Fourth International), points out.
The break-up of the Franco regime under the blows of the rising mass movement is today undermining one of its most solid pillars the Army. Born out of the massacre of the best proletarian fighters during the years of the Civil War and the terror that followed it, led by an ultra-reactionary band of generals, watchdogs of the dictatorship, and kept together by a tough discipline that represses all acts of insubordination or protest, the Army is the institution in which the fissures have taken longest to appear.
But today the crevices which are opening up inside it are clearly visible, and prove just how deep is the crisis of the regime. On the one hand, the differences within the officer corps are continuously becoming greater. The concrete signs of this process are the arrest of Busquets and Julve [two army officers] in March, the arrest of eight captains and one major in August, the public appearance of the Military Democratic Union', the publication of clandestine bulletins: all these add up to the appearance of an organised opposition - even if a very heterogeneous one - within the Army.
SAME PROBLEM Questions like that of the Sahara, the American bases, the modernisation of equipment, etc. make up the main points of dissent. But the principal problem which divides the Army at the present moment is the same as that which divides the ruling class: what attitude to adopt towards the agonising crisis of the die atorship and its inability to check the rise of the workers' moveFor the 'enlightened' sections of the ruling class - that is, those who opt for evolution towards democracy -to compromise the Army in the defence of the dictatorship is to make it run the same risk of inevitable downfall. The best guarantee for safeguarding capitalist order is to preserve at all times the unity of the Army - that is, its capacity to intervene and to intimidate the mass movement. It is for this reason that the opposition groups which are springing up among the officers - above all, among the younger generation who have not experienced the Civil War - linked in part to various fractions of the ruling class and even the traditional left, are demanding the neutrality of the Army, its strict "professionalism' and evolution towards a democratic To utilise the Army today as a direct torce ol repression - as is desired by the 'ultras' of the regime - would only disrupt this COMBATIVITY The second aspect of the crisis in the Francoist Army, and the most As Portugal has already shown, a key factor in determining how events will unfold in Spain during the present crisis will be the political situation inside the armed forces. While dissent inside the Spanish Army does not approach that which existed inside the Portuguese armed forces on 25 April, the recent mass struggles in Spain have nevertheless had a definite impact on it, as this article reprinted from Combate, the underground paper of the LCR-ETA(VI) (Spanish sympathising organisation of the Tivity of the ranks. In the face of inhuman conditions imposed in the military camps and barracks, personal humiliation and degradation. irrational discipline, anti-working class and fascistic ideology, the soldiers - workers, students and peasants in uniform - are beginning to protest. The young people who have learned how to struggle against the Francoist order in the factories, neighbourhoods, and educational centres, are bringing this struggle into the Army. The most conscious are organising themselves in Soldiers Committees, which, as recently in Euzkadi [the Basque country ], are facing up to the task of coordination with the united struggle bodies of the mass movement.
'NEUTRALITY' If the dictatorship tries to use the Army for its defence, launching direct repression against the mass movement, these first signs of organisation and mobilisation of the ranks against Francoism will spread and deepen. It is this which the *enlightened' sectors of the ruling class fear the most. For their plans of evolution towards a democratic system can only succeed if they are assured a military force that is both disciplined and obedient, capable of intervening against the mass movement and in the face of a massive upsurge by the working class.
It is this, nothing else, that the "professionalism' and neutrality" defended by the bourgeois officers consists of. And they are supported in this by the reformists (for example the Spanish Communist Party and its front group, the Junta Democratica) who also speak of 'neutrality' - the same 'neutrality which DO they admired so greatly in the Chilean army, no doubt.
What are the implications of these ruling class plans? They imply above all the maintenance of the discipline and loyalty of the Army, and the elimination of all possibilities of insubordination by the ranks. mean for the soldiers? The maintenance or irrational discipline and the denial of democratic freedom within the army, reactionary indoctrination, blind subjection to the orders of their superiors, and isolation they learned how to struggle against exploitation and oppression. Neither the soldiers nor the workers' movement have any interest in the maintenance of this bourgeois unity of the Army.
In order to prevent the ruling ciass from using the Army to preserve its domination and crush the workers movement it is necessary to:
I Support the fight for elementary soldiers' rights: the maintenance of salaries (salaries for conscripts equal to what they earned before entering the Army); military service to be carried out in the area where conscripts live and work; unlimited right to spend their nights outside the barracks; suppression of irrational and humiliating discipline; reduction of military service to the time required to learn the use of arms; full rights of assembly, free expression and association in the barracks; freedom of religion and conscientious objection.
2 Encourage the purging of all fascist officers and those compromised with the crimes of Francoism; the dissolution of the mercenary military units (for example, the legion).
of the ranks and of revolutionary officers, and their coordination with the bodies of the working class, with close collaboration, above all, in the self-defence of the mass movement.
4 Develop among the working class and youth total distrust of the bourgeois army and its officers, however 'democratic' or 'neutral" they claim to be.
These tasks demand that today the revolutionary vanguard organises itself in a united way in the army camps and barracks, and form Soldiers Committees which, in conjunction with the Workers' Commissions and other united bodies of the workers' movement, can push forward the mobilisation inside the army against the Francoist military hierarchy, against this anti-working class army, which is what the Spanish army is.
the struggle for land idation by the top brass.
How did you carry out the occuOpation?
It was 28 June. There had been A a meeting at Benavilla where we had picked out the properties it was necessary to take over. Chafariz was one or Bie.
The boss learnt of it via his manager. He asked us if we were going to occupy. We told him yes. Two days later we occupied. At first the boss stayed. Then he told us: "It's all up to you - I'm off. But he succeeded in moving out a combine harvester....and he left his manager The manager said: I'm on the side of the workers. In fact, he was keeping an eye on the situation for the boss. Despite his protests the workers threw him out, because under Caetano he was always against them. After two days he returned, but we threw him out again.
Next we telephoned the agrarian reform centre at Elvas. They came and made an inventory. All the boss's effects - his house, his furniture - we left untouched. We look after everything very carefully. These are his personal belongings. But the land, the animals, the machines, -they are the property of the people.
Work continues on the occupied Q farm.
ilow have you got on without the boss and his manager?
The boss has been replaced by A the workers' commission. This is elected by the 38 agricultural workers on the farm. It's made up of 10 workers - eight men and two women. Ine workers commussion consists of those in whom the workers have the most confidence, because they are the most capable and Committed At first there was a move to elect them by secret ballot. But as the majority do not know how to write, we vote by raisAn uneasy stalemate exists in Portugal today. The capitalist Government is unable to smash the militant self-organisation of the workers and soldiers, as has been shown by the defiant re-opening of the worker-controlled Radio Renascenca. But at the same time the vanguard has been unable to transform its campaign into a broad political offensive aimed at the very roots of capitalist power. As a result it is beginning to suffer some serious setbacks - an example last week was the inability of left-wing soldiers to go ahead with a plenary assembly of unit delegates in Oporto after intimThe nature of the contending forces in Portugal was sharply highlighted when agricultural labourers occupied a 1,200 acre farm in the southern Alentejo owned by a British couple. There were predictable cries of outrage from the British press and the Labour Government - although no-one attempted to deny the workers' claim that the owner had been paying them only £2.20 a day while extracting £5.50 more in profit others do not want that. They want a cooperative on every farm.
O What are the pros and cons? . red weekly 30 october 1975 from them. So far the Portuguese Government has deliberately avoided nationalising foreign interests;
saying that their interests come first, and too bad if the owners exploiting them happen to be foreign.
rarian reform campaign.
called for the cessation of State aid to the big land reform using the wealth expropriated from the big for providing credit, the establishment of collective depots of agricultural machinery, etc.
the policies of the Government, of which the selfprofitable. but now the agricultural workers in the Alentejo are The interview below- with a Communist Party member of the workers' commission on the occupied 3,500 acre farm of Chafariz, in the Alentejo village of Benavilla - illustrates the problems posed by the agFor instance, a meeting in August of delegates from 69 occupied properties in the Beja district, held at the initiative of CP members, owners, the creation of a national fund for agrarian landowners, the 'debureaucratisation' of the system The problem is that such policies are thwarted by Those who want the big cooperA ative say that it would be more If instead of three tractors we had 20 or 30, we could finish the work in a single day. And same Communist Party is a member. The reform is being consistendly sabotaged by functionaries in the bourgeois state apparatus - but the CP doesn't fight for a government based on the organisations of the working people. Nor, for instance, does it demand the expropriation of the foreign landowners, who are now arming openly to prevent any further extension of the agrarian reform.
Above all, against the havoc being created by the anarchy of the capitalist market and the deliberate sabotage of the international firms, the CP refuses to fight for the democratic elaboration of a national ec onomic plan containing socialist policies to tackle the problems of credit, distribution, foreign trade, etc. Yet only within such a framework can the agrarian reform be successfully carried through, drawing the workers on the land into the struggle being waged by their brothers and sisters in the cities for a State based on their own independent organs of class power. ers? then we could leave, every year, one property fallow for grazing....Those who want things to stay as they are say that it will be easier if we go it alone. If we join the others, they fear it will, become a mess. They claim that in the big cooperatives weren't going, and so the meeting couldn't take place.
Has anyone suggested dividing • up the land between the workNo. Nobody has proposed that. A That would be like splitting up a big ship into little barges.
Has the standard of living of O the workers improved since the occupation?
There has not been a wage inAcrease, nor a reduction in the number of working hours. On the contrary, now we have to mount a gauard at night. We used to work eight hours, and we still do. It was here, at Chafariz, that the big strug gle by agricultural workers for the eight-hour day began in 1962 But there are no more supervisors. We are free. That's enough for How does the workers commis Osion function?
Every morning the workers arrive A half or a quarter of an hour early The workers' commission proposes a plan of work for the day. The members of the workers' commission work like the rest. I am the only administrator. The workers commission meets every Saturday atternoon to assess progress. Apart from that it also meets whenever there is a prob lem. There aren't many of us, so it's easy enough.
Do you have difficulties in selling Qyour produce?
Yes, there have been some, with Astraw, calves and pigs. With that No, that's all right. We sold the we opened a bank account and paid the workers.
Can you draw on your bank acc
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A middlemen. And financial problems?