By Pierre Frank, Livio Maitan, and Ernest Mandel
[First of two parts]
Two Different Interpretations of the Political Conflict Since May 1975
Contrary to what is alleged in the article "For a Correct Political Course in Portugal" (Intercontinental Press, October 13, 1975), we did not charge Comrades Foley and Hansen with having given full political support to the Portuguese Socialist party. We accused them of completely and disastrously misreading the fundamental significance of the specific political and social conflict that has dominated the Portuguese scene since May 1975. They thought that the basic conflict was over the question of bourgeois democratic rights and that the Socialist party, even if unwillingly and partially, was defending democratic rights, the major conquest of the Portuguese revolution. We thought, and still think, that the fundamental conflict was over the defense of the revolutionary conquests of the working class going beyond the limits of bourgeois democracy: factory occupations, workers control, "indiscipline" among the soldiers, arming of the workers, "anarchy" in the factories and barracks, new extensions of the nationalizations. Further, we held, and still hold, that on these key issues the SP leadership was leading a bourgeois counteroffensive against the revolution. In their reply to us, Comrades Foley, Hansen, and Novack have little to say about that charge. And this is not surprising, for events have heaped refutation upon refutation on their thesis.
The Soares-spearheaded offensive was successful on the government level. The Gonçalves government was brought down. In fact, the October 1975 issue of Le Monde Diplomatique referred to the new government headed by Vice-Admiral Pinheiro de Azevedo as "a Soares government without Soares." This government has the full and enthusiastic support of the SP leadership. But Comrades Foley, Hansen, and Novack themselves consider it a government that is "to the right" of the Gonçalves government. They admit that this government has initiated a series of repressive actions (which we had predicted and which the Melo Antunes wing of the Armed Forces Movement had pushed for). These repressive measures have included such acts as: tightening press censorship; trying to eject the Rádio Renascença workers from the radio station they had occupied, a station that had become a means by which to inform the Portuguese working class about the activities of dozens of workers and tenants committees throughout the country, a station that had been transformed into a workers cooperative during October; trying to forbid radio and television broadcasts critical of the government and the MFA. In the October 17 issue of the Militant Comrade David Frankel summed up the situation this way:
"Authority, discipline, and order; under these watchwords the government of Premier José Pinheiro de Azevedo is stepping up its attempts to curb the deepgoing radicalization in Portugal.
"'Admiral Azevedo's top priority is clearly the reimposition of discipline throughout the military and the setting out of clear lines of authority, especially in the volatile Lisbon area,' noted an approving editorial in the October 5 New York Times.
Azevedo
"The latest events broke on September 29, when declared a 'de facto state of emergency' throughout Portugal. 1768
Military units were put on alert, leaves were canceled, and bases were isolated from the public. At the same time, troops were ordered to occupy the radio and television stations in the Lisbon area.
"The justification given for this action was that the media had been obstructing the stabilization of the country. According to a September 30 dispatch in the New York Times, Azevedo denounced a 'provocative campaign of seditious attitudes that endanger the revolution.'
"This crude attack on freedom of the press was wholeheartedly supported by the Portuguese Socialist party. SP leader Mário Soares led a demonstration in Lisbon September 30 in order to back what he hailed as a government of the left and a government of hope.
"Azevedo set the theme of the action, calling out, Discipline, discipline.
*It is necessary to reestablish discipline to overcome the anarchy which this country has lived through,' he told the crowd estimated at 20,000 to 30,000....
"Every serious political and military figure here agrees that restoring order in everyday life and discipline in the military is the first and biggest problem to be solved, Washington Post reporter Bernard Nossiter cabled from Lisbon September 26."
For us, of course, this was no surprise. As early as June 5, 1975, Comrade Mandel wrote:
*The ominous implications of the República incident are therefore somewhere else than where most commentators have sought them. They could open the beginning of a concerted attack against the manifold attempts at workers control that have dominated the revolutionary process in Portugal during the last months.
*That the pressure of Portuguese and international capital goes in that direction is selfevident. The European capitalists are called upon to bail out the Portuguese economy from its greatest crisis. They are ready to make a gesture, provided they can wring the maximum concessions from the Portuguese government. And the No. 1 concession they call for is reestablishment of discipline in the plants! Otherwise, they indicate, they would be just throwing money into a bottomless pit.
"That an important sector of the MFA leadership wants to act in the same direction is no less obvious. Restore discipline' has been one of its main propaganda slogans for a long time...