Problems of the Portuguese Revolution, Part Two (continued from p. 3)

The article begins on p. 3, where it breaks off: “The best-known of the centrist groupings is the PRP-BR (Proletarian Revolutionary Party (Red Brigades)) which works closely with the British International Socialists. This is a particularly important and dangerous body because it has some support in the army and elsewhere and combines an apparently incurable romanticism”

PORTUGAL (cont’d from p 3)

with an inability to distinguish between the class forces at work in the revolutionary situation that confronts it. They have support among sections of the Armed Forces Movement and in practice work closely with the Stalinists, whose counter-revolutionary politics they appear incapable of confronting.

The first thing that strikes the visitor to the offices of the PRP in Lisbon is that their book-stall contains no works of serious Marxist theory, though there is plenty about colonial warfare such as Che Guevara and Amicar Cabral. On being asked about this, they assure you that they have no need of the theories of such outdated writers as Lenin and Trotsky. The result of this now is clear in their practice. The vacuous phrases of the left COPCON document and the 25th August accord are normally attributed to them, and one can see the disastrous results of their disdain for questions of [...] result they are precluded from any serious contact with rank and file members of the SP and are driven increasingly into the arms of the Stalinists. In their blind romanticism they claim that in their alliances with the CP it is they and not the CP who are in charge.

“LEFT STALINIST”

For example, we were assured that although it was true that Vasco Goncalves is a Stalinist, he is a very ‘left’ Stalinist! Even more alarming are the constant references to ‘Comrade Otelo’ (de Carvalho), and the assurances that ‘he has never betrayed the revolution’ given to us at a time when he was actively preparing a coup in association with right-wing chief of staff Fabiao.

If the situation facing the working class were not so serious such confusion would simply be laughable. The PRP was recently delivered a large consignment of arms from some of its friends in the Armed Forces Movement, and though these may well be needed [...] ary lead will be attracted to their militancy and their romanticism. Without a serious effort to understand the forces currently pitted against them, and to win over the workers who currently follow the CP or SP, the PRP is clearly in no position to lead such workers to the socialist revolution.

Of course the basic questions can only be explained by the Trotskyist movement. It is impossible in the space of this article to go into the policies of all those claiming this mantle in Portugal. The movement is very new, only being established about 1968, and there are at least four organisations, reflecting the well-known international divisions.

SMALLEST

The two smallest groups in Portugal are supporters of the international tendencies associated with Lambert’s ‘Committee for the Construction of the Fourth International’, and Healy’s ‘International Committee’. Lambert’s followers, as elsewhere, seem content to burrow into the inmost recesses of the social democracy [...] long intervals and confines itself to general statements about the need for a workers’ government and the building of a revolutionary party. To judge from the Workers Press of 20th September, the only policies it considers necessary to put forward at this point in Portugal are the immediate introduction of a Soviet Socialist Republic and the building of a revolutionary party. Such a perspective, in line with the British WRP’s sectarian demand of “Bring down the Labour Government”, will clearly offer nothing to the Portuguese working class, and it is unlikely that much more can come of a group with such conceptions.

The two different factions of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International have separate organisations operating in Portugal. The Mandelite majority group, known as the LCI (International Communist League) have shown that they bear all the obvious marks of the Pabloite beast by their signing of the 25th August accord against all the elementary principles of Trotskyism. Whatever efforts are now made by Mandel [...] reality of the split in the world movement in 1953.

The Hansenite minority in Portugal also have a group which acts quite independently, called the PRT (Revolutionary Party of Workers). They seem to have taken up a number of wrong positions in relation to the Armed Forces Movement and other issues, but correctly attacked the 25th August unity accord and tried to intervene in the movement that was built up around it with policies aimed at a break with the bourgeoisie.

PRINCIPLE

For our part we will continue to intervene in the developing situation in Portugal on the basis of the principle of Trotsky’s Transitional Programme and aim to bring the problems facing the workers there before the working class movement internationally. It is only the basis for a struggle for the re-building of the Fourth International that it will be possible to develop the kind of leadership for which the situation in Portugal now cries out. For this we will have [...]