In his reply to my letter (Red Weekly 18 September), comrade Chris Balfour argues that the Portuguese Communist Party's repeated warnings against sectarianism are negated by a sectarian political practice. He quotes two examples to support this thesis - the May Day rally and the July Socialist Party demo in Lisbon. Unfortunately he gets it wrong both times.
The SP leaders were not excluded from the May Day rally - initially they excluded themselves by refusing to participate unless the PPD was also invited (equivalent to demanding that the British TUC invite the Torv Partv to its May Day celebrations). Then, realising that they were isolating themselves, they retreated and, the day before the rally. agreed to take part. But by this time the Intersindical (not the PCP - conwary to me benet neid in common Dy hed weekly and me bourgeois oress the Intersindical does not dangle on strings pulled by the rory nad rixed tne marching order and the SP, as latecomers, had to go at the back.
Soares was asked if he wanted to march at une iront as ne woure inen der a seat on the oattorm - outne cnose to remain with the SP contingent. The march was some two miles long, so that by the time the sr reacned ine stadium where the rally was held the speeches had already started. Soares and his supporters then tried to barge their way to the iront and neckied une speecnes or Vasco Goncalves and Costa Gomes, chancine sucn siocans as Down win ane Communists'.
Not surprisingly, PCP militants in the crowd did not take kindly to this, and scuffles broke out. The responsibility for this ugly blemish on what should be a day of working class unity must be laid firmlv at the door of the SP leaders (This information, incidentally, comes via a morning star correspondent no was the only British journalist in Lisbon who bothered to attend tnis ranyd As for the July SP demo, the PCP feared - with good reason - that this would oe used as a cover tor activite: from the extreme right. In the four days previous to the rally, attacks on PCP offices in the centre of the country at Rio Maior, Lourinha and Cadaval (all about 50 miles north of Lisbon) had taken place, and over the weekend of the SP rally another ten PCP offices in the north were ransacked.
Soares had sunk to new depths of demagegy, describing the plan for Popular Power adopted by the MFA General Assembly as a 'totalitarian manoeuvre', and whipping up a hate campaign against the rer ano aqainst rrime vinister Vasco Goncalves (just entrusted with the unenviable task of forming a new government after the SP ministers had left office). Precisely the sort of atmosphere prevailed which would favour right-wing activity.
On the day of the SP rally, road blocks were set up by COPCON troops round Lisbon and enjoyed popular supPCP militants helped to man these Cars going to the capital were stopped and searched: troops toung a considerable number of guns and other weapons However nobody going to Lisbon to attend the SP rally was prevented from doing so. Is this sectarianism, comrade Balfour? Is it not rather a healthy attempt to safeguard the revolution?
Comrade Balfour also asks what initiative the PCP has taken towards the SP leaders in order to win SP members away from Soares. Evidently he discounts the fourteen recorded calls by the PCP for joint talks with the SP be tween May 1974 and August 1975.
MavDe ne will also discount EnE PCP's proposal of 28 August for a joint meeting between the various factions of the MFA, the SP, and the parties of the newly-formed Revolutionary Front. nis was tor ine specinc purpose or heading off the threat from the right - or, as the PCP put it: 'The aim of INTERSINDICAL avoiding violent confrontation and of defending freedom and deinocracy imposes negotiations between adversaries in an attempt to remove the dangerous conclusion that a solution through force is inevitable. The PCP was not, as Red Weekly appears to believe, trying to force an alliance with Antunes and Soares, but merely to enter negotiations with a view to avoiding civil tive: it fulfils the minimum require ment of such an initiative - to stait actually talking to the SP leaders - and it centres on sometino or vita moor tance to all Portuguese workers, namely the avoidance of civil war. came under attack for making this proposal. the rer snowed inar i was awart of the importance of detaching Soares from his supporters and explained that it considered that the proposal for a meeting will, without a doubt, make a strong impression on st militants the LCI, towards this initiative. the frequency with which the LCI has attacked the PCP for 'sectarianism' towards the SP. one would have expected osal (which, let us remind ourselves was for nothing more sinister than a MFA factions would be represented): *The PCP is strengthening the position of the capitalist forces.
unity in action with revolutionary forces. desired bv the maioritv of its milit ants, for agreements with social democratic forces...in compromising itself and attempting to compromse the re maining organisations (of the Revolutionary,Front) in agreements with social democracy, it puts in question the possibility of continuing real joint work. showing once again that its polit ics are those of class collaboration' (reported in o securo, september.
the PCP make initiatives towards the SP leadership, the Portuguese section Is accusing it or compromise and class collaboration at any such suggestion! Comrade Balfour, before attacking the tactics of the PCP, you'd better sort out your own fraternal organisation!
LCI and four other members of the to socia democrats tine caron went imperialism in Portugal was the same thing as the fight against social dem28 August. Clearly in this instance it was not the PCP that was guilty of secparticular made against it, the PCP has declared that it is still, in principle, in olutionary organisations.
SHEEF EIP.
Now this is a perfectly clear initiai considerab e interest cere is me attitude of the IMG's sister organisation, Given some sort of qualified welcome. Not at The LCI had this to say of the prop meeting at which the SP and the various ers that the PCP leadership has exchanged by Fauvet.
so while the britisn section or ine Fourth International is demanding that march on Isoon It was this absolute refusal of the Revolutionary Front to consider talking searches. as far as to declare that the fight against ocracy) that led to the PCP's exit from the Front, after meetings of the Front's Provisional Secretariat degenerated into bitter attacks on the PCP's proposals of tarianism. Incidentiv, despite the hysterical attacks that the LCI and the PRP in favour of a united front with other revJudging from his final paragraph, that the PCP's participation in the new Government is 'class collaborationist. The PCP has made it quite clear, however that it opposes the presence of the bour geois PPD in the Government, that it will fight against any measure proposed in the Government that is against the interests of the revolution, and that it wil not allow its presence in the Government to ninder in any wav its activity among the masses in defence of the gains already achieved and in pursuit of the final goal of socialism (see for example, the editorial in Avante of 18 September). coesn soune much ike class collabor ation to me, and neither does the PCP's leading role in the new wave of mass strug gles erupting in the Alentejo.
In reality, comrade Balfour throws the term 'class collaboration' about, not because it bears any relation to what is happening in Portugal, but because he has learnt from tired Trotskyist dogma that this is how all CPs are supposed to behave. It is about time he removed his blinkers and started producing analyses worthy of a revolutionary Marxist rather than a sectarian pedant. PAUL FAUVET, Wellington.
& Chris Balfour replies On the factual level, comrade Fauvet ignores the fact that the dispute with the Socialist Party blew up because of the refusal of the PCP-dominated Intersindical leadership to allow a representative of the SP to speak at the May Day rally. This was done on the grounds That no political sary was to De repre ented at the rally - formally true, but the ePs views were nevertne ess To be propounded both by the spokesman for Intersindical and by Goncalves on behalf of the Government. such an action, coming only a week after the for s big electoral victory, gave Soares just the excuse he needed to engage in the sort of provocative actions described Nor is it accurate that the barricades set up around Lisbon on the occasion of the national SP demo were the work or CorN security torces. nev wer initially erected by PCP militants, in response to a call from the PCP leadership which attempted to label the SP demonstration as a counter revolutionary But the class conscious workers of Lisbon voted with their feet against this sectarian stunt. Only then did COP CON units step in and take over the bar ricades, himiting their unction to arm:
But in any event, it is not necessary for me to document the sectarianism o the PCP in this period. The published account or the special meeting or th PCP Central Committee, to which both comrade Fauvet and I have referred, is studded with open confessions on this As far as the famous '14 calls' on the SP leadership which comrade Fauvet now boasts about repeat me chanence 1 made previously to comrade Fauvet:
quote me a single clear call on the SP leadership in the widely-published proceedings of the PCP Central Committee convened for the sole and express purpose of discussing the Party's response to the crisis.
In the absence of such a clear, public call, it is irrelevant whether Cunhal made 14 or 14,000 quiet approaches to the SP leadership. • There is a world of difference between a confidential 'approach asking the sr leadership to be nice and change their course, and a clear and open political demand that they agree on a specific set of common measures The first is just an invitation to a bur eaucrats deal, to a pnony patching-up of differences, and a capitulation to the reformist leaders of the SP. The second is the diametrical opposite - a concrete political initiative directed to wards the sr base, which they car readily understand and fight to impose on their leadership. A campaign based on a call such as this would have helped immensely to open the eyes of the SP ranks to their leaders Treachery, ane undermined the splitting tactics and provocations of the SP leaders by developing a real revolt in their ranks.
This, of course, explains the attitude of our comrades of the LCI in Portugal. They were 100 per cent correct to oppose the cort of talks and ceas me rur wa proposing - wnich, far from giving the SP masses a perspective for tighting their leaders, represented a capitulation to that leadership. Their estimation of where the PCP was heading was shown to be correct by its eventual entry into the Sixth Provisional Government - a Government clearly devoted to halting the revolutionarv process and re-estab lishing the authority of the capitalist state (as its recent actions with regard to the media and the army have shown).
The attempts of the PCP - and its apologists like comrade Fauvet - to justify this action only serve to underline the depths of their capitulation. For example, a recent speech by Cunhal given to a mass PCP rally was full of the fine sounding warnings against a right turn which comrade Fauvet seems to think is a break with class collaboration. The presence of the PCP in the Government was justited on the grounds tha ...the alternative, at the present time, would be an openly right-wing Government.
This rhetoric only serves to hide the fact that the Sixth Provisional Government - PCP Minister of Public Works or no - is a right-wing Government. The only purpose that the presence of the Per serves is to contuse a section tal beit an increasingly small one) of work ing class militants about the character of this Government. Comrade Fauvet should note that this is not just the view of 'sectarian' revolutionaries, but also of the PCP's erstwhile closest ally, the Portuquese Democratic Movement (MDP)
How has the PCP's policy worked out in practice? Just a few days before Cunhal's speech, the Government moved against the radio and TV workers, in a clear attempt to take control of the information services in the interests of pro-capitalist torces, Ine Por -nam strung by its position in the Government - took a totally confused and ambiguous position towards this ciearly a right-wing move. Its main complaint was: "The PCP finds it strange that measures of such gravity in the complex and danger ous pontical situation we dre passing through should be taken without anv
the proletarian revolution. As the revolutionary process develops in Portugal, the struggle between the workers and the capitalist class is intensifying. Women have an important role to play in securing the victory of The following article, reprinted from tais month's issue of red weekly 16 october 1975
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Mass rally of the United Revolutionary Front. The FUR takes a position of clear opposition to the right-wing Sixth Provisional Government, but the Portuguese Communist Party is in it.