PORTUGAL AT THE CROSSROADS
Kramer, Steven Philip
PORTUGAL AT THE CROSSROADS STEVEN PHILIP KRAMER Its future will not be determined in Lisbon alone On 25 April 1975, one year after the Movement of the Armed Forces overthrew the Caetano regime,...
...But he feared the threat of the extreme right, and lost his chance...
...had survived underground, publishing its newspaper and training new generations of militants...
...It's just because of the lack of public or congressional awareness that the executive in general and the Secretary of State in particular have been given a free hand...
...If it loses, it's the old story of two steps forward, one step back...
...Spinola was ousted...
...The obvious indifference of the Communists to political democracy has been causing near-panic in the Spanish and Italian Communist Partis...
...And if in the process, it sabotages the efforts at independence of the Spanish and Italian Communist Parties, so much the better...
...The efforts of these two parties, the most independent of Moscow, have been sabotaged by the behavior of the Portuguese Communists...
...But the rapid Communist advance led to a re-emergence of the other parties...
...Santos Goncalves came in as Prime Minister, and Spinola himself went on television on 27 July to declare his support for colonial independence...
...Whether Spinola was behind an apparent plot by the extreme right, or whether it was trying to use his name to gain legitimacy is unclear...
...It provides a test of whether the United States can bring its vast resources and expertise to bear on the problems of the Third World...
...The clandestine Movement of the Armed Forces became the government of Portugal...
...The Movement clearly feared that the creation of a parliamentary regime based on the center-left would move quickly to the right, given the social vacuum represented by these parties...
...The Communists have begun to act as if they were the authorized political spokesmen for the Movement...
...He recently returned from an extended visit in Portugal...
...We spent 150 billion dollars in Vietnam...
...What is clear is that the Movement was unwilling to allow a return to the Old Regime...
...Each time the U.S...
...But Portugal's future will not be determined in Lisbon alone...
...The results show an unmistakable desire to move towards a "socialist" regime, but one which would not sacrifice political democracy...
...Without sufficent aid from the West or from the World Bank, the Portuguese economy might well collapse, leading the way to political disaster...
...The Movement had created a Program of the Armed Forces which did not propose basic changes in the social and economic system...
...Such a position can mean only one thing-an indication that the United States would welcome a coup by the right...
...But the Movement's support for this liberal democratic solution soon disappeared...
...The situation would resemble Castro's Cuba...
...They also were able to suppress their competitors on the extreme-left...
...The Movement continued its leftward course...
...The Communists would certainly not object if the military dispersed the representatives of "bourgeois democracy" just as Lenin dispersed the Constituent Assembly following the November Revolution...
...Although the Assembly's powers are strictly limited by a charter imposed on the parties by the Movement, the elections are certainly important in judging the attitude of the population...
...Portugal faces a series of unpleasant prospects...
...It is hard to see how Portugal would benefit from such a regime, however...
...It is unclear exactly how much influence the Communist Party has within the Movement...
...If these parties could offer the prospect of economic development backed by America and the Common Market, their position would be stronger...
...There has been some talk by members of the Movement of establishing a political party which accurately reflects the point of view of the Movement...
...A military dictatorship including the Communist Party would find itself cut off from credits from the West, without which modernization and an improved standard of living would be impossible...
...Few Americans know anything about Portugal...
...The tendency towards polarization has been encouraged by the policies of the U.S...
...Their primary concern was to maintain good relations with the Movement...
...The unitary trade union movement was maintained, thereby guaranteeing monopolistic Communist domination of the working class...
...A third possibility-one hardly mentioned-is a Peruvian-style military regime without the Communists...
...Salazar couldn't prevent all economic development, but forced it into monopolistic and archaic forms...
...The resignation of the first Prime Minister, Palma Carlos, a moderate jurist, was the occasion for a confrontation...
...The Movement had named General Spinola head of the Provisional Government...
...With the colonial issue more or less solved, attention shifted to the future of Portugal itself...
...The Salazar regime consciously attempted to prevent the political awakening of the country by keeping it backward economically...
...Nor would a rightist regime establish the preconditions for political democracy-any more than Salazar did...
...At the time of the revolution, there was only one organized political party in Portugal, the Communist Party...
...A policy of benign neglect or intransigent opposition is contrary to American interests...
...This tendency was largely actualized in March by the abortive Spinola coup...
...The unsuspecting Caetano was overthrown on 25 April 1974...
...They continued to amaze it by expressing their belief in socialism, and by their close cooperation with the Communist Party...
...In fact, the C.P...
...The close relations between the military and the party can be explained by positing Communist domination of the Movement...
...If it wins, it wins big...
...One gets the impression that Moscow will go for broke in Portugal...
...Just look at how the Portuguese situation developed, and then consider the effects of our foreign policy on Portugal today...
...Their task is not to promote social progress in Spain or Italy, but to promote the foreign interests of the Soviet Union...
...The Communists attempted to profit from the situation by implicating the other parties as morally responsible for the Spinola coup...
...It is said that on hearing of the discovery of oil in Angola, Salazar remarked: "That will ruin everything...
...Since the abolition of parties in 1926, the C.P...
...Russia has not solved her agrarian problem...
...The need for a growing number of officers meant that the regime had to make use of university graduates in large numbers...
...For only America has the capacity to bring about the modernization of the Third World, in ways beneficial to both the Third World and the United States...
...The Greek colonels received two billion dollars from the United States, but proved no asset to Greek economic development or social justice...
...It promised to turn Portugal into a democracy...
...It is highly significant that when the leader of the clandestine Spanish Communist Party visited Portugal it was as a guest of the Socialists...
...We must recognize the inevitability and desirability of basic social and economic reforms, and assist the Movement in accomplishing them...
...the three pillars of the regime, but in the background lurked the notorious PIDE, the secret police...
...expresses its doubts concerning the Movement, it weakens its own position in Portugal...
...This is certainly the reason why the Socialists received three times as many votes as the Communists...
...The leftwards course of Portuguese politics took place in several stages...
...In Italy, the P.C.I, has worked for years to find acceptance within the national framework...
...she certainly can't solve Portugal's...
...Portugal's economic situation is not good...
...It must be remembered that the colonial war resulted in a vast expansion of the army...
...A similar recommendation from Carlucci's predecessor, Stuart Nash Scott led to his dismissal late last year...
...Such American intransigence drives the military closer to the Soviet Union...
...Half a billion spent in Portugal on programs of economic development might not only make life tolerable-for the first time-for the peasant and worker, but might also make possible a democratic evolution of the political situation...
...Polarization The weakness of the center explains the tendency towards polarization...
...Thus they were able to face up to the new situation immediately...
...Salazar's successor, Caetano, might have been able to liberalize the regime...
...In that respect, Portugal is closer to the Third World than to Western Europe...
...They are perfectly ready to write off any form of ''bourgeois democracy...
...The Communists certainly don't appreciate such suggestions, which would in essence mean their elimination...
...Unable to prevent elections entirely, the Communist Party downgraded their importance, realizing how embarrassing the results might be to them...
...and the USSR...
...was behind Spinola's attempt, it is clear that Kissinger would have welcomed it...
...This coup must have convinced many members of the Movement that there was no choice other than a clearly leftist regime or a return to Salazarism...
...But it soon came into conflict with him over the colonial issue, which dominated the first months of the new regime...
...PORTUGAL AT THE CROSSROADS STEVEN PHILIP KRAMER Its future will not be determined in Lisbon alone On 25 April 1975, one year after the Movement of the Armed Forces overthrew the Caetano regime, the Portuguese voted for a Constituent Assembly...
...And this might well happen if the leaders of the Socialists and Popular Democrats demand a political role commensurate with their electoral strength...
...Because of the strength of the middle classes in the advanced countries, and because of the hold of social-democracy over large numbers of the European working class, the Communists' gains were confined...
...By fighting a large-scale war in Africa the Old Regime was digging its own grave...
...The popular support that went to the socialists and to the center-left Popular Democrats is not matched by a proportional organizational strength...
...It will be decided in Washington and Moscow as well, and the way the two superpowers are acting bodes ill for the future of democracy in Portugal...
...American aid with no strings attached will strengthen the position of those within the Movement favoring a maximum of democracy, and will also strengthen the position of the Socialists and Popular Democrats in any coalition situation...
...If Portugal is unable to solve her short-term problems, economic disintegration will accelerate the trend towards total polarization...
...These former students had been exposed to radical ideas at the universities, and were not automatic supporters of the regime the way the old officer corps might have been...
...Social-democracy has no real tradition among a relatively unskilled working class...
...Football, Fatima, and Fado" were steven Philip Kramer is on the faculty of Goucher College in Maryland...
...Spinola's federalist program was rejected, as was his plan to hold presidential elections before parliamentary in order to increase his own power base...
...Would this be in the interest of the United States...
...The support of these parties is undefined and inchoate...
...The policies of the Soviet Union have also tended towards polarizing the situation...
...The Communists were determined to stay close to the military, to learn from the Chilean debacle...
...She needs assistance in checking the 34 percent inflation rate bequeathed by Caetano, as well as for long-term programs of industrial development and irrigation...
...For almost half a century Portugal lived under the dictatorship of an other-worldly ascetic, Salazar...
...He left Portugal without seeing the head of the Portuguese Communists...
...Destabilization" of the Portuguese economy can take place by omission as well as by commission...
...Portugal is half way between Europe and the Third World...
...The Movement abandoned the Program of the Armed Forces, declared itself to be in favor of socialism, nationalized the banks, and institutionalized its own power by turning the Constituent Assembly into little more than a debating society...
...they lack the disciplined phalanx of supporters that the Communist Party has...
...Moreover, the Communists had preponderant influence over much of the industrial working class, the only easily organizable mass political base, albeit a small one...
...Its relative autonomy from Moscow, its acceptance of NATO, its obvious competence, have reinforced its demand for a "historic compromise" with the Christian Democrats as a means of clearing up the economic and social imbroglio in Italy...
...There too, the Communists had been better organized during the Resistance than the other parties, and were the only political force really active at first...
...the more radical officers were in favor of complete independence...
...But Europe seems unable to assert itself as a political entity, and the United States has been resolutely hostile to the Portuguese revolution...
...would be perfectly willing to accept a Peruvian-style military regime, so long as they would be included...
...The colonial wars of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau created a generation of young officers who became convinced that the only way to end an impossible war was to end the regime itself...
...In Spain, the Communists have been pushing for a broad front of parties that could provide a replacement for the franquist regime...
...It is far more likely, however, that the major reason is the Communists' apology for the governmental ambitions of the military, ambitions that are opposed by all the other parties...
...The Communist Party is far stronger organizationally, and has much closer relations with the Movement...
...Thus, after the elections, they warned the Socialists to cooperate lest they find themselves in opposition to the Movement...
...The strength of the Communists and the radical ideas of many of the officers resulted in a special relationship...
...Recognizing the weakness of his position, Spinola made the mistake of appealing to the "silent majority," a code word for the demoralized right that was just beginning to creep out of the woodwork...
...Yet Portugal would not be likely to do any better through a rightist coup...
...Although there is no proof that the U.S...
...Thus, they adopted a prudent course at first, trying to limit strikes, avert inflation, and avoid a panic by the middle-class...
...Spinola was a federalist...
...The Communist blitzkrieg in Portugal resembles what happened in Western Europe after the Liberation from the Nazis...
...These would have to be the work of the Constituent Assembly, the Movement explained...
...At the same time, they increased their power within the Movement and within the country...
...Moscow's policy has been followed unquestioningly by what is doubtless the most pro-Moscow and Stalinist Communist movement of significance in Western Europe...
...Moscow seems determined to move in its usual heavy-handed fashion to use the Portuguese Communist Party's influence to obtain a naval base in the Atlantic...
...What can parliamentary democracy mean to the peasantry of a backward nation, or to a small working class seeking immediate change...
...The Portuguese military surprised the world by making a revolution in the name of democracy...
...But the Communists were always aware that 25 April was a revolution from above...
...On 10 April the Washington Post reported that Kissinger had severely criticized Ambassador Carlucci's support for "a measure of understanding for the military leaders who are attempting deep social and economic reforms, with Communist cooperation...
...Thus the Socialists are really radical democrats with social concerns, and the Popular Democrats, led by progressive businessmen and technocrats, are spokesmen for a European-oriented middle class which doesn't yet really exist...
...Kissinger aired his doubts as to whether Portugal can remain in NATO...
...In Portugal, however, the middle class is weak, as is the case in all backward nations...
...Portugal is a test of our ability to take a new and positive direction in world affairs in the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate era.the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate era...
...But the future of Portugal will not be decided by compact parliamentary majorities...
...In exchange for the loss of civil liberties, there would be an ineffective and heavy-handed state socialism...
Vol. 102 • May 1975 • No. 5
