Portuguese ruling class for them.
a strictiy capitalist hasis.
to strike" virtually a joke.
ernment wlach enacted them so reassuring.
do Comercio.
sympathies.
workers was stopped by its workers. Ellopia in the coming yer.
and political freedoms. Just aver twa the Emperor': The response of the issue a declaration afterwards banning furure such nctions.
tbe cents of the last few months, and overthrow of the prescit order and the for sociathin.
In the current ahsence of any organisad werkers' party to lead this the emperor's fall to the hang of a mass explosion.
It's back to sleepless nights for the Events of the past few months have without doubt been reassuring The Government, resting heavily on the armed forces, has made clear its intencion to try and stabilise the Portuguese economy on Workers wage demands have been Toned down sometimes through the direct action of the military: the press has been seriously muzzied; left-wing demonstrations are banned and demonstrators beaten, arrested and even killed; and a strike law has been adopted that makes the tright Moreover the leading political force in the workers movement -the Porturuise Communist Party has heen c ate content to go along with all these reactionary measures and sit intly in the coalition GoyFIGHTING SPIRITS But recent weeks have not been Several groups of Portuguese workers have displayed a real fighting spirit, and the Commonist Party is coming under increasingly heavy fire from a growing layer of class-conscious militant workers The first major struggle to turn the lide was the strike and occupation launched by the workers of the Icading Lisbon daily newspaper Jornel The Jornal workers look action to force the sacking of their company's top manager, Carlos Machado, because of his fascist The Communist Party agreed that Machado was a fascist, but insisted that the purging of reactionaries from the political life of the country was a strictly secondary" question, and therefore opposed any action on it. Even after the Jornal workers were forcibly evicted from the premises of the paper by the army, the Communist Party opposed the call for 24-bour general strike of newspaper But despite the opposition of the compromise. CP and the sabre-rattling of the Govcrement, the strike went ahead, and almost every Portuguese daily paper like a lamb US imperialism in ture Tck now ledged this deference to irs unterests with a careit intended to step up its military aid to But on the otber hand, the military are faced with a growing mass movement-also army which wants to go much furtaer in cerans of lasid reform, trade ution rights, *cols ago, thorsands of comerstrators ran Drough Addis Asaba chantine Hang military was not to break up the demons that.
which could simols have provoked a larger outburst -bur instead to MASS EXPLOSION It is clear that such a stuation cannor ask muchney. The exopclations of the masses have been increasingly aroused hy cannos he satished except by the complete establishment of a workers and peasants' gorcenement to take forward the struggle struggle, the reeime will perhaps be able to aclueve a very brieFstabilisation of the situation. But in the long terio the nost Skely development is from the whimper of John Marston Safety helmeted workers from the Margueira shipyard marched through the streets of Lisbon last week in defiance of a Government ban on their demonstration, called to demand tougher action against reactionary political elements, and to protest against the recent strike law and other anti-working class legislation.
Since this major display of working class solidarity and daterntinalion to rid Portugal of all the vestiges of the fascist regime, there have been several attempts by the Govern ment to get the ornat warkers to But they have stood firm and their strike poes on.
Their latest step bas been to produce 25,000 copies of a 24-page information bulletin on their strugde.
Half of the proceeds from the sale of the bulletin are going into the strike fund, and the other half going to be made available to news paper vendors who suffered hardship as a result of the 24-hour strike.
In the introduction to the bulle tin the Jornal workers say.. our strike bepan as an internal conflict between 305 workers of a firm and its manacement and their representatives. It was alreudy a struggle between capital and labour, between exploiters and expicited - but it was confined to a single administrative body. Today it is no longer DETERMINATION *Since the 24-hour solidarity strike supported by almost every daily newspaper.. since the practical demonstration of our political consciousness and determination. the real power and significance of the strugale of the Jornal de Comercio workers has been publicly revealed.
In the final analysis, it is a struggle between all revolutionary workers and all reactionaries, whether they are capitalists properly speaking, ad mimistrators or party bureaucrats 'And so there grew up alongside the movement we had launched two more or less clearly distinct forces: un one side the Borges monopoly. the Government Institutions (especially the Ministry of Labour). and the political parties (especsNORTE A PIEL MINT RO FA:
ally the Communist Party): on the other side, the workers of the Jor nai do Comercio, and other workers who were strupeling independently to transform their lives.
SHIPYARD WORKERS
Even while the Jornal workers bulletin was coming off the printing presses, another group of workers was taking up the fight agninst the reactionary forces again opposed by the Government and the Communist Party. Workers from the Margueira shipyard. part of the giant Lisnave group of yards, decid ed to hold a demonstration in Lisbon demanding more thoroughgoing action against reactionary political elements, and protesting at the rocent strike law and other anti-work ing chiss laws.
HOSTILITY
The Government banned the de. monstration, and the Lisnave cell of the Communist Party issued statement denounoing it as a dem onstration of bostility towards the Government and disrespect for democratic order. Soldiers from the special COPCON units were moved into the shipyards to prevent the demonstration from taking place but at the last misute the Ministry of Labour had second thoughts and pulled them out As a result thousands of shipyard workers descended into the streets of Lisbon under banners that read Death to the PIDE' (the formor fascist secret police), Denth to Fascism, Democracy for the Workers, Repression for the Reactionarjes. As they said in the leaflet they distributed: Our struggle for the purging of reactionaries is not a secondary struggle, it is a struggie of first-rate importance, because it unites us in a permanent and often vigorous strugale against all the man ocuvres and manilestations of lascisni, which are constantly reborn from the rotting corpse of monopoly capitalism CHRIS BALFOUR