Soares lets

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Portugal has disappeared from the press headlines in recent months as the social crisis has abated. But this is not to say that the problems facing the working class have gone away or Portugal's political problems have yet been finally resolved by the capitalist class.

Amid much publicity and caretul manipulation during the summer, the right-wing General Eanes has been elected President and the minority Socialist Party government of Soares brought into power.

CAPITALIST

Soares presented his programme at the beginning of August as a capitalist politician calling for 'hard work and austerity' and the ending of strikes and occupations.

In an official visit to the Norther city of Oporto on 3rd September, President Eanes took up the same theme in attacking previous revolutionary actions and asserting that 'everyone must work' Yet the political problems have not been solved for the Portuguese bourgeoisie by such speeches. Although the Council of the Revolution, the military organisation which evolved after the original coup remains in existence, it is alleged to have handed over its powers to the elected Government.

But has it really done so in practice? When extreme right-winger Spinola returned from exile on 10th August Prime Minister Soares appeared on TV the same evening to deny any foreknowledge of it.

Yet he only had to read Le Monde the French newspaper on 24th July to see that Spinola's return was already in an advanced stage of negotiation. His two-day stay in prison on the small charge of having tried to organise a coup d'etat in March 1975 was obviously negotiated with somebody.

Similarly on 1st September, the Council of the Revolution issued a statement against 'provocation and violence' and "the pseudo-exercise of the right to meet' attacking in particular the numerous families throughout the country who are squatting in houses formerly empty or owned by the rich.

The venom expressed against 'the illegal seizure of goods and property' is thought to apply also to the main enterprises large and small which were taken over from their former masters by workers and peasants, mostly during 1975.

BALANCED

it is clear, therefore, that the military has no real intention of effectively handing over power. Nor has it done so. The Soares administration remains precariously balanced between the working class that voted for the Socialist Party and the forces that stand behind the reactionary army officers.

The political situation remains af a government without real power trying to balance between the Soares factions of the military, and a military caste still balancing itself between the contending social This delicate and unstable arrangement has manifested itself in the programme of the Soares administration which says it will allow the market economy but that the state must control the 'commanding heights.' These contradictions will only be solved by one of the main social classes taking power.

Either Spinola and his friends in the big bourgeoisie and international imperialism will take over, or the working class and peasantry will win. Ultimately there can be no middle way.

The need of the hour is to build a movement in the Portuguese working class to demand that the Socialist Party breaks from the military and its class collaborationist policies.

The nationalisation of the basic industries and the development of the revolutionary initiatives of occupations and workers' control must be part of its demands.

Such a movement in the working class will have to expose the criminal collaboration of the Stalinists of the Communist Party, who spoke of the 'positive aspects' in the Soares packet, and refused to vote against it in Parliament.

Eanes' working class and poor peasantry, or else be pushed aside to make way for those who will.

JOCKEYING

is for this reason that some of the most important political jockeying is still taking place within the armed forces.

Talk of differences between various political factions there filled the Portuguese papers at the end of August, with extreme right wing supporters of Spinola moving into a number of leading positions.

Some prominent Socialist Party deputies began to call for the abolition of the Council of the Revolution altogether.

The real question from the point of view of the working class is to bring about the ending of military control altogether, the election ot officers and the disbandment of the army in its present form.

The reactionary role of petty-bourgeois hero and former Presidential candidate Otelo de Carvahlo was made obvious when he joined the chorus of soldiers denying that there was any split within the military and asserting that all such talk was designed 'to upset democratic life and divide the armed PROP It is through such stater sents these that the power of the milit:

It is only one step more to the opinion of Eanes that there cannot be any repression now because the President is from the armed forces.

Behind the scenes, of course, efforts to consolidate the right wing go ahead. The arrival of Spinola symbolised this, but worse was to follow.

One of the demonstrations against his return, called by the LCI, one of the Portuguese sections the United Secretariat was banned by the authorities.

About 10,000 marched, however, on 13th August, under the auspices of the so-called 'National Commission of Popular Unity' , a pro-Carvahlo political body.

It has also been recently reported that large numbers of former members of PIDE, the secret police of the fascist dictatorship are being released to join in Spinola's conspiracies. It is said that only seven of those locked up in March 1974 after the original coup remain incarcerated.

ARRESTS

Early in August there was a wave of arrests of extreme rightwingers, including the mayor of a small town under the fascist regime, for being involved in a series of bomb explosions, including one during the election campaign when two people were killed at the Cuban embassy.

The chief of police in Oporto was implicated. With Spinola now back in business, this is clearly not the last we will hear from these quarters.