-DRUCK ARBEIT ER bei SPRINGER turn in the w. german class struggle
printers strike im STREiKFur 9% by WINFRIED WOLF The struggle of the printing workers of West Germany, which lasted from April 29 to May 13, represents a turn in the class struggle in the Federal Republic of Germany. Since the strike of the public employees during the spring of 1974, there had been no further open confrontations between capital and labor until the beginning of 1976. The trajectory of the new rise of workers strug gles, which had begun with the wildcat strikes of 1969, seemed fo have been interrupted. The wave of token strikes by 400, 000 metalworkers, who used these strikes as a means of putting strong pressure on "their" employers during the March-April 1976 renegotiation of their national wage contract, had already indicated that a turn was in the wind, The struggle of the printers and typesetters, which was ended by a contract vote on May 18, constitutes the turn properly so called. The very fact that the struggle took place is in itself of historic significance. But this observation acquires more importance when account is taken of the concrete form of the struggle and of the experiences. the workers underwent during it. All this lends this struggle an exemplary character. If is first necessary to rapidly sketch out the background to the upturn of class struggles in West Germany, in the framework of which the strike of the printing workers took shape. (See INPRECOR, No.27/28, June 5, 8
Dieser Betrie Dieser Behen wid bestrek: wird bestrek! 1975, for a fuller description of the West German economic situation.) The principal experience of the West German working class since the recession of 1974-75 has been this: The Federal Republic of Germany is not an island in the capitalist ocean. The 1966-67 recession in West Germany was not a "freak accident." If cannot be atributed to the "administrative errors" of the Christian Democratic government in power at the time. At the height of the economic crisis of 1974-75 there were 1,200,000 people totally unemployed and nearly a million partially unemployed. May 1976 is the eighteenth consecutive month during which there are more than one million West German workers unemployed. As in the spring of 1975, all the spokespeople of the bourgeoisie have continued to pratter: "The upturn is on the way, the upturn is at hand." It must be recognized that this year these prophets were right. But they are proclaiming only a half-truth. If is true that the upturn has begun in terms of the increase in turnover, sales, production, and above all profits. The year 1975 saw the highest stock market rises in many long years. A real growth of the gross national product of at least 5.5 percent is expected for 1976, and according to official estimates, profits will rise by at least 14.5 percent.
On the side of the working class, however, there is little reason to rejoice in the sort of upturn that is now going on. Unemployment has decreased slightly during the past several months. But it remains in excess of one million, and all predictions agree that the average number of unemployed will hover around a million throughout the year. During the years 1975 and 1976 broad sectors of the West German working class suffered average annual declines of 2-4 percent in their real wages. Fundamentally, this situation has not been changed by the struggles that have occurred in the metal industry and among the printers during recent weeks. Only an upturn in struggles by broader layers of the working class during the autumn of this year could generate a turnabout in the situation on the real-wages front. Limited experiences in struggle The economic crisis had struck the West German working class at a moment when it was not prepared - the lack of preparation was deeper than if was in most of the other capitalist countries of Europe. To begin with, the West German working class had accumulated fewer struggle experiences than the other working classes in the course of the two previous decades, for well-known historical reasons. Elements of a class-struggle leadership were even more cruelly lacking in West Germany than in the other countries. After the defeats of the 1948-52 period, the first great struggles - leaving aside the metalworkers strike of 1963 — occurred only during the years 1969-73, during an uninterrupted boom of the West German economyThe result of this has been that the West German working class, unlike the working class in other countries, was for all practical purposes not confronted with the problem of massive unemployment during this period. Even the question of factory shutdowns did not play an Important role. The boom allowed many small and unstable enterprises to float on the waves of economic growth. In addition, the change in government that occurred in 1969 (when the Social Democrats, in alliance with the Free Democrats, took over) shook up the situation on the political field. The impression could have been created and the Social Democrats did everything they could to present things this way and to strengthen this impression) that it was the government of the CDU (Christlich-Demokratische Union - Christian Democratic Union) that had been responsible for the recession of 1966-67 and that a government of the Social Democracy, the "friend of the workers, " would pursue a policy capable of averting crises of this nature and could in any event guarantee, or at least make possible, a constant increase in real wages. In fact, West Germany remained an exceptional island in the copitalist world during the 1971-72 recession. Although there were a total of 10 million unemployed in the imperialist countries during that winter, there was only very limited unemployment In West Germany (200,000-250,000 on the average). And there was also a palpable increase in the real income of the working class during those years. The workers thus had relearned how to struggle, but they did so only under conditions of economic boom. The leadership that began to crystallize in such a situation had experiences limited to this type of struggle. And above all, this leadership was still tightly linked to the trade-union bureaucracy, which, during the period 1970-74, had succeeded in maintaining control over the workers struggles thanks to an active trade-union policy. (The 1973 wildcat strikes were an exception to this rule.) So long as the trade-union bureaucracy still had some margin for maneuver, thatis, so long as the Social Democratic government accorded the bureaucracy this margin, the problem of a conflict between the new leadership of workers struggles at the rank-and-file level and the trade-union bureaucracy could not immediately come to the surface. With the beginning of the international economic recession and the outbreak of a more serious crisis in West Germany itself, this period came to an end. The emplayers laid down the rules to be followed in overcoming the recession. The SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands - Social Democratic party of Germany) accepted these rules and transmitted them to the trade-union leadership, itself closely linked to the SPD. The public service strike of 1974 and the manner in which then Chancellor Willy Brandt intervened indicated this clearly and publicly. The turn was too sharp, however, and trade-union struggles broke out nonetheless and even won victory. But this was the final point of the whole 1969-74 phase. From that time on, the trade-union leadership capitulated before the SPD government. The working class was drawn into the whirlpool of massive unemployment - and with no organized response. The leadership of the struggles, which had crystallized on the factory level and among middle trade-union cadres, was disarmed in face of this new situation. Hence, there was a prolonged halt in workers struggles. It would nonetheless be erroneous to believe that the period from 1974 to the beginning of 1976 meant that the development of new leaderships at the factory level and the assimilation of new experiences had also been halted. Ferment continued under the surface. In some places important changes were heralded, the occupation of a factory in Erwitte in the state of Westphalia being the clearest sign of this. In certain cases this subterranean evolution led to ferment within factories and trade unions on the brink of open struggles (DVA in Stuttgart; Audi/NSU in Neckarsulm; VFW in Speyer). But in general the working class was not prepared to break out of the trade-union framework. Because of the weakness of any alternative leadership, the workers were also unable to risk an open struggle. And precisely such open struggle would have been necessary in order to
WEST GERMANY overcome the alliance between the trade-union bureaucracy and the government, an alliance under Social Democratic leadership. 1966-67 and 1976 a comparison The rapidity with which the working class responded when the recession ended in 1976 and the comparison with the reactions of the workers to the crisis of 196667 enable us to detail the changes that have occurred in the combativity and consciousness of the West German workers. The 1966-67 crisis ended for the employers at the beginning of 1967. A comparison in purely economic terms would permit the identification of February 1976 with February 1967. But the wage agreements for 1967 and 1968 remained very low, in part linked to contracts of particularly long duration. Simultaneously, there was a boom of capitalist profits that could no longer be hidden. But it was only in September 1969 that the working closs responded in the form of a wave of wildcat strikes. These strikes undoubtedly were of exceptionally great political importance, but in terms of the number of fighters involved, they represented only a fraction of the mobilizations of the spring of 1976. This year things went much differently, Scarcely was the crisis of capitalist profits over and scarcely hod the figures for predicted economic growth for 1976 been published, but the struggles broke out. Moreover, as long ago as autumn 1975 a broad layer of trade unionists affirmed that a "second helping" would be needed for those sectors of the working class that had been forced to conclude their negotiations too early and at too low a level, for they had to be satisfied also. It must be recognized that from their own point of view the capitalists were not wrong when they complained that this threatened to put the screws on profits, even if this is in contradiction with the "left Keynesian" theory that exercises some influence in West German trade-union milieus. What made the employers uneasy was not so much the absolute figures on the increases in nominal wages as the fact that the workers had been able to win those increases. What bothered them was above all the fact that the struggles had started up immediately. For the West German capitalists, this represents a negative sign for the coming stage of interimperialist competition on the world market. The employers had counted very heavily on this new stage. They wanted a new rise of exports of both commodities and capital, both to be made possible by the reduction of the real wages of the West German workers and by a very low rate of inflation compared with the rate prevailing in the countries that are West German imperialism's major competitors. But the workers struggles that broke out again right af the beginning of the economic upturn and the prospects that may be traced out by such a dynamic threaten to place a question mark over the capitalist predictions, or af least to render them problematical. 10
The trade-union bureaucracy The upturn in struggles in West Germany was initiated by the trade-union bureaucracy, first of all by the metalworkers union. In this case, the leadership of the union around Loderer was opposed to a combative line during the wage negotiations. But such a line was imposed by the regional bureaucracy under Steinkuhler (in Baden-Württemberg) and by the rank-and-file mobilization that followed. To besure, superficial observers with short memories would be tempted to hail the panegyrics of the trade-union leaders after the token strikes of the metalworkers and the strikes of the printing workers. Weren't they sly to wait for the end of the crisis and then to trigger off struggles as soon os the crisis ended? Such a judgment would be erroneous. This becomes clear precisely on the basis of an analysis of what has really happened so far this year. It is correct, on the other hand, to stress that within the working class and among its leading cadres on the factory level, the experience of the economic crisis has been assimilated and that in certain places this has led to consciousness of the fact that struggle can be waged, albeit in different forms and for different goals, even during a period of crisis. It is likewise correct to note that for broad layers of the working class the end of the economic crisis has been the signal that the pause that had been imposed on them is over. The trade-union bureaucracy has followed this evolution closely. It has constantly measured the pulse of the working class, although not necessarily with noble intentions. To this it must be added that the trade-union leadership drew its own conclusions from the wildcat strikes of 1969 and that it does not want to live through a second experience of struggles breaking out beyond their control in such a manner that the leaders are forced to spend long years regaining the lost confidence of the workers, as happened after 1969. Obviously, it would be an exaggeration to claim that the trade-union bureaucracy as a whole had grasped this new situation. Such an interpretation would imply a static view of the trade-union bureaucracy. There were only parts of the leadership that understood the danger of continuing the practice of signing wage contracts that meant reductions in real wages under conditions of the end of the crisis and the beginning of an upturn. This applies to the regional leadership of IG Metall (the metalworkers union) in Baden-Würtemberg, which is led by Steinkuhler, and to the national leadership of IG Druck und Papier (the printing and publishing workers union). It is difficult to believe that it was Mahlein, the official leader of the printers union, notorious for his repressive attitude within the union, who really represented this coming to consciousness. In fact, while he appeared as an individual during the contract negotiations, he occupied a purely symbolic position, even within the leodership of his own union. The decisive influence toward a combative attitude within the
leadership of IG Druck und Papier was exercised by Hensche, editor-in-chief of the union newspaper. In fact, the well-informed sections of the bourgeois press attacked him as the "hidden orchestra conductor" of the agitation in the book publishing industry. This reflects an interesting evolution within the trade-union bureaucracy, an evolution that cannot yet be evaluated definitively. In both cases in which a tough confrontation occurred between the unions and the employers during the spring of 1976:
*A part of the trade-union bureaucracy lined up firmly behind the policy of the SPD-led government. This section of the bureaucracy was notably represented by Loderer, the head of IG Metall, and in part also by the group based around Mahlein in the IG Druck und Papier leadership. This faction either came out against the struggle openly (Loderer) or adopted a clearly vacillating attitude (Mahlein);
*Another part of the union bureaucracy, in all cases under the influence of "left intellectuals, " either cleverly reflected the rank-and-file pressure (Hensche) or even anticipated it (Steinkühler). Hence, this faction initiated tough struggles that led them to the brink of conflict with the government and, at least in the case of the printers, clearly went beyond the maximum wage increases that had been agreed to by the employers and the government. One must be very cautious about this evolution, It is not a matter of differences or of a splintering of the trade-union bureaucracy. The pressure of the rank and file is still too weak to provoke such differences, It could, it is true, be a matter of precursers of a process of differenfiation within the bureaucracy. The different lines proposed in the wage negotiations by Loderer and Mahlein on the one hand and Hensche and Steinkühler on the other hand reflect the twofold character of the union bureaucracy: linked to the bourgeois state on the one hand and to the rank and file workers on the other hand. Steinkuhler and Hensche acted very clearly in the interests of the union bureaucracy as a whole, perhaps even more so than Loderer himself. They better understood the danger the massive attack of the employers against the working class can represent even for the unions themselves. They foresaw better than Loderer that a capitulation of the trade-union leaders to the employers could once again provoke a loss of control over the workers. The printing workers struggle *We discussed with all the great (!) trade-union leaders before the conclusion of the wage contracts, but not with the little (1) printers' union of Mahlein, "declared Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who was irritated when the printers strike brake out. Leaving aside the arrogance expressed in these words, Schmidt's interpretation is profoundly "idealist." It reduces the problem of the printers strike to the question of whether there was a tête-d-tête between Schmidt and Mahlein or not. The development of the strike, however, indicates to what extent the personality of Mahlein as president of the union had little to do with the conduct of the fight. In the final analysis, it was the rank and file that drove the struggle forward. The struggle passed through several phases, which sowed some confusion among uninitiated observers. This is explained above all by the hesitant attitude of the union leadership, especially Mahlein.
1. First of all, there was a referendum on the proposals of the employers. Nearly 90 percent of the union members rejected these proposals and came out for measures of struggle.
2. The union then called a strike in some key companies including some 15,000 workers, Four hours later (I), the employers responded with a national lockout of all the 140,000 workers in the printing and paper industry.
3. After four days of strike and lockout, the union leaders and the employers came to an agreement to halt all measures of combat (that is, stop both the strike and the lockout) and to take up negotiations again. The rank-and-file workers rebelled against this rotten compromise:
4. Two days later, the union called a national strike, despite the fact that the difference between the employers' offer and the gfficial wage demand of the union leadership had in the meantime narrowed to 0.2 percent.
5. Five days later, the union again went back to a partial strike in the key companies. The justification for this was that the strike fund was insufficient to finance a total strike. Once again, a section of the rank and file rebelled. In northern Germany, the total strike continued.
6. Two days later, on May 13, the union leadership concluded the agreement that entails an increase of 6.6 percent, if account is taken of the indirect benefits. The date of the referendum to determine whether this was acceptable or not was set for six days later, and the workers were called upon to return to work. immediately. Two conclusions may be drawn from the zigzags of the struggle in the printing industry. The first concerns the attitude of the employers. They called for a lockout of all workers immediately after the proclamation of the partial strike on April 29, They thus made their own contribution to rodicalizing the struggle. Their plan failed. But it was not a plan of desperados. It had a precise aim. On the one hand, it was necessary to erect a backstop to wage increments beyond what the employers considered acceptable in the framework of their basic plan to increase profits. The token strikes of the 400, 000 metalworkers had already won an increase (6 percent) that slightly surpassed this limit. On the other hand, it was necessary to give a clear warning to the union bureaucracy as a whole in order to curb excessive hopes concerning a second helping" of wage increases during the autumn of 1976.
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WEST GERMANY TRÄNENGAS Wir schaffen
Fallen Reichtum GEGEN STREK POSTEN
Unternehmer argument: DieÜnternelmer haben: die Gewer van beet stre
Die Millionen, Jivestionen von mergen ond de und die Polizei! dic Maschinen TRTSACHE İST:
die Gene we suspecten were Wir Arboiter haben and die Friesless we heate undert Enheit Solidaritat und colemet EURE MAtH Arbertileute austwack* darum: alle Rader phoen his Strik für 14nMM Went unter took for In this sense, it was not the industrialists of the printing sector itself who aggravated the conflict. It was the personal intervention of Schleyer, head of the employers' association, who pressured the industrialists of this sector to show maximum firmness. The violence of the employers* reaction clearly indicates how important it remains for the West German capitalists to limit any new wage increases during autumn 1976. It must be added that the employers in West Germany have traditionally resorted to the lockout much more rapidly than their colleagues of the neighboring capitalist countries (in which the lockout is often illegal). This weapon was previously used in the metal industry in 1963 and 1971. It was used this time in the printing industry. More than any other "legal" weapon of the employers, the lockout confirms that there is a small class of owners who hold a monopoly of access to the means of production and defend this monopoly tooth and nail. The second conclusion concerns the relationship between the union bureaucracy and the rank and file. In an exemplary manner, the strike in the printshops showed the difficulty met by the bureaucracy in conserving control over the rank and file during a tough union struggle. During the phases of "halting the strike" and of "transition from the total strike to the partial strike" there were many open conflicts, in the course of which the union bureaucracy had to yield rapidly most of the time. The result of the May 18 referendum reflected these difficulties met by the union leadership. Only 55 percent of the membership accepted the content of the final agreement reached with the employers. And even more important, the majority of the workers of the big companies, the companies in which combativity had been very pronounced, rejected the final accord and voted to continue the struggle.
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But these conflicts were only one of the aspects of the relations between the leadership and the ranks. The other aspect is equally significant: There was no emergence of organizational forms outside union control. All the struggles in all phases of the conflict unfolded within the narrow framework of the unions. One sentence that appeared in the official strike newspaper of IG Druck und Papier is extremely significant in this regard: "Monday, when the central leadership had decided to interrupt the strike, it was often necessary to wait for hours before the striking and locked-out comrades were willing to go back to work. 'The comrades cried,' reported a desperate shop steward in one plant." Translated into clear language, this means: The workers acceded to the instructions of the union leadership. but they did so with grit teeth. It is an important characteristic of the West German working class that it chooses insofar as possible to struggle with the aid of the trade-union organizations and that it tries to avoid struggles not sanctioned by the unions (wildcat strikes), especially after the negative experiences of 1973. The basis of this behavior must be sought above all in the weakness of the workers leaderships and of the elements favorable to determined class struggle at the factory level. The high degree of trade-union organization, higher than in most of the other big capitalist countries of West Europe, also conThe experiences of the printers strike are extremely important. Although it was a question of a struggle organized on the trade-union level, which is "legal"
even from the standpoint of the bourgeoisie, in the course of the struggle there were violent physical confrontations between the strikers and the police, In several cities (notably West Berlin, Frankfort, Stuttgart, and Reutlingen), the police intervened with clubs against strike pickets and assemblies of strikers. The aim of these police interventions was most often to make possible the appearance and distribution of bourgeois newspapers or to club open the way for trucks loaded with papers produced by strikebreakers. Often it was only necessary for a strong police contingent to arrive on the scene and form up into ranks in a threatening manner for the same result to occur. Since the trade-union leaderships in all cases called upon the strikers not to resist the police, the pickets often remained passive.
The massive intervention of the West German police in this strike, usually with helmets, clubs, sticks, and so on, deeply impressed the printing workers. Up to now, this sort of open state repression has been used only against "anarchists, of cases, wildcat strikers. The attempts of the left par- " the far left, or, in the worst ties to explain that all this repression was in fact directed against the workers movement as a whole remained abstract for the broader masses of workers. The experience of the printers strike has now provoked clear fissures in the ideology that presents the police as the
"friend and helper" even of the working class.
A second important experience for a part of the strikers was the solidarity of other sectors of the working class. On the whole, this solidarity remained at the level of resolutions adopted in factories and various trade-union organs. But in some cases there was direct support to the strike (in the Stuttgart area, for example). This is especially important in that the leadership of the DGB (the national trade-union federation) did all it could to prevent such practical solidarity. A third important experience of the printers strike was the punctual collaboration between the strikers on the one hand and the students and other non-proletarian sectors on the other hand. In various cases, for example the Mercator printshop in West Berlin, strike pickets were composed of both workers and students. In Berlin there was even a massive confrontation between a mass of printing workers and students against the police. Similar incidents took place in Reutlingen in southern Germany. It is important to insist on the fact that with a few exceptions (Kiel in 1969 and Merck-Darmstadt in 1971), there has never been such a massive intervention of students in a strike, an intervention accepted by the workers. The separation of the mobilizations of the sturs struggles in West Germany during the period 1969 A fourth experience of the strike was the effective organization of strike pickets that did not have a purely symbolic character. In some places, for example, flying squads were formed that functioned day and night, and the strike pickets were often involved in physical confrontations. When one knows of the restorationist "social low" that prevails in the Federal Republic of Germany (there are, for example, court decisions declaring the formation of chains of strike pickets illegal), one can understand the importance of these experiences. The strike's political character Schleyer, chief of the employers, declared in regard to the printing strike: "Manifestly, It is not a question of wage increases, but a conflict of a political character." (Der Spiegel, No.20-21, 1976.) He is right. From the purely quantitative standpoint, the balancesheet for the printing and paper workers boils down to a clear decline in real wages (and the workers know this; at the beginning of the conflict their own union indicated that at least a 9 percent wage increase would be needed to preserve buying power). It would nevertheless be quite erroneous to measure this strike purely by the material results, Its political character was more important. The strike broke the wage policy called for by the government, its "experts, and the employers. In the final analysis, this is expressed in the desperate attempts made by both sides. The union clearly tried to break the wage framework (at least once a day Mahlein insisted on the necessity of there being a 6 before the decimal point"), while the employers tried to hold the nominal wage increase below 6 percent (during the final negotiations, they proposed 5,9 percent several times, plus various supplementary benefits that, taken together, would have brought the package to 6,5 percent; this was rejected by the union). The fact that the workers broke through the maximum wage increases set by the accord between the government and the employers is undoubtedly the most important success of the printing workers. Another factor also gives this strike a very great political importance. The printing workers showed that it is possible to successfully struggle under conditions of economic crisis, even when one has to confront an alliance of all the bosses, the government, and "public opinion" (apparently indignant over the "attack on freedom of the press"). The fact is that the printing workers were strongly isolated. The trade unions of other industrial branches did not declare themselves prepared to support the printers financially with the money in their strike funds. On several occasions Mahlein repeated that the international printers union was behind the strike, but no mention was made of aid from the DGB. It may be supposed that the West German working class understood the signal to struggle from the printing workers. The bureaucracy certainly has. It has already begun to pour water onto the fire. "One must not talk so much about a hot autumn in such a way as to provoke in advance what will be regretted later, " warned Loderer, chief of IG Metall, an allusion to the hot autumn of 1969, the wave of wildcat strikes. The uneasiness is also great within the Social Democracy. Nothing is more disagreeable for Helmut Schmidt than an important workers struggle on the eve of legislative elections. That would damage his "image" before the employers, the image of the man who brought profits out of the impasse by lowering real wages, while still remaining capable of maintaining the workers and the unions in a passive attitude. Some bourgeois newspapers reported immediately after the printing strike that Schmidt was now trying to convince the employers to voluntarily grant a new wage increase after the summer in order to avert struggles that are now probable. Whatever the maneuvers of the trade-union bureaucracy and the Social Democratic leadership, the printers strike constitutes a fum after two years of halt in class struggles in West Germany. Other parts of the working class will certainly interpret this strike as a sign that struggle is possible and that it can lead to success even under conditions of economic crisis and under unfavorable initial conditions. After two years of reductions in real wages, the slogan for the coming struggles must be: "We must make up the ground we have lost because of the crisis." May 22, 1976
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We are publishing below the text of the political accord reached by the Liga Comunista Internacionalista (LCI - Internationalist Communist League) and the Partido Revolucionário dos Traba-
Thadores (PRT - Revolutionary Workers party) on the basis of which the two revolutionary Marxafter the victory of the workers parties and organizations in the recent legislative elections.
(See INPRECOR, No.51, May 13, 1976) It also testifies to the possibility of a rapid unification of all those forces in Portugal claiming allegiance to Trotskyism. The common activity and orientation of the LCI and the PRT during the electoral campaign around a candidate of workers* unity and independence of the capitalists and generals supported by the reformist leaderships is thus an important step forward toward the construction of a strong Portuguese section of the Fourth
The candidate supported by the LCI and the PRT is Arlete Vieira da Silva, a woman, a worker, a revolutionary. She was born in 1940. A militant of the Communist party since the age of sixteen, she worked under underground conditions for many years and was one of the key cadres of the CP in its work in the Lisbon industrial belt, where she organized several strikes. This unceasing activity, especially after her expulsion from her teaching job in 1965, cost her five long terms in the jails of the PIDE, the Salazarist political police. The last sentence was for five years, during which she was subjected to torture. She was not allowed to sleep and was repeatedly beaten with clubs; the traces can still be seen on her broken wrists. She emerged from this hell without having talked. The CP, after sending her to various cadre schools in the USSR and Prague, assigned her to her former tasks. Arlete resigned from these responsibilities after April 24, 1974, and then left the CP at the end of the same year. "How could I accept seeing the party fight against strikes and sit down at the same table with Spingia and Sd Corneiro? " she explained.
On April 25, 1976, the Portuguese workers voted massively for the workers parties and organizations, especially the Socialist party and the Communist party. In maintaining the bourgeois parties in the minority position in which they alreody find themselves in the Constituent Assembly, the women and men of the toiling classes clearly demonstrated their will to defend and extend the conquests they have won during these two years of the revolutionary process in Portugal. They thus used the limited instrument provided them by the elections - the ballot box - to say No to the fascist: terror of the hangmen of the PIDE, No to capitalist cooptation, No to the tutelage of the generals, No to repression of the workers, No to refrictions on their democratic rights. The results of the elections to the Assembleia da Repüblica (Assembly of the Republic, the legislative assembly) constitute a victory for the laboring masses, two years after the fall of the dictatorship. In entrusting the majority of their votes to the two big workers parties, in which they recognize their interests, the workers also clearly pointed to the road to follow in order to extend this victory into the domain of the presidential elections: The presentation of a united SP-CP candidate. Whatever their disagreements with the orientation of these two parties, all toilers, all worker militants, would support such a candidate, for in the present phase of development of the class struggle, it would be the best concrete expression of the unity of the workers and the independence of the w