At a time when we celebrate and hold the 40th “Avante!» Festival, to all of you – builders and participants – our fraternal greetings and a demonstration of our joy for your presence.

All of us make this Festival. But this immense participation of youth, many of who feel free and emancipated during the construction of the Festival, in the diversified moments of participation, and here in the Festival rally, leads to one conclusion: the Festival would already be worth it for this single reason. Long live the Portuguese Communist Youth (JCP), long live the youth! A salutation that includes our whole party collective, our Portuguese Communist Party!

And because we also celebrate the 40th anniversary of our Constitution that enshrined and projected the values of April, the «Avante!» Festival is what it is because in Portugal there was a liberating revolution, we therefore also celebrate the Constitution of April, fighting for its defense and fulfillment.
This year the Festival is larger, it extended to the Quinta do Cabo which today is ours, it is the Festival’s! The campaign for its acquisition was a success. From here we salute all the militants and thank the many thousands of democrats who, with their support, made possible this important enrichment of our Festival!

A salutation we warmly extend to the several dozens of foreign delegations who are sharing these three days with us. Your presence confirms the ties of friendship and solidarity that unite us and that we want to reinforce in the common interest of our countries and peoples.

You may be certain that PCP, patriotic and internationalist party, will do all within its reach to strengthen the common action of communists and forces of social progress and peace in the world, to face with confidence the dangerous and concerning evolution of the international situation.

Life has confirmed the analyses of PCP on the evolution of the capitalist system and the deepening of the structural crisis. A global crisis inseparable from the unprecedented centralization and concentration of capital and wealth, an increasing financialization of the economy and domination by financial and speculative capital, which is accompanied in the social sphere by an brutal intensification of the exploitation of workers, attacks upon social rights and fundamental freedoms, and upon the sovereignty of States.

Imperialism does not have solutions for the problems of the modern world and is incapable of surpassing the contradictions of the system. On the contrary, its action deepens all problems and everywhere it faces the resistance and struggle of the workers and peoples.

In an increasingly intense battle, big capital and imperialism opt for an aggressive offensive that extends onto practically all continents aiming to appropriate raw materials, dominate markets, open the field to multinationals and destabilize countries who affirm their sovereignty. War appears increasingly as the response of imperialism, namely US imperialism, to the crisis of its system of exploitation and oppression. The arms race, the reinforcement and enlargement of NATO, the chaos provoked in the Middle East and North Africa, the militarism of the European Union and Japan, the installation of US missile systems along the borders of the Russian Federation and China, all alert towards the dangers faced by Humanity. And we see the consequences: the dramatic trail of death, the destruction of entire countries and the millions of refugees, realities that demand the reinforcement of the struggle for disarmament and peace.

There is an alternative! It resides in the struggle of the many million who throughout this world fight with bravery and determination in the hard battles of the increasingly acute class struggle. A struggle that demonstrates that despite the many dangers, there is a direction, strength, will and reason to have confidence in the future of the World in which we live.

And that is why, from this tribune, we want to not only reaffirm our persistent determination in pursuing the struggle, but also salute those who under the most diverse conditions open avenues of hope for a more just, more fraternal world of peace. We salute all those who, as we do, pursue in Europe a struggle against the European Union, for another Europe of workers and peoples. We salute the peoples of Africa who pursue the fight for their right to development and against the growing encroachment of imperialism. We salute the peoples of Asia, confronted with the many dangers and conflicts fostered by imperialism. We salute the peoples of the Middle East, victims of untold crimes of imperialism, and in particular the people of Syria, who resist aggression, and the heroic people of Palestine. We also salute the peoples of Latin America who have given so much to the anti-imperialist struggle and that now need all our solidarity to face the maneuvers of imperialism and reaction. To all of them we say – present! – and, in particular, to the peoples of Brazil, Venezuela and Cuba!

Here we are, communists, Portuguese, in this struggle, every day, fighting side by side with the workers and people for their rights, incomes and dignity, and in defense of the interests of our country. A struggle that is developed and faces the ideological campaigns of those who, in order to maintain their exploitative domination, attempt to discredit the organized struggle and spread the idea that there is not alternative to the capitalist system.
But they are wrong!

The struggle for the great objective of communists – Socialism – is increasingly relevant, that historic achievement inaugurated for the first time in the History of Humanity with the October Revolution whose hundred year anniversary we will commemorate next year!

In Portugal, we live a political situation that is very different from that which existed a year ago when we held our “Avante!» Festival.

At that time, workers and the great majority of our people were the target of a violent offensive conducted systematically, during four years, by the PSD/CDS government against their rights, incomes and living conditions, and we were confronted with the perspective of the continuation of that offensive.
Today, with the removal of PSD and CDS from government, as a result of the decisive and opportune political initiative by PCP, giving expression to the popular vote on October 4th, and the broad and vigorous struggle of the Portuguese workers and people for this objective, we have a new phase of the domestic political life and, with it, better conditions to continue the struggle in defense of the interests of the workers, people and Country.

The political solution that was reached does not replace the clearly needed response to the many and serious problems created by years and years of right-wing policies, worsened by the Growth and Stability Pacts and the Pact of Aggression, for which PSD, PS and CDS are responsible, but has allowed an immediate halt and inversion of an ongoing brutal offensive and an answer, albeit limited, to the pressing problems of workers and people.
It is not, therefore, a solution that gives answer to the indispensable objective of rupture with the right-wing policies and leads towards the patriotic and left-wing policy we aspire, the Country requires and the seriousness of the national reality demands.

This reality whose seriousness is inescapable!

An unsustainable public debt; accentuated economic decline and regression, returning to the levels of the beginning of the century, as a result of consecutive years of no growth and a destructive recession; deep weakening of our economy; reduction of investment to paralyzing levels; aggravated deficits, among which the productive and technological; growing destruction and departure abroad of capital; loss of the national control over strategic sectors, areas and companies and degradation of the financial system.

A deeply degraded social reality, with levels of unsustainable unemployment, but also precariousness, emigration and poverty; a situation marked by the intensification of the exploitation of work, as is evident in the accentuated general devaluation of wages and pensions, but also in the incomes and rights of other sectors of the population; social and territorial inequalities; impoverishment and restrictions upon the access to essential public services (health, education, social security); cultural and environmental regression, and in the right and access to justice.

A concerning impoverishment of the democratic regime, worsened by the process of reconfiguration of the State in the service of monopolist capital, with cases and more cases of corruption and promiscuity between private businesses and public activities, and which are the result of unmistakable ties and practices of subordination of political power to the national and international economic power.

The consequences of the right-wing policies in the service of monopolistic capital, of the privatizations, of economic, labor and social liberalization and deregulation, particularly those undertaken in the last years of the PSD/CDS government and the Pact of Aggression that seriously weakened the country, have not disappeared with the defeat of the previous government and now demand a herculean effort of recuperation and a policy adjusted to that hard and difficult task.

It is today evident that the trail of economic decline with the destruction of the Country’s productive forces and abilities and, among other aspects, the abandonment of a policy of public investment will condition national life in the next few years, as well as the perspectives for its development.
The tragic forest fires this summer are a good example of the years of neglect and a policy of disinvestment, disaster and abandonment of productive sectors, the absence of a policy to develop agriculture and forest planning, of destruction of family farming, of abandonment of the development of the rural world and the interior of the Country.

Once again we manifest the solidarity of PCP with the affected populations and our appreciation for the tireless work of our firemen, and reaffirm that PCP will not tire of taking the necessary initiatives to ensure, along with immediate help to affected populations, the demand for another agricultural policy and a policy of defense of the Portuguese forest.

In these initial times of the new stage of the national political life, with a new correlation of forces in Parliament, the political solution reached and the commitments to invert direction, despite hardships and contradictions dictated by the diverse programmatic differences, and with the decisive contribution of PCP, has made possible the restoration of rights and incomes and an answer to some of the most urgent problems.

All together the list of positive measures is vast, and includes: the reposition of wages and the 35 hour week for the Public Administration, following a prolonged process of struggle developed throughout 34 months; the elimination of the IRS surtax; the restoration of stolen holidays; the reversion of the process of privatization of public transportation companies; the increase in the national minimum wage; the increase in family allowance and complement for the elderly; the reduction of the health co-payments; the introduction of gratuity of school books; the end of the 4th and 6th grade exams; the extraordinary support to the unemployed; the reduction of the restaurant VAT.

We know we are far from what is necessary, other measures are necessary to improve the living conditions of the workers and people, and we will not give up on achieving them!

But what these months of national political life have revealed is the systematic hostility and the strong resistance of the forces of national and transnational big capital and their internal and external allies to the present political solution and their opposition and resistance to all and any measure that might revert the pillage they promoted upon the incomes and rights of workers and the people over the last years. An action aiming to create the conditions to invert the current situation and restart the offensive!

The evolution of new stage of national political life, of consolidation and deepening of the path of returning rights and incomes, and the solution to the national problems is confronted with two threats that are intimately articulated with the need to surpass a lingering dangerous illusion.
Two threats – that which results from the insidious action of the revanchist parties, PSD and CDS, committed as they are to destabilizing the Country at all cost, thinking about their rapid return to power; and the threat that is developed from the European Union with the same objective of imploding any solution that questions the orientation of the dominant policy.

And the illusion, as dangerous as the threats, that is possible to advance decidedly towards the solution of the fundamental problems of the Country with mere adjustments to the model imposed by the process of capitalist integration of the European Union and without casting the shackles of the policy that led to the crisis and ruin.

The options of PS and its assumed attitude of not breaking with external commitments – be they the impositions of the European Union, the submission to the Euro or the renegotiation of the debt; be they not breaking with the interests of monopolist capital – are a serious impediment to an answer to the Country’s problems. But also a way of favoring the forces that want to impose a return to the past and continue taking the Country along the path of crisis and decline.

Threats from within the Country, well visible, in all the action of intervention of PSD and CDS and the big interests they represent and with whom they articulate, who since the first hour have developed a campaign associating the restoration of rights and incomes with tragedies and eminent catastrophes. What they want is the return to a policy of exploitation and impoverishment.

Watch them amplify lies and maneuvers against the national interest, the inevitability of a «Plan B» of a return to pillaging the people, the Germanic operation of a new bailout, of biased and objectively destabilizing interpretations by the European Union, the IMF, the ECB and their associated in the European Popular Party about the Portuguese reality.

Yes, they want to return to the path of exploitation and ruin that was halted. Towards achieving this objective they count on the support and collusion of the European Union.

If there were any doubts, the last few months have demonstrated that the action of the European Union has that central objective.

An action which comes as no surprise. If there was a Party who knew what the European Union and the Euro represented, that Party is PCP. For years and years we have alerted to the consequences of Portugal joining the EEC/European Union and the Euro, and what they represented. A Country subjected to a number of rules, impositions and external encroachment that have nothing to do with the aspiration of our people and the interests of our Country.
As we have always stated, it is the interests of big capital and the main European capitalist powers that are behind the creation of the European Union and the Euro and that today dictate its evolution.

Today the irremediable contradiction between a Country’s right to development and the impositions of the European Union are clearer to more Portuguese. Today it is more evident that the future of the Country, the improvement of the living conditions of our people and national sovereignty demands courageously facing these impositions and fighting to free Portugal from the shackles of the Euro, the Economic and Monetary Union and the policies of the European Union.

A struggle that is simultaneously a contribution towards the liberation of the peoples of Europe from a process of integration that is pushing the continent towards civilizational recession, towards an unsustainable situation full of dangers, a process that creates crises and is corroded by increasingly deeper contradictions. It is symptomatic that today, and in particular after the UK referendum, there is a evident and growing exhaustion of the process of integration and a serious jolt in its construction is dealt.

The future of Portugal demands a break with the impositions and blackmails that aim to perpetuate the submission, exploitation, indebtedness and impoverishment. That is the objective of the sanctions with which they threated Portugal.

Sanctions that were not, as some hastened to conclude, shunned or defeated. There are present, now concentrated in the pressures and blackmail surrounding the 2017 State Budget in order to attempt to squelch the hope that it is possible to own our destiny, and decide with sovereignty about the social progress of our people and the development of our Country.

That is exactly why the Government has to reject this wasteful plan! We are asked about our position regarding next year’s Budget proposal, which will be public soon.

Our decision will always be determined by its content. Our commitment is to examine the draft, and we are open to propose and find solutions to pursue a line of handing back and replacement of rights, respect for wages, pension increases, but also to address the problems of growth, employment and development.

We know that a new and shameless revanchist campaign is underway. PSD and CDS plot and distort to confuse the Portuguese. They lie about the political solution and the current political framework.
That is why it is important to reaffirm:

The current political framework has resulted not in the constitution of a government of the left, but in the constitution and coming into office of a minority PS government with its own programme.

It resulted not due to the existence of a left-wing majority in the Assembly of the Republic, but the existence of a relationship of forces whereby PSD and CDS-PP are in the minority, and at the same time, the parliamentary groups of the PCP and PEV condition decisions and are crucial and indispensable for the restoration and achievement of rights and incomes.

It resulted not in a situation whereby the PCP is a supporting force of the Government by way of any parliamentary agreement, but a situation in which it contributed for the government to begin its duties and develop its action. The PCP retains full political freedom and independence, acting on the basis of serving the interests of the workers, the people and the country.

A political solution assumed in the fullness of its independence and identity, reaffirming its Programme and project, setting as objectives of its intervention the materialisation of a rupture with the right-wing policy and a patriotic and left-wing policy.

A solution where there is a commitment to restore dispossessed rights and incomes and to address the pressing problems of the workers, the people and the country and reverse the path of economic and social disaster that was being imposed.
That is the commitment that has to be fulfilled!
Give new and firmer steps forward in improving the lives of the Portuguese!

Warding off threats, but also to overcome the illusions, being an imperative of the present, requires the contribution and the combination of a number of key factors. First and foremost, the involvement of the workers and the people, and the strength of their struggle have to grow and broaden. It was the struggle that brought us here. A struggle of years, a struggle that developed after the October 4 elections, which marked with great impact the fall and dismissal of the PSD/CDS government last November.

A struggle that continued - developed by workers from various sectors of Public Administration, nurses and other healthcare workers, forest rangers, local government and municipal companies, from Inatel, Santa Casa da Misericordia, EGF, Amarsul and Valorlis, workers from Carris, Metro, port and airport workers, from the textile sector, canteens, hospital laundries, hospitality, Dan Cake, Unicer and Panrico, Sonae and Pingo Doce, Petrogal, ALSTOM, Caetano Bus , Autoeuropa Park, EDP call centres, Soares da Costa, OGMA, taxi drivers. Struggle of the working youth, secondary school and higher education students, farmers, milk and meat producers, and pensioners and retired. Struggle in defence of public services, Public School and the National Health Service, the right to mobility.

To all the workers, populations in struggle, we express our solidarity. Nothing was offered, it was won, it has been and will continue to be so!
The fight, this will continue and will continue to defend the replacement and conquest of rights!
The resistance and struggle of the workers is inseparable from their united class organisations, the CGTP-IN, their great trade union central that we salute from here. Unity, struggle and organisation are, yesterday as today, the road to victory!

The struggle of the workers and their organisations is a determining factor for the positive development of the new phase and the construction of a different course for the country. But it also needs the convergence and common action of democratic and patriotic sectors and personalities, committed in the combat against the right-wing policy, to ensure the country's future.

Changing the current correlation of political forces in Portuguese society, giving more weight and more power to the PCP is another necessary and indispensable condition for further progress. Life is showing that the solution of national problems has in the PCP, in its strengthening, in the broadening of its influence, an essential factor in creating the conditions to materialise the patriotic and left-wing policy that the country needs.

Hence, we say to the Portuguese who aspire to take the country forward, telling them: support the PCP! Give strength to the PCP and the results will appear!

More power and more support to the PCP that the more they are, the more guaranteed is that the life of the Portuguese will not turn back!
More support for the PCP which will mean more power to solve national problems!

More power, to further the implementation of the necessary solutions to ensure employment, rights, production, development, sovereignty!
The country needs to make great and urgent choices to ensure the interests of the Portuguese people and national independence.
The choice between continuing the protracted path that has led us to impoverishment or to begin a new course with a different policy, in rupture with the right-wing policy and of submission to the European Union and to the Euro.

Portugal needs a patriotic and left-wing policy able to address the fundamental problems, such as the weak economic growth, unemployment and low levels of investment, and to ensure decent living conditions for the Portuguese.

It needs a policy that assumes the recovery of monetary sovereignty, which assumes as a pressing need the renegotiation of the debt to free resources and to solve the serious problem of the monopolistic domination by the banks.

Yes, the submission to the Euro, the colossal debt, monopolist domination by banks, are three of the main mechanisms of national dependence on big financial capital, on large European economic groups and which condemn us to subjugation and political garrotte.

The recuperation of monetary sovereignty is a structural need of the country.

Portugal needs its own currency, issuing central bank and adjusted monetary, financial, foreign exchange and budgetary management, and at the service of the country.

It needs renegotiation of the public debt, in its terms, interest and amounts, which substantially cuts down the amount of annual costs and the foreign debt, release funds for investment and social functions of the State, and stop the drain of resources to the exterior. Portugal cannot annually pay interest of more than 8.5 thousand million euros, a colossal and suffocating sum.

It needs to ensure another pressing need - public control of banking, reversing the current process of quick alienation and concentration of its banking business in mega European banks, increasingly present with the gigantic operation they call Banking Union. A process that confirms that the banks if they are not public they are not national!

But we know it is essential to go further.

In the coming months, as part of its political action, be it in the next State Budget, or its broader political intervention inside and outside the Assembly of the Republic, we will continue to strive for objectives that we consider necessary and indispensable for the country.

And therefore, you count on the commitment of the PCP in the struggle against labour precariousness and all forms of exploitation in the public sector or in the private sector, the repeal of the grievous provisions of labour legislation, the defence and valorisation of collective bargaining, the unfreezing of careers in Public Administration, the demand for wage increases, including raising the minimum wage to 600€, starting from the beginning of next year.
You can count on the PCP in the struggle for a real increase in pensions and retirement pay as we proposed in the 2016 State Budget, with a minimum increase of not less than 10€ per month.

You can count on the PCP in the struggle to increase the number of doctors, nurses and administrative staff in the National Health Service, meeting the crying needs in this sector that the previous government almost destroyed, and also cut down and end user fees.

You can count on the PCP to continue the introduction of free school textbooks in the Public School system, starting next year in the 1st cycle of primary education, as well as the essential path of reducing the number of students per class, in hiring and placement of teachers as fixed staff.
You can count on the PCP in the struggle for more and better Social Security, in particular by improving social payments, unfreezing the so-called Indexation of Social Support and extending the amounts and conditions of access to the benefits granted in situations of unemployment, sickness, poverty, childhood, including child bonuses.

You can count on the PCP in the struggle against the injustice in the tax system. Fighting the privileges of economic groups, taxing movable assets and easing taxes on workers and the people.

You can count on the PCP in the struggle to defend national production. A policy that decisively promotes and strengthens public investment guided towards growth and employment, with policies that protect agriculture, fisheries and industry. We must ensure access to credit and public support to thousands of micro, small and medium-size enterprises.

You can count on the PCP, in the struggle against the privatisation of Novo Banco and to defend the Caixa Geral de Depósitos as a public bank. Strengthening its intervention and structure, serving the population and the national economy, respecting the workers and their rights.
You can count on the PCP to defend the Portuguese language and culture, to strengthen support for artistic and cultural activity, to dignify public radio and television service, to promote thousands of structures, companies, formal and informal groups that make up and develop the culture of a people.
Yes, to ward off the dangers requires convergent action of the struggle of the workers and the people, the determination of democrats and patriots, the strengthening of the PCP and, not least, a policy that effectively ensures the resolution of the country's problems!

PCP is a necessary and irreplaceable force to defend the interests of the workers, the people and the country, and to build a patriotic and left-wing alternative.

We have an intervention that stands out and makes a difference in all the institutions in which we are present. In the European Parliament in defence of national interests and cooperation among peoples. In the Assembly of the Republic with vast intervention fighting what is negative, without leaving out any possibility of improving living conditions, by taking the initiative, affirming the alternative. In the Regional Legislative Assemblies of the Azores and Madeira intervening to defend the interests of the populations and the development of the Autonomous Regions. In Local Government pursuing the intervention and remarkable work of the CDU.

We have important electoral battles ahead. When we return here next year we will be fully immersed in the election campaign for Local Government. We are in a position to turn those elections into a moment to build a result that confirms CDU as the great and main left-wing force in Local Government. In a position to contribute to the outcome of the CDU to defend, affirm and valorise a Democratic Local Government. And especially in a position, with the reinforcement of CDU, to meet the growing support and recognition of the people regarding the activity and finished work, and the path of work, honesty and competence that they see in us.

We will run in these elections standing all over the country within the framework of CDU and its distinctive project. In 2017 we will once again affirm CDU as a proven force of project, as a solution and alternative proposal to the administration of PS, PSD and CDS. Until then we have a lot of work ahead. To fully respond to local problems and aspirations, to enforce the rights of the people, to give greater expression to democratic participation. And also, by increasing CDU’s expression and influence, to give more strength to the struggle for an alternative policy to serve the workers, the people and the country.
We are already at an advanced stage in the important electoral battle on October 16, in the Azores. To our comrades in the Autonomous Region of the Azores a word of support and solidarity of the whole Party with the confidence that strengthening the CDU will be an important contribution, also in the region, to uphold the rights and interests of the workers and the people.

We have carried out an unparalleled intervention to dynamize the struggle in the defence, restoration and achievement of the rights of the workers and the people.

We will continue and intensify the campaign "More rights, more future. No to precariousness". We held a wide range of initiatives and legislative proposals, in a combat that we will increase against this social scourge. We will not yield, this combat must be won!

We have a unique intervention in the great political struggles regarding development and sovereignty of the country, in defence of reindustrialisation, agriculture and national fisheries, to end the submission to the European Union and the Euro!

And we will proceed with the strong intervention that the situation demands. We will start this September a great national action on employment, rights, production and sovereignty, for the patriotic and left-wing alternative. With contacts, explanation, mobilisation of the workers and the people, to speak and to listen. With activities in the streets, in the companies, in public places, holding initiatives on important matters such as combating precariousness, labour legislation, wages, pensions and Social Security, the National Health Service, support children and parents, for a balanced development, housing, fiscal policy.

It lies in the hands of the workers and the Portuguese people to open the way and materialise a Portugal we have right to. The PCP is here is to assume all its responsibilities as a force that carries a political alternative, as an aggregating force of democrats and patriots, a driving force of information and struggle, a force of action, hope and confidence.

We are a Party that resists and advances, a Party which the workers, the people and the country need to be increasingly stronger.

More power to the PCP, intervening, taking into practice the action "More organisation, more intervention, more influence - a stronger PCP", moving forward in leadership, executing regular tasks, bringing new members, in the intervention and organisation in company and workplace cells, in the activities of local organisations, working with specific social groups, in connection with the workers and populations, in the propaganda and dissemination of party press, in particular the "Avante!", in the financial independence of the Party.

A stronger Party and with more force, with the essential traits that define it - its nature of a party of the working class and of all workers, its goal of building a new society, socialism and communism, its theoretical base of Marxism-Leninism, its working principles arising from the creative development of democratic centralism, with a deep internal democracy, a single central leadership and a single general guideline, and its characteristic of a patriotic and internationalist party.

From the rostrum of this rally we reaffirm the commitment of the PCP and make a strong appeal to all democrats and patriots, to the workers and the Portuguese people to mobilise in a great national affirmation of resistance to blackmail and submission, for social and national liberation, for a patriotic and left-wing policy, for a developed and sovereign Portugal. As our history of almost 900 years shows and recent developments prove, they can proclaim inevitabilities and impossibilities, may create hurdles may even slow the way, but nothing or anyone can prevent the people from deciding their future. We are a force that is based on an ideal, on a project, on conviction, in militancy as a freely assumed duty, embodying service to the people, as an instrument of unbeatable action, of which we are individually and collectively proud. This is what we are, a great militant collective, we are many and we will be more.
The Portuguese Communist Party is this great collective that acts, that decides, that reflects, always with the individual contribution in a democratic process without parallel. It is, and being so, and will be in preparation for the XX Congress, that we will hold on December 2, 3 and 4, in Almada, under the motto "PCP - with the workers and the people, democracy and socialism."

We are three months away from the Congress. A Congress to analyse and answer the problems of the workers, the people and the country, to brave the roads of Portugal with a future and pointing the horizon of a new society. We will enter the final stage which needs further participation and involvement of the whole Party!

A Congress held at the present time, which will honour the heroic history of our Party and assert its identity, the validity and timeliness of its Programme, its liberating project.

We strive for concrete and immediate objectives, to defend, restore and conquer rights, for a rupture with the right-wing policy, for a patriotic and left-wing policy. We struggle for an advanced democracy with the April values in the future of Portugal. We struggle always, every day, on all fronts, to build a society free from exploitation and oppression, for socialism and communism, always but always linked to the workers and the Portuguese people, their aspirations, with the confidence and determination which is based on the strength of hope, on the strength of the struggle, on the strength of the people.