FOR PORTUGAL; "DEMOCRACY, PERIOD"
Clark, Joseph
The military rulers of Portugal have decked their regime in ideological trappings that recall bygone times. They have warned the newly legalized parties of Portugal that "bourgeois democracy" is...
...He tried to convey to the Jacobins a lesson of the American Revolution—that overthrowing the old regime was only the first step in a revolution...
...Trotsky later put it quite clearly: "In the system of Soviet dictatorship not even a secondary place was found for democratic representation...
...Snares himself has warned against such pressures from our country...
...For his courageous defense of democratic principles and his prescient warning about the dire results of punishment and terror he served two years in French "revolutionary" jails...
...Although the Armed Forces movement that is in power relies heavily on the Communists for guidance and ideology, it has, reportedly, been shaken by the decisive response of the voters...
...America, let us stress this, does have a democratic and revolutionary tradition...
...It is of the people, for the people, and by the people, and it is not the dictatorship of the proletariat...
...The long love affair of the U.S...
...they want trade and aid and they would very much like to computerize more of their economy (and military establishment) with Western aid...
...It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression...
...When he was asked in a radio interview whether he favored "bourgeois" or "socialist" democracy, Soares replied: "There is democracy, period...
...One lesson from Lenin is all the Portuguese Communists required: seizure of power is the whole point...
...With a remarkable instinct for the real thing, the people voted for parties that stood for pluralism in politics, against dictatorship and for the simple but meaningful idea that if freedom was to prevail there had to be a freely chosen government, by the majority...
...Democracies usually lose when they try to imitate Communist tactics, as in instances of CIA disruption, bribery, even assassinations...
...Nor is it amiss to recall the words of Paine when he finally made his way out of a French prison: An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty...
...government with the fascist regime of Portugal (and Spain) is certainly a factor that makes such pressures counterproductive...
...Soon after the overthrow of the old regime in Portugal the Communists seized arbitrary and nonelective 'control of the trade unions, with the sanction of the military rulers...
...The elections were indeed held for that Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1917...
...Even now, however, it is possible to say that one kind of intervention in Portuguese affairs could only influence events toward authoritarianism of either the Right or the Left—that would be CIA intervention...
...Many socialists and liberals, opponents of such doctrines of totalitarian power, underestimate the tenacity with which Communists will pursue their true goal and how they will maneuver, as a small minority, to secure the social levers that give them power...
...They have warned the newly legalized parties of Portugal that "bourgeois democracy" is suspect, while "socialist democracy" is the real McCoy...
...The military rulers stepped back from the promise of a new regime to be established by the elected assembly and exacted a pledge from participating parties that they would agree to the continuation of the military regime for at least three more years...
...The Bolshevik Military Revolutionary Committee, in that revolution, said that the Kerensky regime had to be overthrown because it refused to hold elections and convene a constituent assembly...
...Robert Kleiman of the New York Times reported how the enormous means at the disposal of the Portuguese Communists is paid for — at the rate of $10 million a month — by the Soviet Union...
...They rejected the urging of the military junta to cast blank ballots—only 7 percent did so...
...Then 75 percent of the voters chose parties other than the Bolsheviks, and when they were rejected by the voters the Bolsheviks had little further use for the Constituent Assembly, that same body they had said must give legality to all their decrees...
...It was the Communists who feared elections of an assembly with real power to fashion a new constitution and government...
...he urged a constitutional development, with guarantees of democracy and representative government as the true fulfillment of the revolution...
...After decades of fascist and authoritarian regimes the people of Portugal went to the polls in amazing numbers...
...The democracies should insist on having it the other way around...
...they voted for parties that favored civil liberties...
...Two centuries after the American revolutionaries overthrew the despotism of British rule it might be fitting to celebrate by giving support and solidarity to the embattled fighters for democratic socialism in Portugal...
...And even the decree of the Congress of Soviets on setting up the Provisional Workers' and Peasants' government declared it would "govern the country until the meeting of the Constituent Assembly...
...Tom Paine had gone on from service here to participation in the French Revolution...
...Public opinion in the rest of the world might also influence the situation if there is a strong indication of support for the democratic will of the long-suffering people of Portugal...
...They rejected the Communists, who ran, by far, the best-financed and flashiest of campaigns, but garnered only 12.5 percent of the votes...
...226 COMMENTS AND OPINIONS...
...Some 92 percent turned out...
...its politiCOMMENTS AND OPINIONS 225 cal tasks will be clarified after the seizure...
...The Socialist party received 38 percent of the votes, the slightly left-of-center Popular Democrats, 26 percent...
...WHETHER the Portuguese Communists will be able to carry on in that tradition is still in question...
...Just before dawn, on the first and only day the Russian Constituent Assembly was allowed to meet, a sailor, in command of the military guard where the Assembly was meeting, told the chairman that "the guard was tired" and besides he had instructions to close the meeting...
...Though considered a party of the center, the latter laid claim to a moderate form of socialism and expressed opposition to all forms of despotism...
...The shadow of times past that was cast in Portugal came with the limitations placed on the Constitutional Assembly even before the elections...
...The friendship and solidarity conveyed by British Labourites, German Social Democrats, and French Socialists during the election campaign helped the uphill efforts of the Socialists...
...It was as though the melody lingered on, a melody heard in another clime, nearly 60 years ago when a revolution overthrew autocracy in Russia and the promise was made that through a constituent assembly the people would fashion their own government...
...And when the Bolsheviks issued the Peace Decree on November 8, 1917, they said it would have to be submitted to the Constituent Assembly "which will then decide what can and cannot be conceded...
...The Soviets should be told they get none of these emoluments of one-sided and empty "detente" as long as they continue their brazen efforts to put the party that got 12.5 percent of the vote into power in Portugal...
...Still it is well for democratic socialists to understand how asymmetrical the situation will always be wherever Communists strive seriously for power...
...While we can and should prevail in efforts to compel the CIA to keep its hands off Portugal, there is no voice or movement in all the length and breadth of the Soviet land that can tell the KGB to keep its bloody hands off Portugal...
...The Communists moved to secure commanding positions in the press and other media, in municipal government, and above all in the army and police...
...for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself...
...they had sought to postpone the elctions until all necessary "legislation" had been secured by edicts of the military regime...
...And he reported, quite casually, that KGB agents abound in Lisbon...
...But in his letter to the Central Committee on the eve of the Bolshevik seizure of power Lenin explained: "Seizure of power is the point of the uprising...
...Early in 1917 Lenin had condemned the prattle about forcing the provisional government to convene the Constituent Assembly and said, "The Soviet is the only government that can convene the Assembly...
...The Soviets want a European conference to sanctify their aggrandizement after World War II...
...But the democracies might win with more effective efforts at solidarity with the democratic majority of Portugal...
...The Bolshevik land decree followed, "to be settled," they said, "by the All-Russian Constituent Assembly...
...This makes even more memorable the comments of Socialist party leader Mario Soares after the stunning victory of the democratic Socialists and Popular Democrats in the Portuguese elections to the Constitutional Assembly...
...For example, the Soviets are anxious to maintain a facade of "detente," without its essence...
Vol. 22 • July 1975 • No. 3
