THE OFFICERS COUP portugal BEHND On February 28 a book was published in Lisbon. Tens of thousands of copies were sold in just a few days; a large number were said to have been bought by the DGS the political police, successor of the notorious PIDE), which, significantly, is responsible to both the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Overseas Affairs. The book was called "The Future of Portugal." The author was none other than General Spinola, former military commander in chief in Guinea-Bissau. "The war, " which for years had stood in the background of all the debates within ruling circles, suddenly entered the public domain. All the bourgeoisie's various options for economic and political perspectives for Portugal had been crystallized around this question. The central theme of the book -- which would hove been difficult to publish if some Faction in governmental circles had not given the go-ahead -- can be summed up in this declaration by Spinola himself: "If we de not achieve this solution (a federal structure in which the overseas territories would have on cutonomy granting them the same status as the metropolis -- INPREGOR), we will inevitably drift toward disintegration, losing our African territories one after the other." But the "furor" fouched off by the publication of the work of this so-called thinker was important only inasmuch as it served as the pretext for an open crisis within the government and the army. From March 6 to March 16 events moved quickly. The movement of opposition among lower-ranking officers spread. On March 12 they demanded the resignation of Andrade e Silvo, the "hordline" minister of the army. And in a manifesto cited by the March 24-25 issue of the Paris daily Le Monde, they demanded a political solution that guarantees national honor, dignity, and the legitimate inferests of the Portuguese living in Africa, bui that also takes account of the undenioble and irreversible deep-rooted aspiration of the African peoples to govern themselves." The response of the "hardliners" was not long in coming. On March 13, acting under the aegis of chief of state Americo Tomas, the hardliners relieved Generals Spinolo and Costa Gomez of their posts and repressed the mobilizations of soldiers, NCOs, and officers. In some cases, these mobilizations had gone so far as mutiny: for example, the infantry company of Caldas Da Rainha (some fifty-five miles from Lisbon), decided to march on the capital. The crisis of leadership in the bourgeoisie was open for all to see and revealed the centrifugal forces at work within the Portuguese ruling class. The hardliners' counteroffensive, while it is now scoring some points, in no way guarantees a real stabilization. But this crisis can be understood only by looking at the partially contradictory tasks confronting the Portuguese bourgeoisie: preserving the "colonial pact," while simultaneously seeking modernization, and, of the same time, integrating the country into Europe and stimulating the economy.
THE STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT After the second world war, the Portuguese bourgeoisie took the first steps in a timid industrialization program, making use of the reserves it had accumulated during the war. Portugal's neutral status during the war had allowed it to play the role of a commercial intermediary, it was a big exporter of agricultural products and raw materials (particularly a metal, wolfram). This created an opportunity for an accumulation of significant financial resources. In addition, a large amount of capital sought refuge in Portugal during the war. A few big industrial and banking groups, which enjoyed the legal status of monopolies and functioned under state protection, began to feebly develop an industrial infrastructure (cement, steel, transportation, etc.). But the domestic market was quite limited and its vulnerability required numerous protectionist measures. So the embryonic industrialization remained extremely fragile. Repression and suppression of democratic and trade-union rights was a constant aspect of Salazor's policy. The big turn came at the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s. A number of features marked this new period: a change in the political climate (presidential elections were held in 1958 with the participation of an opposition candidate, Humberto Delgado); the beginning of the colonial wars (Angola in 1961, Guinea-Bissau in 1963, Mozambique in 1964); the first rise of the student movement (in Lisbon, Colimbra, and Porto), of peasant struggles (the strike for the eight-hour day in Altentejo), and of workers struggles (in the Lisbon During this same period there was a significant economic ciecline. Investments were strongly reduced; the internal market was much too limited even for the very weak producfive capacity of the industrial sector. Finally, unemploymant and underemployment began to spread. A new stage in the development of Portuguese capitalism was taking shape. The outbreak of the colonial wars required on the one hand loans from the international financial market (about $32 million in 1961 and $38 million in 1962) and purchases of military equipment; on the other hand, the wars stimulated some production of military hardware in Portugal itself. (1) Concurrently, the "migratory stampede" began -Portuguese workers started moving in mossive numbers into France, Germany, and Switzerland -- and the call went out to foreign capitol. Xavier Pintado, the former secretary of state for commerce, offered a good summary of the advantages foreign capital could obtain by investing in Portugal: "(a) a large, easily adaptable work force; (b) low taxes; (c) a sufficiently developed infrastructure; (d) currency backed up by large reserves. . . " (October 5, 1968, issue of the French magazine Entreprises.)
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portugal Foreign investment grew rapidly. In 1960 if accounted for 1.5 percent of investment in the private sector; by 1966 the figure had risen to 27 percent. Ford, General Motors, Standard Electric, Firestone, Siemens, Krupp, and Nestlé sent investments to Portugal. (2) Finally, the process of integrating the country into capitalist Europe, concretized by foreign investment, industrialization, and emigration, was formalized by Portugal's entry into the AELE (Association Economique de Libre Echange -- Economic Association of Free Trade) in 196C. This perspective of integration was rapidly to become one of the important aspects of the policy of the most dynamic industrial sectors and of a section of financial capital. Thus, in the prospectus for the development plan of 1965-67, we road: "Motivated by its unshakeable desire to succeed, with or against the course of history, Portugal is today moving toward Europe in order to assure the economic acceleration that is required if it is to rise definitively into the ranks of the developed countries. " (3) The launching of this process of industrialization -- also bolstered by the influx of currency deriving from the emigration (1, 552 million escudos in 1958; 2, 679 million in 1964; and 22,388 million in 1972) and by income from tourism -- was to engender a profound change in the productive structure of the country, in the scale of its exports, and in its structure of employment. The share of agricultural production in the gross national product fell from 29 percent in 1953 to 15 percent in 1971. On the other hand, industry's share rose from 30 percent in 1958 to 41 percent in 1971; the growth of industry between 1958 and 1971 amounted to 200 percent. The increase in the gross national product as a whole during those years was 123 percent. (4) Concurrently, a tendency toward concentration of capital and mergers in the industrial sphere was developing, encouraged by a series of fiscal and financial measures. Traditional industries (textiles, cork) were relatively stagnant, while basic industries were developing in the areas around Lisbon, Porto Braga, and Aveiro-Coimbre; metallurgy, automobile assembly, steel, shipbuilding, and so on. Exports were diversifying; cork, wine, and canned fish were no longer the only products being exported. New agro-industrial products were added (tomato purée, paper paste) as well as manufactured products (machinery, machine parts, etc.). One figure is significant, between 1960 and 1971, the volume of exports of clothing rose from 0.085 million "contos" (a conto being 1,000 escudos) to 1.8 million contos. These are the figures for the same period for machines and machine parts (often only detached pieces): from 0.2 million contos to 2.5 million contos. (5) Nevertheless, it must be stressed that a good part of the exports were products of foreign companies with branches in Portugal. Four of the main exporting firms were wholly or partly controlled by foreign capital: Standard-ITT, Gründig, Calbi-Cullulose, and Diamang. But this expansion and diversification of exports indicates the importance of the European market for a whole section of the Portuguese bourgeoisie. Capitalist Europe is Portugal's main customer and supplier. Exports to copitalist Europe represent 65 percent of total exports, and exports to the Common Market exceed those to the AELE. When the AELE was dismantled, Portugal entered a free-trade agreement with the Common Market, which further intensified the bourgeoisie's need to integrate the country into the EEC. It must be stressed that this process of industrial development was based on a decrease in unemployment and underemploy-
12 ment. That decrecse was in turn based on the growth of the industrial sector under the impoct of foreign investment, the extraordinary emigration (in 1972 the number of emigrants totaled 1.5 million), and military service in the colonies. (In 1972 Portugal, with a total population of 8.2 million, had 200,000 soldiers serving in Africa.) It is mainly the emigration, however, that accounts for the facts that on the one hand the annual increase in the gross national product during 1968-73 (on average of 7.3 percent) and the annual increase in per capita labor productivity (an average of 6.6 percent) were among the highest in Europe, while the growth in employment was only 0.5 percent annually, and, on the other hand, that unemployment and underemployment did not increase sharply. In the Lisbon area the low rate of unemployment and underemployment during the 1960s stimulated a rise in industrial wages of more than 70 percent during 1958-65. Thus, the internal market was developing, allowing for a process of cumulative industrialization. The totality of this industrialization process provoked a dramatic decline in the agricultural population. The countryside around Minho, Beira, and Alentejo was depopulated; the agricultural population, which represented 50 percent of the active population in 1950, represented only 25 percent by 1970. At the same time, the working class was growing in numbers; by 1970 it represented more than a third of the active population. And its composition was changing. Workers coming directly from the countryside, most of them young (the average age was less than thirty) were being added to the older generation of workers. THE AFRICAN MALADY This evolution in the productive apparatus has involved on the one side a certain redefinition of political structures and on the other an attempt to find solutions combining two needs that are contradictory in view of the military cul-de-sac Portuguese imperialism has been driven into by the victorious resistance of the national liberation movements in Africa: strengthening Portugal's integration into Europe and modernizing the "colonial pact." The nomination of Marcello Coetano as Salazar's successor appeared to allow for the acceleration of the development of tendencies that were already visible under the old dictator. The addition of "technocrafic" modernists to the governing circles -- men like Joco Salgueiro, undersecretary of planning, Rogeiro Martins, minister of economics, and Xavier Pintado, minister of finances -- was an expression of the desire to set up a political team able to carry out the whole program, from expanding the internal market, to European integration, to establishing the "Portuguese common territory." As for the "liberal openings," they petered out. The fragility of Portuguese capitalism, its difficulty in finding means to keep a tight reign on the working class, the new rise of worker combativity, and the tensions arising from the colonial wars quickly brought an and to the timid liberal" experiments. The ability of the national liberation movements to stalemate the military plans of the Portuguese government was one of the major contradictions that disrupted all the projects developed by a section of Caetano's governing team and that is provoking the current overt crisis in the army and among ruling circles. In 1969 the Lisbon government used 42 percent of the state budget for military expenditures. Officially, that represents 7.5 percent of the national income (Le Monde,
March 30, 1972). In 1970 and 1971, some 58 percent of extroordinary (that is, nunbudgeted) expenses were devoted to military expenditures. According to the "Memorandum of the Portuguese Government to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (June 1971), " military expenditures alone totaled 8 percent of the GNP. In the official national accounting figures, 8 percent of the GNP is listed as devoted to "administration and defense. " From 1958 to 1971 the official increase in this category was 233 percent! Whatever the accuracy of these figures, which are generally underestimated in official government publications, it is easy to see how expensive the colonial war is that Spinola now publicly admits is impossible to win on a military level. This cost is no trivial matter. Especially not at the very moment when a series of investments are necessary to strengthen industrial development and make the productive apparatus better able to deal with the process of European integration. Thus, Rui Patricio, the minister of foreign affairs, declared in 1972: "We must odapt our structures to the development of the expanded Common Market. The problem is that the present context is not favorable for us." And, around the same time, a "high personality" in the regime admitted to a correspondent from Le Monde (March 1, 1972) that "the crediis spent on the war would obviously be more useful
With the exception of the big petrochemica! project in Sines ... development plans are manifestly suffering from lack of credits. And the discrepancies in allocation remain great.* In addition, despite the fact that international imperialism (through the medium of NATO) has until now been a trenchant supporter of the Portuguese military operation in Africa, the risks of political and diplomatic isolation, with all the consequences this could have for the Portuguese bourgeoisie on the economic level, are increasing. Pressures are mounting for either an independentist solution or for the establishment of a new status for the colonies. And finally, there is the international economic situation, which is hardly favorable to Portuguese capitalism, which siace 1965 has also been hit by aggravated inflation induced in part by the military expenditures. In this context, divisions are deepening within the bourgeoisie on the available politicoeconomic and social options. Sectors of the industrial and financia! bourgeoisie Inferested mainly in the opening toward capitalist Europe are less and less prepared to accept a policy that is becoming an obstacle to that project. The well-known "colloquium on industrial palicy" held in 1969 clearly indicated the goals of the policy these sectors are pressing for. The main axes of this policy as they were then defined con be summed up as follows: The top priority is European integration; industrial sectors that can be fit into this framework should be develaped; infrastructures must be developed; the process of concentration and rationalization of companies and various sectors of production must be accelerated. It is obvious that this sort of policy is not easily reconciled with the policy proposed by the hardliners in the govemment, who want to put off such schemes politically and economically. To be sure, in the beginning of the 1970s the government started to define the elements of an alternative policy aimed at overcoming the obstacle to development that the colonial wars and the old relationships with the colonies had become.
A response to the problems posed by the colonial wars, the victories of the national liberation movement, the integration into Europe, and the foreign investment was worked out along the line of developing and rationalizing metropolitan industry as opposed to the colonial wars. There were two sides to this plan. First, aid and stimulate certain investments in the colonies, urge investors to reinvest there by limiting the amount of capital allowed to be repatriated to the metropolis and force an implantation of some consumer industries for the urban market of the colonies. Second, increase the specialization of exports to Europe and occelerate the process of modernization of the productive apparatus. In this way a sort of international division of labor was set up. This economic strategy was supposed to allow for a strengthaning of Portugal's position in order to permit it, if the best conditions be met, to move to a neocolonialist solution under which military-political control of the colonies would be replaced by monetary, financial, and industrial control. Obviously, the realization of such a plan necessitates political instruments that the Portuguese bourgeoisie is far From commanding, oll the less so in that the strength of the nafional liberation movement is being brought to bear on the military level to a rather strong degree. In addition, it is highly problemmatical, not to say impossible, for Portuguese capitalism to compete with international monopolies for these markets. The example of the Dutch decolonization is quite instructive in this regard. So the crisis that has recently broken out in Portugal -- in the course of which we have seen the clash of the advocates of the federalist, autonomous solution, like Spinola and Costa Tomas, with the "hardliners," who, under the leadership of Kaulza de Arriaga, in no way envisage relaxing control over the colonies - must not be interpreted solely in he terms in which it was posed by the debate among various sectors of the army. In reality the crisis indicates that after ten years of colonial war, the modernistic sectors of the bourgeoisie that are not directly tied to the colonies in the same way as the entire financial, industrial, and raw-material-oriented colonial bourgeoisie are ready to consider a radical modification in colonial policy, perhaps even to "renounce" or completely revamp the colonial structure in order to give priority to the perspective of integration into capitalist Europe. If the bourgeoisic opts for such a solution, or even if a less extreme policy toward the colonies is insugurated, it will most certainly threaten to provoke secesionist currents among the white bourgeois layers in Angola and Mozanbique, who would make a turn toward Rhodesia. But in any case, the crisis that has just opened up will doubtlessly ciarify the various positions and allow for certain realigementz within the Portuguese bourgeoisie. THE RISE OF STRUGGLES Inflation in Portugal is rampant. In 1973 it reached the rate of 21 percent. The purchasing power of the workers is under serious attack. In addition, a mossive return of emigrant workers who find themselves faced by the prospect of recession in various countries of capitalist Europe threatens to axocerbate the already-existing tendency toward unemployment.
The workers' response to this attack on their employment and buying power could take on much greater breadth. Since the July 1968 strike in the Lisbon transportation system, workers struggles have been developing with ups and downs. In 1973 strikes took place in the metal and automcbile industries at Ford, General Motors (where there was on
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pertusal attempt to occupy the plant), the shipyards of LISNAVE, etc. In July 1973 there was a strike in air transport in the local branches of ITT. In January 1974 there were various mobilizations ranging from three-hour work stoppages to three-day strikes at the American watchmaking company Timex, in the LISNAVE shipyards, in the SOREFRAME factory in Amadora, and in the Entronomento railway plants. The mobilizations are still limited and fragnented, which expresses the organizational weakness and lack of tradition of the working class. Nevertheless, the mergers of companies, the emergence of industrial concentrations, and the Fusion of a layer of young workers who have not experienced any demoralization with sectors of workers who do possess a certain tradition can reinforce the workers' capacity for mobilization. In 1968-69 the bourgeoisie experimented with a "loosening up" in on attempt to reorganize a framework for controlling the working class. Thus, when o new trode-union low was passed, the "Corporative Chamber" clearly indicated the necessity of develaping instruments able to hold back the upsurge of the working class -- but also the difficulty because of the regime's destruction of the reformist workers organizafions: "... We still find ourselves in the same situation, namely: a very small number of effective trode-unions, a scattering of the workers into a multitude of small organizations that are able to develop neither adequate leaders nor competent services, and which do not command the prestige that they need among the workers, for they are unable to solve the problems of the people they represent. In addition, they do pest script: SPINOLA TAKES OVER On March 14 Spinola lost the second round against Americo Tomas. But the fight was not over. The initiative the Caldas Da Roinha Infantry company had taken on March 13 marked a portent rather than a setback for the "movement of coptains. " On April 26 Spinola was "handed" power. As carly as March, Spinola, supported by a significant section of Portuguese finance capital, had sought to "take power" in the hope of inaugurating a new policy to replace that of Caetano and, more especially, of the Americo Tomas clique. His ouster on March 14 boosted his credibility among opposition sectors within the army. It is not impossible that Spinola, understanding the depth of the crisis developing within the army, put himself forward (through the publicafion of the book attributed to him) in order to canalize a movement that could have gone beyond the limits set down in the March 22 manifesto. Viera de Almeido, the junta's nominee to head the Ministry of Finance, comes out of the sectors of Portuguese capital that support the options articulated by Spinola. Among these sectors are the Companhia Unico Fabril (CUF), which controls one-tenth of Portuguese industrial capital, a good part of the banking sector, and the "Europeans" of the SEDES (Society for Industrial and Social Development). As we explained above, the principle goals of this sector of the Portuguese bourgeoisie are turning toward Europe and modernizing the "colonial pact. " Spinola's declarations have been clear on one point: "modernization of the pact" does not mean "self-determination" or "independence." 14 not appear to the employers organizations as valuable interlocutors, for it is well known that even though dialogue might be interesting, real decision-making power does not lie with the unions. The workers' lack of confidence in their unions causes their interests and aspirations to be expressed in an indisciplined manner outflanking the unions and asserting itself in the form of groups unified by common needs. Such groups can easily be led toward action demands that are simply unacceptable (!)" But the "liberal" schema does not have -- and will not have -- any credibility except insafer as the bourgeoisie has on economic margin for maneuver large enough to allow for the establishment of "refomist" organizations capable of biunting the workers' combativity by granting concessions of a certain magnitude. In this sense, the timid experiments of 1968-69 will not be able to be put into practice. And neither will those proposed for the future by the modernist sectors of the bourgeoisie if they are able to impose their will on the government. Repression against the workers movement will certainly not remain the exclusive province of the hardThe new "debate" on colonial policy should give the student mavement opportunities to take initiatives in support of the national liberation movements much more than in the past. (Solidarity demonstrations have been strictly limifed up to now.) Both the rising workers struggles and the student movement can thus inject themselves into the crisis that opened up in March. "The future of Portugal" may be much different than Spinola ever imagined.
A. UDRY - April 11, 1974 Cunhal: wants alliance between people and ormySoares : Full confidence in junta.
OF THE SAIGON REGIME
In Coetano's message conveyed to Spinola by Feytor Pinto, the role of the ex-fighter with Franco's troops and butcher of Guinea-Bissau was described very precisely: "to prevent power from falling into the hands of the mob. " (Journal de Genève, April 27-28, 1974.) Spinola now finds himself confronted with a series of factors: possible reaction from the "hardliners" or secessionist moves by the colons of Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau (who in the past have even clashed with the Portuguese army), a deep economic crisis, and a mass mobilization of considerable dimensions. He has to develop some sort of social base -and a rather large one -- in order to tackle these various problems and obtain enough maneuvering room to seek a solution to the colonial war: For it must be stressed that the factor that has played the decisive role in the crisis of the Salazarist regime (both on the internal level and on the level of international diplomacy) has been the liberation movements, whose military and political strength and implantation among the masses has considerably increased in the recent period. The reactions of the MPLA, FRELIMO, and the PAIGC indicate that they are not prepared to accept "solutions" of a "federalist" voriety. In this situation it is unlikely that the junto will be able to repress the mass movement rapidly and decisively. While it is true that workers struggles have gone through an undeniable rise during the past few years, they have remained fragmented and atomized. The organizational strength of the workers movement is still relatively meager. This could leave the ¡unta a certain "freedom of action." All the more so in that the reformists and Stalinists are once again capitulating before the bourgeoisie. The London Financial Times of May 3 south vietnam POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CRISIS
One year after the Paris accords, it is clear that we have succeeded in maintaining stability on the military and political levels. That is no small achievement. But this hos not been the case on the economic level; there we are confronted with a very serious danger. The current