SUV ways, always on the side of Quake place? May and hot Around ouselves running up against the When we soldiers raised dema officers, some of whom were members of the MFA. These officers were not only frequently appiying militarist discipline; they were also proving to be incapable of satisfying our demands.
All this made our task easier, and increased our audience among broad layers of soldiers in in the region (in the North). This distrust was also built up around the theme: "We have been wronged; the officers are speaking in our name, but we were never consulted.' This was important in denouncing the attempts by the right to use the soldiers against the workers and against other soldiers. These explanations were combined with propaganda about the need to respond to the conspiracies of reaction.
Q You have talked about the basis for the creation of the SUV. But how was the threshold crossed from a sort of coordinating body of militants exchanging information to a real mass movement?
A It quickly became clear that the soldiers were sensitive to the themes we were raising. But we did not offer any organisational guarantee assuring them that our movement could really take up these demands and defend them against the hierarchy. It was therefore necessary to work out some way to express this latent combativity, something that would give the soldiers confidence in their own strength and their own capacity for self-organisation.
A central demonstration in Oporto capable of tapping all the forces of the military region seemed to be the most effective way to do this. We organised the demonstration over a two-week period.
The call for the demonstration was not restricted to the barracks. We directly addressed the independent organisations of the workers, calling on them to support our movement. The response we got from these organisations indicated how much they had been hoping for this kind of initiative. They were waiting for a response to the reactionary danger, which they saw was coming closer and closer without Is atmosphere. The response of the has broken the reactionary offensive, at least for the moment.
Had you expected such a massive respons from both the soldiers and the workers • It was the biggest demonstration in Oporte Asince May Day 1974. The response went considerably beyond what we had hoped for. There were around 30,000 workers; many people thought it was even more than that.
There were about 1,500 soldiers. made it the largest demonstration of soldiers in all Portugal. About thirty soldiers even came from Braga, although we had not carried on any propaganda activity in the barracks there because of organisational weaknesses. These soldiers came fifty miles to attend the demonstration; they left at 5.30 pm after they were off duty, even though they had been ordered to return to the barracks before 10.30 that night.
That was one of the greatest victories of the demonstration. Delegations came from all the barracks within a fifty or sixty mile radius of Oporto; sometimes they requisitioned military vehicles for transportation to the demonstration (that happened in Lamego, for instance, fifty miles from Oporto). Mandated delegations from Lisbon came to support us from the RALIS (the Lisbon light artillery regiment), from the military police, and from the BRT (transmission brigade). The demonstration did not have simply a regional impact; it had an effect on the whole national political situation.
Confidence among the soldiers grew rapidLy after the demonstration. They came from all barracks to make contact with us and discuss the problems of organising an SUV in their own barracks. We then moved to set up a real mass organisation, capable of organising the soldiers in the barracks and enabling us to co-ordinate and distribute material there. Obviously this is only the beginning. Our weaknesses are still great and the hierarchy is already moving against us, as could have been sonstration in Oporto That and neighbourhoods.
elected and recallable.
MFA that day there has been a struggle to eliminate the separate mess halls and unify them. • How do the structures that have been set Cup by the MFA, like the ADUs (Assemblies of Unit Delegates) relate to the 'soldiers sions' that the SUV is seeking to set Way?
and officers. The presence of the conmander is compulsory. Inasmuch as these bodies are composed 50 per cent of soldiers, and inasmuch as it is often the most combative soldiers who occupy these posts (in most cases, they are not elected), the ADUs are a thorn in the side of the officers. They throw the hierarchical system out of balance Because of this, we are working within the ADUs. We fight within them to push forward the demands of the soldiers, and through this experience we are able to make the soldiers understand that these ADUs cannot fully carry out the task of defending the soldiers.
Many political currents had big illusions about the possibilities of the ADUs. Today the emergence of the SUV marks a widely understood break with this type of organ; the SUV is struggling for the formation of independent soldiers commissions, to use the term used by the workers in the factories These commissions must represent the will of the soldiers as expressed in general assemblies; they must be region.
In Lisbon the links between the soldiers and the workers commissions and neighbourhood commissions had been established, and are still maintained, through the vehicle of the ADUs. There is some ambiguity in this. But because of the combativity of the workers and the very deep crisis of the hierarchy in this region, the link-up between the independent organs of the workers and the ADUs nevertheless goes beyond the project of the In the rest of the country, on the other hand, the ADUs have tended to become instruments for re-establishing discipline. ror example, the officers have sought to get the ADUs to take disciplinary measures, and they are becoming disciplinary councils. Hence, under these circumstances, they can become channels through which to integrate the workers' commissions, neighbourhood commissions and popular assemblies, in counterposition to the independence of these bodies. It is thus very important to struggle for the creation of real independent bodies of the soldiers. Qits will to restore discipline in the army. The Sixt Government has openly asserted What measures are being taken against you? Aorder was given by the chief of staff, Gen When the first SUV leaflet came out, an eral Fabiao, calling for the seeking out and compiling of lists of SUV agitators'. After the demonstration a similar message, addressed to all unit commanders. called for the listing of party of the top brass. We also demand the right to organise, as workers in uniform.' One of the slogans in the call for the SUV ‹ demonstration in Lisbon on 25 September is: "Workers and soldiers, popular self-defence!" tion, the response that we can organise agains the Government's policy of re-establishing di cipline in the army, is possible only if the workers are also capable of resisting on the military level. Our propaganda around sel defence puts the stress on the central noi of the workers' conmissions and neig hood commissions, and their link-up with soldiers. This task of self-defence is one o the most pressing question What are your immediate plans? Aio set up a national structure for our move For the immediate future the main thing i ment. The SUV emerged first in the North, because the need to struggle against reaction was felt more directly in the North. The dev elopment of the SUV in the South will alon us to raise the level of the demands, to clarify our overall political positions on the question ot a controntation with the regime, and to utilise and generalise the very advanced exper iences of struggle in the barracks of the Lisbon
_ red weekly 16 october 1975