Португалия Коммунистік партиясының тарихы

Aspect of Portuguese political history

The history of the Portuguese Communist Party (Partido Comunista Português, pɐɾˈtiðu kumuˈniʃtɐ puɾtuˈɣeʃ, or PCP), spans a period of years, since its foundation in 1921 as the Portuguese section of the Communist International (Comintern) to the present. The Party is still an active force within Portuguese society. After its foundation, the party experienced little time as a legal party before it was forced underground after a military coup in 1926. After some years of internal re organization, that adapted the PCP to its new clandestine condition and enlarged its base of support, the party became a force in the opposition to the dictatorial regime led by António de Oliveira Salazar, despite being brutally suppressed several times during the 48 years of resistance and having spent several years with little connection with the Comintern and the World Communist Movement. After the end of the dictatorship, with the Carnation Revolution in 1974, the party became a major political force within the new democratic regime. Despite being less influential since the fall of the Socialist bloc in eastern Europe, it 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, where it holds the leadership of some municipalities.

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 an emerging labour movement, the workers achieved some of their objectives, such as the historic victory of an eight hour working day. In September 1919, the working class movement founded the first Portuguese Labour Union Confederation, the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) that saw a steady increase to 100,000 members in few months. But the feeling of political powerlessness, due to the lack of a coherent political strategy among the Portuguese working class, plus the growing popularity of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917, led to the foundation of the Portuguese Maximalist Federation (FMP) in 1919. The goal of FMP was to promote socialist and revolutionary ideas and to organize and develop the worker movement. The FMP started publishing the weekly Bandeira Vermelha (Red Flag) which became a popular newspaper among the Portuguese working classes.

After the military coup of May 28, 1926, the party was outlawed, and had to operate in secrecy. By coincidence, the coup was carried out on the eve of the second congress, forcing the suspension of the tasks. In 1927 the party's Main Office was closed. The party was first re organized in 1929 under Bento Gonçalves. Adapting the party to its new illegal status, the re organization created a net of clandestine cells to avoid a wave of detentions. The re organization of 1929 made the party more effective and influential, especially among the labour movement. However, with the rise of Salazar's dictatorial Estado Novo regime, in 1933, suppression of the party grew. The strikes and the creation of new labour unions were made illegal in September 1933 with the existing unions being forced to adopt the new corporativist rules. This would greatly limit the party's pull among the working classes. This, along with ideological struggles between Marxist and anarcho syndicalist factions and the conflicts with the Comintern, would lead to a new decline in the party's action in the late 1930s. Meanwhile, in 1931, the first number of Avante! was published. Despite its illegal status, the newspaper would become the most important publication of the party, being distributed among clandestine members. However, due to the constant assaults of the clandestine printing offices, the newspaper would not become widely available until the 1940s. Despite the growing repression against the communists, that included the obligation of all civil servant to sign an anticommunist statement, the party still managed to influence riots and demonstrations. In 1934, following the closure of the free labour unions, several riots and strikes started, the most notable of them in Marinha Grande. There, on January 18, the workers, led by José Gregório, António Guerra and other Party members, controlled the entire town and only a massive intervention by the military would end the riot. In 1936, the party's influence inside the navy led to a mutiny in several ships, 10 of them were killed and another 60 were sent to Tarrafal. Also in 1936, the Spanish Civil War began. Despite some appeals from the Communist Party of Spain and the Comintern for the members of the party to enlist, the fragilized structure of the late 1930s never allowed it to send a reasonable force. Nonetheless, an estimated 1,000 Portuguese fought against the Francoist forces, integrated the Republican ranks. In the late 1930s, many members were arrested, tortured, and executed. Many were sent to the Tarrafal concentration camp in the Cape Verde Islands. This included Bento Gonçalves, who died there. The vast wave of arrests in the previous years led to the announcement of the definitive end of the PCP by the government, which, along with a growing confidence in the German victory in World War II, led to the liberation of several communist prisoners from Tarrafal and other prisons in November 1940, among them, Álvaro Cunhal, Militão Ribeiro and Júlio Fogaça. The release of important cadres, combined with the internal dissatisfaction about the decline of the party influenced a major re organization in 1940–41, named the Reorganization of 40. Meanwhile, in 1938, the Portuguese Communist Party had been expelled from the Communist International. The reason for the expulsion was a sense of distrust inside the Comintern, caused by a sudden breakdown in the party's activity, accusations of alleged embezzlement of money carried out by some important members of the party and, mainly, the weak internal structure of the Party, dominated by internal wars. 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 Béla Kun) led by Joseph Stalin. These series of events would, in part, lead to the end of the Comintern in 1943. The PCP would only re establish its relations with the Communist movement and the Soviet Union in 1947, after some sporadic contacts made, at first, through the Communist parties of Spain and France and later through Mikhail Suslov. These improvements in the party's structure led to the creation of the first national platform of democratic organizations, the Movement of National Antifascist Unity (MUNAF), in December 1943. In 1944, the Portuguese support of the German war effort created severe shortages of food and goods, greatly decreasing Portugal's living standards. The situation led to waves of strikes, greatly influenced by the party, in the regions of Lisbon, Ribatejo and Alentejo. By this time, with the re organized structure successfully avoiding the persecutions, the Avante! was being published at least once per month, stating the party's support to the popular turmoil. Among the leadership of the youth wing were several communists, including Octávio Pato, Salgado Zenha, Mário Soares, Júlio Pomar and Mário Sacramento. This influence led to the MUD being made illegal by the government in 1948, after several waves of suppression. The fourth congress, held in July 1946, pointed to massive popular struggle as the only way to overthrow the regime, and stated the policies that would help the party lead that popular movement. This, along with the improvement of the party's clandestine action, was the main focus of the congress. A brief report of the conclusions of this congress was published by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). For the first time since the party had been expelled from the Comintern, the CPSU published info about the PCP, a slight change in the Soviet stance on the party. At this time, Álvaro Cunhal travelled to Yugoslavia with the aid of Bento de Jesus Caraça in order to improve the relations with the Socialist Bloc. Later, in 1948, he travelled to Soviet Union in order to speak with Mikhail Suslov, after the ties between the PCP and the International Communist Movement were re established. During the campaign, some supporters of his candidacy had been imprisoned and Gomes himself had been beaten in the Rio Tinto. Following these events, the other oppositionist candidate, Quintão Meireles, abandoned the elections and the official candidate, Craveiro Lopes, was elected unchallenged.

In 1954, a harvest worker named Catarina Eufémia was murdered by a lieutenant of the Guarda Nacional Republicana after attempting to ask her supervisor for a pay raise. Catarina became a martyr of the party's struggle for better living conditions for the peasants in Alentejo. After the Carnation Revolution, the Party erected a monument to Catarina in her hometown, Baleizão. The fifth congress, held in September 1957, was the first and the only to be held outside Portugal. In Kyiv, Soviet Union, the Party approved its first program and statutes, revealing an increase of the Party's organic stability. The congress took, for the first time, an official position on colonialism, stating that all people had the right to self determination, and made clear its support of the liberation movements in the Portuguese colonies, such as MPLA in Angola, FRELIMO in Mozambique and PAIGC in Guinea Bissau. This was the first congress in the party's history to receive salutations from foreign communist parties. In 1958, the government announced that a presidential election would be held; however, as in the previous elections, the opposition groups had little trust in the fairness of the electoral act. The candidate supported by the party, Arlindo Vicente, left the race and supported Humberto Delgado, who was gathering support from several democratic groups. Despite a massive campaign with a major rally in Porto, attended by 200,000 people, the government's candidate, Américo Tomás, won the election through massive election fraud. Delgado would later be assassinated by the PIDE. In January 1960, a remarkable event in the party's history occurred: A group of ten PCP members managed to escape from the high security prison in Peniche. In 1961, the Colonial War in Africa began, first in Angola, and in the next year in Mozambique and Guinea Bissau. The war lasted 13 years and devastated Portuguese society, forcing many thousands of Portuguese citizens, mainly young people, to leave the country seeking a better future in countries like France, Germany or Switzerland, and also to escape conscription. The Party, which had been involved in the formation of the nationalist guerrilla movements along with the Soviet Union, immediately stated its opposition to the war, and political support of the anti colonial movements. The war initiated a process of decline of the regime as it caused a growing unrest inside Portuguese society. In 1962, the "Academic Crisis" occurred. The Portuguese regime, fearing the growing popularity of democratic ideas among the students, carried out the boycott and censure of several student associations and organizations, including the important National Secretariat of Portuguese Students. Most members of this organization were intellectual communist militants that were persecuted and forbidden to continue their university studies. The students, with strong aid from the PCP, responded with demonstrations that culminated on 24 March with a huge student demonstration in Lisbon. The demonstration was brutally suppressed by the shock police, leading to hundreds of student injuries. Immediately thereafter, the students began a strike that became an important point in the resistance against the regime. In 1987, the 24th of March was declared the National Day of the Students by the Portuguese parliament, which is celebrated every year, mainly by university students. The sixth congress in 1965 became one of the most important congresses in the party's history. Álvaro Cunhal, elected General secretary in 1961, released the report The Path to Victory—The tasks of the Party in the National and Democratic Revolution which became a document of major influence within the democratic movement. On May 17, the party's newspaper, Avante!, produced the first legal issue of its history. The following months were marked by radical changes in the country, always closely followed and supported by the PCP. Several parties were created. The major political and military leaders for the former regime were exiled or dismissed. A process to give independence to the colonies started with the full support of the party and, within one year, Guinea Bissau, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe would become independent countries. By that time, the party was holding several rallies per week. A good part of the party's political proposals were being met. A major struggle of the party was assuring the unity of all labour unions inside the General Confederation of the Portuguese Workers, which was opposed by the Socialists and the Social Democrats. The Party also criticized the growing interference by NATO in the revolutionary process, which was supported by the Socialists and by the right wing. Six months after the Revolution, in October 1974, the party's seventh congress took place. More than a thousand delegates and hundreds of Portuguese and foreign guests attended. In the following months, the attacks against party offices continued with a lower intensity, however. In 1976, the building of the current democratic regime was starting and, on April 2, the new democratic constitution, which included several references to "Socialism" and a "Classless Society", was approved with the party's support. On April 25, the second democratic election was carried out and the party raised its share of the vote to 14.56% and 40 MPs. In June, the first democratic presidential election was held and the party's candidate, Octávio Pato, garnered 7.5% of the votes. The winner of the election was Ramalho Eanes, an officer of the moderate military wing. In that same year, the first Avante! Festival took place. The festival would become a major political and cultural event in Portugal and is still held yearly, as of 2006. The eighth congress was held in Lisbon from November 11–14. The congress 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 December, in the first local election, the party, in coalition with the Portuguese Democratic Movement and the People's Socialist Front, attained 18% of the vote, electing 37 mayors.

In 1979, the party carried out its ninth congress, which analyzed the state of the post revolutionary Portugal, right wing politics and the party's struggles to keep the nationalized economy. The program, which is still the party's program (as of 2006), traced five major objectives to the party's struggle: a free democratic regime, based on the citizens' participation, an economic development based on a mixed economy at the service of the people, a social policy capable of assuring the rise of the country's living standards, culture available to everyone, and an independent and sovereign Portugal, pursuing peaceful relations with all countries and peoples. At the end of the 1980s, the Socialist Bloc of Eastern Europe started to disintegrate and the Party faced new challenges. With many members leaving, the Party called an extra congress for May 1990, in Loures. There, the majority of the more than 2,000 delegates 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 Marxist Leninist guidelines. The congress asserted that socialism in the Soviet Union had failed, but a unique historical experience, several social changes and several achievements by the labour movement had been influenced by the Socialist Bloc. Álvaro Cunhal was re elected General Secretary and Carlos Carvalhas was elected Assistant General Secretary.

In the legislative election of 1991, the Party won 8.84% of the national vote and 17 MPs, continuing its electoral decline. The Party's candidate to the presidential election of the same year, Carlos Carvalhas, finished 3rd, after gathering 12.5% of the votes. The fourteenth congress took place in 1992 and Carlos Carvalhas was elected the new General Secretary, replacing Álvaro Cunhal. The Congress analyzed the whole new international situation created by the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the defeat of Socialism in Eastern Europe. The Party also outlined measures intended to put Aníbal Cavaco Silva and the right wing government on its way out, which occurred shortly thereafter. In 1995 the right wing Social Democratic Party was replaced in the government by the Socialist Party after the October legislative election, in which the Party received 8.61% of the votes. Meanwhile, in the European election of 1994, the Party elected 3 MEPs, gathering 11.2% of the voting. In December 1996, the fifteenth congress was held, this time in Porto, with more than 1,600 delegates participating. The congress criticized the right wing policies of the Socialist government of António Guterres and also debated the future of the Party following the debacle of the Socialist Bloc. During the first government of Guterres, the first referendum to the abortion law was held in Portugal. Despite a massive campaign from the Party and the remaining leftwing forces, the liberalization of abortion was rejected by the voters. In the subsequent local elections, the Party continued to decline, but in the legislative election of 1999 the Party increased its voting percentage for the first time in many years. The sixteenth congress was held in December 2000 and Carlos Carvalhas was re elected General Secretary. In the legislative election of 2002, held after the resignation of the socialist Prime Minister António Guterres, the Party achieved its lowest voting result ever, with only 7.0% of the votes. The right wing returned to power with a coalition between the Social Democratic Party and the People's Party. The new government introduced several changes in the labour laws that triggered the first general strike in many years, in November 2002. With the strong support of the Party and of the CGTP, hundreds of thousands of workers participated in the strike. In the following European election of 2004, the CDU managed to keep its two MEPs, after claiming 9.1% of the vote. The two members of the European Parliament, Ilda Figueiredo and Pedro Guerreiro sit in the European United Left Nordic Green Left group. The most recent Congress, the seventeenth, in November 2004, elected Jerónimo de Sousa, a former metallurgical worker, as the new General Secretary and analyzed the political situation since the last congress in 2000. It also reaffirmed the program adopted in the 12th Congress. Minor changes in the statutes, such as considering the official website as the Party's official press or adapting the voting methods to the new laws that made voting by showing hands illegal, were also introduced. In January 2005, the right wing majority in the parliament was dissolved and a new legislative election was held. The Party raised its share of the vote and is now represented in the parliament by 12 MPs of 230, after receiving about 430,000 votes. Álvaro Cunhal died on 13 June 2005 after being away from the public eye for several years. Two days later, 250,000 people gathered in Lisbon to attend to his funeral, one of the largest funerals in Portuguese history. After the last local election, in 2021, in which the Party lost the presidency of 5 municipalities, the Portuguese Communist Party holds the leadership of 18 (of 308) municipalities, most of them in Alentejo and Setúbal, and has leadership of hundreds of civil parishes, and local assembly members. The local administration of the PCP often concerns itself with 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 and water treatment. The Party's work still follows the program set forth by "Advanced Democracy for the 21st Century". Issues like the decriminalization of abortion, 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 constant concerns in the Party's agenda. From the election of 2015 until the failure to pass the government budget in 2021, the Party supported the government of António Costa together with the Left Bloc. In the elections of 2022 the Socialist Party won an absolute majority and the PCP and Left Bloc returned to opposition.