TWO
CAMPS
RADICALIZE
PORTUGAL: THE by A. UDRY During the months of July and August in Portugal elements were set in ploce that will provoke new breaks, new disequilibrium, and more acute class confrontations. As during the period that preceded September 28, 1974 (the date of the first reactionary attempted coup), the two fundamental classes of Portuguese society today are not completely certain of the relationship of forces. Only a test in real life will tell whether the hopes placed in the bourgeois offensive that opened with the Socialist party's and PPD's* resignation from the government actually correspond to the reality of the relationship of social forces. The Portuguese bourgeoisie has been wrong before! A process of radicalization is going on within both camps, but this process has not yet led to a definitive outcome. Reaction has taken odvantage of the opportunity offered by the breach opened by the mobilizations of the SP and the "operation of the nine." For the first time since September 1974, reaction is raising its head, getting itself together and organizing sectors of the petty bourgeoisie. In the camp of the working class the demonstrations of the workers commissions and tenants commissions at the end of July and on August 20 expressed the depth of radicalization of sectors that hold a decisive position in the workers bastions of the Lisbon region and Porto. Concurrently, the independent activity of the soldiers and their linkup with this workers vanguard also expresses the profound fermentation going on in the ranks of the army. Simply the accumulation of all this explosive material indicates that a more or less protracted period of "con*PPD: Partido Popular Democrático - Popular Democratic party, the largest bourgeois party in Portugal.
ciliation" is out of the question. The "calm revolution" of April 1974 i over. Clashes between the classes will become more acute. The SP and PPD departure from the government on July 10 must be seen in the framework of the increasingly accentuated crisis of bourgeois political leadership. After the events of September 1974 and March 1975, a section of the bourgeoisie was counting on the MFA, or at least relatively large sectors of the MEA, to reunify the army and establish an element of relative stability that would allow for the transition from the corporatist state to a strong state. Of course, the Portuguese bourgeoisie was strongly divided over what road to follow. Even those sections of the bourgeoisie that were relying on the MFA in the last instance were not putting all their eggs in that one basket. But under the combined effects of the rise of the mass movement, the growing independent activity of the soldiers, and the political debates going on in the barracks (a turmoil stimulated by the heterogeneity of the MFA), the crisis in the army and the divisions in the MFA intensified constantly. The MFA turned out to be manifestly unable to stabilize and fulfill a Bonapartist function. The "guiding document" of June 20, adopted by the General Assembly of the MFA, recognized and sanctioned the emergence of bodies of self-organization of the toiling masses (workers commissions, tenants. commissions, popular assemblies). At the same time, it sought to integrate these bodies into the network of the institufions of the bourgeois state. Nevertheless, it soon became clear that this position of the General Assembly of the MFA was little able to alter the dynamic of the moss movement, which is moving in the direction of strengthening the structures of "popular power." The effects of the "guiding document" were thus controdictory: In real life, the attempt to coopt and integrate the workers commissions, tenants commissions, and popular assemblies was combined with an "official cover" for their development! Soares himself stressed this point. On July 28 the national secretary of the SP produced a document entitled "Conquer the crisis, save the revolution, " in which he took a straightforward position on the decisions of the MFA General Assembly. After reaffirming his support to the "Plan of Political Action" adopted by the High Council of the Revolution (a document "that assures the construction of socialism through the democratic road"), the SP stated that the "guiding document" compromises the
the sp offensive permitted a regroupment among
PORTUGAL the bourgeoisie. concretization of the democratic road, thus violating the plan and opening the way either to anarcho-populism or to bureaucratic fotalitarianism. For the SP, the struggle against "anarcho-populism" requires the establishment of a "government of national salvation" capable of bringing about "respect for the popular will. " Such a government should be presided uation, " the SP stated, "the immediate aim of the government of national salvation should be to create a climate of confidence, labor, and discipline in the country." If should also "reaffirm the principle that the tenants commissions and workers commissions are forms of popular power that must be developed so long as they do not claim to become a 'parallel power' to the state apparatus." Finally, the government of national salvation should "promulgate legislation severely punishing the armed militias, which should be liquidated within one month, along with the 'popular vigilance committees' and any other structures in possession of arms. " The document continues by stressing that "on this question (that is, the question of the militios) there can be no compromise: The constitution of party-based militias would lead to the rapid disintegration of the MFA and would inevitably lead the country to the tragic confrontations that reaction dreams about." So much for the first facet of the "defense of democracy" and the "struggle against anarcho-populism" that is developing under the aegis of the SP. The offensive 8 launched against the development of embryonic organs of dual power obviously goes hand in hand with a reaffirmation of the centrality of the institutions of the bourgeois state, of the Constituent Assembly against the "parallel power" of the workers commissions, tenants commissions, and so on. Thus, according to the program of the SP, the "government of national salvation" will aim at "reaffirming the authority and public function exercised by the Constituent Assembly. It is important immediately to set the salaries of the delegates elected by the people, and we (the SP) consider it an attack on the dignity of the Constituent Assembly that this has not yet been done." Reasons for the resignation The SP then offered an explanation for its resignation from the coalition government: The authority of the state could not be asserted and the government was incapable of struggling "against labor indiscipline and the demagogy installed as the rule in nearly all the factories." Thus, what was involved was not a struggle against an alleged "military dictatorship, " but instead a resignation from a civil power that, because of the crisis in the army, was unable to assemble the mears required to enforce application of its decisions: "In this is posed the central problem of the authority of the state. Without revolutionary authority (I) there is no revolution; there is instead a progressive social disintegration that leads
to anarchy and can only favor the counterrevolution. Who commands the country? The Council of the Revolution? The Assembly of the MFA? The Copcon? The Fifth Division? The workers commissions? The manipulated press? The popular masses, galvanized by contradictory demonstrations? "To be sure, there is no government. And it is for that reason that the SP left the government. ... The laws are bent according to the pressures brought to bear in one direction or another. The MFA has abdicated its own authority in face of the growing influence of minority groups, as was obviously the case in the República affair and in the affair of Radio Renascenco (o churchoperated radio station taken over by the workers), in which the decisions (of the government) were not applied, the words of the President of the Republic and of the Prime Minister were not honored." The opening of the government crisis after the resignation of the SP and the PPD wos the signal for the opening of the offensive of the SP, followed by the PPD, which began to raise its head cautiously. The initiative of the SP was intended to exert pressure from the outside aimed at permitting a realignment of forces within the MFA in order to make it an instrument capable of barring the way to the development of the "revolutionary process, " of reaffirming the authority of the state, of reestablishing discipline in the factories and the army, and of breaking the embryonic organization of self-defense. This overall plan was fully confirmed by Soares, who indicated in his letter to Costa Gomes at the beginning of September that "now more than ever, in the present phase of the disintegration of Portuguese society, the civil power needs the strength of the military arm if it is to impose respect for revolutionary authority. " For the SP, then, there was no question of rejecting the MFA as such, but rather of bringing to bear the weight of a civilian mobilization in an attempt to restabilize the MFA. The SP offensive permitted a regroupment among the bourgeoisie. For the first time, the bourgeoisie was able to lounch initiatives without immediately facing responses from the workers, the sort of united responses that had regulated the stages of the revolutionary upsurge in Portugal until that time. This also clarifies the character of the mobilization of the Social Democracy. The document of the nine Concurrently, within the MFA, another offensive was launched, this one under the leadership of Melo Antunes; it became public on August 7. The "group of hine" is composed of Captain Vasco Lourenço, Major Canto e Castro, Commander Vitor Crespo, Major Costa Neves, Major Melo Antunes, Major Vitor Alves, Brigadier Franco Charais, Brigadier Pezarat Coreia, and Captain Sousa Castro. Through the "document of the nine, " Antunes, a politician in uniform, pushed an alternative to the crisis of power onto the political scene. A crisis of power that the document characterizes in this way: "The question of power is the question of power within the MFA. Clarification of this problem is the number one task. Without this, it is not possible to fundamentally attack the problem of the organization of the state and to avoid its complete ruin." In the same manner as the political document of the SP, the manifesto of the nine puts stress on *the progressive decomposition of the state structures. Wildcat and anarchic forms of the exercise of power have taken hold nearly everywhere (even within the armed forces).... It is necessary to vigorously denounce the anarchism and populism that inevitably lead to a catastrophic dissolution of the state during a phase of development of society in which no political project is viable without o state." For Antunes and his acolytes, it is a question of "assembling the conditions so that it (the MFA) can regain its credibility and carry out its historic vocation as respected arbiter and motor force of the revolutionary process." (Jornal Novo, August 7, 1975.) Economically, the nine propose: "the maintenance of our links with Europe, the strengthening and deepening of our relations with certain democratic groupings (the Common Market, the European Free Trade Association)." Just as the SP affirms that "it is not so much the nationalizations that are open to question as the modalities and opportuneness of their promulgation" (which means: the fact that they came after the March 11 mobilizations), the nine declare that the "nationalizations have occurred at a pace that is impossible to absorb. " While it is true that various formulations in the document of the nine are more "leftist" than those of the SP manifesto, there can be no doubt about the class nature of the operation being carried out by the man who worked out the emergency economic plan published in February 1975. That plan was swept away by the mass movement, and at a pace that was intolerable for those who had envisaged the nationalization of the banks and insurance companies only as a future possibility. The whole logic of the position of the group of nine points in the direction of a twofold objective: On the one hand, o strengthening of the institutions of the bourgeois state in face of the "anarchy" generated by the workers upsurge and the development (especially since March 1975) of democratic rank-and-file bodies of workers; on the other hand, a recomposition of the army os a factor of stability guaranteeing the transition from a corporatist state to a bourgeois democracy capable of imposing respect for its own authority. The references to "the construction of a socialist society, that is, a classless society in which the exploitation of man by man has been ended, to be achieved ... gradually, peacefully, and without convulsion" should not mask the objective function of the project of the group of nine. Even though there is very great heterogeneity among those who have declared themselves in favor of this document - and it is thus absurd to totally assimilate the public spokesman for this current to the officers
PORTUGAL of the hierarchy who have given him support — it is no less the case that the manner in which the dynamic of this offensive (going on both inside and outside the MFA) was understood reflected the military hierarchy's understanding of the role the initiative of the nine was playing in safeguarding the structures of the bourgeois state. The denunciation of "anarcho-populism" and the proclamation of the necessity of reestablishing "democratic authority" (see the economic program of the SP) and "discipline in the factories" were intended to create the preconditions for deepening the links with the EEC and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), links that take the concrete form of industrial investments of imperialist capital. Those are the conditions the capitalist powers are demanding before extending aid to Portugal. And that is the real standpoint from which this question must be posed; it is formulated the other way around in the economic program of the SP, which talks about "the lack of definition of the conditions that must be obeyed by foreign investments, which are in any event necessary for economic development." (Jornal Novo, August 23, 1975) It would be preferable to assert that the real "lack of definition" denounced by international capital is none other than the rejection of "obedience" that has been manifested by the Portuguese workers. Reaction's open offensive Taking advantage of the mobilizations of the SP - in which the slogan "Down with Communist dictotorship" occupied a central place - reaction began to goin in confidence as of the middle of July. The attack was developed on various levels. The many different initiatives tallied with each other objectively, although they were not necessarily coordinated. Internationally, Americon imperialism and its parallel agencies are pressing ahead with financial blackmail and with military maneuvers in Madeira, the Azores, and Angola. In addition, U.S. imperialism was certainly not uninvolved in the preparation of the paramilitary organizations that are now operating in northern Portugal and using Spain as a bridgehead (although the U.S. role may be direct or indirect). European imperiolism is relying mainly on economic strangulation. Moreover, through the medium of the Social Democratic governments of Helmut Schmidt and Harold Wilson, European imperialism has a vehicle for its policy of putting pressure on the Social Democratic leadership of Soares. In conjunction with this deployment of imperialist strength, Portuguese reaction is organizing its armed gangs. The acuteness of the class struggle, the fear of losing control over the rank and file of the army, and the weakening - although not the disappearance - of the coercive apporatus are combining to stimulate this type of initiative among not inconsiderable sections of the bourgeoisie. 10
The de facto convergence between the operations launched by Soares and the group of nine and the qualitative strengthening of the organization of reaction has stimulated a disorientation that puts the brakes on any determined response from the workers. The Communist party's inability to develop a real unity initiative in the direction of the SP while the attacks on CP headquarters and members were going on obviously intensified the wait-and-see attitude of broad layers of workers. An extremely dangerous combination thus emerged during the months of July and August: On the one hand, a carefully orchestrated campaign was launched by Costa Gomes and warmly hailed by the SP, Antunes, and Soares. This campaign was developed around the theme: It is time to call a halt; the revolution has gone too far. In view of the deepened economic and social crisis, this leitmotiv managed to gain some credibility among certain sectors of the working class, not to mention the petty bourgeoisie, especially because of the total failure of the various governments to respond to the actual needs of the toiling masses. An offensive was thus opened against the workers - in the name of the stabilization of the "revolutionary process" - an offensive that, because of its pernicious nature, did not stimulate the responses that had been ofFered by the workers in September 1974 and March 1975, the responses that have regulated the pace of the Portuguese revolution up to now. Moreover, this offensive unfolded in the context of the division of the working class, subtended by the uneven development of anticapitalist consciousness among the workers. On the other hand, taking advantage of this disorientafion and this wait-and-see attitude among the working class, reaction mobilized its forces. The reactionary forces have many points of support. An important part of the military hierarchy, which has had to pull in its claws for many months now, is prepared to serve the reactionary projects openly whenever the opportunity arises and is already prepared to offer more or less discrete collaboration. Among the police there are many people who work with Foscist and semifascist nuclei. Agents of the ex-PIDE-DGS (the Salazarist secret police) supply the cadres of the ELP (Portuguese Liberation Army, a fascist military organization) and, acting from Spain, support the infrastructure of these armed gangs. A considerable fraction of the former colons, "refugees" from Angola (the number of which is expected to reach 300,000 by the end of November), can serve as foot soldiers for reaction and even for a terrorist campaign. In addition, a section of the military cadres still stationed in Angola today are capable of swelling the ranks of the counterrevolution in the army in the future. Finally, the reactionary project has a mass base. First, the clergy, under the degis of da Silva, archbishop of Bragança, is acting as the driving wedge of the anticommunist campaign. The clergy is screaming about the danger of communist "dictatorship" at a time when it is not
the churches but the CP headquarters that are being burned down - and by "believers." Second, the discontent of the petty bourgeoisie - especially the peasant smallholders in the North - has been directed against the workers movement, essentially (for the moment) against the CP and the far-left organizations. With this backdrop, Spínola is attempting once again to put himself forward as the unifier of all those who propose to lounch a sharp attack against the workers movement as a whole. In face of the recrudescence of reactionary activities in a context marked by the objective convergence of these two offensives (in spite of their differences), it is essential for the revolutionary left to stress the necessity for self-defense, It is imperative to seize all opportunities to encourage the formation and development of workers and people's militias and to try to get them to function along with the soldiers. This self-defense must not be based on minority structures, but must instead draw support from the organs of "popular power, " the workers and tenants commissions on a neighborhood and citywide scale. A united campaign of the revolutionary left around this theme is of the greatest importance in the present political conjuncture. Second, the workers movement must be capable of offering a response to the discontent of certain layers of the petty bourgeoisie in order to reduce the social base of reaction. These solutions must fall concretely within the framework of overall proposals demonstrating that the satisfaction of the essential needs of the toiling masses requires not a halt to the revolutionary process but on the contrary a step forward not only in the demands that are raised but also in the actual organization of the workers. The crisis in the army In publishing his document Antunes was aiming at tightening up the ranks of the army, especially within the MFA. The document asserts that "the question of power is the question of power within the MEA. " Hence, all his efforts are centered on stabilizing the MFA, on recomposing its General Assembly so as to make the MFA an effective Irstrument of intervention, a "respected arbiter." This constitutes the precondition for any real attempt to reestablish discipline in the army, without which the arbiter is nothing but a basket case. The results of the offensive have been contradictory. There is no doubt that the "group of nonradicals" - as the August 7 Jornal Novo called them - has acted as o rallying point for broad sectors and for the traditional hierarchy. In this sense, the offensive has had some success, especially if it is considered in the strict framework of the recomposition of a so-called moderate current among the officers. But to limit the analysis to that would be to divorce the problem from the social conjuncture in which the Antunes operation took shape. During July and August the work-
SOLDROOS AO - LADODOPOVO ers - for the second time since the fall of the Salazarist regime - had the right to vacations. There was thus a pause in the mobilizations of the entire working class. This lull allowed the "group of nonrodicals" to do their work without having to confront any rise of struggle, without having to decide on the practical measures that would have to be taken in face of a new rise of the workers mobilizations for their own demands. If a new wave of workers struggle erupts in the middle or or the end of September, it will act to reveal the heterogeneity of the regroupment that has occurred around Melo Antunes. The accord that has been offered by the SP and the compromises that have been made by the CP will then be put to the test. That constitutes the first flow in what has been too quickly presented as a real alternative to the crisis of political leadership of the bourgeoisie. Moreover, the Antunes document provoked the appearance of other documents, particularly on alternative text drafted by revolutionary officers of Copcon and entitled "Revolutionary Self-Criticism of Copcon." This document stresses that "the proposals presented (by Antunes) can be coopted by the right, "that "the maintenance of a coalition government will certainly not allow for advancing toward the construction of socialism," and that "to claim to construct socialism without challenging bourgeois, or more precisely capitalist, democracy" is to make a mistake. (Joral Novo, August 13, 1975.) The document then criticizes "the MFA's insistence on seeking to resolve contradictions through compromise solutions negotiated with bourgeois parties." Finally, it describes workers power as the functioning and strengthening of "these bodies (factory councils, neighborhood councils, etc.), which must serve as an instrument for economic solutions and which must be real organs of political power, the only barriers capable of victoriously opposing fascist and imperialist aggression." There are many ambiguities and insufficiencies in this document. Not only is the conception of the organs of democratic workers power tointed with the ultimatism characteristic of the PRP-BR (Partido Revolucionário do Proletariado-Brigadas Revolucionárias - Revolutionary party of the Proletariat-Revolutionary Brigades), but the criticism of the CP is strictly limited to a denunciation
PORTUGAL of its bureaucratic methods; the necessity of self-defense is not stressed; the crucial problem of the unity of the working class is not broached. Nevertheless, the Copcon document has emerged as a real alternative to the Antunes document, at least in the barracks in the South, Above all, it has given rise to real debates among the soldiers, debates that have concluded with proposals for amendments made by general assemblies of soldiers, of the RALIS (the light artillery regiment in Lisbon) and of the RIOQ (the operational intervention regiment of Queluz). It has stimulated a hitherto unequalled political fermentation in the army. The boomerang effect of the initiative of the nine is obvious. This effect locates the partial recomposition that has occurred in the MFA, or at least in the MFA General Assembly, within a new context that throws more light on the limits of its extension toward the search for a restoration of discipline and unity among the rank and file of the army. The publication of the Copcon document and the response it has received in the borrocks reflect the influence within the army of the revolutionary left, whose capacity for mobilization was demonstrated at the end of July and again during the month of August. The response of the revolutionary officers of the Copcon also interrupted Carvalho's drift toward Antunes and contributed to undermining the myth around this general, whose insistence on maintaining the unity of the MFA is a result of his attachment to esprit de corps. If to this one odds the battle around the nomination of Goncalves to the post of armed forces chief of staff, together with the divisions and debates that the nomination provoked, it becomes obvious that the "regroupment of moderates" is taking place within an MFA that is torn at the seams and, even more important, within an army in which the polarization of various options is tending to lead to political clarification. Finally, the crisis of the hierarchical system is deepening. This is manifested both by the demands for the purge of reactionary officers and by the actions taken by soldiers breaking with their commands. On August 30, for instance, a RALIS company went to Moscavice to keep watch over a depot of war matériel because a rumor was going around that the paratroopers of Amadora, under the command of the reactionary Jaime Neves, were making a sortie. Likewise, during demonstrations that were supposed to be held in the center of the country, the soldiers of the Santa Margarida barracks refused to go out with ammunition. Even in the North, this crisis of the hierarchical system, this "horizontal division, * is making itself felt, although it is still tainted with many ambiguities. In fact, the crisis sometimes gives rise to deformed modes of expression and can even take on anticommunist accents or make use of the accusation of "social fascism." The diffuse influence of Maoist and Social Democratic ideology (the 12
SP also utilizes the term social-fascist, just as the CP sometimes uses it to refer to the SP) curiously combines with some elements of a reactionary ideologyThe form taken by this opposition to the hierarchy is all the more comprehensible when it is recalled that the structures of the army have not been substantially modified, that the officers, whether members of the MFA or not, still eat in the officers mess, get the best food, receive higher salaries, and so on. The whole complex of this crisis in the army, which is uneven in the various parts of the country and in the different branches of the armed forces, makes it difficult, for the moment, to use military force to "reestablish order and discipline in the country" without running the risk of aggravating the crisis even further and, in the event of frontal attacks, without running the risk of civil war. Nevertheless, it would be dangerous to underestimate the position of strength that is still held by the bourgeoisie within the bourgeois state apparatus and the army, that is, the possibilities the bourgeoisie commands to push back the revolutionary upsurge during an initial period before delivering bloody blows against it, Likewise, it would be criminal to place confidence in any automatic process leading to a growing paralysis of the bourgeois army, Hence, the task of revolufionaries consists precisely of seizing on the points of rupture that are now appearing and of utilizing all their strength to accentuate the disequilibriums. In face of the attempt to recompose the MEA and in face of the caste reflex being expressed in opposition to the activity of the soldiers themselves, the slogans of the election of officers by soldiers represents the "democratic" response that should be presented against those who, while talking a lot about social democracy, are actually the major advocates of strengthening the hierarchical system in the army, of officers' strictly controlling the mechanisms of nomination to the MFA, and so on. In face of the crisis of the hierarchical system, the putting forward of material demands, like the fight to actually assure the emergence of independent organs of the soldiers, constitutes a central axis of revolutionary anti-militarist work. In face of the threats of reaction, the linkup between these independent organs and the instruments of rank-and-file workers democracy, as well as the purge of reactionary officers, become objectives of prime importance. Only the concretization of such slogans and perspectives con effectively prevent a project aimed at restoring the discipline (and thereby the unity) of the bourgeois army from coming to fruition. If these demands were won, the relationship of forces could be very noticably shifted in favor of the working class.
A broad workers vanguard
Between June and August we saw the confirmation of the weight of a workers vanguard having its main strength in the major factories of the region of Lisbon and Porto. On June 20 some 5,000 workers participated in a demonstration called by the "revolutionary workers committees."
This demonstration, whatever its ultraleftist tone, partially reflected the process of maturation that was under way among key sectors of the working class in Lisbon. On August 20, though, more than 50,000 people took part in a mobilization called by the revolutionary left. The maturation of this workers vanguard was also expressed in the putting forward of radical slogans calling for the generalization of workers control, the expropriation of all capitalist companies, and the establishment of economic planning based on the needs of the toiling masses. This workers vanguard is partially composed of the nucleus of workers who through their permanent mobilization and exemplary struggles assured the continuity beTween the cycle of generalized struggles in May-June 1974 and the second cycle, which began in December 1974. Today, there is a desynchronization between the mobilization of this vanguard and the attitude of the working class as a whole. This is expressed, among other ways, in the heterogeneity of the forms and functioning of the organs of "popular power. Nevertheless, the response received among the ranks of the reformist parties and the relationship of forces between these traditional parties and this workers vanguard indicate that, in the framework of a deepening of the social and economic crisis, there is an objective possibility on the one hand of carrying out a fusion on a higher level and opening up a new cycle of struggle and on the other hand of responding to the present dangerous division of the working closs. The first cracks are appearing among the SP rank and file in reaction to the political orientation of the Sores leadership. Many Socialist workers, justly repelled by the bureaucratic methods of the CP in the municipalities, popular assemblies, and trade unions, nevertheless began to manifest an initial opposition to the political options of the Social Democratic leadership when they saw the development of the aftacks on the headquarters of the
SOO WEEN MASTINTI
CP, the Intersindical (the trade-union federation), and the revolutionary organizations. In Porto one of the most heavily working-class branches of the SP demonstrated its defiance of the leadership. In Evora more than 50 workers (out of a total of 300) quit the SP to protest against Soares's strategy.
In the trade unions as well, lists presented by militants of the SP are taking up not only the correct demands of workers democracy but also some struggle demands that are often to the left of those proposed by the CP. That was the case, for example, in the union of bank employees. All this points to the possibilities that exist within the SP of driving a wedge between the rank and file and the leadership and stimulating distrust of the leadership's policies. It is thus vital to launch practical unity initiatives toward the SP rank and file and to develop systematic unitary propaganda toward the SP leadership in order to force it to take an open position both on the decisive problems of workers self-organization and on the central demands of the workers. Concurrently, in this phase of exacerbated confrontation, the conciliation policy of the CP, its strategic orientation of trying to worm its way into the bourgeois state apparatus, will inevitably provoke feverish zigzags and give rise to many bureaucratic manifestations tending to limit the autonomy of the mass movement. This tortuous course has already caused a relative isolation of the CP and a significant disorientation among its combative rank and file, which is not under tight control. Minicrises are now cropping up within the CP, In Setübal, for example, in the suburbs of Lisbon. On July 18 the CP called for the building of barricades against the SP, on August 8 the Central Committee decided to make an opening toward the SP. After first supporting Gonçalves, the CP shamelessly cut loose from him. After indicating that it was prepared to accept a compromise when the offensive of the group of nine was under way, the CP reached an agreement with the revolutionary left on August 25 when the prospects for such a compromise were called into question by the appearance of the Copcon document. (The text of the agreement is printed below, along with a statement of the United Sec-
TEXT OF THE