless, the decisive question from this standpoint remains the lack of response to the problems of the farmers, sharecroppers, and small peasants north of the Tagus, who constitute the majority of the rural population of Portugal. In these northern districts, the forms of an agrarian reform had inevitably to be different. Alongside the expropriation measures - in the district of Castelo Branco, for example, where property is highly concentrated - it was essentially through credit, debt moratoria, distribution and price guarantees on products, and allocation of agricultural material and fertilizer that the establishment of cooperatives could have been fostered. But this would have required a much higher level of initiative on the part of the agricultural workers of the South, the industrial workers, and the employees of the banking sector. The Communist party lent almost exclusive priority to the southern regions, while the SP, influential in the banking sector, deliberately blocked measures aimed at easing credit. Thus, for the small peasants of the North, the agrarian reform meant only an increase in the prices of fertilizers and seeds! During the summer of 1975 the expropriated landlords, in alliance with small and middle peasants and small and middle-sized capitalists of the distribution sector, initiated the first coordinated counterattacks on the agrarian reform. In September, October, and November 1975 the central theme of their campaign was the struggle against "wildcat occupations. " The assembly of Rio Maior (eighty kilometers north of Lisbon) on November 25 was part of a more general offensive of the right and reflected the right's utilization of a section of the traditional petty bourgeoisie. After December 14, 1975, the CAP began directly attacking the agrarian reform law, taking special aim at the decree on expropriations. Lopes Cardoso, the SP minister of agriculture, became the favorite target of reaction. In February, after threatening to march on Lisbon, the CAP won official recognition during a meeting with Pinheiro Azevedo and Lopes Cardoso. The reform would be frozen in the South. But it was necessary to wait for the presidential elections and the victory of Eanes, orchestrated by the SP, before the mobilizations of the CAP could actually find their first political outlet and
11
PORTUGAL before the CAP's pressure could force a real shift in government policy. Defend the reform? For the time being, the initiative taken by the first constitutional government affects only 16,800 hectares, about a hundred occupied plots. It thus remains marginal and serves above all as a test in preparation for the application of future and more extensive measures. The SP government, in the image of a section of the Portuguese bourgeoisie, does not want to completely challenge the agrarian reform. The government does not envisage a return to the previous situation in which the permanent decline in agricultural production (during the 1960s! accentuated the trade deficit and 70% of the total number of agricultural plots lacked significant exchange relations with other sectors of the econDiry. As is the case for the industrial sector, the Soares government is first aiming at stimulating an efficient private sector and at making the nationalized sector profitable while also establishing tight control over it. This is reflected in the "right of reserve, " not yet officially delimited, which favors the expropriated landloids. The latter, who will receive heavy compensation, would be able to animate an agricultural sector with «righ composition of capital, and this would have a dissolving eftect on the agrarian reform. The definition at the judicial status of the UCP is intended to permit lie integration of the properties on which these bodies function into the reorganization of Portuguese capitalism. Soares has already indicated that this judicial status will be established according to "criteria of econonic efficiency" and "democratic managemeni, " which suggests a desire to deprive the CP of its base of support in the Alentejo and Ribetejo. This "democratic management" could well be concretized by the nomination of state administrators charged with overseeing "economic efficiency." In this way the agrarian reform would clearly emerge as a means by which to extend the process of proletarianization in the South and foster the ¡ationalization of capitalist structures in agriculture. The success of the operation to restore "illegally occupied" land to its former owners (up to now there has been no movement of resistance nor of support to the agricultural workers) constitutes an initial step in the deterioration of the relationship of forces. This could open the door to the CAP, whose immediate objective is to prevent the expropriation of about 500, 000 hectares that are supposed to be subject to the agrarian reform law. The ultimate aim of the right remains the abrogation of the decrees issued in 1975. The sociopolitical weight of the agrarian sector and the close connection of agriculture, commerce, and industry in Portugal imply that it is impossible for there to be any real desynchronization between the capitalist counter-offensive in the agricultural sphere and the launching of that offensive in the spheres of industry, the insurance companies, the banks, and trade. In this sense, a modification of the balance of forces in agriculture would have a general impact. 12
While the "dis-occupation" measures are providing ammunition for the right, Cardoso, the minister of agriculture, who likes to pose as the head of the left wing of the SP, affirmed: "This is how we will reduce the strength of the right - exactly to the extent that we manifest determination to apply the law and to the extent that the injustices which provide the right with powerful arguments are corrected. " (Diário de Lisboa, September 27.) Just as the decree-laws of autumn 1975 sanctioned the occupations of spring and summer 1975, the "dis-occupations" of autumn 1976 threaten to presage the non-application of the agrarian reform law and the drafting of a new series of decrees. Negotiated measures The argument of the defense of "democratic legality" has led the CP to accept the "normalization." In fact, the central characteristic of the initiative of the Soares government was that it was negotiated in advance with the leadership of the Communist party, through the trade union of agricultural workers. In exchange for promises to apply the legislation on agrarian reform, the CP accepted the restoration of land to the landlords and denounced any inclination to resistance as a reacfionary maneuver. One of the permanent features of the mobilizations of 1475 was the linkup between the workers of the Alentojo and those of Setúbal, the industrial belt, and so on; but the CP, by renouncing any response in the Alentejo and the Ribetejo as well as any support mobilization by the industrial proletariat, is fostering the isolation of those sectors being hit by the government's policy. At a time when the government's tactic consists of accentuating divisions in the trade unions and of organizing the small peasants, the leadership of the CP endorses the fragmentation the SP government seeks in order to set its policy in motion. It thus paves the way for the success of a differentiated attack that can disorient significant sectors of the working class. The battle for the agrarian reform comes at a conjuncture marked by a certain ebb in workers struggles and a general wait-and-see attitude on the part of the workers, because of the lack of any alternative policy. It is true that the government's offensive remains marginal for the moment. It has affected the teachers and a small piece of the occupied lands. In the eyes of broad masses, the plan to pay the workers their unnual "thirteenth month" wages in treasury bonds of risky and not immediately realizable value will represent the first reduction in mass buying power brought about by direct government action and not merely by inflation. This will be an important test for Soares and will reveal whether the current wait-and-see attitude of the workeis is only a pause before the coming municipal elections or whether it instead heralds a more profound demoralization of which the December 12 elections will be the first indication. September 29, 1976
sweden THORBJORN FALLDIN WHY THE SOCIAL