Bob Labi (LPYS National Committee): Portugal – Workers Confront Capitalists

[Militant, issue 207, 24 May 1974, p. 3 and 6]

The strikes in Portugal are a clear sign that the working class will no longer tolerate a continuation of the old conditions. Their already low wages have been fast eroded by rapid inflation: 6% in February of this year alone.

200.000 textile workers threatened strike action for higher pay, Nurses in the Lisbon hospital laid plans for action to improve their 20 a month pay. More than 8,000 workers occupied one of the largest shipyards in the world:

“The Lisnave yard is Portugal’s biggest single employer and one of its most important industrial complexes. It has the reputation of being one of the best payers, but the workers are demanding rises amounting to 50% from about 80 a month to 120 as well as shorter hours and better working conditions”. (Times 17/5/74)

An Observer reporter (19/5/74) […] the great industrial districts across the Tagus … the average wage is 50 a month. Most of Barreiro’s industry, its shipping, forms the Mello family’s empire, hugely rich, formerly vastly influential. Its workers are on strike”.

Thus within a few weeks, the mass movement which swept away the old rotten fascist regime, now exposes cracks within the much heralded “national unity” of the Portuguese people.

This upsurge of militancy in the last few days demonstrates the incompatibility of interest between the big banking of industrial combines linked to the landlords, and the mass of workers and peasants.

If the workers‘ leaders had one tenth of the revolutionary spirit of the workers then the isolated and demoralised capitalists of Portugal could be pushed aside. A workers‘ Government with the support of the rank and file soldiers and sailors and the peasants and labourers from the countryside could be installed.

But instead the energies of the workers are being channeled behind the Provisional Government of Spinola. With three Socialist Ministers and two Communists. It is a “Popular Front” alliance between the workers‘ Parties and representatives of classes with fundamental and [?] opposing interests. Far from it being an advance in the direction of Socialism, as portrayed by the Morning Star, it is the only hope for the Portuguese capitalists.

They have calculated that, in the teeth of the storm provoked when the “Captain’s Movement” of younger officers overthrew the Caetano regime, to openly confront the movement of the workers would be impossible. It would further stoke the fires of revolution. The working class conscripts of the army and navy would be unreliable. They have had to turn to the leaders of the workers to hold the line for them.

“The industrial unrest will provide an important test for the Communists in the new Government. The Minister of Labour, Senhor Avelino Goncalves, is a Communist and it is now his responsibility to get the strikers back to work. If he succeeds it would enhance the reputation which the party is trying to establish for moderation and responsibility …

“The Communists have already achieved one significant success in helping to prevent a strike by steel workers which could have quickly brought the country to a halt”.

(Times 17/5/74)

In this situation the rosy picture presented by the Morning Star can only do disservice to the workers‘ movement. General Spinola, described by African insurgents as a “man of smiles and blood”, has been presented as the new saviour of the working class. Not a word of warning of the dangers ahead posed by such “allies” is printed in the journals of the CP.

On Friday 17 May, the day when the news of the strikes and occupations was widely reported in the British press, not one word of this appeared in the [Morning] Star. Only the appointment of the new Provisional Government, was reported and that without criticisms of its capitalist policies.

On the following day, a hint of what was happening and how it was approached by the Portuguese CP leaders appeared:

“Yet another task was the fight against right wing opportunism as well as the fight against leftism which expressed itself in impatience that does not take into account the relationship of forces in Portugal and which also expresses itself in divisive actions playing into the hands of reaction”.

(Morning Star 18/5/74).

Say what you mean! Behind the “Marxist” phrases is a clear attempt to hide the fact that the Communist and Socialist Party leaders are being used as fire hoses on the working class. They are the front-line strike-breakers in the interests of a spurious “class unity”.

The same tired old bogey of the danger of imminent reaction is brought out to justify their policy. But, if you take account of the relationship of forces, at the present time, it should be abundantly clear that the fascists have been shattered. The secret police and open collaborators of the old regime slink around fearful for their safety. The truth is that the forces of reaction, for the moment, have been isolated. The great mass of the rank and file soldiers and sailors are openly on the side of the workers.

It was not any collaboration with “liberal” capitalists, technocrats and army officiers, which swept the fascists away, but the bold movement of the masses, It is the very workers who are striking to insist on the removal of fascist managers and others who are the guarantee against reaction. Yet they are accused of “impatience”!

If ever there was a time when the working class could have quickly moved towards taking power, it was the last few weeks in Portugal!

The truth is the very opposite of the arguments of the [Morning] Star. It is its policies which will lead to demoralisation and the possibility of reaction regrouping its forces. Clashes between the workers and the capitalists are inevitable. If the Provisional Government is used to defend the interests of capitalism with the workers‘ leaders pushed into the firing line, then the inevitable betrayal of the initial hopes will lead to disillusionment and prepare the ground, in the long run, for a new movement of reaction.

A clear break with the capitalist Provisional Government and the independent mobilisation of the workers around clear socialist demands is the only way to sweep away the dangers of reaction!


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