Since December 1973 the reg ular intervention of its revoluwonary muncants nas permitted me construction of the LCI, the deepening of its implantation and ability to take important political initiatives (anti-colonial movement in May-September 1974, anti-militarist actions), and the participation of the LCI in the leadership of some mass struggles.
But there was dilnculty in tree ing this intervention, conducted oy a nanatul or mutants that nas since expanded to the present nucleus. rom some inial error that marked our history and were a ronicar consecuence or our smal implantation at the outset combined with a formal sectarianism and some dogmatic conceptions.
The uneven growth and the Jack oi a clear central political line. which reflected the weakness of our ponucal expenence. was nonetheless counter-balanced by the implantation that was developed and by the ability of the organisation to break into new zones in which sigmificant nucles of workers were rapidly developed. But this develpment was often carried out at the cost of deepening the empiricism and regionalism of the intereLOn a is in wis sense unal, in spite or the errors committed. in spite of the limits of its education and of the political debates that were conduc ted within it, the LCI was always integrated into the dynamic of the Portuguese revolution and participated with all its strength in the important confrontations that strengthened the revolution (28 september and 11 March). Although these political errors contributed to weakene us and led us to under-utilise important political opportunes. me consolidation and strengthening of the revolutionary Marxist organisation and the commitment of its militants and sympathisers to important mass struggles in the factories, enterprises, trade unions, neighbournoous, and barracks constitute a Workers at Lisnave-one of centres of militancy point of departure for a qualitative leap that is now possible, provided we understand and correct our previous errors.
The fact that the revolutionary Marxists have held two congresses in less than five months is not evidence of any arbitrary subjectivism or a desire to discuss simply for the sake of discussion, but rather corresponds to the objective and subjective requirements of the revolutionary process itself. In this respect Leninism. the Bolshevik practice to which the LCI adheres, certainlv stands in contrast to the Stalinist and bureaucratic practice of holding congresses at intervals of years, conglesses in which tendency differences and debates are replaced by the principle that unanimity is a virtue and differences a sin It was exactly five months ago, in August 1975, that the last congress of the LCI was held. But in the five months that have elapsed, the revolutionary process has developed much faster than had been слосса. wunne mis Denioc revolutionary Marxists found themselves facing tasks whose scope far exceeded their forces. But what made this third (extraordinary) congress necessary was the observation of the fact that the orientation approved at me second congress had not sufficiently armed the militants for carrying out the tasks required by the rapid development of the revoramonals process.
While the second congress, in August 1975, marked an advance in te discussion of some important questions, it nonetheless maintained and deepened some of the errors mentioned above. The analvsis of the MFA the CP, and the SP that was adopted at the congress facilitated political hesitations and turns that log ically led to the signing of the 25 August accords, the acceptance of the 10 September FUR manifesto, and the participation in this front until its effective disappearance.
Because of its importance and because of the political and organisational consequences, it is necessary to enumerate systematically the errors of the FUR: • The unity in action that was possible and necessaw was reo aeed by a 'frontist' policy based on an erroneous bonuca Danon. wilco inevitably led objectively to sectarlan ana divisionist accons relative to the workers movement as a whole and subjectively to confusion about the party, which facilitated the division of the workers vanguard and the development of the 'non-partyist' current within the independent organs (the workers commissions, neighbourhood comm issions, soldiers commissions, ete.). • The lack of any conception of the workers united front at a time when it was particularly important to sumulate united accons tal would have permitted the development and Dresenacon ora bond. cal outlet for the process of self-organisation, uniting the majority of the class in defence of its social and economic conquests and responding immediatelv to the economic and political crisis of the • An incorrect and extremely dang erous conception of the Social Democracy, which was identified as the twin of fascism. • The development of putschist and insurrectionist conceptions that facilitated the events of 25 November and made it difficult to put forward an alternative politica. solution.
The political dissolution and organisational consequences of the LCI's participation in the FUR were the product of serious errors that opened the way for a combination of sectarianism and tail-endism cowaras the policies or the centrist organisations and the CP. In reality, a correct comeresension orse dynamic of class struggle that led to the fall of the Fifth Government, to the mass actions of the soldiers' movemen, to the new rise or gen eralised struggles for unifying economic demands (rural wage earners, metalworkers, civil construction workers, bakers, etc.), and to the development of partial imitiatives of centralisation of the organs of direct democracy would have prevented the LCI from signing, on 25 August, an accord that supported the MFA and the Fifth Provisional Government, giving rise to all the centrist confusion about te character or the Cr and developing a sectarian policy towards the SP.
This political understanding also would have permitted a different policy, based on a break with the FUR (as soon as the FUR accepted the 25 August accords and on the recomposition of the unity in action of the revolutionary organives like the creation of a more favourable relationship of forces with the reformists so as to stimulate the centralisation of the autonomous organs, cus addressing ourselves to all the workers ane revolunionary oreanisations These political errors prevented the workers movement for its fundamental objectives: the deepening of the conquests and demands of the working masses for the development and centralisation of the embryonic organs of dual power in a period in which the initiatives of the workers movement could have been rapidly transformed into new steps forward.
SINDICATO LIVRE DOS FERROVIAR OS International capitalists' aid backs repression of Portuguese workers' mobilisations