THE 20th Congress of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) was held in Almada in the outskirts of Lisbon from December 1 to 4. I attended the Congress on behalf of the CPI(M).  Almada is a municipality just across the river Tagus from Lisbon.  It has had a Communist mayor ever since local body elections were held in Portugal from the early 1980s.  In an arch in the south of Lisbon, there are nine such municipalities which are Communist-run. 

The Congress was attended by 1,154 delegates.  The Congress had the participation of delegations from 62 parties and national liberation movements from countries of Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia.

The PCP is one of the few parties in Europe with a mass base, particularly among the working class.  It is a party with a glorious history of fighting the Salazar fascist regime.  The party worked underground against the dictatorship for the entire period of 48 years from 1926 to 1974.  It has this heroic struggle and the leadership provided by Alvaro Cunhal which made the PCP a force rooted in Portuguese society. 

On April 25, 1974, there was a popular revolution which ended the fascist regime.  The PCP played a leading role in this uprising.  The April revolution led to the adoption of a new constitution which ensured social rights for citizens and paved the way for nationalisation of certain sectors of the economy.

However, three decades of neo-liberal policies and Portugal’s integration into the European Union and joining the common currency Euro has resulted in the steady erosion of the social gains made in 1974.

Portugal – like the other countries of southern Europe, Spain, Italy and Greece – has suffered the most from the  integration with the European Union and subsequently the 2008 financial crisis.

The `Theses – Political Resolution’ adopted at the Congress spells out the EU-Euro as a tool of big business and the space for  domination of big monopolies and European transnationals.  The current crisis in the EU is part of the overall structural crisis of world capitalism.  In Portugal, the four and a half years of the rightwing coalition government comprising the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the CDS-PP went about implementing the dictates of the Troika comprising the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund and imposed severe austerity measures. This was a period marked by a vicious attack on the rights of the workers and the people by policies of concentration of wealth and increase in exploitation, growth in social inequalities and impoverishment.  This period is marked by the privatisation of various national and public sector enterprises and accompanied by privatisation and advance of private capital and health care, education, public security and other services.

The period saw the growth of public and foreign debt which is over 131 per cent of GDP.  Payment of interest on this debt is 8.5 billion euros which is more than the spending on education and health care.

The austerity measures have hit hard the wages, pensions and incomes of the working people.  Portugal has an unsustainable level of unemployment with over 1.4 million long term unemployed.  Half a million Portuguese, mostly young people, were forced to emigrate. 

It is the savage attack on the livelihood and living standards of the Portuguese people that has led the PCP to come out firmly against the domination of the European Union over Portugal. As the general secretary Jeronimo de Sousa stated in his inaugural speech: “Recent experience shows that the European Union is a political and ideological matrix that cannot be democratised, humanised or re-founded. It is its class nature – capitalist – that determines its policies and options.”

The PCP, unlike some of the Communist and Left parties in Europe, is categorical in its opposition to Portugal being subordinated under the EU framework.  It has set out its first step as coming out of the Euro currency. 

The PCP is distinguished by its Marxist-Leninist outlook and internationalism.  The `Theses’ makes a clear-sighted analysis of the role imperialism is playing in the present international context.  The `Theses’ states that: “Imperialism, and in particular US imperialism, uses various forms and means – political, diplomatic, economic, financial, monetary, military and ideological – in an attempt to counteract its relative economic decline and to impose its hegemony across the world.”

“The wars of aggression in the Middle East; the destabilisation in Latin America; the processes aimed at destabilising and re-colonising Africa; NATO’s push into Eastern Europe targeting the Russian Federation; or the growing militarisation of Asia and the Pacific targeting China are examples of imperialism’s escalating confrontation.”

The Portuguese Communist Party is firm in its view that socialism is the only alternative to capitalism. It has delineated the struggle for socialism in the following words: “The path to socialism and the basic features of socialist society in Portugal are inseparable of the peculiarities that mark its history, social reality and the international context of our country.  Considering the rich experience of international communist movement, and seeking to learn from the historical experiences of construction of socialism, it is from the Portuguese reality and experience of the Portuguese Communists, that the PCP elaborated project of a socialist and communist society for Portugal, whose fundamental lines are systematized in its programme `An advanced Democracy – the values of April in Portugal’s future’.”

A new political situation obtained in Portugal after the parliament election in October 2015.  The rightwing coalition government was soundly defeated.  The opposition parties, which fought separately, got a majority of the seats.  They consist of the PS (Socialist Party), the CDU (alliance of PCP and the Ecologist Party) and the Left Bloc.  The PCP and the Left Bloc decided to extend cooperation to the PS in order to ensure that the right coalition does not come back to power.  The PCP and the PS had a bilateral agreement; the joint statement consisted of a part in which the agreed positions were set out and another part where the divergent stands were stated.  The PS formed the government based on its common programme.  The PCP has maintained its independent position and declared that it will intensify the struggles of the workers and other sections of the people to roll back the austerity measures and the cuts in social expenditure effected by the previous government.

The 20th Congress affirmed this approach. It noted that in the past one year of the PS government, there have been some gains – restoration of wage and the 35-hour week for government employees; restoration of the four holidays scrapped; reversal of the privatisation processes of public transport companies; increase in the national minimum wage; increase in the family allowance; cuts in the health care user fees and so on. 

These gains were the result of the struggle of the workers and the people.  The discussion by the delegates on the draft political resolution brought out the struggles launched at the factory level by the workers under the leadership of the trade union confederation, the CGTP-IN.  There were various struggles led by the organisation of farmers, students, women, youth and pensioners. The PCP Congress reiterated that these struggles have to be continued and enhanced.  The Congress affirmed that it would step up efforts for achieving a rupture from the rightwing policies and work towards a patriotic and Left wing alternative. 

The PCP accords high priority to ideological work in the current situation in Europe where it is necessary to counter the exploitative, aggressive and predatory nature of capitalism with the socialist alternative; it actively campaigns against reactionary and fascist ideology and against racism and xenophobia.  The PCP’s consistent role in championing a progressive anti-imperialist nationalism and the values of the April revolution has contributed to the absence of a far-right, neo-fascist force developing in Portugal.

The Congress, in a motion adopted, reaffirmed the PCP’s programmatic goal of building an “advanced democracy” which will be in historical continuity of the April revolution and will be the basis for the socialist project in Portugal. 

The Congress discussed the ways to strengthen the PCP organisation which can pave the way to rally all the forces for a patriotic and Left alternative.  Such an organisation has to be built on Marxist-Leninist principles.

The Congress adopted measures for strengthening the party organisation and increasing its membership and influence. At present, the membership of the PCP is 54,289.  In terms of class composition, 71 per cent of the membership comprises industrial and service workers; 31 per cent of the Party members are women and 15 per cent are below 40 years of age.

The Congress has stressed the importance of the regular activities of the Party units in the workplaces and residential areas for maintaining live links with the masses.  The PCP is a party which sets out a platform in defence of national sovereignty and the interests of the Portuguese people. At the same time, the PCP has a consistent anti-imperialist and internationalist vision.  Therefore, it calls itself a patriotic and internationalist party.

The party Congress concluded with the election of a new Central Committee, the Political Bureau and the Secretariat of the Central Committee.  Jeronimo de Sousa was re-elected as the general secretary.

The entire Congress was suffused with a spirit of unity and militant solidarity. The PCP is well placed to carry forward the struggle for a patriotic and Leftwing alternative.