At the end of May 1975, the Portuguese government, still under the strong influence of the Communist Party, cracked down severely on the MRPP. Intercontinental Press reported that “Hundreds of members and leaders of the Maoist Movimiento Reorganizativo do Partido do Proletariado (MRPP—Movement to Reorganize the Proletarian Party) are now held as political prisoners in Portugal. During the night of May 28—29, security police conducted coordinated raids on the headquarters of the nearly 500 of its members, including central leaders, [who] were arrested. The military later claimed that the number arrested was 269. Leaflets, files, and typewriters were confiscated.”[354]
The Socialist Party protested against these attacks on the MRPP. Gerry Foley noted that “when an SP spokesman opposed the repression of a Maoist party on the floor of the Constituent Assembly in July, CP members walked out and their supporters denounced him as a fascist.”[355]
The MRPP was by no means obliterated by these arrests. Thus its party paper, Luta Popular, denounced the turning over by an army captain of substantial numbers of arms to another far leftist group in September 1975.[356] In the following month, elements of the MRPP were accused by the Communist Organization of Portugal-Marxist Leninist (OCPML) of having attacked and set fire to a headquarters of the OCPML.[357]
By 1977, the MRPP had been converted into the Portuguese Communist Party-Reconstructed. It held its Second Congress in April of that year, “ending with a rally attended by members of a number of other European and Latin American Marxist-Leninists parties. This was said to be the first time that the Albanian Party of Labor had sent a delegation to attend a rally abroad. … In June a delegation of the PCP-R visited Albania at the invitation of the APL Central Committee.”[358]
Early in 1980, it was reported that “the PCP-R continued its special and cordial relationship with the dissident Albanian Party of Labor, which a PCP-R delegation visited in March” of the previous year. This report continued, The Albanian party sent a greeting of solidarity to the Third Congress of the PCP-R, hailing their common struggle against U.S. imperialism and Soviet and Chinese social-imperialism.”[359]
The Communist Party of Portugal (Marxist-Leninist)
Although we have noted the claim, that the Communist Organization of Portugal-Marxist-Leninist (OCPML)) had obtained the “Chinese franchise” by late 1975, there seems good reason to doubt that this was the case. In June 1975, the New York Trotskyist (Spartacist) periodical, Workers Vanguard, noted that “In more than 50 issues of Peking Review since the dictatorial Caetano regime was toppled in Lisbon … not one word has appeared on Portugal. This is despite the fact that both the MRPP and the other leading Maoist group, the PCP-ML, sent their leaders to Peking last month in order to get the official franchise.”[360]
It is clear that it was the Communist Party of Portugal (Marxist-Leninist) which the Chinese came to regard as their brother party in Portugal. This group had first been established in 1970 with a group around H. G. Vilar, in Paris. In 1974 it took the name PCPML. In January 1977, at its Third Congress, still under the leadership of Secretary General Heduino Gomes Vilar, the party adopted a new program. Its central organ was Unidade Popular, but it also published several papers for peasants, workers and regional groups.
The PCPML had some influence in organized labor, where in 1974 it had established the Alianca Operaria Camponesa, which published a periodical A Voz do Trabalhador. Those unions under the PCPML influence joined the Uniao Geral do Trabalho, when that trade union confederation was established under Socialist leadership in 1979.[361]
The PCPML was clearly the Portuguese group most closely associated with China. After a visit to China in May 1977, a delegation of the PCPML Central Committee announced that “this would be the start of regular contacts with the Chinese Communist Party.”[362]
In the following year, several delegations from the PCPML visited China, “and numerous messages were sent to the Communist Party extolling its progress and activities.” The PCPML also announced the publication of volume 5 of Mao’s Selected Works, which it proclaimed to be “an event of major importance.” The Portuguese party also announced its “full support for Chairman Mao’s scientific theory of the differentiation of the three worlds.”[363]
In 1979, the PCPML denounced the Soviet-Vietnamese friendship and cooperation treaty, which had been signed in November 1978. They also denounced the Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea. All three of its publications, Unidade Popular, O Communista, and Em Luta denounced Vietnam as “the Cuba of Asia,” and as a “faithful lackey of Russian social imperialism.”[364]
The PCPML participated in the 1976 presidential elections as part of the Frente de Unidade Revolucionaria, a grouping of a variety of far-left parties, which supported the candidacy of Major Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho, one-time commander of the Lisbon garrison, who came in second to General Ramalho Eanes, favored by the Socialists and centrist elements, and ahead of Octavio Pato, the nominee of the pro-Soviet Communist Party.[365] They also ran some parliamentary candidates who received about 0.3 percent of the total vote.[366]
The PCPML likewise participated in the 1980 parliamentary election. However, for that purpose it established a front group, the Partido Trabalhista,[367] perhaps because the electoral law did not permit two groups calling themselves Partido Comunista to appear on the ballot.
Other Maoist Groups
In addition to these principal Maoist groups which we have discussed, the East German Communists noted the existence of several other Maoist organizations in the 1970s. One of these was the Partido de Uniao Popular, with a central organ A Verdade, formed by a split in the PCPML in 1975, from which still another group, the Comite Marxista-Leninist a split in turn, and ultimately joined in establishing the Partido Comunista de Portugal Reconstruido.[368] Still another splinter of the PCPML, the Partido Comunista (Marxista-Leninista) Portugues, was established in 1978.
Another Maoist party was the Partido Comunista dos Trabal-hadores Portugues, which was the first established by exiles in the mid-1960s. The party’s Secretary was Arnaldo de Matos, and its small following in organized labor joined the Socialist-controlled Uniao Geral do Trabalho when it was founded in 1979.[369]
Conclusion
Although Maoist parties proliferated in Portugal after the overthrow of the Caetano dictatorship in 1974, two emerged as the principal parties of that kind. These were the Movement for the Reconstruction of the Proletararian Party, which became the Communist Party of Portugal Reconstructed, and the Communist Party of Portugal (Marxist-Leninist). After the revolutionary euphoria of 1974—1976, neither of these became a major factor in Portuguese left-wing politics. With the split between the Chinese and the Albanians, the “Reconstructed” party joined the Albanian schism in International Maoism, while the PCPML remained loyal to China.
355
Gerry Foley, “Halt the Rightist Assault on Portuguese CP!,” Intercontinental Press, September 8, 1975, page 1154.
356
Gerry Foley, “Fresh Attempt by MFA to Stabilize Its Role,” Intercontinental Press, October 6, 1975, page 1322.
357
R. Lapides, “Class Struggle in Portugal at Point of Civil War,” Workers World, September 17, 1975, page 5.
358
H. Leslie Robinson, in Yearbook on International Communist Affairs, 1978, Hoover Institution, Stanford, Calif., page 194.
359
H. Leslie Robinson, in Yearbook on International Communist Affairs, 1979, Hoover Institution, Stanford, Calif., page 196.
363
Robinson, 1979, op. cit., page 196; see also SED, Dokumentation 1977, volume I, pages 27—28.
364
H. Leslie Robinson, in Yearbook on International Communist Affairs, 1980, Hoover Institution, Stanford, Calif., page 202.