Introduction

[b]Introduction[/b]
This is an uncooked slice of history. It is the story of what happened in Portugal between April 25, 1974 and November 25, 1975 - as seen and felt by a deeply committed participant. It depicts the hopes, the tremendous enthusiasm, the boundless energy, the total commitment, the released power, even the revolutionary innocence of thousands of ordinary people taking a hand in the remoulding of their lives. And It does so against the background of an economic and social reality which placed limits on what could be done. This tension dominates the whole narrative.

Phil's book is not only a perceptive account of real events. It is an attempt at a new type of historiography. The official statements of the MFA and of the political parties, and the pronouncements of politicians, are relegated to appendices. The text proper explodes with life, the life of people seeking - in many contradictory ways - to write a chapter of their own history.

Characters and events literally hustle one another off the pages. Images remain, pell-mell, like an afterglow. The intoxication and euphoria of the first few weeks. Politics in the first person. The crowds in the streets. Civilians clambering over tanks and armoured cars. The atmosphere of the great days: May Day and September 28, 1974; March 11, 1975. Strikes and occupations. The declarations of people in bitter struggle which, in their concern for fundamentals, seemed to echo the thunder of the Communist Manifesto. Lisbon dockers, talking of a "total remodelling of society", of a struggle which would have to be waged "outside the unions", given the total involvement of such bodies in the iniquities of the previous regime. The sheer poetry of some landholders documents, asking what will happen "now the sowing time is over and the olives have been picked". The tenants' committees. The non-manipulable struggle of those at the very bottom of the social ladder, the shanty town dwellers, for whom nobody had the audacity to claim he was speaking. Taxi drivers wanting the Institute for the Reorganization of Agriculture to take over ... their taxis. The Revolution creating its own surrealist precedents. The Second Congress of Councils, in the Technological Institute in Lisbon, complete with latter-day Leninists dreaming of Smolny and Putilov, amid the paraphernalia of modern television. Revolutionary tourists and their hang-ups. Soldiers inviting civilians into the RASP barracks for a week-long festival, sing-song and orgy ... of political discussion. The seemingly endless birth-pangs which only produced a still-born infant. The surfeit of revolutionary rhetoric and the return to reality. The problems and anxieties, the achievements and the failures. The joy and the sadness. The longings and the frustrations. And, throughout, the concern (in the words of Spinoza) "neither to laugh nor to weep, but to understand".

Why did the revolutionary process not develop further in Portugal? A meaningful social revolution comes about when a large number of people seek a total change in the conditions of their existence. Massive pressures had certainly built up within Salazarist Portugal. But the aims of those opposed to the old society were disparate. For varying reasons different groups wanted an end to the colonial wars, to the futility and frustrations of a long period of compulsory military service, to the censorship,and to the ubiquity of the hated PIDE. The consensus,however, hardly went any further.

Beyond this the paths diverged. The forward-looking section of the Portuguese bourgeoisie had one objective - a liberal capitalist society, in which they would accumulate wealth in a "civilised" manner. "Anti-fascism" was the ideal cover for a crying need to modernist the bourgeois state. A liberal capitalist society provided a freer framework for the important business of making money. The "trouble" was that the working class too had aims of its own, less explicitly formulated perhaps, but in conflict with the above. Its very conditions of existence compelled it to struggle. The objectives of the PCP and of the various left groups amounted to various forms of state capitalism. At every stage their actions sought to canalise popular discontent into channels which enhanced either the power of the state, or the power of the political parties themselves. They manipulated the social disaffection to achieve a society in which they themselves would wield political power as the "legitimate representatives of the illiterate masses". This was the reality, perceived or not, behind all their rhetoric.

The working class, concentrated in the great conurbations of Lisbon, Setûbal and Porto, of Braga and Aveiro - but numerically weak and scattered elsewhere - met both successes and reverses in gaining specific objectives of its own. Initially, in the strike movement that preceded April 25th (and was to gain such impetus after that date) the working class succeeded for a while in imposing a certain redistribution in its own favour of the total social product. It created autonomous organizations, the Workers' Committees (CTs) and Federations of CTs (like Inter-Empresas). But no amount of wishful thinking - or of Bolshevik bravado - could circumvent the hard facts of social geography. There were vast areas of the country where a smallholding peasantry, intensely property-conscious, exerted an enormous weight. There spiritual, was the legacy of intimidation, temporal an by policemen and priests. And there were other facts of equal relevance. A social revolution is not just a reflex respsonse to the iniquities and oppressions of an existing order. Such responses may bring a society crashing to its knees. They do not ensure that it is replaced by one that is qualitatively different. Such an outcome requires a vision, shared by a substantial number of people of a totally different way of life.

Did the working class of Portugal - or any substantial part of it - have such a vision? Who knows? There were certainly attempts to reduce wage differentials, to elaborate a pattern of distribution that would bypass traditional market mechanisms, to break down the barriers between intellectual and manual labour, to produce and live together according to different norms. But these were, more often than not, empirical adaptations to specific circumstances: the need to raise the miserable living standards of Cabo Verdian building workers, to dispose of the products of some self-managed factory, to solve practical problems in some shanty town, or to administer some seized latifundio. More fundamental social objectives, such as the abolition of hierarchy, of wage labour and of commodity production were never really on the historical agenda.

The proletariat, both urban and rural, was one of the driving forces of the Portuguese upheaval. Of this, there can be no doubt. But its forward surge, in the months after April 1974, was eventually broken. Piecemeal ,the ruling class succeeded in re-establishing their order, their discipline, their ownership of land, houses and plant, and - through a fine admixture of coercion and co-operation - the productivity of "their" workers.

The working class advance was broken by a combination of factors of significance to all concerned ln the dynamics of revolution. Firstly, the upsurge did not take place in an economic or geographical vacuum. Portugal could not be isolated from the world market. It is a "poor" country. Large areas of its production are geared to world demand and it has to import many of its finished goods. None of the fundamental problems could be solved in the Portuguese arena alone. Portuguese capitalism was but a link in a vast international network : the onslaught against it was doomed to failure if confined to Portugal. The workers of Portugal remained isolated, deprived of their natural allies. During the crucial months the Spanish tinder failed to ignite.

Within this general context of economic dependence and revolutionary isolation there were many specific difficulties. There was fear, induced by realities of unemployment (some of it deliberately engineered by Portuguese capitalists). During 1974-75 some 10% of the working population was constantly out of work. Life was hard. After some initial gains wages were more or less frozen - throughout a period of intense inflation (up to 18% per annum). The gross national product fell by some 24%. There was then the painful awakening from certain illusions, the illusion for instance that the working class had "allies", as distinct from people who were prepared to "ride it" (as one would a horse) to (the "revolution". The relevant implications began to dawn, namely that the workers could not leave it to others (such as (progressive' officers or student radicals) to solve their problems for them. They began taking the appropriate measure: the creation of autonomous organizations controlled from below. But then the old enemy reappeared in a new garb. Those who used words with the same case as the peasant his scythe or the,, bricklayer his trowel began to organist, to dominate, to manipulate the plenarios. There was a massive retreat from political activity, in disgust at the behaviour of the leftist sects. There was the feeling of despair and impotence in relation to the enormity of the tasks to be solved. The Portuguese working class proved unable - at this moment in time - of further developing the autonomous forms of organization needed, were they even to hold what had been gained. The leninist groups. here bear a tremendous, almost a historic responsibility. Instead of helping to develop and consolidate the new creations of the class, they did all in their power to make the movement conform to textbook models. They talked learnedly of Kerensky and Kornilov when people needed confidence in their own ability to organise textile prodeuctlon to process and distribute the season s cork , to find storage facilities for rural profuce being sent directly to the towns. Their concerns were not felt to be genuine, and their relationship to the real movement was never sensed to be an honest one. For example those who spoke loudest about "arming the people" in fact ensured that available weapons went to their own particular groups. They identified themselves with the proletariat, but the proletariat refused to return the compliment.

Yet, when all is said and done, one further fact remains, enormous in its implications. In April 1975 the Portuguese people voted for the Constituent Assembly. A year later they elected an Assembly of. the Republic. Even the smallest political groups participated (see Appendix 25), their message stridently proclaimed from every wall and roof top . As far as political propaganda and access to the media are concerned these were the two "freest" years in Portuguese history. The apparatus of repression was largely in disarray. The electoral campaigns were possibly more vigorous and more sustained, more varied and more vitriolic than at any other time, in any other bourgeois democracy. Parties legally put up posters advocating armed insurrection. In June 1976 a President was elected : Eanes, the law-and- order candidate, campaigning against "states within the state", polled over 60% of the vote.

It is too easy to attribute this event solely to the factors we have mentioned, important though they be.The vote also represented a yearning for stability, for a breathing space, for a predictable pattern to everyday life, for the easier option of delegated authority. It was a repudiation, hopefully temporary, of the din of discussion, of the pressure to participate, of the stress of responsibility, of the fatigue and frustration of an involvement that seemed to lead nowhere. It was the personal price one paid to escape the demand for permanent self-mobilisation, a demand dictated by the state of permanent stalemate in the political and social arena outside. It is a new pattern of bourgeois recuperation. Realists will recognise it as a hallmark of the vastness of the task ahead.

Several lessons can be drawn from the Portuguese experience, lessons which transcend the frontiers of Portugal. The foremost, I think, is that in future upheavals the traditions revolutionaries will prove part of the problem not part of the solution.The Portuguese events bring irrefutable testimony to this assertion. Past revolutions faced two main dangers. They could be annihilated by those whose privileges they threatened (Paris, 1871;Germany, 1918-1919 ; Spain, 1936; ;Hungary, 1956). Or they could be destroyed from within, through bureaucratic degeneration (as happened to the Russian Revolution of 1917). A third alarming risk now looms on the horizon. It is the risk of genuinely radical upheavals being deviated into state capitalist channels. It is the danger that any new creation (in the realm of ideas, relationships or institutions) will immediatly be pounced upon, penetrated, colonized, manipulated - and ultimately deformed - by hordes of power-hungry "professional revolutionaries", midwives of state capitalism, and all the more dangerous because draped in the red flag.

These people bring with them attitudes and patterns deeply (if not always consciously) moulded of behaviour by Lenin's notion that the workers, left to themselves, "can only develop a trade union consciousness". Their current organization practices and their prescriptions for the future are bureaucratic to the core. Because of all the extraneous matter they drag in their historical wake and seek to inject into live situations (like some flies their larvae into living flesh) these "professional revolutionaries" (Stalinists, Maoists, Trotskyists and Leninists of various kinds) succeed, between them, in polluting the very concept of independent political action.. , Their preoccupation with leadership destroys initiative. Their concern for the correct line discourages experiment. Their obsession with the past is a blight on the future. They create around themselves a wasteland of cynicism and disgust, of smashed hopes and disillusion that buttresses the deepest dogma of bourgeois society, namely that ordinary people are incapable of solving their own problems, by themselves and for themselves. Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho was wrong when he endorsed the anarchist jest that cozido (a local dish of boiled meats and potatoes) was the only specifically Portuguese thing to be had. There was more. The Portuguese upheaval of 1974-75 coined a new word for the political lexicon, an adjective that denoted an aspiration: the word "apartidario" The literal translation is "non-party". But the term reflects the longing for genuine autonomy in struggle, for an activity that is not manipulated by some cupula (political clique) or other.

Another lesson, intimately linked to the first, concerns the role of the MFA. People had many illusions about the MFA, illusions which were to be rudely shattered on November 25 , 1975 . The left not only did nothing to dispel these illusions, it in fact constantly reinforced them. The army is a fundamental pillar of class rule and it is dangerous nonsense to believe that it can somehow be transformed into something else, into an instrument of social change for instance. To believe that this can be brought about through gaining the leadership of certain regiments, or through the creation of rank-and- file committees in certain battalions is positively suicidal. In Portugal, the "putschist and militarist conception of the social revolution'' was to have dire consequences for the working class.

Leninist groups are permeated through and through with jacobin (i.e. bourgeois) notions concerning the conquest of power. The citizen armies of the French Revolution may have toppled the old feudal structures, enabling the bourgeoisie to assume political power and the bourgeois mode of production (which existed before the revolution and was capable of autonomous development) to gain unfettered ascendancy. But they specialist revolution is something very different. The working class does not already have its own mode of production operating within bourgeois society. The revolution will be a protracted process of conscious social creation. Its concerns are as much the capture of the hearts and minds of ordinary people and the discarding of outmoded beliefs as the capture of some Winter Palace or the deposition of some feudal monarch. It neither begins nor ends with the military question. This is not to say that the ruling classes will peacefully surrender what they have. But this is another question.

The leninist groups in Portugal, given their views, failed to conduct any systematic propaganda against the MFA as such. They failed to denounce the totally mystifying concept of the "alliance" between the MFA and "the people". They equated political power with military power in the crudest possible way. Elements of the Portuguese experience fed this disastrous identification. After April 25th there was certainly an overlap between military and political apparatus. Moreover the lessening of autonomous working class action - an ebb-tide to which the leninists had signally contributed - created an atmosphere in which their substitutionary attitudes could further flourish. The "revolutionaries" placed their faith - and even what cadres they could - in COPCON. They boastewd with a wink, of their contacts in the upper echelons of this body. In their hands the social struggle became reduced to a question of intrigues, of tactical alliances and manoeuvred: of giving critical support to one lot of officers against another, to one military clique against another.Groups on the extreme left' described the MFA as the "guarontor of the Revolution". In the words of Cohn-Bendit ''they spoke of power just like everyone else does. There was nothing emptier than their description of it ... They don't ask what does the conquest of social power mean? No, they don 't go beyond the question of centralized, politico-military power ". Social power was something more difficult to grasp, and far more difficult to achieve; "It was the reality of work relations, with hierarchy, In people's heads".

The debacle of November 25 (described with feeling and wit in Phil's narrative) left a trail of confusion and disarray. If anything is to be learned from it we must speak bluntly: To accept the primacy of the Army (i.e. of an institution moulded by capitalism and permeated by capitalist values) in the Portuguese situation was doubly nefarious. It fostered reliance on others, which was bad enough. But more specifically it fostered reliance on a body which, when the crunch came, would turn out to be on the otbcr side. Constantly to emphasize the preponderant role of the Army was tantamount to injecting deeply bourgeois ideas (submission to leaders, the centralization of power into very few hands, the abdication of the right to determine objectives or to participate in decision-making) into what was undoubtedly a movement for social change. The damage proved incalculable. Strange partners peddled this mystification. The PCP did all in its power to boost the MFA as a "guarantor of democracy". It proclaimed that 2no country, not even the oldest democratic countries, allows open calls to desertion and agitation in the armed forces". It exerted pressure on deserters and those avoiding call-up "to do their military service, like all other young Portuguese". Meanwhile the leftist groups, with their "contacts" and "areas of influence" in the middle echelons of the MFA, covered up for the early strike- breaking role of the Army.

Some people still talk about "portuguese particularism", about the 2specificity of the Portuguese situation", about Portugal being "different". They still described the MFA as having been "the motor of the revolution". To do this they stress the role of the Unit Assemblies (ADUS) and of rank-and-file organizations such as SUV (Soldiers United Will Win). This mythology must be exploded before it gains a foothold.

The ADUS were created from above, in 1974, as 'structures for rank-and-file participation'. They were to be based on a new 'revolutionary' discipline, "agreed and not imposed", and on a "hierarchy of aptitudes". Their concerns, however, never extended beyond the walls of the barracks. Their real implantation. varied from region to region. The role of the MFA officers remained preponderant within them. Communication between ADUS remained in the hands of such officers. Even at a General Assembly of one of the 'red' regiments of the Lisbon area, in December 1974, it was stressed that the function of the assembly was 'consultative, a function of education and information'. The Fifth Division, in which there was deep PCP penetration, did all it could to promote the ADUS. Its influence within the MFA reached its peak at the time of the Fifth Provisional Government of Vasco Gonçalves. But this influence (which sought to make of the Fifth Division a political education centre for the Armed Forces as a whole) was not associated with any real shift of power towards the base. Attempts to increase the area of authority of the ADUS provoked an indignant statement by the Cabinet for the Dynamisation of the Army (linked to the Fifth Division). 'The ADU's', it was stressed, "are organs for advising and supporting the Command ... In no way do the question the authority of the Command in the realm of decisions".

At this point a 'left' critique of the military policies of the PCP had gained a certain hearing. It originated around officers close to the PRP (and to COPCON) who saw in the way the PCP was alienating support an opening for their own implantation into the military apparatus, and hence into the apparatus of the state. This tendency sought a base in the social movement outside the army. The COPCON documents of early summer 1975 reflect these aspirations.

But the virtual eviction of the PCP from the government a few weeks later (and the victory of 'the Nine' over the Gonçalvists in the military apparatus) were to lead to a PCP volte-face. It began endorsing the "radical" COPCON proposals it had previously denounced. At last, some leftists saw a chance to consumate the lust of a lifetime, to have a united front with the PCP. It was against this background that the semi-clandestine SUV groups began to emerge, "real" rank-and-file groups, "committed to the class struggle", highly critical of the 'antidemocratic structures of the ADUS'. But the SUV were themselves being manipulated by leftist groups in search of new tactics for the capture of state power. Their call was "reactionaries, out of the barracks! ". This could only imply one thing: "Barracks, yes, but commanded by leftist officers"

The moment of truth arrived. On November 25 fewer than 200 commandos "ovcrcame' several "red" regiments armed to the teeth. Among the regiments that 'surrendered' were those that had been most loudly proclaiming that "their leaders were not only behind them but in front of them, that they were revolutionaries". The whole elaborate and mystifying set-up collapsed : ADUS, Soldiers Commissions, Vigilance Committees, SUV.All this showed itself for what it was: precisely nothing; isolated, divided, without links with one another, without information, and above all without initiative, the rank and file soldiers were in a state of total dependence on the military hierarchy ,on the "progressive" officers.They followed faitfully and confidently; orders to arm, orders to arm.orders to disarm, orders to defend themselves, orders to stop defending themselves, orders to remain within the barracks, orders to move out of them: Meanwhile the 'progressive' officers, caught up in political manoeuvres, tempted by political deals, one eye on possible 'compromises' cooked up in the Presidential Palace, either abandoned the barracks or got themselves arrested ... 'to avoid bloodshed'. The rank and file soldiers were handed over in a triple shackle, political, ideological and organizational. The veil was ripped asunder. The "military policy" of all the leftist groups was revealed for what it was: a pathetic faith in what the attitude of the 'progressive officers' would be when confronted with a choice.

One of the RAL-1 soldiers put it very simply :"On November 25 we suddenly had the impression that there was no command , nothing! Progressively we felt we were entirely alone". After months on a Leninist diet, to be suddenly without 'left' leaders spelled starvation. "After a year of agitation in the army, the rank and file groups never played any important role. They never achieved the least control over the functioning of the military machine. On the contrary , they ended up reinforcing the lack of initiative of the soldiers, their belief in the "good army'' the army of 2progressive Officers".

It takes no great effort to see the similarity between the military 'policies' of the left in Portugal and their attitudes to such matters as Parliament and the trade unions elsewhere. In each instance they propose to the revolutionary movement to fight on the territory - and with the weapons of the class enemy. And then they seem surprised that they are defeated - or that, if 'victorious', the fruits of their victor prove rather different from what they had expected. A final by-product of the Portuguese events - bizarre this time, rather than sinister - was the appearance of a new political hybrid : the social democratic Maoist. Throughout the Portuguese upheaval their hatred of the 'social-fascists' of the PCP drove the MRPP into some very strange political alliances. They welcomed the bombings of the PCP headquarters in the summer of 1975 as evidence of "popular justice against the revisionists". In the trade union field they concluded a whole series of electoral alliances with the PS and PPD - and even with the CDS - aimed at diminishing the influence of the PCP. They reproached the victorious officers of November 25 with being too indulgent in relation to "the principal enemy : social-fascism". In fact they welcomed the coup. 'The situation is excellent' they claimed in December 1975,'Revisionism is being increasingly unmasked'. In the presidential elections of June 1976 the MRPP even urged their supporters to vote for Eanes, the PS-backed law-and-order candidate. The telling critiques which the MRPP made of the PRP-BR, whose setting up of 'workers' councils' the MRPP correctly decribed as "providing a mass basis for COPCON" - will soon be forgotten when the MRPP itself is seen to have provided a similar basis for the PS or for 'the Nine'. But then, for all its verbal leftism and denunciations of the MFA, does not the MRPP itself propose "a democratic and popular revolution, made not only by workers and peasants but by other revolutionary sectors of society, such as small and medium shopkeepers , small and medium farmers, small and medium industrialists, etc".

The book deals clearly, concretely and honestly with the problems and limitations of self-management, attempted in a capitalist context. To take over a factory or farm abandoned by their owners is a natural enough reaction of workers seeking to maintain a living in an environment they know. But the capitalist market immediately obtrudes. Outlets have to be found for the goods produced. The relation of the 'self-managed' enterprise to the outside world remains all-pervading. Disposing of stocks - or even of capital equipment - to pay oneself wages is no lasting solution. The 'need' to sell one's labour power - with all that this entails - persists, unrelenting. In Portugal the price paid for the enhanced internal democracy of certain workshops or farms was often a lengthening of the working day, or an intensification of the labour process to 'allow' the self- managed unit to remain economically 'viable'. In this sense islands of self-management became islands of capitalist recuperation. In Guimaraes I saw a self- managed textile factory, its wails plastered with extracts from Marx's Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. The workers don't need to be told that this is self- managed alienation. They live it daily, in their flesh. But what is the real, practical, immediate alternative? Is it communist production? Is it the scrap-heap capitalist unemployment? Or is it something something variable, something created anew, every day, in a thousand different workplaces, moulded by the differing relation of forces there? No generalization can cover all that was created, the full variety of the experience or the bitterness engendered by failure.Whatever the concrete forms evo lved the essential, as always, is to avoid telling lies, to avoid mystifying both oneself and others.

All this of course has little to do with the cardinal relationship of self-management to socialism. Some speak today as if the Portuguese experience in some sense invalidated this relationship, as if it proved that self- management had nothing to do with socialism, as if all talk of self-management was the ultimate recuperative plot of machiavellian capitalism. The confusion - where it is not deliberate, and therefore dishonest - shows a pathetic conceptual poverty. That, under capitalism, self-managment may become a potent means of capitalist recuperation is undoubted. But what has this to do with the question of whether self-management is the essential institutional (not economic, but institutional) framework of socialist society? One can certainly conceive of self-management without socialism. But can one imagine any socialism worth living under without self-managed individuals, conductivities and institutions? Those who can visualize such a society should let us share their vision. But they should seek to make it as explicit as possible, if not those directly involved , would have the greatest say in the fundamental decisions? And how would such a non-self- managed 'socialist' society differ from all the monstrous societies we see around us today, societies in which minorities take all the fundamental decisions and - through their access to information and power - perpetuate their own priveliges.

To an outsider there was much that was very specifically Portuguese in the Portuguese upsurge. The will to dare the unknown, to disregard the advice of 'experts', to take history and reality by the scruff of the neck - all that is summed up in the term sebastianismo - was very evident in the early months. Without batting an eyelid at the enormity of what they were attempting, young revolutionaries (and older ones) talked seriously of a direct transition from fascism to libertarian communism. They acted as if a belief in miracles could drive people to attempt - and, who knows, perhaps even to achieve - the 'impossible'.

Like all radical endeavours in history the upsurge was a joyful affair, at least to start with. An immensely popular song, after April 25th, was entitled Gaibota (the seagull). Poster wit, although perhaps never achieving the insights of May 1968 in France, nevertheless developed into a telling instrument of social critique. The anarchists ensured that it was used as often against the 'left' as against more obvious targets. With the joy went a very Portuguese toughness.

The Fado persisted,not as an embodiement of despair and resignation (as claimed by the superficial sociologists ) but as a down-to-earth and uncompromising statement of the life of the poor. I recall a letter Phil once wrote me. He was entering the Alentejo : "The tiny hills begin to roll across the flat countryside. Crouched eucalyptus trees hide in the barren dales. Here is a land of tradition, of rich struggles against elements and of wine, olives and music, of landowners alike, a land of everyday survival, difficult to penetrate except by those who care for it. It is as if the stunted growth of the trees said all that needed to be said about hardship, abandonment, work - about the constant fight against a poor and unyielding soil on which lived giant women and monstrous men. But however ungrateful the land, the spirit was never crippled...".

Although not songs of revolt the fados testify to this indestructibility of the oppressed, to this deep unity of man and nature. Romany roots endow some songs with a fierce pride, with a scorn for what 'the bourgeois' will think or say, enabling them boldly to deal with such themes as women's right to sexual pleasure. No sentimentality, no soothing syrup. Love may mean pain, but is worth it. No neurotic trendiness. Just things as they are.Is not this the raw material of which revolution will be made?

Other features too had their roots in history. As their documents show the MFA was probably one of the most articulate and prolific group of soldiers the world has ever produced. In this they reflected the intellectualismo of the Portuguese elite. Intellectuality would be an inadequate translation. The term - as I was repeatedly told In Portugal - really denotes something else, concern with speaking rather than with doing, and with the surface rather than with the core of things. Its loci are the cafes, not the cloisters of Coimbra. Eça de Qucirôs, the Aveiro novelist of the end of the last century, grasped this and made of it the kernel of some of his most scathing satires. His second, Farpa, published in 1871, could have been written in the summer of 1975, a lampoon of later Leninist sects rather than of the bourgeois parties of his day.

There are four political parties in Portugal: the Historical Party, the Regenerating Party, the Reformist Party and the Constitutional Party. There are, of course, others, more anonymous, only known to a few families. The four official parties, with newspapers and headquarters, are in perpetual and irreconcilable antagonism, always fighting amongst themselves in their leading articles. They have tried to restore peace, to unify. Impossible! The only thing they have in common is the ground of the Chiado, on which they all tread, and the Arcade which shelters them...

All four are Catholic. All four are centralizing. All four have the same yearning for order. All four want progress and cite the case of Belgium ...

'The conflagration is immense.

Forty years before the French Revolution, Sebastiâo José de Carvalho e Melo, First Marquis of Pombal, had declared war on clerical reaction and obscurantism, disbanded monasteries and convents and expelled the Jesuits from Portugal. The revolution of 1910 gave a new impetus to his ideas. But the Salazar regime made peace with the Church and the Jesuits crept back. One morning, not long after Salazar had effected this reconciliation, people passing Pombal's huge statue at the top of Lisbon's Avenida da Liberdade, were delighted to read, in enormous letters of black pitch - all shiny on the white marble - the following inscription :

Come down, Marquis

Because they're back again !

Today the old faces are creeping out once more. The gains of the early months are being whittled away piece- meal. The owners are reappearing - sometimes as managers. One would like to urge the spirit of 1974-75 to descend from its reified pedestal and help sweep the rubbish away. Who knows when it will move again? For the moment things are fairly quiet. But even the wide- spread disillusion has a certain Portuguese tinge to it. The early prevocational innocence may have been lost. But the faintly amused nostalgia the Portuguese call saudade prevents sad sophistication degenerating into pure cynicism.

An impossible revolution? Yes, some will argue. Impossible within the confines of Portugal. Impossible because no island of libertarian communism can exist in a sea of capitalist production and of capitalist consciousness. Impossible because the upsurge was rooted - as in concrete - in the underdevelopment of Portuguese society as a whole. Impossible, given the social composition of modern Portugal, the weight of the northern, smallholding peasantry, the influence of the Church, the erosive and demobilizing effects of chronic poverty and unemployment. Impossible, finally, it is claimed, because state capitalism, not socialism, was 'objectively' on the historical agenda, and because of the state-capitalist mentality of the 'socialist' revolutionaries.

But men and women have always dreamed 'impossible' dreams. They have repeatedly sought to 'storm heaven' in the search for what they felt to be right. Again and again they have struggled for objectives difficult to attain, but which they sensed to embody their needs and desires. It is this capacity which makes of human beings the potential subjects of history, instead of its perpetual objects. This is why a study of the Portuguese events of 1974-75 is relevant to modern revolutionaries.

How should revolutionary libertarians have reacted to the Portuguese events; To have sat at home, dismissing the revolution as 'impossible', was out of the question. Should they, to paraphrase Lenin, have started struggling before anyone else, and not ceased struggling until after everyone else had? 'struggling' can be as meaningful - or meaningless - as any other activity. It depends on the ends being fought for, and on the means being used.The revolutionary libertarian seeks to convince working people of their ability to or organise and manage their own affairs to foster a critical spirit towards external groups claiming to be on their side (including his or her own) and to expose the illusions spread by such (mainly Leninist) groups. This is a constant, everyday task which the libertarian revolutionary sees as his or her main concern. Perhaps in Portugal the opportunity for revolution has receded for the time being, but this role of the revolutionary never ceases (and has certainly not ceased in Portugal). Soon, in Spain, the Stalinists will be dusting down the living corpse of La Passionaria - a far more potent symbol of resistance than Alvaro Cunhal. The Illusionists will be at work again, having learned nothing from the experience of Portugal, and living on the battlecries of 1936.

Words such as 'possible' and 'impossible' have an historical dimension as well as an immediate one. What is impossible today may become feasible tomorrow. Moreover it may become feasible because of today's unsuccessful endeavours. To declare a revolution 'impossible' is to pass a verdict on a process, as if it were an isolated event. It is to deny to those indicted the right to be judged by posterity. There are fruitful defeats in history as well as sterile victories. The Paris Commune defeat of 1871 was in the minds of the Russian revolutionaries of 1917 . The events of Kronstadt (1921) or of Hungary (1956) still evoke echoes. They helped mould revolutionary libertarian attitudes that are very much part of current thinking. But there is more. Preconceived ideas are not just ideological straitjackets. To declare a revolution 'impossible' may, under certain circumstances, contribute to obstructing it. The masses in action are always more revolutionary than the most revolutionary of the revolutionary organizations. The reasons are obvious. The revolutionary organizations are wedded to past models (usually 1917). The masses want to create the future.

Some people see history as a railway line, leading to a predetermined goal. They see the action of classes as just generating the steam which will enable men, or great parties ("the drivers of the locomotive of history", to use Stalin's monstrous phrase) to take charge of events. This is a prescription for bureaucratic practices, for it legitimizes the power (both today and tomorrow) of those who think they know the track - and of those who think they can handle the engine.

No goal (certainly no political goal) can be defined as clearly as this. Material conditions (including cultural conditions) influence what is feasible and what is not. But they do not determine it, in any univocal sense. There is seldom, if ever, only one way of solving the problems created by a given pattern of economic or social organization. History shows how quite different forms of living, and quite different constellations of belief , proved possible on the basis of fairly similar technological infrastructures. "Be realistic, demand the impossible", the walls of Paris proclaimed in May 1968. The words had a significance that went far deeper than their ability to startle. The first echoes were heard in Portugal. Where life pulsates, there is expectation. Sooner or later struggle breaks down the obstacles to the fulfilment of one's' needs. Who knows where, and in what form, the subterranean stream of human hope will next surge to the surface?

[i]Maurice Brinton

Solidarity (London) October 1976.[/i]

I. The First Week

Portugal - The Impossible Revolution?
-- Phil Mailer

I. The First Week

The 25th was a cold morning for April. At 7.45 am the following radio
announcement stunned hundreds Of thousands of Portuguese into a realisation
that a new phase in their history had begun:

'The Portuguese Armed Forces appeal to all the inhabitants of
Lisbon to stay at home and to remain as calm as possible. We
sincerely hope that the seriousness of the hour will not be
saddened by personal injuries. We therefore appeal to the good
sense of all military commanders to avoid any confrontation with
the Armed Forces. Apart from being unnecessary, such action would
only create or aggravate serious divisions between Portuguese
people, which must be avoided at all costs. It is because of our
concern to spare Portuguese blood that we are appealing for a
civic spirit. All medical personnel, especially those in
hospitals, should hold themselves ready to give help, though it
is hoped this will not be needed. To all political and military
forces, the Command advises maximum caution to avoid any action
which may be dangerqus. It is not our intention to shed blood
unneeessarily, but if we meet provocation we shall deal with it.
Go back to your quarters, and wait for orders which will be given
by the Movement of the Armed Forces. Commanders will be held
responsible for any attempt, in any form whatsoever, to lead
their sub-ordinates into conflict with the Armed Forces We appeal
to the forces of the GNR (National Guard) and PSP (Riot Police) -
and even to the DGS (Political Police) and Portuguese Legion -
who may have been recruited under false pretences to remember
their civic duty of maintaining public order. In the present
situation this can only be achieved if there is no reaction
against the Armed Forces Attention, all military and police
units. Since the Armed Forces have decided to take your place in
the present situation any opposition to the troops which surround
the city will be deak with drastically. By not obeying this
advice you could provoke a senseless blood-bath, whose
responsibility will be yours alone.

8.15 am. My neighbour wakes me , crazy look in her eyes as she stands there
in her pyjamas. She tells me not to go to school today: all schools are
closed, the Army have taken over, shooting, everyone to stay at home. She
speaks in broken Portuguese to help me understand, firing her fingers into
the air.

I close the door thinking she's mad, turn on the radio and return to bed.
Nothing: the usual ads. I can't believe it. I can't sleep though I need to.
I try other stations. Marching music on the National Radio. Could she be
right?

9.10 am. Already late, I arrive at school. No buses outside. I meet R, a
teacher who is bursting with the news. D, the school fascist, is also
there. We ask if it's from the right or from the left, or even from which
forces on the right: the generals or Spinola? The question remains
unanswered all morning. No one knows.

10 am. Breakfast with R, a kind and good-hearted person, dying to find out
but afraid to go into the centre of the city. Coffee. The radio is playing
Zeca Afonso, a left-wing singer. Could it be true? An announcement.

'It has been reported to the Command of the Armed Forces that the civilian
population is not respecting the a p peal to remain at home, an
appeal which we have already made many times. Although the situation rifay
seem almost under control, since the ex-Minister of the Army has abandoned
the Ministry and is in contact with the commanding officers of our
Movement, we ask the population, once again, to stay at home and not
endanger themselves. A communique' will be broadcast shortly, to clarify
the situation.

I explain what I know of Spinola: his Nazi training, his support for Franco
during the Spanish Civil War, his declarations as a 'war-hero' in the
Portuguese colonies. His interview with the magazine Vida Mundial, some
weeks earlier, had outlined what he's written in his book Portugal and the
Future, and for these views he's been sacked by Caetano. His book had
called for an end to the search for a military solution to the war and for
change within Portugal, along 'democratic' lines. We talked about the
revolt in March, when troops had marched from Caldas da Rainha, in the
north, in what had seemed at the time a farcical attempt at revolt.

Or was it a putsch by certain right-wing generals, dissatisfied with the
'liberal' policies of Caetano, and wanting a return to a purer form of
Salazarism? No one knew. Either way, it seemed the coup could only be from
the right.

At 10:45 am I phone Joao, the son of Mario Soares. The phone is busy. I
phone R, a worker in a blood-bank. She's on 24-hour call. Troops are on the
streets outside. It's impossible to enter Lisbon except through Praca de
Espanha. She knows nothing of what it's all about. I decide to go into
Lisbon to see for myself, driving along the Marginal which follows the
river Tagus. The greatness of sixteenth century history is far from my
thoughts. I arrive at Infante Santo and am diverted by traffic police.
Something is definitely on. I accelerate, arrive at the centre, park the
car. I can see nothing out of the ordinary except that all the banks are
closed. I walk towards the lower part of the city. Troops and tanks in the
Chiado, soldiers everywhere. The tanks look gigantic in the narrow streets,
the machine guns threatening. It is impossible to enter. The troops are
cautious but friendly. The crowds have a mixture of fear and hope in their
eyes. Everyone is asking the same question 'Who is it?' 'What do they stand
for?' It's 11.30. I've promised to lunch with C, at noon. She may have
heard more. In C's house we listen to short-wave radio and pick up the
walkie-talkies of the Forces. From her nextdoor neighbour, an old and
already saddened Salazarist, we hear the news that 'Caetano and Toma's have
sought refuge in Belem (the Presidential Palace) and Quartel do Carmo (the
GNR Headquarters) respectively.

Someone phones to say that his car has been requisitioned, as a barricade.
He is laughing on the telephone. There is a great feeling: the fascist
dictatorship is crumbling. For the moment few can think further.

We go again into the city. There is still nothihg definite. We go to San
Sebastiao and see the troops. Large groups are talking to the soldiers. The
troops have already become 'forces of liberation'. No one is yetyet
specifically asking who is going to be 'liberated'. And from what? The
confusion is immense. Can an anti-fascist coup really have taken place? Led
by a fascist? We search for precedents, and discover already how new the
features are of what we are witnessing.

We buy the newspapers. The headlines are startling; 'Golpe Militar', 'Amplo
Movimento das Forcas Armadas'. Their accounts fill in some details. At
23.30 houts, last night, radio programmes were apparently interrupted and
'Depois do Adeus' and 'Grindola, Vila Morena' were played .5 Shortly after
midnight the College of Military Administration was occupied. At 3 am the
studios of the pop-radio station Radio Clube Portugues were occupied and
other radio stations soon after. The airport fell. A little later the 7th
Cavalry, Spinola's crack troops, moved into Praqa do Come'rcio, the great
square in the lower part of the city. At 7 am tanks took up positions on
the other side of the river, facing Lisbon.

We listen to the radio. At 10.15 am the Quartermaster General, Louro de
Sousa., was detained. At 10.30 am troops occupying Rua do Arsenal joined in
the revolt. At noon comes the announcement that the armed forces are in
control, both north and south. 1.00 pm: the DGS headquarters are surrounded
and some political prisoners released. 4pm: the CDE and most of the
political groups applaud the movement. Shortly after, Marcelo Caetano
surrenders. He has been on the phone to Spinola. 5.30 pm: prisoners from
the Caldas da Rainha rebellion are released, to cheers from the crowds. At
5 pm the television broadcasts a statement saying that the Armed Forces
Movement 'have liberated the people from a regime which has oppressed them
for many years.

I take C home and go out again into Lisbon. The PIDE have resisted and
refuse to surrender. There are crowds calling for their blood. They want to
storm the offices and burn them down. The y are unarmed. The PIDE have
machine guns, pointing from their verandas. I feel helpless and decide to
leave. Later we learnt that a PIDE had fired into th'e crowd from a window,
killing 5 and wounding 50. The sailors fired back. The PIDE are desperate.
They have tortured their victims too much and for too long to hope for
mercy.

I return home and go to a tasca. We drink wine and wonder what it alt
means. People are excited, fantastically excited. I go to R's for dinner.
All restaurants have been closed in compliance with the communiques. We
cook dinner: an assortment of old vegetables. We are completely unprepared,
like everyone else. We listen to the foreign stations to see if they have
any news. We can't really believe what we hear. As yet, no names have been
given. The coup is completely anonymous. I phone a friend who lives near
the radio station: the area is surrounded by troops and he can't get out. I
phone another friend who is very tired, having been up since 6.30 that
morning. I don't want to go home. I want to go to Lisbon.

I'm euphoric. A French girl who is present shares some of my enthusiasm.
Everything is confusion. Spinola has moved from being a fascist that
morning to being a 'liberator' that evening. We try to gather our thoughts,
to analyse. What class forces are involved? Spinola had married into one of
the richest families in Portugal: the Melos. He was an 'individualist'. In
Guine'-Bissau, he had often flown right into the scene of battle and
commanded great respect from the troops who'd served with him. His monocle,
his conservative ways, all that just didn't fit the role of a radical
liberator. The ambiguities of 'anti-fascism' were already apparent.

There are so many divergent interests. The middle class look to Europe and
the EEC as the only future for Portugal whereas the 'burguesia' of the '100
families' still has large undertakings in Africa, especially in Angola.
Some sections of the middle class have their eye on economic expansion,
others support a moribund Salazarist ideology which is a break to
expansion. In Africa white 'colons' face black Africans. But the greatest
opposition of all is surely the one between all these elements and the
working class.

It was marvellous: natural amphetamine. M and I left together. We want to
go out despite the curfew. We went to a friend's who lives near the radio
station. The streets were blocked. We spo keEtglish. A smiling 19 year old
soldier called his officer anWwe explained that we wanted to sleep in a
house nearby. The young soldier, a rug over his shoulders and machine gun
looking huge against him, escorted us to the house. All the way he smiled
happily. He was feeling great too.

Everyone there was asleep, dead from a day of movement and discussion, but
we managed to find some blankets. Almost immediately we too fell asleep,
exhausted.

I Friday, April 26. Day 2.

> We awake wondering what has happened during the mght, sore from the
floor, and with a terrible hangover. M makes coffee, I go to get the
papers.

The headlines are startling. sprnola, the leader of the new Junta, has
promised the 'demo cratisat ion of politics'7 new elections as soon as
possible, an end to all fascist institutions, negotiations over the war in
Africa. Caetano and Toma's have been exiled to Madeira. Some PIDEs have
been captured, one with his trousers down which made us all laugh.

We go off to lunch and pore over the morning papers. The photos are
telling. Masses of people are involved. This is clearly more than just a
coup d'etat. Already the old structures seem to be falling apart. We just
aren't reading the same newspapers as yesterday though the names, lay-out
and style are much the same. Nervously, faces on the streets are beginning
to smile. Whiffs of freedom are rising over Lisbon and people are passing
them on to one another in their speech and laughter. It is fantastic,
shattering, growing.

Troops everywhere are giving the victory sign. We hear about Caxias, the
notorious political prison: 170 prisoners have been released and about a
hundred PIDEs put in their place. I'd had friends who'd been sent there,
then beaten and tortured. The pictures in the papers are tremendous.
Thousands had been to Caxias to welcome the prisoners. We hear that the
Junta had only wanted to free a few of them, but that the crowds had
noisily insisted on releasing the lot.

Organisations, which had been living hand to mouth, underground, were
surfacing and making statements: the Communist Party (PCP), the Socialist
Party (Pa), CDE, LUAR. We pinch ourselves to see if it is really true.
There was other news, but it didn't interest us. Someone mentioned that
Mitterand stood a chance in the French elections. So what? The pictures
were spectacular, unfaked. Everj; photo seemed an image of liberation.
Could those be t e same newspapers which only a few weeks before had
reported, in some corner of an inside p age, that the police had attacked
student trouble-ma ers on an attempted demonstration, without mentioning
the number beaten up? Free speech seems to be getting freer every minute.

A crowd is gathering near Rossio (a big Lisbon square). Troops come towards
us. What will happen? They raise their fingers in a V sign. The crowd cheer
like I've never heard cheers before. I'd heard crowds shout in anger, but
this was joy, unmitigated.

I couldn't understand, nor could M. The feeling sent shivers down us. We
remembered Prague 1968, when people had placed flowers in the gun barrels
of tanks, in gentle irony. But now people were giving carnations to the
soldiers, like one gives to one's loved one on the night of Santo Ant6nio,
the patron saint of Lisbon. They were buying them newspapers, offering them
beer, sandwiches. I clapped, incredulous. I remembered pictures of
revolutionary troops during the Spanish Civil War, their hands clasped in a
fist: the Durruti column. I tried to think of the Kiel mutiny which led to
the Spartacist revolt in Germany in 1918, of the rebellious troops in
Russia in 1917, of the troops during the Paris Commune. My thoughts were
running away with me.

It started to rain, heavily. Lightning lit up the sky. There were peals of
thunder, like some grumble from the Gods. M commented that heaven was not
on our side. We decided nothing could happen until night, even if other
forces were still holding out, even if the PiDEs were trying to reorganise.
We were tired and the rain depressed us. We went into a cinema for two
hours, saw a Paul Newman film, then headed off again in the direction of
Rossio. On the way, we crossed a demonstration. I'd often dreamed of it.
I'd seen photos of 1910, when the workers had marched up Avenida da
Liberdade occupying its enormous width. And here it was, made real, right
before my eyes. The Maoists were in front with their banners. But behind
were all sorts of groups, with banners of their own. 'We salute the Armed
Forces', 'Free Unions', 'Power to the Workers', 'The Right to Strike'. It
was heady, despite the palpable contradictions.

I'd often walked this avenue conscious of the irony of its name (a residue
from more liberal days) and feeling oppressed as hell. And here, right in
front of me, were several thousand people parading up its middle. Motorists
could not get through. They blew their horns - not in anger but joyfully,
as is the custom at Portuguese marriage feasts. We were in the centre of
the street, in a free demonstration. It was unheard of. We were still
afraid of course, expecting the PSP (a special riot police force, created
to deal with demonstrations) to erupt from a side street, at any minute.
Emotions were so high that even traffic cops were embraced as 'liberators'
much to their embarrassment and confusion.

Tanks appeared. The cheers grew louder than if Sporting FC had beaten
Benfica. People ran after the tanks, clambered all over them. The soldiers
smiled and raised their machine guns in the air.

For forty eight years there had been no demonstrations of joy in Portugal.
Two generations had nassed without being able to walk the streets freely:
now fathers and sons were there together. An old man in rags, an old man
for whom Salazarism hadn't done anything, carried the Republican flag. He
was embraced so much I thought he'd have a heart attack. I asked him if it
was like this in \the days of the Republic and he said it had never been so
good. I too wanted to embrace him, he was so babyAike. He knew I was
foreign from my accent. Which part of Ireland? The South, I answered. He
clapped me and told me he remembered the Easter rebellion. He probably
remembered 1917,1918, 1936 as well, though I didn't ask. What beauty can be
found in people at such times!

We arrived at the great statue of the Marques de Pombal, sometimes known as
Portugal's first (1755) dictator. It was now covered with May Day slogans:
'Paz, Unidade, Liberdade, Democracia. Podor aos Trabalhadores'.

We passed it and arrived at the CDE office. We could have marched all
night. Some aspiring politicians were trying to make speeches, but it was
not the right day for that. Their every sentence was inaudible. The crowd
just cheered, repeating the slogan of the day: '0 povo unido jamais sera'
vencido' (United the people will never be defeated).

CDE had commanded fairly wide-based support. They had used the month prior
to last November's elections for political agitation. Leaflets and some
graffiti (quickly daubed out) bad app eared on the walls of Lisbon and the
independent Republica had even been able to get certain articles yast the
censor. Then at the last minute they had with rawn their candidates,
denouncing the elections as a farce.

The Maoists were already more active than others. This was annoying, as
they were so unimaginative. Their clearest slogan was 'Nem Marcelo, nem
Spinola: Revoluca"o Socialista' - neither Marcelo (Caetano) nor Spinola but
Socialist Revolution. It was difficult not to have a certain respect for
them, and for the Communist Party too. They had been among the bravest
under the old regime, had been tortured and beaten, yet had returned night
after night to put up their slogans on the walls, only to have them painted
out, in the small hours of the morning, by the police. Yet the situation
was already different: ideas which for decades had influenced people's
thoughts about revolution were now to be tested. Those who had kept hopes
alive started as heroes. If they were to remain heroes they would have to
measure up to the challenge of the new. We met a group of workers singing
the Internationale. We were astounded. How had they remembered the words,
after all those years? We bought the papers again and went to the Monte
Carlo y, a haunt of the so-called 'night-people', a cafe' that had been
repeatedly raided by the agents of PIDE and by the police. The news had
again overtaken our wildest hopes.

Headlines ''Freedom for all Political Prisoners. Prison for all PIDEs'. We
weren't reading newspapers any more, we were reading political manifestos.
Censor-ship had been trampled underfoot. In all the papers: the picture of
Spinola, looking older and more tired than ever, ta en rom his television
broadcast last night. The Junta had presented an ominously detailed
programme (see Appendix 1).

What contradictions does this 'liberal' programme cover? Yesterday: a coup
d'etat. Today: already massive popular involvement. Something important is
developing. A new spirit has invaded all public life. How will the Junta
allow it to go? How much will the Junta be able to control it?

We read about Caxias and about the joy of the political prisoners. We learn
that they were awaiting their liberation an hour before it happened,
informed of developments by morse signals, sent over car-horns. We ee the
photos of the machine gun bullets at the PIDE Jices. We learn that a group
of demonstrators had smashed the windows of a bank in the commercial
district.

We met G and others, in a cafe. They had been to Caxias. The place had been
forced open. A PIDE had been attacked by the crowd and barely saved by the
Army from being beaten to death. He was carrying an infant and people had
called out to 'save the baby'. The man was now in prison.

What to do? Four hours sleep in two days. This was difficult to sustain,
especially with little food. We decided to go to a tasca near my home in a
working class suburb of Lisbon. The atmosphere was electric. Joflo greeted
us with 'Long Live the Revolution'. Some workers, who also happened to be
soldiers, were in uniform. It was the first time l'd seen them like this.
Others were full of spirit, in every sense of the word. Only one, very
political, was sceptical; "what about the workers?" he asked. We listened. He
had been to his factory that morning - but only to talk, to discuss. The
tasca had never been so lively. The radio was p laying Portuguese music and
everyone felt proud. Yes, sad fados were played, but also the lively music
of the exiles in France, the hope of thousands, perhaps millions. And yet
it was obvious that the people hadn't £hanged in a day. The owner Joao,
till now a racist, was calling for the independence of the colonies. Yet
revolu-tions weren t ma a e overnight. In a loud voice Joao shouted abuse
at a government which for 48 years had repressed and tortured the people
into submission, had sent their youth to bekifleci in a useless war, had
destroyed free speech and censored all publications, had ruled brutally and
bloodily, allowing neither strikes nor any other form of dissent and whose
subjects were afraid even to utter its name. Joao railed against the old
regime. But, when he came to name it, he lowered his head to mine and his
voice quivered ever so slightly. He whispered the horrific word:
Salazarismo.

We went upstairs, sore, tired, but still excited. We listened to some Cabo
Verde music: a sad music of a people near to destruction. Some refrains
were soothing and nearer to what we felt. The great hope was the outcome of
a great despair. For a long time we couldn't sleep, but finally doze off. I
awoke once, in the middle of a dream, and remembered the day I had gone to
listen to a clandestine radio in the deserted hills nearby. But now,
instead of listening to forbidden broadcasts, we were marching on Lisbon.

Saturday, April 27. Day 3.

We couldn't be dragged from our dreams. We'd gone too far in our talk and
our thought. We awoke late. The TV was already on. The news was dreadful:
no more demonstrations without permission, or that was how it sounded.

I spoke to my neighbour. The fear and hesitancy was gone from her face. She
never drank, but had already had 3 whiskies. She had already strolled out
into the streets of Lisbon, to watch. She was happier than I ever thought
possible. The first concrete thing she said, after expressing all her joy,
was that her rent could not now be raised.

We made straight for the Chiado. The hunt for the PIDE was on. People who
knew where a PIDE lived went there. Only the Army saved many from being
lynched. That afternoon, in the Eseola Pobteenica, a PIDE was spotted by
someone in the crowd as he tried to get away in a car. The cry went out:
'Death to PIDE'. I understood the hatred. I'd known a girl who had been
seized in a demonstration, beaten and th en had her hair shaved off. I knew
that PIDE had beaten up the wife of a University professor, a sixty year
old woman. I too wanted to lynch the man. The Army barely rescued him. His
car, the engine ticking over, was still there. A youth started pushing it.
Others helped. The car was overturned, douse in petrol and within minutes
was a flaming mass. The soldiers, our brothers, gave the sign of victory.
The Junta had no control over this little episode - it was only the natural
revulsion to taking human life, common to soldiers, that saved that man.

We moved on down to the PIDE offices again. I knew my passport was there. I
wanted the troops to storm the building and get it for me. We met a worker
to whom I'd given a lift at Easter, on the road between Setflbal and
Lisbon. We'd talked politics in the usual cautious way, without hope,
without any real feeling for what we were saying. There had been nothing to
give any hint of what he was saying now. 'Spinola is no socialist. And
socialism is the only answer to the present situation.

At the Brasileira, an old haunt of poets and artists, people were talking
and discussing feverishly, but it didn't seem as interesting as what was
happening on the streets. After lunch at M's we again marched up and down
the Avenida da Liberdade. It was like showing off our own defiance. People
marched up to the top of the Avenue, didn't quite believe they'd done it,
and then marched down again to prove it was really possible.

In Rossio, the Maoists were dominating the situation. Their spray guns had
been active. We met a very middle-class English person w ho shrugged off
the whole thing as if it were a Portuguese football match. I wanted to
string him up there and then, but doubted people would have understood. We
talked to a German comrade, full of hope and enthusiasm. We then came
across a group of Portuguese friends and discussed the contradictions in
the situation. They were still tinged with the memory and fear of PIDE,
afraid to take any action, to do anything. I wanted a spray gun to write on
the walls, to challenge the maoist monopoly.

We thought up new slogans: 'Pide Escholhido' (PIDE already old hat) or
'Portugal Livre', a new drink composed of bagaco and cocatola. Cocatola had
been banned in Portugal, allegedly because of its 'harmful' contents but
really - as everyone knew - because a government minister had a monopoly of
the soft drink trade. We discussed the fact that none of the girls had
kissed the soldiers like in France after the Second World War, or in Spain
during the Civil War. They'd given flowers, sandwiches, food, their hearts
- but no kisses. Forty eight years of sexual repression was difficult to
overthrow in a couple of days. We talked about the demonstrations. Why had
there been no music, so natural to the Portuguese? Experience was lacking.
There had been no legal political activities. In the dark hours, at a
certain moment never publicised but known all the same,even to those in
prison people would gather quietly, a speech would be made. If the police
came, it was all over. That had been the previous experience.

The slogans had moved on, hour by hour '0 povo unido jamais sera' vencidor,
'Down with the colonial war, 'Death to PIDE, 'SocialAsmo, socialAsmo'. The
mystification implicit in the first slogan was still very widespread. What
crimes against the working class were soon to be perpetrated in the name of
this spurious 'unity'!

Twenty three trade unions had quickly met and issued a joint statement.
Their demands (Appendix 2) amounted to little more than the Junta had
alread promised. The unions had been institutionalised by the previous
government, denied autonomy, denied the right to withdraw labour, or even
to hold a public meeting. lf there was dissatisfaction the Ministry of
Labour had to be informed. Discussions would then take place and the
grievances 'coped with' (i.e. talked to death) in this way. There had been
strikes of course: a thousand people suddent reporting sick on the same day
and staying at home. Many Lisbon workers live on the other side of the
river. One day the ferrymen had all mysteriously been smitten and there had
been no ferries: pandemonium had resulted. The ever increasing cost of
living (housing, food, clothes) had provoked illegal strikes which had
become more fre}uent during the past twelve months. Strikes had taken p ace
in Robbialac (the paint factory), Sacor (the oil refinery), Electro Arco
(civil engineering), Sorefame (machine tools), and in many other places
too. The electrical industry had been parti-cularly hit and the bank
workers had been particularly militant.

Support is pouring in from abroad. The new regime is recognised by the
Middle-East countries, who had put a petrol embargo on Portugal because of
Caetano's support for the Americans during the Arab-Israeli War. Brazil,
still fascist, tollows suit. Finally the Nato countries grant recognition.

The situation is moving fast. It is obvious that the Spinola 'solution' can
only be temporary. Spinola is not the instigator of the revolt. He himself
has acknowledged as much, saying 'this is a movement without leaders'. We
remember that he was put under 'protective custody' by the Captains, during
the first stages of the coup, and that he only later jumped onto the
bandwagon. We learn how the movement had started months before, in
Mozambique, how it had snow-balled through the ranks until it reached
Spinola's doorstep. Spinola is known and prestigious, a father figure of
rebellion against Caetano. People have many illusions in him. How long will
they last?

Palma Inacio, the well-known advocate of direct action speaks at the
Theatre of Maria Matos and gives an interview to Republica. He is tired but
still retains his old panache, this 'Scarlet Pimpernel' who has been
captured and escaped so often. He'd been involved in the rebellion of 1947.
In 1951 he'd highjacked a plane and dropped leaflets on Lisbon and Porto.
LUAR, the organisation to which he belonged, had carried our bank robberies
in a style that commanded admiration. Incio had once been asked by a judge
sentencing him if he wanted to say anything in his defence. He wished
nothing, he said, except a dark night and a storm. That very night he
escaped from one of Portugal's top security prisons.

Mario Soares, the general secretary of the illegal Socialist Party is to
return tomorrow. His policies may sound more radical than those of CDE, or
those of the Junta, but he is a professional politician and things are
already moving beyond him.

We drink at Joao's. The talk is quieter and more guarded. These swings of
mood will be with us over the next few days: intense optimism, depression.
We're already worried about being carried away by events, about only
judging things through a minority. Someone makes a vague remark about
losing what has been gained by going too fast Most of us reject this, but
we re too tired to argue.

So many things have happened to restore our faith in life and revolution.
We are amazed by the working class who have taken the situation into their
own hands, putting their own interpretation on the Programme. How much they
could achieve, given the right conditions. I become more convinced than
ever of the specific identity of this class. I'm flabbergasted at the
memory people retain of their own revolutionary past. Present events have
shaken that memory. Dates never learned at school, songs never sung openly,
are recalled in their totality. It's been another great day, a day I never
expected, a day I'll never forget.

Sunday, April 28. .Day 4.

MArio Soares arrives and is greeted by thousands. The joy at the station is
immense: 'Long live liberty', 'Free unions', 'Power to the workers'. Vast
crowds await Southern Express No.1002, due in from Paris. No one could have
imagined it, just a few days earlier. The 'freedom train', as it is now
known, arrives at Santa Apol6nia Station, carrying hundreds of returning
exiles: Mario Soares and other PS leaders, the actresses Maria Barroso and
Maria Coelho, LUAR members from Paris, certain PCP officials. All are
choking with emotion as they step onto the platform. Fernando Oneto, exiled
for his part in the 1959 rebellion, had tears in his eyes.

'These are our finest sons and daughters' someone near me says and somehow
it doesn't sound corny. Thy feeling is nationalistic in the extreme. Only
few, at this stage, are aware of all the mystifications of this 'unity', of
this 'anti-fascism'. Later a basis of criticism must develop, and people
must begin thinking in terms of antitapitalist forces, of working class
forces.

We march away towards Infante Santo, taking up the entire street. Car horns
of stopped traffic blare at us in a crazy, sensual, liberated joy. Maybe a
hundred thousand people are on the streets. Who knows? Reporters and TV men
are there and the crowd gives them the victory sign. They feel stronger
than heaven. Although we don't know it, thousands are marching in Porto, in
Aveiro, in Beja, in Castelo Branco, in e very tiny Alentejo village.

We are tired, tired from the emotion, from the lack of sleep, from endless
marching. We go to M's house to eat something. I phone the school to see if
I must turn up tomorrow. I'd completely forgotten the usual banalities of
life, such as having to get up for work in the mornings. We part after
three days of bh'ss and total togetherness. I suddenly realise that I know
absolutely nothing personal about her, that we haven't discussed anything
at that level, so completely taken up have we been with events. Yet I feel
I know most of what there is to know.

Monday, April 29. Day 5.

In its impotence the school is another world. I talk to some right-wing
teachers, who realise the importance of what is happening. They compare it
to Cuba, to Uruguay. I enjoyth eir fear, without sharing their illusions as
to the 'revolutionary' nature of these regimes. Those at the extremes of
the political spectrum see the situation most clearly at first.
Instinctively, they have the best analysis.

I finish at 3 p m. The banks are still closed. Between 2 pm and 5 pm they
only pay out salaries, on production of a note from one's employers. Since
the Caldas da Rainha revolt, on March 16, three thousand million escudos
have left the country. The super-rich panicked, lining their Swiss accounts
in anticipation. I realise how unprepared we'd been, how little we'd known
about the economy, about the shadowy meetings that must have taken place.

It is a day of preparation, discussion, organisation. Work, everywhere, has
come to a standstill. Meetings and argument have taken place, instead. This
word 'normal' is so bandied about that it's lost all meaning. Yesterday
Republica carried the headline 'Normalidade em todoo pats' (normality
everywhere). If this was normal, I'd hardly noticed it! It was the voice of
the burguesia, trying to assert that the country still functioned, that it
was still theirs. 'Normality' was stressed by all the political parties,
showing how trapped they were in the old conceptions, values, mentality. It
was ridiculous. People made jokes about it. 'I won't pay for my coffee,
that's normal' someone told a waiter in a cafe'.

4 pm. We learn that the Junta has declared a national holiday. 'May Day
will be a test for the new regime' write the foreign newspapers, echoed
forthwith in the Portuguese press.

I go to Rossio and stand in amazement at the size of the crowds. I feel the
adrenalin returning. The Hotel Workers' Union marches by, their voices
raised in hope and expectation. Are they sweating out the grease of all
those tourist kitchens where for so long they've worked in silence? They
march twice round the square, gathering momentum and support, and then up
the Avenida da Liberdade. I go up with them. Everywhere sm all groups are
discussing, fiercely.

It is a night of manifestos on radio and TV. Unions of every kind are
organising, demanding. It is unbelievable. I had read such manifestos as
historical ieces, from 1871, 1917, 1936. Now the radio was roadeasting
them. Students from Lisbon, Coimbra, and Porto are making speeches. Songs
of Frehmo (the Mozambique 'liberation movement') are heard again and again,
played perhaps for the first time over public radio. The act is subversive,
whatever one thinks of these regimes. Then an official declaration:

'The Junta informs the GNR and PSP that it welcomes the
demonstrations of joy planned for the First of May by the
workers, and asks them not to intervene.

Amid a propaganda barrage the Maoists have occupied some empty houses in
Boavista and moved Peoyle in. Boavista is the 'Indian quarter', a shanty
town of ilapidated 'barracas'. A Capital, the evening paper, gets stories
from some of the squatters::

'I've lived here, in a shanty, for 15 years. I'm married with 5
kids. I did like everyone else and occupied an empty house. There
were some y oung people, students, who told us to smash down the
doors and take over. No one was caught during this action. I've
been down for a house for about a year now. (Mariette Barbara)

'I've lived in this shanty since it was first started, 34 years
ago. It was after a cyclone that we had to move into it. Seven
months ago my husband threw me out. Since then I've been living
with neighbours, 4ragging the kids from one crowded place to
another. I'd really no choice. People started occupying houses
and, well, I just did the same.' (Lucinda Lima):

Later that night the police and army arrived and stopped further squatting.
Those already in refused to move. They were allowed to stay. The many other
empty houses in the area were guarded by troops.

I was scared, as everyone else was, at what might happen on May Day. The
Army had already fired shots into the air, during a demonstration, because
of what a major had described as a 'dangerous situation'. He had warned 'We
won't hesitate to use force if the population doesn't cooperate. They may
demonstrate peacefully, but not provocatively'. The tone was ominous, a
reminder that the military were in charge. They were still very popular,
however, and people immediately obeyed their orders. But contradictions
were already coming to light.

The PIDE offices had not been immediately attacked and this had given them
an opportunity to destroy certain files, in particular those relating to
agents and informers. Later their headquarters are opened to the press.
Great caches of guns, grenades, and other light weapons were discovered, as
well as files on every militant or suspected militant in Portugal.
Left-wing banners and posters are displayed in a special room. Also, under
glass cases, pamphlets and leaflets dating back to the 1930's. The PIDE
have the best revolutionary library in Portugal: a complete collection of
marxist and anarchkt writers. On the wall of the library, in large letters,
a poem by Salazar, written when he was 18. Next to the torture chamber (a
long bare room with lights and a stage) is a little Catholic chapel. It
contained many Portuguese art treasures and was dominated by a statue of
the Blessed Virgin. The PIDE had already created a museum. All that was
needed now was for them to become the prime exhibit.

We learn that demonstrations in Angola and Mozambique have called for
complete independence. In Angola there has also been a demonstration
calling for continued alliance with Portugal.

Africa will be a major problem for the Government. The 'liberation
movements' in these countries must be the sole arbiters of their own
destiny, whether that destiny be state capitalism or not. The new
government must immediately grant them the complete right to
selfijetermination But the Junta hesitates. Spinola wants 'federation',
although the local people have already gone way beyond that idea. Angola,
with the largest white population, will be the most difficult to
'decolonise'. A new political party has been organised there, among the
whites.

The PCP has distributed a leaflet. They ask for things which have already
been promised by the Junta. There is not a vestige of a class approach in
all this. The PCP is tail-ending the MFA, and the MFA is the mouthpiece of
the liberal bourgeoisie. Tuesday, April 30. Day 6.

A changed political situation has such an impact on one's frienffs! People
don't move at the same pace. What could be shared in opposition to fascism'
suddenly becomes irrelevant. A new situation is created.

I phone E and we plan the evening. During the afternoon I clear up
outstanding work, knowing that over the next few days I'm not going to have
much time.

I read the news. Students and workers have occupied the main offices of the
old regime. A former Minister has been arrested, withdrawing 80 million
escudos from a bank. The flignt of the fascists, and their hunt by the
people, continue.

All sorts of political groups, including the PS, have now published
manifestos. I find this both beautiful and horrifying. Beautiful because
only a few days earlier many of these groups had not existed in the public
eye. It is hard for anyone who hasn't lived in a fascist county to realise
what the absence of a free press really means. Workers come out on strike,
someone is killed in a demonstration, 20 people are arrested as
'terrorists' and there is maybe a small derogatory note at the bottom of an
inside page.

An ignored and harrassed 'underground press' is allowed to function in most
non-fascist capitalist countries. Here there hadn't even been that.
Suddenly all voices make headlines. And those whose voice had been
strangled for decades begin to realise they can talk.

But it's horrifying too, because the demands are so conservative. Every
established p arty has been overtaken by events and is incapable of facing
the new situation. The demands of the PS and PCP are already inscribed in
the programme of the Junta. There's a chance to move through centuries, and
these people only want to crawl forward an inch. There's a chance to blow
the lid off completely, and they only want to peep inside. The workers,
miles ahead of them, are calling for a minimum wage and for a whole list of
other 'practical' demands. Maybe one should rewrite Lenin's famous dictum.
Perhaps it is the Party of the Proletariat that can 'only achieve a trade
union consciousness'.

The PS manifesto is aggressive, though still reformist. Under the title
'Coming out of Clandestinity' it outlines its main objectives:

1. An end to the colonial wars. Immediate cease- fire.
Negotiations with the Government of Guin6- Bissau and with the
liberation movements in Angola and Mozambique. 2. Immediate
amnesty for all deserters and draft-dodgers. 3. Liberation of all
political prisoners in the colonies. 4. The right to vote at 18.
5. Immediate elections by universal suffrage to a democratic
Camara (Parliament). 6. The removal of all those directly
involved in the previous Government. 7. A struggle against
monopolies and the dismantling of corporations. 8. The
establishment of diplomatic relations with all countries.

This is the most 'radical' position so far advocated by any of the
bourgeois politicians. Compared to the PCP, the PS's programme seems more
sincere, more aware, less manipulatory, in fact less party-political. The
manifesto is unsigned, the result of long meetings over the Sunday.

The Communists have a line in keeping with the requirements of Russian
policy. They are already campaigning for votes, trying simultaneously to
please all sections of the population. The PS, however opportunistically,
has at least made some demands relevant to working class life. But people
have reservations about Soares. He is the bourgeois politician par
excellence, a member of the 'Second International', a friend of Wilson and
Mitterand, of Brandt and Mrs. Chandi, those pseudo-socialists who at every
opportunity seek to make use of the oppression of others to build up their
own self-image. While Cunhal seeks to impose his line by every conceivable
means Soares bends with every wind, makes friends, uses them, uses anything
that will help.Alvaro Cunhal had arrived at the airport to a hero's
welcome. The PCP, formed in 1921 in support of the Bolsheviks, had been
smashed in 1941 by the political police of the time, called 'Vigilance and
Defence of the Nation'. The Party was slowly rebuilt during the following
years. Cunhal was arrested in 1949. In 1951 he escaped with others from the
high-security prison in Peniche and ended up in Russia, where he settled.
Thousands had been exiled. Many are returning. Soares and Cunhal are only
the tip of a vast iceberg.

On the way to town I pass E's house but get caught in a traffic jam: such
things continue, revolution or not. I read the papers. The CDL have taken
over the head-quarters of the 'Mocidade Portuguesa', the old youth movement
known as the 'green shirts'. The Junta have decreed new laws relating to
the export of money and metal. But on the whole they seem afraid. They warn
against provocateurs:

'The present situation is delicate. It still hasn't been possible
to control certain elements who will use it to provoke
disturbances. We call for the greatest possible calm during the
celebrations of May 1. Anything else would endanger the
revolution.'

The Junta can't possibly keep tabs on everyone and everything. Many
prisoners have been released but no one knows how many. The authorities
urge 'all cx-political prisoners not yet definitely identified to go to the
Archives of Identification to receive identity cards'. A large meeting of
university students has decided to pull down the statue erected by the
fascist regime to the glory of Portuguese women and to erect, in its place,
a tribute to Catarina Eufemia, the peasant girl killed by the National
Guard in 1954. The statue is torn down and a simple placard p ut in its
place.

We are stil worried about tomorrow, May Day. I pass a supermarket and seek
to buy some spray paint There isn't any. I eventually find some in an art
shop. The instruments of culture, revolutionary or otherwise, remain in the
hands of the middle-class.

I meet M, depressed as hell by her colleagues. We burst into discussion and
talk of our feelings since we last met. We mention groups actions, people
we'd spoken to. We go to an old tasca which had been a marxist-leninist
student haunt. It's past midnight, but no one is where they should be. We
hope they're out doing things, preparing banners, working with groups. We
feel helpless. It seems ridiculous for two foreigners to try anything on
their own. We get slightly drunk. Our depression becomes impaticnc(' and
anger and we go out and write on the walls ourselves. We decide on the
standard slogan 'Down with the colonial war' but finally add some graffiti,
made up on the spur of the moment. We do it for ourselves, because of our
own helplessness, because of our desire to be a part of the great movement
already under way. And we feel good. People pass and give us the clenched
fist salute. But we are also afraid. I am writing a large slogan. Halfway
through I panic and shout at M 'How do you spell revolution in Portuguese?'
M laughs loudly, her joy very real.

Wednesday, May 1. Day 7.

We have never seen anything like it before. The whole of Lisbon is out, the
emotion beyond belief. All morning the radio has been calling for 'calm and
dignity'. The authorities are supposedly afraid of the right, a real enough
fear since there are still some 20,000 PIDE agents at large. But we feel
they are very much afraid of the left, too. We stand at the corner of
Alameda and try to absorb it all: the noise, the spirit, the joy surging
out in floods, after half a century of being bottled up. We meet some
friends as arranged.

This is the day of the workers and all Lisbon is here. There are lorries,
obviously borrowed for the day, packed with people coming in from
surrounding towns and suburbs. 'No one paid us to demonstrate' a banner
says, clearly referring to the practices of the previous regime. I could
cry. Others are weeping already. All day we march, lost in different parts
of a crowd half a million strong. Flowers, carnations everywhere. Along the
way, people are offering water to demonstrators, from their windows.

We make for the newly re-named 'Stadium of the First of May'. There are
tens of thousands inside, more thousands outside, trying to get in. At the
rostrum, the predictable politicians: Cunhal, Soares, the trade union
leaders. The speeches begin. The hammers and sickles fly high as Cunhal
speaks. Soares gets a warm reception. The speeches are depressing,
reformist, opportunist. The real argument is taking place in the streets,
outside. Workers explain to one another what 'auto -gestao'
(self-management)means or could mean.

We leave and head towards Rossio. The metro is the only means of transport.
There are only two carriages per train. More can't be added because certain
stations had only been built to that length, and that as late as 1973. We
squash in like Portuguese sardines. We arrive in the square, to scenes
defying description.

The sailors' band is there, somehow caught up with the maoist and
trotskyist demonstrations. Here is the so-called fardeft. But it's like
anywhere else in the city. There just isn't room, literally space, for
sectarianism.

Young workers are dancing to the music. Police cars go by, with
demonstrators on top of them. A bus passes, the driver tooting his horn in
rhythm with other noises. There's no telling where that vehicle will end
up: it's going in the opposite direction to the destination written on the
front. The emergency exits of all buses are open, flags protruding from
every window. A group of youths pass, 'the Gringos of Samba' according to
their banner. Their Latin-American music is very catching. More people
begin to dance. A group of students pass shouting '0 Povo armado jamais
sera vencido' (an armed people will never be defeated). People laugh at
this subversive variation of the 'official' slogan. The whole thing is
confusion. People are cheering anything and everything. Someone shouts
'Viva Spinola, viva 0 communismo'.

We go to the house of certain young singers whose songs had been banned.
Their records, censored, were rarely played on the radio. Everyone is
drinking. A singing session ensues, which after an hour moves back to
Rossio. We stay there, sitting on the ground, until 3 am, singing, watching
peo plc jump into the icy cold fountain. Finally, exhausted, I decide to go
home.

I shall never forget that First of May. The noise, the noise, the noise is
still ringing in my ears. The horns tooting in joy, the shouting, the
slogans, the singing and dancing. The doors of revolution seem open again,
after forty eight years of repression. In that single day every-thing was
replaced in perspective. Nothing was god-given, all was man-made. People
could see their misery and their problems in a historical setting. How can
words describe 600,000 people demonstrating in a city of a million? Or the
effect of carnations everywhere, in the barrels of rifles, on every tank
and every ear, in the hands of troops and demonstrators alike? It is the
climax of a week of hectic, fast-moving events. Working people have left an
indelible mark on the situation. The call is for socialism and masses of
ordinary people have been involved in making it. What started as a military
coup is assuming new dimensions. The Junta is still in power, but it is the
people who have called the tune, in particular the working class.

A week has passed, although it already feels like many months. Every hour
has been lived to the full. It is already difficult to remember what the
papers looked like before, or what people had then said. Hadn't there
always been a revolution?

II. The Background

Portugal - The Impossible Revolution? -- Phil Mailer

II. THE BACKGROUND

PROBLEMS OF CAPITALIST UNDERDEVELOPMENT

In the 15th century Portugal began taking full advantage of its easy access to the maritime routes between the Atlantic and thc Mediterranean. Her navigators (as indeed the Spaniards) discovered and conquered far away territories. In less than a century Portugal established a great colonial empire extending from South East Asia to South America and taking in its sweep large parts of Africa.

The predominantly feudal nature of Portuguese society influenced the way it was to use its new possessions. A rudimentary exploitation was resorted to, based on the pillage of natural resources. Indigenous populations were turned into slaves. Profits and plunder formed the basis of a privileged stratum in Portugal itself, especially in Lisbon, whose riches were directly dependent upon the colonies.

The new mercantile bourgeoisie came into existence on the basis of this early trade in slaves, spices and diamonds. lt was content to join with the landowning classes in extracting wealth from the overseas territories in the most primitive of ways, without seeking to engage in any productive activity. The Crown and land owners kept an eye on the merchants, taking a percentage of the profits through customs duties. The Portuguese Crown Monopolies during this period yielded 40 times as much as the French Royal Monopoly was to yield in the following century, during the period of French expansion.

The situation in the Low Countries, in France and especially, in Britain was altogether different. The rising bourgeoisie set out to share in the colonial booty, helping themselves en route to various parts of the Portuguese em p ire. But they also engaged in productive activities at home. By the early 18th century they had established a secure basis for their own trade, both in their respective countries and in the international sphere.

During the Peninsular Wars (1807-1814) Napoleonic troops swept across Spain and Portugal. The Portuguese bourgeoisie appealed to Britain for help. The effects of the war and of the debt to Britain (the help proved costly) weakened the entire basis of Portuguese colonialism. Brazil became independent in 1822. Portuguese armies, necessary to 'protect' the remaining colonies proved expensive to raise and Portugal was forced to rely on Britain to protect its declining empire from the appetites of covetous neighbours.

A good deal of its empire gone, Portugal was forced to submit to British capitalism. English merchants gained ready access to the Portuguese market. The agreement was made on Portugal's behalf by the feudal land-owners and latifundiarios supported by the non-industrial bourgeoisie: it led to the so-called 'Anglo-Portuguese Alliance' which the British used (and broke) at will and to their advantage. By promising assistance, Britain walked in through the back door, gaining favoured positions in trade in addition to the territories already seized. The, agreement ruined sections of the smaller bourgeoisie, disfavouring them in trade and making it harder for them to accumulate capital. Their discontent drove them to engage in the great liberal struggles of 1810-1836,led by such groups as the 'House of 24'. But it was a futile struggle, without attainable objectives. The only significant result was a break-up and redistribution of some of the larger latifundios. A stratum of smaller landowners was created from whom a few peasants were enabled to lease land. The main structure didn't really change and industrialisation wasn't able to gain a proper hold.

The result was the relative decline of Portugal and the continued impotence of her industry. Such an unfavourable position was further aggravated by the emergence of an anticolonial struggle in Angola and Mozambique. The reduction in the flow of colonial booty made it necessary to industrialise to some extent. Small businesses achieved a certain success (tobacco, preserves, glass, textiles, agricultural and consumer goods). This industrialisation was limited despite the favourable conditions opened up by the First World War. In 1917, of Portugal's population of six million, only 130,000 worked in inifustry, over half for companies employing less than 100 people.

This embryonic proletariat was radical in the extreme. In 1917 and 1918 it showed that it was a force to be reckoned with. But the weak structure of Portuguese capitalism allowed little leeway for economic concessions. State power became ever more repressive (a state of siege was declared in November 1918). The continued deficit in the balance of payments reached enormous proportions in the last years of the Republic (1910-1926). It caused the middle classes to intervene on the side of a rigid state control, aimed at restricting the workers' struggle and allowing capitalist development to take place without interference. But industria development never took place to any substantial degree. The workers' struggles and the inability of the Republican leaders to deal with the frail and sick economy only led to the military interven-tion of 1926 and to the subsequent proclamation of the 'Estado Novo' by Salazar.

Salazar's type of fascism was the form best adapted to an underdeveloped country. Originally, Salazarism was based on an alliance of financial-colonial and agricultural capital. The policies of the Estado Novo were designed to reduce class struggle at home and opposition in the colonies. The price of agricultural goods was maintained by the State at a very low level, thus progressively ruining the smaller landowners. At the same time the unions were replaced by official 'sindicatos'. The industrial bourgeoisie also had to toe the line, being obliged to organise on a corporative basis. There was a ban on all public meetings, strikes, etc. No opposition was tolerated.

In Angola, Mozambique and Guine'-Bissau fascism meant all of this, plus the pillage and robbery of natural resources.

Portuguese neutrality during the Second World War allowed the economy to enjoy a small boom. Certain products (especially tropical fruits and coffee) were sold to the warring nations at high price. The boom allowed the burgeoning of yertain new industries, mainly textiles. For the first time in the history of Portugal, an economic basis developed for an alliance between financial and industrial capital. But the alliance was shaky and scarcely challenged the supremacy of the colonial land-owners and latifundiarios.

In the early 1950's the bottom fell out of the market for tropical fruits. This affected Portugal disastrously. Agricultural production actually declined. A change in emphasis was introduced with the laune hingofth e first Five Year Development Plan in 1955. The industrial sector slowly began to grow.

This struggle between industrial and financial capital had political repercussions: 'progressive' capitalists began to bid for power. While the Salazarist regime brutally cut off all possibilities of political change, they could hardly halt international market pressures, nor hold back the economic tide. Their difficulties in dealing with the stagnation of their own economy were only 'solved' by increased plunder of the colonies and increased exploita-tion of the work-force at home. Colonial pillage and the 'success' of other 'national liberation' struggles in Africa led to the launching of armed revolts in the early 1960's.

The productive bourgeoisie were for a long time unable to break the constraints imposed by this sort of economy. In the struggle between the industrial and the colonial bourgeoisie the former eventually gained the ascendancy and in 1962 Portugal joined EFTA (the European Free Trade Association), an organisation then dominated by Britain.

Three African wars were now being waged. The colonial bourgeoisie was desperately attempting to hold onto the reins of power. All politics became the sole prerogative of the ruling National Action Party. In 1949 General Norton de Matos had attempted to stand in the presidential election but had withdrawn on the ground that no fair contest was possible. In 1951, Professor Rui Luis Gomes was disqualified from the elections because he had stated that he would refuse to take the mandatory oath of allegiance to the Council of State. The franchise was so limited that neither of these candidates would have stood much chance anyway. Even the President's answerability to the people was removed in 1959, as an extra safeguard for the regime. Meanwhile increased activities by the PIDE (both in Portugal and among Portuguese immigrants in Paris) sought to terrorise all opponents of the regime, even those with electoral illusions.

Exports during 1960-70 rose by 11.4% (which was higher than in most EFTA countries). But the soaring cost of imports in the weak industrial sector caused a mounting deficit in the balance of payments. In its trade with the colonies Portugal played the dual role of importer of raw material and supplier of finished products from Europe, whereas in its trade with Western Europe, the pattern was reversed. The pillage of the Portuguese colonies was thus directly underwritten by Western capitalism.

The logic of the colonial war was only too obvious. But so too was the logic of industrialisation. Portugal's weak infrastructure would not allow a 'neo£olomalist' way out. Portuguese industry could not itself transform the raw materials into finished products and could not compete with others in doing so. The colonial wars dragged on. Compulsory military service was increased to four years. The price in men and money grew. In 1968 war costs comprised 44%of the total budget. They reached 49%in 1971. And what was there to show at the end of all the fighting? Only an increased deficit in the balance of payments and very little industrialisation.

European countries and the US supported these policies economically. They needed the raw materials from the Portuguese colonies, which they could resell on the world market (including Portugal and its colonies, purchasing power permitting) as finished products. During the late 1960's they also rediscovered an old use for Portuguese labour. Confronted with increased labour costs at home (due to increased resistance on the part of 'their own' working classes) they found a ready supply of cheap labour from Portugal. France had known this for some time and had allowed massive immigration of Portuguese workers. But such large migrant work-forces created their own problems: it was in many ways easier to move the factory to the source of cheap labour than to move the labour. With support from the Portuguese government a number of capitalist countries exported their machines to transform raw materials and built plants within Portugal itself. Foreign investment in Portugal rose by 300%between 1963 and 1969. In 1971 alone 392 branches of foreign firms started operating in Portugal, constituting over 20% of the country's total capital. Despite this industrialisation, less than 40% of the population in 1970 worked in industry. A third of the population still worked as agricultural labourers. Many of them were working for latifund ia'rios. In 1967 the average wage was 19 escudos per day. The housing situation was appalling. An estimated 150,000 people were living in shanty towns concentrated around Lisbon. Prices were rising at a considerable rate. This was partly related to the colonial wars, but also to Portugal's international monetary difficulties.

The main Portuguese industries were labour-intensive. Many were foreigndominated In 1969 one third of all private investment in Portugal was financed by foreign capital. The USA occupied first position. Britain came second. The concentration of the labour force had not proceeded very far. Figures for 1964 show that the number of companies employing over 1000 workers was only 49 . They included some of the most powerful companies and multinationals in the world such as Lisnave (ship builders) and Sacor (oil refineries). Both were partly Swedish-owned. Monopolies like CUF (who had owned large parts of Guinea-Bissau) held majority interests in the wood, mineral and tobacco industries. They were themselves largely controlled by a combination of Franco-Belgian, American, West German and British capital. Portuguese capitalism was weak and the nationalisation of monopoly capital was clearly a way out for it. So was the concentration of indigenous capital in the hands of the State. This drive towards state-capitalist 'solutions' (which was to gain tremendous impetus after April 25th) could however solve nothing for the working class, despite all the mystifications perpetrated on this score by various 'left' organisations. Indeed it will be one of the main themes of this book that today, whether they like it or not, the traditional left are evervwhere one of the main midwives ot state capitalism.Their interventions, whether they are in government or not, often assist the State to recuperate the results of working class struggles, thereby driving the economy still further along the state-capitalist path.

THE WORKERS' MOVEMENT

The origin of the workers' movement in Portugal can be traced hack to 1850, with the setting up of the first trade unions and the publication of the paper 0 Eco dos Opercirios. The petty-bourgeois struggles under the leadership of the 'House of 24' had failed. The Proudhonist type of cooperative shops and banks, and the calls for land distribution, were seen by the qmerging working class as of little value to them. Between 1855-66 the group around the newspaper A Federacao moved in the direction of trade unionism. But it was not until after 1871 - with the setting up of a branch of the First International - that any real movement got under way.

The branch of the International was essentially marxist. Unlike what happened in Spain the Bakuninists found little support. Marxist pamphlets were translated and distributed in Porto and Lisbon during the 1880's.

At this stage, however, another tradition was to prove even stronger: republicanism. The failure of the liberal reforms and the continued stifling of the petty bourgeoisie eventually led to demands for the abolition of the monarchy, for the setting up of a constitutional parliamentary regime and for the abrogation of the royal taxes. A Republican Party, founded in 1876, was modelled on the Mazzini groups in Italy. During the late 1880's 'carbonarios' and clubs sprouted all over Portugal. They called for demonstrations against British domination of Portuguese trade and against British influence in Mozambique. The agitation spread. Socialists began to participate in the campaigns.

An abortive revolution took place on January 31, 1891. It failed partly because of the military cohesion of the regime, but also because large sections of the working population did not support it, sensing that these struggles were only in the interests of the petty bourgeoisie. The defeat of the movement led to large-scale repression. Both the socialist and the republican clubs were banned. The reign of terror which followed under the Franco dictatorship allowed little room for organisation.

The assassination of King Don Carlos (in February 1908) was only one event in a growing undercurrent of unrest and revolt. Republicanism became implanted in! the armed forces at this time. Many large meetings of officers openly discussed the issue. There was little that Joao Franco (who had assumed the title of King) could do to halt the inevitable. The explosion took place on October 5, 1910. Revolutionary troops marched on Lisbon, led by known republicans. But the sailors who bombarded strategic positions in Lisbon were socialists. In many ways the socialists had been duped by republican ideology and promises, although it was doubtless easier for them to work under a republican structure than under a monarchy. The struggles continued. Gcyvernments were to come at the rate ot two a year over the next 16 years and large strikes and demonstrations filled the streets of Lisbon on several occasions. The years 1917-18 saw the first attempts at a genaral strike. A state of siege had twice to be declared by the government.

The essentially petty-bourgeois republican governments never secured a real mass basis. Their anti-clericalism alienated large sections of the Catholic peasantry, while their failure to satisfy any of the workers' demands made them unpopular in the large urban areas. Peasant opposition was given popular though mystical expression in the 'Miracle of Fatima' in 1917. (The Blessed Virgin was reported to have appeared to three peasant children.) The dissatisfaction of the urban proletariat remained a chronic threat to various republican administrations. Until 1926 there was continual 'disorder' in the country. This led finally to the right-wing coup of May 28, 1926. Two years later, in April 1928, Dr. Salazar, a 37 year old lecturer in 'Economic and Financial Sciences' at Coimbra University was appointed Finance Minister by President Carm6na. He had asked for financial control of the entire machinery of government and his demands had been accepted. In 1932 Salazar became Prime Minister. His declaration of the Estado Novo, in 1933, grew directly out of the great struggles of the preceding years. Between 1926 (the right-wing army coup) and 1933 (the formal promulgation of the Corporative Constitution) the armed forces were restive. There were several attempts at counter-coups and at palace revolution: Porto, February 7, 1927; Lisbon, July 20, 1928; Madeira, April 1931; Lisbon, August 26, 1931. This undercurrent of unrest was not confined to the military. Many armed civilians took part in the revolts. With the proclamation of the Estado Novo, strikes were declared illegal. But, precisely because of this, large strike movements became movements of opposition to the new state. They reached a climax in 1934, when the working class attempted an insurrection. Its defeat was a brutal forerunner of the defeat of the Spanish Revolution of 1936.

During the five days it lasted, the 1934 uprising highlighted many key problems of the working class movement. Two dominant leaderships were thrown up, which in turn were overthrown. Neither of them proved acceptable in struggle and both were forced to integrate into autonomous proletarian movements produced in the crisis, i.e. into the 'revolutionary committees'.

The general strike of January 18, 1934 was total in its solidarity. A state of siege was declared. The GNR and PSP were called in. Despite widespread armed resistance they quickly put down the insurrection. In certain areas the fighting lasted longer. In Marinha Grande, north of Lisbon, the local revolutionary committees (composed of members of both the CGT and PCP, as wefl as of local unaligned militants) called for direct action. The population attacked the GNR barracks from which they obtained weapons. Telephone links were cut ,roads blocked, and a soviet declared. This soviet, the first in Portugal, made preparations for the siege. The Salazarist forces met tremendous opposition all the way to Marinha Grande. But after two days of fierce fighting the town was occupied and the uprising crushed. Most of the leaders were arrested and deported to Angola and Tarrafal, in the Cabo Verde Islands, where the infamous 'slow death' camps were set up. Concentration camps were also set up throughout Portugal itself Thousands of strikers lost their jobs. There is no doubt that the uprising of January 1934 influenced the strike of the Asturian miners, later that year.

During the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) Salazar sent 40,000 troops to help the fascist uprising. There was some opposition: the crews of three ships sent to Franco's aid (the Djo, the Afonso de Albuquerque and the Bartolomieu Dias) mutinied in the Tagus. They were shelled by the batteries and the mutineers were all arrested. The PCP,which hadwanted to work legally,was outlawed.Those of its leaders still at large were driven into exile. The anarcho-syndicalist organisation was completely smashed. The PCP gradually recovered. It started to strengthen its organisation abroad. It also began a clandestine campaign to form nuclei within the factories. For the anarcho-syndicalists the defeat proved more permanent. The fascist apparatus consolidated itself. Each bill passed by the state represented a further entrenchment of bourgeois power, a further attack on the working class. Any action outside the straitjacket of such organisations as the Portuguese Legion, the Greenshirts (Mocidade Portuguesa) or the syndicates was made virtually impossible. The working class was politically stifled. Only at work could it fight back.

A plot to assassinate Salazar in July 1937 was foiled, as were hundreds of other activities of a political nature. After the defeat of the Spanish Revolution the world was thrown into an inter-imperialist World War, during which Portugal remained neutral.

During the next two decades many workers supported - however misguidedly - moves made by various sections of the bourgeoisie to recover control of the state apparatus from the more explicitly fascist groups. The PCP was in the forefront in its support of such moves. Its 'anti-fascist' ideology was an obstacle to autonomous organisation. In 1958 the electoral campaign of Humberto Delgado received wide working class endorsement: many felt that it might be easier to organise under a more open regime. The FPLN was set up in 1964. It brought the PS and PCP into a 'front' of class collaboration with liberals like Delgado. In 1965, after Delgado had been assassinated by the political police, these ill-founded hopes were again to be dashed. Delgado had enjoyed some support within the army. After his 'disappearance' a group of officers (the so-called Independent Military Opposition) organised a revolt but were thwarted by the police, who learned of their plans.

Opposition to Salazarism smouldered on within the armed forces, and this even before the onset of the colonial wars. One of the most spectacular attempts to call attention to Portuguese (an'{Sp anish) fascism was the highjacking of the liner 'Santa Maria'. On January 22, 1961 a group of army and ex-army men seized the ship on her journey from Miami to Caracas. International press and TV took up the incident. Henrique Galvao explained, in an interview with a French newspaper, the position of DRIL (Revolutionary Command for Iberian Liberation): 'We don't merely want a change of government, but a revolution both in Spain and in Portugal'. After twelve days the liner eventually docked in Brazil. Galvlo and others were forced into exile.

The regime was not only challenged from within the army. A strike of Alentejo miners in 1960 (against sackings) led to the arrest of 150 workers, many of whom were tortured by PIDE. Strikes, although illegal, continued. Workers would 'turn in sick', all on the same day. In the universities a considerable movement (the Associative Movement) developed between 1961 and 1963, provoking large-scale police repression.

The struggles intensitied after 1968. Transport workers were involved in 1969. They didn't stop work, but merely refused to collect fares. This action proved tremendously popular. The men asked for a 40-hour week and for a 'thirteenth month' (on full pay). Despite the repressive apparatus within the factories, the increase in the cost of living compelled the workers to defend themselves and to seek pay rises. In 1969 textile workers came out on strike, provoked by collective dismissals in the industry (caused partly by textile employers moving their operations to Angola, where a higher rate of profit was assured). The plant at Abelheira was occupied by the workers and some 30 to 40 other textile factories came out in sympathy. The GNR had to be used to dislodge the strikers. The electronics industry proved an important arena of struggle during 1972-73. Electro-Arco were on strike in 1973 and solidarity actions occurred in other parts of the industry. Strikes were also registered at Robbialac, Cometna, Sorefame, Ima (Setflbal), Bis, Mondet, Eduardo Jorge, Sacor, Fabrica dos Gallegos, Luso-Italiana, Sildex, J. Pimenta, Messa Regina, Standard Electrica, Transul, Lisnave, Sepsa, Soda P6voa, Timex, Parry & Son, CVF, Telemec, etc. In certain cases the workers were given pay increases. In most instances the strikes were repressed. But working people had shown that whether 'the right to strike' existed or not, they had to fight to defend themselves.

The overall legacy was terrible, both in Portugal (where the rate of economic growth had been stifled to below that of the colonies) and in the colonies themselves, where most of the natural resources had been plundered and the people kept in ign prance. The international bourgeoisie had left Portugal under-developed to an extent where it came last in most of the positive OECD statistics, and first; in most of their negative ones. Of a population of 9 million, over a million had emigrated.

THE POLITICIANS EMERGE

Lenin sald that revolution was possible when the ruling class couM no longer rule and when the rest of the people wouldn't continue in the old way. This is an inadequate list of p reconditions. If revolution is not to mean just a change of rulers, one should add to Lenin's prescription that the people should have some idea of what they want to replace the old society with. The Portuguese ruling classes had shown their ineptitude and weakness. They were discredited and hopelessly divided. Their political and legislative institutions were in chaos. The people cleady wanted a change. But what change? The coup of April 25th had released forces which it would prove difficult to control, and which still had to define themselves.

The workers are everywhere on the offensive. To remain in the picture the bourgeoisie has to 'support' popular demands and to endorse what has already been done. All the newspapers, for instance, say they agree with the economic claims of the working class. All 'support' the 1st of May. But the smaller capitalists are anxious. They are bound to be the first to lose in the present wave of demands. The larger enterprises can sustain strikes and the freezing of their capital for longer periods. They are not going to give up without a syruggle. In the short run, they may even profit from a situation which, by eliminating their competitors, tends to reinforce their dominion.

The country seems to be turned inside out. Energy, long dormant, is erupting everywhere. Didno de Lisboa (May 4th, 1974) carries news of a strike in the mines of Alentejo, the first in this province: some 1500 workers are demanding a minimum monthly wage of 4000 escudos and 8 days annual holiday.

On May 8 there is a strike by the conductors of trains to Cascais, a middle class seaside resort about 20 km from Lisbon. The trains are running, but no tickets are being sold or collected. A notice in the station says: 'You don't have to pay. Go anywhere you like. Have a nice trip. Have a nice day'. The strike is tremendously popular. These trains have first and second class compartments. Adult workers continue to use the second class ones. But the working class kids go into the first class carriages. They are a travelling theatre, smoking their fat, imaginary cigars as they walk up and down the aisles of the carriages.

The First Provisional Government is proclaimed on May 16,1974. The PCP, PS and PPD each hold 2 seats. CDE and SEDES (a conservative technocratic group who had opposed Caetano's economic policies) have a seat each. There are seven military ministers of unknown political colour. The Prime Minister is Palma Carlos. He een a corpdration lawyer for many of the larger firms, but had also defended Mano Soares at a trial in the 1960's.

The Government's programme stresses: 1) measures to combat speculation and fraud 2) reform of the banking system 3) nationalisation of the 'national' banks 4) assistance to small and medium-sized business 5) recognition of the fact that the solution to the war is political and not military 6) continuation of neighbourly relations with Spain 7) intensification of relations with Common Market countries 8) establishment of diplomatic relations with all countries 9) the fixing of a minimum wage.

The Minister of Labour (Avelino Goncalves) is a member of the PCP. (PCP members were to occupy this post mt he Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth governments too.) Communications are taken over by the director of Repith/ica, Dr Raul Rego. Real power is exercised by the Junta, but how homogeneous a body is it? The Programme of the MFA remains the most important document or statement of aims now circulating, and is more widely discussed than the government's own programme.

By the middle of May a truly remarkable situation exists. Political discussion is taking place in the factories, in the streets, in the cafe's. Masses of people are criticising, then engaging in direct action. The political organisations and 'leaders' are trying to keep pace, to draw the conclusions, to 'translate popular demands into political programmes One can isolate certain groups with clear-cut programmes. First there is the MFA, itself consisting of two inter-related thotigh separate organisations (the Junta proper, presided over by General Spinola and made up of three generals, a brigadier and two captains; and the 'Movement of the Captains' which has more radical views). The Junta had proclaimed the Programme of the Armed Forces. It is the½ Then there are the Communists and Socialists. Together they seem to have captured the feeling ofthe country. In the cities at least they appear wellorganised. They form a sizeable minority within the government and dominate the unions. The Communists are the most 'cautious' of all. The essence of their message is 'Save the National Economy'. 'Don't strike'. 'Don't do anything which could bring back the fascism we have just overthrown'. It isunbelievable how Completely a party can expose itself in the course of a few weeks. The experience of Chileis quoted everywhere to justify 'caution'. No one argues the opposite case: that it was Allende's inability to go beyond the bounds of bourgeois democracy that led tohis eventual downfall. No one knows the strength of thereaction, or indeed of the revolutionary forces. Every thing has yet to be tested. Meanwhile Intersindical has been formed, as a confederation of various unions, and the PCP is the main influence within it.

The various capitalist parties constitute the third political trend, weak but undoubtedly still present. The PPD, grouped around Sa' Carneiro, Minister without Portfolio, has some credibility. It is supported by business elements and by the petty-bourgeoisie who see the restoration of 'democracy' in Portugal as a passport into the Common Market. Private enterprise, they state,should be given the 'freedom' and 'boost' necessary to help it overcome its economic difficulties. Among other avowedly capitalist parties are the Liberals, the Monarchists, the Labour Party and the PS win of CDE.

The fourth group (the 'far left') had been as unprepared for the new situation as the capitalists. It comprised Maoists, the PRP-BR, MES, LUAR and the Trotskyists. Candidates for 'leadership' have sprung up everywhere. Where there had been only one political party, there is now a super-abundance of them. Known groups organise. Others, formerly clandestine, emerge into daylight. No one knows how many parties there are,let alone groups. No one knows their strength, or how important they are - or could b