How the USFI failed the test of Portugal

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Portugal after April 1974 constituted the most acute and sustained social and economic crisis of the European bourgeoisie since the immediate post-war years.

It has thus been a severe test of all political currents claiming to be revolutionary socialist.

Every aspect of method and tactics has been on trial. How have these parties analysed the overall political situation and the major forces involved-the Armed Forces Movement, the Socialist Party, the Communist How did they adjust their tactics to fight for the independence of the working class through the Transitional Can these organisations and their international centres be held responsible for the fact that the pre-revolutionary crisis which opened in 1974 has not been marked by the growth of a mass Trotskyist party able to make a significant challenge for the leadership of the working class?

Overthrow

The coup of April 1974 ended 50 years of ruthless suppression of all democratic rights in Portugal.

The overthrow of the Catano regime was in an immediate sense the work of a gection of the armed forces. The consequence of these facts was that at the time of the antiCatano coup the mass organisations of the working class and their political parties were tiny.

Onty the Communist Party, which had maintained a clandestine organisation, had significant numbers of trained members.

The most organised political force in the country was the Armed Forces Movement (MFA). .

The initial test of Trotskyist intervention, therefore, was a correct assessment of these political forces-the CP and the MFA-and their relations with each other, and later of the strengthening Socialist Party.

The verbiage of the Portuguese CP was different from "has of mnet of the nthar mARs "11 CPs of Western Europe.

The Portuguese CP leadership, however, was to pursue a strategy of class-collaboration which was not qualitatively distinct from those practiced by all other Western European CPs.

Its tactics were different because of the differences in the objective political situation in The common feature of the counter revolutionary stance of all the Western European CPs is the forging of strategic political alliances with sections of the bourgeoisie.

The political form which this takes varies according to the forms of bourgeois rule itself and the relative strengths of the various sections of the bourgeoisie.

Thus in Italy, in the absence of any sizeable political layer between the CP and the main right-wing party of the bourgeoisie, the Italian CP proposes the bi-partisan 'historic compromise' with the Christian Democrats.

Indirect In France the CP approaches the question more indirectly by its popular frontist Union of the Left alliance with the large, intervening Socialist Party and the small 'dissident' bourgeois 1975 march calls for workers' councils parties.

In Spain the CP tried, unsuccessfully, to avoid the rebirth of large reformist party by proposing a broad alliance between the "democratic opposition' , in which it had hegemony up to 1977, and the 'reforming' Francoists.

In Portugal the destruction of the fascist state in April 1974 found the bourgeoisie without any mass civilian political organisation.

And the Socialist Party was then still Jittle more than a figment of Mario Soares' imagination.

• The Stalinists' route to class collaboration was therefore clear-an alliance with the 'progressive' sections. of the bourgeois armed forces, the MFA, and especially its left-talking elements.

What was the nature of the MFA?

It must be characterised as a bourgeois political formation, though one which showed itself increasingly split between the right, which aimed at full-scale counter revolution; an anticommunist centre which looked to a 'benevolent' bonapartism with perhaps the longer term aim to establish some sort of bourgeois democracy to head off the revolutionary potential and a left' whose aims were not much different from those of the centre but which saw the most effective way of securing them to be through an alliance with the CP, the only party, to begin with, in any position to control the working class.

What was the nature of the state in the period after April 1974?

The fascist/bonapartist dictatorship had been overthrown, though Spinolist forces still made two attempts to restore it (September 1974 and March 1975).

Dictatorship

In a formal sense what existed was a military dictatorship of the MFA, that is, a new form of bonapartism without fascist colouring.

The provisional governments were formally creations of the army and led by army personnel.

But the unqualified label 'military dictatorship' is insufficient to describe the nature of the state.

It leaves out of account the inability • of the regime to impose its rule uncontested. In other words, there existed in a few areas an embryonic dual power situation, though in general the organs of workers' power remained weak.

The formal nature of the state, nonetheless, concealed the fact that power in Portugal was increasingly in question. In the absence of strong political parties of the bourgeoisie, and with the military regime only able to impose a modicum of discipline with the help of the CP, this was without question a pre-revolutionary situation.

Organs of power

The main task which remained to be undertaken was the building of an alternative revolutionary leadership and the organs of workers' power.

This could have been done On a programme which contained the clearest possible opposition to the class collaboration of the CP and later of the Socialist Party as it grew in importance.

Such a programme would have contained not only a comDay Lisbon plete rejection of military government, but also the demand for the dissolution of the armed forces and the establishment of a workers' militia; at the same time the demand should have been made for completely free elections to a constituent assembly and the formation of a government of workers' organisations which would have been dominated by the CP and the SP.

Trotskyists should also have fought for the setting up of workers' councils (soviets) to coordinate the fight for the rights and conditions of workers and peasants and defend the gains which were made.

The workers' militias and the provisional government would be responsible to these councils which would be independent of the bourgeois state or army and would form the basis for the alternative state power to the bourgeois state.

Attack against the CP it the north, Some Maoists saw peteent uprising' against' social fascists Attack on CP headquarters In all the workers' organisations-workers' councils, trade unions, political parties, strike and occupation committeesTrotskyists should have fought for a programme of demands which expressed the independence and material needs of the secrets, work sharing without loss of pay, nationalisation without compensation of major industries and banks under workers' management: and in the agricultural sector for a full-scale land reform.

At the same time Trotskyists should have fought vigorously for democratic demandsfreedom • of expression for all workers' parties and organisations, democratic demands in the army and . within the workers' parties, and the rights of women, youth, homosexuals and other groups denied rights.

These democratic demands would in numerous instances have brought those fighting for them into conflict with the military government and its allies.

But the difference between the Trotskyist manner of presenting democratic demands and that of the reformist and other groups is that. these demands are never presented separately but as part of a programme which expresses the objective truth that, in the imperialist epoch, democratic demands can never be fully met except with the overthrow of bourgeois rule.

The capitalist system, even when as in Portugal in 1974 and 1975 it is compelled to grant certain freedoms, does not do so willingly, and will at an opportune moment withdraw. these freedoms.

Essence

This combination of democratic and transitional demands at all levels expressed the essence of the Trotskyist programme in the circumstances of It is a programme which fights tenaciously for every reform however meagre, to protect every gain however limited, but also places before the working class an uncompromising goal-the seizure of state power by the working class.

Within this programme there are numerous opportunities for common actions with other political forces in the working class, but there is no room for any compromise with the political representatives of the bourgeoisie.

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SOCLALIST PRESS, Wednesdas October 3, 1979 Page 7 whose post-war period has been straddled by a leadership which charactorised by profound polit- -for all its weaknesses and .-d. delicidal, intra Ine bulk OT the UStIs Congress. but their manitest ical disorientation ana a continuina caviae af infaminlato andi no sadung in sales Ruinun opportunist splits and fusions.

The fortheomina XIth World Congress of the USFI is however an important event. It offers Marxists the opportunity of assessing in more detail the stage of development of the political crisis which has characterised the USFI's existence since its formation in 1963.

Such an assessment is no easy task. Unlike the IC and the OCRFI, the USFI is the very opposite of a politically monolithic grouping consisting of sattelite "sections" • grouped fund a lauuna vasou parry • Anal hacar nortes Rather the USFI is a deliberately heterogeneous body, a consciously created hodgepodge of widely, varying positions, analysis and practice, thrown but While the revolutionary party must present an all-sided programme on the basis of which it can give a lead to all sections of the working class, there are two overriding principles which must govern , the programme of demands: the fight for the unity and the independence of the working class.

This fight for independence is threefoid: it involves the building of workers' organisa tions, both traditional mass organisations, especially trade unions, and soviet-type organs, it involves a fight for the organisational independence of the working class, including the fight for a government based on organisations of the working class without representatives of the bourgeoisie; and thirdly the fight for programmatic independence.

• The independence of the working class is continually threatened both by the bourgeoisie and by its agents in the leadership of the working class.

A successful application of the Transitional Programme, therefore, implies a fight mercilessly to expose and replace all sections of the existing purported leadership of the class.

The building of an alternative, revolutionary leadership can never be an easy task; but conditions in Portugal in 1974 and 1975 were more favourable to the construction of a revolutionary leadership than anywhere in Europe since 1950.

Bourgeois rule was suddenly weakened and its leading agents confused and divided. The masses were showing their readiness to struggle against the remnants of fascism and in defence of their interestsstruggles which rapidly brought them into successful clashes with capitalist property relations.

And the leadership of the main workers' parties was not yet so entrenched as in other Western European countries.

All the obstacles to the development of the revolution avisions-is aetıniteiy internacoraly waste tinnalhır hacar The USFI makes a virtue of the fact that within its ranks currents holding completely opposing political views on issues of programme and practice can exist side-by-sideeven when such differences on topics such as strategy and tactics in Portugal 1974-6, the Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea and the analysis of the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua reach a level where rival USFI factions find themselves potentially or actually on opposite sides of barricades, publicly Mannungnn tha lino ainntar nu eL - 8:- - i.1 L.. their own "comrades"

The USFI therefore is no fixed entity: it is a sum total of divergent factional currents which continually shitt and power through AFM.

in Portugal were insignificant compared with the question of Yet the USFI revealed its complete incapacity to understand things in this way.

The blame for the non-existence of a revolutionary leadership was placed precisely where it did not belong-on the working masses!

The view of the ex-IMT, epitomised by Mandel's 25 Theses, is well known-that the present period is characterized working class consciousness and But the SWP, too, despite its formal protestations, adopted the same approach in relation to Portugal. For instance, G. Foley wrote in Intercontinental Press:

"Capitalist rule was left hanging on a thread. Nothing held the masses back but their own illusions in the demagogy of the MFA and the reformist parties. Thus !!!!! in 1975, the problem of political leadership assumed a new acuteness.

We do not of course argue that illusions fin bourgeois democracy or in reformist and Stalinist leaders) do not exist in the working class.

But those illusions are not autonomous determinants of the class struggle; they are constantly created and replenished by the opportunistic words (and occasionally deeds) of the reformist and Stalinist leaders themselves.

And as soon as these leaders are unable to control the working class through building and rebuilding such illusions then they are prepared to go to any lengths of treachery to sabotage the revolutionary mobilisation of the working class.

Revolutionaries cannot begin with the assumption that the working class 'has the leadership it deserves'. In reality, as Trotsky said:

"Leadership is not at all a mere "reflection" of a class or the product of its own free creativeness. A leadership Is shaped in the process of clashes between the different classes or friction between the different layers within a given class. switch position in response to the surface developments in the class struggie.

UntenadIe

At its Tenth World Congress in 1974 the main factions were the Leninist Trotskyist Faction, politically supporting the formally "orthodox" • opportunist positions of the US Socialist Workers Party, and the International Majority Tendency, clinging on to the ultra-leftist and guerrillaist schemas of the USFI's European Secretariat.

But the untenable positions taken by both the LTF and the IMT during the Portuguese AVANTE and TnA eLi. LIG Angolan war led to a sharp realignment of forces which now shapes the coming XIth World TL. ...r.. Having once arisen, the leadership invariably rises above its class and thereby becomes predisposed to the pressure and influence of other classes." (The Class, the Party and the The staternent that the masses "have illusions" or are "dominated by their leadership" advances us no distance at all along the road of building a revolutionary leadership.

As Trotsky says in the article quoted above:

"One must understand exactly nothing in the sphere of the interrelationships between the class and the party, between the masses and the leaders, in order to repeat the hollow statement that the (Spanish) masses merely followed their leaders."

It is inevitable that blaming the masses for their leaders goes hand in glove with adaptation towards that leadership rather than policy for the independent mobilisation of the masses. Both main sections of the USFI adapted to Stalinist or reformist leaders.

: The question, however, is how can the existing leadership be exposed and overthrown?

To find a solution in practice to this question it is necessary to begin from an understanding that both reformist and Stalinist leaderships are thoroughly counter-revolutionary.

In that respect there is no qualitative difference between Stalinists and reformists even though their overal! tactics may differ and they may appear to be to the 'left' or 'right' of each other by turns.

We do not accept that, in Portugal or anywhere else, in the long run either the CP or the SP can be regarded as consistently to the 'left' or 'right of each other.

Given their unambiguous long-term objectives, the occasional adoption of left' positions by the CP or SP leaders must not be interpreted as a stage in their conversion under mass pressure to consistent socialism, but rather as a part of the unprincipled opportunism which is the characterisLatin American member sections and sympathising SeCIOns DrOKe WIn Ine Hne UI the CWD and tho 1 TF and lor by Nahuel Moreno's Argentinian PST. formed the "Bolshevik Tendency'.

The growing challenge from these forces, combined with the complete collapse in the credibility of the IMT's guerrillaist perspectives of 1969 and 1974, pressured both the European and SWP leaders into a hasty dissolution of factions and the formation of a new, "united" leadership prior to the Xith Omissions "It was this new majority leadership that drafted the five main documents tabled for the П--я el_'u Soares-tail-ended by SWP tic of both Stalinist and reformist leaders.

This analysis has little in common with that which we observe in Portugal (and elsewhere) of the USFI.

The former USFI majority (IMT), in the footsteps of Pablo, has consistently maintained a position that there is a potential difference between the Stalinist and social democratic leaders; in particular they cherish the illusion that the Stalinist leaders can adopt revolutionary positions-albeit in 'exceptional' circumstances and 'under pressure' from the masses.

The origins of this false analysis and its history in the Trotskyist movement are analysed in our document The Poisoned Well. In this analysis we will concentrate on its impact on the practice of the USFI.

Despite the internal 'dispute' in the USFI over Portugal, this pernicious view has not been the exclușive property of the USFI majority.

In summarizing the political situation in Portugal in 1975, G. Foley wrote:

"There was no revolutionary party that could force the CP to abandon the bureaucratic and sectarian "peoples power" schemes and induce it to fight together with the SP workers for the interests of the class as a whole."

The refusal of either wing of the USFI to characterise the crisis in Portugal, and throughout Western Europe, as one of the bankruptcy of the existing leadership of the working class was at the root of its failure to develop an independent revolutionary programme in Portugal, and led it in theory and in practice to tail ending the mass workers' parties.

The Transitional Programme, if correctly employed, is a programme of linked demands through which the Trotskyist party can expose before the masses the true nature of every section of its current leadership -'left' or 'right', Stalinist, reformist or centrist.

As a programme which expresses the objective unity of the working class, which-whatfailure to reconcile past political disagreements is demonstrated La.. like as oy me parturn or conspicuous dinlomatir nmiesinne and anDunidın CHAICCII naIo evasions in the documents.

The Bolshevik Tendencv has in the meantime declared itself a Faction dedicated to the removal of what it calls a 'Castroist current' and an "unprincipled bloc" at the head of the USFI and the restoration of "orthodox" Trotskyism.

The USFI leaders for their part have mounted vicious public attacks on the Simon Bolivar Brigade organised by parties of the Bolshevik Faction tor intervention in the Nicaraguan revolution.

Thade ateralos na da fau no da endorse the action of the FSLN leaders in expelling members of the Brigade from the country!

Increasingly the language used in these attacks that ever the existing state of the class struggle-presents a way forward representing the independence of the working class, the programme represents the alternative to adaptation to the existing leadership.

Neither main faction of the USFI avoided that adaptation in the case of Portugal.

From the side of the SWP (and also incidentally of the French OCI) this adaptation, especially in the crucial middle months. of 1975, was predominantly towards the Socialist At this time the SWP, along with the OCl, presented the Stalinists and centrists' 'campaign against the Socialist Party' as being the central question of the Portuguese revolution-and their criticism of the SP leadership was reduced to a formality with no cutting edge.

So in ICP G. Foley argued:. "While it remained no less reformist, no less pro-capitalist and thus unable to break with the MFA and move towards a workers' government, the embattled SP at this point did not rely on military saviours or bureaucratic positions.

"Nor did it appeal to the still unrepresentative and marginal 'people's committees' that so fitted in with what the ultra-leftists thought the masses should be or would be... The SP turned to the masses. And for this it came under a frenzied wave of demagogic attacks from the Communist Party which accused the Social Democrats of organising "fascist" marches ...

"What is certain is that the real vanguard of the Portuguese working class at the present time participated in the SP demonstrations. That proletarian vanguard is not to be found among the ultra-leftists who followed a shadow of "people's power" into isolation and even allowed themselves to be used by military demagogues as pawns in a campaign to rob the masses of their democratic rights.

"Nor were the most intelliSWP leader Barnes gent, class conscious and courageous sections of the proletariat with the Stalinist myrmidons who were mobilised to sing the praises of military rulers and help deny the majority of the working: class the right to demonstrate".

This approach to the SP was a wholesale adaptation to its leaders and its policies, and amounted to a wilful rejection of the method of the Transitional Programme.

It virtually erases all distinction between the working class and its leadership, the distinction which, above all else, it must be the purpose of Trotskyists to expand.

Instead Foley and the SWP emphasize the vertical divisions in the working class created and exploited by both Stalinist and reformist leaders alike.

So all supporters of the SP appropriate to a split rather than an internal debate on H Lant JASSAI A Inanas throat inde seen in the statements produced hv a nara "I aninict Tratskviet Tendency' which has also emer- •OT. .....

ged, with forces in a number of sections, pledged to "correct the errors"! of the existing USFI The USFI in short is a movement wracked by the most profound internal crisis and contradictions.

In assessing its development and its problems we can not only better grasp the political problems within it but also pinpoint central issues on which clarity is essential in the struggle to reconstruct the Fourth International as an authoritative international centre for the necessary Trotskyist world party of socialist revolution.

(leaders and rank and file) are distinguished in the SWP's eyes from all supporters of the CP and all the so-called 'ultra-left' (which presumably includes the IMT's supporters!)

Foley. writes that: 'Once it got the upper hand, the SP would prove to be no more democratic-minded than the CP. But at the decisive moment it led the masses in defending their rights and their right to decide what kind of government they wanted against a frenzied defence of totalitarian schemes by the MFA, the CP and deluded ultra-leftists."

It is ludicrous to say that the SP leaders were defending the "rights of the masses' or asserting the masses 'right to decide what kind of government they wanted"

By deepening the division between SP and CP rank and file members, the SP leaders were in fact guarding against being forced into a government of workers' parties.

They were also defending themselves against an attempt to outmanoeuvre them by the CP and its allies. In fighting that attempt, then, the SP was forced into an opportunistic limited mobilisation of the masses.

Coincidental

And they were in the case of the demonstrations of July 1975 coincidentally defending democratic rights. But behind such a coincidental defence of its right to self expression the SP leadership also drew in every element of reaction which remained in Portugal.

Although the SP leaders disowned the worst excesses of this wave of reaction (such as the beating up of CP members and the burning of CP headquarters) it is impossible to deny that their campaign encouraged these reactionary forces and did so consciously.

Trotskyists in these circumstances have defended the right of the SP to call demonstrations without harrassment and to be able to express its position in newspapers.

But that support should have been part of a programme which included support for both democratic and transitional demands rather than part of a method which, because it had no such firm foundation in the Transitional clutched empirically to whichever section of the existing leadership appeared to be most 'democratic' at any given moment.

Such a method could not have led to the building of an independent working class programme; it could only have led to the creation of illusions in a reactionary leadership.

These criticisms of the SWP's positions in 1975 do not imply that we support the very different positions taken by the IMT and summarised in the document 'In Defence of the Portuguese Revolution' by E. Mandel, P. Frank and L. Maitan.

This document, and the other positions of the IMT in Portugal, are as far away from the Transitional Programme as those of the SWP.

While the SWP saw the existing reformist leaders as the 'defenders of the rights of the masseś' , the IMT sought and thought they had found acceptable leaders' within the officer's corps of the bourgeois army!

Continued next week

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