imposed on the Portuguese workers by the events of last week? Two things stand out. Firstly, the political initiative is with the right. Secondly, and in a longer term sense more crucially, those whose line led to this outbreak have done one thing which the capitalists, the army hierarchy, and the Socialist Party could never have achieved - they have transferred military supremacy in Lisbon into the hands of the right wing.
Crucial
Previously the bourgeoisie were faced with the crucial reality that if the right wing in Portugal had attempted a coup, then Lisbon and the entire south of the country would have been taken by the workers and left-wing troops. An attempted coup would have been a fight not against civilians but against the overwhelming bulk of the troops in Lisbon, including the best equipped regiments of the army, and with those soldiers supported by hundreds of thousands of workers many tens of thousands of them armed. Such an attempt would have meant full scale civil war, with no guarantee whatever that the capitalists would win.
Today that situation has radically changed. As yet the Communist Party probably retains its apparatus in the army. But military domination in Lisbon and the rest of the country is in the hands of the right - and in many cases the ultra-right. With the disbanding of the left-wing regiments and the taking back of the arsenals, the workers are deprived of the obvious means of access to weapons - in particular, to heavy arms.
Whether even the CP will be able to hold its positions inside the army against the purge which will follow is doubtful. Certainly the SUV and the massive revolutionary presence in the army is largely finished. Attempts to disarm the workers will proceed apace. For the first time since 25 April, clear military supremacy has passed into the hands of the right and the bourgeoisie has the chance to create a semi-stable state apparatus. Grave But the gravity of the defeat that has been suffered does not mean that the Portuguese masses are now finished. Fortunately last week's adventure in Lisbon coincided not aimed against the mass of the working class.
The right-wing army operation in Lisbon started with only 800 soldiers of the commando regiment. At its height the number of soldiers involved was only 1,600.
Since the failure of the revolt' right-wing regiments have been moved into Lisbon, but they still only number 5-6,000. This is sufficient to arrest left-wingers and suppress newspapers, but it is totally inadequate to crush the mobilisations of hundreds of thousands of workers seen in the metal workers' or the construction workers" strikes and in the CP and workers commissions demonstrations. The right still needs time to construct a mass repressive force capable of taking on the workers and rooting out the final elements of all opposition in the army.
The small size of the repressive forces, however, also vividly demonstrates what is today the vital problem in Portugal. The left-wing soldiers were utterly defeated in Lisbon for political and not military reasons. Certainly the 800 troops of the Amadora commandos are a crack fighting regiment, but they were totally outnumbered and would have been incapable of defeating the paratroopers and military police in a serious Furthermore. none of the units involved in the revolt made anything other than the feeblest attempts to fight.
Ultra-left
The reason was political - that the leftwing regiments believed the ultra-left political groups when they said that the Lisbon workers would flock to support an insurrection. But not one section of their adventure. It was this which utterly demoralised the soldiers and meant that the tiny number of pro-Government forces won such a speedy victory.
It is also politics recover from the defeat. The basic power and organisation of the masses is not crushed.
Certainly we must expect some decline in the size of the vanguard, some lessening of the influence of the workers commissions, some retreat from the centralisation of organs of popular power, a strengthening of the CP at the expense of the revolutionaries, of the SP at the expense of the CP, and of the PPD and the CDS at the expense of the SP. the inevitable consequences of a defeat. But three vital factors still work in favour of the revolution Cent ausce workers supported vital task which is necessary to lutions have passed through. repress the masses and has only dared to arrest ember). a small number of those involved in the struggle. A massive campaign of defence against all the democratic rights threatened - against the state of emergency, against the press closures, for the release of those arrested, to defend Republica, against the purges in the army - can both defend those under attack and once more find links to the masses. pressing political, economic and adminis The defeat for the left soldiers in itself is not enough for the Portuguese and international bourgeoisie. The economic crisis is weekly becoming more serious, and with it brings the threat of further inevitable class confrontations. Earlier this month Dr Salgado Zenha, the finance minister in the Sixth Provisional Government, claimed that the Portuguese economy faced "bankruptcy".
In part this statement was an attempt to
----- pull-quotes -----
'Portugal's problems are not over just be cessfully crushed an attempt at rebellion Forces Movement] has not yet shown tl