In the bourgeois camp, the major goal being pursued is to reestablish both a coherent, effective instrument of political authority and the initial elements of a functioning repressive apparatus. After the successive crises that have shaken it, especially the crises of March and July 1975, the original Movimento das Forcas Armadas (MFA-Armed Forces Movement) can no longer adequately play that role. Its authority has been sapped within both the bourgeoisie and proletariat. Its unity is broken. This means that it is unable to initiate a policy of systematic repression of the forms of mass self-organisation that are most advanced and, from the bourgeois standpoint, most dangerous: octaken over by COPCON. By the end of the night, the leadership of the CP itself was compelled to order the barricades to be abandoned because of the hostility with which its initaitive had been greeted by broad sectors or me working class not incunea to serve as foot-soldiers for the CP's manoeuvres aimed at preparing for the formation of the next government.
What is the explanation of what could appear to have been a crude adventurist error by the Communist party? The dominant factor is the CP leadership's desire to guarantee its preponderance within the MFA at any price. The CP prefers the unity of an MFA in which it holds a preponderant influence to the unitv in struggle of the working class, which, the CP leaders are now beginning to feel, could very quickly threaten their present control over the organised workers movement. The radicalisation of the Portuguese workers 1s beginning to have an effect on the CP, which is losing ground to the revolutionaries in some unions, workers commissions and tenants commissions. In the teachers union, for instance, the CP leadership was displaced by an MES list of independent far-left militants. In the woodworkers union in the Porto region (which includes several thousand workers), north of Lisbon and housing occupations; experiments in the creation of organs of workers self-defense; forms of democratic self organisation among the soldiers.
Under these conditions, the bourgeoisie has opted in an initial phase for the reconstruction of the bourgeois order through parliamentary legal channels, as was done in Germany in December 1918-January 1919 and in republican Spain during the period August 1936-April 1937. Such is the sense of the offensive of Mario Soares, who puts forward the Constituent Assembly in counter-position not to a non-existent military dictatorship, but instead (and explicitly) to 'anarchy' and the 'absence of government authority, which would lead to 'communist dictatorship' if it continued.
MANOEUVRE
The whole Portuguese and international bourgeoisie is supporting this manoeuvre. The support of the international bourgeoisie is particularly pronounced. The imperialist bourgeoisie of Europe is suspending the financial aid that had been promised to collapsing Portuguese capitalism. This suspension will remain in effect until governmental authority is reestablished, firm guarantees are provided that parliamentary democracy (that is, bourgeois democracy) will be consolidated, and the reestablishment of bourgeois order in the factories is assured.
These appeals are receiving a growing response within the MFA, not to mention the sections of the officer corps not affiliated to the MFA. Especially in the northern part of the the LCI (Portuguese sympathising organisation of the Fourth International) has won preponderant positions over the CP. In the CTT (the postal system), the insurance companies, and the banks of Lisbon, far-left lists have obtained percentages that sometimes border on majorities.
No longer satisfied simply to sit astride the combativity of the workers and people, the CP leadership wanted to give it a big 'leftist' crack of the whip that would get rid of the SP, at least until the MFA could finish the CP ISOLATED• The sole result of this typically bureaucratic adventure has been to isolate the CP in the workers movement between the SP on the right and the revolutionaries on the left. It is now indispensable to work-and fast -to reforge workers unity where it can be most effectively asserted: in the workers commissions, the tenants commissions, and the popular assemblies.
Nevertheless, behind these great manoeuvres orchestrated by the leaderships of the SP and the CP, the real target of which is the MFA, two demonstrations put the stamp of the future on these days of governmental crisis. The first took place in Lisbon on July 16. Called by the workers and tenants commissions of the capital, it assembled about 10,000 demonstrators, who marched under the slogans Against reaction, against capital: proletarian unity!" *Workers and peasants, soldiers and sailors, united we will win!'. and *Workers control, people's power!' SOLDIERS For the first time since April 25, hundreds of soldiers marched in the contingents of the demonstration. The soldiers of RALIS (the light artillery regiment of Lisbon) participated-complete with their tanks and armoured machine-gun carriers onto which hundreds of demonstrators carrying red flags quickly jumped. The soldiers of the RIOQ (the operational intervention regiment of Queluz), units of the military police, and other regiments of the city also turned out, raising their fists and singing the Internationale. ution is the division of the officer by a growing layer of soldiers and sailors that could be provoked by today kers of the big factories of Porto, leave themselves open to the manceuvres of the enemy. demonstrators-and in the midst SP meeting of 18 July. This time, partly in an attempt to coopt the the orientation of the CP (which of the independent bodies of the to put forward the outlines of an alternative policy in the crisis.
The presence Portuguese army. It is also a sign of the growing penetration of the movement by the independent examples of this all week long. assembly to discuss the situation. to the high level of radicalisation members of the MFA of course.
among officers.
temporarily, the tension of these wards bourgeois solutions, including drastic ones. The air force as a whole is controlled by similar forces. The big obstacle to a right-wing military solcorps and the rejection of discipline ary process.
such a move so long as the rise of the mass movement continues. That would lead to a crisis in which the bourgeois state apparatus would be even more weakened and powerless than it is In the camp of the proletariat, the radicalised and forward moving worLisbon, and elsewhere are continuing their pressure and initiatives toward independent mass self-organisation and self-defense. They are extending their attempts to politicise and link up with growing sectors of soldiers and sailors. But these workers are still a minority today; they remain politically confused and are often prone to AUTHORITY The Socialist Party has utilised the Republica incident to unleash an offensive aimed at the re-establishment of bourgeois order and authority in both the factories and the state, under the cover of the Constituent Assembly. right once again. The political confusion of a part of the workers vanguard and the sectarianism and Stalinist ideological tradition of the Communist Party have powerfully aided the SP in its offensive. But the internal logic of Soares's manoeuvre is beginning to accentuate the contradiction within the SP betof the crisis, a few hours before the the Intersindical endorsed the demonstration. This was done, of course, demonstration to the advantage of failed completely) but also because the leadership of the CP understood the potential danger if it held itself aloof from these initial street assemblies working class, which went beyond the limits of the neighborhood or factory of many soldiers in these demonstrations represents much more than the participation of the most radicalised regiments of the organisation of the working class in the barracks, especially important in a context of tension propitious for an attack by reaction. There were ASSEMBLY On Saturday night, July 19, in the SICA 1 (the tank regiment of Porto) the soldiers got together in a plenary Because of the reactionary and anticommunist machinations of the commandant, they decided to remove him from his post and elect someone else. Similar assemblies were held in the Lisbon area, among the RALIS and at the EPAME barracks. On each occasion, the discussions attested both among the soldiers and to the reactionary polarization of certain officers, The crisis, which reached its zenith on, Saturday night, July 19, revealer deep fissures in the army, especially Although it has now receded past few days has etched out a lesson that has been well learned by the revolutionary soldiers and officers. The decisive weight needed to crush reaction, which raised its head on July 18 and 19, will be found outside the military encampments and in the defense of the gains of the workers through ership and the elementary class consciousness of the rank-and-file, who favour workers control, workers commissions, and even the continuing and deepening of the revolutionThe CP has manifestly lost the pol- the appointment) of delegates in gen itical initiative. The violent anticommunist offensive of the bourgeo isie and the Social Democracy has shaken the CP and initially driven it somewhat to the left. But the logic of its strategic orientation, the interests of the Soviet bureaucracy, and its 'frontist' tradition are impelling it to increasingly regard the 'progressive' wing of the MFA as its only valuable ally and even as the only instrument through which it can carry out its political designs. A realignment of the political currents within the MFA thus threatens to push the CP to the In conditions like these, the road revolutionary Marxists must follow is clear. They must intensify their campaign for the creation, extension, coordination, and generalisation of democratic bodies of self-organisation of the workers, peasants, soldiers, and tenants. They must conclude agreeA united march by workers and soldiers in Lisbon demanded-' Against reaction, against capital: workers control, people's power!' independent workers organs of anticapitalist struggle. The assemblies of representative units of the soldier rank and file must ally with the workers commissions, the tenants conmissions and the people's assemblies if they are to prevent a part of the military hierarchy from doing their worst.
What is going on now is a real race against time. Workers power exerted through the workers National People's Assembly must manage to to engage in such a campaign. They must simultaneously put themselves forward as the political force in the Portuguese workers movement that most favors unity, waging a campaign for the workers united front, a campaign that condemns both the reactionary anticommunism of the Social Democratic and Maoist leaders and the criminal Stalinism of the CP leaders. The unity of the entire proletariat and of all the Portuguese toiling masses requires that pluralism of parties be the rule within the struc ture of workers councils that will direct the socialist revolution in Portugal; the independence of political parties and their right to an independent press and to access to the means of massive distribution must be strictly guaranteed; the election not eral assemblies must be assured, and these delegates must be recallable by the voters INDEPENDENCE The struggle for the class independence of the proletariat in a situation like the one that exists in Portugal today cannot at all be red uced to propaganda calling upon the leaders of the SP and the CP to break with the bourgeois ministers. It implies a struggle for a break with the bourgeoisie throughout all the structures of the collapsing state. The government of the workers organisations must be based only on the organs of self-representation of the masses the centralisation of which in a People's Assembly must be vigorously propagated and actively prepared take over from this defeated regime before the powerlessness of five proVisional governments gives rise to the usual reactionary push toward bourgeois 'law and order', in the absence of a working class organised to assert its determination to put an end to the permanent crisis. There is not a single day to lose in winning this battle. The fate of the Portuguese revolution is at stake, and with it the destiny of the European socialist revolution
The following is a text of a leaflet distri-