DISASTROUS
On top of this disastrous economic situation, there are the renewed troubles in the old colonies For the first time in a year the Portuguese Government has tried to send troops out to Angola. Several regiments mutinied. Sixtythree soldiers, one officer and three NCOs were arrested for acts of resistance, then released and imediately put on a plane to Angola.
Since 1 May there has also been a growth in the activities of the At Santa Marta de. Penajiao (a little town 60 miles east of Porto), where the right had for some weeks used the discontent of the local wine-growers to mount a campaign against the regime, a 'cultural dynamisation' session held by the Armed Forces Movement was disrupted by the PPD and the CDS with behind-the-scenes support from local Socialist Party hacks. Without military protection some officers would have been lynched at the end of the meeting.
BLOWN UP
At Viseu, also in the north, a local office of the solidarity committee with the Angolan MPLA was blown up and the signature of the ELP (the fascist 'Portuguese Liberation Army') was found on a nearby wall. At Braganca, an office of the Portuguese Democratic Movement (MDP - closely tied to the Communist Party) was blown up.
The groups of old fascists and Salazarist henchmen, while still isolated, are reorganising throughout the country. These first signs of a terrorist offensive, combined with continuing economic sabotage, could well be further confirmed in the next few weeks.
LAST CARD The right is preparing to play its last card. The political offensive it launched after the abortive 11 March coup attempt has been blocked: it has failed to put a brake on the popular mass mobilisations, and it has been unable to use the results of the 25 April elections to the Constituent Assembly to overturn the balance of forces established on the morrow of 11 March The Popular Democrats (PPD), who have switched jobs among their leading team in order to change their image and keep close to the SP, have been almost completely marginalised From a 'reforming' orientation of manoeuvres and pressure even from inside the regime, the right has now moved to a policy of open counter-attack.
The situation in Portugal is thus at a turning point: The economic reckoning, which the experts discuss in terms of three to six months time, is at the centre of all political calculations. The workers themselves feel its effects all the time. a decree fixing the minimum monthly wage at 4,000 escudos (about £75) from 1 June, wage demands have continued to escalate because so many workers are still on low wages, while any increase they do win is quickly swallowed up by price rises.
Besides this, the movement of occupations and workers control still continues. In the countryside the second largest estate in Portugal, owned by the Church, has just been occupied and turned into a co-operative. On 14 June a full meeting of the CUF workers demanded the complete nationalisation of this trust and a few weeks ago under the heading •Workers in struggle for control of material. On the single day of 12 June, for instance, three factories employing more than a thousand people each came under workers (1,200 workers), the Covina glass factory (1,200 workers), and the Messa typewriter factory (1,800 In spite of workers).
has slackened somewhat compared factory, the imposition of workers a whole. marking time before moving on to a higher phase of struggle.
The column in A Capital started to do it.
production' has never been short of control: the Cambournac dye-works ces Movement SLACKENED alities.
However, the rhythm of struggles with the previous months. The workers are coming to see more and more clearly that the occupation of their control, and even nationalisation will not solve the general problem of the crisis of the Portuguese economy as The working class is thus 'He who doesn't go forward goes The extended meeting of the Supreme Revolutionary Council of the Armed Forces Movement last month took a clear position against the development of mass representative bodies outside its own control. It emphasised instead the 'need to reinforce and strengthen the revolutionary authority of the Armed ForThe AFM's 'plan of action' also rules out in advance soldiers' committees in the barracks and the possible establishment of militias in the factories, neighbourhoods and locThe Supreme Revolutionary Council reminds those who might have forgotten that arms are the ugal. business of the army or rather, of the military hierarchy.
Bụt the growing wish of Portuguese workers to arm themselves will not be easily thwarted by such declarations. The workers are responding to the present turn of events by organising more and more solidly in their workplaces (through workers commissions) and in the neighbourhoods (through tenants' commissions (the Light Artillery Regiment of Lisbon, formerly known as RAL-1) isn't far away. So a military delegation of officers and soldiers went to the meeting, which also brought together delegates from the local workers' and tenants' commissions - all in the name of the PeopleAFM' alliance, because that's how they understand it.
And on the agenda of this meeting were the following five points: (1) cultural and sporting activities; (2) neighbourhooa problems (housing transport: (3) health and welfare; (4) factories; (5) organisation of antifascist and popular vigilance COMMISSIONS Today there are 38 such committees in Lisbon, and 36 in Porto. Those in Porto have just denounced the holding of a national congress of local municipalities (non-elected and nearly all controlled by the CP or MDP). Instead, says their communique, 'it is urgent to hold a national meeting representing all the commissions at the base, so that we can collectively establish how to set about creating an effective popular power, which is absolutely necessary But as the crisis unfolds, no independent lead comes from the major workers organisations. Both the CP and the SP declared themTO aCmeve SOC issued from the meeting of the Supreme Revolutionary Council; both remain essentially tied to the projects of the AFM while manoeuvring against each other within that context.
CAMPAIGN
Our comrades of the Internation alist Communist League (LCI), how ever, together with the Left Socialist Movement (MES), have just launched a big united campaign for the selves satisfied with the communiqu This will be carried out through joint work in the trade unions, in the workers' and tenants commissions, and through the holding of joint meetings. Their aim is to help transform the aspirations already expressed by the workers into a con scious, organised and independent current of the working class in PortWhen a new crisis of power arises, the AFM - with the CP by its side and the SP in tow - can only hope that it will hurriedly be able to cement over its differences. But this time we can hope that the working class will also be a candidate to take over the reins.
Charles
_red weekly 10 july 1975