The following interview with ADMIRAL ROSA COUTINHO of the Portuguese Armed Forces Movement (AFM was carried out by Alain Krivine just before the 25 Aprit elections, It first appeared in the French Trotskyist paper Rouge The interview reveals the confused political ideas that exist within the AFM left.
of the pioneers of the view that the AFM should continue to hold political power for the foreseeable future and that the political parties should all be fused into a single move.
ment whose sole purpose would be to back the AFM.
The 'electoral pact signed just before the election envisaged the preparation of a common programme between the AFM and alf the major political parties -including the bourgeois CDS and PPD parties. But Rosa Coutinho in this interview talks about a front of socialist parties, for which even the Portuguese Socialist Party might not qualify !
Meanwhile Rosa Coutinho's fellow AFM left, Otefa Saraiva de Carvalho, commander of the COPCON security forces, has begun to talk of the natural death of the politi cal parties, In his view they would be replaced by the AFM What is the political place of the AFM in the country, and what are its aims?
The big political problem existing in this country is the political vacuum created by the links between the Socialist Party and northern and German social democrats.
We lack a real socialist party. The present situation-such a sterile struggle between the parties-cannot last long. It is this vacuum that the AFM should help to fill.
It is true that at the beginning we did not have a socialist perspective. The ArM was more an intention than an ideology, and our main preoccupation was to end the colonial wars as soon as possible. But by decolonising the African territories we realised that we had to proceed to our own decolonisation in Portugal. This is why we have opted for a Interview with Admiral Rosa Coutinho of the Portuguese Armed Forces Movement Rose Coutinho is known as one You have a project of a civil party as a counterpart of the Armed Forces Movement. Is is possible for you to It is true that our ideology is not very precise. Nevertheless we could see an electoral coalition of all those who claim to be socialist and working class parties: the Socialist Party, if it is not a social democratic party any longer (this is my obsession!), the Popular Socialist Front (FSP), the Portuguese Democratic Movement (MDP), the Communist Party, and the Movement of the Socialist Left (MES)
It would then be a coalition or a socialist It would be good that within this front all parties could defend different Itself, reorganised as a liberation movement' with its own The most recent meeting of the AFM took a cautious compromise approach, limiting itself to a call to reinforce the direct relations of the AFM with all the structures of popular participation, such as the district commissions and workers commissions, with a view to consolidating the alliance of the AFM and the people and overcoming partis an divisions in the common struggle of the battle for prod uction and the effective construction of socialism.
In this interview Rosa Coutinho also stresses the import. ance of these emerging mass popular bodies, But neither he nor any of the AFM leaders take a clear position about the relationship between these bodies and the capitalist state - which continues to exist in Portugal and with which the armed forces, and therefore the AFM, remain firmly bound up. The only way to defend the gains so far won by the Portuguese working class and really begin the effective construction of socialism' Is not by limiting these organisations to a subordinate role as organs of popular particip ation, but by extending and strengthening them into organs of workers power, the basis for a workers government and for replacing the capitalist state with a workers state.
the whole country. I would like to see the parties competing in the factories and in the fields, so that the people could define its ideology and its composition? decide, from practical results, what form of socialism is best suited to Portugal at this stage.
Then you are in favour of a broad debate in front of the workers?
A very broad debate indeed, because the parties must debate between themselves and not fight each other. You talked to me earlier about a popular assembly of delegates. This can be considered, but there is not just one model of democracy.
At the beginning we can have a European style democracy, then after four years it enterprises? we want to build in Portugal. We will have to adapt. progressively. to the Portuguese reality. We will do that through a permanent dialogue between the AFM and the Portuguese workers.
In Portugal there already exist workers' committees, some tenants committees, some village committees ... What do you think about the national centralisation of all these committees, which would allow the building of real workers power?
We support all these committees because we must encourage all forms of active participation by the workers, who can then choose the type of socialism they want to construct oday howeverles impossible to say which form of socialism is the best one. We will judge by experience and see. in practice, if it is successtul We will then be in a position to legitimise the initiatives that you are talking about, if thev have been successful The AFM is very popular in the country, but it only includes a minority of soldiers. What would your attitude be to an organisation that would involve all soldiers?
We can envisage it later, but immediately it would be too dangerous. We would see a class division in the AFM itself, especially between the soldiers and the officers. We prefer to have a vertical structure.
If there were elections in the army we wold automatically lose them, because of the political backwardness of parts of the country a bit like for civil elections. Yes, the AFM is more left than the rest of the army. It acts as the yeast in the bread; you cannot make bread without yeast, but likewise you cannot make bread with only the yeast.
Everybody remembers the example of Chile and the eventual coup d'etat. In such a case would you refuse, as Allende did, to arm the workers?
Today a coup has less chance of success, but I can assure you that we would not hesitate for one second to arm the workers. On 11 March 1 was in the Alfeite arsenal, and I could have counted on the support of 3,000 workers, who if necessary would have been armed.
The difference from 28 September was that then when there was the rumour of a coup the left was clandestine; on 11 March it was out in the streets and prepared to take the offensive-that is why the coup lasted only two hours. If Spinola was chased out of Tancos, it was thanks to the popular revolt. If the people lose confidence, we are lost. Today the biggest factories. battle is for economic survival What do you think of the wage demands that the workers have put forward, especially in the private It is an important problem: some of soviet union.
Can Portugal remain indifferent to what happens in its old colonies?
It is difficult for us to take action, especially in Angola, but it is true that we need international pressure on Zaire if we want Anton to nave ren deco onisaton We don't want to have it freed from white fascism to see it under black fascism. It -Has been casier tor me omer colonie. Socialist rary leader Mario soares-tne problem, says Coutinho, is his close links with the European social democrats: we lack a real socialist party.
You have taken repressive measures against the Maoists. Don't you think that it can set a precedent for all those who while claiming their belief in socialism criticise the politics of the AFM?
We have only taken repressive measures against a few organisations; there are many others which continue to make negative propaganda. It is not at all a question of banning organisations which criticise the AFM; but the MRPP is a puppet group which nas us base amons bourgeols students. These students do not work and have hot recruited any workers.
There are, perhaps, in their group idealist people with a more or less anarchist ideology, but this group is infiltrated. They have a lot of money Besides I tell you, if I was a reactionary I would attack through the left. The youth must understand our revolution and draw their forces behind it - but not the degenerated youth of the MRP, I speak of the youth who work in the fields and the Don't you think that the revolutionary crisis about to break out in Spain with the fall of Franco will have huge repercussions on the Portuguese ¡evolutionary process?
Absolutely. For us, all that is going to
red weekly 29 may 1975