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History of the Portuguese Communist Party

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: General history

                                                Portuguese Communist Party

                                                      Politics of Portugal

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                                                      History of the Party
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                                                     Portuguese Communists

                                                                  Portugal
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                                                        Communist Movement
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   The History of the Portuguese Communist Party (Portuguese: Partido
   Comunista Português, pron. IPA: [pɐɾ.'ti.ðu ku.mu.'niʃ.tɐ puɾ.tu.'ɣeʃ]
   or PCP), spans a period of more than 85 years, since its foundation in
   1921 as the Portuguese section of the Communist International (
   Comintern) to the present. The Party is still an active force within
   Portuguese society.

   After its foundation, the party experienced little time as a legal
   party before it was forced underground after a military coup in 1926.
   After some years of internal reorganization, that adapted the PCP to
   its new clandestine condition and enlarged its base of support, the
   Party became a force in the opposition to the dictatorial regime led by
   António de Oliveira Salazar, despite being brutally suppressed several
   times during the 48 years of resistance and having spent several years
   with little connection with the Comintern and the World Communist
   Movement.

   After the end of the dictatorship, with the Carnation Revolution in
   1974, the party became a major political force within the new
   democratic regime, mainly among the working class. Despite being less
   influential since the fall of the Socialist bloc in eastern Europe, it
   still enjoys popularity in vast sectors of Portuguese society,
   particularly in the rural areas of the Alentejo and Ribatejo, and also
   in the heavily industrialized areas around Lisbon and Setúbal, where it
   holds the leadership of several municipalities.

Origins and Foundation of the Party

   At the end of World War I, in 1918, Portugal fell into a serious
   economic crisis, in part due to the Portuguese military intervention in
   the war. The military involvement led to an abrupt rise in inflation
   and unemployment. The Portuguese working classes responded to the
   deterioration in their living standards with a vast wave of strikes.
   Supported by an emerging Labour movement, the workers achieved some of
   their objectives, such as the historic victory of an eight-hour working
   day.

   In September of 1919, the working class movement founded the first
   Portuguese Labour Union Confederation, the General Confederation of
   Labour (CGT) that saw a steady increase to 100,000 members in few
   months. But the feeling of political powerlessness, due to the lack of
   a coherent political strategy among the Portuguese working class, plus
   the growing popularity of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917,
   led to the foundation of the Portuguese Maximalist Federation (FMP) in
   1919. The goal of FMP was to promote socialist and revolutionary ideas
   and to organize and develop the worker movement. The FMP started
   publishing the weekly Bandeira Vermelha (Red Flag) which became a
   popular newspaper among the Portuguese working classes.

   After some time members of the FMP started to feel the need for a
   "revolutionary vanguard" among Portuguese workers. After several
   meetings at various Labor Union offices, and with the aid of the
   Comintern, this desire culminated in the foundation of the Portuguese
   Communist Party as the Portuguese Section of the Communist
   International (Comintern), in March 6 of 1921. Soon after, the Party's
   first youth organization, the Communist Youths (Portuguese: Juventudes
   Comunistas) was created.

   Unlike virtually all other European Communist Parties, the PCP was not
   formed after a split of a Social Democratic or Socialist Party, but
   from the ranks of Anarcho-Syndicalism and revolutionary syndicalism.
   Both of these groups, at the time, were the most active factions of the
   Portuguese labor movement. The Party opened its first headquarters in
   the Arco do Marquês do Alegrete Street in Lisbon. In the same year,
   1921, it also opened the Communist Centers of Porto, Évora and Beja.
   Seven months after its creation, the first issue of O Comunista (The
   Communist), the first newspaper of the Party, was published.

   The first congress of the Party took place in Lisbon in November 1923,
   with Carlos Rates leading the Party. The theses of the congress had
   previously been published in O Comunista and discussed by all the local
   organizations. The congress was attended by about a hundred members of
   the Party and asserted its solidarity with Socialism in the Soviet
   Union and the need for a strong struggle for similar policies in
   Portugal; it also stated that a Fascist uprising in Portugal was a
   serious threat to the Party and to the country.

Outlawing of the Party and the clandestine struggle

From the 1926 military coup to the Reorganization of 40

   After the military coup of May 28, 1926, the Party was outlawed, and
   had to operate in secrecy. By coincidence, the coup was carried out on
   the eve of the second congress, forcing the suspension of the tasks. In
   1927 the Party's Main Office was closed. The Party was first
   reorganized in 1929 under Bento Gonçalves. Adapting the Party to its
   new illegal status, the reorganization created a net of clandestine
   cells to avoid a wave of detentions.

   The reorganization of 1929 made the Party more effective and
   influential, especially among the labour movement. However, with the
   rise of Salazar's dictatorial Estado Novo regime, in 1933, suppression
   of the party grew. The strikes and the creation of new labour unions
   were made illegal in September of 1933 with the existing unions being
   forced to adopt the new corporativist rules. This would greatly limit
   the Party's pull among the working classes. This, along with
   ideological struggles between marxist and anarcho-syndicalist factions
   and the conflicts with the Comintern, would lead to a new decline in
   the Party's action in the late 1930s. Meanwhile, in 1931, the first
   number of Avante! was published. Despite its illegal status, the
   newspaper would become the most important publication of the Party,
   being distributed among clandestine members. However, due to the
   constant assaults of the clandestine printing offices, the newspaper
   would not become widely available until the 1940s.

   Despite the growing repression against the communists, that included
   the obligation of all civil servant to sign an anticommunist statement,
   the Party still managed to influence riots and demonstrations. In 1934,
   following the closure of the free labour unions, several riots and
   strikes started, the most notable of them in Marinha Grande. There, in
   January 18, the workers, led by José Gregório, António Guerra and other
   Party members, controlled the entire town and only a massive
   intervention by the military would end the riot. In 1936, the Party's
   influence inside the navy led to a mutiny in several ships, 10 of them
   were killed and another 60 were sent to Tarrafal.

   Also in 1936, the Spanish Civil War began. Despite some appeals from
   the Communist Party of Spain and the Comintern for the members of the
   Party to enlist, the fragilized structure of the late 1930s never
   allowed it to send a reasonable force. Nonetheless, an estimated 1,000
   Portuguese fought against the Francoist forces, integrated the
   Republican ranks.

   In the late 1930s, many members were arrested, tortured, and executed.
   Many were sent to the Tarrafal concentration camp in the Cape Verde
   Islands. This included Bento Gonçalves, who died there. The vast wave
   of arrests in the previous years led to the announcement of the
   definitive end of the PCP by the government, which, along with a
   growing confidence in the German victory in World War II, led to the
   liberation of several communist prisoners from Tarrafal and other
   prisons in November of 1940, among them, Álvaro Cunhal, Militão Ribeiro
   and Júlio Fogaça. The release of important cadres, combined with the
   internal dissatisfaction about the decline of the Party influenced a
   major reorganization in 1940–41, named the Reorganization of 40.

   Meanwhile, in 1938, the Portuguese Communist Party had been expelled
   from the Communist International. The reason for the expulsion was a
   sense of distrust inside the Comintern, caused by a sudden breakdown in
   the Party's activity, accusations of alleged embezzlement of money
   carried out by some important members of the Party and, mainly, the
   weak internal structure of the Party, dominated by internal wars. The
   action against the PCP, signed by Georgi Dimitrov, was in part taken
   due to some persecution against Comintern member parties or persons
   (like the Communist Party of Poland or Béla Kun) led by Stalin. These
   series of events would, in part, lead to the end of the Comintern in
   1943. The PCP would only re-establish its relations with the Communist
   movement and the Soviet Union in 1947, after some sporadic contacts
   made, at first, through the Communist parties of Spain and France and
   later through Mikhail Suslov.

   The 3rd congress (the first one after the reorganization) was held in
   1943, and stated that the Party should unite with all those who also
   wanted the end of the dictatorship. Another important conclusion was
   the need to increase of the Party's influence inside the Portuguese
   army. For the first time ever, the Party was able to build a strong
   clandestine organization, with a net of clandestine cadres, which would
   make the Party the foundation of the Portuguese resistance against the
   regime. These improvements in the Party's structure led to the creation
   of the first national platform of democratic organizations, the
   Movement of National Antifascist Unity (MUNAF), in December of 1943. In
   1944, the Portuguese support of the German war effort created severe
   shortages of food and goods, greatly decreasing Portugal's living
   standards. The situation led to waves of strikes, greatly influenced by
   the Party, in the regions of Lisbon, Ribatejo and Alentejo. By this
   time, with the reorganized structure successfully avoiding the
   persecutions, the Avante! was being published at least once per month,
   stating the Party's support to the popular turmoil.

Post-war and the Movement of Democratic Unity

   In 1945, with a whole new international community created by the defeat
   of the major fascist regimes in World War II, Salazar was forced to
   make some superficial democratic changes in order to raise Portugal's
   image in the eyes of its western allies. In October of that year, the
   democratic resistance was authorized to form a platform, which was
   named Movement of Democratic Unity (Portuguese: Movimento de Unidade
   Democrática, or MUD). Initially, the MUD was controlled by the moderate
   opposition, but soon became strongly influenced by the PCP that
   controlled its youth wing. Among the leadership of the youth wing were
   several communists, including Octávio Pato, Salgado Zenha, Mário
   Soares, Júlio Pomar and Mário Sacramento. This influence led to the MUD
   being made illegal by the government in 1948, after several waves of
   suppression.

   The fourth congress, held in July 1946, pointed to massive popular
   struggle as the only way to overthrow the regime, and stated the
   policies that would help the Party lead that popular movement. This,
   along with the improvement of the Party's clandestine action, was the
   main focus of the congress. A brief report of the conclusions of this
   congress was published by the Central Committee of the Communist Party
   of the Soviet Union. For the first time since the Party had been
   expelled from the Comintern, the CPSU published info about the PCP, a
   slight change in the Soviet stance on the Party. At this time, Álvaro
   Cunhal travelled to Yugoslavia with the aid of Bento de Jesus Caraça in
   order to improve the relations with the Socialist Bloc. Later, in 1948,
   he travelled to Soviet Union in order to speak with Mikhail Suslov,
   after the ties between the PCP and the International Communist Movement
   were re-established. Soon after returning from Soviet Union, Cunhal was
   arrested by the political police.

   In 1951, after the death of the president António Carmona, the
   government, continuing the policy of staging democratic changes, called
   for an election. The Party, along with other sectors of the opposition,
   supported the mathematician Ruy Luís Gomes, who would be declared
   ineligible five days before the election. During the campaign, some
   supporters of his candidacy had been imprisoned and Gomes himself had
   been beaten in the Rio Tinto. Following these events, the other
   oppositionist candidate, Quintão Meireles, abandoned the elections and
   the official candidate, Craveiro Lopes, was elected unchallenged.

Portuguese Colonial War and last years of the regime

   In 1954, a harvest-worker named Catarina Eufémia was murdered by a
   lieutenant of the Guarda Nacional Republicana after attempting to ask
   her supervisor for a pay raise. Catarina became a martyr of the Party's
   struggle for better living conditions for the peasants in Alentejo.
   After the Carnation Revolution, the Party erected a monument to
   Catarina in her hometown, Baleizão.

   The fifth congress, held in September 1957, was the first and the only
   to be held outside Portugal. In Kiev, Soviet Union, the Party approved
   its first program and statutes, revealing an increase of the Party's
   organic stability. The congress took, for the first time, an official
   position on Colonialism, stating that all people had the right to
   self-determination, and made clear its support of the liberation
   movements in the Portuguese colonies, such as MPLA in Angola, FRELIMO
   in Mozambique and PAIGC in Guinea-Bissau. This was the first congress
   in the Party's history to receive salutations from foreign communist
   parties.

   In 1958, the government announced that a presidential election would be
   held; however, as in the previous elections, the opposition groups had
   little trust in the fairness of the electoral act. The candidate
   supported by the Party, Arlindo Vicente, left the race and supported
   Humberto Delgado, who was gathering support from several democratic
   groups. Despite a massive campaign with a major rally in Porto,
   attended by 200,000 people, the government's candidate, Américo Tomás,
   won the election through massive election fraud. Delgado would later be
   assassinated by the PIDE.

   In January 1960, a remarkable event in the Party's history occurred: A
   group of ten PCP members managed to escape from the high-security
   prison in Peniche. The escape returned to freedom many top figures of
   the Party, among them, Álvaro Cunhal, who would be elected in the
   following year the first Secretary-general in nineteen years. Among the
   escapees was also Jaime Serra, who would help to organize a secret
   commando group, the Armed Revolutionary Action (Portuguese: Acção
   Revolucionária Armada or ARA.) The ARA was the armed branch of the PCP
   that would be responsible in the early 1970s for some military action
   against the dictatorial regime.

   In 1961 the Colonial War in Africa began, first in Angola, and in the
   next year in Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau. The war lasted 13 years and
   devastated Portuguese society, forcing many thousands of Portuguese
   citizens, mainly young people, to leave the country seeking a better
   future in countries like France, Germany or Switzerland, and also to
   escape conscription. The Party, which had been involved in the
   formation of the nationalist guerrilla movements along with the Soviet
   Union, immediately stated its opposition to the war, and political
   support of the anti-colonial movements. The war initiated a process of
   decline of the regime as it caused a growing unrest inside Portuguese
   society.

   In 1962 the " Academic Crisis" occurred. The Portuguese regime, fearing
   the growing popularity of democratic ideas among the students, carried
   out the boycott and censure of several student associations and
   organizations, including the important National Secretariat of
   Portuguese Students. Most members of this organization were
   intellectual communist militants that were persecuted and forbidden to
   continue their university studies. The students, with strong aid from
   the PCP, responded with demonstrations that culminated on March 24 with
   a huge student demonstration in Lisbon. The demonstration was brutally
   suppressed by the shock police, leading to hundreds of student
   injuries. Immediately thereafter, the students began a strike that
   became an important point in the resistance against the regime. In
   1987, the 24th of March was declared the National Day of the Students
   by the Portuguese parliament, which is celebrated every year, mainly by
   university students.

   The sixth congress in 1965 became one of the most important congresses
   in the Party's history. Álvaro Cunhal, elected General-secretary in
   1961, released the report The Path to Victory—The tasks of the Party in
   the National and Democratic Revolution which became a document of major
   influence within the democratic movement. Widely distributed among the
   clandestine members, it contained eight political goals, such as "the
   end of the monopolies in the economy," "the need for agrarian reform
   and redistribution of the land," and "the democratization of access to
   culture and education" — policies that the Party considered essential
   to make Portugal a fully democratic country. By this time, the
   Sino-Soviet split and the criticisms of maoism made during the congress
   caused the maoist members to leave the Party.

   In 1970, the Armed Revolutionary Action made its first attack,
   sabotaging the Cunene, a ship used to transport supplies for the troops
   in Africa. The ARA would keep attacking political and military targets
   of the regime until August of 1972. Some of its major attacks included
   an attack to the school of the political police, the PIDE, the bombing
   of the Niassa ship, the destruction of several war helicopters in the
   Tancos air base, the bombing of the cultural centre of the United
   States embassy and an attack to the regional NATO command in Oeiras.

   In 1972, the Communist Students League, the first organized youth wing
   in several years, was founded. It would later become the Portuguese
   Communist Youth.

   Following several years of turmoil, due the prolonged war and by the
   growing unrest caused by the lack of liberties, the regime fell. On
   April 25, 1974, the Carnation Revolution occurred, putting an end to 48
   years of resistance and marking the beginning of a new cycle in the
   Party's life.

Carnation Revolution of 1974 and the first years of Democracy

Revolutionary period

   Immediately after the revolution, basic democratic rights were
   re-established in Portugal. On April 27, the political prisoners were
   freed, including a large number of imprisoned Party cadres. On April
   30, Álvaro Cunhal returned to Lisbon, where he was received by
   thousands of people. May 1st was commemorated for the first time in 48
   years, and an estimated half million people gathered in the FNAT
   Stadium (now May 1st Stadium) in Lisbon to hear the speeches of the
   Party's leader Álvaro Cunhal and the socialist Mário Soares. On May 17,
   the Party's newspaper, Avante!, produced the first legal issue of its
   history.

   The following months were marked by radical changes in the country,
   always closely followed and supported by the PCP. Several parties were
   created. The major political and military leaders for the former regime
   were exiled or dismissed. A process to give independence to the
   colonies started with the full support of the Party and, within one
   year, Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde and São Tomé and
   Príncipe would become independent countries. By that time, the Party
   was holding several rallies per week. A good part of the Party's
   political proposals were being met. A major struggle of the Party was
   assuring the unity of all labour unions inside the General
   Confederation of the Portuguese Workers, which was opposed by the
   Socialists and the Social Democrats. The Party also criticized the
   growing interference by NATO in the revolutionary process, which was
   supported by the Socialists and by the right-wing.

   Six months after the Revolution, on October of 1974, the Party's
   seventh congress took place. More than a thousand delegates and
   hundreds of Portuguese and foreign guests attended. The congress set
   forth important statements that discussed the ongoing revolution in the
   country. The 36 members of the elected Central Committee had spent more
   than 300 years in jail.

   On January 12, 1975, the Portuguese Communist Party became the first
   legally recognized party, after the opening of the legalizing process
   by the Supreme Court of Justice. Meanwhile, the revolutionary process
   continued. On March 11, 1975, the left-wing military forces defeated a
   coup attempt perpetrated by the right wing military connected to the
   former regime. This resulted in a turn of the revolutionary process to
   the political left, with the main sectors of the economy, such as the
   banks, transportation, steel mills, mines and communications companies,
   being nationalized. This was done under the lead of Vasco Gonçalves, a
   member of the military wing who supported the Party and who had become
   prime minister after the first provisional government resigned. The
   Party then asserted its complete support for these changes and for the
   Agrarian Reform process that implemented collectivization of the
   agricultural sector and the land in a region called the Zone of
   Intervention of the Agrarian Reform or ZIRA, which included the land
   south of the Tagus River. The Party took the lead of that process and
   drove it according to the Party's program, organizing many thousands of
   peasants into cooperatives. That, combined with the Party's strong
   clandestine organization and support of the peasants' movement during
   the preceding years in that region, made the southern regions of
   Portugal the major stronghold of the PCP.

   One year after the revolution, the first democratic elections took
   place to elect the parliament that would write a new Constitution to
   replace the Constitution of 1933. The Party achieved 12.52% of the
   voting and elected 30 MPs. In the summer of 1975 the revolutionary
   process reached its climax, and the government of Vasco Gonçalves,
   influenced by the left, was under attack from the Socialist Party and
   the right-wing. Several rallies and demonstrations both in support of
   and against the government were being held. During the summer, several
   Party offices were attacked, pillaged or set on fire. On July 19 a
   major rally organized by the Socialists against the Party was held in
   Lisbon. In August, nine influential military officers (the Group of 9)
   issued a document against Vasco Gonçalves and the Movement of the Armed
   Forces. In the following months the tension continued between the PCP
   and the moderated parties. In September, Gonçalves was replaced by
   Pinheiro de Azevedo. The divisions inside the military were growing,
   and, in November 25, a coup attempt by the radical left was thwarted by
   the right wing military. In the aftermath, the Party was attacked by
   the remaining forces, but a notable speech by Melo Antunes, a member of
   the Group of 9, asserted the importance of the PCP inside the
   Portuguese democratic regime.

   In the following months the attacks against Party offices continued
   with a lower intensity, however. In 1976, the building of the current
   democratic regime was starting and, in April 2, the new democratic
   Constitution, which included several references to "Socialism" and a
   "Classless Society", was approved with the Party's support. On April
   25, the second democratic election was carried out and the Party raised
   its share of the vote to 14.56% and 40 MPs. In June, the first
   democratic presidential election was held and the Party's candidate,
   Octávio Pato, garnered 7.5% of the votes. The winner of the election
   was Ramalho Eanes, an officer of the moderate military wing.

   In that same year the first Avante! Festival took place. The festival
   would become a major political and cultural event in Portugal and is
   still held yearly, as of 2006. The eighth congress was held in Lisbon
   from November 11-14. The congress mainly stated the need to continue
   the quest for Socialism in Portugal and the need to defend the
   achievements of the Revolution against what the Party considered to be
   a political step backward, led by a coalition of the Socialist Party
   and the right-wing Centro Democrático Social, who were opposed to the
   Agrarian Reform process. In December, in the first local election, the
   Party, in coalition with the Portuguese Democratic Movement and the
   People's Socialist Front, attained 18% of the vote, electing 37 mayors.

Late 1970s and early 1980s

   In 1979, the Party carried out its ninth congress, which analyzed the
   state of the post-revolutionary Portugal, right-wing politics and the
   Party's struggles to keep the nationalized economy. In December 1979,
   an extra legislative election took place after a wave of political
   turmoil forced the government to fall. The Party formed the United
   People Alliance, in coalition with the Portuguese Democratic Movement
   and increased its vote to 18.96% and 47 MPs. The election was won by a
   right-wing coalition, led by Francisco Sá Carneiro, which immediately
   started a policy that the Party considered to be contrary to
   working-class interests. In the same year, local elections were held
   and the Party gathered 20.5% of the vote and elected 50 mayors, also as
   part of the United People Alliance. In November of 1979, the Communist
   Students League merged with the Young Communist League to form the
   Portuguese Communist Youth, which is still the Party's youth
   organization.

   In 1980, a new election was called and the Party dropped to 41 seats.
   Also in 1980, in the presidential election, the Party's candidate left
   the race and supported Ramalho Eanes. In the local elections of 1982
   the UPA secured the leadership of 55 municipalities, achieving its best
   result ever, with 20.7% of the vote.

   After the sudden death of Sá Carneiro in an airplane crash in 1980, the
   political instability returned and the right-wing coalition government
   disintegrated in 1983. In the subsequent legislative election, the
   Party achieved 44 MPs and 18.20% of the vote as part of the APU in the
   1983 elections. The election was won by the Socialists that formed a
   grand coalition with the Social Democrats. Also in 1983 the Party held
   the tenth congress that again criticized what it saw as the dangers of
   right-wing politics. In 1985, a new election was called, prompted by
   the unstable balance of forces inside the grand coalition and Cavaco
   Silva led the Social Democrats to a narrow victory, the Party initiated
   its electoral decline, gathering only 15.5% of the voting.

   In 1986, the surprising climb of the socialist Mário Soares, who
   reached the second round in the presidential election defeating the
   Party's candidate, Salgado Zenha, made the Party call an extra
   Congress. The eleventh congress was called with only two weeks' notice,
   in order to decide whether or not to support Soares against Freitas do
   Amaral. Soares was supported, and he won by a slight margin. Had he not
   been supported by the PCP he would have lost. The Congress was
   considered a success, despite being prepared with such short notice. In
   1987, after the fall of Cavaco Silva's government, another election
   took place. The Party, now in coalition with the Ecologist Party "The
   Greens" (PEV) and with the Democratic Intervention (ID), a political
   association, in the Unitarian Democratic Coalition (CDU) saw an
   electoral decline to 12.18% and 31 MPs. In the election, Cavaco Silva
   consolidated his power with an absolute majority.

From the end of the Socialist Bloc to the present

From the late 1980s until 1991

   In 1988 another congress took place, the twelfth, held in Porto, in
   which more than 2,000 delegates participated. The congress analyzed the
   evolution of the political situation in Eastern Europe and also the
   right wing policies carried out by the government of Cavaco Silva. A
   new statutes and a program were put forth, with the new program being
   titled, "Portugal, an Advanced Democracy for the 21st Century". The
   program, which is still the Party's program (as of 2006), traced five
   major objectives to the Party's struggle: a free democratic regime,
   based on the citizens' participation, an economic development based on
   a mixed economy at the service of the people, a social policy capable
   of assuring the rise of the country's living standards, culture
   available to everyone, and an independent and sovereign Portugal,
   pursuing peaceful relations with all countries and peoples.

   At the end of the 1980s, the Socialist Bloc of Eastern Europe started
   to disintegrate and the Party faced new challenges. With many members
   leaving, the Party called an extra congress for May 1990, in Loures.
   There, the majority of the more than 2,000 delegates decided to
   continue the Party's "revolutionary way to Socialism", clashing with
   what many other communist parties around the world were doing, by
   keeping its Marxist-Leninist guidelines. The congress asserted that
   socialism in the Soviet Union had failed, but a unique historical
   experience, several social changes and several achievements by the
   labour movement had been influenced by the Socialist Bloc. Álvaro
   Cunhal was re-elected General Secretary and Carlos Carvalhas was
   elected Assistant General Secretary.

From the 13th Congress to the present

   In the legislative election of 1991 the Party won 8.84% of the national
   vote and 17 MPs, continuing its electoral decline. The Party's
   candidate to the presidential election of the same year, Carlos
   Carvalhas, finished 3rd, after gathering 12.5% of the votes.

   The fourteenth congress took place in 1992 and Carlos Carvalhas was
   elected the new General Secretary, replacing Álvaro Cunhal. The
   Congress analyzed the whole new international situation created by the
   disappearance of the Soviet Union and the defeat of Socialism in
   Eastern Europe. The Party also outlined measres intended to put Cavaco
   Silva and the right-wing government on its way out, which occurred
   shortly thereafter. In 1995 the right-wing Social Democratic Party was
   replaced in the government by the Socialist Party after the October
   legislative election, in which the Party received 8.61% of the votes.
   Meanwhile, in the European election of 1994, the Party elected 3 MEPs,
   gathering 11.2% of the voting.

   In December 1996 the fifteenth congress was held, this time in Porto,
   with more than 1,600 delegates participating. The congress criticized
   the right-wing policies of the Socialist government of António Guterres
   and also debated the future of the Party following the debacle of the
   Socialist Bloc. During the first government of Guterres, the first
   referendum to the abortion law was held in Portugal. Despite a massive
   campaign from the Party and the remaining leftwing forces, the
   liberalization of abortion was rejected by the voters.

   In the subsequent local elections the Party continued to decline, but
   in the legislative election of 1999 the Party increased its voting
   percentage for the first time in many years. The sixteenth congress was
   held in December of 2000 and Carlos Carvalhas was re-elected General
   Secretary. In the legislative election of 2002, held after the
   resignation of the socialist Prime-Minister António Guterres, the Party
   achieved its lowest voting result ever, with only 7.0% of the votes.
   The right-wing returned to power with a coalition between the Social
   Democratic Party and the People's Party. The new government introduced
   several changes in the labour laws that triggered the first general
   strike in many years, in November of 2002. With the strong support of
   the Party and of the CGTP, hundreds of thousands of workers
   participated in the strike.

   In the following European election of 2004, the CDU managed to keep its
   two MEPs, after claiming 9.1% of the vote. The two members of the
   European Parliament, Ilda Figueiredo and Pedro Guerreiro sit in the
   European United Left - Nordic Green Left group.

   The most recent Congress, the seventeenth, in November of 2004, elected
   Jerónimo de Sousa, a former metallurgical worker, as the new General
   Secretary and analyzed the political situation since the last congress
   in 2000. It also reaffirmed the program adopted in the 12th Congress.
   Minor changes in the statutes, such as considering the official website
   as the Party's official press or adapting the voting methods to the new
   laws that made voting by showing hands illegal, were also introduced.
   In January of 2005, the right-wing majority in the parliament was
   dissolved and a new legislative election was held. The Party raised its
   share of the vote and is now represented in the parliament by 12 MPs of
   230, after receiving about 430,000 votes.

   Álvaro Cunhal died on June 13, 2005 after being away from the public
   eye for several years. Two days later, 250,000 people gathered in
   Lisbon to attend to his funeral, one of the largest funerals in
   Portuguese history.

   After the last local election, in 2005, in which the Party regained the
   presidency of 7 municipalities, the Portuguese Communist Party holds
   the leadership of 32 (of 308) municipalities, most of them in Alentejo
   and Setúbal, and has leadership of hundreds of civil parishes, and
   local assembly members. The local administration of the PCP often
   concerns itself with issues such as preventing privatization of the
   water supply, funding culture and education, providing access to sports
   and promoting health, facilitating participatory democracy and
   preventing corruption. The presence of the Greens in the coalition also
   keeps an eye on environmental issues such as recycling and water
   treatment.

   The Party's work still follows the program set forth by "Advanced
   Democracy for the 21st Century". Issues like the decriminalization of
   abortion, workers rights, the increasing fees for the Health Service
   and Education, the erosion of the social safety net, low salaries and
   pensions, imperialism and war, and solidarity with other countries such
   as Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Cuba and the Basque Country are
   constant concerns in the Party's agenda.
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