[More strikes attacked by government and CP. Goncalves…]

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More strikes attacked by government and CP. Goncalves mays they will remain in NATO, and Spinola announces that the colonies will be given their independence, a process which takes another year and a half to complete. August. Anti-strike law passed by government including CP ministers. Various left wing papers prosecuted. September. Strikes by Lisnave shipworkers and TAP 27-28 September. Failure of Spinola to mobilise 'silent majority' in Lisbon, probably for a coup against the left-wing, as armed workers prevent demonstrators from 30 September. Resignation of Spinola and his replace1975. January. Discussion in the workers' movement and big demonstrations in their support. 30,000 workers 11 March. Another right-wing coup attempt defeated by left-wing soldiers and workers' mobilisation. Spinola exiled, and a new Military Revolutionary Council set up March. Banks taken over by workers. Fourth Provisional government set up, now including Soares again. 25 April. General election makes SP the largest party.

May. Workers take over Republica from its SP proprietor and crisis in the AFM with the development of indepenJuly. Radio Renascenca taken away from its Catholic proprietors by the workers. Also the telephone exchange, from which soldiers cannot get them out. August. Attacks on the CP throughout the country by the SP and the extreme right. CP forms alliance to defend itself and the Fifth Provisional government. The illiance includes members of the USFI who join a mass demonstration in Lisbon on 25 August aimed at defend29 August. Fifth Provisional government collapses, and the Sixth is set up under the 'moderate' Admiral November. Striking building workers beseige Parliament und force concessions. Further unrest in the army and the SUV (Soldiers United Will Win) movement surfaces 25 November. Alleged left-wing coup attempt. Some wild talk by ultra-left and desperation of CP used as an excuse for repressing democratic movements in the army und economic demands in the working class. 1976. January. AFM blame CP for the November coup und arrest Otelo. Republica handed back to share26 February. New pact between AFM and all the main political parties including the CP guarantees continued 17 June. Presidential elections vote in Eanes with 64%, apported by the SP and all right-wing political forces. Minority SP government then set up under Soares. september. Soares launches 'austerity' campaign as November. Anti-working class policies of Soares lead to truggles at SP congress where his opponents get large intes. Minister of Agriculture sacked for lack of enthus1977. 25 April. Third anniversary of coup celebrated Mass demonstration against the Azevedo government. with military parades, IMF loan, and talk of need for airline workers defy CP leaders.

assembling.

ment as President by Costa Gomes.

in Alentejo involved in farm take-overs.

by the AFM.

CP only get 12%.

dent action in the army. ing the government.

Azevedo.

ander rank and file soldiers. olders.

power of the military.

March. New wave of strikes. 25 April. General election 39% to 35%, but total vote above 50%.

mices rise and foreign reserves disappear. • ngorous response from the paTernment."

This position is exactly the same as the one the held during the UWC stoppage of 1974.

It is derived entirely from the Stalinist concept that British imperinlism can play a progressive role in But both this strike and the onc in 1974 merely highlight the fact that the British government is not going to dismantle or reform the Orange state which i itself established over 50 years 530.

The failure of the Catholic minority • to achieve Civi Rights during 1968-70 shows that there na be no solution to the Northern bebod problem within the framebork of the Northern Ireland state.

The third anniversary of the anti-fascist coup in Portugal was celebrated and order from right wing President Eanes and with calls for 'austerity' from reformist Prime Minister Soares.

In the days leading up to the anniversary, Soares went to Washington to plead for American participation in a $1,300 million loan to stave off Portugal's intense economic crisis, with an inflation rate last year of 27% and a balance of trade deficit of £1,100 million.

INCIDENT Soares and the SP leaders blew up a minor incident of fighting between CP. and SP members in a town called Salvanterra to denounce 'totalitarianism'.

Soares thus shows fall in SP vote from for workers parties remains Far from playing a progressive role the British government is the main prop and support of the Northern Ireland state, and has shown by its active collusion with Loyalist murder gangs that it is prepared to defend that state to the bitter end.

The Communist Party's demands in effect reduce themselves to the demand that the British government should cease to be imperialist!

The fundamental unity between imperialism and Loyalism was again revealed last week.

At the start of the strike, Roy Mason appealed, in the name of anti-IRA unity, to Paisley to call off his action.

And last Thursday, May S, Mason presented a five-point package of tougher anti-republican hoped bolster his anti-Communist and anti-working class image in the eyes of the American government and those sections of international finance capital whose support he is begging.

He told the Washington Press Club, an assembly not well known for the subtlety of its political analysis of such matters, that he objected to the Portuguese CP because it was 'Stalinist' , and that he supported NATO because it was needed to defend the 'free world' Soares got his money with these speeches, but he has not necessarily got the support of the working class.

Back in Lisbon just in time for the 25 April celebration, he saw the first major military parade in the capital since fascist times.

This showed the army has returned to the old ways of bourgeois discipline and must Continued From security measures to a deputation of power workers from the Ballylumford station.

How successful the strike will eventually be it is difficult to tell.

Compromire bill be facing namicica out-but such a compromise can be of no benefit whatsoever to either section of the working class in the north of Ireland.

Their interests can only be safeguarded by fighting for the removal of all traces of imperialism in Ireland and for the establishment of a workers' government in its place.

That struggle will only be successful if led by a revolutionary party fighting both in the North and the South on a socialist programme.

The construction of such a party is now the most pressing task facing the Irish workers.

have pleased the middle class. But thenumber of workers was small, and many more turned out on a demonstration on May Day supporting the left wing of the military including Otelo and even Costa Gomes, now seen in this light.

The SP used May Day to hold a big meeting of trade unionists in Oporto to denounce the 'totalitarian' CP who have managed to retain control of many important unions.

The bureaucratic tactics of the Stalinists may help Soares to denounce them as "totalitarians' and to say that the land take-overs in the south are only used to set up a CP empire'.

However, such pretexts will not allow Soares to attack forever the living standards of the Portuguese masses and the gains of their revolution without the beginning of a fight back.

But in England the task at hand is for trade unionists and Labour Party members to press forward with demands for the withdrawal of the imperialist army of occupation in Ireland.

This struggle is inseparable from the fight to break the reactionary Liberal-Labour coalition deal, and remove the right wing leadership of the Labour Party.

The demands must be levelled in particular at those "left' MPs who have in the past given verbal support to the call for Troops Out of Ireland, but who now troop obligingly into the Parliamentary lobbies to vote for the CallaghanSteel coalition.

Support for the struggle for self-determination of the Irish people is therefore part and parcel of the fight for principled leadership in the British workers' movement.

READY FOR In introducing his sweeping energy conservation proprogramme on television last month, US President Jimmy Carter made repeated appeals to the 'natrinticm" and 'colfsacrifice* or the DWEL people.

The effort to meet the energy shortage would be "the moral equivalent of war".

His choice of image was more than mere rhetoric: in the long term Carter very much has war on his mind.

The energy proposals are geared to making the US less vulnerable to changes in the price and availability of imported oil.

They would involve cutting the growth in energy consumption from 4.6% to 2% per year; reducing oil imports by 2 million barrels a day (about 25%); and massively increasing the production of coal and its importance as an energy source.

At the same time, Carter has boosted future profits of the oil giants by quietly agreeing to progressive relaxation of price controis.

Less in the news but just as important are plans for intensifying the development of conventional nuclear power stations that lie behind the ban on fuels for fastbreeder reactors.

These measures will, if carried out, give the US government a freer hand, both in waging the trade wars that the economic crisis puts on the agenda, and ultimately, in carrying out sustained military adventures.

Carter has so far acted continuously in respect of import There is now heavy pressure from business on restricting imports of steel and commodities such as colour television sets from Japan.

These demands are supported, even led, by right-wing bureaucrats such as George Meany of the AFL-CIO (nearest American equivalent to the TUC).

He has thus ordered an appeal of the recent US Customs Court decision to impose duties on Japanese electronic products to offset subsidies offered by the Japanese government to that country's manufacturers.

Although protectionist measures are bound to increase, Carter seems to prefer laying a firm groundwork while giving a measured response to "dumping"

Meanwhile he has also taken an important first step towards consolidating his grip as president by the passage of a "Reorganisation Act', which gives him sweeping powers to change the structure of government agencies, subject only to the retrospective veto of the Congress.

Carter's cry for patriotic self-sacrifice is also useful for diverting American workers from problems inflation and unemployment that beset them.

It comes at a time of mounting industrial action, including a major strike by dockers and the nea! rejection by steel workers of a new contract in the teeth of the union's leaders.

There is now a strong lobby for increased arms spending by groups such as the Committee the Present Danger, which recently produced a television film showing simulated Soviet attacks interspersed with speeches by Solzhenitsyn.

That group is largely financed by business interests, but one of founder members Kirkland, Secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO.

It was also as a result of AFL-CIO pressure that three Soviet 'trade unionists, invited to the longshoremen's union conference Seattle April were denied entry to the US So much for Carter's pious talk about freedom of travel!

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IRNATIONAL NEWSC Laemployment has particularly hit the industrial workers. Nation: alisation has neither protected them from redundancies NOF from inflation.

Instead it has meant simply a change of management, from the private capitalist to the extremely

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hom in campaign against farm takeovers. decrifice" and "discipline'.