the International Communist League (LCI - Portuguese sympathising organisation of the Fourth International). The following is a statement issued by the LCI on 17 June, before the withdrawal of the Socialist Party from the Government, spelling out the tasks facing the workers' movement. On the basis of these views the LCI has been able to reach a common agreement with several other organisations of the revolutionary left on a plan of united action to press forward with the construction of organs of workers power as the next step forward on the road to workers, the idea that for the construction of a truly socialist society the news media must aim at the transformation of the working class from an exploited and ruled class into a class that rules through its own grass roots organisations, more and more concious, responsible and free.....
*We declare to all Portuguese workers that we are fighting in order that the working class can control the power of the news media....We declare that in the news media it is the workers who must have the power to ensure that the fruit of their labour - the paper- - is applied to ends that concern the transformation of. man and life, and not the rows of politicians, the privileges of corrupt minorities, or the exhibitionism of political parties ....
•We are in solidarity with all the workers, exploited and poor of Portugal who, in the factories, the fields, the fishing ports, the service and transport industries, are fighting for a revolution in the service of the workers and not in the service of a few dozen power seekers or other such traitors to the revolutionary soldiers.
In the present conditions of reactionary provocations and sabotage, it is not surprising that the Portuguese workers are asking for and even insisting on access to military training; and that the soldiers, the NCOs, and also some officers are agreeing to help out.
In one barracks on the outskirts of Lisbon, more than a hundred people - members of the workers' and neighbourhood commissions - could be seen training on Sunday. The previous week there had been posters stuck up on the walls of the barracks, announcing that the zonal popular militia would be training the Portuguese socialist revolution. The revolution will advance toward the power of the workers and their representative organs - councils of elected delegates in the factories, neighbourhoods, and villages - only if the basic steps to beat reactionary resistance, put an end to unemployment and poverty, and crush reaction and its parties are taken right now.
We will advance down this road by struggling for:
* the generalisation and unification of all the popular vigilance committees linked to armed self-defence pickets in the unions and factories and directed by local coordinating bodies of workers' and tenants' commissions.
* the immediate convocation of zonal assemblies centralising and pressing forward the creation of delegates councils in all factories, impelling forward the strengthening of workers' commissions charged with exerting workers control over the work pace, orders and stocks, with holding general assemblies for controfling all administrative activities (as at CUF where the workers have demanded nationalisation), and finally, with proposing to the tenants' commissions the setting of prices and controlling of prices of food, transport, and rent.
Agrarian reform
* the application of a radical agrarian reform giving the produce of the land to those who till it, unifying the common struggle of the workers of the countryside and the cities against capitalist exploitation, for the socialist revoluHon.
Those are the measures that must be apworkers have already taken inıtiatives in this direction. That is the road of struggle against capitalist reaction and for socialism.
In order to go forward, today more than ever ever it is necessary to form a solid united front of all the workers' organisations. All workers, all revolutionaries, all militants struggling for socialism, those of the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, and all the revolutionary organisations, must unite in representative bodies of workers against capital and reaction. To crush the gangs of the PPD and the CDS, to prevent new reactionary provocations, to defend the workers and their struggles, to defeat economic sabotage and imperialist pressure, it is not enough simply to assert the will for unity. We must participate massively in the workers' and tenants' commissions, in the zonal assemblies, in the village councils, in the popular vigilance But in order for these measures to be extended throughout the country and be really applied, it is necessary to impose a government to break with the policy of class collaboration, nationalise without compensation and under workers' control the big commercial, industrial, and agricultural companies, establish a monopoly of foreign trade and creates a single state bank, disarm the reactionaries, dissolves cheir organisations, and bans their activities, generalises workers control throughout the system of production and exchange and throughout the whole economv on the basis of a central plan. rights of the workers and soldiers This government of workers organisations must be controlled by the workers and by trade union, neighbourhood, and factory assemblies and must be responsible to the workers? councils elected in the work places and neighbourhoods.
This government will have to be based on the workers, on their demands, decisions, and permanent mobilisation. It will have to be based on representative committees of soldiers. sailors, and airmen that press the purge of fascists to its conclusion, organise general assem blies within which all officers are elected, and guarantee the right of propaganda and assem bly to all political and trade union currents Workers' commissions From this point on, for the workers and popular movement the present crisis represents much more than a government crisis. It is thus urgent to elect workers' commissions or delegates councils that can structure the workers' offensive, prepare the zonal assemblies. organise self-defence, and coordinate the tenants commissions with the assemblies and elecied committees of soldiers and sailors It will be around these bodies that the workers will have to gather in determined fashion in order to:
* apply workers democracy, decide the future, and choose representatives;
* prepare a real national workers assembly uniting all the organisations of workers and neaconic whether norant ofunitorm an
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Workers demand military training