Report on the activities of the small Portuguese Communist Party under the dictatorship of Gomes da Costa; the economic situation, the role of the Socialist Party and trade unions, and the development of the C.P. for the Sixth World Comintern Congress.

‘Report of Portugal’ from The Communist International Between the Fifth and the Sixth Congresses, 1924-28. Published by the Communist International, 1928.

THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL SITUATION.

Portugal’s economic situation, already sufficiently grave under the domination of the bourgeois-republican parties, became considerably more difficult after the victory of the military dictatorship on May 28th, 1926. The situation in the labour market may be generally described as a serious one. Regardless of the weak development of industry, there are already several thousand employed people who are receiving no benefits whatever from the State. In addition to unemployment, short time is worked in the factories. The economic depression is further aggravated by the growing burden of State taxes. The burden is further increased by the financial demands of the body of army officers on which the Dictatorship relies. The maintenance of the dictatorship and social preference for the army officers are two inter-dependent factors.

The economic depression leads to a situation under which the military dictatorship does not even enjoy the confidence of the bourgeoisie. Its manifest administrative and political incapacity, coupled with the uncertainty of its retaining power, have caused the leaders of banking capital to hold back, which has been shown by the reserved attitude of the banks in the course of their mutual negotiations.

In the political field, the dictatorship is continuing an openly reactionary course. Parliament has been dissolved, the labour and republican press has been persecuted and banned, premises occupied by labour and republican organisations have been raided and shut down, and numerous workers, as well as active elements in the republican party, have been imprisoned and exiled to the African colonies.

The right to strike, as well as the freedom of the press and of public meeting have been withdrawn, and a rigid censorship introduced. State officials have been denied the right of combination. Labour leaders have been exiled to the African colonies.

The revolt in May 1926, led by General Gomez da Costa, put the petty-bourgeoise “democratic” government out of office. Costa relied essentially upon the agrarians. Nevertheless it was the desire of British capital invested in Portugal that a government should be in power which would be dependent on British finance. Thus it was that in the course of a few weeks the Costa government was overthrown and the government of General Carmona took its place. This government managed to consolidate its power. Thus, in the course of the last insurrection in February, 1927, it was in a position to rout the insurgents without mercy, aided by the government troops. In the last insurrection the casualties amounted to 300 killed and goo wounded, although the area of the insurrection was limited to Lisbon and Oporto.

The insurrection was started by the liberal-democratic groups of the middle bourgeoisie, but it involved also a section of the army, viz., some of the higher officers; nevertheless, it had not been properly prepared. Armed citizens and workers took part, whilst the labour organisations sympathised with the revolt. The transport workers’ strike, which broke out about the same time, should have been of assistance to the insurrection.

The slogan of the insurrection was: Restoration of the republican constitution and the formation of a government upon that basis. At all events, these demands were insufficient to induce the masses of the people to support the insurrection.

The dictatorship swings, pendulum-like, in its orientation between England and United States. This oscillation was demonstrated in the course of the attempt at floating a foreign loan. The British conditions (made over the head of the League of Nations) were so exacting that the Portuguese Government saw itself forced to apply to the United States on the security of its colonies, thus withdrawing from the proposal to float a loan in England.

The growing influence of the United States is particularly revealed in the colonial territories of Portugal. Here we refer only to the abolition of the English pound sterling as the means of currency in Portuguese East Africa. A fresh attack on Portugal was then started in England, and in March, 1928, it was declared in “The Times” that the National Party in Portugal had been split and that the most important section of the Party had refused to give further support to the government’s policy of favouring the United States. Thus, the rivalry between Great Britain and United States for the control of Portugal is going on.

THE SITUATION IN THE BOURGEOIS AND SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTIES.

In spite of the persecution and of the defeat sustained on February 7th, the Republican Party is now becoming very active in the hope of being able to overthrow the dictatorship. Legal papers are appearing everywhere, in which the dictatorship is scathingly assailed. Although the Republicans are not in the position to regain their lost prestige among the masses of the population, nevertheless it is still believed—but such belief is fostered rather by despair than by conviction—that they will succeed in overthrowing the Fascist dictatorship, which, accepted by the population without any enthusiasm, is already becoming the object of popular hatred.

The political influence of the reactionary, monarchist and Catholic parties which support the dictatorship is nil. They are making no headway whatever, and are equally detested by the population.

The “Partido Socialista Portugues” (Socialist Party) embraces no masses of workers, having long since forfeited the confidence of the working masses. Taking advantage of the ban of the military dictatorship against any propaganda by Communists, Anarchists and Syndicalists, the Socialists tried to win the leadership of the labour movement, and they developed some activity in this direction. Nevertheless, they soon found that the masses of the organised workers would no longer give them any support. In spite of all repressive measures, the workers are decidedly opposed, practically without exception, to the ideas of social and industrial peace and of class collaboration which are so assiduously preached by the Socialists. The Socialists managed to retain their parliamentary seats and their position in some of the bourgeois governments only by means of a deal with the bourgeois Republican Party.

The Socialist Party Press is represented by the little newspapers “O Protesto” and “O Trabalho” at Lisbon and “A Republica Social” at Oporto. The influence of this Press is quite insignificant.

THE SITUATION IN THE TRADE UNIONS.

Lately the trade unions have been passing through a severe crisis. The Fascist dictatorship, particularly since the insurrection of February 7th, has inaugurated a régime of bitter persecution of the trade unions and the revolutionary organisations. This has brought trade union activity almost to a standstill. The great majority of the trade unions, with very few exceptions, e.g., the Union of Army Arsenal Workers, the Union of Naval Arsenal Workers, the Federation of Commercial Employers at Lisbon, and the Union of the Railwaymen employed by the “Companha Portugesa,” have therefore experienced a large falling off in the membership.

Trade Union and other meetings may be held only by permission of the military authorities, which send police agents to supervise such meetings.

Among the workers a certain, although very feeble and little expressed, tendency toward radicalism is to be observed. This tendency is partly the result of the failures of the Anarcho-Syndicalists, but it is also partly due to the activity of the adherents of the R.I.L.U. This process has also been helped by the dictatorship itself, since the government policy causes many workers to begin to realise their position as the exploited class who have nothing to expect from the bourgeois parties. It is largely owing to the lack of sympathetic activity by our Party and by the R.I.L.U. adherents—which is also due to objective difficulties—as well as to the lack of good Marxian-Leninist and revolutionary literature, that this process is going on so slowly.

DEVELOPMENT AND ACTIVITY OF THE C.P.

The Central Committee of the C.P. of Portugal, elected at the Lisbon Congress at the end of May, 1926, was confronted with a situation that was difficult in every way, which was the result of the illegality of the Party, the numerous mistakes of the previous Central Committee, the lack of discipline, the state of disorganisation, and other factors.

Even the composition of the new C.C. was by no means so homogeneous as would be desirable for such a leading organ, and the little questions, which had hampered any extensive activity by the previous Central Committees, began to manifest themselves already at the first meetings of the new C.C.

Owing to these circumstances, and, above all, owing to the difficulties due to illegality, the C.C. could do very little to further the development of the Party. During that period the C.C. confined itself to the task of bringing the organisation into shape, and of securing the control of the Party membership which appeared to be necessary.

The outstanding success in the general activity consisted in the fact that the C.C. elected at the Second Congress succeeded in having its representative admitted into the “Comites de Defensa Proletaria,” an organisation directed against the military dictatorship and formed by delegates of all the Red and Anarcho-Syndicalist trade unions. It was the first and only time that the C.P. succeeded in gaining admission into such an organisation controlled by anarchists as a revolutionary and proletarian body. The resolution adopted at the public meeting of the organisation at Lisbon on June 30th had been drawn up by our comrades.

The Trotsky Opposition has met with no support whatever in the C.P. of Portugal, and the members paid no attention whatever to this question.

The Party was prevented from undertaking any general propaganda by means of newspapers and leaflets, both by the rigours of the censorship and by the lack of financial means.

As regards activity in the trade unions, the Party has no great successes to record. The inactivity of the major part of the Party membership rendered almost impossible any progress in this important domain. Only a few fractions have been active at Lisbon, but even these have been rather deficient. In most of the trade unions there are either no fractions at all, or they are not active. Among the Red trade unions there is a Communist fraction only in one organisation, namely, in the Federation of Commercial Employees at Lisbon.

As to the activity in the cooperatives, the Communist Party in 1926-27, backed by the R.I.L.U. adherents, took up a fight for winning the “Caixa Oeconomica Operaria” (the Workers’ Economic Fund). It is an old-established cooperative credit and consumers’ organisation which, after a certain period of favourable development, during which it gained considerable popularity, began to lose a good deal of its influence among the workers owing to negligence and abuse on the part of many of its leaders.

The Communists gained great influence in the organisation, but shortly afterwards, owing to insufficient activity by the Party and to aggressive action by the Anarchists, this influence began to wane. Thus this organisation, which might be used with some success for our activities under the repressive military dictatorship, is slipping from the hands of the Communists.

The Party finds itself in a difficult position, having only fifty members at Lisbon and twenty at Oporto. Lately, the C.C. has carried out successful efforts for a reconstruction of the Party, for a cleansing of the Party ranks and the introduction of the necessary discipline. The few factory nuclei which have hitherto existed have failed to show the activity that was expected of them.

To sum up, the situation may be described as follows:

The far-reaching misapprehension of the essence of Communism, the lack of activity of the majority of the membership, the lack of unity in the leading organs of the Party, its illegal condition and rigorous persecution, as well as the lack of financial means—these are the chief obstacles to progress in the C.P. of Portugal.

The Communist International Between the Fifth and the Sixth Congresses, 1924-28. Published by the Communist International, 1928.

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