Army Split

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Workers' power or Chilean-style reaction? These are the stark choices now facing the working class of Portugal after a series of events last week in which rank and file soldiers showed their increasing independence from the officer corps, increasing identification with the working class and increasing strength and confidence.

The new Army Intervention Group whose establishment was announced on 26th. September is a clear response to the independence of the men, and an attempt to hold back the revolutionary process and assure the defence of capitalism.

The increasing move to the right of the Armed Forces Movement, particularly as shown in the policies of the new sixth Provisional Government has caused disquiet among the ordinary soldiers.

The new government includes those who have continually insisted that army discipline must be respected. The old slogan 'Soldiers always on the side of the people' began to wear somewhat thin when some of the superior officers were obvious acquiescence of the propertied classes. According to Avanzada Socialista, the weekly newspaper of the PST, about twenty other victims of murder gangs were reported during July and several persons, including some of their own comrades, had vanished without trace.

Government-sponsored terror by the right began in Argentina in the Spring of 1974, less than a year after Peron took office. Pressure from the working class in response to this and to the desperate economic situation led Peronist trade union leaders to call a general strike earlier this year, which forced Social Welfare Minister Lopez Rega out of office and ultimately out of the country.

• With the exile of this government official who was so closely connected with the most active murder gang, the AAA (Argentine ZAPU BETRAYS Union and National Union respectively) is generally attributed by bourgeois commentators to 'tribalism' , le as a reflection of the "backwardness' in the Atrican masses rather than having a political basis.

In fact, at that time there was a political difference in emphasis between Nkome who, although participating in the guerilla movement after UDI until 1970, wanted to place more reliance on bringing international governmental pressure (notably that of Britain), to bear on Smithe, as the main "weapon' in the Nationalist arsenal.

It was Kaunda of Zambia who forced the two movements to come together again under the umbrella of the ANC to conclude what he and Vorster of South Africa thought was going to be a quick solution as a quid pro quo to Vorsters putting pressure on Smith.

Kaunda has shown where he ress of Trafaria.

On arrival, the soldiers erected barricades and demanded the immediate release of their comrades. The commander of the fortress summoned parachute regiments and marines to enforce his refusal to do so.

This was a situation where the power of the working class in and out of uniform came to the fore. Workers from the nearby town of Almada got out of their beds and blocked the bridge over to the island. The marines never came in any case because they simply refused to obey the orders of their commanding officers.

Faced with this situation, the prison commander was forced to release the two imprisoned soldiers, who came out and addressed the crowd.

The possibilities opened up by such events as these are enormous.

Murdered: Adriana Zaldua

nticommunist Alliance), an end to • such killings was hoped for.

¡ut the assassinations have contined. The 8th September issue of lyanzada Socialista commented on he change of political climate ince May 1974, when a similar nassacre was followed by a massive vave of protest:

'For one thing, opposition [to the sovernment) of the bosses, who stands on the ANC split by refusing to let Sithole and Muzorewa (the official president of the ANC) hold a press conference in Zambia announcing their expulsion of Nkome.

Smith not unnaturally has exploited the growing divisions in the ANC to play for time. A secret Rhodesian Government document that got into the hands of the London 'Observer' makes Smith's intentions quite clear.

He seeks to 'divide and rule', by exploiting the differences between the nationalist groups while at the same time trying to foster a rightwing pro-government 'voice' among the tribal chiefs,, notoriously government stooges. The document concludes:

"We must not fall into the trap of offering, say, eventual black majority rule when by all our actions we clearly indicate that we have no intention provided of course we can devise some other way of granting him (the African)

the status that he seeks"

In other words, when Smith makes vague noises, as be did last week about 'erentual" bizct The ex-Trotskyists of the Workers Press who in their issue of 20th September declared that a Soviet Socialist Portugal was an "immediate" perspective seem not only to have forgotten the need to put forward any policies to achieve this end, but have also begun to send blind and deal reporters onto demonstrations.

They took a picture which appeared in their issue of 22nd September showing some of the WSL section of the march, carefully obscuring our banner which said clearly: PORTUGUESE WORKERS MUST BREAK FROM THE ARMED FORCES MOVEMENT.

The fight for such policies remains urgent and recent events have confirmed that they can be carried through. For our part, we will continue to put them forward in every possible working class forum.

Murdered: Lidia Agostini

at that time feared that the brutal methods of one wing of the government might be turned against them, now feel stronger and condone violence against the left and the labour movement"

[This should serve as a lesson for the advocates of Popular Front They also claim that adveatgovernment, sending waves of panic among the settler backwoodsmen of his Rhodesia Front party, his 'about turn' has to be seen in the context of the split in the nationalists and the fact that the government is making every effort to foster tribal nationalism and division among the different ethnic groups that make up the African population within the borders of Rhodesia.

For the African masses the real issue is not that in the long run Smith will not find some formula for a compromise, aided by Nkomo's willingness to setsout.

NO FORMULA The issue is that there can be 'acceptable formula' of compromise with a racist regime that no controls all the fertile agricultural land in the area and maintains the industrial resources under capitalist private ownership which in the context of the word economic crisis cannot develop them in any way for the benefit of the mass of ibe popelatios profits; today the ratio is $1.50 of outside finance to every $i of internal finance. Inflation and the slump are making it more difficult to supplement declining profits in this way. Industry by industry, the supplement tells the same story of "underinvestment and Overborrowing" '. The problem is magnified by the simultaneous soaring borrowed for state spending which rose from 7% of the national income in 1954 to nearly 12% last year.

Business Week warns that the "universal nature of the crisis" is "sobering" '. Its solution is "more savings" , achieved by less government spending, higher total taxes but lower taxes on capital (ie much higher taxes on workers). Behind this bland language lies a clear message: capitalism's need to launch merciless attacks on the working class. urist acts by guerrillas in the name of the left have led to confusion in wide sections of the population and made easier the task of those who try to dismiss fascist terrorism as merely sectarian violence. "Finally, reactionaries have created a climate of terror in La Plata, threatening the life of a socialist leader of workers at Petroquimica Sudamericana and spreading rumours about a planned «third batch" of murder victims".

The tragic events in Argentina point up the pressing need for armed workers' defence squads to protect the labour movement in a situation where the police can be trusted, it at all, only to assist right-wing attacks.

British workers must take heed of what could occur, even here, if fascist tendencies such as the National Front are not checked at every turn by the organised strength of the working class.

We salute the comrades in Argentina who gave their lives in the struggle for socialism, and call upon the working class movement to take up internationally the condemnation of their murder.

olution that is not a socialist one.

Vorster meanwhile continues to keep up his pressure on Smith to work towards a settlement with the nationalists. The fall in the price of gold, South Africa's principal export, makes it vital for South African capitalism to cap ture Black Africa as a market for its manufactured goods.

This is the basis behind Vorster's policy of detente towards the Black African states As part of this he is prepared to remove some of the more superficial aspects of apartheid in South Africa itself and at the same time pressure Smith.

The Portuguese withdrawal from Angola and Mozambique makes the whole notion of white racist states as "buffers' between South Africa and the north now outdated. Thus Vorster no longer has need of Smith and his regime on that score. He is more concerned to make diplomatic overtures to the FRELIMO government in Mozambique to secure the continuation of the supply of migrant labour to the South African mines.