WEEKLY 14 AUGUST 1975 No 112 The political situation in Portugal today is balanced on a knife edge. As reactionary crowds lay siege to Communist Party and left-wing headquarters in the north of the country, the pro-capitalist 'moderates' inside the armed forces are organising support for their plans to prevent the onward march of the Portuguese revolution.
What is dangerous in the Portuguese situation is that it is not merely a handful of reactionaries who have been mobilised in the virulent anti-communist campaign. The political splits have penetrated deeply into the ranks of the mass of Portuguese working people.
The main responsibility for this perilous situation lies with Mario Soares and his fellow leaders of the Socialist Party. After the downfall of fascism no openly pro-capitalist political party could gain a mass hearing. Only a party that dressed up its pro-capitalist policies in phony 'socialist' garb could gain the sort of popular support necessary to split the mass movement and serve the interests of capitalism.
GUARANTEES
That is exactly what Soares & Co. have done. Advocating the solution of Portugal's problems through closer ties with the capitalist Common Market and the making of whatever guarantees are necessary to ensure foreign investment, the Socialist Party leaders have allied themselves with outright reactionary forces-the Catholic bishops, former fascists and right wing thugs, and international imperialismto try and force the establishment of a Government that will carry out their policies. In this they have been loyally supported by international social democracy, including the leaders of the Labour Party.
But a substantial responsibility also lies with the leaders of the Portuguese Communist Party. After 25 April the leaders worked to hold back the mass movement and prevent it from developing the sort of independent organs of working class power that could have blocked the efforts of the Socialist Party leaders and the reactionaries to split the mass movement.
OPPORTUNISM
When it became clear that the mass movement was going to march ahead irrespective of what the Communist Party leaders did, they opportunistically put on a 'left' face in order to retain their hold over the masses. At the same time they adopted bureaucratic attitudes inside the trade unions and organs of local government, working to seize office through manoeuvre rather than by democratic political struggle, and a sectarian attitude towards the Socialist Party and their rank-and-file, trying to establish themselves with the leaders of the Armed Forces Movement as the 'official repPeoPle if the Destiniecd working neonle. This sort of Price 10p INSIDE -Background to the Portuguese crisis pages 2 & 3 Solidarity - page 12 Catholic nuns on a recent anti-Communis demonstration. These are some of the reac tionary forces that Soares and the Socialist Party have unleashed.