The Crisis of the Dictatorships. Nicos Poulantzas

‘ultraimperialism’ that identifies the hegemony of one imperialist country over others with a complete ‘pacification’ of inter-imperialist contradictions, so that the reactivation of these contradictions is immediately seen as the elimination of this hegemony. At the present moment, these contradictions are becoming more intense; battles are taking place for the conquest of protected territories, both for capital export, to counteract the tendential fall in the rate of profit (recession) in the imperialist centres, and also for the export of commodities and the control of raw materials, in the context of the imbalances in international payments that have marked the past few years. There are also intense struggles for control of countries that can serve as intermediate staging-posts for imperialist capital in its further expansion: the characteristic cases of Portugal and Greece. The problem of oil has simply accentuated this state of affairs.

      As far as the countries we are concerned with here are concerned, the contradictions between the United States and the Common Market are expressed particularly by way of the independent strategy that the Common Market is pursuing in the Mediterranean region. The question remains, however, as to what role these contradictions played in the overthrow or changes in the Portuguese, Greek and Spanish regimes.

      Taking up the points already made, I maintain, firstly, that these contradictions did not play any direct or immediate role, and secondly, that it would be quite wrong to believe that the EEC consistently played the democratic card, as it were, in order to challenge American interests which were exclusively represented by these dictatorships. The contradiction between the United States and Europe is not in fact an explosive contradiction between two equivalent counter-imperialisms (Europe as a ‘third force’), contending for hegemony step by step; it is essentially a contradiction centring on a rearrangement in the balance of forces, but still always under American hegemony. The dictatorships themselves, moreover, and this applies to Caetano, Papadopoulos/Markezinis and to the Opus Dei episode under Franco, explicitly sought integration into the Common Market, the reason for this being, as we shall see, the complex relationships that they maintained with the various fractions of their own bourgeoisies. Even though these attempts proved unsuccessful, it was precisely under these regimes that the import of European capital into these countries and the volume of trade on preferential terms between them and Europe grew to significant proportions, in some respects supplanting economic relations with the United States.

      Nothing would be more wrong, then, than to view the Common Market as having in any way subjected these regimes to an economic boycott. For all the declarations on the European side, justifying refusal of EEC membership on the grounds of the absence of democratic institutions, the real reason why these countries have not been integrated into the Common Market is related to the very real problems of European agricultural policy, which would be directly threatened by these countries acquiring full membership status, and the effect this would have on their agricultural exports to the EEC. This is shown by the difficulties still encountered today as regards the integration into the Common Market of Greece and Portugal. The EEC’s economic strategy towards these countries did not simply hinge on a change in their regimes, and this can only be understood if the notion of an explosive and antagonistic contradiction between the United States and the Common Market is abandoned.

      This does not mean that this contradiction did not play an important role in the decline and fall of the dictatorships; simply that its role is expressed in a very particular way.

      1. It is basically expressed in the induced and specific reproduction of this contradiction actually within these countries, and principally by the effects that this contradiction has on the internal differentiation of their dominant classes (we will deal with this more fully in the following chapter). The contradiction United States/Europe, which is structured into the present process of internationalization of capital, is directly reflected in various internal divisions and strategic differentiations of the endogenous capital in these countries, according to the divergent lines of dependence that polarize it either towards American capital or towards European. It should also be noted here that these lines of divergence run through both monopoly and non-monopoly endogenous capital alike; although the fraction of the bourgeoisie interested in integration into the Common Market has certain specific features, it is not as if monopoly capital was exclusively tied to American capital, while non-monopoly capital was wholly oriented towards a European solution. In Greece and Spain, in particular, whole sections of monopoly capital have pursued a strategy of integration into the Common Market (the Union of Greek Industrialists, and Opus Dei in Spain).

      Thus the principal effect that the contradictions between the United States and Europe had on these countries was that of producing an instability of hegemony for the power blocs, following from intensified struggle between fractions of their own bourgeoisies. The point is that the specific form of regime of these military dictatorships did not enable such contradictions to be regulated by the organic representation of these various fractions within the state apparatus; nor did it allow the establishment of a compromise equilibrium without serious upsets. But an equilibrium of this kind was still necessary for their political domination to function, in the context of intensified contradictions within these power blocs that were due, among other things, to the internationalization of capital and the contradictions between Europe and the United States as reflected within them. We can add here that the fall or decline of these regimes corresponded to a redistribution of the balance of forces within the power bloc in favour of the fraction of capital polarized towards the Common Market and at the expense of the fraction polarized towards the United States, whose interests these regimes preponderantly represented, though not exclusively. But this does not mean, at least as long as the situation of dependence is not radically eliminated (in which case the problem would not even arise), a clear and effective overthrow of the hegemony of a comprador capital tied to American capital (the military dictatorships), in favour of an endogenous capital tied to European capital (democratic regimes). Just as the contradiction between Europe and the United States is not explosive and antagonistic, neither is its reproduction within the power bloc translated into a contradiction of that kind. If I am anticipating somewhat here, this is simply to indicate already that it would be wrong to believe that the overthrow of the dictatorships in these countries signifies by itself a radical challenge to the role of American capital and the clear transition of the countries involved to some kind of European, ‘third force’ camp. These countries do not face a real choice between being ‘American colonies’ or being ‘integrated into the Common Market’. The only solution for them is a process of independence and national liberation vis-à-vis imperialism as a whole.

      2. Having said this, it would be wrong to discount, in the European attitude to the military dictatorships, the considerable role which the solidarity of the democratic and popular movements in the European countries, and public opinion there in general, has played, and continues to play, for the peoples of Portugal, Spain and Greece; this massive hostility towards the dictatorships bears no comparison with anything in the United States. It is this that is at the root of a certain reserve that the European governments have shown towards these regimes, and although this is not enough to explain the failure to integrate these countries into the Common Market, it has set a sort of preliminary condition to the commencement of such a process of integration, even though this process is itself still fraught with problems. While this enables the European governments to reap the full benefits of these countries’ dependent situation without running the risks involved in complete integration, it does not mean that the sectors of the endogenous bourgeoisies interested in such an integration have not taken full account of a condition of this kind.

      3. Finally, the contradictions between the United States and Europe are also reflected in the present differences on both diplomatic and military strategy, including those within NATO. One example of this is that of the differences between the United States and Europe over attitudes to the Israel-Arab conflict, and to some extent also attitudes towards the oil-producing countries; a second involves differences on the problems of European defence and the Atlantic Alliance. I can not embark on an examination of these questions here, but it is evident that the contradictions between the United States and Europe are expressed today also in a partial challenge to the international strategy and diplomacy, and to the military defence policy, represented by the traditional concept and practice of the Atlantic Alliance, which were identified down to their smallest details with the strict political and economic