major tasks facing the Portuguese workers' movement today? A. The main task facing the workers' and revolutionary movement today is the struggle for the generalisation and centransation or tne orcans or workers and popular power, leading to the establishment of a National Popular Assembly - the main organ of power through which the workers can realise the proletarian, socialist revolution.
This can only be done by organising armed workers detence against the armed awacks of tne reactionary bourgeois and fascist groups. This must be organised through the workers' own organs - the workers commissions, the neighbourhood commissions, and the popular assemblies.
This also makes it urgent to push ahead In developing unks with the commissions oT soldiers and sailors, and in generalising the emergence of these in every barracks. In this 1 must stress the importance of the SUV ('Soldiers United Will Win'). The SUV was set up precisely as a way to strenotnen nis sen-oroanisation oi the rank-and-file independently of the officers and the structures of the Armed Forced Movement.
But the achievement of these tasks depends on our ability to overcome the divisions when oresentiv exist insice ine working class. This is the great problem of the Portuguese revolution - it is the main obstacle to the development and centralisation or me orcans or populai Q. How does this appear in practice? A. ine centralisation or tnese organs is in wine wiin the asoirations or the more aovanced workers. But at the same time, certain parties are using these aspirations to impose a bureaucratic centralisation of those organs which they dominate.
For instance, the secretariat of the workers' commissions of the Lisbon industrial belt is controlled by the Communist Party; while the Movement of the SocialIst Let mes nas ooportunistically set up the TUV ('Workers United Will Win') in an errort to can in on the prestige acquired by the SUV. We think this is a grave error by the MES, because it simply responds to the CP's bureaucratic manoeuvres by adopting the same methWe are calling for - and we have just begun a Dia campaion for unis in a une organs of workers and popular power -a national conference of all these organs to discuss all these problems and adopt a clear perspective for the advance of the revolutionary process.
Q, What is the importance of the Revolutionary United Front (FUR) in this situation?
A. ine ron could potentiary play a very important role in developing a revolutionary alternative in the present situation. When it was set up it provided a real possibility of unifying the efforts ano une torces or citrerent oroanisations. giving an example of how organisations with different ideas and different programmes could work together in the development of the organs of popular power and in une strucere for tne davance or tne revolutiondry brocess.
The problem is that the FUR. because of the policies of some of its component organisation, has tended to remain a prisoner of the same sectarian conceptions, particularly in relation to the Socialist Party.
Q Could you say something about the specific problem of the Socialist diction is going to have bigger and bigger rebercussions. many memders are becom ing increasingly worried about this: already socialist Party members nave been attack ed in Braganza in the Azores; and even in Lisbon a bomb has been set off outside Aerial view of the 100,000 strong demonstration on Sunday 16 November against the Sixth Provisional Government called by the Communist Party-controlled workers' commissions in Lisbon.
some SP offices.
crete defensive actions against the fascist Torces.
Socialist workers, who can then see how serious the leadership of their party is in fighting the fascists.
Hodinst us we nave to oose very con That means appealing to the We cannot reach the workers who are still in une SP ignoring their party affiliations, as some groups in the FUR seem to uk. a sectanan dooroach to the SP will merely reinforce their 'party patriotism'. And without winning the majority of the workers who are still inside the Socialist Party for the struggl it will be impossible to achieve the prol etarian, socialist revorution Q. Against this policy of the united front, some groups in the FUR seem to have the perspective of an immed iate insurrection. How do they jus tify this?
A. These illusions about the possibility of an immediate insurrection - which pre dominate in the PRP (Revolutionary Partv of the Proletariat) and the MES - flow from the extreme decomposition of the state apparatus, especially in the military field. This creates the illusion that it is possible to take power now -ana not oniy to take bower our to doory a revolutionary programme, to win broad sections of the population to the revolutionary process, and so to maintain the revolutionary forces in power.
There is of course an amazing contra Section nere No one can seneve unar me FUR by itself could constitute a government of revolutionary unity, so these groups agree on the necessity of what they call a 'reformist component' - that is, the Communist Party.
In otner words, incredible as it may seem, they expect a reformist party to go along with them to take power, and form a government applying a revolutionary programme. Of course this has no sense - unless they really believe that the Cr has somehow changed its nature as a re formist party.
we think inis whole perspective is very dangerous, because it is a diversion from the main task of struggling for the generalisation and centralisation of the organs oT 9o sular Dower It is precisely because the workers are still insutticientiy organised in this way that it is impossible to talk yet about tak ing power. Yet these groups seem to think that it is possible to take power alongside mis retoris, component ane nen to decree popular power, rather than seeing une emercence or sooular power as mne outcome of a conscious struggle. Q. Don't these organisations also have an ambiguous attitude to the MFA 'lefts' like Carvalho?
A, The LCt is the only organisation in the FUR which has consistently fought for the self-organisation of the soldiers and sailors and against any illusions in relation to the MFA we sale mar in its soltical norsocial nature me wra was a bettv-oourceois movement, which as such reflected within it the contradictory pressures of all the main forces of society. So of course some sectors, some officers, were radicalised in relation to the struggles of the work ino class. but we a wavs saio. unnke some other organisations, that only advances in the self-organisation of the soldiers and sailors could ensure that this radicalisation came down firmly on the side of une working class We emphatically reject the concept of a special relationship with particular figures in the MFA, such as the PRP seems to have with Carvalho. No-one can torget nis manoeuvres tor an amanci with members of the 'Nine' during the summer. We think that to cultivate such a relationship is very dangerous; the self-organisation of the workers and soldiers must De me number one nonLy