Western Europe's First Communist Country?

"A Happy Revolution!" proclaimed the slogans hastily scrawled on the walls in Lisbon. So it seemed to many Portuguese, as optimism and euphoria marked the weeks immediately following the coup of April 25, 1974, when a group of young military officers ended nearly five decades of fascist dictatorship in Portugal. Jubilant citizens lionized the soldiers, plopping long-stemmed red carnations into the muzzles of their rifles. Political exiles returned home to tumultuous welcomes. Amnestied political prisoners walked out of their jails to the embraces of ecstatic relatives and friends. Freedom of the press and assembly was proclaimed, the hated secret police was abolished and a reign of democracy was vowed. At mass rallies, crowds roared, "The people united shall never be vanquished!"

Fading Dream. Those buoyant days are now long gone. Literally and symbolically, the carnations have wilted. The wall slogans have grown strident. A revolution that began by freeing Portugal from a dictatorship of the far right is rapidly evolving into a dictatorship of the far left. In Portugal, the dream that the April revolution would lead to a democratic and pluralistic society is fast fading, and the nation's 8 million people have only sum hope of seeing a centrist or even moderately socialist civilian government. As a mechanic in the rural town of Benedita recently put it: "The revolution is being betrayed!"

The troika of generals that has just assumed unlimited power in Lisbon could well transform Portugal into Western Europe's first Communist nation. It might be an orthodox Marxist state, as envisaged by one of the Continent's few remaining Stalinist Communist Party bosses, Alvaro Cunhal. It might also evolve into a different kind of radically leftist society, borrowing inspiration from Fidel Castro's Cuba, Houari Boumedienne's Algeria and Mao's China. Either way, the Red threat in Portugal vitally affects the political stability of the western Mediterranean and the future of the North Atlantic Alliance.

For the moment, at least, Portugal's fate rests with the three generals who constitute the ruling Directory: President Francisco da Costa Gomes, Premier Vasco dos Santos Gonc,alves and Internal Security Forces Commander Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho (see box page 26). Last week the Directory was installed by the Armed Forces Movement (M.F.A.), the revolution's founding group, and assumed powers previously wielded by the M.F.A.'s 30-man Revolutionary Council. There were immediate signs that the new triumvirate's opponents could expect tough treatment. Arriving back in Lisbon after a visit to Cuba, Saraiva de Carvalho warned: "The M.F.A. is prepared to take the path of very hard repression. It is becoming impossible to have a socialist revolution by completely peaceful means."

Meanwhile, Premier Gonc,alves was apparently struggling to assemble a new Cabinet--the fifth since the coup. Al though President Costa Gomes announced at midweek that "a new government has been formed," its composition had not been revealed by week's end. Observers in Lisbon therefore concluded that Gonc,alves was having great difficulty in persuading any civilians, except Communists and radical leftists, to serve in a Cabinet that would wield little real power, would be dominated by the military. Certain to be absent from the Cabinet are the moderates--the Socialists and centrist Popular Democrats, who together polled nearly two-thirds of the vote in last April's Constituent Assembly election. In opposition to the M.F.A.'s recent authoritarian measures, Socialist Party Leader Mario Soares and officials of the Popular Democrats prohibited their party colleagues from participating in the new government. Denouncing the Directory as unconstitutional, Soares called for a broadly representative "government of national salvation," warning last week that "the rhythm of our revolution is too fast."

Low Profile. When Soares quit the Cabinet in mid-July, triggering the recent political crisis, his indirect aim was to topple the pro-Communist Gonc,alves. At that time, Soares believed that a majority of the Revolutionary Council sympathized with the moderates and were outraged by Gonc,alves' ineptness as an administrator and his increasingly close relations with Communist Party Boss Cunhal. Whether or not this assessment was correct, Soares seems to have overplayed his hand. At a mammoth rally of 50,000 Socialist supporters in Lisbon, he demanded the ouster of Gonc,alves. Apparently viewing the speech as an attack on the military's ability to rule the country, the Council's members closed ranks and backed Gonc,alves.

It remains to be seen whether Cunhal, who lately has been keeping a very low profile, will be any happier with the troika than Soares is. Creation of the Directory might even be a curb on Gonc,alves, since he must share his power with President Costa Gomes, a conciliatory moderate, and with the ambitious Saraiva de Carvalho, a radical leftist who has no use for orthodox Communists. Even the six moderate officers who had boycotted the preliminary meeting, at which the proposal for creating the triumvirate was sketched out, seem to have kept their seats on the Revolutionary Council. When radicals attacked the six dissidents, Costa Gomes allegedly retorted: "The men you are accusing are pillars of the revolution."

Key Prop. The 240-man M.F.A. seems to have almost as many factions as members, yet all of them, in one way or another, are committed to transforming Portugal into some kind of leftist society. Beyond that, though, the M.F.A. is shrouded in secrecy, and its interminable discussions--sometimes lasting until dawn--are closed to the public. "Any revolution must have a little mysticism," explains Minister of Social Communications Jorge Correia Jesuino, a naval commander. "We have ours."

At the time of the coup, some foreign observers were astonished that young officers had led the revolt, since the military was widely regarded as a key prop of the Salazar and Caetano regimes. In retrospect, there should have been no surprise. Many of those officers had come from poor families that could not afford to send them to the universities. For them, therefore, entering a military academy and receiving a regular officer's commission were the only means of obtaining an education and advancing in social status. Gradually, they saw their positions and careers threatened when in 1973 the government began granting regular commissions to conscript officers, who previously had received merely militia commissions. Groups of disgruntled regulars--captains and majors--thus began meeting in secret sessions to vent their frustrations. Eventually, these discussions broadened to include political and social topics. By December 1973, a nucleus of junior officers was already thinking of ways to overthrow the Caetano regime.

What catalyzed these officers and politicized their anger was opposition to the seemingly endless, futile wars Lisbon had been waging since 1961 against liberation movements in Portugal's African territories. Many of them had spent almost all of their military careers in Africa. Not only did they bear the brunt of the fighting and physical hardship, but they were appalled by the wars' drain on their country--an estimated 300 killed annually and a continuing expenditure equivalent to 40% of Portugal's national budget. "The officers of the M.F.A. came to realize that they were sitting in Africa, living out their lives for the profit of the Estoril crowd back in Portugal," says Commander Jesuino. "I felt guilty about the role I was playing. We read the literature of the liberation groups we were fighting. We talked with prisoners. We read the doctrines of Che Guevara and Mao and so on--and we thought for ourselves."

These thoughts were idealistic but politically naive. Limited both in knowledge and experience, they lacked the perspective to weigh the radical theories they absorbed. "The men of the M.F.A. view the world through a narrow spectrum of revolutionary struggle," notes a veteran Western diplomat in Lisbon. "Many of them are very emotional. It is not uncommon to see tears form as they talk about excesses of the great landholding families."

Easy Coup. Almost inevitably, many of the young officers came to regard the repressive Caetano government and the oligarchic capitalists who supported it as their real enemy rather than the African revolutionaries. Toppling the old regime, the military found, was surprisingly easy--the coup was almost bloodless, and it was accomplished in 17 hours. Ambitiously dubbing itself the Junta of National Salvation, the new regime chose as its head Antonio de Spinola, the popular general who had publicly criticized the Caetano regime for continuing the war against the rebel movements in Portugal's African territories. Spinola and the M.F.A. pledged that within a year elections would be held for a Constituent Assembly empowered to draft a democratic constitution.

The coup unleashed long-repressed frustrations. "We fell asleep a half-century ago and have just now woken up," said an old woman in Lisbon. Across the country, hundreds of mini-coups erupted: bakers, lawyers, engineers, journalists and architects ousted the leaders of their unions. Workers took over factories or else demanded huge wage increases--often up to 200%. An alphabet soup of initials covered walls, posters and newspapers, as scores of political parties were formed, ranging from monarchist to Maoist. More ominously, the much persecuted Communist Party (see box page 28) emerged from the underground as the nation's most dedicated and cohesive political organization.

Spinola seemed to get the new regime off to a good start, appointing a Cabinet containing Socialists, Communists, left-centrists, independents and only one military officer. A centrist law professor, Adelino da Palma Carlos, was chosen Premier, Socialist Soares became Foreign Minister, while Communist Boss Cunhal was named Minister Without Portfolio. The Cabinet's ability to act, however, was severely restricted by ideological differences. On one side stood those committed to democratic processes, such as the Socialists; on the other side were those, like the Communists, who were willing to employ authoritarian means to carry out the revolution. While the Cabinet became bogged down in lengthy discussions, a rash of strikes and demonstrations seemed to be bringing the country close to anarchy.

Leftist Gains. The disorder offended Spinola's sense of discipline. Moreover, his plan for dealing with Portugal's African territories was being resisted by his junta colleagues. He had envisioned Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and Angola forming a loose federation with Portugal. Leftists within the M.F.A. sided with revolutionaries in the territories and demanded complete independence. In June 1974, Spinola barnstormed across Portugal, visiting army bases and addressing enthusiastic crowds. His message: Portugal's revolution must not be exploited by extremists.

The President became more worried as the Communists and extreme leftists gained influence within the M.F.A. and captured key posts in government bureaucracies. He suffered a major setback when Vasco Gonc,alves (then only a colonel) replaced Premier Palma Carlos. Exercising what in retrospect was very poor judgment, Spinola made a desperate attempt to go over the heads of the M.F.A., calling for his country's maioria silenciosa (silent majority) to back him. A mammoth rally in support of the President, scheduled for late September, soon became a test of the moderates v. extremists. Under pressure from the M.F.A., Spinola canceled the rally. Three days later, on Sept. 30, he resigned and was succeeded by his close friend General Costa Gomes.

Spinola's fall hastened the revolution's leftward momentum. It removed the archenemy of the Communist Party and its fellow-traveling Democratic Movement. Together they soon obtained viselike control over scores of local administrations, trade unions, newspapers and radio stations. At the same time, Cunhal carefully courted the military, supporting the leftists within the M.F.A. on every issue.

Cunhal's most valuable ally was Gonc,alves. The Premier backed the move to merge all trade unions into a single organization: the Communist-dominated Intersindical. He looked away when the Communists and extreme leftists physically prevented a center-right party from holding its organizing conference and disrupted Socialist election rallies. Red intimidation, in effect, prevented rightists and most centrists from participating in public life.

Mounting authoritarianism accompanied the swing leftward. Military men soon occupied half the Cabinet's seats, and COPCON (Continental Operations Command) was established as an elite police force, empowered to do whatever was needed to maintain public order.

The M.F.A.'s intrusion into the political process became nearly complete after Spinola ineptly allowed himself to be associated with a poorly planned, abortive rightist coup last March. In its aftermath, Spinola fled to Brazil, while the M.F.A. moved swiftly to institutionalize its power. A Revolutionary Council, composed entirely of military men, was endowed with sweeping legislative and administrative powers.

The Socialists and other moderates looked upon these developments with apprehension. Their only hope for curbing the excesses of leftist zeal was the promised elections for the Constituent Assembly. Indeed, when the elections were held on April 25, the Socialists won 38% of the vote and the Popular Democrats 26%. The Communists polled a mere 12.5%. This was a personal triumph for Scares, 50, the Socialists' warm, gregarious chief, who had mingled easily with crowds as he campaigned across the country.

Soares' public exposure as Foreign Minister and his role as principal negotiator of the treaties granting the African territories their independence had made him his country's most popular figure. In his youth, he was attracted to Communism, but eventually rejected the party. Reason: he was unable to swallow the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The danger of such a dictatorship, in fact, was the message he preached during the election campaign. "The Socialist Party will never sacrifice freedom in the name of socialism," he vowed time and again. Apparently a majority of the electorate agreed.

Final Blow. Yet the moderates' victory at the polls was hollow; two weeks before the elections, as a condition for getting on the ballot, six parties, including the Communists and Socialists, signed a document agreeing to let the M.F.A.'s Revolutionary Council serve as the country's ultimate rulers for three to five years.

The Communists and extreme left refused to be chastened by their poor showing at the polls and increased their offensive against the moderates. At the plant of Republica, the pro-Communist printers took control of the publication away from its Socialist editors; the M.F.A. intervened--Ineffectively, as it turned out--and eventually let the workers keep the paper. The final blow to the Socialists was the M.F.A.'s endorsement last month of a scheme to establish local revolutionary councils that would bypass the political parties (TIME, July 21). "We have not left even Albania on our right!" exclaimed a shocked moderate, with a dose of hyperbole. Scares withdrew his party from the Cabinet and called for a series of nationwide rallies. There too he failed; instead of forcing the M.F.A. to broaden its political base, his challenge triggered the creation of the Directory. With it, the exclusion of moderates from the government is complete.

How long this new regime will last is another question, since the military --even with the help of some talented Western-oriented technocrats--has driven Portugal's economy into the ground. There are at least 270,000 unemployed (8% of the work force), the rate of inflation exceeds 30% annually, and the current balance of payments deficit could exhaust foreign reserves by the end of the year (TIME, July 28).

Meanwhile, an exodus of Portuguese is under way, and it is one the country can ill afford: a "gray drain" (as the Portuguese call the brain drain) of highly trained professionals such as managers, engineers, bankers, doctors, lawyers and economists. Most of these middle-class executives and professionals head for Brazil; by the end of this year, about 200,000 Portuguese are expected to migrate to Brazil to escape either the revolution at home or the changed situation in the liberated African territories.

Among the exiles are members of Portugal's legendary "Twenty Families" --the tight-knit, moneyed oligarchy that completely dominated their nation's economy and cooperated closely with the fascist regime. While an M.F.A. blacklist prohibits all wealthy businessmen from emigrating, many have managed to flee. Some literally walked across the border into Spain, while others sailed from Portugal's ports in their yachts --before the navy began patrolling the coast to prevent such escapes.

Scared Off. The lack of any credible policy aggravates the economy's malaise. "Until there is stability of some kind, no one will have any confidence," observed a Lisbon businessman. "Right now, I'd accept anything except the Maoists if the government could only make it stick." Foreign investors have been scared off by the constant flux of the M.F.A.'s policies, and speeches such as that last week by Premier Gonc,alves before a labor leaders' meeting in Lisbon. "Ours is a fight to the death against capitalism!" he boomed. "The forces of great capital, whether domestic or international, are multiple."

The Directory is also challenged by political problems outside continental Portugal. In the lush, verdant Azores, 1,000 miles off Portugal's coast--and site of the U.S.'s important Lajes airbase --there is increasingly serious talk of breaking away from Lisbon. Mild discontent has long simmered in the islands. The 300,000 inhabitants have resented paying higher taxes and higher prices than the mainland Portuguese. In recent months, this bitterness has flared into open hostility as the predominantly conservative Azorians have been jolted by the leftward drift of the mainland's politics.

Violence has also erupted in the remnants of Portugal's five-century-old African empire. Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique have already achieved full independence without major incident. But Angola, scheduled to become independent on Nov. 11, is engulfed in a costly and bloody struggle between rival liberation movements. In the past month, the fighting between the Maoist National Front for the Liberation of Angola and the pro-Soviet Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola has claimed an estimated 500 lives in Luanda alone. Whether it wants to or not, Lisbon will have to keep its 25,000 troops in Angola until independence in order to avoid a civil war that could threaten the safety of the 400,000 Portuguese living there. At week's end there were reports from South Africa that Portugal would begin a massive two-month airlift to rescue the white settlers. This, however, would not end the problems the settlers could pose for the triumvirate. Relocated in Portugal, they would probably make up an embittered and impoverished bloc that would blame the regime for not doing more to protect Portuguese interests in Africa.

These problems, plus the need to fashion a viable political structure for the country, will test the Directory's staying power. Prospects for its stability are not too good, since most collective leaderships have been the victims of their members' quests for unshared power. Octavian outmaneuvered his fellow triumvirs--Mark Antony and Lepidus--to become undisputed ruler of ancient Rome, and Soviet history is littered with collective leaderships that failed. Following Lenin's death, Stalin served on two consecutive triumvirates, each time ruthlessly eliminating his supposedly coequal partners. After Stalin, the various members of the Kremlin's new collective kept vying with each other for supremacy until Nikita Khrushchev emerged at the top.

Almost as important as the rivalry among the triumvirs will be the ongoing struggle between the Socialists and Communists. The members of the M.F.A. are, on the whole, suspicious of civilian politicians. The officers also have an almost mystical belief that the military can be directly responsive to the will of the people by skipping such niceties as political parties, constitutions and free elections. Not surprisingly, this naive attitude has been exploited by the Communists, who are well aware that they stand no chance of winning an honest election. At the same time, Cunhal has tried to moderate his party's image by dropping some radical planks from its program, like the demand that "imperialists" be expelled from Portugal and foreign companies be confiscated.

The Communist Party boss has also paid frequent lip service to democracy and emphasized a pragmatic reform program to bring all Portuguese "a better life." Although this moderate stance is probably only a ploy, Cunhal has been able to take much of the edge off his own reputation as a ruthless Stalinist. Even the least sympathetic officers have been impressed by the Communist Party's discipline, its effective organization and--perhaps above all--its loyal collaboration with the military. Only rarely does Cunhal drop his guard and publicly deride parliaments, elections and democratic freedoms.

By contrast, the Socialists often appear to the officers as people who talk too much, lack discipline and unfairly criticize the M.F.A. But Soares hopes that a majority of the M.F.A. will eventually have to respect the huge following the Socialists and other moderate parties have throughout the country. In recent weeks Soares has demonstrated a spirited determination to challenge the Communists and the radical left by mobilizing those masses into rallies that have attracted as many as 70,000 participants.

Ripe Target. Is there anything the U.S. and Western Europe can do to aid Portugal's democrats? In other years and other circumstances, Portugal's confused political situation might have been considered a ripe target for intervention by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. There is absolutely no evidence, however, that the CIA has tried to influence the Portuguese situation. The West could provide moral support; this would probably boost the moderates' standing in the eyes of the M.F.A. In fact, that was the maui purpose behind last weekend's meeting in Stockholm between Soares and Western Europe's leading Social Democrats, who have given his party modest financial support. Soares has also developed good relations with such pragmatic Communist bosses as Italy's Enrico Berlinguer and Spain's Santiago Carrillo, who are wary of Cunhal's Stalinist tendencies. The Soviet Union and other East European nations have been more active in supplying the Communists with funds. Estimates of the amount range from an implausibly high $120 million a year to a more realistic $15 million.

Despite this aid, there is good reason to think that the Russians are a bit concerned that Cunhal may push Lisbon leftward too quickly. If Moscow is too blatantly associated with such developments, it could galvanize the West into taking some kind of concerted, direct action to help the moderates. This might then jeopardize Soviet Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev's cherished dream of detente. Washington has made it unmistakably clear that it will not tolerate any meddling by Moscow in Portugal's internal affairs. Shortly before flying to the Helsinki Conference, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger warned that "to the extent the Soviet Union is active in Portugal, we consider it incompatible with the spirit of relaxation."

How valuable is Portugal to the alliance? Theoretically, the military and naval surveillance functions carried out by NATO from Portuguese bases could be done elsewhere; the U.S. airbases in Spain are strategically more important than Lajes Field in the Azores. Nonetheless, the organization would find it awkward, at best, to let Portugal remain a member if Lisbon's government was dominated by the Communists or more extreme leftists. Such a development could strategically affect the western end of the Mediterranean and access to the Strait of Gibraltar; it could also influence the course of Spain's development in the post-Franco era.

Western European leaders are seemingly less worried than Washington is about the dangers, but they are nonetheless unhappy with developments in Lisbon. In an attempt to bolster the Portuguese moderates, the Common Market has told Lisbon that it cannot expect economic aid until there are assurances that Portugal will become a pluralistic society. Declared West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher: "We have no interest in promoting a dictatorial development."

The enthronement of the Directory is a watershed for Portugal's revolution. Convinced of its own infallibility, the M.F.A. has chosen to ignore the mood of the country, which, according to both April's elections and more recent polls, strongly favors pluralism and a gradual path to socialism. By claiming total authority, the military rulers make themselves publicly accountable for the condition of the economy. Failure to solve Portugal's problems will surely create widespread public dissatisfaction.

Two Scenarios. Veteran observers of Lisbon's often baffling politics see two possible scenarios in the ensuing months; both focus on the left because rightist forces at present are completely scattered and discredited. One scenario is a relatively quick disintegration of the troika, with Gonc,alves as the likely loser and the mercurial Saraiva de Carvalho emerging as a new strongman. Despite his popularity with the radical masses, the charismatic boss of the security forces would polarize discontent; he could only govern by imposing the kind of repressive measures the April 25 revolution supposedly abolished for good. Cunhal's party might be forced back into the opposition if that came to pass, because, it is believed, Saraiva de Carvalho has adopted the Maoist left's contempt for orthodox, pro-Soviet Communists. Because of their discipline, however, the Communists would be in good position to pick up the pieces if Saraiva de Carvalho should be unable to solve Portugal's economic problems.

The second and more optimistic prospect is that Socialist Mario Soares could form a working alliance with Ernesto Melo Antunes, Foreign Minister in the outgoing government, and other sophisticated moderate officers in the M.F.A. In light of recent political events, this scenario is barely credible, but it envisions Scares and the moderates convincing a majority of uncommitted officers in the M.F.A. that they must, for the nation's sake, respect the political feelings of the majority of Portuguese. To do this, Soares would have to define and present a realistic economic and social program and have the courage to mobilize the mass of nonradical Portuguese in support of it. Says one hopeful European diplomat in Lisbon: "As the economy slides and as the regime's lack of authority becomes more evident, the moment could arrive." If and when it does come, it could be the only chance that Portugal's revolution has of accomplishing something other than merely exchanging one dictatorship for another.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.