Events in the last few days in Portugal have shown only too clearly the nature of the turning point which the revolution now faces. The rebellion of rank-and-file soldiers in the army has gone farther than ever. Representatives of sixteen out of the twenty military units in Lisbon now meet to discuss joint policy. Supplies of arms to reactionary troops from the giant Bairolas arsenal in Lisbon have been stopped by left-wing soldiers. The air force privates have withdrawn from the officer-dominated assembly of the Armed Forces Movement.
Two thousand troops in the central town of Coimbra have demonstrated, under the leadership of 'Soldiers United Will Win' (SUV). They followed the 4,000 who marched in Lisbon and the 1,500 who demonstrated in Oporto. Huge strikes of steel workers and agricultural workers, and demonstrations of working class organisations have supported the soldiers. Militarily there is little doubt that in a civil war Lisbon and the south of the country would be taken by the left - something even Prime Minister Azevedo has been forced to admit.
SOME OBJECTIVES GAINED But at the very time the ferment in the coun try deepens there is no doubt that the reactionary Government has at least temporarily gained some of its objectives. The worker-controlled Radio Renascenca has been closed down. press reports to the contrary, the occupation of the artillery barracks in Oporto by left-wing soldiers did not end in a complete defeat for the Government (although it was a major setback for it). The ultra-right CDS party was able to mobilise 15,000 people in Oporto on Sunday.
Meanwhile the most central projects of the Government - the re-arming of the fascist police, the re-enlisting and re-arming of dem obilised 'elite troops', the arming of the Angolan refugees and other rightists wit• the huge quantities of American arms flowing into the north of the country via Spain - all go on. The Government decree for the disarming of the workers' militias by the end of this week means a further trial of strength.
CLARITY NEEDED
It is absolutely vitat that in this situation the left is clear about what is going on in Portugal. Despite stupid and euphoric reports to the contrary, Portugal is not on the brink of a semi-spontaneous seizure of power by a working class led by rank-and-file soldiers and an alliance of the groups of the revolutionary left. There is today in Portugal a huge explosion of revolutionary energy - but no political force which is directing and concentrating that energy to the attaining of clear and decisive objec tive. Without this the capitalists will be able eventually to absorb the blows against it and re-organise its forces.
In order to direct activities correctly, and for revolutionaries outside Portugal to understand the likely course of events, it is necessary to study Despite the real relations in the country and the lessons to be drawn from them. In this dossier Red Weekly looks at the forces - the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, and the Front for Revolutionary Unity - which claim to represent the left too clearly by its support for the Government's (Central Committee) of the Socialist Party of everyone who has opposed the anti-communist campaign of recent months