In the course of their relations with the PRP the International Socialists have put forward a number of criticisms of that organisation. In Portugal - The Way Ahead. partially reprinted as an 'Open Letter in Socialist Worker of 11 October, Tony Cliff warned of the dangers of a premature insurrection. In an analysis of the defeat of 25 November, printed in Socialist Worker on 6 December, Cliff and Harman stressed the need for the TKI to win over the masses Unfortunately both these criticisms, which are undoubtedly correct, give the impression that it is simply a question of merely changing certain points within a generally correct line. In the last issue of Red Weekly however, we showed that the short term insurrectionist line of the PRP was an inevitable product of its disastrous contusion of social democratic reaction with fascism. The PRP's underestimation of the need to win over the masses was not that it didn't produce a regular enough newspaper or pay enough attention to recruiting, but that it had a political line which would prevent it from winning over the masses and achiev ing the real conditions for insurrection.
Councils
The first major example of this was the orientation given bv the PRP to the CRTSMs (Councils of Revolutionary issue the IS leadership has written more ascose than on practically anything che - both absurdly exaggerating their influence, and suggesting that in Portugal the PRP was the only organisation to campaign for workers councils. What has not been so reported, however, is either the wrong line of the CRTSMs, or flowing from this, the collapse of the movement even where initial successes were gained.
ine Cassic cases me LIsave SaD yard. Here there was a meeting of 4,000 workers callee under me muence on the PRP, which supported the CRTSMs demonstration of 17 June and elected its own council This was undoubtedly a major success. which could have been a springboard to great things. But the line which the PRP Lor auoDea was tor acuon toranonparty revolutionary government and soclaus revolution, cul umpy attempts to justify this line in his pamDuring the general elections to the Constituent Assembly there is no doubt that many militants got fed up with the different and numerous political organisations competing for working class votes. Apartidarism (non-partyism) corresponded to the feelings of much of the advanced section of the class' (p19).
Poor advanced workers vou see fed up with all this political argument and wanting to get on, with the aid of the PRP, to the serious job (evidently not involving political parties) of making the revolution.
However the PRP actually went still further. In the PRP's scheme of things the one place where political parties were represented was on the National Secretariat of the committees. The first congress of the "pro-council committees, however, decided to exclude the Socialist Party even from the National Secretarlat - not exactly a small thing as the SP, despite Cliff and Harman's claims, has the support of the majority of the workers in the North and a substantial minority indeed in the south This decision to exclude the Socialist Party was by itself absolutely sufficient to ensure that the CRTSMs could never develop to create The non-partyism ensured they could never go beyond being the front of a sect. Both because politics very much involves parties and because those workers most committed to building workers councils woe nor preparcu to abandon uGt Dor itical organisations, the PRP's 'councils", far from rising above parties, merely became the periphery of one party Strength This Is exactly how thev are seen in Portugal. Instead of its rank and file movement the kr nad as workere councils. And the strength of the CRTSMS devcropco in inverse ratio to tne real emergence of workers councils.
Lisnave as everywnere eise tnere is not one single meaningful organisation of the crom type in existence.
While, to be fair, it is necessary to point out tnat ine ki's practice in some areas was considerably better than its theory, and it did contribute to the estabushment or some real workers oreans nevertheless its line on non-partvism and on the SP is an insuperable barrier to win ning the masses.
was an obstacle to the building of organisations of the masses inside the working class, its political line was also disastrously incapable of winning over the masses in termediate strata of society to the side OLLIC WOrKITE CRISS This latter point is of course one of the classic conditions which must be Building workers besiege Azevedo in support of their wage demand-this kind of mass action showed the way forward achievcd to create a revolution. It is not sufficient to seize power that even the majority of the working class is won. li is also necessary, as Lenin and Trotsky continually pointed out, both that the ruling class power itself be in deep crisis and that all significant intermediate strata be either won over or neutralised.
Bolsheviks
conditions are satisfied in any revolution of course differs. In Russia for example, the Bolsheviks in October 1917, while they had a majority in the working class, were very far from having a majority of the population. But they could take power because of the extreme weaknes: of the ruling class and the particular situation of the peasants who comprised the mass of society - i.e., while the mass of the peasants voted for the Social Revolutionaries, they were extremely disreal workers councis. illusioned with them, were absolutely unwilling to mobilise in support of them or the Constituent Assembly, and under these conditions were at worst neutralised and at best could rapidly be won to the Bolsheviks.
deep crisis of the ruling class power. the task of winning over the working class and winne or neurausine me omer layers of the masses has absolutely not been acmevca. Noting uke ine major ity of the working class has been won by the revolutionaries, and the winning over or neutralising of intermediate strata has not been achieved.
The latter might seem relativelv un. important in a massively proletarianised Today, in country like Britain, but in Portugal a quarter of the population are directly emploved in auncuiture number in the north being land-owning peasants; the vast majority even of the workers are employce m smal ente prises; and as in every under-developed economy, there is a very high proportion both of classic petit-bourgeois and of many intermediate strata.
Reformists
an important shift cos has occurred, the masses are not merely not won over but are not even neu tralised. The majority of workers follow the reformists, and in the north large masses have been actively mobilised against the forces of revolution. the majority of the workers from reformThe exact combination in which these power began to emerge In Portugal, however, despite the very - with a large Outside Lisbon and the south, where the relation of for will overcome this. in bourgeois democracy.
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ALAN JONES continues his reply to the International Socialists on the politics of the Revolutionary Party of the Proletariat (PRP)