(The following article appeared in issue No. 324 (undated) of Rouge, the weekly newspaper supported by the French Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (Revolutionary Communist League). The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
The setback to the revolutionary soldiers and officers gives the government a breathing spell. But the working class had no illusion that an insurrection would be an easy matter, and its potential for struggle and organization remains intact.
It is almost incredible. Ten days after the immense November 16 demonstration, less than two weeks after the crushing victory of the construction workers when the government reeled under the blows of several workers demonstrations and the Council of the Revolution tottered in face of the extraordinary militancy of the soldiers, Lisbon is under a state of siege.
After interrupting their broadcasts, which were relayed from Oporto, the radio and television stations in the capital transmitted nothing but official announcements from the high command. The newspapers stopped coming out. The ferment that marked Lisbon and the industrial belt abruptly came to a halt.
And those "red" regiments, mobilized, armed, and impregnable, were broken by 400 paratroop commandos from Amadora and 1,000 men from the Santarém cavalry school!
Was the coup so serious that the streets of the capital of the Portuguese revolution, yesterday live with workers and soldiers, today remain empty and silent?
The Illusion of an Irresistible Upswing
Since April 25 and particularly since the end of 1974, the mass movement in Portugal continued to rise almost without interruption. In fact, there seemed to be no resistance to the mobilization of the workers and people. September 28 and March 11 saw the bourgeoisie go down to defeat before even being able to engage in battle. The establishment of the sixth provisional government following the summer crisis proved just as unsuccessful, because this time it was the army that met each 1752
governmental initiative with actions in solidarity with the workers (particularly those in the media) who were supposed to be brought under "law and order."
The army seemed to have-and it was so to a great extent—passed over to the side of the generalized challenge to the authority of the bosses, the military, and the state that is ravaging Portuguese society. In the vanguard sectors of the working class the illusion was thus created that a semispontaneous and semiconscious movement could overcome all obstacles without leadership or a clear orientation.
The "people" are for the revolution, the soldiers are "always, always on the side of the people." The weak regime is paralyzed by the challenge from the military and the people. What more is needed for taking the step that leads to seizing power?
The illusion of an easy victory also made its way among those known as the "military left," a hodgepodge of militants from certain far-left organizations and the most radical wing of officers in the MFA [Armed Forces Movement], disillusioned by the cowardice of the PCP [Portuguese Communist party| in face of the pronunciamento of the military hierarchy at the Tancos assembly.*
These officers and junior officers were under the impression that they enjoyed the confidence of soldiers who question the traditional discipline inherited from Salazarism. They quickly became radicalized, in less than a year in most cases, with the help of some hasty and eclectic reading. They have above all a concept of the revolution that is technical, typically military: "people's power" exists in the factories, agriculture, and the neighborhoods; the seizure of power is just a simple military operation involving occupation of the essential nerve centers. The "people's power" will support the revolutionary soldiers, who will make it the state power.
What happened in Lisbon Tuesday night and Wednesday morning [November 25-26] was therefore not a simple "leftist coup" attempt. It was the product of both the maturity of the objective revolutionary process and the subjective limits that this process still possesses. The illusion of being
*The September 5 meeting of the Assembly of the Armed Forces Movement that removed Gen. Vasco Goncalves and a number of his supporters from the Council of the Revolution.-IP
a force that is invincible because it is linked to the aspirations of the masses is in the last analysis a reflection of this contradictory situation.
Neither Hostile nor Enthusiastic
The Tancos paratroopers provide a good example of this paradox. Used March 11 to encirele the RAL 1 (RALis) [Lisbon Light Artillery Regiment], the paratroopers did not react against this manipulation by their officers. On the other hand, the sabotage operation of bombing Rádio Renascença's transmitter provoked a veritable trauma among the paratroop sergeants and soldiers, suddenly conscious of being victims of a maneuver by their officers to implicate them in an anti-working-class and antipeople action. What followed is well known. In less than two weeks the Tancos training base, a regiment in the rear guard of the revolution, went over to the front ranks of the challenge to the high command of the air force, the solid bastion of the military hierarchy.
On Tuesday, November 25, at 6:00 in the morning, 1,800 paratroopers from the base occupied Tancos air base No. 3, Monte Real No. 5, Montijo No. 6, and the office of the high command at Monsanto, holding in custody General Pinho Freire, commandant of the air force region.
At the same time, the military police took over Rádio Clube and Emissora Nacional while BPAM [School of Military Administration] took over the television network, 200 meters from its barracks. The RALis blocked access to Lisbon from the north while EPSM [School of Weaponry Maintenance] took responsibility for access from the south.
Militarily this plan was no worse than any other. Politically it was a disaster. The workers watched the spectacle of these troop movements-troops with whom they sympathized, to be sure-without understanding what was at stake in the deployment. The plans to oust [Gen.] Otelo [Saraiva de Carvalho] that set off the crisis were not sufficient to mobilize the working class in the suburbs and the workers in Lisbon, and, one would almost like to say, fortunately. An insurrection for a general who was to appear behind [President] Costa Gomes that afternoon when he announced the state of emergency and later the state of siege in Lisbon!
This was not a sufficient motivation to take to the streets and launch an assault on the government, as called for in a joint leaflet issued by the MES [Movement of the Socialist Left] and the PRP (Revolutionary party of the Proletariat] the evening of Tuesday, November 25.
The workers did not move. The few groups that assembled were rapidly dispersed once the tanks of the Amadora commandos began to patrol the city.
In face of the lack of participation by workers, the operation foundered in a couple of hours. The soldiers realized that they had not been followed and after a weak resistance-particularly in the afternoon, resulting in four deaths, including two among the commandos under Jaime Neves-the officers left for the Belém palace, following an ultimatum from Costa Gomes.
The workers, particularly the workers of the industrial belt, were neither hostile nor enthusiastic but nonetheless mobilized during the night. Not to participate in the "insurrection," but to defend their factories against any possible reactionary assaults like those that were being prepared in the North of the country. The workers of Lisnave, Setenave, Soreforme, and the national steelworks spent long hours on guard behind their barricades.
The next morning, after a curfew that was little respected, it was possible to draw an initial balance sheet.
All this reorganization that the Council of the Revolution and the government would not have dared even to dream of a week ago will give the government a respite, assuring it that one of its crutches has not been totally smashed.
But Costa Gomes and those in whom he has reinspired hopes of order and discipline cannot stretch this operation out for too long a time. Continuation of the state of siege would be tolerated with difficulty by the workers. In local areas they have already begun to show their hostility, as at Setúbal and on the south side of the Tejo River, where several strikes occurred Wednesday.
At the same time, this "return to order" cannot be carried out in a few days. It involves the major part of the Portuguese army, its sector most involved in operations, that is, tens of thousands of men, including "suspect" units in the North, Center, and South of the country.
It is not excluded that the soldiers may benefit from this contradiction in the timing and take a step forward before the cleansing operation is ever carried out. In the meantime, however, important gains have been lost, including the central arsenal at Beirolas, which had been under the control of the soldiers and workers commissions and was retaken by the EPC [Cavalry School]. That alone is sufficient to characterize as adventurist the attitude of the organizations of the FUR [Front for Revolutionary Unity] (with a special mention for the MES and PRP), which have called for weeks for the organization of "the insurrection."
A Setback but Not a Defeat
The consequences of these two days are December 15, 1975
at present difficult to predict.
What could occur is a sort of March 11 in reverse, this time to the benefit of the bourgeoisie. But contrary to the jolts that March 11 produced, the working class was
CARVALHO: Appeared with Costa Gomes during announcement of state of siege.
not affected by the defeat of the operation carried out by regiments in Lisbon. At no moment were its forces ever engaged. The level of mobilization by workers who had begun to rebuild their unity around objeetives of anticapitalist struggle was not affected by the counteroffensive of the military hierarchy.
Indirectly, to be sure, the workers will pay the price of the setback suffered by the revolutionary soldiers and officers. The tightening up of the army in Lisbon, facilitated by the state of siege giving all power to Costa Gomes, has already included arrests, transfers, and changes. Tomorrow it will probably include the dissolution of some military units.
At the same time, however, Costa Gomes and the Council of the Revolution have no interest in playing the role of the apprentice
The exceptional measures, if sorcerer.
prolonged, will work to the advantage of the maneuvers of the reactionary right and far right, as has been shown by the demonstrations and roadblocks organized by the PPD [Democratic People's party, the main bourgeois party], the CDS [Social Democratic Center, a right-wing bourgeois party], and the fascist bands in their northern fiefs.
This is why the officers on the Council of the Revolution will probably take the opportunity offered by the state of siege to press their advantage and take immediate measures in the army. But they will quickly return to a more normal functioning of the bourgeois institutions they are trying to construct.
The new conjuncture following the setbacks of the last few days has not resolved the crisis that began with the sixth government's strike-resignation-blackmail.
To be sure, the ground that has been regained by the Council of the Revolution will be used to resolve the governmental crisis in the most favorable way possible.
The CP gained a few points in respectability by breaking its silence and agreeing to bow before the rules of the state of siege, and by reworking its proposals for a reorganization of the MFA around which a "progressive" governmental reshuffle could be carried out-that is, an MFA-CP-SP government.
During the entire crisis the SP was careful to refrain from attacking the CP to safeguard the possibility of negotiating a governmental agreement from a position strengthened by the recent events.
The temporary setback, and perhaps the temporary demoralization accompanying it, will enable various officer clans in the MFA and the reformist leaderships of the SP and CP to carry out these parleys with a little less haste.
But a big question mark remains over the next few days. If the workers, once the moment of surprise and disarray has passed, reassemble their still intact forces, if the soldiers once again refuse to allow any attack on their right to organize as workers who happen to be in uniform, then the blow they have just suffered will help them draw lessons for the future.
To the extraordinary militancy of the ortuguese proletariat and its civilian an niformed vanguard has just been adde the clear consciousness of the objectives and the means for attaining them. After taking this blow the Portuguese revolution will be ready to deal one of its own.
17.1 Million Out of Work in Major Capitalist Countries
Unemployment in the major capitalist countries has soared to 17.1 million workers, the highest level in forty years, according to figures released by the International Labor Organization November 28.
"This represented a massive increase of six million, to a level of 5.2% of the total labor force, compared with September, 1974," the ILO said.
The regional breakdown of the total number of workers officially without jobs was 8.1 million in the United States and Canada, 2.9 million in western Europe, 2.7 million in southern Europe, 2.1 million in northern Europe, and 1.3 million in Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.