As we have always done, here we are, today in Castanheira do Ribatejo, in the municipality of Vila Franca de Xira, to signal and celebrate the Socialist Revolution of October 1917, in this year which marks its hundred and third anniversary.

We do this by renewing in this celebration our deep conviction that it remains in its liberating act and in its achievements as the seed of the future, as the great enterprise that continues to tell us that another world is possible.

We signal the October Revolution, confirming and reaffirming the validity of socialism as a solution to respond to the great problems of peoples and humanity.

We commemorate that first victorious Revolution that has as its objective the construction of a society free from the exploitation of man by man. This Revolution that inaugurated a new historical era - that of the transition from capitalism to socialism - and that would not only profoundly change the lives of the workers and people of the country of the Soviets, but also promote and influence profound changes in the world in favour of workers and of peoples.

We commemorate this Revolution that took on the task of opening new paths, never before experienced, materialising the millennial dream of emancipation and liberation of generations of exploited and oppressed.

The Revolution in which, for the first time, the working class, the workers and their allies conquered power, and with this new proletarian and peasant conquered power they embarked on an extraordinary process of transformation and accomplishment, where millions of human beings once excluded and deprived from any political and social intervention became key players and builders of their own future.

We celebrate October, at a time when our Party celebrates its 100th. year of existence. One hundred years of life of a Party that from its birth assumes and embraces the values and ideals of October.

Created with the galvanizing impetus of the October Revolution and exclusively by the will and decision of the Portuguese working class and workers, the PCP assumed throughout its unique history, not only its internationalist duty of solidarity with those who took in their hands this heroic liberating enterprise, but also the responsibility to reveal the significance, accomplishments and achievements of this Revolution and of seven decades of existence of socialism in the Soviet Union that, despite its defeat, cannot be erased, rather it is necessary to keep alive and celebrate for its huge contribution to the advancement of the emancipatory struggle of workers and peoples worldwide.

Yes, in this great October Revolution we celebrate the heroic gesture of the Russian proletariat and with it the fulfilment of centuries-old aspirations, dreams and utopias, the culmination of thousands of years of protests, revolts and popular struggles.

This Revolution which from the very beginning faced capital's class hatred and systematic campaigns of lies and slander, which lasted for decades and still continue today at the service of the political and ideological manipulation of the dominant exploiting classes.

We celebrate the new power of workers and peasants that emerged from it and that adopted among its first measures the decrees on peace and on the abolition of latifundist land ownership, confirming its eminent humanist and progressive character.

We celebrate the practical proof of the theses of scientific socialism founded by Marx and Engels and brilliantly developed by Lenin.

We celebrate the Revolution that transformed the old and backward Russia of the tsars into a highly developed country, capable of containing, as it did for decades, imperialism’s aim of world domination.

The Revolution that eradicated illiteracy and generalised schooling, eliminated unemployment, guaranteed and promoted the rights of women, children, youth and the elderly, the development of multiple forms of artistic expression, achieved a high scientific and technical level, undertook the solution of the complex issue of oppressed nationalities, enhanced the values of friendship, solidarity, peace and cooperation between peoples.

We celebrate the Revolution and with it the country of the Soviets, the first in the world to put into practice fundamental social rights, such as the right to work, the maximum 8-hour day, paid holidays, maternity rights and protection, the right to housing , free healthcare, free universal social security and education.

We celebrate the driving example of its revolutionary transformations and achievements, which gave strength and encouragement to the struggle of workers and peoples around the world and enabled the achievement of important social gains in developed capitalist countries.

Important achievements that are now the target of a fierce attack in these countries and in the space of the European Union.

We celebrate the October Revolution for what it projected of profound transformations on a planetary level, changing the face of the world, including support for the achievement of independence of numerous nations for centuries subjected to colonial rule, but also for its role as a global force of progress and peace and in the victory over Nazi-fascism.

We celebrate the ever-present internationalist solidarity of the new Soviet power to the Portuguese communists and people in their struggle against the fascist dictatorship in Portugal and to the April Revolution and which this party proudly always reciprocated.

We celebrate in the October Revolution the fight that continues for the achievement of the great goal of the construction of a socialist society, which in Portugal's conditions passes, as the PCP programme points out, through the stage that we characterised as an Advanced Democracy, a stage that is equally inseparable from the struggle that we are fighting today for the materialisation of the rupture with the right-wing policy and for the implementation of a patriotic and left-wing policy.

We celebrate the communist project and in it not only the achievement of its great goals, but also the multiple causes that give meaning to the struggles of today for the construction of a world always better and fairer: the cause of the defence of the workers and the people, of the their just interests and rights, against the offensive and arrogance of big capital; the cause of the permanent fight against social inequalities and injustices, and the commitment to fight and organise the struggle to end them.

This combat that we are fighting today, combining a demanding struggle for the affirmation and implementation of the alternative patriotic and left-wing policy - a central and decisive issue to respond to the serious and persistent national problems that remain postponed -, with a daily combat based on the action and struggle of the masses for improving the living conditions of the workers and people.

A combat fought in a demanding and complex framework, by a Party that shows every day that it does not yield, that keeps its independence of decision and action intact and that does not abdicate fighting for the materialisation of a different path from that of the last decades of right-wing policies in our country.

The times that are there are harsh and the demands will double as is expected and indicated by the ideological offensive that is there, directed against the force that truly counts to affirm an alternative to serve the workers, the people and the country.

Times of worsening the living conditions of the populations. Times that witnessed the accumulation of problems that are not of today, but that have been dragging and increasing, because there was not the necessary answer to overcome them, reaching the most diverse fields of our collective life.

Serious problems in the economic, social and cultural fields that have worsened with the epidemic, as is the case of unemployment. Problems such as our chronic structural deficits, at the head of which is a production deficit that has been heightened by a policy that has deliberately weakened the productive sectors. Deficits that are the cause of the country's recognised high external dependence and the weak and insufficient growth that it has shown.

A reality that coexists with a degraded social situation, where profound inequalities and injustices and the poverty of large strata of workers weigh, as a result of low wages and low pensions, increasing labour precariousness and worsening labour exploitation and a persistent and unfair distribution of wealth.

Problems that are exposed in shortcomings felt in public services, with particular focus on those that fulfil social functions and should ensure the population's rights to healthcare, education and culture, housing and social protection, including that of children and the elderly.

Yes, we live in a time when workers, intellectuals and technical cadres, micro, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, pensioners and a wide range of the popular strata are also being affected by the effect of the persistent epidemic and by the use made of it by the great economic interests and the political forces that represent them and embrace their cause.

Under the pretext of the epidemic, there is a vast operation to attack wages and rights, an attempt to limit liberties, to degrade public services, devalue culture and various activities where small interests in the area of commerce and restoration predominate, among others.

These days, under the pretext of the rise in cases of infected people, the voices of those who demand more restrictions on freedoms, more cuts in rights and even more muscular measures have been raised again, exchanging pedagogy for repression to fight the pandemic.

The measures adopted by the government following the declaration of the State of Emergency, adopted this Friday in the Assembly of the Republic, with the PCP voting against, seem not only disproportionate, incongruous and inadequate but above all have no correspondence with the demands placed in terms of public health and giving capacity to the NHS to face the Covid-19 epidemic, and to create health protection conditions for national life to go on.

This epidemic, as the PCP has reiterated for months, poses health, economic and social problems that are not solved by limiting rights and creating climates of fear.

What the country needs are measures that encourage individual protection, promote the pedagogy of protection and ensure health security conditions so that national life can go on in its multiple dimensions.

Instead of suspending, prohibiting or preventing activities or events, what is needed is that health security conditions be created in order to maintain economic, social, cultural and sporting activities.

It is necessary to give priority to measures to strengthen the response capacity of the NHS, to ensure the safety of schools, nursing homes, public transport, cultural and sports facilities and equipment.

For the PCP, what is essential is that the necessary and appropriate measures to face the problems, including those of public health, are adopted without further ado, because it is not enough to invoke the seriousness of the situation, as the government does, it is necessary to match words with acts.

Yes, it is necessary to take urgent measures to reinforce the National Health Service. Therefore, on the same day that the State of Emergency was discussed and adopted, the PCP presented a set of 35 proposals aimed at strengthening it. These are proposals that give expression to the real solutions and answers that the country needs, which include:

Proposals to respond to concrete problems experienced by users and healthcare professionals. To guarantee greater efficiency and speed in detecting outbreaks and breaking transmission chains, we propose, from the outset, the strengthening of Public Health Units, ensuring the ratios of doctors, nurses and environmental health technicians per inhabitants that are established in the legislation. In this context, we propose the valorisation of the wage supplement for doctors exercising health authority functions, provided for in the legislation 11 years ago without being implemented, in the amount of 20% of the basic pay.

Investment in increasing the capacity of the NHS, with more means, more healthcare professionals - doctors, nurses, operational assistants and other healthcare technicians - more equipment, more capacity in healthcare centres and hospitals is the solution.

We propose the implementation by the 1st. quarter of 2021 of the reinforcement of the National Network of Hospital Specialty and Referral in Intensive Care Medicine approved by the government, with 409 beds, 47 doctors, 626 nurses and 198 operational assistants.

In order to ensure the recovery of face-to-face consultations in primary healthcare, we propose the extension of opening hours, the setting of an exceptional incentive identical to that applied in hospitals, as well as investment in the modernisation of communication systems and computer equipment.

Users' right to healthcare also includes access to medicines, which is why we propose the free dispensation of medicines to chronically ill people, people over 65 and people in need; free of charge antipsychotic medications and the suspension of user fees from January 1, 2021 and their elimination on January 1, 2022.

Given the shortage of doctors in the National Health Service, we propose to hold an extraordinary tender for access to specialty medical training, with the creation of vacancies especially in the most deprived medical specialties.

These are proposed solutions, among others, which should be portrayed in the State Budget for 2021, as well as others to respond to the serious problems that the country faces and are not there.

The State Budget proposal under discussion is marked by the clearly insufficient character of the responses that would be necessary to face the visible deterioration of the economic and social situation. The government's first option is to continue to work for the deficit of public accounts instead of looking at the country's problems.

With the reduction of the deficit that is already forecast for the next year, the country waives the use of around 6 billion euros. We have denounced this, but the government persists, even when it is not obliged, in limiting social spending, to restrain public investment, to prevent the strengthening of essential public services, when they are most needed, such as healthcare.

And do not accuse us of contempt for the sustainability of public accounts, because those who know us know that the PCP does not want to sail in sight or see the country adrift.

What we consider is that the sustainability of the state accounts is achieved through economic recovery, productive investment, economic growth and, simultaneously, with different options than those that have been at the root of not only an unfair fiscal policy, but also those that have contributed to the handing to the economic and financial groups of resources that should be at the service of the country.

That is why we are also intervening in this Budget to end the deception that constitutes the so-called Public-Private Partnerships, to ensure an effective taxation of the highest incomes, namely with the mandatory inclusion above 100 thousand euros in the Income Tax, to tax the transfers to tax havens made by economic groups, to ensure that the profits and dividends of companies like Pingo Doce pay taxes in Portugal instead of salting them away in the Netherlands.

The options that will be made in budgetary terms need to be different. They need to be different from those that have shaped a country so riveted by injustice and inequality. They need to be untied from the interests of big capital which is getting ready for the banquet of EU funds - the famous bazooka - that they want to dine on.

If there is this much-touted bazooka of millions, let us use it fully to respond to the many social and economic problems that are getting worse, now with new restrictions, pointing it in the right direction for more expansive public investment, replacing private investment that is missing and even requiring its reinforcement.

Do not say that there are no means to respond to problems. There are, they have to be channelled to solve the problems of the workers, the people and the country and not just to serve big capital.

Our determination to not give up any battle before fighting is well known, much less when the interests of the workers, our people and the country are at stake.

It is not our custom to relinquish the necessary combats, even when they are difficult as is the case, given the nature of the Budget proposal tabled by the PS government.

It was with this perspective in mind that the PCP announced beforehand its decision to abstain on the vote on the Budget proposal as a whole.

A decision that should be understood not as a point of arrival, but as keeping the door open to find the solutions that the country needs in the debate on the specialty that is underway, even realising the government's systematic refusal to move in this direction.

It is clear to us that this is not the Budget that the country needs, either to provide a solution to structural problems that have been going on for years, or to solve new problems determined by the impact of the epidemic.

It is a Budget in which a global response to national problems is absent, with urgent measures for valuing workers and their rights, including wages, strengthening social protection, supporting national production and the productive sectors, increasing public investment and the capacity of response of public services, of reduction of external dependence in the various fields of national life, public control of strategic companies and sectors.

This week and with the beginning of the discussion on the specifics of the 2021 State Budget proposal, the PCP has already handed a set of proposals. Covering various subjects, from defending the rights of workers and pensioners to strengthening the National Health Service, such as those I have already mentioned, of the Public School, together with proposals that aim at the expansion of social benefits, the recovery of public control of strategic companies and sectors, greater fiscal justice, support for MSMEs, the creation of vacancies in public networks of daycare centres and nursing homes, the elimination of tolls, support for culture, the response to environmental problems, among others.

Proposals that seek to reverse options and measures contained in the government proposal.

It is in the face of these concrete options that the PS has to clarify whether it is with the PCP that it will converge or whether its objectives and convergences are other.

On the part of the PCP, it will not be lacking in this phase of the debate with its initiative and proposal, and we also leave here the guarantee to the Portuguese that the final vote that will be taken on the Budget, will depend on the evaluation of the final version of the Budget regarding the global response to national problems.

This is our commitment. A commitment that we maintain with the workers and with the people.

We are celebrating the October Revolution without the existence of the reality that sprouted from it - the USSR. The victory of the counter-revolution and its destruction had a profound negative impact on the global balance of forces, on the lives of the Soviet people, but also on the lives of other peoples of the world.

The world has become more dangerously exposed to the logic of the interests of big capital, which has resulted in a huge leap backwards in many areas of human life.

In fact, if there is a striking feature in these last three decades, it is the development of a powerful exploitative and aggressive offensive by imperialism with enormous and growing dangers for freedom, democracy, social progress and peace.

An offensive that is worsening and takes on an increasingly worrying expression, confirming the exploitative, oppressive, aggressive and predatory nature of the capitalist system.

Plunged for a long time in a deep structural crisis - capitalism has nothing more to offer to the peoples than the worsening of exploitation, unemployment, precariousness, increase of social injustice and inequalities, attacks on social and labour rights, usurpation and destruction of resources, interference and aggression against national sovereignty.

A reality that the COVID-19 pandemic has made even more obvious, exposing the inhuman face of capitalism in a very crude way.

Unable to overcome the insatiable contradictions, insatiable in the eagerness of appropriation and accumulation of capital without limits, capitalism is a system that is permanently in confrontation with the needs, interests, aspirations of the workers and peoples.

Its nature and the profound contradictions that the capitalist system holds are increasingly laid bare, with the great capitalist powers plunged into chaos and deep social conflicts - as is the case of the US.

The context in which this week's elections were held reveals not only the profoundly undemocratic nature of the American political and electoral system, but the seriousness of the problems, contradictions, inequalities that pervade American society.

A society marked by the worsening of the economic and social situation and by a great divide within its ruling class as to how to counter the relative decline of the US at the international level and to deal with the growing popular discontent.

After four years of a Presidency that enhanced the policy of favouring big capital and promoted an even more reactionary drift and fascistic traces that must be defeated, however, without neglecting differences in terms of internal policy, one cannot fail to alert at the outset, on the meaning of the statements of Joe Biden’s candidacy that clearly show the intention to pursue a foreign policy, whose objective is the proclaimed safeguard of the North American domination in terms of the world, with what it represents of threat to the sovereignty and rights of peoples, international security and peace.

But if in fact capitalism has shown enormous capacities of recovery, the picture is still of great instability and uncertainty, where dangers are present that alert us to the possibility of setbacks. And if we cannot neglect the heavy ideological curtain of lies, misinformation and manipulation that aims to contain the struggle of workers and peoples and their political and ideological awareness, the fact is that reality is in charge of proving, once again, that the persistence of their struggle and resistance also translates into real possibilities for advances.

If, in the current circumstances, resisting is already winning, as in many parts of the world, the recent events in Bolivia and Chile are two important events in the evolution of the situation in Latin America, so massacred by the imperialist offensive and its agents in that region, where other peoples courageously continue to resist. In Bolivia, despite the manoeuvres of the putschist forces to remain in power, the people took their resistance to the polls and inflicted a heavy defeat on them. The resounding victory of the Movement for Socialism in the recent presidential elections, crowns the persistence and determination of a people who have not given up fighting for the right to decide sovereignly on their future. In Chile, we have witnessed another overwhelming victory for the workers, the Chilean people, the communists and the progressive forces in the Referendum on a new Constitution that will put an end to the current one, inherited from the Pinochet fascist dictatorship. These are events that tell us that imperialism does not have a free field in pursuing its projects of exploitation and domination and continues to face the struggle of workers and peoples.

A struggle that, facing great dangers, simultaneously contains great potential for progressive and revolutionary transformations.

A struggle that tells us that it is socialism and not capitalism, no matter how “humanized” they try to sell it, which is the future of Humanity!

We know and do not expect that capitalism will fall by itself.

Its overcoming is inseparable from the conscious participation of workers and peoples, their unity, organisation and struggle in the process of social transformation and, particularly, that of the historical role of the working class, the workers and their allies.

Overcoming that requires and needs a strong and permanently reinforced and influential Communist Party. Achieving it is the great challenge that lies ahead. A challenge that calls for a great effort and commitment from our entire party collective.

A Party that acts and fights permanently and daily to uphold the interests of workers and people.

We are celebrating the October Revolution and on the horizon are important political and social tasks and struggles, but also an important electoral battle.

Right now we have our XXI Congress that we continue to prepare and that will take place on November 27, 28 and 29, 2020, under the motto «Organise, Struggle, Advance - Democracy and Socialism».

A Congress thinking and responding to the problems of the workers, the people and the country and which continues to call for the contribution of each and every one, with their opinion and experience, with the discussion of the proposal for the Political Resolution and the election of delegates.

We have important social struggles that it is urgent to actively value and support, because they are just and indispensable struggles to ensure better living conditions for workers and populations. Struggles like the one convened by the Common Front of Public Administration Unions on the coming 13th. that we salute from here.

There is also the battle for the elections for President of the Republic with the candidacy of João Ferreira which assumes the rights of workers, the values of April and the commitment of the project that the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic enshrines but which is far from being fulfilled.

A candidacy of those who do not surrender, nor capitulate to the objectives and the blackmail of great interests.

A candidacy that values the sovereignty body President of the Republic, his path - of seriousness, integrity and commitment to the cause of democracy, sovereignty and Peace -, or the values that he will seek to impress during the entire electoral battle and that he will assume, if elected, in the Presidency of the Republic.

The candidacy of all those who embrace this path of valorisation of work and workers, of the fair distribution of wealth, of the defence of public services and of the social functions of the State, of the guarantee of territorial cohesion, of the defence of the environment and ecosystems, of the combat against all discrimination.

This is the candidacy that, particularly in the current circumstances, requires the commitment of the party collective, the intervention, the initiative and the action of every militant in promoting a strong, confident and dynamic campaign of clarification and contact with the workers and the people.

This is the time for all the democrats and patriots who are concerned about the direction of the country, with the options of the ruling classes and with the injustices, for all those who assume the defence of the liberating and emancipatory project of April, to say present.

This is the time for a strong movement to support João Ferreira's candidacy and we are confident that this is a candidacy that will attract wide popular support.

It is armed with the experience gathered by the communist movement that we proudly affirm the class identity of our Party, its Marxist-Leninist ideology, its patriotic and internationalist nature and we commit ourselves to the struggle for the materialisation of the communist project, its objectives and causes, inspired by the lessons of the October Revolution, valuing all that is exemplary and universal in them and with our feet always firmly set on the concrete Portuguese reality.

A project that some have hastened to declare as definitely dead, but which is not only alive and well alive, but the ideal it carries continues to illuminate the path of those who continue to fight for the fulfilment of the deepest aspirations of the people, certain that one day it will be the future.