It is only a few months since the bourgeois Democratic Alliance (AD) government' came into office, having won a parliamentary majority in the December 2 elections. But it already faces the opposition of important sections of the mass movement, which are challenging its policy and every one of its moves.
There have not been such broad and determined mobilizations against the government in Portugal, since 1978. It is clear that the gauntlet has been thrown down. The survival of the government of Premier Francisco Sá Carneiro is at stake.
The trade-union mobilizations against the government reached their culmination in the three days of struggle in defense of the Agrarian Reform on March 25-27. The entire Alentejo region? was paralyzed by the general strike there.
At the same time, 300,000 metalworkers downed tools in order to win their demands. Moreover, for several weeks, transport workers have been struggling for their contract and to prevent the return of some enterprises to the private sector. Overall, these mobilizations have involved several hundreds of thousands of workers.
Collective Production Units
The central theme in all these conflicts is the government's offensive against the Collective Production Units (UCPs)? and cooperative farms in Alentejo and Ribatejo. In the last two months, the government has given the old big landlords back 40,000 hectares [1 hectare = 2.47 acres] of land that had been occupied by the peasants or turned over to the UCPs. About 50 out of the 500 UCPs have been dismantled, and many others are threatened with the same fate.
The social consequences of such a policy are very pronounced. In a few months' time, 25,000 agricultural workers have been fired. This growing unemployment reminds the workers in Alentejo that it was not so long ago that the specter of hunger haunted all the villages in these provinces.
The bourgeoisie itself realizes that Alentejo is becoming a powder keg and that the least spark could explode it. In its March 27 issue, the London Financial Times wrote:
"The future stability of Alentejo depends on the government's ability to offer a coherent policy for compensating the agricultural workers who are threatened with the loss of their jobs. The few cards that Premier Francisco Sá Carneiro can play
PREMIER SA CARNEIRO include distributing small plots of land to individual peasants, an ambitious plan of public works, and aid to the fragile national industrial sector."
The article concludes on a prudent note: "His task will not be an easy one."
In fact, Sá Carneiro's task is very difficult. The overwhelming majority of the population of Alentejo consists of agricultural workers who have a long experience of struggle and a high level of class consciousness. The delay in the application of the Barreto Law for restoring reserve lands to their former owners reflects clearly the intensity of the confrontations we are seeing today. It was passed by the votes of the PSD and the Socialist Party in July 1978, but it has yet to be put into effect.
In order to implement this legislation, the government is not going to spare any effort. The 5,000 man force of the Republican National Guard (GNR) has been beefed up with 1,400 police from the antiriot units and 300 other policemen. In two attempts to clear the occupiers off tracts of land, two persons have been killed and more than 1,000 wounded.
This climate of confrontation is going to sharpen. The government has announced that it intends to return all the "reserve" lands to their former owners before this coming October, when the legislative elections are likely to be held.
But after every one of the evictions of "occupiers," accomplished by a great array of military forces, the agricultural workers have been recovering part of the land. The GNR cannot mount a permanent guard over all the "cleared" land. So, the workers have taken adantage of the wide open spaces in Alentejo to regain control of a lot of the land. This took place for example in Mortemor o Novo, where eleven tracts of land were reoccupied by the agricultural workers.
In the communiqué they published to explain their action, the workers said:
"We have gone back onto these tracts to reoccupy the land and take back the crops that were stolen from us by the government of Sá Carneiro and Freitas do Amaral. We hope that this action will make it very clear that the stolen lands are coming back into the hands of the workers and that the agrarian reform will not be destroyed."
The situation became still more explosive after the outbreak of gigantic scandals over corruption in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. It was discovered, for example, that more than 60 percent of all the national agricultural loans-cheap loans for the creation of new farms—were given to three families, one of them being the family of the president of the Portuguese Farmers Confederation (CAP) and another being the family of the chairman of the Investment Planning Board in Alentejo.
João Goulão, the secretary of state responsible for these operations, capsulized the situation in a slip of the tongue as he began to speak in parlament. "We want to give the land back to those who have always held it."
Spurs Other Workers Struggles
Another effect of these confrontations is the stimulus that they give to the rest of the Portuguese workers movement. In the context of the deepening social crisis, the resistance to these clearances is putting on the agenda a general strike against the Sá Carneiro government.
Some union leaderships with links to the opposition in the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP), such as the shoemakers' unions in Aveiro and Coim-
. Confederação dos Agricultores Portugueses, organızation dominated by bıs conservative farmers.—IP/I
4. Confederação dos Agricultores Portugueses, a
bra, or the one in Guimarães, where the revolutionary socialists have a decisive influence, proposed that the day of struggle in defense of the agrarian reform on March 27 be transformed into a [national] general strike. Such a strike was possible.
Despite the refusal of the CGTP leadership to extend the mobilization, there is already considerable pressure for this. The development of such pressure is the most important effect of the resistance to the dismantling of the agrarian reform, and it is a step toward achieving what is needed to assure the victory of this fight-the reorganization of the struggle of the urban workers to take on the government and its policy.
Politically, the continual mobilization of the agricultural workers in Alentejo and Ribatejo is a factor favoring the struggles to defend the buying power of the urban masses. The trade-union forces are regrouping around the combination of these two issues.
For its part, the government does not have sufficient margin for maneuver to carry out a policy of partial concessions or of co-optation. A few months ago, a major change took place in the economic and financial situation. In 1979, for the first time in a long while, the balance of payments showed a surplus. Exports grew by 61.6 percent, while imports grew by only 25.5 percent. Thus, the export cover for imports went past the point of equilibrium to 54.6 percent.
These data for the first half of 1979 reflect a real economic recovery. The utilization rate reached 74 percent of productive capacity in manufacturing, while the growth rate of the Gross Domestic Product exceeded the average for the European Common Market countries. These are the results of an aggressive austerity policy undertaken by the government of Socialist Party leader Mário Soares on the basis of negotiations with the International Mone tary Fund.
A considerable relaxation of the financial pressures, increased liquidity, and export growth have gone hand in hand with a major concentration of capital in the domestic market. These results, however, do not seem sufficient to prevent the resurgence of more serious disequilibria with the approach of a new recession.
In the third quarter of 1979, the economic conjuncture shifted again. Investments in manufacturing dropped by 46 percent, and by 13 percent in the industrial sector as a whole. External demand decreased. Agricultural production experienced a major decline (which will continue as a result of the confrontations described previously, which are taking place in the country's main grain producing regions).
The improvement in the business situation-including the little whiff of oxygen that the Portuguese economy has enjoyed-has been possible only through a tightening of the austerity policy and the wage freeze, which has led to a steady decline in real wages for the Portuguese workers since 1975.
5. Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores Portugueses, the union federation led by the Communist Party.
At the same time, this decline in real wages testifies to the enormous limitations that have been imposed on the defensive struggles of the Portuguese workers. A World Bank report, Unemployment in Portugal-Prospects and Policy, gives an idea of this situation, showing the trend in workdays lost due to strikes.
Workdays Lost Due to Strikes
2,174,067
1,503,093
..524,654
Everything indicates that the figures for 1978 and 1979 will not show a shift in the trend. This does not mean, however, that the Portuguese working class has suffered a decisive defeat. In 1976, and even in the last election, the workers parties got an electoral majority (in 1979, the bourgeois coalition got a parliamentary majority thanks to the distortions created by the system of proportional representation that was used). And the most recent events have demonstrated the fighting capacity of the workers movement, if any proof of this were needed.
It is true that the Soares government's austerity policy and its initiatives succeeded in paralyzing the workers' fightback for a certain time. The trade-union bureaucracies collaborated directly with this offensive by trying to negotiate a social pact with the government. But now the installation of the Sá Carneiro government is generating pressure for workingclass unity and making for a much more direct political confrontation.
Today the government faces a much better organized and much more determined workers movement. It confronts the powerful aspiration of the masses for unity and for a general mobilization to regain their lost buying power, as well as to stop the offensive of the right wing. The general social crisis, and the directly political impact of the confrontations going on in Alentejo, are setting the working masses in motion.
Sá Carneiro has already been forced to back off from his decision in the first days of his government to freeze forty union contracts. Moreover, this counteroffensive by the people is creating additional difficulties for a fragile coalition, which is hesitating over what policy to follow.
In fact, Sá Carneiro thought that he was going to be able to implement his measures smoothly. He believed that he could bring into play the body of laws and institutions set up under Soares-it was the SP that introduced the law now being used to dismantle the agrarian reform in Alentejo-without creating any serious social upsets. He hoped to accomplish this before the elections that are to be held in September or October, and thus win a solid majority that could sustain his government for the four-year life of the new parliament.
In the face of the current situation, the government has gone into crisis.
At the end of February, the weekly Tempo, which supports the government and is one of its main mouthpieces, ran a six-column headline on its front page,
"Portugal Heads for An Insurrectionary Period." The editorial, written by the editor of the publication, explained, "If the government is not energetic, the country may at some point enter into an insurrectionary situation."
Another rightist journal evoked the possibility of a "military coup" against the government.
And Tempo, in turn, wrote: "Faced with such an attempted coup by political forces seeking primarily to get Portugal out of NATO and line it up with 'anti-Western' forces, there is no doubt among political observers that the present chief of the executive branch and of the armed forces would not allow Portugal to become the victim once again of a foreign intervention."
It is clear that it is not the 30,000 striking transport workers who are threatening to plunge the country into an "insurrectionary phase."
But, if the mass resistance to the government's measures increases, or even if the crisis in the cabinet sharpens, Sá Carneiro might be tempted to make a dramatic move in order to rally the forces of the Democratic Alliance behind the government and force the unions to retreat. Conflict Between Eanes and Carneiro
However, the government's growing dif ficulties have led the president of the republic, General António Ramalho Eanes-the main designer of the November 25, 19756 operation and a partisan of a governmental accord between the SP and the PSD-to take more distance from the government and sharpen his criticisms of it.
With the powers he holds under the constitution, Eanes is an important element of pressure on the government and can place obstacles in its way. It is already certain that the president will oppose the implementation of the new electoral law proposed by the government. It is a certainty also that he will oppose the "referendum law" that would make it possible to change the constitution without a two thirds majority vote in parliament.
So, the "boato"-the rumor about a military coup-indirectly challenged the Council of the Revolution and Eanes himself, suggesting that they were making preparations, or letting preparations be made, for a coup against the government. In this way, Sá Carneiro wanted to regain the initiative, sharpen the conflict between the government and the president of the republic, and begin preparations for running a candidate against Eanes in the presidential elections. It cannot even be ruled out that the government may resign so that the Democratic Alliance can run a candidate in these elections as an opposition party.
But all these maneuvers first of all reflect the failure of the government. Sá Carneiro himself was forced to admit that there were no preparations under way for a military coup. But he achieved at least one thing. He gave the starting signal for the presidential race and for the presentation of the first candidates.
However, very little was gained by this; in fact, the outcome seems to be another defeat. Eanes announced his candidacy without encountering any opposition from any section of the military hierarchy. And for the time being, the Democratic Alliance has no alternative to propose. Graver still, the AD is divided over this question.
Some of the AD leaders argue that it is necessary to back Eanes in order to an "institutional compromise" achieve with the SP in order to change the constitution in the next parliament. Their caution is quite rational. "We are among those who think that the country is still leaning to the left and is not ready to trust the right," wrote the editor of Tempo.
This means, in other words, that if a candidate supported by the AD lost to Eanes and the president had SP support, Soares and his party would get another chance to play the pivotal role in all the governmental negotiations.
However, another section of the AD, which represents a large majority, wants to field an alternative candidate.?
The deep division in the AD reflects the difficulties the AD is encountering as it tries to decide how and when to take on the workers movement. It illustrates very well the government's contradictions and the crisis in which it finds itself.
The government's failure and the division in the AD led Sá Carneiro to float the rumors of a military coup in order to assure that the elections will be held as soon as possible.
After failing in its attempt to move up the date of the presidential elections, the government is now trying to get the legislative elections held some time in the next two months, that is, before the end of June. The fact is that time is working against the AD.
The pressures on the AD are growing, along with the dissatisfaction of its sup porters, because of its inability to effectively break the resistance of the agricultural workers or to take on the union movement.
All the sectors of the opposition are actively preparing for the elections.
Left in the Elections
The Socialist Party has formed the "Front for Progress." This is an alliance with two bourgeois parties, the Social Democratic Movement, a split from the PSD, and the Independent Social Democratic Association, another split from the PSD that took place in 1979. The latter group includes the majority of the PSD parliamentary fraction at the time. This alliance also embraces the Union of the Left for Socialist Democracy (UEDS)®, led by the former minister of agriculture Lopes Cardoso.
This is the tack the SP is taking to try to reverse its electoral decline and get back into the government. For its electoral partners-especially the UEDS, which suffered a crushing defeat in December 1979, failing to elect a single deputy-the Front for Progress is a passport to São Bento (the parliament building).
The Front for Progress will support the candidacy of General Eanes. It includes personalities such as former Premier Maria de Lourdes Pintassilgo, who is directly linked to the president of the republic.
The Communist Party is maintaining its electoral formation, the Alliance of the People United, which is a partnership with
• Portuguese Democratic Movement (MDP). It can expect to get the same vote as in the last elections, 17 percent of the poll, a million votes. But it is unlikely that it will be able to improve its vote, because the appearance of unity achieved by the formation of the Front for Progress is going to channel those who want to make their votes count" toward the SP.
For the presidential elections, many CP
вод Валет оксит 4 СТР leaders, such as Dias Lourenço, have already expressed a desire to come to an agreement with Eanes. However, the CP may be forced-mainly by pressures brought to bear from the left-to run its own candidate in the first round and call for a vote for Eanes in the second (unlike the legislative elections, the presidential vote has two rounds, on the French model).
Former General Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho is heading up the People's Unity Force (FUP), which includes far-left organizations such as the two factions of the MES*, the PRPIO
0, and the UDPI! along with one of its split-off groups. The plan of this coalition is to run slates of candidates headed by "officers who participated in the April 1974 coup." The program they will run on has not been very well defined, but the axis will be defense of the constitution, which the alliance considers the indispensable banner for rallying forces to fight the offensive of the right.
8. União da Esquerda Democrática Socialista.
9. Movimento de Esquerda Socialista (MES- Movement of the Socialist Left), a centrist forma-
Otelo was naturally the candidate chosen by this coalition. But many of its components are showing signs of pressure to withdraw in favor of the SP in certain areas of the country. There are also strong pressures on them to support the candidacy of Eanes, "the defender of the constitution.
The Revolutionary Socialist Party (PSR), the Portuguese section of the Fourth International, will run candidates of its own throughout the country. They will stand on a platform of emergency demands centering around the call for working-class unity and a single presidential candidate of the workers movement to run against Eanes.
Facing a massive counterattack by the masses against his government and the reorganization of the union movement for struggle, Sá Carneiro can depend only on a fragile coalition.!' He has every interest in speeding up the elections.
Some people call this tactic "Italianizing" Portugal. The aim is to achieve a polarization between a right-wing bloc and a strong CP, which is to be kept out of the government, while the SP is to be pre vented from playing the role of intermediary. But for the moment, there is no indication that this dream can become a reality. The SP is far from having been cut down to the size of the Italian SP. And the unstable rightist coalition in Portugal is a far cry from the Italian Christian Democracy, which is well ensconced in all the Italian power structures.
The mass struggles in March, which posed the objective possibility for an immediate national general strike, had the effect of accelerating the governmental crisis and advancing the date of the elections.
But these struggles are far from over, and they have not been defeated. Every day they are stamping a deeper imprint on the evolution of politics in Portugal.
tion that has careened between ultraleftism and Social Democracy.-IP/I
Notes
1. Aliança Democrática (AD), includes the Partido Social Democráta (PSD-Social Democratic Party, formerly the Partido Popular Democrá- tico-PPD), a bourgeois center party moving right; the Centro Democrático Social (CDS- Social Democratic Center), a smaller bourgeois conservative party; and the Partido Popular Monárquico (PPM-People's Monarchist Party), a tiny "monarcho-populist" group.—IP/I
2. The main wheat growing area, formerly a region of large estates. It is a thinly populated dry area dependent on irrigation.
3. Unidades Colectivos da Produção, collective farms formed in 1974-75.
6. On November 25, 1975, the military-led gov. ernment provoked a coup attempt from the left in order to provide itself cover for taking repressive measures to roll back the gains won by the Portuguese masses after the overthrow of the Salazarist dictatorship in April 1974.—IP/I
7. Since this article was written, according to the New York Times, the Democratic Alliance has nominated Gen. António Soares Carneiro, as its presidential candidate. Soares Carneiro is president of the Association of Commandos, an organization of veterans of an elite unit in the Portuguese imperialist army.—IP/I
10. Partido Revolucionário do Proletariado (PRP-Revolutionary Party of the Proletariat), a group with origins in a guerrilla movement against the pre-1975 regime.
11. União Democrática do Povo (UDP—People's Democratic Union), a federation of Maoist groups that have moved toward positions independent of Peking policies.-IP/I
12. This would not be the first time an alliance between the two major parties in the AD broke up. In 1978, Sá Carneiro formed a coalition called Convergencia Democrática with Freitas do Amaral of the CDS. It only lasted a month. The CDS decided to form a government together with Mário Soares.