A warm welcome to everyone attending this session, where we mark the 112th. anniversary of the birth of comrade Álvaro Cunhal.
This unique figure in contemporary Portugal, a fighter for freedom and democracy and a beacon in the struggle for social and human emancipation in our Country and around the world.
Álvaro Cunhal dedicated his entire life, as leader of the PCP and anti-fascist fighter, to the cause of the workers, his people and his Country.
From a very young age, Álvaro Cunhal played an indisputable role in the resistance against fascism and in the struggle for freedom and democracy.
His report, “The Road to Victory”, presented at the VI Congress in 1965, was an invaluable contribution to defining the Programme, strategy and tactics of the Portuguese Communist Party and the struggle of the workers and the people for their liberation.
It laid down the fundamental guidelines for the major objectives of the Democratic and National Revolution, which proved to be accurate, at the outset with the path it charted.
It was in fact the development of the struggle of the working class and the popular masses, as well as the strength and unity of the democratic forces opposed to the regime, that created the conditions for the MFA (Armed Forces Movement) to overthrow the dictatorship on 25th. April 1974, which the simultaneous popular uprising transformed into a Revolution.
The April Revolution, in the words of Álvaro Cunhal himself, was: “one of the highest moments in the life and history of the Portuguese people and Portugal”, as an act and process that led to the liberation and democratisation of Portuguese society and profound political, economic, social and cultural transformations.
In a Country where poverty and inequality were rife, April established the national minimum wage, linked to workers' needs and the rising cost of living
In a Country marked by a total absence of labour rights, April established the right to work and to work with rights, the right to rest and leisure, the maximum working day, weekly rest, regular paid holidays, job security, the prohibition of unfair dismissal, trade union freedom and the right to strike.
April opened the door to maternity and paternity rights, the rights of children and youth, of people with disabilities, the elderly, emigrants and immigrants.
April saw the establishment of Social Security and protection for citizens in illness, old age, disability, widowhood and orphanhood, as well as in case of unemployment and all other situations involving a lack or reduction in means of subsistence or ability to work.
In a Country where millions of people lacked the most basic conditions for life, April opened the doors to the right to decent housing, the right to healthcare and the National Health Service.
In a Country where illiteracy prevailed, April brought education and culture.
In a Country bled dry by political arrests and assassinations, torture, colonialism and war, with the complicity of the US, NATO and those who still today proclaim themselves to be beacons of human rights but who are the greatest executioners of peoples, April affirmed and achieved the recognition and effective guarantee of the exercise of freedoms and rights for all, including workers and their representative organisations.
April was decolonisation, the values of peace, solidarity, cooperation and friendship with all peoples of the world.
In a deeply impoverished, backward and dependent Country, where seven monopolies concentrated and accumulated the wealth created by workers who remained in poverty,
April carried out the nationalisation of key sectors of the national economy, the liquidation of large estates and Agrarian Reform, with magnificent and undeniable results.
April went very far in the lives of workers, the population and youth, so many were the transformations, that from the very beginning there was a need to defend them against a counter-revolution that also began from the outset.
As is made clear in “The Truth and the Lies in the April Revolution, the Counter-Revolution Confesses”, a fundamental work by Álvaro Cunhal for the study and understanding of this subject and the entire revolutionary process of April.
A thorough work that exposes the falsehoods of those who try to turn events upside down.
A work that demonstrates, through the confessions of the key players of the time themselves, the failure of the thesis of those who accuse the PCP of threatening democracy, while they themselves were stabbing it.
There have been and continue to be several counter-revolutionary coups.
This has been the case since the palace coup of Palma Carlos in July 1974, up to the typical military coup that took place on March 11, 1975.
It was and still is a free-for-all; all methods and instruments of action and intervention are justified for these people.
No holds barred was the watchword of the counter-revolution!
On the political front, it is important to highlight and not forget the actions of the PS which, after the April elections for the Constituent Assembly, took the lead in opposing the achievements of the revolution, allying itself with the PPD and the reactionary and fascist forces of the regime that had just been overthrown.
They resorted to everything in a frenzied destabilising campaign of spreading lies and slander against the most consistent and progressive democratic forces, particularly against the PCP.
With bomb attacks, storming, looting, beatings and other types of violence, in about two years there were nearly 600 terrorist acts, one example of which, among many, but this one particularly significant, was the storming of the PCP’s headquarters here in Braga. On that occasion, Ary dos Santos took the opportunity to remind us that “with every new attack / every fascist escalation / the communist flag will always rise higher.”
No matter the thousand times the lies are repeated, no matter how intense and shameless the rewriting of history may be, and in recent days there are those who have used all the space they have been given to lie and make false accusations for which they will have to answer, but they will indeed have to answer and prove the slander and lies they are spreading around.
The fact is that the main targets of fascist terrorist violence after 25th. April were the PCP and other democratic and progressive forces, as they had been during fascism.
And it is revealing that the greatest enthusiasts for promoting 25th. November today are, in fact, the heirs of the fascists, reactionary military, bombers from the MDLP, Maria da Fonte, ELP and their lackeys.
As Álvaro Cunhal explains in ‘The Portuguese Revolution: The Past and the Future’: “If 25th. November proves anything about prior preparation for military action on a national scale, it was not on the part of the military Left (...), but on the part of forces and sectors allied against the military Left.’
In fact, since the failed coup of March 11, these forces had taken it upon themselves to draw up a counter-revolutionary plan.
Not everything is clear yet, but it is now evident that the Group of Nine had been formed and organised politically and militarily to put an end to the revolutionary process.
In fact, Melo Antunes stated and confirmed this many months before 25th. November: “they had a military organisation in place”.
In fact, as is now public knowledge, the president of the commission recently created by the AD government to commemorate 25th. November was the one who, seven months earlier, took the initiative, along with other senior officers, to set the military counter-revolution in motion.
They may well continue to rewrite history and talk about the communist coup and the PCP's assault on power, but the coup was carried out by those who say so, those who say that the PCP was defeated on that day that a few people want to celebrate, behind closed doors and far from the people.
But contrary to what some would have wished, the PCP was not outlawed, it remained in government, with one minister and six secretaries of State, the country did not plunge into civil war, freedoms and democracy were safeguarded, and months later, much to the chagrin of the counter-revolutionary forces, the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic was approved.
Yes, 25th. November: “represented a major defeat for the military Left, its disarticulation and disintegration and the disappearance (...) of the MFA as an organised revolutionary military movement. But it did not represent the definitive defeat of the Revolution, as some hastened to conclude.”
Those who today speak out against the 25th of April are the main agents of the counter-revolution and the continued policy of capitalist recovery and monopolistic restoration, of privatisation of resources.
It was the parties that led the right-wing counter-revolution, and no others, that imposed a policy contrary to April and brought the country and the lives of each and every one of us to the current situation.
Deterioration of the working conditions and inequalities, concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, low wages and pensions that cannot keep pace with the rising cost of living, increased external dependence, destruction of the national productive apparatus, national sovereignty called into question.
This is the course of the counter-revolution, this is the path that must be broken with, for the sake of the lives of the majority of those who live and work here.
April is about work with rights and fair wages, April is not about two and a half million workers receiving a wage of €1,000 and more than a million pensioners receiving pensions below the poverty line.
April is political power determining the course of action, not, as is the case today, power once again subordinate to economic power and an ever-increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of a few.
April was and is the end of precarious work and life; it is not and cannot be the reality for more than a million workers.
April is about rights and time to live. April is not about having more than 2.7 million workers subject to deregulation of working hours, with Portugal being one of the European Union countries where people work the longest hours on average.
April is about sovereignty and defending national interests. April is definitely not about militarism, the arms race, war, and submission to the orders and wishes of the European Union, NATO, and the US.
The current policy of the PSD/CDS government, enthusiastic about this same counter-revolutionary course, counts, beyond this or that invented tactical disagreement, on the support of Chega and the Liberal Initiative, with the not unprecedented backing of the PS.
While the government pushes ahead with propaganda, what is actually happening, as we have always denounced, is submission to economic groups, with yet another cut in taxes on the profits of the big players, and a squeeze on the lives of the majority.
This is an attack on everyone, at the outset on the workers, and in particular the youth and women.
Despite everything, April lives on.
Despite the counter-revolution, a series of achievements, rights, freedoms and guarantees remain.
The National Health Service, public education, Social Security, despite all the threats hanging over these important achievements, remain.
Just as the Constitution remains, which in a few months will celebrate 50 years since its enactment.
A Constitution that has already been severely undermined, but which must still be defended. However, in order to defend it, it must be enforced and the rights enshrined therein must become a reality in the lives of all those who work and live here.
Resist and not stand and wait is the challenge facing everyone, all the workers, the people, and the youth.
This resistance and struggle reached a high point last Saturday with the National March organised by the CGTP-IN, which filled the streets, avenues and squares in the centre of Lisbon.
This struggle must continue to develop in the daily fight for our demands and in the General Strike on December 11, against the Labour Package, for wages, rights and public services.
The institutional correlation of forces is, as we know, unfavourable.
The context in which we operate is difficult and complex, starting with the ideological battle against the promotion of reactionary ideas, fear, individualism, conformism and hate.
We are well aware that these ideas are being spread to the limit and that they give unlimited space to players who represent the worst that the system and the counter-revolution have created so far, starting with the Chega party, the most vocal expression of this process but far from being the only one.
An instrument of the system, which aims to heighten the regime of corruption and cronyism that it claims to combat, and which is increasingly and brazenly embracing fascism and its legacy of misery, inequality and crime.
Today, it is a key part of the system, funded and promoted by those who want to divert attention from the real causes and those responsible for the current situation.
The tactic is old and well known: attack those closest to you, the most disadvantaged, attack your neighbour, those of a different colour or religion, attack everyone with all your might to divert responsibility from those who oppress us and truly rob us of our present and our future.
The challenge facing everyone is to start from today's reality and reclaim the values of social justice and an economy that serves the people.
Returning to the words of Álvaro Cunhal:
"An April Revolution cannot be repeated. Fundamental achievements have been liquidated. But many of its values are not dead. Much of it is still present in society and in the minds, now shaken but latent, about what the revolution gave to the Portuguese people. Awareness of what freedom is worth. Awareness of the rights of the human being”.
The history of the achievements, conquests, values and lessons of the April Revolution contains fundamental elements of the experience necessary to choose a path for the future in the current situation and to trust those who, speaking truthfully to the people, have shown themselves capable of fulfilling what they announce and promise. (...)
The people need parties that are firm, convinced, courageous and confident. Only such parties are in a position to stand up to capitalism in today's world.
Here we are, here is the PCP, this firm, convinced, courageous and confident Party.
This Party does not abandon its project, does not abandon its principles, does not dilute itself, and knows that its unique strength lies in its roots, consistency, ideals, and project.
The Party of the anti-fascist struggle, the Party of April, the Party of resistance and struggle against reaction, the Party of the future.
This Party of Álvaro Cunhal, now and forever.
