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influx of foreign capital and became, like Imperial Russia, both oppressor of backward nations on behalf
imperialism and at the same time a satellite or even a colony itself, in particular of British imperialism.
The brave pioneering days of the Portuguese adventurers of the 15th and 16th centuries, who crossed uncharted
seas to establish trading outposts in South America, Africa and the Far East, dealing in the lucrative merchandise
of slaves, spices and gold, were doomed while Portugal rested on such a narrow home economic base. It could not
sustain the unending struggle against piracy and contraband, and its domination by Spain for sixty years up to 1640
effectively strangled it as a world power. It was rapidly eclipsed by Britain and Holland. The loss of Brazil bega
the break-up of its Empire, and throughout the 19th century it was racked by financial bankruptcy. As in Spain,
sterile liberal revolts by the enlightened intelligentsia, soon to be brutally stifled by military counter-putsches, succeeded each other again and again, ending finally in Salazar's tyranny and the violent turning backwards of the
clock of history for nearly half a century. A so-called "New State" , a self-confessed "corporate republic" was imposed on Portugal, in which only the official Fascist political party was permitted to exist, and in which trade unions and the right to strike were illegal. The workers were herded into State company unions -"sindicatos"and the employers formed guilds ("Gremios"), while sole negotiating rights and absolute arbitration powers were vested in official " corporations". A President, appointed by an electoral college chosen exclusively by the "educated strata of society" , had absolute powers to appoint the Prime Minister, the "Corporative Assembly" which shared nominal consultative powers with the "National Assembly" , and the "Council of State" which consisted of the five leading Ministers plus "ten public men of superior competence who are appointed for life." The
Portuguese Gestapo, the PIDE (recently re-named the DGS) were universally hated - that was eloquently demonst rated by the raging crowds who so fervently hunted them down following the coup, together with the countless info mers whose names were unearthed when the files were torn open. The vaults of PIDE were crammed with arms, torture implements, diagrams and lecture notes for the instruction of efficient torturers, and even sadistic photographs capturing for ever the horrible grimaces of their victims in their agony. When the African independence movement developed, its fighters faced mutilation, mass execution, beheading, crucifixion, and atrocities like notorious Wiriyamu massacre in which 400 villagers were slaughtered in one incident in the Tete province of Mozambique.
That was the fearful regime which lasted half a century and which has suddeńly burst apart like a pricked balloon Under the calm surface of the tyranny, violent tensions were rotting its foundations. Finally it disintegrated because it had lost its
social basis, had become utterly irrational, in irresolvable conflict with reality. Every revolutio in history begins with splits at the top and the collapse of the old political authority. The events in Portugal are similar in essentials to the Russian Revolution of February 1917, the overthrow of the Primo de Rivera dictatorshij in Spain in 1931, or the downfall of the military clique in Argentina last year. Karl Marx éxplained that revolution always begins at the top. The first condition for revolution is a crisis within the ruling class. There is nothing surprising about it: it is the rulers, together with their hired strategists and thinkers, which become aware earlie of the dangerous storms ahead. As the contradictions within the old society intensify, they cast around in panic for new panaceas, squabbling furiously among themselves as disaster approaches.
That explains the paradox: that a junta composed of three Generals (including the former Chief of Staff), Brigadier, a Colonel and two Captains, is apparently leading a revolution.
General Spinola has been cast by the popular Press in the role of a knight in shining armour, a St George tilting valiantly at the dragon of Portuguese fascism, severing its head with a single daring stroke of his sword. In reality, Spinola, the son of one of Salazar's closest friends and confidants, volunteered to fight for Franco in the Spanish Civil War and volunteered again to fight with Hitler's armies on the Russian front. From his exploits in Angola and in Guinea-Bissau, where he was Commander-in-Chief, he earned the title of the "butcher" , and he wa responsible for the murder of Amilcar Cabral, the Guinean rebel leader. Until recently he was a director of two monopolies: CUF which owns one-tenth of Portugals industrial capacity, and Champalimaud, the steel and bankin giant. In short, he was the arch-representative of the rulers of Portugal right down to his monocle, his riding whip, his cavalry cape and his jackboots.
To explain how such a man finds himself so unexpectedly at the head of a revolutionary junta, we must examine the crisis which faced the ruling class. The war has been raging in Africa since 1961, when simultaneously with the Indian seizure of Goa, the Angolan liberation movement was launched. This was followed by the revolts in Guinea-Bissau in 1963 and in Mozambique in 1964. Since these wars began, Portugal has spent well over £800 m to prop up the rickety trappings of imperial rule, sacrificing 48% of its budget and at least 1,500 soldiers killed or wounded every year. Out of a total of 218,000 troops, about 160,000 are bogged down in the African jungles. Pitting 30,000 soldiers against an estimated 12,000 freedom fighters in Guinea-Bissau, Portugal has had to aband on two thirds of the territory of this tiny swampland, and the African government is recognised by more than 70 countries. If the mightiest military super-power in history could not defeat the ragged peasants of tiny Vietnam, then the most backward country in Europc cannot hope to win three colonial wars at once. Like Algeria to France like Vietnam to the USA, the African wars represented a crippling cancer on Portuguese society. To escape ordeals of conscription lasting anything from 18 to 48 months sweltering in disease-ridden jungles, constantly risking surprise ambushes or stumbling on minefields, and often surviving on starvation rations, a mass movement of desertion and draft dodging gathered impetus. The rate of emigration, mostly to countries in the EEC soared to some 100,000 a year. Between 1960 and 1970, the total population actually declined. It is calculated
3
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that Portugal lost 1,600,000 out of a labour force of 3,100.000, due to the dual effects of conscription plus emigration. As a result, Portugal's two worst economic ills were further inflamed. The dire shortage of labour leaves the big estates of the South largely to run to waste, and severely holds back the development of such grandiose projects as the building of shipbuilding and ship-repairing plants, the mining of coal, copper and pyrite deposits and the building of processing plant, the development of the oil-refining and petro-chemical industries. More than half of the value of Portugal's exports are still traditional consumer goods like wine, sardines, textiles, cork and wood products, and a huge trade deficit is only bridged by a booming tourist industry. In addition, the fact that Portugal has the highest rate of inflation in Europe, estimated at anything from 16% to 30%c, is partly due to the influx of about 15,000 million escudos (nearly £250 m) in remittances from the wages of workers abroad, sent home to supple- Meanwhile, Portugal was less and less capable of exploiting the potential wealth even of its own Atrican colonies. To build the great Cabora-Bassa dam in Mozambique, irrigating the soil and providing hydro-electric power for SouthernAfrica, Portugal had to attract the necessary capital investment from stronger powers like the USA and West Germany. The great oil and iron ore deposits of Angola, too, could be developed far more productively. The colonies, maintained at such a crippling cost, were increasingly falling under the sway of world imperialism as a whole, thus losing their key importance as a dumping ground for Portuguese goods. By 1971, Britain had replaced the African colonies as the principal market for Portugal, and the bulk of imports, too, now came from West Germany and Britain, in the shape of machine tools, transport and electrical equipment, etc. As a founder-member of EFTA. Portugal had a special Trade Agreement with the EEC, and the capitalists increasingly turned their eyes towards Against this background, the monopolies pressurised Caetano into making cautious moves to reorientate the guidelines of the regime. In 1969, officially-approved "opposition candidates"
slanders of the Fascist candidates, and above all the fact that there was only a 20%% suffrage, the Fascists won 88% of the votes and all 130 seats. In the 1973 elections, the opposition candidates all withdrew some days before the election. Of the MPs elected in 1969, ten were hand-picked "liberal" elements, carefully chosen to ventilate some responsible criticism in the Assembly. The two leaders of this wing last year walked out of the Assembly in protest at the official neglect of their urgent appeals for mild reforms. But only certain insignificant gestures were made by Caetano to adjust the rules of censorship and give a nominal measure of "autonomy" to, Then General Spinola wrote his famous book "Portugal and the Future", and the monopoly CUF published it last "The amity enjoyed in Katanga would be an attractive precedent on which the Europeans in Portuguese Africa could base their hopes. But nothing can guarantee that this will materialise in a situation of continuing intransi- While this would break up the white alliance with Rhodesia and South Africa, which were jointly prosecuting a deadly war against the guerrilla movements, this might not be unacceptable to the Republic. One South African Nationalist MP was quoted recently in the Guardian as saying: "We would far rather have an African government But if that might have worked ten years ago in Angola and Mozambique, it is out of the question after so much bloodshed, especially as there is no white settler capitalist or even rich farmer stratum, certainly in Mozambique, but only the pampered employees of the monopolies, outnumbered 7 to 1 in Angola and nearly 40 to 1 in Mozambique. President Tomas and other Generals, more loyal to their fascist heritage and convinced of Portugal's "Christian , resisted Spinola tooth and nail, and Caetano, who had given Spinola a sidelong wink to publish, was forced to dismiss both Spinola and the Chief of Staff Costa Gomes. The right wing argued, equally correctly, that Spinola's perspective was a pipe-dream, and that without the colonies Portugal would be an insignilose the colonies - and yet they could not keep them either. So fierce had the argument become that in December there was an attempt at a right-wing coup to pre-empt any moves along the lines suggested by Spinola. And after Spinola's dismissal, some lower army officers staged an abortive coup in March, which ended in the arrest of 30 Every section of the population was beginning to stir. The capitalists were bickering and uncertain which way to turn. The working class, enormously strengthened by the labour shortage, mounted a series of heroic strikes which turned the fascist law-books into worthless scraps of paper. In recent months, over 15, 000 workers were on strike, at Plessey's, ITT, Algot, Signetics Electronics, Control-Data, Hoechst, Leyland, Fords, Flandria Cycles, Aumina, Babcock and Wilcox, Timex, Sorefame, Bis, Electro-Arco, Geffa, Melka, Cotese, Cometna, Sacavem .... bank employees, airport workers, and even agricultural labourers (who also held a certain bargaining power owing to the severe shortage of manpower in the countryside) fought heroic strikes, often unsuccessful, in the teeth of armed police The middle class, especially the youth, were bitterly opposed to the regime. The missionaries and even some ment the meagre family incomes.
Europe.
for the National Assembly, once again, the "educated strata" in the colonies.
very essence of the nation':
civilising mission in Africa", officers and 200 soldiers.
4 we can handle in Rhodesia, rather than Smith and his men."
Due to police harassment, the Press censorship, the hysterical were allowed to stand in the elections
[page 6]
Bishops based in Mozambique have attacked the authorities. Since 1968 there has been a rash of student demonstrations, including in recent months at Lisbon University, the Economics Institute, the Medical Students' Union, in Oporto and Coimbra, and even at the Lisbon Military Academy. One sign of the students' radicalisation, and incidentally a clear indication that a UDI in Mozambique would be impossible, was the stormy meeting held after the ures against any UDI by "reactionary fascist-type elements" and for the dismissal of officials "directly involved It was the lower army officers from the middle class who were in the vanguard at this initial stage of the socialist In a brilliantly organised operation, they moved an armoured regiment into Lisbon from Santarne before dawn, surrounding the Presidential headquarters. Garrisons in Oporto, Lamego, Visen and the Carraggueiro barracks all radioed their support. Three waves of the 7th Cavalry Regiment were sent against the rebels, of which the first immediately rallied to their side, the second came over after their commander had been arrested and the third wavered and capitulated after a few minutes of half-hearted fighting. Then the crowds poured out to greet the troops as liberators. It was like the flood of workers on to the streets of the cities in the north of Italy, celebrating the dismissal of Mussolini in 1943 by the fascist Grand Council — a revolutionary movement only crushed by the to top-ranking officer, and finally offered to hand over power to his old friend, Spinola. Only after agonies of indecision did the rebel Captains and Majors accept this deal, having first written out a charter of democratic promises which they presented to Spinola as a fait accompli. Spinola considered the demands dangerously radical, but he had to choose: adopt them, however much they stuck in his throat, and try to keep events under control; or let history pass him by, and, in the words of Cactano's last arrogant sneer "hand over power to the mob." The abscess had burst. Even in exile in Madeira, Caetano and Tomas had to endure the humiliation of a demonstlation was prepared to resist the coup: the secret police themselves. That was no last defiant expression of selfless devotion to the Fascist cause. It was sheer panic, as the angry crowds of workers, many of them former inmates, or their friends and relatives, bitter and intent on vengeance, surged in their thousands around the DGS headquarters, threatening to tear their hated tormentors limb from limb. One frightened wretch opened fire from the rooftop, wounding 50 people and killing five, one of them an 11 year-old girl, and another a man running to save her and waving a white handkerchief. That was the last spiteful kick of the PIDE.
The Observer (5/5/74) painted a poignant picture of the plight of a bourgeois couple on the evening of May Day, laced with the disintegration of the old state machine, with half the PIDE men hiding the million-strong May Day crowds, red carnations sprouting from the muzzles of their rifles and tank guns. This couple were "sitting in a hotel lounge, middle-aged, elegant, the man in a blazer and white polo-necked sweater, the woman in Swiss shoes, both in dark glasses. He held a red carnation listlessly between his fingers. They did not speak." The same reporter commented "Portugal is a State with a head but no body." That is true. The ruling class has its Generals, but at the moment it has no Army. When Lenin returned to Russia in April 1917, he called it "the freest country in the world". He did not have any faith in the democratic principles of the Provisional Government, especially of its ten capitalist ministers; he meant that the old state machine was temporarily very temporarily - incapable of being used decisively in the defence of the ruling class. That is the situation in In every square, on every street corner, in every factory of office, in every barracks, people are holding meetings, arguing, hungrily devouring the fruits of democratic rights. That is the picture given us by every reporter. In the heady atmosphere following Caetano's overthrow, banks, radio stations, newspapers and factories were occupied by their employees. Workers' committees sprang up and the old managers At the moment there is no coercive force on earth that could hold the workers back. If there were a revolutionary Bolshevik Party in Portugal, the workers could be in power today. Such a Party would have mobilised the whole working population through crystal-clear slogans aimed at concretising and consolidating the gains of the revolution: coup at the University of Lourenco Marques in Mozambique.
with the fascist colonial regime."
revolution.
STATE MACHINE DISINTEGRATED ration, 10,000 strong, demanding that they be put on trial.
half languishing in their own prison cells, Portugal today.
Now the floodgates have burst open.
were sent packing.
Disarm the reactionary officers!
Arm the workers!
Occupy the factories and offices!
For a workers' government!
Nationalise the banks and the monopolies!
A decent minimum wage! Work or full pay!
Form rêvolutionary committees in the armed forces!
Link up the workers' commitees at local, regional and national levels!
Full trade union rights; free access to printing presses!
All officials to receive the average skilled workers' wage!
These students - mostly white - called for firm meas- In the whole of Portugal, only one section of the popu- , in ditches and the other and with the soldiers and the sailors decked with flowers, marching wit 5
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Armed with demands such as these, a revolutionary party could rapidly have united the vast mass of the population, and the workers could have come to power peacefully, at a moment when reaction is impotent. The whole face of the globe would be transformed. Spain, Italy, France, Greece and soon afterwards the rest of Europe would follow the Portuguese example. So would Brazil, coming to the aid of the Argentine workers and reversing the defeats of their brothers throughout the South American continent. No power on earth, East of West, could half a century, has sent great shock waves around the world which have strengthened the morale of the workers At the time of writing this article, the exact composition of the Provisional Government is unknown. is obvious that Spinola will be President, that the leaders of the Socialist and Communist Parties will be represented and that top posts will go to elements like Sa Carneiro, the lawyer who spent four years as a "liberal fascist" member of the National Assembly, and even possibly Professor Simao, who was actually the Fascist Minister of ONLY A REVOLUTIONARY LEADERSHIP IS MISSING If either the Socialist or the Communist Party were revolutionary parties, the workers could be in power today. But instead, we see all the authority of the leadership of these parties prostituted at the service of the capitalist The role of Soares, leader of the Socialist Party, during the dark days of fascism, is best summed up by the petition he presented to Caetano on taking office in 1968, humbly beseeching the Fascist dictator to graciously bestow democracy on Portugal. It ran in part: "The signatories stress that they are not violent revolutionaries, but moderates who wish to create a situation in which normal community life will be possible. We acknowledge the danger of extreme right-wing reaction if reforms are made too rapidly, but promise our full support to Caetano if he presses ahead with a policy of amelioration." The petitioners warned Caetano of the danger of "an uncont- Soares has described the nature of the Provisional Government. It will not even be a Popular Front! "What we salvation, as the junta describes it. A front of netional unity, an alliance of many forces. And so you will see conservatives, Catholics, liberals, Socialists and Communists all working together in the new civilian administration. " As we have seen, the government will even include "progressive" Fascists like Eduardo Corgia, friend of and Sa Carneiro! Soares has expressed the hope that "Spinola will be a Portuguese De Gaulle" and his attitude to the situation in Spain will be guided by "the principle of non-intervention in the internal The Socialist Party has had no tradition of struggle under the Salazar/Caetano regime. Nevertheless, it will movement in the present conditions, just as the Mensheviks briane a huge mass force in February 1917, despite the fact that in 1914 the Bolsheviks had had the support of 80% of the organsurvive such a world-shattering event.
and, as the Sunday Times Education for four years.
Spinola inspects his troops in Guinea class.
are aiming for," he explained at a recent Press conference, Veiga Simao, affairs of other countries"!
undoubtedly grow into a mass workers'
6 commented, caused the rulers of at least two continents to tremble.
Even what has already been accomplished, the overthrow of fascism after However, it "is a much wider concept - a programme of national
[page 8]
ised working class. The millions of politically naive, untutored masses pouring on to the political arena will not at first distinguish between the different working-class tendencies. That makes it all the more vital that the Communist Party, with its prestige among industrial militants, should tirelessly and patiently explain the dangers of leaving the power in the hands of the capitalists. That is how the Bolsheviks won the overwhelming support of the Russian workers within a few hectic and stormy months, and led the world's first socialist revolution in condi- But what has the CP leader Cunhal said? 'We need a union of all political movements to strengthen democracy in Portugal. United we shall crush the last of fascism and create a free democratic society." That is the language Lenin tore to shreds the abstract concepts of "pure democracy", devoid of any class content. The with Big Business under the guise of a "fight against fascism" will spell catastrophe to the workers at a later stage. Soares has vaguely stated that "the Portuguese Army is not the Chilean Army, and I hope its intervention aims at restoring democratic liberties." It would be mad to leave the question there. On the eve of the bloodiest coup in Latin America, Allende and Corvalan were soothing their supporters with the assurance that the Chilean Army was not like the Uruguayan Army. In Uruguay, the leaders had said the Army was not like that of Greece. In Greece, that it was not like the Brazilian Army.... Certainly, to use the Army in its present mood would But that is an argument for acting row, before reaction has had a chance to mobilise support among We have already noted that in April 1917, military counter-revolution in Russia was impossible. But already by August, the bloodthirsty General Kornilov was at the gates of Petrograd at the head of a counter-revolutionary Army. In Spain in 1931, the officers brought down the monarchy and the dictatorship in a movement very similar to that taking place in Portugal today. But by 1936, Franco was at the head of a Fascist Army which killed a million Above all, the history of Portugal itself is rich in lessons for the working class today. It was the soldiers and the sailors, together with armed civilians, who launched the great 1910 Revolution. But that did not prevent the On a capitalist basis, terrible social crisis lies ahead. A coalition with the capitalists can only serve the interests of the enemies of the working class. Spinola may be talking today in liberal phrases - but what will he be saying when the new trade unions put in wage claims bringing them up to European living standards? How can foreign capital be attracted when Portugal is no longer a reservoir of cheap labour? What programme can the capitalists offer to end inflation? How will entry into the EEC help the Portuguese workers, when it has hit the So far, the role of the CP has been limited to policing the workers in the interests of the junta. The CP has condemned the workers' spontaneous action in occupying the factories, and now a planned steel strike has been called off after an appeal by the CP. It is reported that a Ministerial portfolio has been offered to the CP on the understanding that it will seek to restrain the activity of "left-wing extremists". The other left groupings will be bypassed by all but a handful of workers. The numerous Maoist and "guerrillaist" groups sprouted weakly on the unhealthy soil of frustration and demoralisation under the dictatorship. It is to the trade unions and the two workers' parties - the CP and the SP - that the masses will turn, first befuddled with reformist illusions, then for a time half-heartedly seeking excuses for their leaders, and only finally, threatened with the extinction of all the gains of the revolution, restive and increasingly angry. Both parties will face inner upheavals as their leaders' policies come more and more into conflict with the real interests of the rank and file. Already some workers are instinctively uneasy at the course of events. The reporter from the Observer, testifying to the "euphoria" and "naivety" of the workers, quoted the example of "one solemn clerical worker, standing frowning on the edge of a colossal May Day crowd" who "said that Spinola should have gone already; Portugal should already be in the hands of workers' committees". And this was less than a week after the coup! Portugal today is a hot-house of political discussion. In these revolutionary conditions, a Marxist tendency with strong roots in the working class can rapidly be created. Through the ebbs and flows, the upsurges and retreats, the workers will be gripped in waves of hope, disappointment, inspiration, frustration, even at times despair. But of Menshevism.
industrv "Unity"
be unthinkable.
workers.
SOCIAL CRISIS British workers so hard?
tions far less favourable than those existing today in Portugal.
only secure democracy is the sturdy tradition of workers'
under workers' management and control.
the middle class under conditions of crisis and class deadlock.
Generals carrying through a reactionary coup in 1917.
, one thing is certain: the Socialist revolution has begun!
democracy, based on nationalisation of finance and 7
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