A good example of how this tactic was applied was the fight for 'trade union unity".
Here the Communist Party based themselves on the healthy class instinct of the mass of Portuguese workers for a united trade union movement that could best fight for their interests. They were opposed by the Socialists and Popular Democrats who, in the name of "freedom', played the capitalists' game of division. But instead of fighting democratically inside the unions for unity the PCP tried to get the AFM to create a single trade union federation by law based on the existing Intersindical trade union federation which they controlled from before 25 Aptil 1974.
Just how sincere was the PCP's desire for a united or fighting trade union movement can be judged not only by its strike-breaking activity of six months earlier, but also by the fact that at the same time as it was fighting for "unity, it opposed the fusion of the chemical and plastic workers' unions because the chemical workers' union was controlled by a Maoist organisation.
FRICTION
The upshot of all this was increasing friction in the PCP's relations with its partners in the coalition Government. After the elections to the Constituent Assembly on 25 April of this year, this grew even sharper. The poor performance of the PCP and its ally the MDP (Popular Democratic Movement) increased both its desire to cuddle up to the AFM and its need to tighten its grip on the mass movement to offset the claim of the Socialist Party to speak for the 'people' on the basis of the election results.
A party genuinely dedicated to advancing the interests of the Portuguese working class would have drawn inspiration from the fact that almost 60% of the votes in the election were cast for parties of the working class. It would have called for a Government based on the working class organisations, and launched a drive for a united front with the Socialist Party, not in order to allow it to carry out its pro-capitalist programme, but in order to expose to the Portuguese masses the contradiction between the programme of the Socialist Party leaders and the possibilities that united working class action opened up.
But the PCP was not this sort of party. It was simply peddling a different brand of classcollaborationism from that of the Socialist Party, and treated the SP like a travelling salesman who finds someone else flogging the same product in his territory.
Instead of proposing a united front to the Socialist Party leaders to carry the workers' struggle forward, the PCP leaders tried to use their special position as the closest allies of the dominant main current in the AFM to squeeze the Socialist Party out of the mainstream of political life. Thus the PCP leaders adopted a thoroughly sectarian policy towards the Socialist Party and its leaders, which had the effect of confusing and angering the rank-and-file of the Socialist Party, who felt that their party was as much a part of the workers' movement as the PCP. This made it easier for Soares and his gang to maintain their influence over their party members, and created all sorts of grievances which the SP leaders were able to exploit in a demagogic campaign against 'dictatorship' DIG THE PIT In this way the policy of the PCP helped to dig the pit into which it then fell. It continues to cling to this policy. For example, at the present moment the reactionary offensive is being directly fed by the leaders of the Socialist Party. While not actually calling for violence, they provide the political excuses for Undoubtedly many Socialist Party militants are worried about the reactionary climate that is being generated. But they are torn between their loyalty to their leaders and their class instincts. Already in some areas it has been possible to develop united actions between local SP and CP militants to block attempts at violence. If the PCP were to direct a clear appeal to the Socialist Party leaders calling for unity to stop the violence and prevent the growth of reaction it would make it very ditficult for Soares and Co. play their current two-faced game. lt the SP leaders agreed to such an appeal it would isolate the reactionary forces involved in the it allowed them to fill vacant posts thus created. - current violence and make it relatively simple for the united body of CP and SP workers to crush them. On the other hand, if the SP leaders rejected such an appeal it would be a clear statement on their part that they were siding with the violence of counter-revolution. In the face of this, large numbers of SP working class militants would lose their last hesitations and break with the SP leadership to take part in a united front defence movement.
The difficulty for the PCP leaders is that to issue such an appeal would be to admit what they have been busy trying to denythat the Socialist Party is actually representative of a section of the Portuguese masses. Moreover such an appeal would have to mean an end to sectarian attempts to squeeze the SP out of the mass movement and offer their militants means of discussing and solving differences through the methods of workers' democracy. Worst of all, from the standpoint of the leaders of both the SP and the CP, such a course would prove the capacity of the Portuguese working class to solve the political problems of the country, and cast into the shade both the class collaborationist alliance of the Socialist Party with imperialism and its Portuguese allies, and that of the PCP with the contradiction-ridden AFM.
What is wrong with the whole political strategy of the PCP is its belief that it is possible to create and guarantee the democratic rights of the Portuguese people and sever Portugal's ties with imperialism within the framework of capitalism and on the basis of an alliance with forces that are not prepared to break with capitalism.
As the experience of Portugal shows quite clearly, the only force that has both the will and the capacity to deal with these problems is the Portuguese working class. In the coming months, as the divisions inside the armed forces grow, as the imperialist economic boycott and the capitalist crisis begin to President Ford was reported as bewailing the tragedy that the United States was unable to intervene in Agency, the US was unable to participate.
CIA, Ford's claim doesn't square with the recent revelations of former CIA operative Philip Agee, who has revealed the names and addresses of nine CIA operatives in Lisbon. Their task? Along with routine rumour campaigns to foment strife and contlict, as well as massive financial backing for reactionaries in the Catholic Church who have been responsible for mob violence against conmunists in the north, the CIA on the revolutionary left.
preserve in rortugal hut the tortuguese economy even harder, as tens of thousands of refugees-often reactionary in outlook-return from Angola, the only hope for preserving even the most elementary democratic rights of the Portuguese people will be for the working class to take political power.
But in order to do this the working class must be organised through its own democratic organisations of class power: workers, soldiers and tenants committees, regional national assembly of workers. Such bodies would have the power to unite the entire working class in the struggle to meet the economic crisis through workers' control of production, to block reactionary manoeuvres in the army by welding the mass of soldiers and sailors to their class-brothers through their own elected bodies, to forestall the mobilisation and provocations of reactionaries by armed pickets and a workers' militia. and to prevent the sowing of divisions among working people by reactionaries and reformist mis-leaders through the creation of democratic forums in which all working people can participate irrespective of party affiliation and thrash out their differences democratically A Government based on such organs of workers power would have the power to deal with all the manoeuvres of counterrevolution and take the sort of forthright measures that could offer the impoverished small farmers of the north and the dispossesed refugees from the colonies an alternative to that now provided by the Catholic Church and the fascists.
Everything that has taken place in Portugal since 25 April screams out in favour ot such a solution. But it finds no place in the schemes of the PCP leaders. Nowhere in their programme will you find any mention & poor old Ford can't 'help'!
Many people may have missed a small news item that appeared in the press earlier this month. An agonised events in Portugal to help the situation'. West European countries were helping Portugal's socialists, he told the magazine US News and World Report, but because of Congressional inquiries into the Central Intelligence Leaving aside the question of what sort of "socialist leaders need support from President Ford and the in Portugal is attempting to infiltrate the Armed Forces Movement to find out those favourable to Western strategic interests. Of course, if all else fails, there's nothing like an assassination or two which can be pinned It's nice to know the sort of democracy Ford and that "brutally frank' social democrat Wilson want to of workers' committees, workers' control ot production, or workers' militias-much less a national workers assembly or a workers' Government. This is because such institutions have nothing to uo with the bankrupt plan or a democratic and nacional revolution'-they are the machinery of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which the PCP decided to delete from its programme at their last Congress.
The fight to forge the dictatorship of the proletariat is the only way forward for the PCP will not lead, for it would involve not only a break with its whole stalinist past and political ideas, but also a break with its present system of political alliances. Instead of pleading plaintively for the need to restore 'unity' within the AFM, as it does in the latest statement of its Central Committee, it would have to urge genuinely revolutionary elements in the AFM to break with their reactionary and pro-capitalist colleagues and join the most advanced elements of the rank-and-file soldiers and the working class in the struggle for workers power.
Even more important, it would mean a complete break with the Soviet Union. The bureaucrats in the Kremlin have thus far backed the PCP 'hard line' against its critics in the Spanish and Italian CIs-but only because they want the PCP leaders to retain their influence over the Government and try to steer Portugal onto a mythical middle road' between imperialism and revolution. They realise that Portugal must not break completely with capitalism and imperialism (the PCP's hard line' does not extend to the question of Portugal's membership in the imperialist NATO alliance, for example lest it provoke a major row with the capitalist powers and threaten the whole cosy set up of "detente' CRAZY SITUATION That is why we have the crazy situation of the crisis-ridden capitalist system acting as a force strengthening the hands of the reformists and reactionaries in Portugal with offers of economic ties and aid. A clear pledge by the Soviet Union and the other workers states of Eastern Europe to aid an imperialistbesieged Portugal would stop all this nonsense at the drop of a hat, demonstrate to the wavering elements in Portugal the superiority of planned, socialist economy, and constitute a major blow against the political influence of reaction. But the PCP doesn't call for such a move. Nor has the Soviet Union been falling over itselt to offer such assistance.
In the citricult months that lie ahead it is the still relatively small forces of the revolutionary left in Portugal who will have to lead the fight for a revolutionary strategy to defeat reaction and ensure the gains of the past 16 months of working class struggle. They will be aided in this by the militancy and creativity of the Portuguese working class tue class-consciousness or an Important mas. of workers in the main industrial areas, and the fact that the embryonic, grass-roots organisations which are the first step to workers' power already exist in many parts of the country But there are many more, difficult steps to take, and the capitalist enemy is working furiously to prevent them from being taken. Imperialism has little difficulty in coordinating its operations and bringing its full international power to bear in Portugal. The task facing militants around the world is to ensure that the international weight of the world working class is now brought to bear on the side of the Portuguese workers.
red weekly 21 august 1975 africa 9