SP/CP government, and it was sectarianam and ultra lenism such as unal rac tised by the Revolutionary United Front (RUH which let the cror ieacersnios off the hook and isolated revolutionaries from the ranks of the mass workers parties.
Agitation on this key focus, developed by the LCI over the past months, could only have been drowned in the feverish, apolitical campaian of support for Car valho. Comrade Sissons admits that *Otelo fails to call for an SP-CP government', but he does not explain how revolutionaries could have argued for working class independence from the military whilst supporting a candidate wnose main purpose was to presout a Teft' variation of the AFM-People alliance. Nor does he understand the hostility to the workers movement concealed beneath the petty-bourgeois demagogic-populist appeals to the workers to abandon their "divisive' parties and support 'Otelo's popular crusade for socialism.
This danger for the workers movements only increasee oy me support aiven ov ine centrists or une mes and UDP who, in return for providing some organisation and coherence for the campaign, gained the illusion that they were hegemonising mass forces and that the davs of the 'revisionists' were numbered. (Their "divisiveness' was kept well under control by the ban on sales of their literature at campaign meetings!) In such a context comrade Sissons' talk of the relative superiority of Carvalho s programme misses the point: such selfsivled Kobin Hoogs need a orogramme for cover, and, as he demonstrated last autumn, Carvalho is not too particular about its precise colouring.
But, comrade Sissons argues, 'the Otelo campaign represents above all the combativity of the workers and soldiers'. It is true that certain workers sickened by the policies of the reformist leaderships. voted tor carvaino. our ne represents that compativity Dy cannes ling it into the whirlpool of military populism, by preventing a challenge to the workers' bureaucracies, by telling the workers to keep up their 'combativity but to leave politics to the generals.
To suggest, as does comrade Sissons, that what distinguished the CP campaign was its call for the 'AFM-People alliance' is seriously misleading. The most cursory glance at Carvalho's campaign shows that It was saturated win te tocolooy or the leading role of the armed forces 'in alliance with the people'.
Does this mean that the CP decision to stand Pato was a break with their strategy of an alliance with the military? Not at all. But despite the CP's intent. One argument which I have heard used in some quarters to justify a vote for the Communist Party candidate, Octavio Pato, is that he is the candidate of a workers party, while Carvalho represents the bourgeois army. It this were true, it would be decisive. Unfortunately, however. it confuses two things: a socio logical definition of Carvalho's origins and position, and a porticar character sation of his candidature.
The political character of a party or candidature nas to be derined not by wro comprises it but by whose interests its programme represents land not merely on paper, but in the concrete situation). It is thus necessary to look not at their individual origin but at the actual pro gramme and the social forces polarised around It What is Carvalho's programme? In essence, of course, it is based on the Copcon document or summer 197o and the positions of the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) radicals like Deniz Almeida of the RALIS regiment. The backbone of this programme as far as its stated goals are concerned is the more or less total nationalisation of Portuguese industry, radical land reform, and the programme of 'direct democracy' summed up in the 'people's power' formula.
nose interests does mis brocratic represent? Of course it is not a fully fledged revolutionary programme in terms of many of the slogans and methods it raises - struggle for 'national independence' against the superpowers, MFA-people alliance, bureaucratic approach to the military, non-partyist concept of workers democracy. Nevertheless, the implementation of such a programme - even if the methods it outlines are incaoable of realising such a goal - poses witnout a doubt tne des truction of capitalism in Portugal.
Furthermore, it is clear that this programme is far from representing the interests of any section of the bourgeoisie. Talk about a 'Peruvian' model makes no sense because Portugal is not a colonial country in which a programme of extensive nationalisations of even profitable industry can be a lever for the native bourgeoisie in its struggle with imperialism over the distribution of the gravy bucket.
by Carvalho of the classic social demothe position of the capitalist class as a whole. On the contrary, the nationalisations proposed by Carvalho would actually smash the economic power of Ist class.
Nor are the nationalisations proposed cratic type - take-overs of bankrupt but essential industries in order to strengther the ruling class and expropriate the capital- TIon.
Finally, not even the supporters of the 'Peruvian' analogy take it seriously when it comes to analysing 25 November. Loaically thev should characterise 2º vovemoer as an attemot to seize power and install a caoita st mintary dictator ship. In fact they almost universally described it as an ultra-left coup attempt - which, apart from the fact that it was more of a reaction to a right-wing provocation, is a fairly accurate characterisaBut ultra-leftism is a current within the workers movement.
The ultra-leftism of Carvalho and the other MFA radicals is - like that of the PRP, MES, etc. whose line logically led to 25 November - a specific form of thei centrism. That is why Red Weekly. was absolutelv correct to descrioe barvarno Almeida etc. as la confused part of the workers movement' in its issue of 29 January 1976 The social alignment of forces around the Carvalho candidature fully confirms this analysis of its character. It is not supported by any section of the army hierarchy or any section of the bourgeoise. But its supported by an tre centrist political organisations - PRP, MES, UDP etc. - and by sections of the most combative workers, such as those at the Lisnave and Setenave shipyards What is more, if we conclude that the Carvalho candidature has a centrist charac ter, then that has certain consequences vis-a-vis the candidature of Octavio Pato of the Communist Party.
Pato's programme is one of complete collaboration with the bourgeoisie and the armed forces. Pato only stood because th CP could not persuade Costa Gomes to run as a single unified military candidate. Pato does not even claim to call for the expropriation of the capitalist class, and his programme threatens none of the latter's historic interests. Pato's is a pourecors orocrame In these concrete circumstances, I woule inererore arque inat it is correc to vote for the centrist candidature of Carvalho against the bourgeois programme of the CP - although the best solution, obviously, would have been the running of an independent Trotskyist candidate.
While the wider implications of this conclusion are limited, it nevertheless represents the heart of Marxism as Lenin defined it - the concrete analysi of the concrete situation, Concretely, in the extreme spectric situation oi Portugal, centrism developed as one of its particular torms a movement amons certain sections of the army. It is neces sary to grasp the specific combination of elements which created that concrete situation and then orient accordingly.
- ALAN FIRTH
Red Weekly 8 July 1976 2. 'CP's Third Choice Candidate But what the Portuguese working class needs is not a warmed up version of the illusions of last year - and this time without the mass ferment in the army that buoyed them up - but action to secure its political independence from all capitalists and generals.
The Portuguese Communist Party is putting up the only civilian candidate in the presidential elections.... But this candidature is not a real stand for working class political independence .....