Many socialists in Britain have eagerly being watching the progress of the French left as the slate put forward for the European Elections by the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR) and Lutte Ouvriere (LO) is getting an impressive showing in the opinion polls (see facing page). Rather less is known about developments in other European countries.
Terry Conway from Socialist Outlook talked to João-Carlos Louçã of the PSR, Portuguese Section of the Fourth International.
SO: Tell us about your plans for making an impact in the forthcoming European elections.
J-C: We have formed a new block, Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc), together with two other groups, to stand candidates not only in the European elections in June but in the Parliamentary elections that will take place in October.
The forces involved in this project are ourselves (the PSR) the UDP, an organisation of Maoist origin and Política XXI, a group of ex-CP intellectuals.
The organisations involved have a real weight in society. For example PSR leader Manuel Graça is General Secretary of the Shoemakers’ Trade Union, and the PSR and UDP are active across the leather-working and shoemaking unions. The PSR is also involved in the national leadership of the teachers’ union, the biggest union in Portugal.
The UDP has had a Member of Parliament previously. Up till 1983 they had a member elected in their own name, and between 1983-1985 they had a member elected on the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) list.
Under the slogan "Beginning Again" the Bloco proclaims that it is time "to remake the left, and begin again. To combat the negative effects of globalisation, with its trail of misery and injustice. To struggle for a Europe able to build a future based on the best elements of its history. A Europe which values all its identities, be they national, class, immigrant or pluri-cultural."
The initiative has already attracted considerable interest. Among the "independents" who have signed up are the historian Fernando Rosas, composer Jose Mario Branco, and the writer and active feminist Melice Ribeiro Santos.
Despite the encouraging number of individual members, militants of the three founding groups are still the base of the Left Bloc. This exciting move was approved by the congresses of the three organisations in January.
SO: Has this development happened suddenly, or is it something you have been discussing for a long time?
J-C: All the forces involved have worked together politically on a number of key campaigns; for example in the referendum opposing Maastricht and the referendum in support of women’s abortion rights.
The PSR has also stood on common election platforms with Política XXI in municipal elections in Lisbon and Opporto which won three per cent of votes and elected a councillor.
The three organisations are convinced that we must bring into politics all those who are excluded or marginalised.
It is high time for all those who identify with the essence of what we are saying to come together in a new project which will be capable of carrying forward strong and credible proposals for democracy and socialism.
For the PSR "Such a project is a long-standing idea. Many independent militants have long been convinced of the need for an electorally viable alternative.
"People have wanted the intervention of organised militants to be directed towards concretising a political and cultural force representative of an alternative current in the Portuguese left. But what is new is the decision to assume the responsibility and the risk of doing so. It is time now to do it."
SO: What do you see as the main purpose of the Block? What impact do you expect to have?
J-C: We are not standing just in order to get elected. We also see the formation as a way of intervening into the internal debate going on inside the PCP.
This debate is between a tendency tending to social-democratisation, defending an "alternative of power" that wants to negotiate a governmental programme and places in that government with the socialists, and another tendency – more to the left – that still wants to build a social and political alternative.
We regret that the PCP is still unable to understand the complexity of Portuguese society today. This prevents the Party from presenting itself as a party which wants to break with the current society.
We have said that we want to bring together all those who want to build an alternative to Social Democracy, and that the PCP is central to this. But their reaction to the Block has been hysterical - they still think that they are the alternative alone. This is despite their recent setbacks. They won only 11 per cent of the vote in the local elections and only 9 deputies in the last General Election.
Impact on CP
We have already had an impact on them, even before the campaign has started properly. The PCP has been organising a series of meetings across the country on various topics, including on the future of the left.
They organised a meeting in Coimbra on this theme last May and invited Fernando Rosas, the block’s main spokesperson, as well as others who support us. They did not invite a single representative of the Socialist Party.
While these meetings had in principle been agreed to by the whole PCP, subsequent developments underlined what we already thought about the tensions in that organisation.
A further meeting on the same lines, with the same platform had been planned for Lisbon. But following the Coimbra meeting the CP leadership manoeuvred time and again, postponing the meeting several times and then eventually organising it at short notice to try to minimise its impact.
Finally, the debate took place at the beginning of February, with the PCP’s leadership having to justify taking its distance from the project of the Left Block and its support for "institutional work" at the level of European institutions.
SO: What are the next key steps in the campaign?
J-C: There is much to be done. We have already agreed who will lead the lists; Miguel Portas of Política XXI for the European elections and a candidate chosen by the PSR for the elections in October. But other candidates still have to be chosen.
The next step is registering the Left Bloc as a legal political party. That means collecting five thousand signatures, each of which has to be accompanied by a lot of supporting paper work. This is a time-consuming and expensive challenge but it will be good practice for the European elections in June, and parliamentary elections in October.
The local meetings to present the Left Block have had, so far, a very big impact, They have attracted many people including a significant number of left militants – even from the PCP – that haven’t been organised for many years.
The intention of the Block is to bring together many more people than the forces of the 3 organisations that started it. This is working – so far – because we are having success in getting together different generations of social activists.
For these people and for the left in general, the Left Block represents not only a new hope, but also something completely new in terms of the left recomposition.