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From Notes of the Month, International Socialism, No.73, December 1974, pp.6-7.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Joanna Rollo writes: As the Portuguese economy staggers into crisis, with prices soaring (inflation is running at 30 per cent) and a rapidly growing number of unemployed, the Provisional Government are turning to more and more repressive solutions. The latest measure, announced last Saturday, is a declaration of emergency powers which can be taken in the event of a partial or total breakdown of the economy – they give the Provisional Government and the armed forces total authority to requisition goods, services and supplies – water, transport, electricity, mines, postal services. They allow for total military rule throughout all sections of the Portuguese economy and society.
This is one further attempt at controlling a situation which is rapidly getting out of hand, through a further power bid by the most militaristic section of the Movement of the Armed Forces (MFA), which has been orientating towards a Bonapartist solution, a military dictatorship, to solve the crisis.
’The Bonapartist regime can attain a comparatively stable and durable character only in the event that it brings a revolutionary epoch to a close, when the relationship of forces has already been spent: when the revolutionary classes are already spent; while the possessing classes have not yet freed themselves from the fear – will not the morrow bring new convulsions? Without this basic conditions, the Bonapartist regime is in no position to develop.’ [1]
The truth of this is apparent from events in Portugal, specifically in relation to the role that has been played by the powerful military group – the Movement of the Armed Forces, which has played a key role in Portuguese politics since 25 April. The MFA is a group of young, largely middle-rank, officers who spearheaded the coup against the 48-year-old dictatorship. Vasco Goncalves, Prime Minister of Portugal since July and a leading member of the MFA, defined it as follows,
’The MFA is made up of honourable individuals, officers who place love of the fatherland above all else, who are trying to be the driving force behind democratic development and who are the driving force within the army ... We defend the true interests of the Portuguese people.’ [2]
The MFA is estimated to have a membership of 400 – the majority of whom are conscripted captains. It was formed in the colonies in 1973 around essentially economist and militaristic demands-better salaries, shorter duty tours, promotion for all officers, not just those who openly supported the fascist regime. But it was undoubtedly influenced and to some extent radicalised by the anti-war movement within Portugal, the major mobilisations of Portuguese workers and students which took place in 1973. Many of its members were left-wing university students who automatically became officers when conscripted. Coincident with this was the increasingly clear fact that the colonial army was unable to inflict a decisive defeat on the liberation movements in Mozambique and Guinea (although this was less true in Angola), the growing discontent of the rank and file, the vast majority of whom are conscripted workers and peasants, forced into up to four years compulsory national service, most of it in Africa, which threatened the hierarchical discipline of the army, threatened the disintegration of the military apparatus.
Broadly speaking the Programme of the MFA, which was circulating widely in the Army by February 1974 and found its expression in the April coup, was a convergence of two tendencies – the anti-fascist left wing and those who wanted to end the war for economic and hierarchical reasons. The Programme itself, which the Provisional Government was appointed to implement until elections for a Constituent Assembly are held next March, is a broad anti-dictatorship, pro-democratisation statement, calling for a ‘political’ not a ‘military’ solution to the colonial wars and for democratic rights for the Portuguese people. The MFA is the ‘instrument of the nation’ through which this programme will be realised.
The implications of this last statement is that the army, or an influential group within it, can detach itself from the society in which it exists and arbitrate between the classes as an independent administrator of social control and ‘democratisation’. To some extent the MFA was able to do this in a united way after 25 April – the officers joined the national purge of fascists, they arbitrated in factory disputes between workers and management, but as splits within the Co-ordinating Committee (the MFA controlling body [3]), emerged, fomented by the rapid polarisation of the situation, the MFA became less and less able to act as a united controlling force. In July leading members of the MFA entered the government, taking over key posts – Prime Minister, Labour (replacing the Communist Party Minister of Labour in the first Provisional Government), Defence, Economics – seven in all out of a total cabinet of 16. The change in Government came about as a result of an attempt by the right wing in the governing structures [4] to seize more power. It was preceded by increased repression – against the strike movement, a movement which neither the Communist Party in the government, nor the MFA, acting independently, had taken effective leadership of, or been able to contain a movement which went beyond what the bourgeoisie was prepared to tolerate.
By entering the Government the MFA hoped to be able to more effectively control the situation, and to avert a possible confrontation. To a large extent they failed to do this, and their methods of attempting it put them into the role of objective agents of the bourgeoisie – the attempts were crystallised in increased repression of the mass movement in Portugal – continued use of COPCON [5] to break strikes, in some cases locking out workers, the strike law passed in September, which virtually eliminated the legal basis of the right to strike and was also a determined attempt to break the strength of the growing independent rank and file working-class movement, increased repression of the revolutionary left etc., all done under the slogan of ‘Unity of the People and the Movement of the Armed Forces’ and ’In many cases the people have understood that there are limits to the demands that can be made’ ... ‘You must be patient, because being impatient today means being a fascist’ ... [6] – a position which is indistinguishable from that which the Communist Party has taken up since 25 April.
At the same time the MFA was unable to prevent the right wing from organising, virtually openly, which culminated in an attempted seizure of power by the right wing, under the guise of a demonstration of the ‘silent majority’, which planned to draw over 300,000 people on 28 September. In the event it was the Portuguese masses who put a stop to the putschists. Acting independently and in advance of the military, and paying more attention to the instructions of the Communist Party and the Intersyndical [7] than the MFA, workers set up barricades around the main cities to search all traffic and refused to drive the coaches or trains hired to take demonstrators into Lisbon. Some of the barricades were manned by soldiers and sailors, again acting independently of the military structures. The MFA only moved as a cohesive military unit when the crucial period had passed. Sarvaia de Carvalho, Commander of COPCON, acknowledged this:
’We were bypassed by the people. This is extremely dangerous in my opinion... it is impermissible that the peoples’ forces came to take over a task that belonged to the forces of order’. But... ‘In the final analysis these peoples’ brigades offered us effective help. I only regret that because of a decision from above we did not head off the formation of these brigades.’ [8]
The introduction of the emergency powers was preceded by another attempt at institutionalising MFA control – the creation of a ‘Council of Revolution’ – a ‘study group’ designed to ‘help the military junta in constitutional affairs’ – which includes members of theJunta of National Salvation and of the Coordinating Committee of the MFA – key members such as Vasco Goncalves, the Prime Minister, the Commander of COPCON, the Army Minister of Labour, Costa Martins, and others. This body seems to exist in a virtual dual power situation with the Council of State.
The knowledge that the MFA, in government, will act against the working class, has probably served to some extent to give confidence to the right wing, despite the purges that were carried out after 28 September. Many right wing organisations are carrying on their activities in the open – of these the PPD, closest to the centre and represented in the government has considerably increased its strength and has been holding mass meetings etc. In July and August it had virtually no support.
The working class movement has taken on a more political character – strikes against redundancies, some at national level, demanding the right to work, demanding the repeal of the strike law important new struggles are emerging.
This movement has not yet been subordinated to the discipline of the Provisional Government. And the Communist Party has more or less abandoned its earlier ‘Popular Front’ with the social democratic Socialist Party and is opting for a straight governmental alliance with the MFA, calling on the MFA to field candidates in the elections next March.
If elections go ahead as planned and such a government does take power in Portugal, its chances of success are far from assured. The splits within the MFA are becoming increasingly obvious – partial victories have been gained by the left in relation to mobilisation against the right wing, on the question of the colonies etc., but there is not yet a decisive wielding of power by either faction. There are undoubtedly revolutionary elements within the Movement – such as the officers Anjo and Marvao who were arrested for refusing to break the Post Office workers’ strike, and Soviets have been formed in the navy on a wide scale. But the fact remains that no democratisation has been carried out within the army, that it is still controlled on a military disciplined, hierarchical basis – that the rank and file in the majority of cases will take orders from their commanding officers, although there is increasing discontent and rumours of mutiny from the ranks.
As the situation in Portugal polarises the MFA will inevitably be drawn further to the right, will become more closely linked to their class origins.
1. ISJ Reprint, Fascism, Stalinism and the United Front.
2. Speech made after 28 September, quoted in the Intercontinental Press, 28.10.74
3. The Co-ordinating Committee of the MFA is the ‘executive’ body, wielding power over the rest. It is not elected – it is made up from the leaders of the coup – the career captains in the main
4. Council of State: After the coup the AFM surrendered at least part of its power to the Junta of National Salvation – 7 top ranking generals who backed the coup. The Council of State, which appoints the President of the Republic, and promulgates the decree laws through which the Provisional Government rules, is made up of the JNS, 7 members of the Co-ordinating Committee and 7 ‘prominent’ citizens – many of them leading financiers and industrialists to whom the JNS are linked.
5. COPCON: Separate military squad created on 8 July, before the first governmental crisis, by the decree of the Council of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs (army, navy and airforce commanders) to ‘intervene directly in support of the civilian authorities and at their command’. It is officially headed by Costa Gomez but effective power is wielded through the Co-ordinating Committee of the AFM, by Otelo Sarvaia de Carvalho, the mastermind of 25 April.
6. Speech made 5.10.74 at a mass rally at Oporto – the major industrial town in the north, traditionally the strongest fascist area, by Goncalves.
7. Portuguese version of TUC, controlled by Communist Party.
8. In an interview with Diario de Lisboa, 11.10.74 – in which Carvalho also states that he was stopped from mobilising COPCON by Spinola – ‘He [Spinola – ed.] continued to assume that I was a Marxist and a traitor when I had nothing but the purest intentions.’
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