• ----,....-CRISISROC-~-~~----.-~ PO by Chris Hudson PCP, which is part of the make a few concessions to the and Jack Gregory ruling coalition, was forced to working class. The bourgeoir Portugal is' once more in call such a demonstration can sie, which is not in a position open crisis. In recent days, the only be explained by the to take the workers on direct· · country has been rocked by a severe pressure they feel from ly, desperately needs such a bitter power struggle inside the proletariat. front to co -opt the proletariat the ruling coalition and shaken The economic crisis remains while it seeks methods to by police machine·gunning of unsolved. Inflation in Portu· solidify its class rule. workers' demonstrations. The gal is upwards of 30 per cent, The role of the PCP in doing ·pre ·revolutionary situation the highest in continental the bourgeoisie's dirty work opened up by last April's coup Europe. Trade deficits have can be ·gleaned from the has not been resolved. increased since the April coup. demonstration's slogans "one · On January 14, tbe Portu­ Meanwhile, the Portuguese single union, unity under the guese Communist Party sum­ proletariat has suffered no law" and "support to the moned a mass demonstration major defeats and is a contin· MFA." These are the two ual danger to bourgeois rule. main levers through which the of over 100,000 workers under Workers demonstrate under Stalinist leadership. Bourgeoisie relies slogans such as: "freeze PCP seeks to strengthen the on Stalinists and reformists to prevent workers' struggles from PCP'S "LEFT" FACE grip of the bourgeoisie. T~ey pris!ls,''' "no to unemploy· getting "out of bounds." ment;" "against the monopo· The mass mobilization and were the real intent of the lies," "down with the latifun· "anti'capitalist" slogans of mobilization. than the PCP·dominated In· supported the proposal. It was distas," "one single uIrlon, the PCP must be seen in this "One single-union,' unity tersindical. Itwas not directed aimed at the CP's reformist unity under the law," and context. In order to contain under the law" was directly in at the bourgeoisie or the partner in the National Front, "support the MFA (the ruling the class struggle, the Portu· support of a proposal to government: a majority of the the Socialist Party. Armed Forces Movement mil· guese Stalinists must put on a outlaw the formation of any Council of Twenty, the power The SP opposes the single­ itary junta)." The fact that the "left" face, and perhaps even trade union federations other elite of' the 'MFA junta, federation legislation for two reasons. First, it would cut them out of trade the Stalinist Intersindical. Second, and related, the SP views it as a stel1 towards strengthening an -MFA-CP coalition which would circum' In the midst of the deepen­ indeed severe, that unem­ the poor. So while the severe vent ·parliamentary democ­ ing economic crisis, President ployment will be at least 8 per recession has forced Ford to racy, thus hamstringing the Ford has unveiled hib reCes­ cent for the next two years, abandon the austerity pro· Social-Democrats. sion-fighting program. In his and that,.in the"woms-DLthe gram tl;tat only worsened the This is clearly true. Public State of the Union message on normally pollyannish Council . Cont'd. p. 13 '" Cont'd. p. 2 January 15, and then again it} of Economic Advisers: "the his proposed budget submi(.. momentum of the decline is so ted to Congress on February great that a quick turnaround 3, Ford has taken what seems and a strong recovery in to be a daring new pose. Gone economic activity are not yet is the budget-balancing, assured." INSIDE down-with-government-spend­ One constant factor re­ ing Neanderthal of last fall.. mains. Ford's new program, The new' model Ford is pro­ like his old, is one of the most .Lessons of UMW Strike posing a $50-billion budget the exhortations to every flimsily-attired attacks on the deficit-the largest ever in citizen to "give it_his all," working class to be presented Depression in Rubber peace-time. have been redirected. After in recent memory. Virtually Recession has dislodged in­ months of blissfully denying every plank in the program is RU on State Capitalism flation as Ford's "Public that we were in a recession at directed towards getting the CLUW's Class Collaboration Enemy Number One." The all, Ford and his advisers nmv big corporations back on their prayers to the Lord Almighty, admit that the situation is feet by soaking workers and !. _Page 2/The Torch/Feb, 15-Ma'rch 15, 1975 ~::::::::::::::::::::::::::~~::::::::::::~::::::::::::::::::::~~::::::::::::::::::~-=a~n~d~a~r:eo~n~':e:n~ta:t~i:o~n of the Portuguese economy ~~}'I[8r4.the-EurOpeaIL Comm(l!LMark~t. 'But .it d-i~. -f­ L .. '~t'agree on what the African "solution': 'mightl I . be~independence for the colonies or ~o~e lesser I "':='=~:::':::;"'::':=;"";"';='=;"':::'_":::':::'::":::"'....;-=:"'_":::"'::;~:";::'_'=:""''''';:'''_~__'!'''''_ meaSure, Ami-it did not agree on the political forms . "" . .' .of a new ·regime. The relatively weak 'PortugUese' Cont'd. from p: 1. attempt of the MFA and PCP to push through a b .. which had required' the Salazar and opinion polls show. that the PCPhas only about ten "left" dict&torship has been jarred by th~ escalation C~~~~~~ls~rctatorships to protect them from the- per cent support for the national elections slated for ~f>the class struggle. It IS the proletanat, not the working class since the 1920's, had no real April. .The Stalinists arc trying to postpone the . Sf, that these. collahorators really fear. The traditions or institutions of bourgeois democracy. elections,the most overt act in a general strategy'of workmg class, WhICh well remembers the decades of fighting for influence behind the closed doors of the didalorship under Salazar and Caetano, will not JUNTA RULE,: LEFT OR RIGHT? junta. Thus the "support the :VIFA" c·all. willingly submit. to its .restoration, even under Stalinist and left military cover. The motion inside While everyone gave lip service tademocracy, the SPLIT AT THE TOP the \1 FA to remove the Premier reflects the fact real alternatives posed by the bourgeoisie boiled that a sector of the bourgeoisie realizes that it may down to two: a conservative, semi-Gaullist regime On January 2(), the Portuguese cabinet approved the "one trade union" bill in principle. The have 10 alter its strategy. The drive towards based on the actual power of the upper-level officer government crisis broke ouL immediately, as SP strong-man rule under the cover of Stalinist corps. with its ties to .the landowners and leader Mario Soares announced that his party "workers' leaders" may have to be temporarily industrialists, and headed by Spinola or a similar would resign from the·government. side-tracked in the face of the workers' response. figure; or a more radical-sounding regime modeled The split at the top opened the way for intensified aftei-the "modernizing" army regimes oft hiI'd class struggle._ The open mass struggle of last THE APRIL COUP World," based on the junior officers who p rily spring had never fully subsided- strikes and reflected the world view of the petty bourgeoisie building occupations had continued all along, and in The current crisis can only be understood in the -and middle classes. Both, however, would rest on late October w.orkers at' the Lisnave shipyard context of the way in which the Portuguese, the power of the army. IPortugal's largest single enterprise1had mounted a situation hasmatured since the April coup. The\ These two currents were present in the armed mass march against government anti-strike propos­ drive towards strengthening the state under a left forces from the start; the captains worked behind als. cover by the MFA and the PCP, and the role of the the scenes while the generals-Spinola and da proletariat in forcing developments have had a clear Costa Gomes-provided a conservative public.face. ___1:hB_rank.and.fiIers aCt;isnave refer to -both the pattern of development for the past nine months. for the new regime. But a third force existed to PCP_.JlIld SP as reformists. They exemplify-an The coup in Portugal was part of an explosion of complicate matters for both military eleme",ts: the advanced sector of the Portuguese proletariat who class forces throughout Southern Europe. Not only proletariat. With a large proletariat, which have broken beyond both of these. parties in Portugal. but also in Greece, rightist dictator­ exploded into militancy with the April 25 coup, it ...-:......---~~~-~-.,_,--..,.,,.;,:;-:c:r~~'¥"".,....,T7....- was necessary to tack and veer. The decisive role in the developing revolution carne to be played by the Communist Party, which had survived the Salazar-Caetano years as the best-organized political force in Portugal. The fundamental perspective of the Communist Party was the Stalinist strategy of "two·stage" revolution, 'vith the present stage (the only one in I reality) meaning in practice that the Stalinists prop . up the bourgeoisie and help it consolidate its rule. II! As the Stalinist leader Alvaro Cunhal, said in an . interview in Lisbon in December: ji We are in no hurry to build socialism .... To establish a stable democr&cy is our first task and'now we sacrifice other tasks to tbat. Things are very. , . indefinite here. If we have a real democracy, peaceful, electoral, we can get socialism without great upheavals. BLOODY BETRAYAL E very word in this formula is a promise of bloody betrayal. As Lenin taught, "Themore highly-devel­ oped a democracy is, the miml imminent are CP organized demonstration in su.pport of bill- to amalgamate labor- movement under pogroms or civil war in co~:mection with any control 01 the Stalinists.