elections
Armed Forces
PORTUGAL and the Movement by A. UDRY. Two weeks before the official opening of the election campaign, set for March 20, the main features of Portuguese political life are the publication of the "emergency economic plan, " the debate on the "institutionalization of the Armed Forces Movement (AFM), " and the multiplication of workers struggles. The "anti-monopolist" plan The publication of the "emergency economic plan" - which was inspired essentially by Melo Antunes - will of least have the merit of making clear the function of the AFM and of opening the eyes, perhaps, of those who obstinately believed that the AFM was "the instrument of struggle for democracy and socialism. " The general introduction of the plan is extremely instructive. In it, for example, we read: "In the present phase, in which on the one hand the depressive economic situation is striking at profits and therefore at investment prospects, and in which on the other hand inflation is difficult to control, an increase in wages and distributed profits could aggravate both problems. " The logical conclusion, if demagogy did not compel the addition of the mention of profits, is simple: Limiting wages is the decisive way to restore the rate of profit. Thus, the whole plan is a response to the essential change that has occurred since May-June 1974: the organizafional and political strengthening of the working class, which has led to a deterioration of the position of the employers and to a decline in the rate of profit. 6
The antimonopolist demagogy that runs through the introduction to the economic plan is not at all exceptional in Portugal today. For example, the PPD (People's Democratic party) asserts in its program: "The PPD is not a party in the service of capitalism; if wants capitalism to be modified through an antimonopolist strategy, through the expansion of efficient management of the public sector and through the transformation of the status of the factory. " This "antimonopolist" demagogy must be viewed in the light of the excessive protectionism that marked the development of the Portuguese economy. In fact, protectionist trade policies and laws on industrial development stimulated the emergence of a very deformed industrial structure under which a few great trusts (CUF, Champalimaud, Borges e Irmao, Fonsecas e Burnay, Espirito Santo, Banca Nacional Ultra-Marino) coexisted with a multitude of small companies that developed in the sectors that were more or less abandoned by the principal industrial groups. The low wage levels permitted the survival of the companies of this second category. Of the 47,000 companies enrolled in the Portuguese Industrial Confederation, 36,000 employ fewer than five workers and only 186 employ more than 500. Hence, "antimonopolism" must be understood as the attempt to partially break through the hegemony of the key groups of industrial concerns, which on the one hand monopolize some types of investments and on the other hand play a role in holding the present economic structures together. As Gonçalves promised in November 1974, the plan does not go wild on the subject of "nationalization."
In the rare cases in which the possibility of nationalization is envisaged, it is clearly combined with compensation. Essentiolly, the plan proposes an expansion of state participation in the sectors in which the state already has investments: in the petroleum and natural gas industries and in the mining industries (wolfram, copper, zinc, uranium, pyrite, bauxite). In these areas, state participation will be raised to 51 percent. But the state will renounce any majority participation in refining and distributing petroleum and its by-products, in petrochemicals, in the arms industry, in the tobacco industry, etc. The banks and insurance companies are not affected by the nationalization measures or by the measures of majority state participation. That had been one of the demands of the Communist party, which later turned out to be more than moderate on all questions concerning industry. The possibility of creating state holding companies is foreseen. Such companies would play the role that ENI (Ente Nazionale dei Idrocarboni) plays in Italy or INI plays in Spain. The essential aim of the holding company would be to offer certain critical products to the private sector at low prices by socializing the losses; that has already been done in the fertilizer industry. In agriculture, the reforms proposed by the economic plan are nothing but a joke. Here again the CP had waged a battle for a "radical reform"! In substance, the large-scale holdings in the South are threatened only if the land is not properly cultivated, If the big landlords do not abide by the cultivation programs laid down by the plan, they can be hit with decrees requiring compulsory renting or expropriation of the land - with compensation. As for the response offered for the problem of the "minifundios" of the North (where in some regions the average holding is on the order of one acre), it is limited to providing agricultural credit and technical assistance and to recommending the development of cooperatives. These measures will be ineffective unless they are combined with nationalization of the banks, large agricultural trading companies, the agricultural machinery industry, and so on. But there will be no such nationalizations, and it is for that reason that the "agrarian reform" is so limited. The development - or more exactly, the stagnation - of Portuguese agriculture must be understood not only in the context of the country's agrarian struc ture, but also in terms of agriculture's function in relation to an industrial structure that was developed primarily with a view toward exports and therefore with a limited need to expand the domestic market. The accentuated crisis, which arose during the late 1960s, will certainly not be eased by the measures proposed in the economic plan.
Finally, the door is left wide open to imperialist investment. This was predictable, given the important role of these investments in the development of Portugal. (Between 1969 and 1973 imperialist investments in Portugal increased fourfold.) The only measure called for in this sphere amounts to trying to channel these investments somewhat. In 1973 only 3 percent of imperialist investments in the country were directed toward transformation industries, while 34.8% went into real estate (in 1972 that figure had been 35.8%). By eliminating all restrictions on the repatriation of profits for companies exporting more than 75% of their production - whereas the others can take only 15% of their profits out of Portugal - the "plan" hopes to stimulate investments that "strengthen Portugal's position" relative to the Common Market. To complete these initial measures and to maintain the advantages now held by sectors that have profited for a long time from protectionist policies, severe restrictions on imperialist investments are proposed in the cement, paper, transport, banking, insurance, and advertising industries. These restrictions are portrayed as a defense of the interests of the Portuguese workers. In reality, they are concessions to the Portuguese bourgeoisie, which wants to maintain its own private game preserves. Thus, in the paper industry - in which production has increased 14% a year since 1968 - the productive capacity of the largest mills is about 150,000 tons per year, while in Europe the average is something like 300,000 tons. The Portuguese companies active in this industry include CUF (CELBI), Espirito Santo (INAPA and Sociedade Industrial de Celluloses), and Champalimaud (Companhia do Papel do Prado). The significance of the restrictions on imperialist investment in the paper industry is thus quite clear: They are aimed at protecting Portuguese capital. In the "social sphere" the plan calls for no serious or rapid measures on points like medical care and housing; there are only a few measures, like compensation for layoffs lasting less than three months. On the other hand, the plan insists on telling the workers that "making demands is legitimate, but they (the demands) must take into account the particular historical situation we are in. The working class can turn its arms against itself if it ignores political reality. " As for the far left, a warning is issued, because "its demonstrations (read: its influence in rather broad sections of the working class) can cause a loss of confidence in private enterprise, which is sincerely disposed to participate in the construction of the new society. An ensemble of laws It is not accidental that the newspaper of the bankers of Geneva characterizes the economic plan this way: "At the same time, this plan displays extreme
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LCI meeting in solidarity with Chile. THE LCI Our comrades of the Liga Comunista Internacionalisto (LCI - Internationalist Communist League), sympathizing organization of the Fourth International in Portugal, have attained a remarkable success. Despite the obstacles of the electoral law - which requires that an organization have 5, 000 members in order to run in the elections, that is, 5,000 people who declare their odherence by signing on their elector's card and having the card stamped by a notary — our comrades have succeeded in obtaining 6,000 adherents. This in itself is indicative of the audience the revolutionary Marxist movement has in Portugal today. The campaign for adherents went on throughout the country. Dozens of meetings were organized in the cities, neighborhoods, and villages. Tens of thousands of posters and leaflets were distributed in Lisbon, Porto, Setubal, Leira, and elsewhere. A massive propaganda campaign based on a program to be presented in the elections was carried on in the factories, neighborhoods, schools, and the university. Thanks to this campaign, our comrades will be able to make the views of revolutionary Marxism heard during the electoral campaign, which will open on March 20. They will have the right to radio and television time and to a regular column in the daily newspapers. The comrades of the LCI will present candidates in four workers districts: Porto, 8
Lisbon, Leira, and Setubal. After the two presidential campaigns of the French section of the Fourth International, this will be the third time in Europe that the Trotskyists will have waged such a massive campaign in a country in which social confrontation and the class struggle are on the rise. Eight other far-left organizations also obtained ballot status: the Maoist PUP (Party of Proletarian Unity; the AOC (Workers and Peasants Alliance), which came out of the Communist party of Portugal (Marxist-Leninist); the UDP (People's Democratic Union), a fusion of three Maoist organizations; the FEC (Communist Electoral Front), created by the Maoist organization in Porto; the OCM(M-L), best known under the name Grido do Povo (Cry of the People); the MRPP (Movement for the Reconstruction of the Proletarian party), another Maoist organization; the FSP (People's Socialist Front), led by Manuel Serra, and the MES (Movement of the Socialist Left). The very fact that so many far-left organizations obtained the 5,000 or more signatures of adherents definitely illustrates the process of maturation of a broad vanguard in Portugal; this is not the least of the factors that will come to bear in the future political evolution of Portugal.
prudence in regard to the structures of the economy, which have already been shaken. The companies will remain under private ownership and will obey the laws of the market; they will not be drained of capital by excessive taxes . . . and, finally, foreign investments will benefit from precise guarantees contained in a specific code. " (Journal de Genêve, February 22-23, 1975.) The plan itself must be viewed in the context established by a number of laws: the law on the "right to strike and lock out, " the trade-union law, and the press law, The strike law outlaws factory occupations and political strikes and requires that seven days notice be given the Ministry of Labor and the employer before a strike is launched; it also sets a thirty-day period during which every effort must be made to reach an agreement, and it outlaws strikes that chollenge an already existing collective bargaining contract. It was the proposals of the PPD and the Portuguese Industrial Confederation that were decisive in determining the terms of this law. The declared objective of the trade-union law is to "regulate trade-union activity ... so as to create in the factories the proper conditions of equilibrium and justice in labor relations. " This is a law that strikes at the independent organizations of the workers by stipulating that only the trade-union commission can call an assembly of the workers in a factory and that the assembly must tell the employer about the meeting and then try to find a compromise between the workers and the employer. The law on trade-union unity (which does correspond to the will of the workers, although that does not mean that we support the law) must be seen in the light of the Bonapartist function of the AFM. As a commentator of the Financial Times wrote: "The message behind both pieces of legislation is that the AFM is determined to control the labour movement and prevent economic disruption by discouraging the formation of large union groupings along purely political lines. " (Financial Times, December 3, 1974.) Once again, this does not mean that the January 14 demonstration for trade-union unity, for example, did not go well beyond the objectives of the AFM and even the objectives set for it by the Trade Union Federation and the Portuguese CP; nor does it mean that the workers did not gain confidence in their own strength through the "victory" represented by the demonstration. Finally, the law on the press, which deals with attacks against the AFM and any writings that "place in danger the discipline and cohesion of the army, " rounds out the measures taken by the government, the Junta of National Salvation, and the AFM. The totality of these measures establishes the function of the AFM beyond any doubt: to permit the substantive maintenance of the class relations and relations of production inherited from the Salazarist regime and at the same time to guarantee that certain adjustments will be made. A new period Prepared secretly and discussed for more than three months within the cabinet - the AFM and the provisional government have learned a lesson from the public discussion of the trade-union law - this plan was published just at the moment when a new phase of workers struggles was opening. But the plan was prepared at a time when the dominant impression was that a decline of struggles after the explosion of May-June 1974 was certain. For example, in a special supplement devoted to Portuguese industry the December 3, 1974, Financial Times wrote: "Today, although the newspaper can generally be counted on to reveal some new labour story every day, the climate of protest has cooled. Government officials and businessmen all tell the same story of a quiet labour front and co-operation and understanding between all workers' leaders and management. .... The initial outburst of strikes, sit-ins, and workers' occupations has largely evaporated and the number of days lost through industrial action during November was probably much lower than in Britain or France. Things have changed. It is no accident that the introduction to the plan also strongly attacks "anarchists" and insists on the "responsibilities and discipline" of the working class. During the second week of February more than 250 struggles were officially recorded in the country. From the beginning of January to the second week of February the number of strikes, work stoppages, occupations, and active occupations was larger than it was for the entire period from September to December 1974./ More and more in these strikes, two features stand out: occupations of the factories (sometimes with continued production under the control of the workers themselves), and struggles for saneamento (that is, for the expulsion of managers and employers who were notorious fascists in the past or are "simply" sabotaging the factory or managing it disastrously). In the small factories, hit both by the rise in raw materials prices and by the changes in wages, there have been many occupations to counter layoffs or the threat of layoffs and to combat the "bad management" that appears to predominate in thousands of small companies that survived only thanks to the ferocious exploitation of the workers. Before the April 25, 1974, coup the Portuguese CP had de-
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PORTUGAL manded a minimum wage of 6,000 escudos a month, while the present minimum wage is only 3,300 escudos. But in the textile industry, which employs 400,000 workers, the going rate used to be monthly wages of 1, 500 escudos. In many companies of this type, occupation and continuation of production under workers control has become a commonly used weapon of the workers. Obviously, the dynamic of these experiences in self-management is quite varied and depends above all on whether there are vanguard militants in these factories. In the glass industry in Marina Grande in the North, for example, the M.P. Roldao company was taken over by the workers on February 2 after a strike that had gone on for more than three weeks. The workers elected a seven-member commission that included two technicians and began managing the enterprise. This commission called for a government administrator, setting his maximum salary at 10,000 escudos a month. No demand for nationalization was raised. The limits of this experience are obvious, particularly when viewed in the light of the immense technical backwardness of the company and the plans for restructuring the glass industry. In the Portugalia dye works, on the other hand, the struggle that has been going on for several months indicates other possibilities. In January the employer refused to consider the workers' wage demands (minimum monthly salary of 4, 500 escudos) and "offered" a minimum wage of 3, 900 escudos. The women workers of the factory occupied the plant and continued production. In an attempt to soften them up, the employer proposed that the workers participate in the management. The workers commission rejected this proposal and asserted: "We reject it (participation) because we know that to participate can only create illusions that we are controlling the firm and its management. " In response to the employer's proposal, the workers commission demanded unlimited and constant control of the company's books and the management of the plant "in order to safeguard our interests as workers. " In addition, when the employer made some threats, the commission barred the employer or any member of his family from entering the factory. On January 10 the demand for nationalization was raised. It was explained this way: "This demand is just, because it is the only way to guarantee wages and jobs; because we produce services that are in the interest of the entire population and therefore must be guaranteed and must not depend on the good will of an ex-member of the legion the employer had been a member of this fascist organization); because April 25 and September 28 (the date when a massive workers mobilization blocked an attempted comeback by the right) did not occur in order that ex-Nazis might continue to do as they please against 10 the interests of the workers; because everything that exists in the factory has been produced by workers - the initial capital was 175 contos (175, 000 escudos) and now it has risen to thousands of contos. " Besides all that, the workers at Portugalia affirmed their solidarity with another company, Camburnac, where the workers have also demanded nationalization. More and more, a political dimension is being introduced into the struggles of the Portuguese workers, a dimension that will be more strongly asserted in opposition to the measures called for in the economic plan. For example, the workers of the Vialonga da Sociedade Central de Cervejas (a brewery) began with a movement around demands based on denunciafion of the management and the fabulous income of the administrators; but they rapidly moved to the demand for "immediate nationalization" of the company. Clearly, this takes on great significance for the whole food industry, which is in large part controlled by multinational companies. Recently the workers of the CUF demanded the nationalization of an important factory of this multinational group. Progress and limits of class consciousness This new rise of struggles expresses an advance in the combativity and anticapitalist class consciousness of the Portuguese workers, an advance that has occurred more rapidly than could have been hoped, given the effects of forty years of the corporatist regime. The maturation of consciousness is a striking manifestation of the repercussions of the fundamental tendencies now at work in capitalist Europe, tendencies that have found expression everywhere since the conjunction occurred between the structural and conjunctural crises of capitalism. In Portugal the convergence of these two crises has been more violent and explosive than in most European countries, a result of the structure of the Portuguese economy. Moreover, it must be stressed that the working class has grown very much during the past two decades. Its social weight is strongly felt today. A few figures may illustrate this consolidation of the working class. The following figures, which refer to three industrial areas (see Anolise Social, No. 39, 1973), show the evolution of the ratio of wage earners to the active population between 1930 and 1970:
Porto: 1930 - 52.3%; 1970 - 82.3%
Lisbon: 1930 - 56.1%; 1970 - 86.3%
Setubal: - 1930 - 52.7%; 1970 - 87.3%. Obviously, this development did not occur evenly throughout Portugal. Nevertheless, it does demonstrate the qualitative change that has taken place in the regions that form the most solid bases of the workers movement today.
The qualitative strengthening of the working class has suddenly begun to find organizational expression. In a few months the trade-union federations (which include 200 unions) have recruited more than 2 million workers. To this must be added the influence of the experiences in struggle gained by the Portuguese immigrant workers in West Europe and the role of the far left, which has been strongly influenced by the French and Italian examples. Taken together, all these factors account for the rapidity of the political maturation of workers combativity. Only last June and July, that combativity was often expressed by the juxtaposition of the two slogans: "Long live Spínola!" and "6, 000 escudos a month!" The crude betrayal of struggles by the CP, the SP, and the Trade Union Federation during the last summer and early autumn, combined with the very rapid and massive growth of the trade unions and the CP (despite the betrayals), accounts for the present Fluidity within the reformist organizations and the progress made by the far left. In the first place, the reformist grip on the workers is still relatively limited. The Portuguese CP did not have a daily newspaper until the middle of February 1975. It did not have a weekly with a very large circulation. Instead, it had placed priority on penetrating the "official" mass media. It suffers from a crying lack of cadre, even though it has a rather large apparatus. Hence, the response the far left groups are able to receive among the rank-and-file members of the CP is palpable. (This is much less true in the case of the AOC and the MRPP which center their campaigrs on attacking "social fascism. ") More exactly, there is a possibility of having debates and discussions with the CP rank and file. This has been confirmed in all the public meetings the far left has held in areas in which the CP's grip on the workers is limited. Important opportunities are open to an organization able to inject itself into this process of debate. Our comrades of the LCI have already done this in the industrial periphery of Lisbon and Porto. Moreover, because the Trade Union Federation was unable to respond to the movements and demands of the workers, the bodies that arose during May and June in the big factories, the workers commissions, have gained strength as organs that permanently include the workers vanguard and occasionally are able to rally all the workers, outside the control of the reformists. These sorts of bodies have emerged essentially in the large enterprises of Lisbon and the surrounding area, in companies like Lisnave, Setenave, Timex, Eface-Intel, TAP, the postal system, Plessey, etc. They can play an important role in the current mobilizations. But a double danger is already visible: first, that the commissions, under the influence of a sectarian, anti-trade-union Maoist current could harden the lines of the cleavage between the workers vanguard and the mass of the class; and second, that an overestimation of the present role of the commissions could lead revolutionaries to forget the necessity of waging a struggle within the unions themselves for the building of a class-struggle tendency, to forget that the work within the commissions must be combined with work within the trade unions themselves. These two elements — the CP's relatively limited control over its own rank and file and the strengthening of bodies like the workers commissions - account for both the attacks by CP leader Cunhal against the far left and the injunctions of the AFM against "anarchists" who are eroding "confidence in private enterprise. " Nevertheless, it is necessary to grasp the limits of the maturation of class consciousness in Portugal today so as to be able to foresee the broad outlines of the future evolution of the society. Yes, combativity in the factories and the development of consciousness have taken rapid strides forward. Yet a new step forward has been taken with the movement for nationalizations. But it remains the case that the Portuguese working class still bears the effects of forty years of fascist rule. These effects assert themselves in a very specific way: The workers' capacity for independent intervention into political life is limited; the capacity of a broad layer of workers to take the political field putting forward a clearly independent policy against both the maneuvers of the AFM (the "defense of democracy") and the policies of the CP is weak. To act in this way requires a long experience of the sort that thousands of cadres of the Italian, French, or Spanish working class possess, and it requires a revolutionary organization to lead significant sectors of the class in practice. The experience simply does not exist in Portugal, and in the present phase the Maoist grip does not help the political understanding. of the workers vanguard. This Maoist hegemony is itself a function of the element of frustration in the political consciousness of the working class and of the fact that in the history of the Portuguese workers movement since the 1920s the Maoist break of 1963 is the only point of reference. Bonapartist role of the AFM The basic dynamic of socioeconomic development can be glimpsed. Given the deepening economic crisis, there is no doubt that struggles and confrontations with the employers will multiply. Consequently, the precondition for the implementation of the economic plan, that is, a stabilization of the relations between labor and capital, will not be easily attained.
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PORTUGAL The question of the capital-labor relationship will not be settled in the elections. An electoral victory for the PPD and the SP will not mean very much. These parties do not command the means (political personnel, trade unions, etc.) to implement their policies. Of course, a victory for these parties would provide a possible cover for the strictest measures against the working class. The application of the strike law would be an example. But who would be charged with applying it? Certainly not the SP and the PPD alone! L'Expresso, the magazine of an important member of the PPD, writes: "The employers — who have at their command a legal instrument with which to respond to illegal strikes and therefore to occupations, namely the lockout - appear to have lost all the offensive and 'defensive capacities they were manifesting several months ago; they are characterized by declining vigor. " (February 22, 1975.) In this situation of social confrontation the bourgeoisie, whose penchant for democratic methods is not extremely strong anyway, will have to leave to the AFM the role of preserving what really is essential. And the essential thing, as is made so clearly explicit by the introduction to the Melo Antures plan, is to safeguard private property, free intiative, and the laws of the market. In this context, the Bonapartist role of the AFM can only expand, and thie legal instruments for intervening and "stabilizing" the situation already exist. This prospect has been provided for, not only in the legal machinery, but also within the AFM itself. To be sure, it need not be denied that progressive forces exist in the AFM, some militants even claiming allegiance to the revolutionary left. But all analyses that begin from a supposedly subtle sociological examination of the AFM and an analysis of its "ideological currents" forget the essential point: the analysis of the function and role the AFM has fulfilled up to now. Moreover, within the AFM, Fabiao's offensive has achieved success. The offensive consisted in bringing the sergeants, who represent a regressive corps, into the AFM. Thus, a "social base " was created to support the policy of the center and right of the AFM and to respond to the "leftish oscillations" of a section of the coordination commission or of the editors of the AFM bulletin. In addition, Fabiao, Antunes, and others are playing a slick game by putting stress on the "unity of the AFM." For example, when a reporter from l'Expresso asked him about the significance of a proposal about self-managed socialism that had been made at a general assembly of AFM de legates, Fabiao answered: "As in any assembly, programs are discussed. The methods and suggestions that are the most unitary are the ones that are dominant. All the delegates are fully conscious that our strength lies in our unity and that unity is therefore the es12 sential value to conserve. Human beings are allowed to make mistakes. " (Expresso, January 18, 1975.) The "human beings" making the mistake being the advocates of self-managed socialism! This unity is the constraining framework that limits the expression of the left tendencies that may exist in the AFM, for there is no doubt that any open division in the AFM would lead to a confrontation in which they would be the losers. Thus, beginning from unity, a shifting of tendencies occurred that has led to the predominance of the tendencies that worked out the present economic plan. And if the balance becomes unstable, there is the possibility of a constitutional maneuver: The powers of the junta can be increased. In this way the complex of tense relations between the various tendencies of the AFM and the provisional government is resolved and, at the same time, the initial elements of the institutionalization of the AFM are set up. The expansion of the Bonapartist role of the AFM is coming to the fore very strongly in the discussion around the theme of institutionalization of the AFM. This discussion points to the form that a strong state could take in Portugal: a system of rule that excludes the intervention of the trade unions, the political parties, or parliament. For the moment, the institutionalization of the AM is being prepared by granting it veto power over the election of the president, by guaranteeing that it will retain certain ministerial posts (defense and economics), and by delegating many powers to the junta or to a state council. The most clear-sighted bourgeois forces have understood this function of the AFM and that it is necessary to the bourgeoisie that the AFM play this role in the event of an intensification of the confrontations between the two basic classes. For example, the bourgeois economic review Tempo Economico writes: "In the turn through which Portuguese society is now going, the role of the AFM is essential in that it is in the Armed Forces Movement that we will be able to find the new factors that make the traditional alternatives, which are inappropriate to the gravity of the present situation, impossible for us. We are thinking especially of the electoralist dynamic of the political parties ... and in a crisis situation that sharpens class conflicts, political compromises (between the parties) become incomprehensible to the ranks of the parties, and incompatible objectives proliferate. If we accept this schema, which is simply a derivative of the analysis of the many crises since April 25, then we must conclude that the major homogenizing factor in the Portuguese social system is the action of the AFM and that it would be very dangerous to leave the orientation of the political system to the dynamic of the political parties. " (December 13, 1974.)
The same article called for the publication of a plan that would restore the confidence of the employers and clearly indicate the necessity of shifting the present relationship of forces between capital and labor. The two "demands" seem to have found an echo in the AFM. Response of the workers movement The Socialist party is pouting about the measures of institutionalization of the AFM. Nevertheless, after making a few pretenses, SP leader Mario Soares insisted on the fact that he was not averse to "institutionalization of the AFM. " The debate evidently revolves around the exact form of the compromise that will be acceptable to all the participants in the provisional government. This compromise must facilitate the establishment of the "three-year contract for progress, " which is a straitjacket for the working class. The SP's maneuvers, like its declarations abouf the "predominance of the civilian power" and its "resolute opposition to the Prague coup, * have an electoral purpose. In fact, the SP can in no way compete with the CP in the trade-union field or in the area of organization of the agricultural workers. Hence, it must try to bolster its electoral potential in order to strengthen itself against the CP and to get a center-left coalition government set up. As for the CP, it is manifestly annoyed. According to all predictions, its electoral score will not be commensurate with the effective role it, is now playing. It therefore finds itself caught between two sorts of obligations. Its collaboration in the government requires it to endorse "the broadest alliance of the people with the AFM" and, consequently, it must proclaim the necessity of maintaining the government coalition, "despite the internal conflicts. " (Jornal de Noticias, interview with Cunhal, March 5, 1975.) But the rise of workers struggles, the necessity of responding to the gains of the far left, and the urgency of strengthening its base in the working class and among the peasantry before the elections compel the CP to make tactical left turns. These turns range from the CP's support to the strikes of the fishermen, the glass workers of Marinha Grande, and the textile workers of Porto to the stimulation of peasant struggles in the Alentejo. Of course, the CP often shows up once the struggle has already begun only in order to support and organizationally co-opt it. Such turns, even though limited in time, reduce the political space for the Maoists. In fact, the UDP, which has won over a not negligible section of the workers vanguard in the industrial zone around the capital, is not very different from the CP politically; in fact, the CP is even in position to influence the periphery of the UP because of the latter's political weakness. This is all the more true in that adherence to the Maoist current expresses radical trade-unionist combativity rather than an increase in political consciousness. To the extent that the exacerbation of workers struggles continues and the maturation of anticapitalist political consciousness goes on among the working class, it will be difficult for the CP not to seek a solution that would temporarily allow it to get out of this impasse; remaining in the impasse would threaten to lead to an accentuated cleavage between the party and its base in the working class. Within this perspective, a temporary departure of the CP from the government coalition and a division of labor between the MDP/CDE and the CP should not be ruled out. The objective result would be obvious: acceleration of struggles, with attempts by the CP to co-opt them, and a redoubled offensive by the AFM under the cover of "defending the process of democratization. " The weak capacity of the Portuguese working class for independent political intervention certainly threatens to manifest itself both in the present phase and in the event of a direct or indirect departure of the CP From the government coalition. In fact, the inclination of the workers to respond to the maneuvers of the AFM, all of which will be conducted under the cover of opposing the danger of a rebirth of the right, of a reactionary power play, seems weak in the present period. Hence, the possibility of a certain temporary retreat, or more exactly of a political defeat (which must not be confused with a crushing of the working class), is a variant of social and political development that must be taken account of during the coming year. This makes the tasks of the far left in the present situation even more important. It is ever more urgently necessary to utilize all opportunities to bolster the workers' experiences of self-management, to regionally and nationally coordinate bodies like the workers commissions, to develop a class-struggle tendency in the unions on a national scale. Then the possibility of using the electoral campaign -through the daily press and radio and television -to present an overall alternative to the plan proposed by the government can be a decisive weapon for our comrades of the LCI in their struggle to raise the consciousness of the working masses and in the political confrontation with the reformists and the Maoist currents. This intervention will be decisive in preparing the coming stages of the Portuguese revolution. March 6, 1975
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Georges Marchais 2292222202 22222222 The polemic For several months the Parti Communiste Français (PCF - French Communist party) hds been engaged in an escalating polemic against the Socialist party, its privileged ally in the Union de la Gauche (Union of the Left). It began with some sharp comments on the fact that the SP was using the Union de la Gauche to boister its own organization and to try to eat into Communist electoral strength; it wound up turning into a real polemic. Georges Marchais, the general secretary of the PCF, has gone so far as to reproach Mitterrand, the first secretary of the SP, for being "overbearing and too sure of himself." The PCF is attacking the SP for not having completely abandoned its plans for class collaboration with the bourgeoisie: "The big bourgeoisie. • . is maneuvering to find a political escape from its difficulties. Above all, it would like to weaken our party and, at the same time, to create the conditions both for a breakup of the Union de la Gauche and, as Mr. Giscard d'Estaing has said outright, for the return by the Socialist party to a policy of loyally administering the interests of big capital. ... 14
222 CP SP