Portuguese Communist Party

Not to be confused with Portuguese Workers' Communist Party.

Portuguese Communist Party
Partido Comunista Português
AbbreviationPCP
General SecretaryPaulo Raimundo
Founded6 March 1921 (1921-03-06)
Legalized26 December 1974 (1974-12-26)[1]
Preceded byPortuguese Maximalist Federation
HeadquartersRua Soeiro Pereira Gomes 3, 1600-019 Lisboa
Newspaper
Youth wingPortuguese Communist Youth
Membership (2020)Decrease 49,960[2][needs update]
Ideology
Political positionLeft-wing to far-left
National affiliationUnitary Democratic Coalition
European Parliament groupThe Left in the European Parliament – GUE/NGL[9]
International affiliationIMCWP
Colours  Red
Slogan"For Freedom, Democracy, and Socialism. The Future has a Party!"[10]
Anthem"The Internationale"[11][12]
Assembly of the Republic
4 / 230
European Parliament
1 / 21
Regional Parliaments
0 / 104
Local government
(Mayors)
18 / 308
Local government
(Parishes)
112 / 3,066
Election symbol
Party flag
Website
www.pcp.pt

The Portuguese Communist Party (Portuguese: Partido Comunista Português, pronounced [pɐɾˈtiðu kumuˈniʃtɐ puɾtuˈɣeʃ], PCP) is a communist[13] and Marxist–Leninist[13][14] political party in Portugal based upon democratic centralism. It is one of the strongest communist parties in Western Europe and the oldest Portuguese political party with uninterrupted existence.[15] It is characterized as being between the left-wing[16] and far-left on the political spectrum.[17] Since 1987, it runs to any national, local and European elections in coalition with the Ecologist Party "The Greens" (PEV), assembled in the Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU).

PCP has seats in the Assembly of the Republic and the European Parliament, where it is part of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left group.[18] After the death of its secretary-general, Bento Gonçalves, in the Tarrafal concentration camp, the Party went through a period, from 1942 to 1961, without a secretary-general. In 1961, the historic leader Álvaro Cunhal is elected. In 1992, he is succeeded by Carlos Carvalhas, and in 2004 Jerónimo de Sousa is chosen by the Central Comitee to be PCP's Secretary General until 2022, when Paulo Raimundo is elected.[19]

The party was founded in 1921, establishing contacts with the Comintern in 1922 and becoming its Portuguese section in 1923.[20][21] The PCP was banned after the 1926 military coup and subsequently played a major role in the opposition against the dictatorial regime of António de Oliveira Salazar and Marcelo Caetano. During the nearly five-decade-long dictatorship, the PCP was constantly suppressed by the secret police, which forced the party's members to live in clandestine status under the threat of arrest, torture, and murder. After the Carnation Revolution in 1974, which overthrew the regime, the 36 members of party's Central Committee had, in the aggregate, experienced more than 300 years in jail.[22]

After the end of the dictatorship, the party became a major political force in the new democratic government. One of its goals, according to the party is to maintain its "vanguard role in the service of the class interests of the workers".[23][24] Currently, the PCP is the joint sixth largest in the Portuguese Assembly of the Republic, where it holds 4 of the 230 assembly seats.[25]

The party publishes the weekly Avante!, founded in 1931. Its youth organization is the Portuguese Communist Youth, a member of the World Federation of Democratic Youth.

  1. ^ "Partidos registados e suas denominações, siglas e símbolos" Tribunal Constitucional. (in Portuguese)
  2. ^ "PCP tem menos 4320 militantes do que em 2016". PÚBLICO. 24 September 2020.
  3. ^ Patricio, Maria Teresa (1990). "Orthodoxy and dissent in the Portuguese Communist Party". Journal of Communist Studies. 6 (4): 204–208. doi:10.1080/13523279008415064.
  4. ^ Quintas da Silva, Rodrigo (2018). "A Portuguese exception to right-wing populism". Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. 4. doi:10.1057/s41599-017-0062-8. S2CID 257096043.
  5. ^ [3][4]
  6. ^ Godinho, Luísa (2019). "The local construction of Euroscepticism: a downsian approach to the positioning of the Portuguese Communist Party vis-à-vis the European project". Centro de Estudos Internacionais (CEI-ISCTE).
  7. ^ Santos Botelho, Catarina (2019). "European Elections: The Silence of the Lambs and the Dangerous Political Resignation – The Portuguese Perspective". Brexit Institute (Dublin City University).
  8. ^ [6][7]
  9. ^ "Partido Comunista Português - GUE/NGL - Another Europe is possible". GUE/NGL. Archived from the original on 11 February 2017. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
  10. ^ "Comício do 99.º aniversário do PCP". 6 March 2020. Archived from the original on 28 September 2020.
  11. ^ "PCP - Programa e Estatutos" (PDF). Partido Comunista Portugues. Edições Avante. p. 115. Retrieved 30 November 2019.
  12. ^ Partido Comunista Português. "Portuguese Communist Party: Programme and Constitution" (PDF). PCP. edições avante. p. 58. Retrieved 29 November 2019.
  13. ^ a b Nordsieck, Wolfram (2019). "Portugal". Parties and Elections in Europe. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
  14. ^ Freire, André (2006). "The Party System of Portugal". Die Parteiensysteme Westeuropas. VS Verlag: 376.
  15. ^ Cunha, Carlos (2019). ""The Portuguese Communist Party's Historical, Parliamentary, Oppositional Tactics in National and European Parliaments: Case Study-European Integration."". ISCTE-IUL (in Portuguese).
  16. ^ "Portugal's Socialists lead election poll, but would not win majority". Reuters. 31 July 2019. Archived from the original on 31 July 2019. When the Socialists came to power in 2015, they won the parliamentary support of two left wing parties, the Left Bloc and the Communists.
  17. ^ "Portugal president asks Socialist Costa to form government". Reuters. 8 October 2019.
  18. ^ "Partido Comunista Português | GUE/NGL". 30 December 2020. Archived from the original on 30 December 2020. Retrieved 2 September 2024.
  19. ^ Portugal, Rádio e Televisão de (6 November 2022). "PCP vai ter novo secretário-geral. Jerónimo de Sousa substituído por Paulo Raimundo". PCP vai ter novo secretário-geral. Jerónimo de Sousa substituído por Paulo Raimundo (in Portuguese). Retrieved 2 September 2024.
  20. ^ Madeira 2011, p. 48.
  21. ^ Madeira 2011, pp. 51–52.
  22. ^ Cunhal, Álvaro (1997). O caminho para o derrubamento do fascismo. Edições Avante!. ISBN 972-550-262-0
  23. ^ Working-class party and all workers: the role of the PCP in strengthening the organization, unity and struggle of the workers at pcp.pt. https://web.archive.org/web/20201028205209/http://www.pcp.pt/partit-of-the-class-operate-of-all-workers--paper-of-the-pcp-no-reforco-organization-unity Filed] in Wayback Machine
  24. ^ "Ficará para história a reposição de direitos que se julgavam perdidos" in Notícias ao Minuto. Archived in Wayback Machine
  25. ^ "Results of the 2022 elections". Ministério da Administração Interna. 9 February 2022.