We are here to celebrate the 94th. Anniversary of a Party with a unique history - the anniversary of the Portuguese Communist Party. The Party of anti-fascist resistance, of freedom and democracy. The Party of the April Revolution and its achievements.
The Party of the great causes and all struggles against exploitation, oppression and inequalities, always present in the lives of the workers, of our people, of our country, in times of resistance, transformation and advancement.
The Party of the working class and of all workers and legitimate continuator of the best traditions of struggle, the progressive and revolutionary achievements of the Portuguese people and which affirms itself as an inseparable part of the democratic and socialist future of Portugal.
The Party of endless devotion to the emancipating cause of the working class and workers, of our people. The party on whom the workers and the people can always count and under all circumstances. The Party that insists, always and always, on its deep connection to the workers and the people and aligns with their aspirations and demands.
The Party that was during all the times of its long life, and so continues today, a living, active and combative force that was able to pass from generation to generation the baton of dedication to the struggle and cause of the liberation of the workers and peoples, and renew itself in the demanding task of advancing the wheel of history, and hence it is, and will always be, the Party of the youth
A Party that does not forget, but keeps present the contribution of generations of Communists who preceded us. Women, men and youth of all walks of life, simple and anonymous people who made valuable contributions, and some even their own life, in a thousand fights we fought under various circumstances to serve our people, but also many who remain a reference in various fields of life of the country and where stands out the figure without parallel of Álvaro Cunhal.
Here we are celebrating 94 years of a Party that has of politics a noble and lofty view, based on the work, dedication and struggle to solve the problems of the workers, the people and the country.
A Party with important ethical and moral values, whose militants have given, and continue to give, unparalleled proofs, refusing and fighting favours and benefits.
We celebrate the coherent Party that we are. The party that does not yield to pressure and blackmail, learns with life and continues determined to assert its communist identity.
A Party that has helped to build a decent and better life. The Party whose militants in Local Government and other institutions, in the popular movement and at various levels, acted and act to solve the problems of the workers and populations, to materialise their aspirations.
The party that promotes participation and struggle. The Party that alerts, explains, mobilizes and unites, showing the huge fighting power to resist the attacks and social and civilizational setbacks, and to transform society.
The Party that, without hesitation, was against and denounced the illegitimate external intervention in the life of the country and fought it, and fights, united, determined and confident in the fight and the possibility of rupture and the victory of our people over the policy of exploitation, impoverishment and national ruin, over their promoters and executors, as it proved during the National Meeting of the PCP during the last weekend "No to national decline. Solutions for the country.” A Meeting that was concealed by the media in a deliberate operation of censorship and silencing.
Yes, there were about 2000 participants to discuss, to analyse and to point out the ways for an alternative policy and a political alternative!
Yes, they silenced the meeting, concealed it from the country because they know that here lies, in this Portuguese Communist Party which today celebrates 94 years of life, the great driving force for the real change that the country needs.
The Party that has proposals and solutions for the problems the country faces, as proved by our National Meeting. Proposals and solutions to free the country from foreign submission and from big monopoly capital and able to give expression to a patriotic and left-wing policy, identified with the aspirations of the workers and the Portuguese people for a better, more dignified and fairer life.
They will remain disappointed, those who, by concealing, silencing and omitting the solutions we have and defend for the country and aim to discourage and dishearten the fight we are waging for the statement and demand for an alternative policy and this necessary and irreplaceable force.
They will not dishearten us, but rather encourage us to give more strength to our firm determination to wage this fight!
There we have, on March 10, the National Action «The strength of the people, for a Portugal with a future, a patriotic and left-wing policy » in close articulation with the preparation of PCP’s election programme.
There we already have under development, beginning on March 12, the National Action «With the strength of the people, build solutions for the country». A large contact and explanation action targeted to assert the alternative policy that the PCP proposes!
There we have, already announced, the National March for national liberation and dignity, for a patriotic and left-wing policy, scheduled to be held on June 6 in Lisbon. An initiative that we want to be a strong demand for change and expressive demonstration of confidence in the workers, democrats, patriots, in our people in their struggle and that there is an alternative path to the policy of national decline that is being imposed on the country!
We are the Party that holds a project for the future. The Party that has solutions and alternative project, against capitalism, for an advanced democracy that we want to be political, economic, social and cultural, for socialism and communism, this thousand-year dream that no man should be exploited by another man.
The Party of internationalist solidarity, against imperialist aggression, of the struggle for peace and cooperation among peoples.
The Party that intervenes with unwavering confidence based on its history, on its project and on its strength, the Party that is worth belong to!
We celebrate the anniversary of our Party at a time when the country feels and rightly experiences mixed feelings. On the one hand, the deep concern and anxiety over the disastrous path of decline of our national life and, on the other, of hope and confidence as the important electoral battle for the Parliament draws near, that it is possible to put a stop to this path towards which the country is being driven.
Concern and anxiety expressed by the vast majority of Portuguese who see their country faced with a persistent economic decline, with continued social regression, continued deepening of the country's dependence, as a result of the transfer of major and decisive parcels of national sovereignty.
Concern and anxiety because never before were so clear the glaring consequences of consecutive years of right-wing policies by successive governments of the PS, PSD and CDS and almost three decades of capitalist integration in the European Union.
A policy that led to the continuous annihilation of the productive apparatus and the destruction of strategic sectors with the privatization policy that sank the country and led it into a prolonged economic stagnation, alternating with periods of recession, which has been going on for almost a decade and set the GDP at the level of fourteen years ago, destroyed hundreds of thousands of jobs, boosted the stifling external debt (public and private), making the country increasingly dependent, favouring the growing dominance of foreign capital over the Portuguese economy and the limitation of national sovereignty and independence.
A policy, that in social terms is responsible for the escalation of the exploitation of workers, the brutal levels of precariousness of labour relations, the degradation of public services essential to the welfare of the population, for the increase in social as well regional inequalities, which deserted a significant part of the country.
Years and years of a policy focused on the restoration and consolidation of monopoly capitalism that has weakened the country and made it increasingly weaker and saw further worsened its problems with successive programs of so-called "austerity", but in fact violent programs of plunder and exploitation of the working masses and widespread impoverishment of the people and the country.
Programs that began with the SGPs [Stability and Growth Pact] by the PS / Socrates government, continued with the Pact of Aggression promoted, negotiated and imposed on the country by the troika of the parties that led the country to the crisis - PS, PSD and CDS!
The severe scale of the problems that are now clearly present in Portuguese society, it should be said and not forgotten, being the result of recent enhancements of the right-wing policy imposed in the programmes of exploitation and impoverishment of the SGPs and the Pact of Aggression, cannot be divorced from the prolonged political action guided to promote a scandalous centralization and concentration of wealth in favour of a few, executed for years by the national troika.
No! It was not only the crisis of international capitalism the cause and evil of our problems, as the PS wants to make us believe today to cleanse itself from its continuous submission to monopolist restoration and its power, against April, its achievements and against the people's interests, which it is far from wanting to abandon. Or that the responsibility for the serious problems that the country faces is of just one party, as PSD and CDS want at all costs to sell to the Portuguese, to wash their hands from their responsibilities in the crisis, in handing the country into the hands of foreign interference and, once again, using the old trick of those who do the harm and play the victim, falsely portraying themselves as great saviours of the country!
They say it with the greatest cheekiness, even when the country learns, as just announced a few days ago, that Brussels placed Portugal under close supervision, or it would be better said, under house arrest and chained to the criteria of Budgetary Treaty and economic governance by the directorate that runs the European Union on behalf of the monopolies. This Treaty approved by the same parties of the troika that imposes only one way, one path, one political solution –which serves big economic and financial capital - and empties the powers of national parliaments, including budgetary powers.
A statement that is accompanied by new demands to undertake anti-social measures against the working world, new cuts in the already depleted public services, new demands to sink further the life of the Portuguese, that are not immediate, because they are waiting for the date of the next elections to pass!
The propaganda campaign that is already being mounted, with the government erected as the election committee of PSD and CDS, clearly shows they want and will try once again to mislead the Portuguese, as they did in the past, when they promised and swore to do the opposite of what they actually did when they found themselves in government.
A campaign that has a plan already drawn to once again catch the Portuguese in bad faith!
They want to push by force into the eyes of the Portuguese many and fat lies that the country is back to “normal” and that “it is turning around"!
It takes great nerve to mislead the country in bad faith with this campaign!
The problem is that, every day, shouting the reality of the facts, life denounces the fallacious construction of an unscrupulous government.
A government that should have been long dismissed, as we have also long defended, and that every day continues to add reasons for this demand. A government at odds with the Constitution that went unpunished by the scandal of the "golden visas". A government that the people question and clearly do not want.
A government whose Prime Minister no matter how he tries to explain the tax and contributory mess that involves him not only not does not explain, but, using a popular expression, 'buries' himself more and more. No matter how much he talks, the idea remains that there are two different weights and two different measures.
But what is this turn-around they claim the country is making, when the serious problem of the suffocating debt that binds us hand and foot, continues to grow, despite the highest ever tax increase in history on labour and selling off cheap of the country's assets?
They think they can fool the Portuguese with the operation of a "debt exchange" with an advanced payment to the IMF. A drop in the ocean of debt. An operation calculated and announced at this time not thinking of gains, but to create the illusion that we are paying the debt and solving this serious problem of the country.
No, we're not paying the debt. On the contrary, it is increasingly unsustainable!
What is this turn-around the country is making when more and more Portuguese are thrown into poverty? Today, there are already more than two million, seven hundred thousand Portuguese living below the poverty line. And now a social aid institution that covers the whole country showed concern over the continued growth during 2014, and in these first months of 2015, in the number of people to whom it provides aid!
Meanwhile, the role of public Social Security is emptied in response to adverse situations in unemployment, sickness, old age, childhood, extreme poverty, turning into torment the lives of hundreds of thousands of Portuguese.
It is a scandal to see poverty growing in such a way and the number of billionaires continuing to grow and become richer.
It is a scandal to see more and more Portuguese getting impoverished, while reading, for example, that EDP [Power Supplier] had a 1048 million profit, already with the 4% surcharge, in a time of crisis in which the Portuguese economy faces difficulties .Huge profits that the people pay with a further increase of 3% in electricity. This is the nature of monopolies!
What is this turn-around the country is making, without leaving this lazy anaemic growth of a few decimal points, despite favourable conditions for economic recovery, with the significant fall in oil prices, the depreciation of the euro and low interest rates, following the huge cumulative drop in GDP of 6.4% during these years of the Pact of Aggression?
Paulo Portas, with those airs that he likes to put on sometimes, of a "snake oil" vendor, repeats and repeats that Portugal is one of the fastest growing countries and that this is due to the reforms made by the government! He should be asked, after what has been said about Greece and exhaustedly repeated, that Portugal is not Greece - it is also why this country grows more than Portugal and the projections for the current year exceed ,by far and large, the expected growth for our country!
With his return to normality and expecting the predictions to confirm, which never happened, the national GDP will only reach 2011 levels in 2018! What a return and recovery!
What kind of return to normality is it when the IMF itself says the levels of unemployment will only return to the pre-crisis levels — 7.5% — in 2025, confirming what we have stated that unemployment has come to stay for many years in brutal and unacceptable levels if this policy of national disaster and ruin is maintained!
What return to normality and turn around is it when emigration doesn't cease to grow and has take from our country more than 400 thousand men, women and youth, many of the more well prepared and qualified to put in place a policy of development and recovery of the country!
A drama whose dimension is equivalent to, from one moment to another, in three years, a district like Coimbra becoming entirely empty, without a single person! A desert throughout!
What king of return to normality is it when thousands of Portuguese continue to have part of their wages confiscated for many years and their rights usurped? What recovery is it except turning back the living conditions of the people, with drastic decrease in labor and family incomes with the brutal degradation of wages, which in the last four years represented on average a fall of more than 18%!
Normality for this government of Passos and Portas are the hospital emergency rooms bursting, the scarcity of human resources and technical means, and a National Health Service increasingly strangled in its function of guaranteeing the right to the Portuguese to health!
Normality for this government is the chaos it provoked in schools with its policy of attack upon the public school, teachers and the other school professionals.
Normality there in the situation and hardships faced by the justice system and the obstacles created in access by the Portuguese.
Its in the political rot and democratic decay that this policy and this government, and the governments that preceded it, foster with practices of promiscuity between the economic and political power, translated in the circulation of officials between the great economic and financial groups and the State, and between it and the international financial centers and its supranational organizations.
Practices that foster the proliferation of huge economic and financial fraud, great tax evasion and fraud that is frequently manifest and persists with impunity!
No, the country is not turning around. What the government wants is to turn the Portuguese over and take their furious exploitation and destruction yet further! That is what Passos Coelho means when he says "we're only half-way there"!
Have no illusions, if this Passos and Portas governments persists, this troika policy without the troika, in the hands of PSD and CDS or by others that take its essence as their own, as PS, the Portuguese can only expect the worse!
The can only expect more attacks upon retirements and pensions, as they already made explicit but now silence! More attacks upon wages. More attacks upon social security, after the mask of electoral disguise falls away, as Paulo Portas has already announced. More attacks upon labor legislation promised by the Finance Minister to the european directorate, particularly to Germany who she worships. Continuing to sell the country for pennies.
If this government could continue, the Portuguese would see dramatically translated in their lives their hidden objectives and plans. Let no one doubt, after the elections and the votes counted, we would hear the argument they are already preparing and have indicated, that with the increase in the debt more and new sacrifices are necessary. The Portuguese need to put an end to a policy based in lies and the pillage of the people and country!
Today, more than any other moment, there is a urgent need for a rupture and achieving a policy that liberates the country, simultaneously from external submission and the domination of monopolist capital.
Thus the importance of struggle of the workers and our people aimed at denouncing this policy and this government and their definitive defeat.
It was the struggle until now that allowed the isolation of the government and that today allows us to face the future with confidence.
Tomorrow, throughout the country, workers, the retired, youth, women, the most diverse sectors of our country will be fighting all over the country in a day of struggle of CGTP-IN, and and in other events being planned, because the struggle will not stop!
We salute the struggles developed and we appeal to the participation in the planned actions, namely, the commemorations of April 25th and the great celebration of May 1st. It is by struggle and with the mass struggle that we can guarantee the recovery of living conditions and stolen workers rights and ensure the necessary turn around in national life that corresponds to the most heartfelt aspirations of development and progress of the Portuguese.
The legislative elections of this year constitute a moment of the highest importance. They are an opportunity to give expression and continuity to the struggle for the unpostponable rupture with right-wing policies.
A battle to which we need to converge, with the vote and support of CDU, the current of struggle against the policy that dragged the country into the present situation, to give coherent and consequential expression to the protest and resistance in defense of of rights.
But also a battle that will result in better conditions to build a political alternative and fight for an alternative policy, if there is greater electoral influence of CDU, and an greater number of elected Mps.
We have before us the construction of an electoral campaign based in a confidant mobilization, in directly clarifying issues, making the solutions for the country know, that overcomes resignation and conformity.
A campaign that fights new and old illusions, of those who merely aim to perpetuate the same policy that led us here and overshadow the true alternative.
Of those like PS, PSD and CDS who want to continue imposing upon the Country the instruments that drowned and drown Portugal and the life of the people, from the euro to the Budget Treaty, prolonging the same path and the same policy imposed by the Growth and Stability Pacts and the Pact of Aggression.
A campaign that lays bare the false exists, of those that talking of change, like PS, want to keep everything the same, either by their so-called intelligent reading or by flexibility of the instruments of domination of the european capitalist integration.
A campaign that affirms with confidence that another path and another policy is possible. That there are solutions and responses to the national problems. That there is an alternative to submission and dependency.
A policy directed towards the solution to the serious hurdles that are factors of regression and decay of the national situation: the brutal levels of public and foreign debt, the monetary integration in the euro and the financial domination of private banks. Three great constraints for which a patriotic and left-wing policy presents concrete solutions. Solutions that are not only fair, but workable and viable, and that entail, in summary, an integrated solution of renegotiating the debt, studying and preparing the Country to free itself from the submission of the euro, and recovering public control over the banking system placing it at the service of the Country and the Portuguese.
Solutions that are a fundamental contribution towards the recovery by Portugal of the essential instruments that ensure its economic, budgetary, exchange and monetary sovereignty.
Yes, there is an alternative policy, patriotic and left-wing, capable of responding the problems of the country and the aspirations of the workers and people.
A policy based upon: the promotion and valuing of national production and job creation; recovering public control over strategic sectors and companies, namely the financial sector; valuing wages, pensions and the incomes of workers and the people; defending public services and the social functions of the State, namely the rights to education, health and social protection; a fiscal policy that lighten the burden upon the incomes of workers and micro, small and medium companies, and heavily tax the incomes and property of big capital, its profits and financial speculation; the rejection of submission to the impositions of the Euro and European Union, recovering the Country's economic, budgetary and monetary sovereignty.
Building an alternative policy, patriotic and left-wing, is a national imperative.
It is towards achieving this alternative that PCP is genuinely committed.
The patriotic and left-wing policy that Portugal needs doesn't depend only on PCP, but it is not achievable without PCP-
Giving expression to this alternative policy is in the hands of the workers and people , with their support of PCP.
We are here affirming our readiness to assume all the responsibilities the people wants to attribute, in achieving and conduction a patriotic and left-wing policy.
Here is the party that, with all confidence and very justly, presents itself before the Portuguese people as the Party:
- of national sovereignty and independence, that affirms the right of the Portuguese people to decide their future;
- of democratic unity and convergence of those that want to intervene and contribute towards a rupture with the right-wing policy and are available for dialogue and action in a framework of mutual respect;
- that assumes and presents a track record of truth, honesty, work and competence, to which life has given and gives reason;
- the struggle against the right-wing policy, of intervention and fight in defense of the workers and people, present in all the moments when it was necessary to affirm rights, fight injustices and defend employment;
- of an alternative policy rooted in the values of April;
- of the only and true solution, never to be renounced, towards a patriotic and left-wing policy.
The tasks before PCP are great and demanding. This necessary and indispensable party to change the path of the Country. Necessary and indispensable Party that need be reinforced, because upon its reinforcement is dependent not only the guarantee of the defense of workers and the people's interests, but also the success of building in Portugal a political alternative and a policy at the service of the workers, people and Country.
In such a difficult moment in the life of our people, this reinforcement at all levels is vital to build a struggle on all fronts. In the united labor front and the development of the struggle and mass organizations and movements. In the intensification of the Party's political intervention aimed at defeating the government and the right-wing policy. In preparing and realizing the legislative elections. But likewise in the essential action of reinforcement of the Party's organization, achieving the aims of the XIXth Congress, expressed in the action "More organization, more intervention, more influence — a stronger PCP".
A reinforcement that means recruiting new militants, accomplishing the campaign "The values of April in the future of Portugal". The struggle needs more militants dedicated to the cause of the workers and people. Many have been those that have taken party of this restless combat we fight against exploitation, injustices and building a new society. Many more are necessary!
Reinforcement that translated in contacting members of the Party and elevating their militancy, handing the new card and updating information.
Reinforcement that demands an increase in the ability to lead, to give more strength to the mass struggle, to political intervention, structuring the organization and improving its work in several areas, giving priority to the organization and intervention of the Party with the working class and workers, in the companies and workplaces.
Reinforcement that demands the defense and affirmation of the financial independence of the Party. An added need given the decision we took to add the Quinta do Cabo to the Quinta da Atalaia, creating condition for a larger and better Festa do Avante!.
Allow me, in this moment of commemoration, to salute in particular the Portuguese women and remember, now that we will commemorate the centenary of the International Women's Day, on the 8th of March, the role of communist women and this Party in the decade long struggle for equality in the workplace, law and life, and declaring our support for their initiatives, action and struggle in the combat against inequalities, in defense of their dignity and causes, which are of us all!
We have a Party like no other, with a history, strength, values and project with no equal, that will act whatever the circumstances.
A Party with a notable intervention that reinforces in the bosom of the workers and people.
A Party that is firm in its ideal, that has not abandoned its principles, who bases its intervention and action in its ideology: marxism-leninism.
A Party that affirms and reaffirms it nature and communist identity in achievement of a patriotic and left-wing policy, the rupture with a right-wing policy, for an advanced democracy, for a new society, free from exploitation and oppression: socialism and communism.
In a time when the dominant power and ideology seek to break resistance and hope, increase exploitation and injustice, deny the people its inalienable to be the collective actor in the construction of a better future in its sovereign homeland, we affirm that yes, it is possible to be victorious and build a Portugal with a future!
