The Internationalist Connunist League (LCI-sympathising section of the Fourth International) had barely 20 members on 25 April 19/4. since then it has grown to several hundred militants due to its ability to put forward a revolucuonary une or dovance for Ene Portuguese workers and peasants.
But whereas the Portuguese SP and CP are receiving massive amounts of aid from their well-placed supporters abroad, the LCI has to rely on the comparatively small forces of the international revolutionary vanguard for support. Red Weekly is therefore unching a public appeal for money to enable the LCI to carry out still more effectively its work.
Please send all monies to. Red Weekly (LCI), 182 Pentonville Road, London N.1. All donations democratic. Some units elect delegates in mass meetings, but in other cases delegates are appointed by the more restricted MFA structures.
Q. What is the attitude of the larger political parties - the Communist Party and the Socialist Party - to these independent organs? And has the MFA leadership taken a definite attitude?
A. Neither of the two major political parties nave made these organs a definite part of their platform. The SP general secretary, Mario Soares, has recently stated that there is a need to pass legislation to regulate the authority of the organs of popular power, clearly subordinating them to other organs of power. But individual rank-and-file militants of both the CP and SP participate actively in the
Dear Comrades, Almougn i do not doubt ine sincerity of Red Weekly's headline (21 August) "Defend the Portuguese Revolution', it is somewhat strange that inside the paper this defence should consist mainly of a very lengthy and ill-informed attack upon the Portuguese Communist Party. Its author, Chris Balfour, would appear to operate from the assumption that because rotskyist theory nas already writ ten off all Communist Parties as hopelessly counter-revolutionary, therefore it is impossible for the PCP to do anything correct, and there is obviously no need to substantiate this by actually looking at PCP statements.
For clearly comrade Balfour is ianor. ant of many important PCP documents, otherwise he would have written a very different article. Attacking the PCP's atutude to me elecuons ne writes. A party genurnery dedicated to advancing the interests of the Portuguese working class would have drawn inspiration from the fact that almost 60 per cent of the votes in tne election were cast tor partie. of the working class. Precisely - and if comrade Balfour bothers to read the PCP's statement on the elections, issued on 26 April, he will find that this is indeed the PCP's position:
The result of the election shows that the Portuguese people are in favour of democratic policies and a socialist way forward... the voting confirmed that the reactionary right can count OIl uLLe opuLar suDDOrL.
Oretake te question or sectarianism Democratic Movement succeed in pulling the wool over a few people's eyes for a short period - but in the end it is no substitute for a genuine ane reasoned analysis PAUL CAUVe wallinoton •Ine situation in rortugal and kea weekly s analysis of it continues to arouse controversy amongst our readers. further selection of letters covering varying viewpoints.
We believe such an open debate can only develop our understanding of the Portuguese Revolution and the tasks confronting us in building a solidarity mr vement with the Portuguese workers. The editors welcome further contributions for future issues.
Communist Party leader Cunhal speaking at a joint rally with his allies in the Popular between the SP leaders and their membership. But the PCP ranks, not fully understanding the subtle dialectics of Cunhal's class collaborationism, often carried through the logic of their leadership's sectarianism and adopted a hostile stance to the SP ranks.
cidence that Cunhal should have chosen Vila Franca de Xira to deliver this lecThis week we publish a Dear Comrades Cunvin. 1905. soldiers in the Soviet.
(It is no coinI have found your coverage of the Republica affair in Portugal verv inter esting, particularly the references to parallels with Russia in 1917. But it seems to me that some of your corres pondents leg. comrades Cunvin and Foster in Red Weekly 28 August) approach the question of the working class and the press in rather a formal Comrades Cunvin and Foster say inat mere can be no airect comparisor because the extract from Trotsky you printed (ristory or ine hussian nevor tion, Vol 1 - Sphere Books pp 227-28) dealt only with the suppression of the Monarchist press by the Petrograd Sovlet - a body described as rumv rebresen tative or tne russian proletariat by For a start, the Petrograd Soviet in eacly March was hardly 'fully representative of the proletariat'. The 'Executive committee waich nuary operated in the name of the Soviet was little more than a self-appointed group of what Trotsky called the 'radical intelligentsia' who abstained from the actual struggle in February 1917, and then tried to harvest its fruit by cashing in on the prestige the Soviet had won in Even when some sort of representa tive Door came into existence it was, in Trotsky's words, 'obviously distorted" ror instance anouon te retrocrac working class outnumbered the soldiers by at least four-to-one, there were only two worker-delegates for every tive This merely underlines the fact that it is necessary to look at each specit situation to understand whether any particular action benefits the working class, rather than attempting to lay down so-cantee orincioes asout oress treedom the absolute sovereignty of soviets, or whatever.
Ironically enough this is graphically illustrated in an episode recounted by Trotsky just a few pages later (p 264 in the History. Compare his reaction to Ine vicious amacks ov sections orine international workers movement on the action of the Republica workers:
'Simultaneously with "Order No. 1"
the Executive Committee [of the Pet rograd Soviet, no less].....sent to the printer, by way of antidote, an appea to une soldiers, wiien under the pre text of condemning lynch law for officers, demanded the soldiers subordination to the old commanding staff. The typesetters simply refused to set up this document. Its demo cratic authors were beside themselves with indignation: where are we head ed for?
'It would be a mistake to imagine however, that the typesetters were longing for bloody reprisals upon oncers. ine demand for subordin ation to the czarist commanding staff on the second day after the revolution, seemed to them to be merely opening the door to the counte -revoluton. or course. ut typesetters exceeded their rights. But they did not feel themselves to be only typesetters. It was a question, in their opinion, of the life of the revolution.
TOM MARTIN, London