On 15 March thousands of Portuguese workers responded to the call of the Textile Workers Union and demonstrated in the streets of Lisbon under the slogans No to unemployment and For an economy in the service of the capitalists and not the workers.
2 agricultural workers' cooperatives;
ation and urban development.
work week of 40 hours.
neither exploiters nor exploited.
Red Weekly 3 April 1975 Page 6 workers' The following excerpt from the statement issued by the Textile Workers Union explains what the Portuguese working class understands by this latter slogan:
...Considering that the present capitalist crisis is the exclusive responsibility of the bosses, and that its resolution must be paid for by the The wool, textile and clothing workers understand that the solution of their most immediate problems and the need to 'struggle for a society without classes require that financial credit should only be granted to:
1, enterprises which have been nationalised under workers" control;
3. the sectors of the economy devoted to meeting the basic needs of the workers: food, clothing and fuel; housing designed for working people; popular hospitals; and public works such as drainage, electrific Moreover we demand: the repeal of all anti-working class laves like the strike law; the prohibition of sackings without just cause; a maximum And we declare that the measures which the Revolutionary Council has taken and appears to be considering will only serve to resolve our Problems as workers and contribute to putting us on the road to socialism if they are put into practice under the control of the workers and their organisations and within the perspective of building a society with the present structure of the banking flems appears to be a logical conseqwence of the new conquests in tie political situation. ing into account that the accumulated wealth is the fruit of the unbridled exploitation of the working class und that small savings must bo safeguarded, I necessarily complex. On the other hand the now political situation demands intmediate meas aires against the monopolies and big andowners piacing the cconomy in the service of the Portuguese peop-e. As it is still not possible to realise all that wo consider necessary to reach these objectives, it would De premature to immediately open the bunks."
The following day the newly-formed Revolutionary Council" announced the nationalisation of the banks ito be followed shorlly by the finance companies). At the moment both the banks and insur ance companies are being run by workers committees, although this arrangement is seen as only 'temporary and the permanent structunes for the running of these nationalised operations have yet to be worked out.
The nationalisation decision had an immediate impact on ocher groups ul Purtuguese workers, who followed the examplo of the bank workers and Louk matters into their own hands.
The workers at the CUF hospital (CUF is one of the biggest industrial monopoly groups in the country decided that since the shares of the and other irregularities...
This change, tak sider fraudulent. of 60-90 days, carried out. granting of excessive and irrational discounts in the sale of products ' They chained that these actions were rapidiy bringing the company lowards a deelaration of bankrupter which we con A general assembly of workers demanded that the management implement the following measures within seven days accept che right of the trade union council of the factory to scrutinise the accounts, and the right of any worker to have access tu them through the council, immediate freezing of all salaries abore £35 a weck, imineuale suspension of all dividend pay ments to shareholders, until such time as representatives of the workers and management liste worked out a just forat for the remunerat ion uf capital: cancellation of exc essive sales discounts, and the club oration of u scheme of sales credits with a maximum period of payment If the company refuses to meet these demands within the stipulated tune the workers are demanding that the Govermment steps in, and have said that they will take over the management until this intervention is Undoubtedly moves such as these will multiply over the coming months and weeks as the workers take advan tage of their victory to meet the challenges of the mounting economic cras and the bosses sabotage. It is out of these actions by the worken themselves that the prospect for socialism in Portugual will grow.
the Cascais residents council, val a fully equipped free nursery foi After threatening telephone c soldiers from the local garrison in their off duty hours Tr The Economist's editorial in its 221 blew the guff on the Portuguese cap talking about the nationalisation of observed: The political control of c reaching effects. It will mean for in democratic parties, independent nev tal reactionaries" will find it hard to funds to maintain their opposition t This undoubtedly unintended, a capitalist parties in Portugual are no creatures of a tiny handful of capita bloated with the wealth derived fros ploitation underwritten by the fascis up teally the nature of the so-called moderates is present day Portugal.
UNDERWRITE A glimpse into the way in which through their private stranglehold o underwrote the operations of every group has recently been provided by the Espirito Santo bank. Espirito Sa hank in Portugal, and its tentacles es every branch of the economy. But t isation it remaised the personal lie! Santo family, whose various and our both controlled it und staffed its tog For months now the workers at of Santo through their elected workers have been systematically investigatin
rs on the march he new peoples nursery in the isbon, The nursery is situated in ce the Sporting Club of Cascais, nel the club was occupied by in the procest of turning it into children. te received by the occupants, d to stand guard on the nursery country for world capitalism.
In an editorial entitied Portugal, Spain and the danger in the Mediterranean, The Spectator, making no bones about its sympathy for fascism in both countries, advises that events in both countries now demand that we look at Iberia as a whole, and consider the very real threat to Western interests and to the stability of the peninsula which iS posed both by the defeal of General Spinola's uprising, and by continued uncertainty in Spain about what will follow General Franco. -There is, ulas, a real danger that Portugal will, as so often before, become a running sore in her neighbour's side; that the virent infection which has seized her since the overtlirow of Senhor Caetano will communicate itself to Spain.
CUBAN SOLUTION
After comparing Portugal with Cuba, The Spectator urges a "Cuban solution' : "It behoves the Western powers to ensure that Portugal is insulated as far as possible from Russian Influence, and it may even he necessary, before the Year is out, to warn the Russians off what is essentially an American. and a NATO, sphere of influence; even to the extent of imposing a blockade on Portugal.™ But it is not just the extreme wing of ruling clais opinion that B worried. The 22 March lue of Britain's leading mouthpiece of big business, The Economin, shares the sense of danger of its rightwing colleamies This is particularly significant, because over the past few months The Economit has generally had an "optimistic outlook, putting its faith in the "reasonableness' of the leaders of the Armed Forces Movement and the influence of pro-imperialist politicians like Socialist Party leader Mario Soares.
But this "hopeful" vision has been shattered by the onward march RIGHT-WING US SENATOR James Buckley has publidy proclaimed that Portugal represents the greatest current danger to 'world peace and that military intervention by NATO may be necessary to sort things out in that Buckley's dramatic pronouncement represents a growing awäreness on the part of the ruling class of the imperialist world that they have a lot to lose if the struggle of the Portuguese working people continues to go forward. In this country the Foreign Editor of the Daily Express has already gone on record as favouring an economic blockade of Portugal, and the current issue of the right-wing Tory magazing The Spectator, goes even further.
have turned to bitter diatribe. In their cditorial on 22 March they watershed between last year's reand this year's prospect of a leftwing one.
western Europe before long." uce mora than 60,000 leaflets. of the Portuguese working class, and So the sweet words of The Economist warn that Portugal has crossed the Icase from a right-wing dictatorship ..The effects of what bas happened are already being felt by the Portuguese themscives. They des: may soon also be felt by the rest of Nevertheless, The Economist INTERNICONT House occupied by militants of the LC, Portuguese sympathisers of the Fourth Intemar ional, as soon as the attempied coup was launched to provide them with a base of oper ation. They also took over a printshop and persueded the workers to halp them prod sees a glimmer of hope: There are still democrats in many parties, and in the AFM itself, who will continue to fight back against tue press ures on them.. the foreign press is a kind of psychological lifeline for many Portuguese. The deiocrats of western Europe have a powerful interest of their own in showing that they have not forgotten The material out of which the democrats of wester Europe will weave this lifeline is demonstrated further on in the same issue. An article by The Economist's Portugal Correspondent seeks to unmask the 'communist menace by marrying some of the more absurd pieces of gossip picked up from the Liston market place with straight forward -Groups of officers tourine the country to "educate" the electorate are reported to have been advisine anti-Communist voters to score out the names of Communist candidates on their voting papers which means they will spoil their ballots" -The Communist purty has issued a directive to its supporters to vote early and then hold demonstrations outside the polling stations; that will deter other peuple from voting later in the day. - The only domestic political news published by the dailies is about the activities of the Communists, the extreme left and, sometimes, the Socialiste The first piece of nonsenso ignores the fact chat the main joh facing the officers in the Armed Forces Movement's rurai 'clarificatJon programmes is to break the decades old political influence of ractionary village priests and local political hosses, who could easily deal with the sort of cheap political trickery that The Economist's "correspondent tries to ascribe to the military. The second reve lation" is equally absurd: even the Jowest estinates of the Communist Party's electoral support alow that it will receive many more times the nunher of votes than it has or ganised supporter whom it can "direct to cogage in such stunts The thind claint is simply a good old-fashioned lie-as the briefest glance at any Portugucet daily paper will show.
The red baiting campaigns of imperialism's hacks have never been renowned for either subtlety ur acculacy, but when a prominent capitalist magazine like The Economist starts flinging around this sort of shir from the bottom of the harrel, then you know the ruling class is in trouble!
For once al the international agencies of capitalism military ones like NATO as well as economic ones like the International Monetary Fund and the EEC-Will have no trouble in uniting to try and smash the growing power of the Iberian working class.
In this situation the international workers movement has a clear-cur responsibility to rally to the side of our Iberian contrades an defend with every power at our disposal, their right to make a socialist revolution. This responsibility is one we will be called on to meet in the very near future.
CHRIS BALFOUR
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What the papers say