[The following article appeared in the September 10 issue of Combate Socialista, the fortnightly newspaper of the Trotskyist Partido Revolucionário dos Trabalhadores (PRT-Revolutionary Workers party) of Portugal. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
The two companies of the Regimento de Polícia Militar' that were mobilized for Angola refused to go. This refusal has a double meaning-it was both a revolutionary and a democratic decision.
It was revolutionary to refuse to play the Portuguese neocolonialist game in Angola. At a time when the Angolan people are fighting for immediate independence and people's power despite the wavering of its nationalist leadership, sending more Portuguese troops there is a maneuver by the generals. The aim is to take advantage of the difficulties in that struggle to meddle in the affairs of a colony that traditionally filled the bellies of the generals and their partners in the Portuguese and international bourgeoisie. The soldiers of the Military Police Regiment understood how to oppose this and other maneuvers: On September 1, the day set for their departure, they took to the streets to assert their refusal to go andbeyond that-to demand the immediate return of all comrades who are still in the colonies.
This decision shows not only the crisis affecting Portuguese colonialism in the homeland itself, but also the incurable bankruptey of the colonial armed forces, which can no longer force the soldiers to obey orders from reactionary officials. At an assembly of the RPM after the demonstration, it was stated that soldiers who wanted to leave to fight for the indepen dence of Angola could not do it under orders of the colonial army, because this army is a barefaced instrument of imperialist aggression. After the troops refused to go, General Fabião issued a communiqué claiming that the Portuguese troops are in Angola to guarantee "decolonization." But it is evident that this idea is losing ground among the soldiers, mainly among the military police.
That is why General Fabião did not let the matter rest with two or three ideological banalities. In the same communiqué, he said that the army's general chief of staff "will proceed with the greatest firmness and revolutionary deliberation in face of such actions, taking the maximum disciplinary steps in each case, followed by expulsion from the army and related consequences." These were not empty threats. With the support of numerous officials, among them President Costa Gomes, four military men elected at the RPM assembly to contact other units that had been called up were imprisoned at Santa Margarida.
This is the power the traditional hierarchy still maintains within the crisisridden armed forces. But another force is now developing as well-the power of the soldiers, who in this case held a Unit Assembly and decided not to embark. That is why we say that this decision, like all revolutionary decisions, was also a democratic decision. The much discussed democratization of the armed forces advances only with the creation of dual power, emerging from the permanent tension hanging over the heads of the high command. That is why it is essential to define the forms of struggle to be adopted, a step the RPM assembly also took. It was decided in that assembly to form a committee "composed of soldiers of the mobilized military police companies, to assume the following functions:
"a. To organize the collective refusal to embark.
"b. To issue propaganda on this just struggle not only in the RPM but also in all military units.
"c. To organize and direct other matters related to this just struggle of the soldiers."
These decisions and the September 1 demonstration are explosive events. The demonstration of some thousands of workers and hundreds of troops raised the correct demands with great militancy: No more troops to Angola, Bring the soldiers home, Free the military men imprisoned at Santa Margarida. At the same time, it also revealed the contradiction we have pointed out before between the combativity of the masses and the lack of an effective revolutionary leadership. Although many troops and some workers commented at the end of the demonstration that it should have been more united, it is obvious that it was not led with such a concern: Members of the LCI were kicked out of the Belém mass gathering, the PRT's leaflets of support were ripped up, and PRT members were assaulted by supporters of the MRPP.3 The same virulent sectarianism was shown against all Communist and Socialist workers who agreed with the refusal to embark and would have been present at the demonstration if it had not included demands against the so-called social fascists, which had nothing to do with the aim of the RPM struggle.
Such mobilizations must be continued until victory is won over the neocolonial maneuvers and the autoritarianism of the military hierarchy. But we will never achieve such a victory if we do not overcome the grave sectarianism with which this demonstration-arising from the extraordinary struggle being waged by the military police and the workers who support them-was led.
Notes
1. RPM-Military Police Regiment.
2. Liga Comunista Internacionalista- Internationalist Communist League, a sympathizing organization of the Fourth International.
3. Movimento Reorganizativo do Partido do Proletariado-Movement to Reorganize the Proletarian Party.