[In its December 23, 1975, issue, Combate Socialista, the weekly newspaper of the Partido Revolucionário dos Trabalhadores (PRT-Revolutionary Workers party, a Portuguese organization that has declared its adherence to the Fourth International), published an interview with Manuel Alegre, one of the most prominent leaders of the Socialist party. The text of this interview is given below, along with Combate Socialista's introduction. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
The future of the MFA-parties pact, the role of the MFA [Movimento das Forças Armadas-Armed Forces Movement], the role of the organs of workers power, the struggle for democratic rights in the barracks, and the importance of the Constituent Assembly are questions that concern almost everyone. Combate Socialista has expressed its position on these questions in other issues and elsewhere in this issue itself.
We have decided to publish an interview granted us by the Socialist deputy Manuel Alegre, not because we agree with his views, but to inform our readers of the positions held by the party supported by the majority of workers. This is a way, in particular, of facilitating discussion of the fundamental questions concerning us, questions on which our positions are clearly expressed elsewhere in this issue.
Question. Today it is generally recognized that the Pact-Platform* limited the exercise of popular sovereignty by imposing certain restrictions on the constitution from the start. Why did the SP sign the pact?
Answer. As I have already had the occasion to say, the pact was a tactical move in the Cunhal and Gonçalves strategy for seizing power in Portugal. In the final analysis, this was an application here of the Stalinist putschist strategy for seizing power not by the road of a real insurrection but through the conquest of positions in the state apparatus. In the Portuguese case this was through domination of the armed forces and utilization of the MFA, subordinating it to this strategy.
This move also reflected a relationship of forces at that time. The primary objective was to discredit the elections, to minimize their significance, and then to limit the result of the expression of popular will. Signing the pact was in fact an endorsement by the SP of an attack on democracy, or a limitation of democracy. On the part of the SP, this position reflected a desire to safeguard what was essential for us at that time, the elections for the Constituent Assembly. This was because the CP, with the help of its military allies, had created an appearance of strength by its conquest of positions in the state apparatus and by manipulation of the news media that was out of all proportion to the real relationship of forces in the country.
Q. In the current debate over the pact, several persons have spoken in the Constituent Assembly and outside it supporting a revision of the agreement. Our question is whether you think that in order to safeguard democratic freedoms the pact should be revised or that such pacts should purely and simply be done away with.
A. You know, I think there is only one way to safeguard democracy, and that is to practice it without restrictions and without limitations. The Portuguese people and the toiling masses in this country have already demonstrated sufficient political capacity and maturity to be allowed to make their own decisions without any kind of tutelage. I have already had occasion to say that controlled democracy is halfway down the road to bonapartism or dictatorship.
This issue is in fact now under discussion. We are going to present a proposal some time before December 30; and in the SP itself, where the right of tendency exists, there are still various opinions. We have not yet arrived at a definite position as a party. In any case, the central idea of the pact, which was to establish the role of the MFA as the moving force and guarantor of the revolution, has been discredited in the SP. The military has a relationship to polities; it remains to be seen precisely what kind, whether its role will be to dictate polities, or whether it should subordinate itself to the expression of popular will, as I said.
Q. This raises another question. Until now, the parties supported by a majority of workers agreed—as this was set down in the pact-that the MFA was the "moving force of the revolution" and the guarantor of democratic rights. In taking a critical position toward the pact, is the SP now coming to say that the rank-and-file workers organizations are the guarantor of these rights?
A. We think we have to find practical ways to achieve a coordination and synthesis between representative and direct democracy. We believe that if representative democracy is not based on direct democracy, specifically on the independent organizations of the workers, it is in danger of losing its content and in fact opening the way for some form of Nasserism or Peronism here in our country. But we have to find out how to achieve this synthesis.
What was done here in Portugal, and especially in Lisbon, what was called "organs of people's power," was in the last analysis an adaptation, and a bad one at that, of what Spinola and his followers tried to do in Guinea-Bissau. If this had been successful, it would not have led to any people's power. It would have led to a kind of Peronism.
Q. As regards the rank-and-file organization of the soldiers in the barracks, some figures have tried, especially in the most recent period, to convince us that in order to have democracy in the country we cannot have democracy in the barracks. What is your opinion about this?
A. To be sure, you raise an important question, and one I think has been badly posed for a long time in Portugal. What was called democratization of the armed forces, in the final analysis, was nothing of the sort. There were some folkloric and manipulative exhibitions in the Lisbon area.
However, we believe that there should be democratic rights in the barracks, that the soldiers should have freedom of expression. Military personnel, most of all, the ranks, should have the right to organize democratically in the barracks. Just as we support the Workers Commissions and other inde pendent workers committees, we think the soldiers should have the opportunity to form their own committees in order to try to solve their problems. In this, they should not challenge the basic principles, let us say, of the army and the armed forces, especially of armed forces engaged in democratizing themselves and the country. But we think the soldiers should have the right to form their own committees.
I should tell you that at the time the SUV [Soldados Unidos Vencerão-Soldiers United Will Win] appeared, which we think had one very concrete and specific aim—we strove throughout the country to organize the soldiers and form a democratic movement of soldiers around their concrete demands, around their concrete problems, in order to assure real democratization of the armed forces and the safeguarding of democratic rights in the barracks.
Q. In conclusion, perhaps you would care to sum up the results of the Constituent Assembly's work.
A. The first thing to note is that the Constituent Assembly was not dissolved, it has survived. And the fact that it has functioned at all is a demonstration of resistance to the Stalinist, totalitarian plan. The Constituent Assembly was able to resist all forms of blackmail, pressure, and disparagement by the news media, and was thus able to achieve dignity.
Moreover, I think the results of its work are positive. Some important aspects are reflected in the constitution. In the first place, democratic rights are clearly inscribed in this document, as well as some social and economic advances, which are also important, although they could have been instituted in a better way. At least their implications could have been more clearly defined. This is the case of the nationalizations, the beginning of the agrarian reform, and-most important for our conception of the way socialism must be built—the start of control over management, which can lead us in fact to democratic socialism with workers self-management.
Over and above certain contradictions and certain imperfections, which are natural, I think the balance sheet of the Constituent Assembly is quite positive. Our democratic rights, the nationalizations, and the start of agrarian reform and control of management are important advances for the toiling masses.
Notes
* Before the April 25, 1975, Constituent Assembly elections, the MFA demanded that all parties on the ballot sign a "Pact-Platform" endorsing continued military rule for an indefinite period and giving the MFA all the essential powers in whatever governmental structure the assembly might establish.-IP