FOR THE PAST FEW WEEKS a massive wave of strikes and factory occupations has swept Portugal.
Almost every conceivable sector of the working class (including car salesmen!) have gone into struggle around demands for better wages and conditions, the purging of those managers and officials most closely associated with the fascist regime, and for measures of control over management policy.
MONOPOLIES
Among the hardest hit have been the firms owned by the big Portuguese and foreign monopolies. The giant Lisnave shipyards in Lisbon the shipyards in the town of Setubal British Leyland's car factories, the Timex watch factory in Lisbon, Firestone tyre factories in three cities, and factories in the largely British-owned woollen industry have all been occupied by workers.
Latest news indicates that the vast majority of struggles have now ended, with the management agreeing to meet all of the workers" demands. But the problems of the Portuguese coonomy, and its rocketting rate of inflation, are bound to persist. A new roune of struggles cannot, therefore, be far away.
The new Provisional Government's attempt to sort out the problems of the African colonies goes on. Despite the participațion in the Government of the Socialist and Communist Parties, who were firmly committed while in exile to meeting the demands of the African liberation move The following declaration was issued by the Union of Technical Designers, beat around the bush INDEPENDENCE the road to accepting total independence.
Just last Tuesday (14 May) a mass meeting of deserters who had returned to Portugal under the junta's amnesty issued a call to all military units now fighting in the colonies or about to be sent over-seas to immediately desert stration a revolutionary confingent munist League (Portuguese sympathising organisation of the Fourth International) and twn maoist tariat, drew some 10,000 workers, ments, the Government continues to But the resolution of the guerrillas coupled with the internal upheavals in Portugal itself are forcing the Government every day further along Duting the big May Day demonorganised by the International Comgroups, the Revolutionary Union and the Revolutionary Party of the Prolestudents and soldiers behind banners wars and independence for the coloGovernment is opening negotiations PAIGC in Guinea-Bissau. These will!
The combination of a victory for organisation of the Portuguese worIt is precisely the threat which Goncalves, has publicly stated that he Tatus Limitation Tolks). The enthusiasm which greeted Communist sacer cuntars return t aircady beginnuse to fade as it becomes clearer that his rale in Government will be to hold the struggle back, tants about their President's new The decisive factor in the coming months will be the abdity of the revolutionary Foroes to develop an alternate leadership for the mass struggle. To fulfil this task they must promote and extend the forms of organisation already thrown up in The following statement was issued by the Workers' Committee elected by a strugee (mass assemblies, workers councils, factory occupations), and, most importantly, take full advancage of the politicisation of the atined forces to win over the widest layers possible among the rank andfile and junior officers to the cause of the working class and socialism