Portugal Danger in Popular Front

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30 AUGUST The enormous demonstration of nearly 100,000 through the streets of Lisbon on Wednesday night showed the increasing strength and determination of the Portuguese working class. Groups of sailors, soldiers and many sections of workers expressed their desire for unity in action in defence of the gains they have made since the overthrow of fascism in April i 1974.

At the same time the great dangers that now face the Portuguese revolution were clearly revealed.

The Stalinists of the Communist Party dominated the slogans and banners of the march, and they cheered enthusiastically the now ousted Prime Minister, Vasco Goncalves when he addressed them at the end. For the CP the march was a question of rallying what forces they could behind the capitalist military government, in order to prevent any independent struggle for power by the working class.

The Stalinists have found new allies for these, their traditional policies. Outside the government building, Goncalves spoke of his great joy" at the construction of the new "popular unityfront? between "democratic' popular forces. And banners carried at the bead of the demonstration included sot simply those of the Stalinists themselves, but also those of other left organisations, such as the PRP (Revolutionary Proletarian Party, asociated with the British IS), and the so-called Trotskyists of the LCI (International Communist League, cac of the Portuguese sections of groups may claim about "tactical alliances against reaction" , their role in this situation was undoubtedly to give a left face to the counter-revolutionary alliance of classes designed to shore up the tottering rule of capitalism in It is important to stress that here in Portugal at the moment political currents of the "extreme left" exercise a considerable influence. The great danger is that so many of these centrist and nonAntunes revolutionary groups are giving their approval to a political liaison that ties the working class hand and foot to the capitalist state.

These developments take place against the background of continuing reactionary demonstrations in the North of the country: At Leira, about 75 miles north of here, two nights of rioting earlier this week left one dead and ten wounded. The offices of the LCI and Maoist groups were burned. Similar incidents will no doubt continue.

The main rioters have been poverty-stricken peasant smallholders whose desperate plight has been compounded recently by a 1L-1 hann to evolve a policy of long-term credit and guaranteed prices in the country-side. The fury of the small farmers has thus been directed against them. And active in the burnings and shootings have been small bands of fascist desperadoes. the fag-ends of the old regime.

It is not these forces that at this point present the main threat to the revolution (though at a later stage they might do). Here in Lisbon, in the other big towns Coimbra and Oporto, and in the South, where the big estates have been nationalised, the working class is pushing forward the revolutionary process.

Throughout Lisbon can be seen groups of houses occupied by workers whom soldiers have refused to evict. There are workers' committees of every sort to organise anything - from running a brewery to setting up a co-operative of taxi-drivers. Political discussion goes on around posters and manifestoes that bestrew the street corners. Packets of leaflets thrown from cars are eagerly picked up and read by workers who pass by.

The balancing of competing class interests and the main political decisions are still made within the Armed Forces Movement, which despite the elections earlier this year has in no way released its grip on state power. But no section of this faction-ridden body can act independently of the class forces in society as a whole. So while the Document of the Nine put forward by Melo Antunes attempted to work out a programme friendly to the Western capitalist powers, this policy (despite the views of the European press) did not win widespread support within the ranks of an army where every order is debated, and every statement from above suhiect to more or less formal army commander Carlos Fabaio to rally support last week within the army for a possible coup d'etat talled, because the officers even in The right-wing areas of the North could not guarantee the support of their men from mobilisation against the present government.

Fabiao It was in this confused situation that a group of COPCON officers produced a document that was to be a 'left-wing' reply to the policies of capitalist consolidation put forward by Melo Antunes. This document reflected the views of a group of middle-class soldiers who only recently adopted socialist slogans, and are utterly unable to conceive of the mobilisation of the working class in their support.

Naturally it xontained a number of points about the plight of smallholders in the North and the kind of policies needed to win them to the side of the revolution. It could thus provide the beleagured Stalinists with the base they needed to break away from their isolated position.

On August 20th there was a demonstration - supported only at the last moment by the CP - which ents that have been gathering around Antunes and the right wing policies of the Socialist Party leaders. It provided the CP with room for manoeuvre. Any efforts of Carvalho's associates at compromise between the different elements of the AFM were shattered. But at the same time the shaky position of the Bonapartist military Provisional government was yet again confirmed The Stalinists were therefore forced away from their earlier favoured policies of strike breaking and their efforts to control the apparatus of local government and the mass media. They began to put forward new policies aimed at defending their positions, their relationship with the AFM, and winning support in the masses. They even began to call strikes themselves - though only one, for half an hour, on August 14th.

The ultra-left reactionaries of the various Maoist sects, who command some following amongst sections of workers, actually opposed the strike call, and persuaded some white-collar unions not to carry out even this feeble united action against the dangers of counterThe final outcome of these efforts of the CP to present a left face in opposition to the attacks against them was the "united front against reaction" of 25th August. This agreement which was signed on the initiative of the left faction of the AFM, was an amalgam of Stalinist and centrist organisations in defence of the COPCON document. It set up a provisional secretariat to organise against reaction.

Besides the Stalinists, the Pabloites of the LCI and the syndicalists of the PRP, signatories included the centrists of the MES (left socialist movement) and LUAR (League of

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then the protestant worker turns to the Unionists as the real guardians nber 3rd, 1975 don the ceasefire and engage and hold the British army in the North.