to implement them. But because of the working class radicalisation which has taken place over the last 18 months, he is convinced that this can only be undertaken with a reformist coalition of the Communist and Socialist parties to throw the workers off the scent.
While Jaime Neves aspires to be a Pinochet, Melo Antunes is a sort of Portuguese Michael Foot in uniform - capable of scolding Soares/ Jenkins for his blindness towards the advance of the right wing, which will end up by occupying the outposts of political power at the Socialists expense. Antunes isn't a fascist - he is a clever bourgeois politician who knows that in a pre-revolutionary period the "socialist" label is necessary to sweeten the pill for the workers; it may even be necessary to use the organisations of the working class to ward off the fascist threat coming from sections of the military hierarchy and big business.
Are Antunes and Neves like the plague and cholera - equally dangerous? Obviously no. Uther things being equal, it is clearly important for the workers to know whether their rights to expression and organisation are to be maintained (despite attempts to defuse their explosive potential), or whether an effort will be made to liquidate them altogether, by force if necessary.
'FASCIST COUP' In other words, it is vital to understand the nature of the present regime in order to understand the means to combat it. One does not use the same methods to fight the republican bonnet of bourgeois democracy as one does against the black shirts of fascism.
Some revolutionary organisacions, like the Movement of the Socialist Left (MES) and the Revolutionary Party of the Proletariat (PRP), are talking about a tascist coup' on 25-26 November. They equate the failure of the military revolt with a profound decline in the militancy of the working class. Placing their hopes in a last-minute involvement in "the insurrection' of the Communist Party, under pressure from the extreme lett, they how denounce its betrayal.
Their line is that the treachery of the CP leadership and the working class organisations it dominates opened the way to a fascist coup. Logically, thérefore, a number of these militants are already talking about a return to the forms of struggle adopted under Salazar and Caetano.
To this end they have established a Commando of Revolutionary Anti-Fascist Unity' (CURAF), whose first declaration (dated 27 November) concludes: "The CURAF will accomplish its mission by providing guidelines for the soldiers and workers, co-ordinating the action of the patriotic (sic) forces at a national level. Socialism or death! Victory is certain!"
Certainly the silence of the CP leadership and the mass organisalutake proletária nis special issue or ruta rroretaria brought out by the Portuguese Trotskyists of the LCI on 26 November, was the only paper to appear that day in Lisbon. In the coming weeks, Luta rroletaria can be a crucial weapon in the struggle to recompose the revolutionary left following the recent events. But financial support is urgently required to ensure its regular publication. rease rusn conations to. nee veek! Huge mobilisation of 16 November showed potential power of Portuguese working class tions it controls was criminal. Without launching into a premature test of strength, the CP was nevertheless in a position to mobilise the workers against the imposition of the state of siege in Lisbon. It could and should have called on the workers to resist the repression (led by 500 commandos at most) being directed against the 'red regiments of the capital. (Iberia) 182 Pentonville Road, London N.1.
the moment intact.
But it is not because of the refusHORA to struggle al of the CP leadership to move that the working class has undergone a defeat. And the forces of the working class - its mobilising potential seen in the huge demonstration of 16 November, its independent organisations, its previous gains - are for To smash them now would require a real confrontation in which the right wing couldn't be sure of the outcome.
DIFFERENCES In this context, the differences be between the hardliners (Jaime Neves) and the advocates of a more limited and selective repression (Melo Antunes) nave a certam relevance What versive. they expresss is the present inability of the Portuguese bourgeoisie to inflict a thorough and lasting defeat on the mass of the working class - bar a temporary demoralisation of part of the vanguard - without the forcible destruction of its ability In no way, however, does this means falling in with the CP's presions haven't been dismantled.
village councils still exist, and the agricultural workers commissions haven't been affected.
SELF-DEFENCE The struggle will certainly be more difficult in the army; but this emphasises more than ever the need for self-defence organised by the soldiers and workers commissions against the dangerous plans of fascists like Jaime Neves. The press and radio will be less available to the workers' organisations; but the imposition of new editors and administrative boards won't alter the existence of the printing workers, whose struggle for workers control over the means of information is already something of a tradition The intervention of revolutionary militants will be vital in realising all these possibilities. Only the drawing up of a balance sheet, the rectification of various errors, and the recomposition of the revolutionary left - on the basis of a united front policy aimed at the CP and SP workers - can offer a way out of the dead-end to which both the reformist and ultra-left orientations have led.
The two Portuguese journalists sacked from the Portuguese section of the BBC's External Services, Jorge Ribeiro and Antonio Cartaxo, have had their appeals against dismissal turned down. The case, which rollowed accusations trom 1os MP Winston Churchill of communist propaganda' from the section, is a blat ant example of political victimisation.
Since the April 1974 overthrow of the Caetano dictatorship the BBC has acted as the mouthpiece of Portuguese and international opponents of the rev olution - giving air-time to arch-reactionaries like Spinola and Sanches Osorio involved in the abortive March coup and quoting from the reactionary British press ad nauseam. whilst ignoring or vetoing the left press.
In this context it isn't difficult to see why, for example, a remark by Ribeiro about the Dally Telegraph being very conservative was deemed to be so sut Despite the failure of the appeals the case is continuing. Ribeiro and Cartaxo are now taking the case to an industrial tribunal, and the Media Support Group of the Solidarity Campaign with the Portuguese Working Class is attempting to gain the largest possible support for the two throughout the labour movement. All those wishing to help should contact the Group c/o PWCC, 12 Little Newport Street, London W.C.2
i was astounded to read your coverage on Portugal last week (4 December). For it is a very long ame inocca since nave read in a supposely Tor skyist publication (apart, of course, from the Workers Press) such falsification of events.
You write of the so-called paratroops rebell'What occurred in Lisbon was not a heroic uprising our an insane aaventure....... Incres nor the slightest doubt where the responsibility for ine act nes...... The act... was prepared and carried through as a result of the line of petty bourgeois left officers in the army and ultra-left organisations such as the Revolutionary Party of the Proletariat and the Movement of the Socialist Left' Inese organisations nave nao teir mnsurrecuon..... and two pages later:was an insane adventure carried through by ultraleft political groups and left-wing officer....... and yet again: - "The PRP with its "immediate insurrection line was responsible more than any other organisation for imposing this bitter defeat on the Portugese working class.* ane one une you co nor do, nowever, is DrU vide any evidence to back up your claims that the PRP and the MES were behind the paratroopers insurrection, whether directly or through sections of officers who were close to them. You cannot provide such evidence. Because the claim is false from beginning to end. It is, to use simple English, a blatant lie.
Far from being the work of the PRP or the MES, the decision of the paratroops to seize various airforce installations and the radio and TV stations was taken under the intluence of sergeants and officers belonging to the CP and to the CP-influenced The revolutionaries were taken quite by surprise by the turn of events. Far from planning either a coup or still less an insurrection, the PRP were putting a lot of effort into an internal party meeting to discuss the electiveness oi a propaganda campaign in the factories. As late as mid-day on Novemper several nours aller the Dardtroopers had moved) CP-influenced officers visited the PRP offices to beg them to give support to the paratroops.
The situation with the MES seems to have been the same. A leader of the MES told Revolution the next day: *The rebellion of the Tancos paratroops was a complete surprise for revolutionaries. Not only had these units only passed over to the left very recently, but they were influenced politically by the CP* (Revolution, 27 November 1975 —a week before Red Weekly published its account).
The revolutionary groups - and for that matter the "left-wing' officers of Copcon - were faced with 'Now a fait accompli. All the left groups (except for the right-wing Maoists of the MRPP, etc.) decided they nad no choice but to support the paratroops move ment. Not only the MES and the PRP issued statements to that effect. but so did the LCI. This is the moment', its statement of 25 November said, when the revolution and the counter revoluton race ont another in a fight without truce in the factories in the localities, in the barracks" (text in A Capital, 25 NovCHEOCL!
Republica could conclude quite unequivocally five days later: a "coup" or an "insurrection" of the FUR.
Even the present Portuguese Government, which is trying to integrate the CP leaders so as to control the unist Party participated in the rebellion." Yet the so-called Trotskyist Red Weekly does not mention the role of the CP at all.
Once the sections of the CP who had started the rebellion nad managed to force tne extreme leil to choose sides, the CP did a rapid about-turn, sacrificed some of its leading officers, and did a deal with Costa Gomes. On 25 November, for instance, the CP-controlled Metal Workers Union issued a call for strike action. On the 26th the CP forgot this and did its utmost to stop workers moving to support the paratroops. When workers moved despite this (as in Setubal) the CP officers prevented soldiers rom arming the workers It was because of such behaviour that the first issue or kepublica arter une zou nad une neadune "The soldiers were betrayed.
Red Weekly 18 December 1975 CHRIS HARMAN (editor of Socialist Worker) replies to 'An Open Letter to the International Socialists on Portugal (Red Weekly 128) appeared in virtually any Stalinist paper.
it is necessary to deal with them briefly 'One thing is certain. This was not masses, has had to admit that 'elements of the Comm- always quite clear that social democracy does open Mena are not the same:
p13). the blossoming of fascism " (ibid, p9).
Tween revolutionaries and reformists.
One would have thought that this conclusion woulu oe at tae torchron or any 1evouonary appraisal of the events of 25 November, whatever acca or stategic conclusions vou mine IKe L draw as well as to the response of the Portuguese revolutionaries. But it does not figure once in the Red Weekly account - an account which could have Compared with this gross distortion of fact, the other points you make fade into insignificance. But You claim that the PRP equates the Socialist Party with fascism, because it says that the leaders of the Socialsit Party and the PPD are preparing the ground for fascism. Yet Trotsky was the door for fascism, even though the two phenom- a negligible force *Social democracy has prepared all the conditions necessary for the triumph of fascism .... It is absolutely correct to place on the social democrats the responsibility for the impending danger of fascist savagery " (Fascism, Stalinism and the United Front, *Social democracy by its whole policy prepared Of course the fascists, once mobilised, attack reformist as well as revolutionary organisations. This provides the basis for united, defensive action betThis point may be reached at some point in the future as regards the Socialist Party in Portugal. But that has not been the case in the immediate past. Quite the opposite. The Socialist Party has been openly inciting rightist elements to attack the gains of the workers movement. It has called demonstrations of support for Jaime Neves, under the slogan, Jaime amigo, o Povo sao contigo" (Jaime, our friend, the people are with you); it demonstrated on the streets of Lisbon with the openly Capitalist parties after the first military occupation of the radio stations or 29 September under the slogan "More occupations' (ie, more attacks on the left in the media).
By providing the extreme right with an opp ortunity to organise, and by calling on troops under right-wing influence to attack the left in the armed O Setubalense. left adventure Torces and me mee une socuse rare caders were "preparing the conditions for the triumph of fascism'. While the SP leaders are working with the right against the left, the basis for a united front simply does not exist, even if it will be created in the future, when the right attacks the SP as well.
There is little space here to go into the discussion as to whether the Socialist Party is a classical reformist party. Certainly its organised base within the working class fas ooposca tols passive, cecrordi support) is very weak. In most of the union elections in ine Lisbon area it nas depended on maoist cadre of the MRPP to organise support for it, its own working class cadre being so weak. But even if it were a classical reformist party, it could be absolutely correct to warn its members that its leaders were opening the door to fascism. To pretend otherwise is to cover up for Social Democracy as well as One final point. I am quoted in your paper as writing in S Journal: While the CP retains some (sic) influence in the workers movement... with SUV the revolutionary left has emerged as a major contender in the national struggle for power.
so enamoured are you www tne quotanon that you repeat it twice, once in small type, once in large type. Apparently it proves that I regard the CP as But the first half of the quotation is a complete falsification. In the original the sentence immediately preceding the reference to the SUV makes it quite clear that only 'some of the base of the CP has been 'undercut' by the revolutionaries.
The point is reiterated several times: "As the crisis increases that could mean increased support among the less politicised and militant workers for the CP; "the CP's influence in the class is being undercut - but not as fast as the revolutionary left would like'; etc.
The phrase you quote actually comes 46 lines after the phrase about SUV with which you couple It - and nas une opposite meaning to tat you im pute to it. Far from under-estimating the hold of the CP it warns the revolutionary left to be careful because, even if the hold of the CP diminishes, 'while the CP retain some influence in the workers movement mey can unacrmine militancy in the military units.
Can anyone doubt that your treatment of the events of 25 November was distorted and dishonest from beginning to end? Readers of Red Weekly who want an honest appraisal of events in Portugal (including fraternal criticism of the PRP, the MES, and other revolutionary organisations) would do better to read Socialist Worker, International SocialIsm. une varous Damonies olom engisis and Portugal na Encruzilhada, O Caminho A Frente, Licoes do zo de novemoro, and ine arucies trom Socialist Worker printed in O Seculo, Republica and In these you will see what real internationism means: fraternal solidarity and support for those attempting to build a revolutionary workers move ment on the one hand; clear criticism of those of their policies we regard as mistaken on the other.
This approach is quite different from that of those like Red Weekly who cover up for the role of Stalinism and Social Democracy while retailing complete lies about the actions of the revolutionary In 1921 the German Communist Party leadership engaged in what was, in reality, a complete ultra• the Maren acaon. ror pudasg a account of these events that did not show any solidarity with the revolutionaries involved in the under taking, one of the Party's former leaders, Paul Levi, was expelled from the Comintern by Lenin and
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