THE REFORMIST and right-wing policies of the Portuguese Communist Party -its refusal to launch a mass campaign against the colonial wars and its open and uncritical support for the military junta-have created a vacuum on the left which is rapidly being filled by various revolutionary UEUUBESSUILS The revolutionary left has in the past been dominated by various maoist currents with predominantly local influence, such as Grito do Povo (the People's Cry) in Oporto, and the MRPP (Movement for the Reorganisation of the Party of the Proletariat) in Lisbon.
The most active and dynamic of these groups today is, without doubt, the MRPP. They are a Portuguese reincarnation of Stalinism, and claim as their inspiration the thought of Mao Tse-Tung and Albanian President Enver Hoxha. Their principal slogan, continually chanted in demonstrations, calls for 'Bread, Peace, Land, Liberty, Democracy, National Independence. According to them the time is not ripe for socialism in Portugal, so we must be satisfied with admiring Maoist China and Albania (the "beacon of socialism in Europe') from afar.
BIZARRE
The MRPP has certain bizarre doctrines. I heard with my own cars the main theoretician of this group coolly explain to a mass meeting that "the Portuguese people have oppressed the colonial people for 5 centurles, that important sectors of the Portuguese working class are growing fat on the back of the colonia] people, that this explains the passivity of the Portuguese proletariat towards the lascist regime and so on, In addition, the MRPP exhibits Communist Party. I myself saw on the walls of Lisbon the slogan "shoot the revisionists', signed by the MRPP. Happily, for the moment, the лешаешь Auo aRana This having been said, the MRPP militants have a remarkable dynamism and 'punch' in action. They are conducting an uncompromising campaign against the colonial wars, particularly among the soldiers, und the front ranks of their demonstration on 1 May were made up of dozens of soldiers and sailors in chains.
They have organised spectacular actions to prevent the departure ol new troops for the colonies, and recently managed -with the cooperation of the families of the draftees to prevent ten soldiers Irom boarding an aircraft for Africa. The reactionary officers hate the MRPP and intend to wipe them out at the first opportunity.
Two other, smaller, revolutionary groups are closer to the positions of the Fourth International and work A DEMONSTRATION in solidarity fraternally with the Portuguese Trotskyists, the LCI (International Communis Leagul 1. The URML (Revolutionary Union, Marxist-Leninist), For them the socialist revolution is on the agenda. The URML carries out quite tions of workers and is attempting to create a revolutionary current in certain unions.
2. The PRP (Revolutionary Party of the Proletariat). A small, although vigorous, group, but mainly made up of students and intellectuals. The PRP has close connections with the famous Revolutionary Brigades' which carried on guerilla actions against the army and police of the Cactano regime.
TROTSKYISTS
The LCI, a sympathising organisation of the Fourth International, is the first-Trotskyist organisation in the history of Portugal. Founded a few months ago at a secret conference, it is at present the only organisation of the far left established on a national level, in all the main centres. In Oporto the LCI is primarily working class in composition and carries on intense work in the factories and work-places, Our comrades are more and more active in student mobiliseLions in Coimbra, a university town, while their main central political actions ate carried on in Lisbon.
Despite their relatively smull numbers, the comrades of the LCI have made a spectacular 'explosion' onto the political scene in recent days. First on May Day, by organising and leading (in collaboration with the URML and the PRP) a revolutionary contingent on the united demionstration of the workers movement in Lisbon, Grouping together only a few hundred militants and sympathisers at the stare, the contingent distinguished itself from those of the reformists by its red flags and slogans: "power to the workers", immediate constituency Parties.