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Vol. XXXVI
No. 52 December 30, 2012 |
Nineteenth Congress of the Portuguese Communist
Party (PCP) I ATTENDED the
19th Congress of the
Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) held at the Municipal
Sports Complex in the
city of The PCP
Congress adopted a political
resolution which analysed the world situation and
national situation in The Portuguese
Communist Party is one
of the important and active Communist parties in One year after
the 1974 revolution,
the first democratic election took place in The present
government in The
neo-liberal economic policies
pursued by the Socialist government and the present
Social Democratic Party government
led The budgets
passed by the parliament
in 2011 and 2012 made big attacks against the
workers, their wages, trade union rights and
their living
conditions. Investments have been substantially
reduced and public sector undertakings and public
resources have been handed
over to big private corporates. The
economic situation has further deteriorated during the
past four years. The
population of The members of
the PCP are active
among workers, young people, women, farmers, small
business people, fishermen,
tenants and other sections of the toiling people by
taking up their issues and
organising their struggles. The PCP has
been in the forefront of all struggles of these sections
of people. A
series of mass struggles took place during
the past three years.
There were general
strikes on November 24, 2010, November 24, 2011, March
22, 2012 and November
14, 2012. The
struggles of the working
class have inspired the small and middle farmers, the
small business owners,
fishermen, tenants, women, youth, disabled people,
senior citizens, government
employees to come forward and to fight for their
interests and rights.
The Party is very active among these sections
of people and representatives of these classes and
sections of people explained
their experience in the Party Congress. The PCP is
expanding its influence
among the people by leading mass struggles and through
intense political
activities. At
present, the PCP has
60,484 party members.
In the past four
years, 5,800 new party members joined the party, half of
them are under the age
of 40. This
year itself, 1,100 new
members have joined the party. Comrade
Jeronimo de Sousa, general
secretary of the PCP has summarised the aim and
character of the PCP in his
opening speech in the Party Congress. “Our
Party has asserted itself within Portuguese society, and
continues to do so,
with its unmistakable identity. We are the party of the
working class and of
all working people. We uphold the interests of
anti-monopoly classes and
strata. We are independent from the influence,
interests, ideology and policies
of the forces of capital. We are the Party whose major
goals are building
socialism and communism, a society freed from capitalist
exploitation and
oppression. We are the party whose theoretical
foundation is Marxism-Leninism.
We are the party that operates along principles based on
the creative
development of democratic centralism, based on a
deep-seated internal
democracy, on a single general line and with a single
central leadership. We
are a patriotic and internationalist party. “Those are the
traits that define our
identity and render our party different within
Portuguese society. These traits
define the Portuguese Communist Party, guide its
practice, and are enshrined in
the Party Rules and in its Programme.” After making a
serious assessment of
the objective situation in Portugal, the 19th Congress
came to the conclusion
that after 36 years of
rightwing
policies implemented by the Socialists, Social
Democratic and People’s Party
governments have led Portugal to impoverishment,
retrogression, economic and
social disaster and jeopardise workers
and people’s living conditions as well as national
independence and
sovereignty. Based
on this evaluation,
the Party Congress decided that it is necessary and
urgent to defeat the
rightwing policies and to build an alternative to them. The
alternative must be based on patriotic
and Left progressive policies. The process
of building up of an alternative may be a complex one
and take a long
time. The
alternative must be based on a
sharp break with the current policies of domination of
big capital, surrender
of national interest and submission to imperialist
interests. The Congress
declared that only these steps can open up the path
towards economic
development, social progress and assertion of
sovereignty and national
interest. For achieving
this, the Party
Congress decided to strengthen the PCP with a decisive
expansion of its political,
social and electoral influence and
a vigorous development of the mass struggles.The Party
Congress called for
cooperation with democratic forces, sections and
personalities who are willing
to break with rightwing
policies and to
work for the formation of a patriotic and Leftwing
government. The Congress
decided to intensify the
efforts to strengthen the party organisation and
particularly to focus on
political work, to establish links with and to bring
together all democratic
forces who agree and identify with Left progressive
alternative. In order to achieve
this aim, the PCP decided to win over more people and
new sections in the
struggle for patriotic and Leftwing policies.
The 19th Congress of the PCP decided to further
intensify the struggles
against the PSD-CDS-PP government. The birth
centenary of Alvaro Cunhal will
be celebrated in 2013.
Alvaro Cunhal was
the general secretary of the PCP from 1961 to 1992 and
the president of the PCP
from 1992 to 1996 and an outstanding leader of the
international Communist
movement. The 19th
Congress made certain changes
in the Party Programme which was adopted in 1965. The
amendments are in the
nature of updating the developments during the past 36
years. The
Party Programme of the PCP declares that its
aim is to establish socialism and communism and the
present stage of the
revolution is to attain advanced democracy and the
values of April 1974
revolution. The
PCP summed up the past
36 years of experience after the adoption of the Party
Programme in 1965 in the
following sentences: “ The entire
proceedings of the Party
Congress was very lively and the delegates responded to
the speeches with
clapping and shouting of slogans. A
substantial section of the delegates were young people. Attending the
PCP Congress was an inspiring
experience. The Congress
elected a Central
Committee by the majority of 1,219 delegates voted with
1,184 in favour of the
panel and 14 votes against and 21 abstentions. The
Central Committee held its first
plenary meeting and unanimously elected Jeronimo de
Sousa as general secretary,
a 19-member Polit Bureau, a ten-member secretariat and a
seven-member Central
Control Commission.
Another
interesting aspect of the Portuguese
Party Congress was that the PCP had allowed thousands of
Party members and
sympathizers of the PCP to watch the entire proceedings
of the Party Congress
from the balcony of the indoor stadium.