with a retreat of the working class but with an advance of the mass movement. It is this upsurge which can limit the scope of the There is no doubt that there will be repression against the vanguard. Inside the army the left will be purged. The workercontrolled newspaper Republica must be gravely threatened. For the first time there may even be an attempt to repress some vanguard workers' struggles.
As yet, however, the mobilisation of the workers is too large, and the repressive forces of the army too small, for any direct attack Firstly, hundreds of thousands of workers daily feel the effects of the economic crisis. The Government still cannot repress them. A mobilisation around demands to safeguard the living conditions and employment of the workers can reunify the masses and begin to turn the tide against the Government. It is more construction workers and metal workers strikes, not new military adventures, which are needed Secondly, the repressive power of the state is still weak.
protected from the repression.
them.
condemned to the dustbin.
nacionalista (LCI)The Government does not dare tion of the Fourth International.
December 1975 tage inationals For the multinationals it was paradise subsistence wages and the PIDE secret police to crush any strikes. As the vast majority of the Portuguese people were impoverished there existed no internal market. Instead the firms imported raw materials and semi-finished goods, made them up, and then reexported them to the prosperous European markets.
Meanwhile the Portuguese economy stagnated. In the four years between 1967-71 only 18 per cent of the Portuguese gross domestic product was devoted to investment. Throughout this period capital flowed out of when we make something a good job of it!
tion.
Appeals like this in last week's Economist are likely to fall on stony ground-the multinationals want to the problems facing the Portuguese workers and peasants. Inflation has continued unabated since the fall of Catano. During June of this year prices rose by 3.12 per cent, while over the previous year food prices had increased by 28.3 per cent. Thus despite the wage increases that have been won - increas es that according to the Financial Times 'have sent shockwaves through the conservative upper echelons of the Portuguese banking and industrial world' - they have only been sufficient to keep up with the rate of inflaThe Sixth Provisional Government, to com plement its drive to reimpose "law and order", has put forward a wide-ranging plan of austerity measures to solve the crisis. This austerity programme includes the rationing of basic foods, price controls, the freezing of wage negotiations until after Christmas, and restrictions on the use of heat and lighting to cut Portugal's huge oil imports. The aim is to cut consumer spending by over £600 million and transfer these resources to industry.