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Because of its strategic position and economic potential, Angola represents an important prize for the entire African revolution. Its economy hos many ties with the other countries of the region: The hydroelectric project in the Cunene basin, which involves South African interests and concerns northern Namibia too, the coffee production linked to imports from Zaire, and the Benguela railroad, export route for Zambian and southern Zaire mining production are illustrations of these ties. The existence of ethnic groups divided over borders (Bakongos in the north, Ovambos in the south) further strengthens these fies by involving the neocolonial governments of the entire region. Moreover, neocolonial reaction has clearly understood the stakes represented by Angola for the future stability of the Congolese, Zairois, Zambion, and even Tanzanian regimes. Mobutu's regime in Zaire is confirming its function as strong link in the imperialist chain by arming, training, and financing the FNLA (Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola - Angola National Front of Liberation), a rightist organization originally founded on a Bakorga regionalist basis. Zambia and the Congo have stepped up their factional manipulations within the MPLA Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola - People's Liberation Movement of Angola), as was especially clear during the Lusaka congress of this organization, held in August 1974. From another angle, the oil companies - octing through the good offices of Brazzaville (the Congo) and Kinshosa (Zaire), the two cities that harbor the two foctions of the so-called FLEC (Frente de Libertação do Encravado de Cabinda - Liberation Front of the Cabinda Enclove) - covet Cabinda and its oil.: In addition, African diplomacy as a whole, through the intermediary of the Organization of African Unity (CAU), weighs on the Angolan situation, pressing in the direction of a neocolonial solution, with Kenya acting as a go-between for the FNLA, MPLA, and UNITA (União Nacional para Independência Total de Angolo - National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), as it did at the time of the Mombassa occord and during the latest negotiations in Nakuru. The Angolan situation thus plays a decisive role in the Framework of the modification of imperialist factics in southern Africa, South African diplomacy, which is temporarily aiming at achieving a consensus with the neocolonial regimes and the FRELIMO in Mozambique, is disturbed by on Angolan situation that could not only threaten South African economic interests in Angola, but more importantly could trigger a political and social crisis throughout the region. Thus, all the imperialist and proimperialist factions and forces are seeking to intervene in the Angolan situation in order to preserve their share of the profits; the intervention extends all the way through to Brazil, which is playing the game of "impartial" aid, in the name of the interest of all Portuguese speakers. Concurrently, it is the duty of the proletariat and the international revolutionary movement not to abandon Angola to imperialist appetites without a struggle. From this point on, the revolutionary lessons that must be drawn from the mobilization of the laboring masses of Angola - a mobilization that is occurring through workers struggles and the exemplary forms of organization deve loping among the urban masses - go well beyand the narrow national framework and concern the whole of the African revolution. It is therefore indispensable for African youth and the international anti-imperialist movement to become conscious both of the continental dimension of the Angolan crisis and of the necessary tasks of support that this implies. Against the neocolonial holy alliance it is crucial to organize the revolutionary elements of the Congo, Zaire, and Zambia in o framework of permanent milirant support to the Angolan mosses in struggle for their emancipation. But the Angolan situation is also important for all European and North American revolutionaries, for it involves large investments by the various European bourgeoisies and the American bourgeoisie, and what happens in Angola also affects the relationship of forces in Portugal. Thus, international solidarity with the Angolan masses will become an important factor in the future evolution of the relationship of forces in the country. This is especially true because the Maoist policy of supporting Mobutu's sinister game in the fromework of mainraining good Sino-Zairois relations and of supporting the FNLA (Chinese military advisers are training the FLA's aggression troops) contributes to bolstering the imperialist project of creating a neocolonial KinshasaLuando axis. In the meantime, the Sovier Union and the "people's democracies" of East Europe are content to provide only eye-dropper-sized aid to the MPLA, the aim being to safeguard their future relations with Holden Roberto (the FNLA). The evolution of the political situation in Angola will thus condition the future relationship of forces in central Africa and the southern subcontinent to a large extent; the future of the new independent state of Mozambique will be especiolly offected. The political tasks of Angolan revolutionary Marxists must be worked out within the fromework of a conception that integrates the evolution of Angola into the entire African revolutionary process.
ANGOLA From Spinola to the transition government The essential aim of the reorientation of imperialist strategy in southern Africa that has occurred in the recent period is to limit both the impact of the "decolonization" of the Portuguese territories in Africa and the dynamic of the popular mobilizations that have followed that decolonization, thus assuring the transition to a new regional economic and political integration based around South Africa. Thus, in Angola an attempt was made to set in motion a neocolonial solution under the auspices of Mobutu and with the participation of the Portuguese government. The Portuguese bourgeoisie and imperialism counted on settling the thorny problem of the colonial war and simultaneously maintaining capitalist exploitation in Ango la by implementing Spínola's neocolonial plan, which called for a slow and complex "decolonization" project including an immediate cease-fire, the formation of a coalition government, and a referendum to be held in the framewark of a federation with Portugal. This process was based on the exclusive recognition of the rightist nationalist forces (FNLA and UNITA) and on the drafting of "independence" agreements in association with the direct representatives of the colonial bourgeoisie (Angolan Unity Front, Angolan Christion Democratic party, etc.) with a view to their porticipation in the transition government. The secret talks on Sal Island in Cope Verde between Spinala and Mobutu, who presented himself os a spokesman for Chipenda (at the time on MPLA dissident), Holden (ENLA), and Savimbi (UNITA), were clearly part of this project, which was aimed at shunting aside the MPLA at a time when it was racked by a grave internal crisis that was not unrelated to the approach of important political events. (The Chipenda tendency later left the MPLA and joined the FINLA; the "Active Revolt" tendency, led by the Andreode brothers, remains in the MPLA.) But the MPLA's relative intransigence on the principle of independence, its popularity among the urban masses, and political developments in Portugal itself (with the ouster of Spinola) altered the unfolding of the initial neocolonial process. It was above all the entrance onto the political scene of the Angolan laboring masses through workers strikes and broad mobilizations in the urban centers that forced the Portuguese bourgeoisie to recognize the right of the peoples of the colonies to independence. After Spinola's departure, however, the main lines of his neocolonial plan were reaffirmed by his successor, Costa Gomes. On October 10, 1974, a new meeting was held between Fontes Pereira de Melo, Mobutu, Holden, and Chipenda, while in Angola itself the racist fury of the white colons was unleashed against the African masses. 20
Nevertheless, the deepening of the MPLA's influence among the urban workers, the growing radicalization of the struggles, and the violent, virtually spontaneous réaction of the popular masses of the musseques (urban slums) to the racist aggression forced the recognition of the MPLA and marked the end of the federalist pretensions of the Spinolists; the imperialist strategy was thus partially frustrated. We then saw an acceleration of the "process of decolonization, " with a spectacular "reconciliation" of the three liberation movements in Mombossa (Kenya), the signing of the Alvor accords with the Portuguese government, and the establishment of a quadripartite transition government charged with odministering the country until elections, scheduled to be held just before legal independence in November 1975. Thus, the initial neocolonial project was very much altered by the development of the revolutionary struggles of the workers of Angola and Portugal. Nevertheless, the context in which the recognition of the MPLA occurred (in association with the rightist nationalist movements FNLA and UNITA) corresponded to the imperialist desire to "neutralize" the revolutionary dynamic of the independence struggles by incorporating the MPLA into the neocolonial process through the transition government. The Alvor accords, although silent on the future of imperialist interests in Angola, are very explicit as to "respect" for the interests of the colonial bourgeoisie. They thus set the general framework for a neocolonial solution, which is now implicit in the facts of the situafion, the major instrument of that solution being the transition government. The absence from this government of the Chipenda faction of the MPLA (which hod not yet joined the FNLA when the government was formed) and the direct representatives of the colonial bourgeoisie thus appears as a temporary measure aimed at staggering the incorporation of the various elements of the neocolonial plan. In fact, Chipenda's participafion in the government is now envisaged (he was part of the FNLA delegation in Nakuru). The central task of the transition government is to prepare the neocolonial juridico-political framework to guarantee, by virtue of "electoral legitimacy, " that the transition of power will take place without any anticapitalist popular mobilization of any scope. The first measures taken by this government (the banning of "popular assembling, " the appeals to workers to return to work, the "militarization" of labor in the ports) clearly attest to this concern. The transition government today appears as a "legal" cover for the anti-working-class measures that have been proposed by the FNLA, UNITA, and the Portuguese high commissioner and sanctioned in effect by the MPLA, which is increasingly squeezed between its collaboration with reactionary forces of the top and its tactical support of the mass movement.
In the most recent period, the widespread outbreak of armed clashes has dangerously compromised the "peaceful process of decolonization" and the electoral perspective and has made it necessary to hold a "meeting to amend" the Alvor accords so as to permit their actual implementation. African diplomacy has again mobilized to defuse the Angolan powderkeg. Kenya is once again serving as an intermediary among the three movements, President Jomo Kenyatta seeking in this way to head off the crisis of his own regime by appearing as the "providential man of reconciliation" in the eyes of African opinion. The Nakuru conference decided to create the Angolan national armed forces, disarm the civilian population, promulgate an electoral law on July 15, and conduct a census with a view toward holding elections to a constituent assembly in October 1975. The plan to disarm the urban mosses corresponds to the FLA and UNITA's broader desire to deal a blow to all the structures of workers self-organization not provided for in the A ivor accords. The attitude taken by the MPLA in Nakuru further reveals the opportunist character of the leadership of this organization, which is prepared to cling to governmental power at any price. Nevertheless, if the disarming of the urban mosses is actually corried out, it will represent a new and decisive change in the relationship of forces in face of the imperialist counteroffensive, a factor that would deepen the internal contradictions of the MPLA. Such a policy could well be suicidal, even for the elements of the MPLA who most respect the unity of the government. If a partial defeat for the masses can be imposed by selective massacres, the Ango lan laboring masses would be beaten and the petty-bourgeois leadership of the MPLA, rendered inoperative, could well be swept out of the government. But the formation of a Zaire-Angola neocolonial oxis under the auspices of Mobutu and the FNLA, an axis that might later be in position to take excessive advantage of it role as policeman of the region, could appear dangerous for certain imperialist interests, The recent rumors of a coup in Zaire could be an expression of the Fear of certain imperialist sectors of the formation of such a bloc. In this context, UNITA could try to offer a way out of the scrape by coming forward as a miracle solution, with the support of the most right-wing elements of the MPLA. That was certainly what UNITA was aiming at in sending its representatives on a tour of European governments recently. The workers mobilization In recent years the center of the struggle of the Angolan masses has shifted from the rural regions (to which the armed struggle and the liberated zones of the MPLA had been limited) to the urban centers, where workers combativity has been forcefully asserted, as was demonstrated by the Luanda general strike of September 1973. While the MPLA was experiencing serious difficulties (internal divisions, military problems), there emerged in the urban centers a young, strongly concentrated, and very combative proletariat, the direct product of capitalist exploitation. Although it lacked organic links to the armed struggle, this proletariat was much impressed by the MPLA's prestige and burst onto the political scene, combining in its struggles economic demands and an advanced anticolonialist consciousness. The new situation created by the April 25, 1974, coup in Portugal and the relative liberalization that followed gave the signal for an offensive of struggle. The combativity of the Angolan proletariat, long contained by colonial repression, exploded in many local strikes that clearly attested to the workers' desire to expel the foscist employers and managers and put an end to capitalist superexploitation. But the first significant victory of the Angolan proletariot over the stalling of the Portuguese government come with the nearly spontaneous response of the laboring masses to the rocist crimes committed by colonial reaction. The relationship of forces between the laboring masses and the ruling class in the urban centers was suddenly transformed, enabling tens of thousands of workers to go through the experience of mobilization and struggle. The period of isolated economic strikes severely repressed by colonial reaction then gave way to a period of struggle for elementary democratic rights in the foctories. Through these mobilizations the Angolan workers gradually became familiar with forms of organization and struggle thor were wholly new for them, Advanced experiences of workers self-orgonization through the formotion of rank-and-file committees in the neighborhoods and factories illustrate the radicalization of this movement: Thus, exactly during the period of the establishment of the transition government, the coordinating body of the neighborhood committees of the capital initioted a "week of naffonal action for people's power," proposing that "progressive student organizations, workers commissions, and workers associations" hold general assemblies in the factories and neighborhoods to discuss the slogan "consolidate people's power. In the most recent period there has also been a proliferation of strikes and a conjunctural decline in the productivity of important economic sectors. In face of this situation the transition government passed a decree providing for the militarization" of any factory (public or private) "in case of emergency" so as to prevent the process of production and the economy in general from "falling into chaos and anarchy. " Applied to the port facilities of Luanda, this measure met with a brood response from the port workers. They denounced the decree through their trade-union committee, refusing "to be treated os objects or instruments of enrichment in a process of exploitation that remains unchanged." There was a demonstration of several fhousand workers in the capital. This represented the first assault agoinst the very instrument of the neocolonial process issuing from the Alvor accords: the coalition government.
21
From left: Agostinho Neto of MPLA, Holden Roberto of FNLA, Jonas Savimbi of
ANGOLA
UNITA. Through these experiences of struggle, these strikes and demonstrations, and under the impetus of the MPLA, acting in the framework of its tactical support to popular mobilization, a trade-union movement took shape that will be an important factor in the future evolution of the relationship of forces. Thus, on May 22, 1975, in Luande hundreds of thousands of workers responded to the call of UNTA (National Union of Angolan workert) and demonstrated their solidarity with the MPLA, denouncing the FLA's reactionary offensive and the support this undertaking receives from Zoire as well as the passive complicity of the Portuguese authorities. They also demanded the removal of General Silva Cardoso, the Portuguese high commissioner in Angola. Thus, the central question of the workers seizing power as the result of the present struggles has been posed by the beginning of the emergence of a situation of dual power. The attempt to coordinate the rank-and-file committees for people's power in Luanda is a first step in this direction. But the mere reference to people's power with a relatively imprecise class content is not sufficient to trace out the rood to the seizure of power by the laboring masses. The proliferation of economic strikes directly threatening the profits of the colonial bourgeoisie and asserting the workers' desire to win real independence by putting an end to capitalist exploitation urgently requires unified anticapitalist perspectives capable of offering on indispensable overall alternative if the erosion of workers combativity under the blows of reaction is to be averted. One of the essential tasks of the Angelan revolutionary vanguard is to advance an anticapitalist action program that draws together the unifying economic demands that have been raised in the present struggles and the demands for democratic rights in the factories, calls for 22 the expulsion of the fascist employers and the nationalization of their companies under workers control, denounces the imperialist grip on the Angolan economy, calls for the nationalization of foreign trusts, develops democratic trade-union structures in the factories and rank-and-file bodies in the neighborhoods, calls for the development of popular self-defense militias against reactionary attacks, denounces the attempts of the Zairois bourgeoisie and imperialism to impose a neocolonial solution in Angola, and finally, links the struggle for independence to the struggle for social transformation and the socialist revolution. Against the reactionary offensiveworkers self-defense The recent provocations by the armed gangs of the FNLA are expressions of the desire to overturn the relationship of forces as the date of the independence elections approaches in a situation of growing radicalization of the struggle of the Angolan workers. After a lively campaign denouncing the structures of popular power, the strikes, and the forms of independent workers mobilization, the ENLA in March 1975 launched a real military offensive against the militants of the MPLA and the rodicalized elements of the workers mobilizations. These murderous operations - which have killed several thousand civilians - are characterized by a determined desire to inTimidate the popular masses (machine-gunning of demonstrations, murders in the pro-MPLA urban slums, etc.). Initially localized in the capital, the attacks later spread to all the urban centers of the country. They have been combined with a vast military occupation of the northern regions of Angola near the Zaire border, carried out by the FNLA with the collaboration of the colonial planters; MPLA militants have been systematically driven out of these areas. In the meantime, the
Chipenda faction in the east and UNITA in the centersouth are trying to occupy the countryside in order to counter MPLA hegemony in the urban centers. At first, these attacks, which call into question the holding of elections before independence, enjoyed the passive complicity of the Portuguese authorities. But the offensive was thwarted by the military reaction of the MPLA and the armed mobilization of some neighborhood committees, which guaranteed the defense of popular neighborhoods against the military attacks of FNLA forces. For from bringing the popular mobilization to a halt, these attacks openly revealed the counterrevolutionary character of the ENLA, led to the development of elementary forms of armed self-defense in some popular neighborhoods, and thus became a threat to the smooth functioning of the "process of decalonization." The Portuguese authorities, particularly High Commissioner Silva Cardoso, thus broke their silence to denounce the participation in the clashes of civilian militios fighting side by side with the MPLA. A new agreement, the stakes of which will be the very existence of these advanced forms of mass self-organization, then became necessary. That is what was discussed in Nakuru, Kenya. It is thus clear that the FLA today is the most reliable pawn in imperialist strategy in Angola. Is ties to imperialism are obvious, they are reflected in the aid the orm ganization receives from Mobutu in Zaire (the bastion of capitolist investment in central Africa and in the relations it has established with the African-American Center of the International Confederation of Free (sic) Trade Unions. Fundamentally regionalist (founded on the basis of the Bakongo ethnic group in the north) and rightist, this movement has recruited a genuine border army among Angolan emigrés in Zaire; it is this army that is now occupying northern Angola, The FNLA, which has asserted itself as the motor force of the repression, increasingly appears as the central axis of reactionary military potential. Strengthened by the recent incorporation of the Chipenda faction, the FNLA is the essential instrument in a strategy that is moving forward by means of successive hammer blows against popular mobilizatiors, the aim being to inflict significant defeats on the laboring masses before independence comes. But so for the repeated attacks of the FNLA have not only failed to reduce workers combativity significantly, but have even permitted the strengthening of the mobilization and the vigilance of the working masses. Nevertheless, the anti-working-class repression being carried out by the FNLA against the radicalized elements of the MPLA and the mass movement, combined with the absence of a central alternative perspective, could in time give rise to phenomena of demoralization and localized retreats in an ongoing situation of tension. This is especially possible because the repression is becoming more selective. The political commissar of the MPLA general staff, commander "Jika, *was murdered in an ambush in Cabinda; the leader of the MPLA youth, M. Pereira Dos Vandunen, was gunned down while driving in his car, and the MPLA has denounced the presence in Luanda of a Brazilion "death squad" composed of individuals who "worked for the CIA in Chile."
As for the UNITA of Jonas Savimbi, who for a long time collaborated with Portuguese troops against the MPLA, it is an organization founded on a regional basis (the center-south, Ground Nova Lisboa). In spite of the support it has been receiving from Chine since 1970, its regional character resulted in its being integrated into the imperialist project very early on. After April 24, 1974, UNITA enjoyed the support of some white colons in the center-south region, and Savimbi established fruitful contacts with the FUA (Angolan Unity Front), led by the engineer Fernando Falcão. His past collaboration with the Portuguese colonial army and his recognition by a not insignificant portion of the white colon population gained UNITA entrance into the Alvor negotiations as an indirect representative of the interests of the colonial bourgeoisie. After its incorporation into the transition government, UNITA made an effort to obtain a minimum implantation in the urban centers by "suspending" its embarrassing contacts with the white colons and offirming its position as a mediator between the FNLA and the MPLA during the recent clashes. Through this attitude UNITA hopes to expand its influence by taking advantage of the FLA's discredit among the urban laboring mosses; it intends to do this with the aid of calls to "peace and unity. " Nevertheless, far from being a "third force, UNITA, by virtue of the ties it has established with the colonial bourgeoisie and the support it seems to be receiving from the European imperialist sector, appears as a complement to the FNLA and a possible alternative solution for imperialism. The current massive departure from Angola of white colons who are heading back to the colonial metropolis has deprived UNITA of an important part of its social base. The organization is therefore trying to recompose that social base, seeking to extend its influence on the basis of regionalist propaganda. Utilizing the feeling of insecurity that the actions of the FLA are generating in Luanda, UNITA is promoting demonstrations in Luando by workers from central and southern Angola to demand that they be repatriated to their regions of origin. Paradoxically, the "rigid position of not permitting the exodus" of workers from the capital that has been adopted by the Angolan government may serve to reinforce the impact of the regionalist propaganda UNITA is conducting and in time could permit the growth of its influence among the most backward layers of the Angolan masses. Ambiguous response of the MPLA In face of the existence in Angola of social and political forces especially committed to the maintenance of imperialist domination through the stabilization of a neocolonial regime, the responses of the MPLA, which is caught up in participating in the government and in the agreements signed with the reactionary forces of the
ANGOLA FNLA and UNITA, are not sufficient to trace out the rood to real independence. By not preparing the laboring masses for the inevitable confrontation with reaction and by sowing illusions about the possibility of a "democratic process of decolonization" in such a context, these responses trace out the potential lines of a retreat of the workers mobilization under the blows of the counterrevolutionary attacks. The MPLA's acceptance of the Alvor "compromise" thus tallies with the general line of the opportunist decisions that have been taken bureaucratically by the MPLA leadership under neocolonialist pressure. The crudest example of this was the MPLA congress in Lusaka in August 1974; because of the approach of important political events (the negotiations with Portugal), the manipulations of African diplomacy carried the day and created the general staff of the MPLA. The neocolonial pressure, combined with the grodualist illusions of the organization, are now preventing the MPLA as a whole from going beyond its policy of tactically supporting the moss movement in the framework of a reformist program of narrow national dimensions. Just after April 25, 1974, when its participation in the negotiations with Portugal was not yet certain, the MPLA, acting from Brazzaville, raised the slogan of the formation of movement action committees in the urban centers of Angola. This call, which coincided with the spontaneous eruption of the urban laboring masses anto the political scene, permitted the proliferation of rank-and-file movement structures and the massive adherence to the MPLA of a whole current of radicalized workers who were later to form the core of the MPLA'S middle codres in the urban centers. But the MPLA adopted an ambiguous attitude in face of the radicalization of these mobilizations. Beginning from a conception that views the mass movement as an instrument for improving the relationship of forces at the top: the MPLA supported the mobilizations in order to break its way into the government. Later, basing itself on the narrow framework of the agreements that have been reached, " the MPLA presented the electoral perspective set out by the Alvor accords as the only outlet for the workers struggles. Thus, in an attempt to be "realistic" so as to block the path of the extremist colons, the MPLA declared itself in favor of an alliance with "democratic" sectors, an alliance that was put into practice by collaborating with the Angolan Democratic Movement (MDA). On the one hand, the MPLA called for closer collaboration within the government in the name of "national unity"; on the other hand, it upheld the theme of "people's power" in popular meetings and in the neighborhoods. But the mere tactical reference to "people's power" is not enough to open the way to the seizure of power by the laboring masses, especially since the slogan reflects mulficlassist conceptions. Thus, for Augustinho Neto, president of the MPLA, "people's means the power of "all social layers of society," while the central function of independence is to make "all the social layers of society share political power. " 24
These frontist illusions are at the very heart of the political limitations of the MPLA. A heterogeneous movement founded on the basis of the urban petty bourgeoisie, the MPLA inherited the frontist and gradualist illusions characteristic of petty-bourgeois nationalism, illusions that were further reinforced by the Stalinist conceptions of the Angolan Communist nucleus. Nevertheless, the orientation toward armed struggle and the mobilization of the peasantry, conceived on the basis of an empirical approach to the specific character of Portuguese colonialism, represented a real break with reformist nationalism. Thus, the MPLA, a revolutionary nationalist movement, may be located somewhere between the limits of petty-bourgeois grodualist nationalism and an empirical revolutionary approach with a socialist dynamic. Nevertheless, this evolution occurred without any profound political clarification, especially with respect to frontist illusions. The MPLA thus developed into a movement with a multiclassist bent unable to actually create a broad interclass front in the context of the Angolan social structure of the 1960s. In reality, the careerist petty bourgeoisie of the cities had partially hooked up with the "democratic" sections of the colon population, while the proletariat remained numerically weak. Angolan social structure of the 1960s thus provided a favorable basis for the development of interclassist illusions within the MPLA, particularly because the organization's influence was essentially restricted to rural areas where social differentiation is slight. However, under the impact of the evalution of colonial rule and imperialist pillage, Angolan social structure in the urban centers has become largely differentiated since that time. The opening to imperialist capital beginning in the 1960s stimulated the development of a proletariat that was young and strongly concentrated, although it was not very skilled and lacked traditions of struggle: Later, beginning in the 1970 with the development of a transformation industry linked to the colonial market, a real industrial proletoriat emerged. In 1973 manufacturing production employed about 130,000 wage-earners, mainly concentrated in the industrial zones of Luanda and Lobito. The Angolan capital city included half the skilled labor force employed in manufacturing industry. Furthermore, the economic ramifications of the colonial presence, combined with Portuguese neocolonial inclinations, fostered the development of an indigenous petty bourgeoisie, both commercial and administrative. Today the political limitations of the MPLA do not enable the organization to grasp the fundamental importance of the emergence of a proletarian social force in the heart of the imperialist industrial apparatus; this results in the MPLA's inability to put forward political responses in class terms or to go beyond its original multiclassist positions. Nevertheless, although the MPLA's expressed desire to "put an end to the exploitation of man by man" and to establish a "democratic and popular regime" did not constitute proof of any really profound radicalization
changed," when this perspective was advanced within the liberated zones (which were essentially rural and characterized by only a slight social differentiation), such references have totally different implications when they are asserted in the urban centers today. For the laboring masses in the urban centers today, references to people's power and the end of exploitation of man by man have a very Immediate and precise class content: the power of the workers and poor peasants and the and of capitalist exploitation, A prisoner of gradualist conceptions, the MPLA as o whole is incapable of offering the laboring masses a
The Angolan workers refuse to bear the burden of a "process of exploitation that remains uncentral anticapitalist perspective able to lead to workers and peasants power. But the anticapitalist dynamic of the workers struggles urgently requires such a perspective. In face of this urgency, the MPLA Finds itself torn between its links with reactionary forces or the top and the rank-and-file's participation in the mobilizations of the workers. This is especially the case in that the first mass assaults against the anti-working-class measures of the transition government are now beginning to take shape. Thus, in spite of the radicalization of workers struggles, the MPLA is clinging to the electoral perspective pro25
ANGOLA vided for in the Alvor accords and reaffirmed in Nakuru. Buf in the present Angolan context one must hove the greatest doubts in the possibility of these elections taking place "democratically. " The northern part of the country, for example, is "occupied" by the troops of the FNLA, who are hunting down MPLA militants, while UNITA is doing the same thing in the south. Moreover, the example of Portugal itself shows that given laboring masses who are on the whole little politicized and still subject in certain regions to tribolist pressure exacerbated by the FNLA and UNITA, the possibilities of reactionary manipulation of the electoral game in order to prevent the real relationship of forces from being reflected electorally must not be underestimated. Nevertheless, it is certain that the electoral campaign for an MPLA majority in the constituent assembly will be an important focus and an object of brood mobilizations of the urban workers. This could be the occasion for the workers to advance a whole set of demands taking up all the demands put forward during current struggles, centralizing them in a clearly anticapitalist perspective, and forcing the constituent assembly that comes out of the elections to implement them. But the real revolutionary alternative to class collaboration with reactionary forces is to be found in the centralization and unification of the workers strug-s gles. This is especially true since there is evidence that a disturbing unification process is going on between UNITA and the most right-wing elements of the MPLA. This process is based around denunciation of "strikes endangering the national economy" and calls for collaboration with the "political formations not present at Alvor, thus laying the basis for broadening the transition government to the right. Thus, the factors that are in fact acting to incorporate the MPLA into the neocolonial process are the heterogeneity and political limitations of the organization, its bureaucratic deviations, and its integration into the game being played by African diplomacy, these factors have been expressed in the MPLA's acceptance of the Alvor accords, its collaboration with the FLA and UNITA in the government, and its recent acceptance of the Nakuru accords. For a revolutionary alternative But the mobilization the MPLA is tactically supporting gives rise to a dynamic of struggle that comes into conflict with the MPLA leadership's opportunist policy toward the petty bourgeoisie and the "liberal" section of the colonial bourgeoisie, thus intensifying the internal contradictions of the organization. On the other hand, the bureaucratic practices of the leadership and the limits it has set on workers mobilization are the factors that prepare the ground for the radicalization of the rank-and-file militants who are in direct contact with the popular mobilization. The MPLA's participation in
26 the state apparatus intensifies the neocolonial pressure on the organization; at the same timg the leadership's political independence from the rank-and-file militants is increasing. The recent FNLA attacks have had a twofold effect on the MPLA. On the one hand, they have stimulated the emergence of armed popular militias and accelerated the radicalization of MPLA militants in contact with these mobilizations; on the other hand, they have made the necessity of o compromise with UNITA more credible in the eyes of the rightist elements of the MPLA. Thus, the MPLA youth published a communiqué denouncing the union with "reactionary forces who, behind the mask of a fake nationalism, are only spreading horror among the Angolan people and committing indiscriminate massacres"; meanwhile, in Nakuru the MPLA leadership decided during the "peace conference" with the FNLA and UNITA to disarm the civilian population. The MPLA now is undergoing a twofold internal recomposition. On the one hand, the Neto current is growing in strength, the two other tendencies that came out of the last congress have been eliminated, and an increasingly assertive rightist tendency is developing; on the other hand, a rank-and-file radicalization and a flowering of local committees permeated by many political currents has begun. The latest decisions of the MPLA Central Committee (February 1975) clearly illustrate these developments. On the one hand, a reorganization of the movement was planned in order to ensure that the MPLA would "more consistently follow a mass line" and that "a close link between the rank and file and the leadership" would be established; on the other hand, the organization's desire to "closely collaborate" with the government was reaffirmed. The strengthening of the Neto current, a result of Neto's "historic" prestige among the Angolan masses and the support he receives from local reformists, has been effected through the integration into the MPLA of some members of the Angolan Democratic Movement, an organization with "libera!" conceptions composed of lawyers and members of the liberal professions who are rather close to the Portuguese Communist party. Moreover, the two tendencies that emerged from the Lusaka congress have been eliminated. The negotiations that have been opened between the Neto leadership and Mario and Pintó de Andreade and Gentil Viana, representatives of the "Active Revolt" tendency, seem to be oriented toward an individual reintegration of these elements. Cut off from the mobilization of the workers, these people now seem to have no future. Moreover, a good number of them have either simply left politics or rejoined the MPLA individually already.
The case of the "Revolt of the East" tendency led by
Chipenda is different; it was settled much more energetically. The MPLA launched a military operation against the representatives of this faction, which was more and more openly emerging as an element in a reactionary plan for civil war. But this "military operation"
- undertaken without any call for the mobilization of the workers - was conceived by the MPLA in the context of respecting the Alvor accords, which are described as the "political and constitutional basis ... for the decolonization of our country. " And today Chipenda is able to porticipate in the general staff negotiations as a member of the FNLA and has been incorporated into the imperialist strategy for which the Alvor accords are a cover. This policy of wheeling and dealing at the top can only encourage the reactionary forces to be more aggressive and increase the cohesion of the rightist currents within the MPLA. Such a tendency is now emerging within the leading bodies of the MPLA. Fundamentally anticommunist, it calls for a special alliance with UNITA agoinst the FNLA, Lacking any base in the rank and file, this tendency is represented in the Central Committee by Lucio Lara. It does not have any real political independence, and Its essential function is to enable Neto to play a balancing role between the right and left elements of the MPLA and thus to push the organization to all sorts of compromises in the name of the unity of the movement. The absence of debate and democratic life within the organization, in oddition to its political limitations, is now being manifested in an extreme heterogeneity and in the omnipotence of a political leodership representing a reformist nationalist current. The most radicalized elements of the urban workers are assembled primarily in the rank and file local commitrees of the MPLA, an integral part of the workers vanguard that has emerged from the struggles of the urban mosses since April 25, 1974. Because of the position it occupies in the process of capitalist exploitation, this vanguard is the driving lance of the entire revolutionary Process today. But many of these committees remain locked into a radical nationalism cloaked in gradualist Maoistic formulations and limited to tailending the MPLA leadership; a leftist pinch of "maximum program" expressed in the form of propaganda for "people's democracy" is added to spice things up. These Maoistic groups are somewhat embarrassed by their international reference point, given China's present attitude toward the Angolan crisis. In face of the necessity to go beyond the MPLA within the perspective of a resolute struggle for the socialist revolution, these currents, disregarding the tasks of centralizing the workers struggles with the perspective of a revolutionary seizure of power, cling to a virtually moralistic conception of the unity of the MPLA; in the process they deny the extreme heterogeneity of this organization.
In face of the emergence of a workers vanguard in the urban centers - a vanguard that is organized in the rank-and-file bodies of the MPLA (the action committees), UNTA, and the pro-trade-union commissions -the political responses these groups offer are insufficient. The question that is now being posed by the various ongoing struggles is whether or not capitalist exploitation is to continue. The Angolan workers refuse to bear the burden of a "process of exploitation that remains unchanged. "For them, the only real independence will be one that permits their total emancipation and puts an end to capitalist rule. Angolan revolutionary militants must determine their positions in light of this necessary transformation of the struggle for independence into a struggle for the social emancipation of the workers, into a struggle for the socialist revolution. The necessity for such a transformation is not the product of any intellectual imagination; on the contrary, it is the central question that has been posed by the tens of thousands of workers struggling in the factories, companies, and ports of Angola, Thus, confrary to what the reformist leadership of the MPLA likes to suggest, the time is certainly ripe for the class struggle in Angola - a struggle whose stakes are decisive for the future of revolutionary struggles throughout the region. There are already elements within the MPLA who are aware of these stakes and who define themselves around a class-struggle position and fight for the emergence of an overall anticapitalist alternative. These revolutionary militants have set themselves the task of elucidating the full dimensions of what is at stake in the present struggles of the Angolan proletariat; they are doing this by developing propaganda for self-orgonizotion and self-defense, popularizing exemplary workers strikes and assuring them militant solidarity, denouncing the reactionary parties and their collusion with the rightist nationalist movements, and calling for the formation of class trade unions for the proletariat, the only social force capable of actually carrying out the tasks of notional liberation through going beyond them in the struggle for the power of the workers and peasants, through the "revolutionary union" of the Angolan proletariat and poor peasantry, and finally, through making the ir struggle part of the fight of the oppressed masses of the entire African continent for their total emancipation, for the socialist revolution. As against the ambiguous responses of the MPLA, this is the only strategic response capable of preventing the erosion of workers combativity under the blows of reaction and of counterposing the road of workers power in Angola to any neocolonial solution.