Portugal Soares' Right Turn

Scan page 2

A captured member of the secret police is dragged off after the fall of fascism: now laws against these So gains have resist:

Th guese most have While the British Labour of sacrifice by the working class, Portugal's 'socialist' administration, faced by the same world economic crisis, is also involved in systematically taking back all the gains made by Portuguese workers in the short intense phase of revolutionary struggle since the overthrow of fascism two and a half years ago.

"SCROUNGERS"

In his TV address to the nation on 9th September, the Prime Scares, (echoing his British couaterparts) attacked 'scroungers' and 'lawbreakers' and even the "new forms of oppression' in the workers organised take-overs of Portuguese farms and empty houses.

Indeed on Friday 1st October, the government announced a whole series of measures against 'social security frauds' , including special inspectors and prosecution 'dishonest' doctors - policies guaranteed to gladden the heart of every banker and reactionary.

The speech of Soares and the actions that followed it have not just been devoted to the small beer of reactionary propaganda.

It has been followed by a campaign initiated on 27th September to hand back "illegally occupied" land, especially in the Alentejo region, to the former owners.

On 22nd September, Soares had announced that:

"We must obtain respect for "We must obtain respect for the law, even if necessary by force." even if necessary by force."

NO RESISTANCE far, the pushing back of these by the agricultural workers not met with any serious ince. e bureaucrats of the PortuCommunist Party, who lead of the workers involved, shown the same respect for The conditions are rapidly maturing in Spain for decisive clashes between the ruling fascists and the working class.

A series of events have shown that preparations are being made by the fascists for such a • conirontation.

First, the assassination, by members of the Euskadi (Basque) nationalist organisation ETA, of a member of the powerful Council of the Realm brought the extreme scabs declared "unconstitutional".

Below: Soares. law as the social democrats and advised the workers to operate within the norms of "legality' established by the government and the military.

In any case, many of the landowners will not want to farm the land any more now that wages have gone above subsistence level - they may well be content with renting Flat lies behind these government policies is the need I for Portuguese capitalism to bring into line all parts of the Portuguese working class, including the powerful industrial sector who have still not been confronted.

POSTPONED

Soares long-awaited TV speech on 9th september was postponed -allegedly because he had a 'minor indisposition' - but almost certainly, it is said, because the military leaders, particularly President Eanes, did not think his attacks on the working class were severe enough.

Like Callaghan and Healey, Soares talks of 'a nation living beyond its means' , and of the need for 'an export drive' He faces pressure not simply from international bankers, but also from the military who retain the effective power, who continue to release right wing political prisoners to organise the return of landowners and to create an atmosphere where neo-fascist political groups are allowed to grow.

"UNCONSTITUTIONAL"

On October 2nd this was assisted by a court ruling that a law passed against former members of the fascist secret police was unconstitutional' - leaving them to scot free to new right-wing scot LICW activities.

But Soares also faces a strong and undefeated working class, and one that has tasted the fruits of recent revolutionary struggle.

On October 12th for example, several thousand workers in Lisbon took to the streets, protesting about reactionary education "reforms" introduced by Socialist Party Education Minister Cardia. This march - the biggest for several months, indicates the solid resistence to Soares' right-wing policies within the workers' movement.

The savage massacre of students and left-wingers in Bangkok on October 6th followed a few hours later by a CIA-backed military takeThailand.

The pretext of the coup's leader - Admiral and Defence Minister Sangad Chaloryoo - that the students were guilty of. 'antimonarchist' agitation - can in no way disguise its real reasons.

GUERILLAS

Throughout South East Asia the puppet dictatorships of US imperialism have been shaken by the trapbodia and taos in the spring of 1975, and they are more and more threatened by guerilla and left-wing opposition, especially in the countryside.

In Thailand, the 'Parliamentary' regime of Pramoj, the latest of several unstable cabinets since the Thanom dictatorship was removed in 1973, was unable to impose the repression the officers and their US backers were demanding.

Nor could they resist the demands for the complete withdrawal of US troops from the country - scheduled for earlier this year.

----- pull-quotes -----

Government is daily attacking the gains made in generations

land, even to "collective farms' REASON

over, put an end to the three- year facade of 'democracy' in