Portuguese Communist Party

Template:Portuguese Communist Party

The Portuguese Communist Party (Portuguese: Partido Comunista Português or PCP) is a major left-wing political party in Portugal, founded in 1921 as the Portuguese section of Communist International (Comintern).

The Party played a major role in the opposition to the Fascist regime led by António de Oliveira Salazar, being brutally repressed several times during the 48 years of resistance. After being one of the most influential parties in the years that followed the Carnation Revolution, mainly among the working class, it became less influentual after the fall of the Socialist bloc in eastern Europe, but still enjoys popularity in vast sectors of Portuguese society, particularly in the rural areas of the Alentejo and Ribatejo and also in the heavily industrialized areas around Lisbon and Setúbal. It also has a major influence within the largest Portuguese Labour Union federation, the General Confederation of the Portuguese Workers.

The History of the Portuguese Communist Party

The Origins and Foundation of the Party

The Portuguese Communist Party was founded on March 6th of 1921.

At the end of World War I, in 1918, Portugal fell into a serious economic crisis, in part due to the Portuguese military intervention in the war. The military involvement led to an abrupt rise in inflation and unemployment. The Portuguese working classes responded to the deterioration in their living standards with a vast wave of strikes, supported by the National Workers' Union, the biggest labor union organization at the time, the workers developed a massive struggle and achieved important objectives, like the historic victory of an eight-hour working day.

In September of 1919, the working class movement founded the first Portuguese Labour Union Confederation, Confederação Geral do Trabalho (General Confederation of Labour) that saw a steady increase to 100,000 members in few months. But, missing a political program, the Portuguese working class was unable to draw a consistent struggle against the bosses and had an incoherent policy of alliances with other classes. This fact, plus the growing popularity and solidarity to the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917, led to the foundation of the Portuguese Maximalist Federation (Federação Maximalista Portuguesa or FMP) in 1919 in order to promote the socialist and revolutionary ideas and to organize and develop the worker movement. The FMP started publishing the weekly "Red Flag" (portuguese: Bandeira Vermelha), which quickly became the most popular newspaper among the most informed fraction of the Portuguese proletariat.

After some time, members of the FMP started to feel the need of a "revolutionary vanguard" organization of the Portuguese workers. After several meetings at various Labor Union headquarters and with the aid of the Comintern, this culminated in the foundation of the Portuguese Communist Party as the Portuguese Section of the Communist International (Comintern), in 1921.

Unlike virtually all other European Communist Parties, the PCP was not formed after a split of a Social Democratic or Socialist Party, but from the ranks of Anarcho-Syndicalism and revolutionary syndicalism. Both of these groups, at the time, were the most active fraction of the Portuguese labor movement.

The Party opened its first headquarters in the Arco do Marquês do Alegrete Street in Lisbon. In the same year, 1921, it also opened the Communist Centers of Porto, Évora and Beja. Seven months after its creation, the first issue of "The Communist", the first newspaper of the Party, was published.

The 1st congress of the Party took place in Lisbon in November of 1923, with Carlos Rates leading the Party. The congress was attended by about an hundred members of the Party and stated its solidarity with Socialism in the Soviet Union and the need of a strong struggle for such ideas in Portugal.

Outlawing of the Party and the long anti-fascist struggle

Bento Gonçalves (1902 - 1942) General Secretary elected in 1929

After the military coup of May 28, 1926, the Party was outlawed, which caused the party to operate in secrecy. By coincidence, the coup was carried out on the eve of the 2nd Congress, forcing the suspension of the tasks. In 1927 the Party's Main Office was closed. The Party was first reorganized in 1929 under Bento Gonçalves. Adapting the Party to its new illegal status, the reorganization created a net of clandestine cells to avoid the wave of detentions.

After the rise of the Fascist regime in 1933 led by Salazar, the repression against the party grew. The repression cause many members to be arrested, tortured, and executed. Many were sent to a concentration camp in Cape Verde Islands, Tarrafal, including Bento Gonçalves, who died there. In 1943, after a major reorganization in 1940-1941, named the Reorganization of 40 (Portuguese: Reorganização de 40), the 3rd Congress was held, which stated that the Party should unite with all those who also wanted the end of Fascism.

Meanwhile, in 1938, the Portuguese Communist Party was expelled from the Communist International. The reason for the expulsion was a mistrust among the Comintern about a sudden breakdown in the Party's activity after a period of strong communist tumult in the country and also accusations of alleged embezzlement of money carried out by some important members of the Party. The action against the PCP, signed by Georgi Dimitrov, was in part taken due to some persecution against Comintern member parties or persons (like the Communist Party of Poland or Bela Kun) led by Stalin. These series of events, in part, lead to the end of the Comintern in 1943.

In the 4th Congress of 1946, the Congress pointed to massive popular struggle as the only way to smash the Fascist Regime and traced the guidelines that would make the Party lead that same popular movement. During the 5th Congress, the Party took an official position on Colonialism, stating that every people had the right of self-determination, and made clear its support of the liberation movements in the Portuguese colonies, such as MPLA in Angola, FRELIMO in Mozambique or PAIGC in Guinea-Bissau.

In an event that is considered to be among the most spectacular events of the 20th century in Portugal, a group of ten PCP members escaped from the high-security prison in Peniche in January 1960. Among the escapees were Álvaro Cunhal, who would be elected the first Secretary-general after the death of Bento Gonçalves, and Jaime Serra, who would become part of a secret commando group, the Armed Revolutionary Action (Portuguese: Acção Revolucionária Armada or ARA). The ARA was the armed branch of the PCP that would be responsible in the 1970s for some military action against Fascism. The ARA is still cloaked in some mystery even today.

In 1961 the Colonial War in Africa started, first in Angola, and in the next year in Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau. It would be the first of 13 years of a war that devastated the Portuguese society, forcing many thousands of Portuguese citizens to leave the country seeking a better living in countries like France, Germany or Switzerland. The Party immediately stated its opposition to the war and its political support to the liberation movements.

In 1962 another event that would mark the Portuguese 20th Century occurred: the Academic Crisis. The Fascist regime, fearing the growing popularity of the democratic ideas among the students, carried out the boycott and enclosure of several student associations and organisms, including the important National Secretariat of Portuguese Students. Most members of this organization were intellectual communist militants that were persecuted and forbbiden to continue their university studies. The students responded with a big wave of solidarity, with demonstrations and tumults that culminated on March 24 with a huge student demonstration in Lisbon that was brutally repressed by the shock police, which caused hundreds of students to be seriously injured. Right after that, the students started a strike that became a mark in the resistance against the Regime. The strike was a proof of the growing influence of the PCP and of the possibility of a democratic change among the Portuguese population despite the continued repression by the Political Police. After the Revolution of 1974, March 24 would become the National day of the Students, being celebrated every year, mainly by University students.

The 6th Congress in 1965 became one of the most important congresses in the Party's history, after Álvaro Cunhal released the report The Path to Victory – The tasks of the Party in the National and Democratic Revolution which became an important document in the anti-fascist struggle. Widely distributed among the clandestine members, it contained eight issues, such as the end of the monopolies in the economy, the need of an agrarian reform and distribution of the land and the democratization of the access to culture and education; issues that were considered essential to make Portugal a fully democratic country. Nine years later, on April 25, 1974, the so-called Democratic Revolution finally happened, putting an end to forty-eight years of harsh resistance and marking the beginning of a new cycle in the Party's life.

The Carnation Revolution and the Years of Democracy

Six months after the Revolution, on 20th October 1974, the Party's 7th Congress took place, with thousands of guests and party members celebrating democracy and freedom, the Congress traced important guidelines about the ongoing revolution in the country.

On March 11 1975, the left-wing military forces defeated a fascist coup attempt. This resulted in a radical turn to the left of the revolutionary process, with the main sectors of the economy, such as the banks, transportation, steel mills, mines and communications companies, being nationalized under the lead of Vasco Gonçalves, a member of the military wing that supported the Party that had become prime-minister after the 1st provisional government resigned. The Party now had the objective conditions to state its complete support of this change and of the Agrarian Reform process that implemented the collective property of the agricultural means of production and the land in a region named Zone of Intervention of the Agrarian Reform that included the land south to the Tagus River. The Party took the lead of that process and drove it according to the Party's program, organizing thousands of peasants into cooperatives. That, combined with the Party's good clandestine organization and the support to the peasants' movement during the Fascist years in that region, made the south of Portugal the major stronghold of the PCP, which gained more than half of the votes in Beja and Évora in the subsequent elections.

One year after the revolution, the first democratic elections took place to elect the parliament that would write a new Constitution to replace the Fascist Constitution of 1933. The Party achieved 12.52% of the voting and elected 30 MPs. In the end, as the Party wanted, the Constitution included several objective references to Socialism or a Classless Society and was voted with the opposition of only one party, the right-wing Democratic Social Center (Portuguese: Centro Democrático Social or CDS).

In 1976, after the approval of the Constitution, the second democratic election was carried out and the Party raised its share of the vote to 14.56% and 40 MPs. In that same year took place the first "Avante!" Festival, and the 8th Congress, which mainly stated the need to continue the quest for Socialism in Portugal and the need to defend the achievements of the Revolution against what the Party considered to be a political step backward, led by a coalition of the Socialist Party and the right-wing Centro Democrático Social, who were opposed to the Agrarian Reform process.

In 1979, the Party carried out its 9th Congress, which analyzed the state of the post-revolutionary Portugal, right-wing politics and the Party's struggles to nationalize the economy. In December 1979, new elections took place and the Party, in coalition with the Portuguese Democratic Movement (Portuguese:Movimento Democrático Português) or MDP/CDE forming the United People Aliance (Portuguese: Aliança Povo Unido or APU) increased its vote to 18.96% and 47 MPs. The election was won by a right-wing coalition, led by Sá Carneiro, which immediately started a policy that the Party considered to be contrary to working-class interests. Meanwhile the Party achieved several victories in local elections, winning the leadership of dozens of municipalities, in the FEPU coalition. In 1983, another election took place, after the sudden death of Sá Carneiro in an aircrash, and again in APU, the Party achieved 44 MPs and 18.20%. Also in 1983, the Party carried out the 10th Congress that again criticized what it saw as the dangers of right-wing politics.

In 1986, the surprising climb of the socialist Mário Soares, who reached the second round in the presidential election defeating the Party's candidate, Salgado Zenha, made the Party call an extra Congress, the 11th Congress, with only two weeks notice, in order to decide whether or not to support Soares against Freitas do Amaral. Soares was supported, and he won by a slight margin. Had he not been supported by the PCP he would have lost. The Congress was considered a success, despite being prepared with such short notice. In 1987, after the resign of the government, another election took place and the Party, now in coalition with Partido Ecologista "Os Verdes" or PEV (The Greens) and with the Democratic Intervention (Portuguese: Intervenção Democrática or ID), a political association, in the Coligação Democrática Unitária or CDU (Unitarian Democratic Coalition) saw an electoral decline to 12.18% and 31 MPs.

In 1988 another Congress took place: the 12th Congress, which stated a new program, titled, "Portugal, an Advanced Democracy to the 21st Century" At the end of the 1980s, the Socialist Bloc of Eastern Europe started to disintegrate and the Party faced one of its biggest crises ever. With many members leaving, the Party called an extra 13th Congress for May 1990 in which an huge ideological battle occurred. The majority of the Party's members decided to continue the Party's "revolutionary way to Socialism", clashing with what many other communist parties around the world were doing by keeping its Leninist guidelines.

In 1991 another election took place and the Party won 8.84% of the national vote and 17 MPs.

The 14th Congress took place in 1992 and Carlos Carvalhas was elected the new General Secretary, replacing the historical leader Álvaro Cunhal. The Congress analyzed the whole new international situation, after the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the defeat of Socialism in Eastern Europe. The Party also traced the guidelines intended to put Cavaco Silva and the right-wing in its way out, a thing that would happen shortly after. In 1995 the right-wing government was replaced by the Socialist Party and the Party got 8.61% of the voting.

The most recent Congress—the 17th Congress—in November 2004 elected Jerónimo de Sousa, a former metallurgical worker, as the new General Secretary.

Currently the Party is represented in the parliament by 12 MPs out of 230, after achieving about 430,000 votes (7.60%) in the last legislative election in February of 2005.

The Portuguese Communist Party still holds the leadership of 28 municipalities, most of them in Alentejo and Setúbal, and has hundreds of civil parish presidences and local assembly members. The local administration by PCP is usually marked by concern about issues such as preventing privatization of the water supply, funding culture and education, providing access to sports and promoting health, facilitating participatory democracy, and preventing corruption. The presence of the Greens in the coalition also keeps an eye on environmental issues such as recycling or water treatment.

The Party's work now follows the program referring to the "Advanced Democracy for the 21st Century." Issues like the decriminalization of abortion (Since April 21 of 2005, awaiting for a referendum to its decriminalization), workers rights, the increasing fees for the Health Service and Education, the erosion of the social safety net, low salaries and pensions, imperialism and war, and solidarity with other countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Cuba and the Basque Country are a constant presence in the Party's agenda.

The Party has also two members (Ilda Figueiredo and Pedro Guerreiro) elected to the European Parliament after achieving 9.2% of the voting in the European Election of 2004. They sit in the European United Left - Nordic Green Left group.

The Party's electoral results

Coalitions Info:

• Missing image
  Fepu_pcp_pt.JPG
  
  
  FEPU was composed by the Missing image
  Pt_ltl_pcp.jpg
  
  
  PCP, the Missing image
  Pt_ltl_mdp.jpg
  
  
  MDP/CDE and the Missing image
  Pt_ltl_fsp.gif
  
  
  FSP.
• Missing image
  Apu_pcp_pt.jpg
  
  
  APU was composed by the Missing image
  Pt_ltl_pcp.jpg
  
  
  PCP and the Missing image
  Pt_ltl_mdp.jpg
  
  
  MDP/CDE, later it included the PEV.
• Missing image
  Cdu_pcp_pt.jpg
  
  
  CDU is composed by the Missing image
  Pt_ltl_pcp.jpg
  
  
  PCP, the PEV and the Missing image
  Pt_ltl_id.jpg
  
  
  ID

Further notes:

• The Local elections results report the voting for the Town Councils only and don't include casual coalitions in some municipalities, for example in Lisbon, between 1989 and 2001.
• The number of mandates denotes the number of town councillors in Local elections, MP's in Parliament elections and MEP's in European Parliament elections.

Notes:

• In 1980, Carlos Brito withdrew in favor of Ramalho Eanes.
• In 1986, in the second round, the Party supported Mário Soares.
• In 1996, Jerónimo de Sousa withdrew in favor of Jorge Sampaio.

The media of the Party

The Portuguese Communist Party publishes the weekly Avante! (Forward!), widely distributed throughout the country, and also the magazine of theoretical discussion O Militante (The Militant), published each two months.

Avante! is the newspaper that was illegally printed and distributed for the longest time in the world - from February 1931 until May 1974. Many times, the newspaper distribution suffered breakdowns due to the repression of the political police against the members with those tasks or the destruction of the clandestine printing offices. Being away from the official censorship, Avante! achieved the historical role of being one of the very few Portuguese newspapers that freely reported on events like the 2nd World War, the Colonial War in Africa or the massive strikes and protest waves against the dictatorship carried out by the workers and the students. Avante! continues to be printed after more than three decades of democracy and has now a full online edition. Festa do Avante! was named after the newspaper, resembling the Party of L'Humanité in France.

Both Avante! and O Militante are sold in the Party's offices to the members. Buying Avante! is considered one of the members' duties. Avante! is also sold among other newspapers in many news stands around the country.

During the last campaign, the Party had a radio broadcast in its website and also a digital forum, being the first Portuguese party to use the internet actively in a electoral campaign. After the last Congress the Party considers its website as another official media and it is regularly updated.

Usually the Party's largest political campaigns and struggles are supported by massive leaflet distributions and advertisement stickings in hot spots like train stations, factories, universities, main streets and avenues or markets.

The free television spots that the Portuguese law grants to the parties, either in the campaign time or out of it, are used by PCP to promote initiatives and political campaigns.

The Party also owns a publishing company, Edições Avante! (Avante! Editions) that publishes and sells several books related to the Party's history or to Marxism, from the The Communist Manifesto to the work of Soeiro Pereira Gomes and Álvaro Cunhal.

Recently, an online radio (http://www.comunic.pcp.pt) was created, named Comunic, that broadcasts thematic interviews with Party's members, music and propaganda.

The Youth Organization

Several JCP members in an anti-war demonstration in Oporto

The youth organization of PCP is the Portuguese Communist Youth (Portuguese: Juventude Comunista Portuguesa or JCP), founded in November 10 of 1979 after the unification of the Communist Students League (Portuguese: União dos Estudantes Comunistas or UEC) and the Communist Youth League (Portuguese: União dos Jovens Comunistas or UJC). The JCP is a member of the World Federation of Democratic Youth.

Mainly composed by students and some working class young people, the JCP has its main political concerns and intervention about issues like the promotion of a free and public education in all degrees, employment, peace or housing. It also promotes international solidarity brigades for countries like Cuba, Palestine or Venezuela, alone or with other european communist youth organizations like KNE and SDAJ.

The JCP has its main organizational strength among highschool and universitary students. The youngest member of the Portuguese Parliament, Miguel Tiago Rosado, is a member of the Portuguese Communist Youth.

Avante! Festival

Every year, in the first weekend of September (since 1976) takes part a gigantic festival, the Avante! Festival (Portuguese: Festa do Avante!) named after the Party's official newspaper. After taking part in different locations around Lisbon, like the FIL Park, Ajuda or Loures, it is now carried out in Amora, a town near Seixal in a ground bought by the Party after a massive fundraising campaign in the early 90s. The campaign was considered by the Party as a the only way to avoid the boycott organised by the owners of the previous festivals grounds, that culminated in 1987 with the festival not being carried out after 11 editions. The festival is usually visited and participated in by hundreds of thousands of people, making the outside of the ground seem a gigantic camping park. The party itself consists of a three day festival of music, with the participation of hundreds of Portuguese and international bands and artists in five different stages, ethnography, gastronomy, debates, a book & music fair, theatre (Avanteatro) and sporting events. Several foreign communist parties also participate.

In 27 editions, the Festival counted with the presence of several famous artists, either Portuguese or foreign, like Chico Buarque, Zeca Afonso, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Holly Near, the Soviet Circus Company, the Kuban Cossacks Choir, Adriano Correia de Oliveira, Manoel de Oliveira and others.

The preparation of the party begins right after the end of the previous party. Hundreds of the party's members and friends, mostly young people, volunteer for the hard work of building a small town in a few months.

• Avante! Festival main website (http://www.pcp.pt/actpol/temas/f-avante/festa/index.htm)
• List of the artists present in the 27 editions of the Festival (http://www.pcp.pt/actpol/temas/f-avante/festa/artistas.htm)

Historical List of PCP's General Secretaries

The statutes of the party state that the The General Secretary of the Portuguese Communist Party is elected by the Central Committee among its members, this is usually done after each Congress.

• José Carlos Rates — (1921 - ?)

• Carlos Machado — (? - 1929)

• Bento Gonçalves (1902-1942) — (1929 -1942)

• (vacant for 19 years after Bento Gonçalves death in Tarrafal Concentration Camp)

• Álvaro Cunhal (1913-2005) — (1961-1992)

• Carlos Carvalhas (b. 1941) — (1992-2004) — Elected in 1992, Carvalhas is an economist, he was member of the provisional governments after the Carnation Revolution in 1974/75 with the tasks of the employment. In the 1980's he was member of the European Parliament and in 1991 he was the Party's candidate to the presidential election. He was later a member of the Portuguese Parliament for several years.
• Jerónimo de Sousa (b. 1947) — (2004 - ) — Elected after the 17th Congress in 2004, Jerónimo de Sousa is a former metallurgical worker and still member of the metallurgical workers' union. He was member of the Constituent Assembly and of the subsequent Parliaments and was noted for being among the few MPs with working-class origins, a strange fact at the time, and also today. Jerónimo was also the Party's presidential candidate in 1996, but left the race giving his support to the Socialist candidate Jorge Sampaio.

List of some famous PCP members, friends and supporters

• Adriano Correia de Oliveira - singer
• Alice Vieira - writer
• Álvaro Cunhal
• Ary dos Santos - poet
• Barata Moura - Director of the University of Lisbon
• Bento de Jesus Caraça - scientist
• Bento Gonçalves
• Carlos Carvalhas
• Carlos Paredes - portuguese guitar player
• Carvalho da Silva - Coordinator of the General Confederation of the Portuguese Workers
• Canto e Castro - actor
• Edivaldo Monteiro - olimpic athlete
• José Manuel Osório - musicologist
• José Saramago - writer awarded with a Nobel
• Luís Varatojo - member of the band Despe & Siga
• Manuel Freire - singer
• Manuel Gusmão - writer and poet
• Manuel Rocha - member of the band Brigada Victor Jara
• Mário Castrim - journalist
• Mário Sacramento - doctor and essayist
• Miguel Madeira - President of the World Federation of Democratic Youth
• Miguel Urbano Rodrigues - writer
• Morais e Castro - actor
• Odete Santos - actress, lawyer and MP
• Paulo de Carvalho - singer
• Siza Vieira - architect
• Soeiro Pereira Gomes - writer
• Urbano Tavares Rodrigues - writer and journalist
• Vasco Gonçalves - General and former Prime-Minister
• Vitorino - singer
• Zeca Afonso - singer

References

• Portuguese Communist Party official web site, 'PCP History Issues' and 'Avante Editions' sections.
• Revista História (History Magazine) Number 47 December of 1982.
• Revista História (History Magazine) Number 17 (New Series) February of 1996.

Further Reading

• Álvaro Cunhal, Rumo à Vitória - As Tarefas do Partido na Revolução Democrática e Nacional, Edições Avante! (http://www.pcp.pt/publica/edicoes-avante/index.htm), code 02.034
• Álvaro Cunhal, A Verdade e a Mentira sobre a Revolução de Abril, Edições Avante! (http://www.pcp.pt/publica/edicoes-avante/index.htm), code 02.031
• PCP — 60 Anos de Luta ao Serviço do Povo e da Pátria — 1921-1981, Edições Avante! (http://www.pcp.pt/publica/edicoes-avante/index.htm), code 99.051

See also

• Politics of Portugal
• List of political parties in Portugal
• Carnation Revolution
• Unitarian Democratic Coalition
• Avante!
• Marxism
• Leninism

External links

• Portuguese Communist Party official web site (http://www.pcp.pt)
• Portuguese Communist Party web site in English (http://www.pcp.pt/english/index.html)
• Portuguese Communist Youth web site (http://www.jcp-pt.org)
• Avante! weekly newspaper web site (http://www.avante.pt)pt:Partido Comunista Português

Categories: Communist parties | Political parties in Portugal | Portuguese history | ComIntern sections