Once upon a time in Portugal

For a Correct Political Course in Portugal

By Gerry Foley, Joseph Hansen, and George Novack

Intercontinental Press

October 13, 1975

A Flawed Indictment

In their joint article "In Defense of the Portuguese Revolution," published in the September 8, 1975, issue of Intercontinental Press, Comrades Pierre Frank, Livio Maitan, and Ernest Mandel "lodge a strong protest against the line Intercontinental Press has seen fit to follow in covering the events in Portugal since the eruption of the República affair, especially in the issues Vol. 13, Nos. 21-30."

According to them. Intercontinental Press's handling of the revolutionary events in Portugal in this period (the issues dated June 2 to August 4) calls for condemnation: "In our view, the line that has been taken by Intercontinental Press represents a serious political mistake, a departure from the traditional position revolutionary Marxists have taken in similar circumstances of revolutionary upsurge in imperialist countries; if persisted in, it could seriously discredit Trotskyism in the eyes of advanced workers not only in Portugal itself, but throughout capitalist Europe."

The charge is a grave one. By way of concrete indictment. Comrades Frank, Maitan, and Mandel offer the following, which, they claim, represents the "position" developed in the articles that have appeared in Intercontinental Press, particularly those bearing the signatures of Gerry Foley and Joseph Hansen:

"There exists in Portugal today an authoritarian military regime that upholds and defends capitalism, albeit with leftist sounding phrases. This regime, on the road to an outright bourgeois military dictatorship, regards the existence of a powerful Social Democratic party with a relatively free press as an obstacle that must be eliminated. Thus, both in the conflict around the República affair and in the political conflict that arose from it and led to the resignation of the SP and PPD ministers from the government, we have to give full support to the Social Democrats (and their bourgeois allies of the PPD? On this Comrade Foley has been silent) against the MFA. In fact, according to the views expressed in Comrade Foley's articles, the only realistic choice in Portugal today is between a bourgeois military regime moving in the direction of outright military dictatorship and the Constituent Assembly, which is seen as the embodiment of bourgeois democracy and as the legitimate expression of popular will. In a conflict between a bourgeois military regime (supported by the Stalinist Communist party) and bourgeois democracy (supported by the Socialist party), we must stand four square on the side of bourgeois democracy (the Constituent Assembly), while criticizing the SP for its class collaboration with the military. So-called organs of dual power are either fake (that is, creatures manipulated by the bourgeois army) or irrelevant."

This presentation of our position certainly offers an easy target. However, it bears no resemblance to the position taken by Intercontinental Press, as we will prove in detail in what follows.

At this point, we will simply focus on the main political charge; namely, that we urge giving "full support to the Social Democrats."

It is true that we have defended the democratic rights of the Portuguese Socialist party, in particular its right to freedom of the press, which was under reactionary assault in the República affair. But we deny that defending the democratic rights of class-collaborationist leaderships of mass workers parties (whether they be Social Democratic, Stalinist, or otherwise) signifies giving them political support. To argue to the contrary is sophistry.

In taking our stand in defense of freedom of the press in Portugal, we acted in accordance with the basic principles of revolutionary Marxism. Trotsky outlined this position with admirable clarity in an editorial in the October 1938 issue of Clave, which we translated and published in the June 9, 1975, issue of Intercontinental Press; that is, one of the numbers condemned by Comrades Frank, Maitan, and Mandel.

They avoid mentioning Trotsky's editorial; yet it did have a certain impact in Portugal, being translated into Portuguese, published by Jornal do Caso República, and widely circulated. Did Comrades Frank, Maitan, and Mandel find this embarrassing? Was it because Trotsky's position went counter to theirs?

We turn now to the explanation offered by Comrades Frank, Maitan, and Mandel for our having suddenly joined—according to them—"a political bloc of the bourgeoisie, the Social Democracy, and a few CPs" (the Italian and Spanish Stalinists but not the Portuguese). Their explanation is not political but psychological. Unsatisfactory as this may be, it is understandable in view of the difficulty of finding a rational political explanation for the positions they accuse us of holding.

"The Portuguese revolution," they write, "is the first revolution to break out after the Tenth World Congress [of the Fourth International], the first to confront us with the need to verify our long-term analysis and prognosis about the likely pattern of world revolution. And it is here that the probable motivation for Comrade Foley's mistakes must be located, a motivation that he shares with Comrade Hansen: fear that to recognize that a genuine revolutionary process is under way in Portugal would somehow imply recognizing the ability of 'petty-bourgeois officers' (or 'reactionary bourgeois officers') to be magically transformed by the Communist party into 'tools of proletarian revolution,' thereby 'justifying' the class collaborationist maneuvers carried out by the Stalinist Communist parties throughout the world.

"This motivation leads to an approach that is identical to the Healy-Lambert method of examining unforeseen turns of objective events. It is an approach that is alien to Marxism and can only lead to disastrous results."

There are some quite obscure references in this psychological interpretation that we will take up later. The items include the "Healy-Lambert method" and the possibility of a wing of the officers' caste leading a "deformed popular social revolution."

As to the charge that we "fear ... to recognize that a genuine revolutionary process is under way in Portugal," we can in good conscience leave that to the readers of Intercontinental Press. Anyone who has followed the coverage given in our pages to the Portuguese revolution since it began a year and a half ago has sufficient evidence, we think, to judge the worth of that allegation.

In association with their pre-Freudian conclusions about how our minds operate, the authors' use of the label "Stalinophobia" is to be noted. For example, they say: "Only people who have been completely mystified by bourgeois public opinion and blinded by Stalinophobia can speak of Portugal as a country in which democratic rights have been eroded by 'military dictatorship.'"

Perhaps we are not included among "people" of that kind. Nonetheless, since no names have been mentioned, perhaps it would be well for us to state exactly where we stand on this question.

Stalinophobia designates the political position of professed socialists or would-be revolutionists so revolted by the crimes and antidemocratic practices of Stalinism that they choose to support their own capitalist government rather than support a revolution in which a Communist party happens to be playing a prominent or leading role. Two examples will help point up what Stalinophobia can lead to.

1. On the eve of World War II, many radical intellectuals long known as "friends of the Soviet Union" abandoned the cause. They turned sour because of the Stalin-Hitler pact and the invasion of Finland and Poland by Soviet armies. Because of Stalin's actions, they refused to defend the Soviet Union any longer.

The majority of these intellectuals ended up as ardent advocates of the virtues of capitalist democracy, particularly the American variety, denying that there was anything progressive to be found in the Soviet Union, including its economic structure. Some of them became carried away to such an extent as to set themselves up as advisers to the State Department on how best to "fight communism."

2. During the U.S. imperialist intervention in Indochina, the American Social Democrats and circles under their influence refused to participate in the antiwar movement. Because of their Stalinophobia, they preferred a victory by the Pentagon and its puppets over a victory by the Vietnamese revolution. The reason for their stand, which they did not hesitate to expound, was that this was a lesser evil to domination of Vietnam by Stalinist forces.

The label of Stalinophobia signifies that the holder, through recoil from the Stalinists, generally favors the Social Democrats. There are many such persons in Portugal as elsewhere. But we have never been among them.

Despite their dissimilar international attachments, both of these working-class currents are equally class collaborationist and have to be opposed and exposed. We see no virtues in the Social Democracy any more than in Stalinism and have no preference for one over the other.

Any variations in our judgments regarding them arise from purely tactical considerations based upon the specific roles one or the other happen to be playing at a given conjuncture or in a particular situation. If a Communist party that is temporarily at odds with a capitalist regime finds difficulty in implementing its policy of collaboration with a sector of the bourgeoisie and takes an oppositional stand in one way or another, it is possible and even necessary to propose unity in action with it on specific issues against the class enemy. This approach does not in the least modify our fundamental appraisal of Stalinism as a counterrevolutionary force within the labor movement, and is indeed one means of struggle against its pernicious influence over the masses.

Precisely the same criteria apply to the Social Democracy.

There have been six cabinets in Portugal since the coup against Caetano. During the first period the CP and SP, holding posts in the MFA government, shared alike in blocking and betraying the revolutionary aspirations of the people.

When the SP withdrew from the cabinet after the seizure of República, the CP took the lead in defending the bourgeois government while the SP engaged in a few oppositional gestures.

Now, with the demotion of the CP and its military allies in the revamped cabinet of the sixth MFA government, the SP has replaced the CP. Pushed onto the outskirts of the regime, the CP may well embark on a show of criticism.

Throughout these objective changes, we have maintained our political hostility to both formations. We play no favorites among our opponents in the working class. To remove some heat from discussion of this point, consider the current situation in India, where we have agreement. There the Communist party backs Indira Gandhi's dictatorial coup and her bonapartist role as servilely as its Portuguese counterpart upholds the MFA military government. If the Indian Trotskyists were to make a common front with certain Social Democratic elements in resisting her suppression of parliamentary rule and democratic rights, would that constitute evidence of Stalinophobia?

A hypothetical case may clarify the question even better. Suppose that Comrade Mandel were to advocate that the Belgian Trotskyists ought to follow a tactic of "entryism sui generis" in the Social Democracy, would this signify that he was capitulating politically to the Social Democrats? And suppose that Comrade Frank were to advocate at the same time that the French Trotskyists ought to follow a tactic of "entryism sui generis" in the Communist party, would this signify that he was capitulating politically to the Stalinists?

If Comrades Frank, Maitan, and Mandel are of the opinion that we have succumbed to Stalinophobia in relation to the Portuguese revolution, they could save a good many circumlocutions by naming us and proving the point. For instance, the charge that Intercontinental Press made a mistake in defending freedom of the press in the República affair because freedom of the press was not really at issue in that concrete instance is hardly of interest if what really motivated our stand was Stalinophobia.

What is the point of prosecuting a person for allegedly driving through a red light if this was but incidental to the commission of murder? Shouldn't the state's attorney put the defendant on trial for the major crime rather than the traffic violation?

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