Speech by Jerónimo de Sousa, General Secretary, Lisbon
10th November 2013
Sunday, November 10, 2013
We are gathered here today, in this space, which has been a stage of great and outstanding initiatives by our Party, held in crucial moments of the Portuguese April Revolution and of our democratic life, and also of great celebration, to mark a very special day in the scope of the Commemorations of the Centennial of Álvaro Cunhal – the day of the 100th year of his birth
A very special day that the Portuguese communists, their fellow companions of struggle and project, signal with pride, with their massive presence in this magnificent rally, and also the democrats and patriots who see in Álvaro Cunhal one of the outstanding protagonists of our contemporary history, a valiant fighter of freedom, of democracy, of the development and independence of the country and the prosperity of its people, and also of the great cause of the liberation of the workers and peoples – socialism.
With us in this great initiative commemorating the birth of Álvaro Cunhal are dozens of foreign delegations from all over the world whom we host in our country in yet another International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties. Please allow me, first of all, to greet and thank their presence in this initiative of great meaning to us and to reaffirm our full solidarity with their struggle, the struggle that, under so diverse conditions, they wage in each of their countries in defence of the interests of the workers and their peoples and for a progressive and revolutionary transformation of society.
This great rally, being a fitting tribute to the man, the communist, the intellectual and the artist that Álvaro Cunhal was, an expression of recognition of his life of dignity, of his example of a principled revolutionary and of the importance and topicality of his thinking, of his work and of his struggle equally is, a great and solemn affirmation of the collective will to pursue this same path of struggle that Álvaro Cunhal honoured with unlimited devotion.
A struggle he waged with his lifetime party – the PCP. Of this Party that he very early helped build in a marking way and that, as we never tire of stating, would not be what it is, with its characteristics and identity, without the contribution of Álvaro Cunhal, nor Álvaro Cunhal would be what he was without this Portuguese Communist Party.
This Party with a glorious and unique history in Portuguese life. A history which blends and merges with the history of the struggle of our people in the last century. An unparallel course that is the result of sacrifice and dedication of its heroes fallen in the struggle, and of the work of generations of intrepid fighters – men and women of great courage and dedication to the struggle of the workers and people – among whom stands out Álvaro Cunhal, for his unique contribution as a prominent organizer of the Party and of the struggle, for his remarkable capacity of analysis and political intervention, as a prolific theorist of revolutionary action and intervention, of great impact and repercussion on Portuguese reality.
With a course of seventy years of uninterrupted combat, travelled with indomitable determination and resisting the most terrible and hard ordeals in dozens of years of clandestine life and imprisonment, Álvaro Cunhal is the example of a man of unprecedented courage and firm beliefs.
A life and a course of a revolutionary that he begins inspired by the values and achievements of the October Revolution and signing a lifetime pledge of honour, fully dedicated to the struggle for the emancipation of the workers and peoples.
A pledge made when our country already faced the tragedy of fascism and the tragedy of war which would soon fall over Europe and the world.
A pledge of great courage, in times of terrible threats for humanity and great dangers for someone who, like Álvaro Cunhal, aimed to be a protagonist of history that started in the dramatic beginning of the thirties of the 20th century.
Times when, after its ban, the PCP reorganises itself under the leadership of Bento Gonçalves as General Secretary and starts a clandestine activity turning into a Leninist Party ready to face the fascist dictatorship and wage a relentless combat for its overthrow.
A choice that will mark his life of intense revolutionary action and reveal in its fullness the militant, the communist leader and the man of unabridged culture and singular intelligence that Álvaro Cunhal was.
A choice that will link his life to the life and struggle of the workers and our people, of other peoples and the most important events of our collective life. A link that was to be constant in all periods of national life, in the Party’s clandestine life during the fascist dictatorship, and in freedom, in the revolutionary process of April and in the period of resistance to the capitalist, landowner and imperialist restoration.
During the fascist dictatorship many and relevant were Álvaro Cunhal´s contributions, firstly for the development of the struggle of the working class and of the Portuguese workers, whom he pointed out as a fundamental and determining factor in the process of change and motor of great transformations. Also valuable were his contributions for the definition of a correct guideline for the communists to intervene among the workers, to develop forms of organisation, intervention and struggle of the working class, including the trade unions that would come to lead to great and courageous struggles in the companies, fields and antifascist front.
This is patient, in the report he presented in the distant III Congress of the PCP, which enabled the working class to become the vanguard in the antifascist struggle and create the conditions for the emergence of Intersindical, in 1970, and for it to play the important role it assumed in the April revolutionary process.
A contribution of great originality of response to the specificness of the Portuguese situation, both in the path of intervention chosen by the working class movement in terms of the trade unions, by abandoning the clandestine trade unions and participating in the national trade unions of the regime, as well as in terms of solutions to ensure the unity of the working class, which would end up by determining the unique characteristics of the Portuguese unitary trade union movement.
To be where the masses are, work and learn from them, and act with them to defend their interests, was the watchword that was necessary to materialise and which led to great struggles during decades of fascist regime and will forever remain in the history of the Portuguese working class and trade union movement.
A contribution that would also extend to the development and unity of antifascist forces and the creation and organisation of broad unitary political and social movements, in whose affirmation the PCP engaged in order to overthrow the fascist dictatorship.
Of indisputable importance was his action in finding solutions for the intervention, defence and growth of the Party in the strict conditions of clandestinity. Firstly in the process of the reorganisation in the forties, with the definition and materialisation of a solid base of leadership, organisations and means of the Party, in applying essential rules of defence and in achieving a strong connection with the masses that would soon affirm the Party as the great party of the working class and of antifascist unity.
Already as PCP’s General Secretary, outstanding and fundamental was his precious and decisive contribution in setting down the theory of the Portuguese revolution – in defining the strategy and tactics of the Party – with his remarkable work “Rumo à Vitória” – The Road to Victory – that would come to be the basis for PCP’s programme for the Democratic and National Revolution, adopted in its VI Congress in 1965 which, unquestionably, created the conditions for the April Revolution and the profound revolutionary changes that took place in Portuguese society. Changes, that meant important achievements of the workers and the Portuguese people. Achievements to whose defence Álvaro Cunhal devoted the best of his knowledge, experience and intervention, as leader of the PCP, as Member of Parliament, as Minister of the Republic in the provisional governments, as Member of the State Council.
In the process of the April Revolution, Álvaro Cunhal carried out intense activity in the various fronts of struggle: in the organisation and strengthening of the Party, in mass dynamization and action, in the unity of democratic forces, in the affirmation and valorisation of the alliance between the People and the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) as motor of the Revolution, in the institutional action, in the struggle for the advance of the revolutionary process, in the defence and consolidation of democracy.
It is during this period that he reveals himself to the great masses as an experienced and respected political leader, firm and confident, present in every great political initiative and battle during this exciting period of national life.
And, he equally reveals, in the new conditions of freedom, a relationship of the authenticity of a political leader with his people, just as he would reveal to be the man and politician who always refused to live above the living conditions of his comrades and affirms, with his example, a conception of political activity as a practice to serve the people and country and not to obtain advantages and personal privileges.
After 1976, the PCP and Álvaro Cunhal as General Secretary, carry out a strong intervention in stimulating the organised struggle of the workers and people against the process of capitalist, landowners’ and imperialist restoration.
A scholar and connoisseur of the Portuguese reality and of international relations, Álvaro Cunhal, dedicated his whole life to the solution of the problems of Portuguese society and the implementation of a project of development to serve the country.
This is seen in all his vast and diversified work, where he shows his command of theories and methods of analysis of Marxism-Leninism, which he assimilated creatively, and in all his action and political, party and institutional intervention. An intense activity where the domain of politics as science and the art of revolutionary political leadership merged and flowed. A work and action that encompassed various aspects of our political, economic, social and cultural life, with which in many cases he had a very direct relationship of intervention, quite evident in the attention and accompaniment of the problems of the land and rural world, the youth, women and his struggle for social emancipation.
In his contribution to answer the problems of Portuguese society, assumes special importance his contribution to defend national interests and the country’s independence.
At a time when Portugal and its people face a process of accelerated usurpation of its sovereignty, worsened by the impositions of the Pact of Aggression, determined by the great powers and the major centres of international capitalism, his analyses on the question of class and the national question – on the national and international problems of class struggle – continue to echo, sharply and accurately, on the Portuguese reality today, particularly on the responsibility of the party of the working class and all workers in the struggle to affirm the inalienable right of our people and of every people to choose, without foreign interference, their own destiny.
Álvaro Cunhal said “the ruling and exploiting bourgeoisie no longer represent national interests ... In the modern world, in the era of imperialism, it is the working classes who identify with the nation’s interests and react against the domination and exploitation of their own country and for the liberation from foreign domination”.
The whole course of the past years of counterrevolution and European integration of Portugal, which culminated with the most recent submission of the country to a foreign troika, is there to confirm this.
We are and want to remain an internationalist party that gives great importance to the duties that are inherent to this condition, that rejects isolationist positions and fights reactionary nationalism, but knows, from its own experience, that the solutions to the problems of the Portuguese people can only be the work of the Portuguese people themselves.
It is by broadening and strengthening primarily the struggle at the national level for the concrete interests of the workers and people, for the liberation from the domination of monopoly capital and imperialism, that the Portuguese workers and our people can give greater contribution to their own liberation and for the general struggle of the workers and peoples.
And also it is because our struggle does not wait for salvation coming from abroad, even less, as others expect, coming from the neoliberal, militarist and federalist European Union at the service of those same here, on national ground, we fight to ensure the defence of the interests of the people and country!
Vast and diversified was Álvaro Cunhal´s contribution to the strengthening and unity of the international communist movement, and of it with the anti-imperialist front, to strengthen the relations of friendship, solidarity and cooperation among communist and revolutionary parties, of support to the national liberation movement, to the struggle for peace and stimulus to the process of emancipation of the workers and peoples.
His analyses of the capitalist system and the evolution of the world, its trends and driving forces, and more specifically, regarding the idea of the world´s revolutionary process and the role of the international communist movement which are present in all his theoretical work, are not removed from the important intervention of the knowledgeable and prestigious leader at the international level that Álvaro Cunhal was. An intervention that is portrayed in the multiplicity of his participation in the world’s most important meetings and forums debating international problems and the very vast network of international relations that, in our Party’s name, he built and strengthened.
His contribution to the understanding of the causes and consequences of the dramatic defeats of socialism and the response to the overwhelming campaigns on “the death of communism” and “the irreversible decline” of the PCP is one of the legacies of Álvaro Cunhal’s legacy. A contribution which affirms and proves the need and topicality of the communist ideal and project and reaffirms the incapacity of the capitalist system and its exploitative, oppressive, parasitic and aggressive nature to answer the problems of humanity. A contribution which is an affirmation of confidence in the future, in the working class, the workers, the struggle of our people, the achievement of the supreme goals of his Party – the realisation of the socialist society and of communism!
An intellectual, a man of knowledge, possessing a dense culture, Álvaro Cunhal left us an important artistic production, namely in the field of aesthetics, literary creation, where, among others, stand out the novel “Até amanhã, camaradas” – Until tomorrow comrades – and the short stories Five days, Five nights and Frontiers, and also in the fine arts with works of drawing and painting.
Works which are the expression of a committed Art, moved by the ideals of fraternity, social justice and liberty, which speak to us about resistance and portray the life of a people that suffers and struggles.
An art which is a challenge and a call to build a better, fairer and more beautiful world.
From the vast legacy of Álvaro Cunhal, the Portuguese communists do not forget his contribution to the definition and affirmation of the Communist Party that we are and want to remain. Do not forget and value the precious and important theoretical developments not only for the definition of the communist ideal and project, but equally for the definition of the fundamental characteristics of the Communist Party.
Characteristics that are present in the practice of this particular Portuguese Communist Party that he conceived as a large collective: class nature, revolutionary theory – Marxism-Leninism -, internal democracy based on a creative development of democratic centralism, mass line, project of socialism, patriotism and internationalism.
Characteristics that affirmed this Party as a party of struggle and great causes, that acts daily to defend the workers and the people against exploitation, injustice and inequalities, recognised as such and respected in Portuguese society, but equally a Party of project, for whose conception Álvaro Cunhal equally gave a fundamental contribution, namely with his outstanding contribution to draw PCP’s Programme «Portugal, an advanced democracy on the threshold of the 21st.century» and which is the basis for the current Programme of the Party «An Advanced Democracy – The values of April in the Future of Portugal».
A programme which points the way for Portugal with future.
A programme which derives from the historical continuity of the Democratic and National Revolution and the ideas and achievements of 25th.April, and which projects this heritage of April as realities and objective needs in the future of our country.
The Programme of an Advanced Democracy is a proposal which meets the concrete needs of Portuguese society in the present historical stage.
An Advanced Democracy in its four aspects – political, economic, social and cultural – and in its five components develops, affirms and incorporates a concept of regime and the definition of a democratic policy which is characterised by constituting a project of society whose construction corresponds fully to the interests of the working class and the workers.
A political democracy which means individual and collective freedoms, pluralism, elections and direct participation of the people.
Economic democracy which implies subordination of the economic power to the democratic political power, social ownership of the basic and strategic sectors of the economy, coexistence of different economic formations, intervention of the workers in the management of the companies.
Social democracy which includes the rights of the workers, decent living conditions, widespread access to social services and benefits.
Cultural democracy which should be seen as access of popular masses to cultural fruition and freedom and support for cultural creation.
Dimensions that shape the five fundamental goals of Advanced Democracy:
A regime of freedom in which the people decide their destiny and a democratic, representative and participated State;
That ensures an economic development based on a mixed economy, free from the domination of monopolies, at the service of the people and Country;
That implements a social policy that guarantees the improvement of the living conditions of the workers and people;
That promotes a real cultural policy;
That affirms an independent and sovereign homeland with a policy of peace, friendship and cooperation with all peoples.
The implementation of the project of Advanced Democracy being part of the struggle for socialism, is equally inseparable from the struggle that we today wage for the materialisation of a rupture with the right-wing policy and the materialisation of a patriotic and left-wing policy that embodies this construction, in a process which does not separate, but encompasses in a coherent manner all the objectives of the struggle.
Patriotic and left-wing – two dimensions of a policy that we propose and define, taking into account our national reality, namely the increasing economic colonisation and consequent political subordination, that results from the process of European Union’s capitalist integration and the domination of national and international monopoly capital in our country.
Left-wing, because it involves the need to value work, the enforcement of social rights and of the social functions of the State – healthcare, education, social protection.-a fairer distribution of income and public control of the strategic sectors, that assumes the defence of the workers and all anti-monopoly strata and sectors.
It is with the aim of materialising such a policy that represents a condition to ensure Portugal with a future, of social justice and progress, sovereign and independent, that the PCP calls for the convergence of all democrats and patriots, of forces and sectors who are truly willing to assume a rupture with the right-wing policy against which we have struggled and will continue to struggle.
On this day full of symbolism, the great tribute we can pay to the tireless combatant of a lifetime that Álvaro Cunhal was, is to continue to strengthen and reinforce his all time Party and continue the combats that are the reason of its being.
Firstly the great combat of the present hour that we wage for the interruption of the policy of national ruin, for the dismissal of the government and the rejection of the Pact of Aggression, that are leading the country into disaster and the people into impoverishment, for the demand of early elections.
A demand that is all the more imperious given the dramatic consequences that are everyday felt in the country: brutal unemployment; recession and destruction of thousands of companies.; growing and widespread impoverishment of the population; brutal growth in the exploitation of work and confiscation of its income; degradation of public services that should ensure the right of all to healthcare, education and social protection.
Today, because of this policy of national disaster we have a new and substantial increase in the number of Portuguese living below the poverty line, more than a quarter of the Portuguese population!
Today, because of this policy of economic and social debacle and national impoverishment, we have thousands of Portuguese leaving the country at a rate of ten thousand people per month, many of them young, also with disastrous consequences for the future of the country itself.
Today, as a result of this policy of ruin, we have a poorer, unfairer, more unequal, more dependent country.
A reality which will become worse with the programme of social terrorism that the government and the foreign troika of the European Union. ECB and IMF are implementing, a part of which is the 2014 State Budget proposal.
A Budget proposal of plunder of the popular classes that, once again, follows the path of theft of wages, pensions, attack on public services, sale of the country’s assets and wealth, tax increases, with which the country is acquainted, of systematic impoverishment of the people and country, A Budget to which are added a set of anti-social measures that include a further raise in retirement age for all workers, dismissal of dozens of thousands of workers in Public Administration, increase in their working hours and a brutal cut in their pensions.
A Budget proposal that is yet another step to impose a minimum State for the workers and people, and a maximum State for big business and its dealings.
A Budget which, if applied, will mean more recession, more bankruptcies and more unemployment, worsening the tragic balance of these years of PSD/CDS government and foreign aggression and interference!
In these recent times the country has fallen back a decade and did not solve a single of its much publicised problems that served to justify signing the Pact of Aggression. Millions of euros of measures of extortion of incomes of workers, pensioners and of the population in general, without representing any significant improvement of the country’s public accounts, debt or economic situation, nor even guaranteeing the much announced return to markets.
This is the real result of the application of the illegitimate Pact of Aggression that PS and the parties of the current government colluded with the foreign troika, on the back of the people and against their interests.
And so, there they are preparing new machinations and arrangements, new programmes with the commanders of the financial system and the directory of the major powers who serve it, to continue with the offensive escalade aiming the impoverishment of the Portuguese, resorting to lies and blackmail.
New arrangements and new programmes which entail not only the recognition of the failure of their fraudulent policy and how sophist their argument is, that the new Budget of theft and extortion on the table is to save the country and misleading and fraudulent is the Portuguese “economic miracle” that they have now begun to announce.
New arrangements which are, above all, new pretexts to justify new and harsher blows on the living conditions of the Portuguese beyond 2014 and carry further this path of the country’s and people’s destruction and impoverishment, worsened by the Pact of Aggression.
They hide from the Portuguese that such arrangements and the programme they are preparing with or without the troika, call them precautionary, insurance or bailout, inevitably involve new conditions of submission of the country and its development project. New measures of exploitation, social regression, new cuts in social rights, pensions and wages, equal to those we have been witnessing with the policies and measures of the Pact of Aggression.
The solution is not new pacts with measures of extortion of the country and the Portuguese, but a renegotiation of the debt in its amount, interests, terms and payment conditions, by assuming an immediate cut of the service of the debt and a new alternative, patriotic and left-wing policy, able to put the country to produce and create jobs!
They have defined their goals. Chosen the victims and the targets. The only thing left is to agree on the way and the role of the PS to save and pursue the right-wing policy!
An alternative policy and a government – patriotic and left-wing – to implement it, that assumes a commitment to restore all the rights and incomes which have been and are being robbed under the excuse of an illegitimate Pact of Aggression!
We cannot allow this illegitimate government, ruling against the Constitution and doing the opposite of what it trumpeted, lying to the Portuguese, which relies on the President of the Republic to break the oath he swore, to continue its path of destruction of the rights of our people to work, to work with rights and fair pay, the right to a decent retirement and pension, to healthcare, education, social protection and culture.
The country has to put a stop to this policy of plunder of workers and people!
The intensification and broadening of the struggle, of all struggles, big or small, in the companies, in the workplaces, on the streets and where the interests of the population are jeopardised, remains the decisive issue to hasten the moment of the government’s defeat and free the country from its policy of disaster.
At this time of a heightened offensive by the PSD/CDS government, the PCP salutes the many struggles carried out and under progress, of the workers from Transport, Public Administration, Postal Service, Military, Security Forces and many others and reasserts the solidarity and commitment of the Portuguese communists to ensure the success of the struggles under way and expected, in particular the great action of the National Day of Outrage and Struggle, scheduled by CGTP for this coming November 26th.
The country can no longer postpone a change of course, a real alternative change and not the false and perverse solutions by the parties of national rotation.
A real alternative that has the PCP as an indispensable and irreplaceable force for its construction and materialisation. This Portuguese Communist Party that is a great and reliable Opposition force against the right-wing policy. This Party that, like no other, plays a fundamental role in boosting the mass struggle, in close link to the working class, the workers and our people for the solution of their problems. This Party which defeated and brought down the ominous forecasts of big business who had condemned it to disappearance, increasingly affirms itself as a Party with future, a Party that becomes stronger socially, politically and, also, electorally, as shown recently with the great victory in local elections. The only political force that increased its votes, percentage, majorities and mandates. That recovered majorities in important municipalities of the country. A victory that shows that it is not only possible to recover positions, but go ahead and turn around the present situation of degradation and crisis, with the support of the workers and people, and their struggle. A victory that shows that this is a Party that is ready to assume the responsibilities the people wish to place on it, because this is a Party that does not turn its face to the struggle under any circumstances!
A Party that is proud of its history made of a thousand combats to defend the workers, people and country, but has its eyes always set on the present and on the future. A Party that has in the legacy of Álvaro Cunhal and in his example as a man and revolutionary, a full bodied patriot and internationalist, a source of inspiration and knowledge to find the answers that life always demands from those who do not abdicate continuing to pave the way for social change and progress of the peoples. From this legacy and example which are firmly anchored in the communist ideal of building a new and fraternal society. An ideal which Álvaro Cunhal honoured in his exhilarating life of verticality, coherence, courage and uninterrupted struggle to find the paths of victory over injustice and inequalities and in materialising this millenary dream of building a society free from exploitation of man by another man!
This advanced dream that this Portuguese Communist Party carries and will carry to become reality one day, because this is the supreme cause of our struggle!
