First Published: Canadian Revolution, No. 2, August-September 1975
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Malcolm and Paul Saba
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It is crucial for Marxist-Leninists to have an understanding of the international situation. Without a correct analysis of the forces at work in the rest of the world, we would not be in a position to correctly analyse the concrete conditions in Canada.
At this time, the situation in Europe merits particular attention for it is there that the two superpowers stand face to face in their world-wide struggle for hegemony. Portugal today provides a good case study to deepen our understanding of the conflicts in Europe. We view this short article as a contribution to the development of that understanding. This is of special importance because of major errors which we feel are being made by the progressive press in analyzing the question of events in Portugal – specifically the role of the so-called Portuguese “Communist” Party.
While both superpowers – the US and the USSR – speak only of detente and peace they are in a state of fundamental rivalry. At present, while they are intensifying their rivalry in the Middle East, Europe is the key strategic center of their contention for supremacy.
In Europe the two giants face each other eye to eye. There they are battling for the greatest concentration of technology and capital outside of the two superpowers themselves. Each side tries to fill the gap within the other’s weakening sphere of influence to gain control over all of Europe. The US attempts to move into Europe through political and economic channels; the USSR attempts to fill the vacuum left by the decline of US imperialism in Western Europe, often employing the West European revisionist parties.
Both powers are feverishly building up their military strength in nuclear weapons, missiles, soldiers and airborne fleets. Three-fifths of all Soviet military personnel are stationed in Eastern Europe Or near the Soviet western border. The USSR has three-quarters of its air force and missiles facing Europe. Meanwhile, American conventional forces are being bolstered with the latest military hardware. The US is constantly replenishing its nuclear weapons with newer models.
As Teng Hsiao-ping said at the United Nations Sixth Special Session on Raw Materials and Development: “The hegemonism and power politics of the two superpowers have also aroused strong dissatisfaction among the developed countries of the Second World. The struggle of these countries against superpower control, interference, intimidation, exploitation and shifting of economic crises are growing day by day. Their struggles also have a significant impact on the development of the international situation.”
Before the coup on April 25,1974, Portugal was solidly under the domination of US imperialism. For decades, the political regime had been a brutal fascist dictatorship which maintained itself internally through a vast network of secret police, torture and repression. The fascists maintained a relationship of total dependence on US imperialism, which stood firmly behind its policies. Externally, it was one of the last colonialist stalwarts in Africa, holding its fascist grip over Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Mozambique and Sao Tome.
This naked repression, however, was met with sharp popular resistance at home and abroad. In Portugal, there were constant popular movements against fascism. In all the colonies, there developed strong national liberation movements which, through popular and protracted armed struggle, were defeating the colonial armies. These armies were made up of soldiers who did not want to fight and who had no reason to fight.
The April coup thus culminated decades of resistance and represented the hopes and aspirations of the Portuguese people. Reflecting the pressure of the masses against the fascist regime, certain sectors of the bourgeoisie represented in the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) initiated the takeover. These sectors of the ruling class felt that fascism and the costly colonial wars were not good for their economic stability or prosperity. Wishing to come out from under the thumb of US imperialism and to begin to develop economic relations with Western Europe, they helped overthrow the fascists.
In Western Europe, the actions of the superpowers have not gone unnoticed. There is mounting resentment among both the governments and the peoples against US hegemony and a growing wariness of the Soviet military build-up. The positive steps toward European unity within the European Economic Community bear witness to Western Europe’s strong desire for independence. Only a strong Europe will be able to stand up to the control and pressure of the superpowers. A united Europe, which will be obliged to engage in equal trade relations with Third World countries – mainly because of the Third World peoples’ rising strength – would constitute an important aspect of the United Front against the two superpowers.
When we examine Portugal we must always keep in mind this overall European situation, especially the attempts by Soviet social-imperialism to replace a declining American imperialism and the importance of an independent Europe to withstand this movement.
Portugal holds a very key position, being situated at the entrance of the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the gateways to the whole of the European continent, North Africa and the Middle East; hence, its significant strategic military value.
The coming to power of the MFA on the heels of sustained popular resistance to the old regime did not represent a socialist revolution, but rather a step forward in the anti-fascist struggle. The masses participated actively in and celebrated the overthrow of fascism. As the failure of the series of counter-coups in Portugal this past year have shown, it is only mass mobilization which can completely eradicate the fascist menace.
But popular vigilance in Portugal must now take on a new form as well. While remaining on guard against the old agents of US imperialism, the Portuguese people must be very wary of the other superpower, the USSR, and its agents within the country, the revisionist Portuguese “Communist” Party (PCP).
In its bid for world hegemony, the Soviet Union is eager to step into the Portuguese shoes left vacant after the severe setback of the US. It has greatly increased its influence since the coup, primarily through the PCP. The USSR has asked for the right to dock its fishing boats and warships in Portual. An accord has been signed between Cunhal, head of the PCP, and the Soviet Union to train hundreds of Portuguese fishing sailors in the USSR. The Soviet chieftains have also requested refueling facilities on a Portuguese island which is presently a NATO base. Economically, too, the social-imperialist fist is trying to grab hold of Portugal. The USSR and its satellites are reportedly fixing up trade and credit agreements with Portugal, including the sale of a million tons of crude oil. Already, the Soviets have sold oil to Portugal at above average prices, while buying Portuguese products like wine and shoes cheap to resell them at profitable rates elsewhere.
Events since the coup have amply demonstrated, moreover, that some observers were wrong to conclude that the PCP’s long clandestine existence might have made it an exception to the pattern of revisionist bankruptcy and subservience to Soviet social-imperialism. The PCP’s 1965 programme indeed did seem to be an exception, especially with its proclamation of the need for armed insurrection – compared to the “historic compromise” of the Italian revisionists or the “anti-monopoly coalition” of its Canadian analogue.
But the facts prove otherwise. Cunhal’s party – as his blanket endorsement of the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia revealed – is one of the most ardent Soviet boot lickers. Cunhal has taken many trips to Moscow since the coup for policy discussions and instructions (and for more pecuniary interests as well – the Kremlin bosses have reportedly provided their Portuguese agents with a $50 million slush fund). Among other things, the Soviet leaders stressed that the reason for the failure of the “Chilean road to socialism” was Allende’s having moved too quickly! Cunhal apparently got the message; at the party’s first legal congress in half a century, the old goal of fighting for the dictatorship of the proletariat was officially dumped and replaced by a declaration that the PCP is now a party of “democracy”
The PCP’s role is no better exposed than in its action on the labor front. It has attempted to gain control of the entire union structure through a law unifying all trade unions. Marxist-Leninists are always for trade union unity – if it is built at the base to serve the workers and not new bosses at the top. But the PCP’s project for securing trade union monopoly includes such gems as assigning delegates from the top down without rank and file elections, the illegality of any workers’ organization outside the single union, and the required respect of new laws concerning militarization and strikes.
The PCP’s strike law, indeed, is a fine example of counterrevolutionary politics. With this law, the party which denounced the militant strike wave by workers immediately after the coup as “adventurist” ensures that all wildcats, plant takeovers, solidarity walkouts and strikes without “adequate notice” or during contracts are illegal – but lock-outs are legal!
In other domains, too, the PCP has shown whose interests it really serves. It controls most of the press and the commission to dismantle the PDDE (the old fascist police) which it is trying to transform into a new political police force. Already through pressures exerted on the MFA, the PCP got a law passed which banned several Marxist-Leninist organizations. Hundreds of Portuguese revolutionaries have been thrown in jail.
These policies and actions can be seen as laying the groundwork for a future bid for power. The PCP is carefully laying the basis for Portugal’s ultimate dependence on the Soviet Union and the creation of a structure of state monopoly capitalism as found in the USSR. (As the Chinese explained in their 1963 document More on the Differences between Comrade Togliatti and Us, state monopoly capitalism is monopoly capitalism in which monopoly capital has merged with the political power of the state.)
At present, however, real state power rests not with the PCP but with the MFA. An intense struggle is being waged within the Movement to determine which road Portugal will follow. Certain elements of the MFA support the revisionists, but others are taking increasingly strong stands against it and for national independence.
Melo Antunes, an influential member of the MFA and Minister of Foreign Affairs was recently quoted in Nouvel Observateur as saying: “I believe that the ideas which, today, find large support with the Armed Forces Movement and among civilians are those of independence with regard to the two superpowers, that which will lead us to line up with other countries to contribute more usefully to world peace, European security and to a research in the forms of equilibrium and security with the Third World”. And Admiral Rosa Coutinho recently declared that “Portugal wants neither Soviet imperialism nor American imperialism. We want our country to constitute, with the people of the Third World, an alliance against all imperialisms”.
This is the correct road for Portugal to take. She must stand up to both superpowers and their internal agents and chart an independent course. The broad masses of the Portuguese people firmly desire to preserve their countries national independence. They have struggled for decades against the fascist dictatorship and they do not simply wish to pass from under US domination to languishing underline heel of Soviet social-imperialism. A little while ago over 50,000 people demonstrated in Lisbon chanting “neither Kissinger nor Brezhnev, we want national independence”.
It is only in this struggle for national independence that the Portuguese people, at this time, can maintain the democratic gains they have won and prepare the basis for the struggle for socialism. Portugal is a strategic point in the superpower’s battle to control Europe; its struggle for independence is the struggle of all the countries and peoples in Europe.