Scialist Ress Y Workers Reach for Power

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Who is to rule Portugal? That is the question posed by the w stage in the levelopment of dual power, which has followed the attempted right-wing coup of March 11th. It is an inmistakeable landmark in the development of the European As news of Spinola's bid to rerain power came over the radio. barricades went up in the working class Armed workers blocked the main roads into and out of the cities, searching cars for weapons, known right-wing politicians, army officers and fleeing capitalists. Over 100 were arrested. In many cases the road blocks continue as workers mop those who collaborated for years with the Caetano dictatorship.

Up and down the country the hundreds of organs of workers' power - occupation committees, rank-and-file soldiers' organisations and committees of poor farmers and tenants - rallied to oppose the coup. By its armed inter vention the Portuguese working class has shown that, far from trusting the Armed Forces Movement, it is reaching out towards seizing its own power.

The universal siogan of workers in Portuguese cities is "Death to Fascism!" A mass united front against the coup emerged. The Daily Telegraph reported:

*Bitter electoral bickering between Communists and Socialists was forgotten as party flags and banners mingled and supporters linked arms in the parade dow the Avenida de Libertad. Jeering slogans were directed against the Popular Democrats, the other civilian components of the Provisional Government, under constant attack from the extreme left."

In the immediate aftermath of the attempted coup has come a political shake-up of the two main classes. The lead was taken by the bank workers. They had een among the lew sections who letied the Caetano regime with strikes and other industrial action in the years before the overthrow of fascism on April 25th 1974.

On March 14th they marched 15,000 strong through the streets of Lisbon in support of the decision by the Provisional Governmer to nationalise Portugal's banking system WORKERS CONTROL This decision had come after banks had been taken over by workers, who had shut them down for three days, until their demands for workers' control were met. Following the announcement of nationalisation hastily prepared banners inscribed "People's Bank" were hoisted over elegant entran ces. Walls and windows were coyered with revolutionary slogans.

At the mass rally in the Lisbon Sports Palace following the march the bank workers started a nationa campaign to open the books of finance and industrial capital. From then on leaflets and leftwing papers have carried documented details of the export of huge sums abroad, of the restriction of credit to smaller employers, districts of Lisbon and Oporto. and farmers, of large sums paid to support the right-wing capitalist parties and the 'moderate' Popular Democratic party. Photocopied details of correspondence cheques, deals and statements have been published revealing the whole system and its corruption.

These exposures have gone on in wholesale defiance of the normal confidentiality of commercial and financial secrets. They reflect the fact that the government's 'nationalisation' of the banks was intended only to contain the real control that had already been established by the working class. What is required now is workers management of the banking system.

MANAGEMENT

The committees of workers ancany estonsea in control or the banks now must, under nationalisation become the direct management. This would give the vorking class control over the development of industry, and give protection (through cheap credit) to the poor farmers. This demand must also be linked to that of nationalisation of the lanc and of all major industry. The hostility of the capitalists workers' management was browght out clearly by the Financial Times saying: "The nationalisation decision was taken by the still unnamed Supreme Council of the Revolution in face of the workers' threats to keep the banks shut Lisbon, May Day 1974 or take over the administration themselves, Either way this would have rapidly brought the country to the brink of economic chaos. [Emphasis added] In other words, the nationalisat. ion of the banks under a state manager, (even if elected by workers) with the inviolability of private accounts secured, leave the banks under control of the capitalist state - which remains intact in Portugal.

Nationalisation under workers' management, with workers in control of accounts and the availability of finance, is something quite different - calling into immediate question the very existence of capitalism. It also lays a sound basis on which to begin, in conjunction with committees of workers control in other industries, for beginning to develop a national economic plan independent of capitalism.

The crushing of the right-wing coup has strengthened and expanded the organs of workers power in Portugal - but of themselves these cannot take the working class to power.

The demand must be to organise these committees of workers, soldiers and poor farmers, into workers councils or soviets. Thesi soviets must be brought together into a national organisation constituting a rival power to that of the capitalist state.

The groups of armed workers which have sprung up all over Portugal must be organised into a workers militia controlled by the workers councils with the trade unions. The army must be disbanded and replaced by the militia.

These are the crucial questions facing the Portuguese working class. Such demands can only be fought for by a party which clearly grasps the class nature of the present government and the need to fight now for a workers' government based firmly on the strength of the workers' cour cils. This party must be a revolutionary Trotskyist party as part of the Fourth International.

BATTLE This is in direct conflict with the perspective of the Communist Party and the Socialist Party who seek to direct the whole mov ment along the peaceful path of campaigning for the parliamentary elections in April.

The mass movement must not blind workers to the tough battle ahead. The capitalist class, though frightened and confused, is conscious of the dangers which face it, and is trying now to reorganise the state machine prior to election da! - April 12th. The Armed Forces Movement has reorganised itself into a so-called Revolutionary Council, purged of the elements most openly compromised by association with fascism. It includes also direct nominees of the Comm unist Party - controlled Portugues Democratic Movement.

Military power has been concentrated under the command of the nation-wide "security force COPCON (Continental Operational Command), drawn from those units regarded as loyal to the officer corps and the Armed Forces Movement. COPCON was set up last July when Spinola was still head of state, to provide a force immune from fraternisation between soldiers and workers. Such fraternisation has developed to the point where whole detachments refuse to act against demonstrations (as happened recently in Oporto and at Setubal, where workers broke up conferences of right-wing parties.) COPCON excludes regiments in which the private soldiers' committees wield real power, such as the Ist Light Artillery - nicknamed the Red Regiment' - whose barr acks at Sacaven were bombed in Spinola's attempted coup on March 11th.

NON ELECTED

Neither COPCON, nor the Arme Forces Movement itself, are electe or answerable in any way to the working class: Pretending to stand above the classes, they form the peak of a Bonapartist regime.

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