There is no doubt that the most important political cover for the counter-revolution in Portugal today comes from the leadership of the Socialist Party. Neither of the openly pro-capitalist parties in Portugal, the PPD or the CDS. is capable of confronting the working class or providing a cover for the reactionary officers. As in 1919 in Germany, when the Social Democratic leaders Ebert and Noske crushed the working class, it is only a party of the workers movement that can provide a cover for counter-revolution.
SP leader Soares made his present policy quite clear when, after leading the SP out of the Fourth Provisional Government, he formulated the Socialist Party's Proposals for Immediate Action' which were published on 28 July this year. It was these which heralded the SP's campaign for discipline - with its condemnation of the 'succession of usurpations of houses and landed property', the denunciation of the fact that the authority of the State is being lost inexorably', call for the Government to 'introduce severe punitive legislation against "armed militias" which should be suppressed within one month at the most.' It was this line, and not the pretext of the so-called 'suppression of free speech', which was the real reason for the launching of the SP's reactionary campaign. It was this campaign for discipline', and against 'anarchopopulism', which logically culminated in the SP's demonstrations in favour of the Amadora commandos the most reactionary army regiment in the whole of Lisbon - and their statement that: "The commando regiment and Colonel Jaime Neves are the victin. or a campaign of calumnies aimed at sowing indiscipline and confusion inside the armed forces.' It is to bolster this sort of campaign - - with its chants of 'Order, discipline', Down with Communist Dictatorship', and "We want bread, we want peace, we don't want arms' - that the CIA has been pumping its 3-10 million dollars a month into the Socialist Party, and the EEC and the United States have agreed their multi-million dollar 'aid' programme to Portugal. As for Soares' claim that all this is to protect 'free speech', threatened by the Republica affair', the real attitude of the SP leadership to free speech has been shown only seizure of the radio stations, its demands for suppression of free political activity in the army, and by the expulsion from the Council The Armed Forces