[The following article, signed by D.B., appeared in the March 21 issue of Rouge, the French Trotskyist weekly. Rouge indicated that the article was written following a visit to Portugal by the author. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
The response to the abortive coup of March 11 has produced a new leap forward in the consciousness and organization of the working class. Something irreversible has occurred, which the bourgeois journalists, attracted by the personal aspect of political intrigues, seem not to have grasped. This awakening, this rapid prog ress of the Portuguese workers toward independent organization, self-defense, and workers control, is especially impressive in view of the fact that it comes after forty years of obscurantism, silence, and dictatorship.
In the wake of the attempted coup, the workers and office employees in the banks and insurance companies formed picket lines, demanded immediate nationalization of these establishments, and hung hastily made banners reading "People's Bank" and "The Bank Belongs to the People" across the fronts of the buildings.
The nationalization of the banks and insurance companies decreed by the High Council of the Revolution constitutes a victory for the workers' mobilization. While it had in fact been demanded by the Communist party, the nationalization was not part of the emergency economic plan recently drawn up by the MFA [Movimento das Forças Armadas-Armed Forces Movement].
Of course, this measure is not in itself a revolutionary one. For the Communist party, the objective is above all to centralize credit and slow down speculation in order to neutralize the power of the big monopolies and provide effective aid to small and medium-sized companies, which are regarded as favored allies within the framework of national reconstruction. But these nationalizations occur in the context of an extraordinary mass mobilization, which gives them quite another dynamic and puts them in a completely different light.
Unions Call for More Nationalizations
In many companies workers commissions or trade unions are already calling for new nationalizations. Even before March 11, the general assembly of the workers at CUF 454
[Companhia União Fabril], the chemical trust, were demanding that their company be nationalized immediately. Following their example, the employees of Eurofil, an advertising agency, raised the same demand.
After March 11, the movement increased in pace. The workers of the merged gas and electricity companies, the CRGE, decided on March 17 to organize pickets to keep check. They had noticed that an abnormal amount of filed material was being destroyed in the administrative offices and concluded that the employers, threatened with nationalization, were in a hurry to get rid of certain documents. "In view of this situation, we have decided to set up pickets to keep check and prevent the removal and destruction of documents," a union delegate explained.
But in this company the union delegates are still moderate; while they think nationalization is desirable, they do not think it is possible in the immediate future, because foreign capital, in this case Belgian, owns 20 percent of the company's shares.
On the other hand, the unions of the CTT [Correios, Telégrafos e Telefones-Mail, Telegraph, and Telephone, the state postal system] are demanding nationalization, as are those in the transport industry. And they have gone further.
The transportation industry is the linchpin of the national economy, they explain. Since September 28* the truck owners association has been sabotaging the industry, as their counterparts did in Chile, and has refused to meet the demands of the workers. So the unions have issued an ultimatum and have asked transport workers whose demands are not met within one month to take their vehicles to the union headquarters, which will then operate them itself.
Some Experiments in Workers Control
There are also many examples of factory occupations and experiments in workers control. The workers commission in the Ormis packaging plant, concluding "that successive administrators have committed serious errors in management," decided to carry out a "productive occupation" of the factory.
The paper workers union in the Santarém district observed that the cellulose industries were no longer furnishing the necessary raw materials to the paper manufac turing industries, while at the same time they were exporting 80 percent of their production. So the union decided that the orders of Portuguese firms would be filled on a priority basis and called on the workers in the cellulose companies to organize pickets to keep a check on inventories and shipments as an act of solidarity.
In Fogueteiro, the workers at Aluferco, a modern metal-products plant in the Setúbal district, voted unanimously in a meeting to occupy the premises and set up pickets under the control of a democratically elected workers commission. They had noticed irregularities in the company's accounting procedures designed to bring about a phony bankruptcy through fixing the books for the previous year's operations. They also found evidence of tax evasion and falsified inventories.
Another development is the creation of emergency hospitals, people's emergency dispensaries, and child-care centers, often on the initiative of far-left groups. The clinic at Santa Cruz, in Carnaxide, was nationalized on March 17 and its direction turned over to the Santa Maria hospital. That decision was the result of a threemonth struggle by the workers of the clinic, who had shut it down and occupied it, later forming a joint commission with the workers at Santa Cruz in order to initiate a national health service. As part of this project, they had already drawn up a practical program to meet the needs of the population.
At Belém, the Amadeu Duarte hospital has been occupied since March 4 by cells of the Popular Socialist Front [FSP]. It has been renamed the People's Hospital. At Aveiro, the deluxe Santa Joana clinic was also occupied by the populace and transformed into a "center for rest and support of temporary and permanent invalids." The people of the neighborhood provided supplies to the workers occupying the clinic.
In the Corroios region, the Do Muxito combination motel and hotel, owned by an émigré Yugoslav capitalist and known to be a hangout of ill repute for well-heeled bourgeois elements, was occupied on March 7 by the people of the area. They decided to make it into a combined senior citizen's rest center, festival center, people's soup kitchen, and child-care center, equipped with a playing field, swimming pools, and such things.
Immediately after the occupation, 4,000 persons lined up to pay a visit. The canteen, which can serve between 300 and 400 persons, is about to be opened. The head of the occupation committee comments: "In this way the working people will devote their struggles to transforming this luxurious hotel complex of the bourgeoisie into a place for the less well-off workers to enjoy themselves-into a people's canteen, a child-care center, and a center for aid to senior citizens. The working class and all working people want to show the exploiters and prove to themselves that they are capable of resolving their own problems."
Almost every day various social centers are requisitioned or created in this way. As for the clinics, the scenario is often similar A group of militants takes over a sizable building that is unoccupied or belongs to a fascist or capitalist. It gets in touch with doctors, asking them for a list of needed supplies. It asks the workers commissions in the pharmaceutical companies for contributions. Then it conducts an occupation.
The population soon flocks to these dispensaries, where the management is in the hands of a committee, appointed by the inhabitants of the neighborhood, which takes charge of maintaining and improving the building. The doctors and hospital personnel collaborate willingly. In fact, the contributions and concern of these personnel don't stop there. When it was learned that the Portuguese government had requested health-care assistance from the United States, workers in the psychiatric field, meeting in a general assembly, sent a letter to the minister of social affairs. The letter called attention to the fact that this supposed aid, whether in health care or other fields, is carried out through the Inter- American Development Agency. It pointed out that this organization is known to be an instrument of the CIA, which had been involved in engineering coups in Chile, Santo Domingo, Bolivia, and Guatemala.
Hopes That Go Beyond the Factories
The workers movement to organize and take over society is not limited to the factories. It has affected to a greater or lesser extent the most diverse aspects of social activity, including housing, health, education, transportation, and prices.
For example, the workers in Vila Real de Santo António decided to organize civicaction groups to fight fascism. The groups were divided into four commissions to deal with housing, health and hygiene, checking prices, employment, and "purging."
The housing commission is supposed to control rents and see to it that speculation is stopped. It takes a census of unoccupied houses in order to turn them over to the most underprivileged layers.
The commission on health and hygiene is supposed "to put an end to bureaucracy in medical and social services," "to step up April 7, 1975
Notes
* The date of Spinola's first attempt to carry out a right-wing mobilization.-IP