[In its August 27 issue, Combate Socialista, the fortnightly paper of the Partido Revolucionário dos Trabalhadores (PRT- Revolutionary Workers party, a group that has declared its adherence to the Fourth International) gave its interpretation of the pact that came out of the August 25 meeting of the Communist party, a section of the Armed Forces Movement, and a number of small groups to the left of the mass reformist parties. Following this, the PRT appealed to the Liga Comunista Internacionalista (LCI-Internationalist Communist League, the Portuguese sympathizing organization of the Fourth International) to leave the bloc based on the August 25 accord. Both statements are given below. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
According to the communiqué issued after the August 25 meeting of the Copcon' group and the eight left parties-the FSP, LCI, LUAR, MDP, MES, PCP, PRP-BR, and Primeiro do Maio'—a platform was established on which these organizations in general agreed. It included the Copcon document and the "Lines of Action" of the Fifth Government [headed by Vasco Gon- çalves]." It was this government that was encharged with carrying out the program in question until the necessary conditions are assembled for forming a Government of Revolutionary Unity. The PRT believes that those organizations that had not signed the Pact-Program [and thus previously capitulated to the military government]* have now capitulated to a bourgeois government, antilabor "battle for the supporter of the production" and the neocolonialist maneudo Continentemilitary security forces.
1. Coana Poupa Operati do Cocontia e I. Comando Operacional
25 Unity Accord vers evident in Angola and Timor.
The decision to "set up a provisional secretariat with the intention of organizing actions that will facilitate a common offensive against the reaction and for the advance of the revolutionary process" was a correct decision. For this very fact it cannot be subordinated to supporting a weak, probourgeois, and conciliationist government that so far has managed to do nothing but swell the ranks of the coun terrevolution.
With all our strength we support unity of the workers organizations and coordination of their forces against the threat of a coup. However, we have pointed out above some of the basic features that make the agreement signed by the eight organizations a popular-frontist deal.
The popular-frontist orientation that appears here is not new. Historically it has already led to terrible defeats (the latest was in Chile), and we have had to fight it here in Portugal, too. It is the policy of the PCP. The fact that other left organizations have now formally accepted this policy is also not entirely new, because the path of the spontanéists and centrists of all stripes is always going to lead to this conclusion. In every revolutionary situation the danger of such a front arises.
We Trotskyists have always fought with all our strength against the danger of class collaborationism and its most disastrous form, the "popular front." Despite the differences that divide it from the LCI, the PRT has never failed to recognize that this sister organization has maintained a principled position of independence from the bourgeoisie, its state, and its parties. (It was for this reason that we gave critical support to these comrades in the elections.)
We think now that, impelled by a sound desire to fight against the threat of a coup, your organization has committed a terrible error, an error that tragically endangers your chances of helping to accomplish the central task of Portuguese Trotskyistsbuilding a Leninist combat party with mass influence in order to assure the triumph of the socialist revolution.
However, your previous work, your programmatic adherence to the principles of the Fourth International, and your political struggle against the reformist positions all lead us to believe that this was only a grave but correctable error. So, we call on you, comrades, to denounce this popular front yourselves, we appeal to you to continue to combine forces with us in the task of unifying the revolutionary Marxist forces in a solid Revolutionary Workers party [Partido Operário Revolucionário].
represented by the putschist moderates." (Our emphasis.)
Very good! In fact, the advance of these forces does not favor but goes counter to assembling the necessary conditions for forming a government of revolutionary unity.
To sum up, our position, which is safeguarded in the accords and shared by the majority of the signatory organizations, is the following:
Notes
2. Frente Socialista Popular (Socialist People's Front); Liga Comunista Internacionalista (Internationalist Communist League); Liga de União e Acção Revolucionária (League for Revolutionary Unity and Action); Movimento: Democrático Português (Portuguese Democratic Movement); Movimento de Esquerda Socialista (Movement of the Socialist Left); Partido Comunista Português (Portuguese Communist party); Partido Revolucionário do Proletariado-Brigadas Revolucionárias (Revolutionary party of the Proletariat- Revolutionary Brigades); the First of May Group.
3. For the text of these documents, see Intercontinental Press, September 15, pp. 1210-1213.
4. Before the April 25 elections, the Armed Forces Movement asked the parties on the ballot to sign the Pact-Program agreeing to a continuation of military rule no matter what the results of the vote might be. The mass reformist parties, the bourgeois parties, and the FSP signed. The LCI and the Maoist groups participating in the elections did not. The MES did not sign but said it had no objection in principle to doing so.