Fascism/Antifascism (5)
| PORTUGAL |
| Although it remains susceptible to new developments, the Portuguese case presents an insoluble riddle only to those (the most numerous) who don't know what a revolution is. Even sincere but confused revolutionaries remain perplexed before the collapse of a movement which appeared to them so substantial a few months earlier. This incomprehension rests on a confusion. Portugal illustrates what the proletariat is capable of doing, demonstrating once again that Capital must take account of it. Proletarian action may not be the motor of history, but on the political and social plane it constitutes the keystone of the evolution of any modern capitalist country. However, this irruption on the historical scene is not automatically synonymous with revolutionary progress. To mix the two theoretically is to confuse the revolution with its opposite. To speak of the Portuguese revolution is to confuse revolution with a re-organization of Capital. As long as the proletariat remains within the economic and political limits of capitalism, not only does the basis of society remain unchanged, but even the reforms obtained (political liberties and economic demands) are doomed to an ephemeral existence. Whatever Capital concedes under pressure from the working class can be taken back, in whole or in part, as soon as that pressure is relaxed: any movement condemns itself if it is limited to a pressure on capitalism. So long as proletarians act in this way, they are just banging their heads against the wall. |
| The Portuguese dictatorship had ceased to be the form adequate for the development of a national Capital, as evidenced by its incapacity to settle the colonial question. Far from enriching the metropolis, the colonies destabilized it. Fortunately, ready to fight "fascism," there was... the army. The sole organized force in the country, only the army could initiate change; as for carrying it through successfully, that's another matter. Acting according to habit, blinded by their role and their claims to power within the framework of Capital, the Left and the extreme Left detected a profound subversion of the army. Whereas previously they had seen the officers only as colonial torturers, now they discovered a People's Army. With the aid of sociology, they demonstrated the popular origins and aspirations of the military leaders which allegedly inclined them towards socialism. It remained to cultivate the good intentions of these officers, who, we were told, asked only to be enlightened by the "Marxists". From the P.S. to the most extreme leftists, the whole world conspired to conceal the simple fact that the capitalist State had not disappeared, and that the army remained its essential instrument. |
| Because some slots in the State apparatus were made available to working class militants, we were told the State had changed its function. Because it expressed itself in populist language, the army was considered to be on the side of the workers. Because relative freedom of speech prevailed, "workers' democracy" (foundation of socialism, as everyone knows) was judged to be well established. Certainly there were a series of warning signals and renewals of authority where the State exhibited its old self. There again, the Left and the extreme Left drew the conclusion that it was necessary to exert still more pressure on the State, but without attacking it, out of fear of playing into the hands of the "Right". However, they fulfilled precisely the program of the Right and in doing so added something of which the Right is generally incapable: the integration of the masses. The opening up of the State to influences "from the Left" does not signify its withering away, but rather its strengthening. The Left placed a popular ideology and the enthusiasm of the workers in the service of the construction of Portuguese national capitalism. |
| The alliance between the Left and the army was a precarious one. The Left brought the masses, the army the stability guaranteed by the threat of its weapons. It was necessary for the P.C.P. and P.S. to control the masses carefully. In order to do so, they had to grant material advantages which were dangerous for a weak capitalism. Hence the contradictions and successive political rearrangements. The "workers'" organizations are capable of dominating the workers, not of delivering to Capital the profits it requires. Thus it was necessary to resolve the contradiction and re-establish discipline. The alleged revolution had served to exhaust the most resolute, to discourage the others, and to isolate, indeed, repress, the revolutionaries. Next the State intervened brutally, demonstrating convincingly that it had never disappeared. Those who attempted to conquer the State from within succeeded only in sustaining it at a critical moment. A revolutionary movement is not possible in Portugal, but is dependent on a wider context, and in any case will be possible only on other bases than the capitalist-democratic movement of April, 1974. |
| The workers' struggle, even for reformist goals, creates difficulties for Capital and moreover constitutes the necessary experience for the proletariat to prepare itself for revolution. The struggle prepares the future: but this preparation can lead in two directions--nothing is automatic--it can just as easily stifle as strengthen the communist movement. Under these conditions it's not sufficient to insist on the "autonomy" of the workers' actions. Autonomy is no more a revolutionary principle than "planning" by a minority. The revolution no more insists on democracy than on dictatorship. |
| Only by carrying out certain measures can the proletarians retain control of the struggle. If they limit themselves to reformist action, sooner or later the struggle will escape from their control and be taken over by a specialized organ of the syndical type, which may call itself a union or a "committee of the base". Autonomy is not a revolutionary virtue in itself. Any form of organization depends on the content of the goal for which it was created. The emphasis cannot be put on the self-activity of the workers, but on the communist perspective, the realization of which alone effectively allows working class action to avoid falling under the leadership of traditional parties and unions. The content of the action is the determining criterion: the revolution is not just a matter of what the "majority" wants. To give priority to workers' autonomy leads to a dead end. |
| Workerism is sometimes a healthy response, but is inevitably catastrophic when it becomes an end in itself. Workerism tends to conjure away the decisive tasks of the revolution. In the name of workers' "democracy", it confines the proletarians to the capitalist enterprise with its problems of production (not visualizing the revolution as the destruction of the enterprise as such). And workerism mystifies the problem of the State. At best, it re-invents "revolutionary syndicalism." |