Portugal

The Impossible Revolution?

Phil Mailer

• Publisher: PM Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781604866957
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia europea

After the military coup in Portugal on April 25th, 1974, the overthrow of almost fifty years of Fascist rule, and the end of three colonial wars, there followed eighteen months of intense, democratic social transformation which challenged every aspect of Portuguese society. What started as a military coup turned into a profound attempt at social change from the bottom up and became headlines on a daily basis in the world media. This was due to the intensity of the struggle as well as the fact that in 1974–75 the right-wing moribund Francoist regime was still in power in neighboring Spain and there was huge uncertainty as to how these struggles might affect Spain and Europe at large.

This 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 remolding of their lives. And it does so against the background of an economic and social reality which placed limits on what could be done.

XV A BALANCE SHEET

The almost spectacular indifference with which most workers reacted to the events of November 25 is not difficult to understand. Neither The Nine/FMU nor the PCP/FUR had anything relevant to offer in relation to their fundamental needs, to their real life. To choose the one rather than the other was to choose one boss in preference to another. In many ways the forces which came out on top on November 25 were the ones which appeared to offer the easiest way out, for to carry through the projects of FUR or COPCON would have brought the wrath of Europe and America down on the workers’ heads; it was impossible to go it alone.

Sometime during the afternoon of April 25, the Central Committee of the PCP had drawn certain conclusions. They had two choices: a) To support the paras and call for street mobilisation. This, most probably, would have led to a “Lisbon and Alentejo Commune,” rejected by the rest of the country but which might just have survived a few weeks. Such an “adventure,” they must have calculated, could easily fail, lead to bloodshed and would have lost them the entire leadership of the crisis. b) To hold back, to compromise with “The Nine” (through Costa Gomes) and to seek to reap what benefits they could from this. Given the nature of the Party, the second strategy was the less dangerous. Although they would lose their power in the ministries, they would retain considerable control over infrastructures like the unions, the CMs, the CTs, the cooperatives, and hopefully some of the media.

In any event, the turnout on November 25 had been poor. The PCP was faced with the prospect of losing everything. It decided to throw to the wolves the officers it had used in the weeks prior to November 25. In return, it would keep its place in the government. “The Nine” knew they couldn’t control the workers on their own. They needed the PCP. Brigadier Charais said as much in a radio interview on November 29.

As in all Portuguese crises to date the outcome was an extension of state control: the remaining capital of eight newspapers and of all radio stations was nationalised. But it wasn’t so much nationalisation that was on the mind of “The Nine”: it was control of the direction that the vast section of the economy already in the hands of the state (65 percent according to official statistics, though other reports—that of the Banco Pinto Magalhães for instance—put the figure as high as 74 percent). Five morning and three evening papers were given new managements. Information became a major state prerogative. O Século, Diário de Notícias, A Capital, Jornal de Notícias, Diáro de Lisboa, Diário Popular, Jornal do Comércio, and Comércio do Porto as well as a variety of state-owned magazines and radio stations received major “overhauls.” The PCP lost most of its positions in the media.

The “coup” of November 25 wasn’t “à la Pinochet” as PRP (and others) had forecast, though I must admit that I was afraid of something very bad happening that night, as were a lot of my friends. I got a few calls from international friends worried about me. I explained it was all okay. But it could easily have gone wrong, some stubborn fool meeting another.

The political parties, perhaps to their own surprise, survived November 25. Those inheriting the newly strengthened state realised that political parties (left or right) were a necessary ingredient of the democratic parliamentary camouflage. All the parties (PPD, PS, PCP, CDS FUR, UDP, PCP-ml, and MRPP) were invited “for talks” at Belém on Sunday, November 30.

The autonomous workers’ groups (i.e., those outside party, or “nonparty” party fronts) received most of the stick. A search for weapons was started. The National Republican Guard (now rearmed) “investigated” over forty cooperatives and autonomous proletarian organisations. The local Infantry School and National Republican Guard threw a cordon around the cooperative at Aveiras de Cima, in Ribatejo. The workers were herded out into the cold night, in their bedclothes. “Where are the guns?” No one answered. The National Republican Guard began to search, finding one G3. No one owned up. There were threats of arrests. A worker owned up for the rest; two men were arrested all the same. “All living together, eh? Sleeping together, too?” a National Republican Guard officer smirked. No one answered. Some factories were likewise searched as were the Popular Clinics of Santa Cruz and Cova de Piedade.

The PRP headquarters were raided, but then a raid there was almost de rigueur in view of their boasts about weapons. None were found. Had they been distributed? Were they hidden elsewhere (for an even bigger “emergency”)? Had they ever existed? Captain Fernandes (who had certainly distributed 1,500 G3 automatic rifles and had then sensibly disappeared) was declared a deserter and an order for his arrest sent out. These searches, aimed at bringing the organisations into line, were to continue right up to March 1976.

The main repercussion of November 25 was a strengthening of the state, allowing it a more coherent and united approach to control and “planning.” This required the modification of other projects of state control. This was achieved rather drastically, through a series of purges in various ministries—in particular the Ministries of the Economy, Internal Affairs, and Agriculture and Fisheries. More specifically it required firmer control over the workers’ organisations and over the Army.

The differences between the two technocratic projects (“The Nine”-PS and PCP-FUR) can be looked at from an economic point of view, though obviously there were wider ramifications. The proposed “solutions” differed in the pace of the nationalisations envisaged and in the sectors to be nationalised and what future use they could be put to. What constituted the “commanding heights” of the economy depended on the general direction chosen for the “development of the productive forces” and this in turn was related to international agreement between various states. “The Nine” never questioned the principle of nationalisation: the argument was about the areas or sectors considered most in need of development. It was a question of the role of the state and control of these sectors. For the PS and PPD the future was European Parliamentary Democracy. For others (like Melo Antunes, for instance) it was the Third World. A few doubtless dreamed of endless trade with Albania and China. No one was asking at what cost—or at whose cost—the new production would be established. There was no basic awareness of the law of value—hence an ambiguity about the whole question of production and about the proletariat itself.

These technocrats (from the PS, through the military “Left,” to the so-called extreme left groups) shared the same general historical perspectives: to subordinate the economic to the political and the sweat of production (done by the workers) to calculations about distribution (done by the technocrats). The proletariat, as Marx had said, had no ideals to defend. It was a body on which ideals would have to be fitted. Capitalists and state-capitalists alike were in business for just that. For the mass of maimed individuals salvation was a choice between one vanguard and another (each pretending it wasn’t a vanguard). The superrevolutionary vanguards are never like ordinary people. That’s why we’re supposed to look up to them, and never voice what our alienation demands. For the revolutionary misfits (that is, the proletariat), decisions about life were being taken by others. Tomorrow, as the anthem of international socialism put it, the International “would be the human race.” But today, sadly, demands and perspectives were just to be centred on smaller issues like “national independence.”

Nor did it herald the immediate return of capital into private hands as all the foreign press (including the Financial Times and Le Monde) said it would.² It represented a step, a pause, an attempt by the state to catch up with itself, to draw its breath and to generate policies from above and to put its house in order. As a first step all military communiqués other than those emanating from the Military Chief of Staff and the “Revolutionary Council” were forbidden. A decision was taken to reduce the armed forces to twelve thousand men by 1978. Many conscripts, due to be called were excused. But the army provided employment for thousands of young then and there would be difficulties. In the meantime the Assemblies in the barracks were abolished. Traditional military discipline was restored.

Plans for the “censorship of pornography” were worked out (the military always have an obsession about this matter). All further occupations of land were prohibited by the Minister of Agriculture. Only four occupations took place between November 1975 and February 1976, compared to the four hundred between September and November 1975. Some seven hundred thousand hectares had still to be reallocated if the “law on Agrarian Reform” was to be implemented, but the state clearly wanted to assimilate what had already been taken over before any new steps were taken.

All this, of course, didn’t satisfy the extreme Right, who saw Melo Antunes as a “dyed-in-the-wool” communist. The forces of the extreme Right continued to organise and to dream of a return to the “good old days.” Bombings continued in the North, in Braga, in Póvoa de Varzim, etc. The UDP and the unions were the chief targets. The forces which had been active on September 28 and March 11 were again on the offensive. There was a lot of talk of a “return of the bosses” from Brazil and the U.S. But the new state was not prepared to give them back what it had gained. In certain instances, certain bosses were allowed back … as managers. By mid-January 1976, some 128 “requests” by ex-bosses had been received. Tellingly, it was the Ministry of Labour whose task it was to unravel all this. The Ministry of Agriculture issued instructions giving March 1, 1976, as the closing date for compensation claims by ex-landowners. By March, only nineteen cases of “reoccupation” had been registered and some ten cases of “reprivatisation” (i.e., return to private ownership). The latter cases (all in the Northern textile industry) had been called for by the workers themselves and frequently where workers had called for support for the old boss this was refused by the state authorities.

What had happened on November 25 was that one of the bureaucratic-military groups, the military wing of the PS/Nine had managed to impose its will on the others. But there were enormous differences between the old PIDE and the new state: the new regime regarded the opposition parties as essential and concentrated its attacks on the base groups. During the first waves of reprisals, the parties moved...