We commemorate today with joy, and in a brotherly and warm atmosphere, the 76th Anniversary of our Party, a few months after our XVth Congress, where we clearly stated our identity, our theoretical foundation, our objectives.

These are 76 years of the life and the struggle of a Party whose history was built upon the generosity, intelligence, courage and countless sacrifices of generations of communists.

These are 76 years of a Party which is proud of its past of struggle and antifascist resistance, of its inimitable contribution to the conquest of freedom and the foundation and building of a democratic regime, born out of the 25th of April Revolution, of a Party facing the future, whose close ties to the working class, the workers and the popular masses is not only a constitutive basis but also the reason of its strength, to its capacity of influence and intervention.

These are 76 years of a Party which gave an unequalled contribution to the implantation and consolidation of the rights, values and ideals which are today a natural heritage of democratic life, but which cost work, blood, strokes of audacity and permanent struggle.

These are 76 years of a Party a "thousand times" condemned to death, to extinction, to disappearance, anathematised, silenced, distorted and which is here with its head raised, gaining strength and widening its influence, serene, combative and with a great trust in the future, the great Party of the left, the great Party of hope, the Portuguese Communist Party.

These are 76 years of a Party which by its project, its proposals, its coherence, its faithfulness to principles and convictions, its firmness in the fight against the polity of the right, its generosity and tolerance, prompts the interest, support and adhesion of new generations, which bring in new blood and new energies indispensable to the rejuvenescence, renewal and continuation of the struggle at the service of the people and Portugal.

The prevailing ideology, an expression of the interests of the prevailing classes, erected in the single thought, with its theologists, its bibles, its scribes and dogmas, tries to sow resignation, passivity and the idea that capitalism, and namely its neo-liberal formula, solves the problems of mankind.

But what reality shows is that the gap widens between the scientific and technical potentialities and the resources available to satisfy the needs of the peoples and the logic of the choices of the decisions and the policies of concentration which pervert and limit these potentialities.

We find the expression of this contradiction in several fields: housing, healthcare, education, jobs, urban-planning, environment...

The polarisation of wealth is such that the 358 multimillionaires around the world counted by the United Nations have an income equal to 45% of Mankind. And this is an essential question.

We live in a time where we find, on one hand, a remarkable development of human capacities and, on the other, the growth of inequalities, the increase of those left out, the intensification of the offensive against the wages and the rights of the workers, the consolidation of unemployment as a mass phenomenon.

Whereas a small fraction of the Globe's population lives in utter opulence, thousands of human beings are condemned to extreme poverty or forced to migrate to survive and millions of children are subject to a revolting exploitation.

This is the true face of capitalism, even in the more developed countries. One has only to remember that there are 55 million officially counted poor in the European Union!

This is not fate. Mankind is not condemned to live the "law of the jungle", nor return to social relations which characterised the beginning of this century. Exploitation, domination and alienation are objective obstacles to the development of mankind.

The need of this Party, the Portuguese Communist Party, the actuality and modernity of its Project and values and the reason for its struggle have increasingly more grounds and support.

As we have said many times being modern and up to date is not entering the 21st Century with the scourges of social wounds of the beginning of the 20th Century, but to fight for a renewed project which will organise society on new bases, taking into account the needs and aspirations of Man and his work as a fundamental objective.

That which corresponds to the advancement of civilisation is not the liquidation of the gains and signs of the April Revolution, not submission in the "European Union" to a Directory of great powers, not social regression and democratic regression, but the emphasis on political, economic, social and cultural democracy, that is, the building in Portugal of a society with more progress, more justice, more brotherhood, a more humane society, a socialist society.

Words and deeds

During the last election campaign, the PS (Socialist Party), among other pledges, promised to raise wages and pensions, lower unemployment, increase the security of the people, restore women’s retirement age from 65 back to 62 years, establish the 40 hour week, change fiscal policy, substantially decrease the benefits of financial capital, combat the desertification and ageing of the interior regions, carry out regionalisation ... It was through these and other promises that the PS obtained a relative majority.

Today, faced with the facts, more and more Portuguese feel betrayed, disenchanted and frustrated. No ones likes to see one’s votes used to refrain from carrying out pledges or to maintain a policy they wished to defeat.

The number of pensioners who believed that with the PS their situation would improve and that their pensions would have deserved increases!

The number of textile, garment, shoewear and metal workers who believed that the PS would establish the 40 hour week! And what they see is a government trick, which although instituting the 40 hour week, in practice, makes them work more than in the past.

The number of trade unionists who were shocked by the Prime Minister’s statements in Santa Maria da Feira that the pauses did not count for the 40 hours, contradicting what they were told, and even contradicting the judgement of the Ombudsman!

The cold exclamation, last week, of a PS member of Parliament to the Minister of Employment, "after all we deceived the workers", clearly shows the ethics and the social policy of this government.

The inscriptions and slogans shouted by the workers, "yes to 40 hours, no to swindle!", characterises well the situation. It is in fact a swindle.

From here we salute last weekend’s magnificent rally by the workers of the Ave Valley and congratulate all those men and women, who in their companies, with their struggle, were able to gain this conquest.

The difference between words and deeds, of the social rhetoric of the speeches and concrete action is constant. But even though the government is socialist it cannot hide its neo-liberal policy, its policy of the right.

Recently, during the visit of the general-secretary of PS to Paris a newspaper (Jornal de Notícias de 04/03/97) wrote: "in the presence of representatives of the French employers, the Prime Minister defended so staunchly the values of a market economy and the common currency as a cement of the process of European construction, that, in truth, most of the present were confused about the real political standing of António Guterres" and added "After all, questioned the employers from Jacques Chirac’s country, is he really the leader of a socialist party? And, if he is really a socialist, what differences does he have from the politicians of the centre or the democratic right?"

As we see, even the representatives of the great French capital are amazed by this kind of Portuguese socialist! ...

But, not only the representatives of the great French capital say so. Several political analysts and personalities affirm that this government, essentially, continues the cavaquist policies (from former liberal Prime Minister Cavaco Silva) ...

In fact, that which separates the PS from the PSD are not the main points in policy but the jobs, the power, that is, those who banquet at the Budget’s table and get the best share of the cake.

To have an idea of the evolution of the "jobs", by glancing through the Diário da República (official bulletin), we find that, until February, the socialist government, only in relation to the cabinet personnel, has appointed, among advisers and others, 4090 people, 490 in Education, 330 in Agriculture, 317 in Employment ... and so on. And they talk about reducing the number of members of Parliament ... What shamelessness!

But the contradictions about what the PS does today and said yesterday are not only in the economic areas.

During the election campaign the PS filled its mouth with the promise that, when in government, it would give priority in its political action to "security of the citizens". At the time, Eng. Guterres spoke about "establishing the authority of the State" and "firmly combat drug traffic, criminality and insecurity in the streets". But insecurity continues. The few ward police stations that were reopened were due to popular pressure.

The drug hipermarkets are open in broad daylight, all over the country, true areas of open drug traffic and violent expansion of addiction, ghettos of huge conflictuality, lawlessness and crime.

And on the government’s part there is no consistent action in order to contain and reverse the expansion of these true hypermarkets. Nor in depth measures to help thousands of young drug addicts.

The Centres for Help and Rehabilitation and Therapeutic Communities are scarce.

Drugs continue to be big business and to destroy the lives of thousands of youths and their families.

On our part, we insist that new solutions are necessary to bring the police closer to the citizens. That it is necessary to end the policies of internal security of the PSD and leave the "swamp" of indecision in which this government is stuck.

We need measures, means, structures, political will, co-ordination and efficiency in preventing and fighting drugs, so that it ceases to be one of the most serious concerns of the Portuguese people and one of the most dramatic factors of dilapidation of the human resources of the country. Where are the measures that show that for this government drugs "are the number one public enemy", as Eng. Guterres waved to the country? Unfortunately it was all political marketing!

Also political marketing was the confession about "the passion for education" trumpeted by the PS before the elections and which, in less than a year, turned into disillusion.

The pompous sentences, the promises of "creating pleasant schools", of "single turns", of "high quality education to all citizens", of "justice and equal opportunities", were followed by a paled continuance of the PSD policy in the area of education, and which led to the deep crisis in which it continues.

We have witnessed the collapse of the 12th Year exams of last year and the incidents which characterised the University access.

In a few months the repetition of these problems in not excluded.

It is well known that the government, concerned with the PS’ s results in the coming local elections, has been quietly recommending easier tests. And, on the safe side, has reduced the weight of national exams at the end of secondary school. But no one has seen nor sees the Ministry of Education really interested in the quality of education, with real schooling success, or adopting concrete measures to promote them.

Who does not remember, in relation to higher studies, the promises as to the need of "increasing national effort" in this area, of "guaranteeing quality" and increasing "social support to students"? In truth, government did nothing.

As nothing the PS did to honour its pledge "to steadily eliminate numerus clausus" and to "decisively expand the capacities of the public network, so as to effectively guarantee the freedom of choice between the public and private sector". This school year the opposite took place, to the point that the vacancies in the private sector were higher that those allowed for the public sector.

That is why the movement launched by the JCP (Portuguese Communist Youth) "For a free and quality public education" is entirely fair. From here, we greet the youth and the JCP, the PCP’s youth, for their combativity and enthusiasm and the continuation of their struggle for a quality public education.

As to the coming school year, there are informations that the government is preparing to increase even more the vacancies in the private sector in relation to the public education.

As to the pre-school education, it is highly revealing that the PS in the recent debate carried out in Parliament on the law of this sector, voted - luckily in minority - against the gratuitousness of this first and fundamental level of access to compulsory education. Equally revealing is the fact that the government, during the regulation of this law, is now trying to question the text of the legislation approved by Parliament.

Another aspect of the education policy of the government has to be pointed out as extremely serious - as the PS is by far surpassing the neo-liberal policies of the PSD - which entails the devaluation of public schools and the state financing of private schools.

This line of privatisation is patent in government’s proposal on the financing of higher studies, where the Minister of Education comes with the idea of celebrating "contracts of association" with private institutions, so as to sit them at the Budget’s table. And this is already true at the pre-school level, where the government, while trying to suppress the indispensable and urgent expansion of the public network, has already agreed to transfer an amount of around 20 million contos (conto = 1 000 escudos) per year to institutions of a private nature.

Struggle is the way

It’s life, it’s the problems faced by hundreds of workers that confirm and validate one of the Propositions of our Congress on the need of developing action and mass struggle so as to deter and thwart the anti-social and anti-labour policy of the PS government.

The huge mystification of a dialoguing government is no longer defensible after the approval of the law of Flexibility and Polyvalence and the backing given by the Guterres administration to the interpretation and application of the law carried by CIP (Confederation of Industry). It is not defensible when, for example, as we have already said, on his trip to France and in the presence of the great French capital, he guaranteed wage restrictions; when together with the growth of unemployment, and confirming what we have long said, there are revelations of alarming figures of the existence of 2 million men and women with precarious labour ties; when in the strategic agreement a new package of labour laws is being born; when in the agreement "cooked" with the PSD to revise the Constitution, accepts to put in the Constitution minimum services so as to limit the right to strike and the possibility of eliminating management control by Workers’ Committees.

The time is up for the government to have "sunshine in the threshing - floor and rain in the turnip field", of wanting the social support and the vote of the workers, while serving the interests and the privileges of the financial capital.

With this new conscience, thousands of workers resist and fight for the 40 hours, for their rights, for jobs, for better wages and the freedom to negotiate their labour contracts.

For this reason, comrades, from here we send a word of trust and our combative solidarity to all workers and their organisations, which in the Lisbon District, in the Railroads, the Public and Local Administration, Building Industry, Chemical Works, Electrical Industry, in Metal and Textile Works, in the Estoril Casino, in EPAC, Chiado, Olaio, have fought and fight with great determination, widen their unity around their rights and interests, saying no to this policy.

And if we speak of trust and solidarity, it is because the PCP, its militant collective, in the companies, unitary structures, in Parliament, continues determined in defence and identification with the great social causes. We shall be there tomorrow in the Rally of March 8th, March 22nd, April 25th, and May 1st with the deep conviction that it is worth fighting with all those who yearn for a better life and will, in the end, lay the foundation and lead the change.

A Constitutional Review at the service of the right wing

The persistence of the right wing policy and the accelerated and forced march towards the single currency have weakened the national productive apparatus, hindered the normal growth of economy, restrained investment, promoted the merely financial and speculative activities, and worsened the situation of wide strata of population.

Formerly, the PSD used to say that Portugal had to be in the "front platoon", now the PS says we have to join the central core of decisions ... That is, semantic differences between two parties that, intrinsically, support the same policy.

But in truth it is the European Central Bank that is going to decide the monetary and exchange policy, with little influence if any from Portugal. With a strong "Euro", in the likeness of mark, our exports will undergo serious consequences in their competitive capacity. Moreover, and as some defenders of the single currency already begin to say, the defence of the companies and economy’s competitive capacity has to be done at the cost of the workers’s salaries and rights. More exploitation, more precariousness, more unemployment.

Besides the recent data on precarious work, which we have already mentioned, are in themselves an indictment against the Government and the PS’s General Secretary who now finds them normal, when in a recent past showed indignation saying that the workers were not statistical numbers ...

Aiming at sheltering from popular condemnation, the PS and the PSD "have just cooked up" a constitutional review in order to administratively favour bipolarization. That is, through the reduction in the number of members of parliament and of the uninominal circles, to elect more members of parliament with less votes, to obtain absolute majorities through the "cooking up" of electoral laws, and to reduce PCP’s parliamentary representation, the only party that faces and fights them, and that puts forward alternative measures and proposals.

They want to compromise in practice the fulfilment of regionalisation. They want to hinder the accomplishment of a referendum on the single currency. And they want to make way towards putting an end to a right the Portuguese have exercised for 20 years: the right of electing directly the Town Halls and of choosing with their votes the councillors who will represent them in the town executive.

They also want to eliminate from the Constitution the victories and milestones of the 25th April. That’s why the Agreement was soon welcome by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and by PP, who characterised it as a victory of the Portuguese right wing. Plainer than this would be a rather difficult task! But PS and PSD want more. They still want the Review to be carried out quickly so that they do not show themselves "arm-in-arm" at the town hall elections. They want everything to run quickly so that they can, during the electoral campaign, perform huge differences, huge oppositions, huge conflicts. And they also want the content of this Agreement to quickly fall into oblivion. An Agreement with secret arrangements that is today celebrated in the Parliament hall by two clone parties.

This is indeed a shameful Agreement for the PS and for the PS’s General Secretary that only the "zorrinhos" and the "yes-men" classify as good. It is so good that is has already caused several resignations as well as the protest of dozens of the members of Parliament of the Government’s party!

It is an "orange" Agreement, cooked up aside from Parliament, from CERC, (Parliamentary Commission for Constitutional Review) and even from the majority of the PS’s Members of Parliament. For those who claim to be seriously concerned with the Parliaments prestige here it is an example of that sincerity of intentions.

We recall that precisely a few days before the 25th April of last year (see "Público", of 15th April 1996) António Guterres assured that nothing would be done in terms of the review behind the Parliament’s back, and J. Lacão, replying to an invitation by Marques Mendes ("Público", of 15th April 1996) to an agreement between directions, said categorically "with that he is giving a certificate of incompetence to his one bench. We want a debate in the proper place that is the Parliament and we do not negotiate at the level of the Party Directories..." .

After all, it was Lacão himself who gave a certificate of incompetence to his one parliamentary group and, like the prime-minister, he has once again thrown his word on the scrap-head in order to enter into the shady transaction...

We keep on fighting this Agreement which is an offence to the left-wing and the 25th April and we appeal to Portuguese’s democratic conscience to condemn it.

For our part, we will keep on fighting within and out side the institutions and we will not renounce to any of the right that the constitution in force confers us. They will silence us.

CDU: a humanist project

As determined by the Constitution, that is, at the end of the four-year-mandate, the elections for the local Government will take place in December.

We face this new battle with reinforced commitment and great confidence.

A commitment that is the fruit being aware of the importance this elections have to the country and the peoples future life of.

A confidence that is grounded on the known work that elected communists and their allies have developed for over twenty years of Democratic Local Government.

Work, honesty and competence is the motto of a practice of permanent concern with the solution to the problems and need of the populations, and of an inestimable contribution to the integration in society of criteria of higher fairness, solidarity and social justice. The CDU’s (electoral United Democratic Coalition) project differs from the others because their elected representatives do not accept the position to take advantage of it, but rather to serve the population.

Based on its principals and on the wide experience of their elected members, the PCP has built a healthy conception of collective management and of participation.

The populations and many Portuguese know that, concerning the many indexes and task of Local Government, the CDU leads the way and has a remarkable work.

They also know that the PCP defends and puts into practice guidelines, within the frame of the Local Governments possibilities, essential to promote defensible formulas of development.

The CDU’s Local Governments are also the ones that are more concerned with and more efficiently try to solve the problems of the Portuguese concerning environment and quality of life.

The is unequivocally shown by inquires and studies promoted by magazines specialised in environment.

In the study of the environmental performance of the Portuguese Municipalities concerning the 275 Municipalities of the continent, 80% of the CDU Town Halls where given a positive rating, versus 51% of the PS, 35% of the PSD and 31% of the PP. From the 23 Local Governments that were considered as having an excellent or good performance, 11 are CDU, 1 is PCP/PS, 6 are PS, 4 PSD and 1 PP.

We are not the ones who state that. More than half of the municipalities with an excellent or good environmental performance are managed by the CDU.

It is also because of all this that we face with great confidence the next electoral struggle. And it is because the CDU’s work in Local Government is prestigious that the PS, imitating the worst tics of "Cavaquismo", began an unrestrained campaign by using the civil governors, slush funds, CCR’s (Regional Coord. Commissions), the State apparatus, delaying community works and projects and pushing on others, according to electoral criteria. They are the "cavaquistas" practises but still more refined, now kept on with other faces and other executive.

This is unacceptable. Some civil governors, as the ones from Setúbal and Beja, resemble the caciques and the civil governors of the 24th April. It is a shame.

The Prime Minister, who has promised exemption, cannot say he ignores the situation..... had he been coherent, he would already have discharged them.

The reinforcement of our Party is essential to give Portugal a new policy.

The are thousand ands thousand of Portuguese who feel the disenchanted and tend to take refuge in passivity, in abstention, and to accept the idea that parties are all the same. No, they are not.

The Portuguese Communist Party, who celebrates the 76th Anniversary asserting its identity and its political and ideological patrimony, is proud of meeting its engagements, of giving voice to those who have no voice, of being at the peoples side, in small and big struggles, of stimulating and promoting the citizens intervention and participation, of being an intransigent defender of Portugal’s freedom, democracy, sovereignty and independence.

But it is not enough to have a high and differentiate conception of behaving in politcal life. It is necessary to fight the prejudice and that more and more Portuguese become truly aware of our proposals, of our practice and intervention at the several spheres of national life.

At a time when many aim at our support and see us with different eyes, at a time when many, overcoming prejudices, show their sympathy and gratitude for our honesty and intervention, it is necessary to make a great effort to turn the Party out, to deepen and develop, in an open way, the debate and the comun action with other democrats and democratic sectors and to pay redoubled attention to the worries of the Portuguese, to the masses struggle, to the problems more felt by the workers and the population.

To those who, for some reason, withdrew, but who again show their solidarity and wish to give their contribution, to all of them we say, with modesty, that we need their help and their militancy.

A particularly attention should be paid to the work with youth, to their aspirations, and claims and to the recruitment of youngsters and young workers renewing and rejuvenating the Party.

The PCP is, due to its popular roots, its proposals, its practice, its influence, its dynamic and strength, the big left-wing Party that, without ambiguities or mystification’s, raises the values of April and of the left-wing.

And, today, when celebrating the 76th Anniversary deeply engaged in the current struggle, we still are actively decided to respect, today and tomorrow, that big commitment to the cause of social progress, freedom, democracy and socialism, that are the strongest, the most remarkable and lasting guidelines of history, during this 76 years of life and struggle of the Portuguese Communist Party.

Long live to the people from Lisbon!
Long live Portugal!
Long live the Portuguese Communist Party!