Translated "Avante!" article by Albano Nunes, Member of the Secretariat of the CC
During the April 25th celebrations, the internationalist solidarity values, occupied, once again, an important place. The Portuguese do not forget the Revolution, and having been their own achievement, it is inseparable from the solidarity and the other peoples struggle, with achievements and defeats that we, Communists, feel as our own. This is particularly true, when concerning the people of Brazil to which friendship relations attach us, that demand more as more necessary, the Portuguese people ‘s solidarity before the coup offensive it is suffering, and holds in its womb the danger of a new fascist dictatorship, an objective many of the conspirers do not hinder, as proved during the hatred and reactionary degrading demonstration, which took place at the Chamber of Deputies’ session, that decided the taking off of president Dilma Roussef’s impeachment process.
One does not forget Brazil was the homeland of many the exiled Portuguese anti-fascists, such as Ruy Luís Gomes, having offered protection to democrats, persecuted by fascism, at his embassy in Brazil – namely, Humberto Delgado, that the Democratic Opposition, settled in that country, handed over a precious contribution for the international knowledge of Salazar’s and Caetano’s dictatorship crimes. But, on the 25th April 1974, Brazil was a dictatorship to where many of the major leaders of the thrown down regime fled, protected by the Brazilian military power, having frenetically conspired against the Portuguese revolution. It were a cruel dictatorship, installed since 1964, by the military coup which threw down João Goulart’s government, illegalizing and persecuting communists and all genuine democratic forces, imprisoning, torturing, killing, having thousand of those struggling for freedom, disappeared. A dictatorship, amid a wider process of the “ Condor Operation”, a sinister alliance of the North-American imperialism with numerous military dictatorships – Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil – in order to coordinate a terribly violent repression, targeting and destroying progressive forces and , therefore, suffocating the Latin-American revolution. A dictatorship that only but ended in 1985, within the context of powerful labour and popular demonstrations, having the ABC metal-workers historical strikes and the “Directas” campaigns, performed an important role.
The struggle for a more free and just country has never stopped and having Lula da Silva won the elections in 2002, the people of Brazil, “raised from the ground” and the country begun to fall upon and resolve some of the social major problems, positioning itself with great autonomy , before the North-American imperialism and contributing with its great economic and political potentiality, towards the sovereignty and progressive integration process which, has been courageously performed by Cuba and Venezuela, and crossing the Latin-American continent and becoming a member of the BRICS.
The home reaction and the USA ought not to tolerate such a process and as soon as the situation became favourable, initiated the offensive, profiting from positions that never stopped to be held largely by the dominant forces, amid institutions, the state apparatus and the media. The Brazilian democratic process limits hardly touched the economic power class nature and the state. And if Brazil took over its achievements ,it was due to popular intervention dynamics, which obliged reaction and imperialism to restrain its claws. Relying on our solidarity, once more, that dynamics ought to defeat the coup leaders and prevent Brazil to become a new dictatorship.