Dear Friends and Comrades,

Dear foreign and national guests,

First of all I wish to thank you for your presence and I specially want to greet all the comrade delegates and, through you, to greet the whole party collective that you represent and the populations of the regions you come from.

Certain of interpreting the delegates' feelings, I also want to greet Comrade Álvaro Cunhal, who due to health reasons cannot be with us, but who has sent a message of greetings that will be read in this Congress.

Comrades,

After an intense and prolonged preparatory work, the Portuguese communists are holding this Congress with the determination and confidence that the Portuguese Communist Party continues to honour its responsibilities towards the workers and the people and that it will know how to merge efforts, will and energy in its struggle for the well-being of the Portuguese people, for the progress of the country, for democracy and socialism.

The delegates to the 16th Congress, democratically elected by the Party's members, having full freedom of opinion and vote, will exercise the sovereignty of decision which is granted by the Party's constitution and the Congress Regulation.

However we want to emphasise that this Congress, at a particularly important moment in the Party's life, is the work of all, really and truly all, the Party's members, who have contributed to its preparation, who have taken part in the debate meetings and assemblies and in the election of delegates, who have defended their point of view, whether agreeing or not with the Theses, and have fully exercised their rights, duties and responsibilities as Party members.

The way we have prepared our Congress and tried to involve the Party in it, is significantly different from that of other parties'.

In fact, however huge our shortcomings may be, we cannot help stressing that it is only in the Portuguese Communist Party that there is a preliminary period, at the very beginning of the preparation of the Congress where members have a say; only in the PCP is the leadership accountable to its members and provides all members with information and analysis on the activity carried out with such a broad recognition of our weaknesses and difficulties. It is only in our party that members, besides electing delegates, have the possibility to discuss the proposed documents for almost two months, and have access to the circulation of divergent opinions of other members (as happened in the Congress Tribune in the newspaper Avante!, that published around 200 texts) and it is only in the PCP that the members have prior knowledge of the draft Congress Regulation.

This doesn't imply any boasting or arrogance, but in fact while demanding of ourselves different standards than those of other parties, we must continue to openly reflect on the ways of improving our internal life, namely on the need to ensure a greater participation and involvement of the members in collective decisions as well as guaranteeing a better information to the Party.

Thus, we reaffirm that it is totally natural and legitimate that Party members debate or analyse, sometimes with meaningful differences, or even express great dissatisfaction with our inner-Party democracy proposing forms of broadening and strengthening it.

But what we do not consider to be either natural, or legitimate, is that so many people, namely in the media, based on ignorance, caricature and disfigurement slander our democratic functioning, never having read the constitutions of other parties (which would have made them learn that they have many rules identical to the ones that they criticise within the PCP; they were never interested in learning how the delegates from other parties were elected for their Congresses; there was no scandal when in a congress of the PP, the vote was taken at 4 in the morning, with half the delegates already "tucked in bed"; there was no special indignation with the "tons" of unelected delegates at the PSD Congresses and the massive number of delegates who gave up their speaking times to the "barons"; they were not especially puzzled when in the PS Congress its rules were not even adopted by the delegates because they had been previously adopted by the Party's national committee.

At the opening of our Congress, we cannot ignore that, although in most organisations the debate was carried out under normal circumstances and was lively, the preparation of the Congress was disturbed and agitated by a set of situations and factors that caused discomfort and concern within the Party collective.

In effect, in a process which can have its roots in the past, but which developed sharply during the last year and a half, the truth is that some less well-thought attitudes, of irregular and even anti-constitutional behaviour, of accusations and even insinuations, either related to a supposed danger of de-characterisation and social-democratisation of the Party, or related to the danger of its encrustation or closed sectarianism and workerism; of activities that, from within the Party, collided with the Party constitution; of the anonymous use of the media as a way of disclosing the Party's debate or decisions, but also for intrigue and the intoxication of our internal life; of forming informal currents of opinion characterised by a great rigidity, counter-positioning and edginess - all this weighed negatively in several areas of the Party. They caused grief, bitterness and concern in many comrades, made mutual listening difficult, hampered the due respect for different opinions, here and there produced actions centred on these factors and in great part deviated the discussion of analyses or guidelines.

In this respect, even here at the Congress, we want to reaffirm three things very clearly and securely.

The first is that all the decisions of the Central Committee, of its Executive bodies and of the General Secretary of the Party were always, from the beginning to the end, not only contrary to any climate of suspicion, distrust, edginess and violation of the rules of the Party's functioning and the loyalty which the communists owe to each other, but also firmly favourable to a political and ideological debate carried out without any taboos or restrictions, characterised by elevation, serenity and mutual respect, and based on the active understanding that the existence and expression of divergence has to be seen not only as natural or inevitable but also as a factor of enrichment and growth. This does not mean that, contrary to some preconceived and publicised ideas, the Party leadership does not feel exempt from responsibility during this process. We underestimated some factors and events whose seriousness in the consequences and developments were not duly evaluated, and we did not put a stop to them through a more incisive and timely Party and political intervention. There are facts from which we all have to learn.

The second is that, although the media had announced and guaranteed, several times, the emergence of a torrent of disciplinary sanctions and an alleged "purge", the truth is that neither occurred, due to the deliberate decision, which we do not regret, of giving priority to the field of political debate.

The third is that regardless of different or even opposing visions on the determining responsibilities which are at the root and development of these aspects of the party's internal life, and also regardless of several dissatisfactions regarding the analyses and proposed guidelines, the truth is that the main lines of preparation and the guidelines and proposals adopted since January of this year regarding the preparation of the Congress were almost always adopted unanimously or with very large consensus in the Central Committee.

It was unanimously that the Central Committee adopted the Resolution of February 5 and 6, on the political objectives of the Congress and the Memorandum aimed at supporting the first phase of listening to Party members.

It was unanimously that the Central Committee adopted, in general terms, the June 16-17 Resolution, containing the main proposals for the preparation of the Congress and the elaboration of the Theses, including the decision not to propose changes to the Programme and Constitution (with the sole exception of votes on two specific issues: the central leadership structures and the size of the Central Committee).

It was with only two votes against and twelve abstentions that the Central Committee adopted the Theses - Draft Political Resolution, to be submitted for debate within the Party and which, later, with a similar vote, adopted the Draft Political Resolution that the Congress is called upon to discuss and vote.

And if today we recall these objective and undisputed facts it is neither to evoke an improper cult of unanimity (which is not part of our democratic culture) nor to identify the votes which are generally in favour, with agreement on everything that was voted. No, it is not. If we recall these facts it is only to remind that they reveal that the undeniable existence of individual opinions expressing conceptions, analyses and forms of thinking, did not prevent the opinion of all or almost all members of the party's leadership, that the main guidelines for the preparation of the Congress and the proposals to be placed for debate in the Party represented a common base of unity and collective work which did not violate the conscience and convictions of each and everyone, and allowed the continuity of our common effort and commitment.

It is possible to say, and with all reason, that this is not all. Besides the guidelines and proposals there are actions, attitudes and words that weigh, hurt and create distancing.

Undoubtedly. But whoever can and wants to assume the responsibility of defending the present and the future of the Party will be in a position to understand that the fundamental element in assessing the future political, ideological and organisational course of the Party is that which is part of the Political Resolution that the Congress will vote: the guidelines and proposals contained in it will bind us all (beginning with the elected Central Committee) and no other different guidelines, conceptions, attitudes or acts of individual responsibilities shown during the preparation of the Congress or interpretations on recent events, may be presented as an allegedly authentic guideline or policy of the Party.

For our part, we do not support simplistic writings and readings of a complex process on social democratic derivations or sectarian and workerist derivations which we will always oppose. And we want to affirm that we will try to the best of our abilities to ensure that the decisions and guidelines we adopt here will lead to overcoming the problems and establish within the party the atmosphere of brotherhood, mutual help and respect which are a heritage of our style of work, as well as respect for the "pact" of solidarity and fundamental law of the party which is the Party's Constitution.

We continue to insist that what is essential in the Party and also in this Congress is to debate ideas, proposals, guidelines and the Party's political line and let us not get entangled in this discussion around reproachful facts of the past which will only lead to the growth of scars and misunderstandings.

The international situation and the struggle for social change on the threshold of the 21st century

While pondering the course of the world, while analysing the international situation, the contradictions, social scourges, side by side with the opulence, wealth and ostentation, while viewing the brilliant conquests of science and technology and the extreme poverty in which millions of human beings live, the condemnation of a system based upon exploitation, alienation and domination, and the need to struggle for a fairer, more fraternal society based upon the continuous deepening of democracy in all its aspects and free from the injustices of capitalism: socialism in a renovated project.

The concentration of wealth and the growing inequalities

Year after year the United Nations' reports on human development are an unequivocal libel against the system and its dominant form: neoliberalism.

Very recently at the September Prague meeting of the IMF and the World Bank where normally an abstract lecture on poverty and increasing inequalities is constantly repeated, the President of the WB was forced to echo the huge demonstrations against capitalist globalisation, saying "that, at present, 20% of the world population controls 80% of the global economy, and that in the past 10 years their earnings doubled".

And if we split these numbers we would see that, in relation to those 20% of the world population, only a small percentage concentrates most of the wealth and assets of these societies, while social inequalities grow in relative terms.

Even those who preach the "American model" and in truth say that the next President of the USA will inherit a more prosperous country than eight years ago, will add: more prosperous but also more unequal and with more contradictions.

1% of the Americans hold 38% of the national wealth, while 80% of them only have 17% of the wealth (Economic and Political Institute - EPI - of Washington).

The increasing centralisation and concentration of capital at world level, with the ensuing polarisation of wealth, is evident. As is evident that the accumulation of capital and the exploitation of workers are two interdependent and inseparable processes.

The speculative economy increases. The spiral of the casino economy, where there is "speculation on speculation" (derived products, ultra valued stocks, high values on the stock of almost bankrupt companies), generates new contradictions and the danger of devastating new collapses.

We are at a stage where the announcement of massive lay-offs of employees by major multinationals, creating the idea of more dividend, is soon followed by a rise in the value of their stock...

It is the maximisation of profit that commands life. It is irrationality and incoherence at its highest. If we acknowledge this logic, we would have to accept, as someone has said, that employment depends on growth, growth on competitiveness and competitiveness on the ability to suppress jobs, and therefore that to fight unemployment nothing could be better than lay-offs!

The ideological offensive and the liquidation of rights in the name of competitiveness

If it is inevitable to note the injustice, contradictions and irrationality, it is equally true, that there is no shortage of well paid ideologues, who, on the one hand, try to demonstrate that there are no alternatives to capitalism (the end of History, capitalism as the ultimate stage of human development) and, on the other, try to show that the consequences are not of the system, but of its shortcomings...

The advances of neoliberalism, the free circulation of capital, the extension of the free circulation of increasingly more goods and services, the integration of the countries of East Europe in the system, have created a qualitatively new framework, increasing the assets and the margin of manoeuvre and adjustment of capitalism, expressed in two directions:

The multinationals surpass the States and are eliminating, absorbing the more profitable national activities, the traditional industries and the more modern branches. They thus transform the national economies into increasingly more dependent economies, "satellites" and subsidiaries of foreign capital and of the more developed countries. As neoliberalism gains more ground with States tearing down the protection of their activities and emerging industries, the blackmail of competitiveness increases. In fact, with the amputation of increasing parcels of the sovereignty of the countries with weaker economies and the liquidation or absorption of the more profitable national activities, these countries become increasingly dependent on foreign investment, which in turn demands more and more deregulation, wage "restraint", liquidation of social rights and achievements and growing support from governments, all in the name of competitiveness, based upon the reduction of labour costs.

They put States in "competition" concerning the levels of benefits and support that they offer. It is an auction! If the supports and benefits are not sufficient, there is either no investment, or there is delocation to another "more competitive economy". With this pressure and blackmail the trend is for the liquidation of the social achievements and levelling at the lowest standards, that is, by the standards of States with more deregulation and where wages are lowest.

But this offensive which is always wrapped up in an intense ideological propaganda, has met with the resistance, offensive and denouncement and the struggle of the workers, Trade Unions, popular movements and that of the progressive and revolutionary forces.

To combat this resistance and struggle they see it as necessary to spread the idea that with the advance of free-exchange (see the arguments of the World Trade Organisation; of the texts used to support the MAI - Multilateral Agreement on Investment, and the Seattle summit; Davos, etc.) all of Humankind would gain. That the intensification and extension of capitalist "globalisation", facilitated by scientific and technological development, is a requirement for development and a fatality which workers and dependent economies have to "adjust" to. "Adjustment" continues to be the key word!

And within this mystification, the so-called "new economy" is pointed out as the only and main strategic direction of development and set as the great salvation, using as illustration the high stock-exchange ratings which, as is well known, could not avoid collapse at the first sign of crisis.

We do not deny the importance of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as well as the innovation and thrust that they introduce in several fields, which is not restricted to a faster and more efficient processing of information. But what we see is again the return to a technological determinism, trying to ignore social relations and the antagonistic contradictions of capitalist production.

And even those who foresee that the information and communication technologies will be the core axis of the 21st century system of accumulation, recognise that they do not have solid grounds for their theory. And they stress that the new financial tools and the new technologies have allowed a speculation worthy of the most spectacular financial "bubbles" of the past.

The new realities and the changes in the development of capitalism, facilitated by the free movement of capital and fostered by new technologies, the new aspects of exploitation and domination, the changes in the nation-State and in the capitalist power in general, corruption and trafficking and organised crime networks demand more in-depth analysis and research in co-operation with the various revolutionary and progressive forces. Co-operation which is more and more needed in unmasking the ideological lines that try to establish "capitalist globalisation" as something inevitable, with no alternative, and to present discredited capitalism with a new face, a "human face"!

And to respond to the discredit of capitalism, the so-called popular capitalism, now re-baptised and theorised by some people as the "sharing capitalism", is relaunched under different forms and names.

The pivot of this theory is the worker shareholder, as a tool of the "new social contract". Using the attraction of a complement in earnings and the "talk" of a more balanced sharing of the generated wealth, the goal is to make workers more dependent on the company, making them believe in the illusion of belonging to it. It is a project of integration of workers in the financial profitability and in the casino economy, facilitating, inclusively through indebtedness and the resort to credit, the purchase of stocks. The objective is clear: if there is a "sharing capitalism" there is also the share of risk at the workers' expense...

And there are even those who state that with the Internet anyone can become an individual capitalist, in which part of their income will come from their stock portfolio. The employee "will see himself as a stockholder rather than a worker!"

They cannot disguise the alienating mystification, the exploitation and its practical results: the ever-growing concentration of wealth.

The irrationality of the system, putting competitiveness and productivity first, with a view to maximising profit, leads to ecological disasters, food disasters (like the "mad cow" disease); in England, a recent official report has denounced ten years of lies, of manipulation of public opinion, serving the interests of the agro-food industry. And this is not limited to England. It is worth reading the report that the PCP presented in Parliament on this issue.

On the threshold of the new millennium, the contradictions between, on the one hand, the possibilities provided by the development of the productive forces, by the advances in science, of which the recent sequencing of human DNA is an example; and on the other hand, the situation in which large part of Humankind lives, the dramatic situations in Latin America, Africa, the majority of Third World countries, the arms race, the scourges of drugs and AIDS, the "threat to the health of all human beings", as is today said by prominent members of the scientific community in relation to the Ebola virus which reappeared in Uganda, and which may become an epidemic. This situation requires the struggle and an increasingly closer co-operation and convergent actions by the Communists and all progressive forces for a different course for Humankind.

We cannot underestimate that there continues to be a negative effect on the world balance of forces and in the power of attraction of the project for a new society, as a result of the defeats of socialism in Eastern Europe, brought about by deformations, mistakes, deviations, the replacement of political activity with repressive measures, policies and actions which were translated into a "model" that did not, and does not, correspond to the ideals of Communism, as was already analysed in depth and stated by us ten years ago, although many outside the Party, and some within the Party, sometimes speak as if we have only said this in the past few months, or even as if we had never said this.

The implosion of the USSR and of the "world socialist system" profoundly changed the world balance of forces, opened up new markets for the expansion of capitalism and paved the way for new offensives by imperialism.

The capitalist economic "globalisation" which is the dominant trait of this epoch, has been complemented by a global strategic "security" project, which can guarantee the "new order" by the force of arms.

The war of aggression against Yugoslavia is a clear example of the process of militarization and interventionism, and was also the pretext used by the United States for the speedy adoption of Nato's new strategic concept, extending its area of intervention, and clearly asserting its aggressiveness within the framework of the imposition of a "new order" that may facilitate the policy of exploitation and oppression by big capital.

And in this framework, the ideology of globalisation, the ideology of the "single thought", based on neo-liberalism (privatisations, less State, competitiveness, free-exchangism, deregulation) is presented as the path that can solve the problems of development of each country and of Humankind.

One of the major directions is the classic "less State" for the people, "more State" for capital, reducing, destroying and privatising its social functions, increasing its coercive stance, restricting rights and achievements, doing away with the indispensable conditions for a practice of active and participated citizenship.

Mutual solidarity

It is within this balance of forces that the activity, the intervention and the struggle of the workers, of the peoples, for a more humane and less unequal world must be carried out; that the struggle and resistance of the workers and peoples, of the revolutionary and progressive forces is waged, seeking to accumulate forces, to defend achievements and sovereignty, as is the case of Cuba, or even scoring important victories, as was the case of East Timor against the Indonesian occupier.

The PCP is proud of the fact that, within the context of its forces, it has been in active solidarity with the most diversified struggles of the workers and peoples, solidarity which is today expressed with the martyr people of Palestine. Our 16th Congress is also an expression of co-operation, of mutual solidarity with communist parties, progressive forces, with the workers and the working-class movement which we wish to fraternally greet, as we wish to fraternally greet the foreign delegations here present.

It is the duty of communists and revolutionaries to extend the international and internationalist dimension of their activity and to seek common and converging actions around specific goals of struggle, and also in the more general struggle against the "globalisation" of exploitation and poverty which is propelled by the communication and information technologies and which is under the command of the transnational corporations.

It is a reality that capitalism continues displaying a remarkable capacity to adjust, dissimulate and recover, but it is also evident that ten years after the defeats of the attempts to build socialism in the East, capitalism has not annulled its internal contradictions and is dooming millions of human beings to poverty and to lives of indignity, at the same time as it seriously changes the environmental balances.

The liberating advances that took place in the 20th century are inseparable from the creative thinking and the revolutionary action of communists. The struggle for deepen democracy in all its aspects, the struggle to ensure that in the 21st century socialism may triumph over capitalism and its social scourge is the great task which communists face.

The PS government policy

During the past five years the PS continued, essentially and in the more fundamental and structuring issues (privatisations, wage policy, fiscal policy, European policy), the same lines of the PSD government, although disguised and wrapped up with great rhetoric on social concerns, the so-called policy of dialogue and one or two positive measures (like the Guaranteed Minimum Income).

To avoid confronting great interests and namely the banking system, the PS successively postponed a tax reform which is decisive for a fairer policy and the success of reforms in education, health and the strengthening of social security.

It subordinated productive activities in favour of speculative and parasite activities. It did not value national agriculture and fishing, almost always submitting to the decisions of the European Union. It guided its policy by an unfair distribution of the National Wealth at the expense of "labour income" and with a competitive strategy essentially based on a policy of low wages. Within the European Union, Portugal is the country with the lowest minimum and average wage, with the lowest pensions, the highest poverty rate and the widest gap between the 10% richest and the 10% poorest.

Benefiting from a favourable foreign state of affairs, during the first years the PS government managed to create the illusion that the country would step forward in progress, modernisation and well-being of the people.

But the truth is that, in spite of some public works and some changes in the physical infrastructures of support to the economic activity and the emergence of some productive companies with a good technological level, we continue to have a peripheral and dependant economy, increasingly subcontracted, with growing social imbalances.

The substitution of national production by foreign production, also eased by the huge hypermarkets, has ruined important productive units and meant a substantial worsening of the trade deficit.

On the other hand, the growth of private consumption was greatly due to the use of credit. The indebtedness of the Portuguese economy is today extremely high as well as that of the families and, namely, of the younger ones, many of which are in a distressing situation due to the increase in interest rates.

The economic situation of the country is also the result of the abdication and conformism of PS in relation to the EU's guidelines, namely in agriculture and fishing, which are clearly against the country's interests. And with increasing worry we also notice the guidelines and the course of the institutional reforms which increasingly tend towards a "directorate of the great powers", at the service of finance capital, which set the rules for the small countries (greater co-operation, extension of voting by qualified majority, a differential weighting of the votes of each country …) and which tend to void the "Social agenda" of significant aspects, as seen during this French presidency.

The demand for a new course for the European Union based upon co-operation of sovereign states, equal in rights, ensuring a real convergence of the economies, social progress and the defence of an environmental dimension of the development has gained a new and important dimension during the past four years, namely, with important moves and actions within the national areas and in the European Union.

The struggle of the workers and the peoples, the struggle of the socially excluded, left at the margins of development by European capitalism, the struggles against racism and xenophobia, for peace in the world, the struggle for the defence of the environment opens new areas for civic, democratic and class intervention and activism, opening paths for a new Europe.

In some aspects the European policies and the right-wing policies of the PS government are no less than those of Cavaco Silva [the previous Prime Minister] himself.

The privatisations, in an auction which is a real plunder of the basic and strategic public companies, are a clear example that PS has overtaken the PSD on its right, in a policy which is not alien to the neo-liberal fascination of the Finance Minister.

The recent operations of privatisation of GALP [oil company] and the shady deal with [the Italian company]ENI; the low price of the stock of EDP [electricity company] preceding the last phase of its privatisation; the TAP [national air carrier] deal with the Swiss; the present sale of Portugal Telecom, are scandalous processes, involving millions at the expense of public resources. And in 2001, the government wants to privatise the paper pulp companies, dismantling the forest sector, an area where Portugal can have a prominent policy.

But not only in privatisations does the PS truly act as a champion in the giveaway of sectors and strategic companies opening the doors to the control of the great interests of the multinationals, or in the conformism towards the European Union, where the PS is at the forefront of the federalist projects.

That is what happens with the placement of their boys in the State apparatus, where PS has shown to be the great champion of "cronyism". Its first
government, in four years, appointed without public applications, 12 000 people to ministerial and similar offices, to executive and other similar jobs and for commissions and work groups. In the present administration they have already appointed, in one year, more than 3 600 "boys" under similar circumstances.

It is in this framework, and with these many appointments, that the interpenetration between the PS and State apparatus, and the finance groups, the economic powers, the lobbies, the informal and underground organisations enables the latter to increase their influence and control over the political power.

These nominations, coming from a Prime Minister who declared that there would be no jobs for the boys, are particularly shocking when government now declares the need for extensive reductions in the number of civil servants.

It is with this exercise of power, with these guidelines and a policy which, essentially, serves big interests, that the government is becoming increasingly unmasked.

There is not one area or social and professional sector where there is not disenchantment, loss of hope and criticism of the policies being carried out. Even within the Armed Forces, with government abandoning the law on military programming adopted by the Assembly of the Republic, preferentially preparing them for integration within the Multinational Forces and without solving statutory and social and professional problems, the disquiet and disenchantement among the military increases. In the same way, unanswered are the demands of the PSP [police force] for their trade union rights, for a new Disciplinary Code and for the creation of a true risk subsidy and Risk Insurance, as are the demands of the GNR [National Republican Guard] in relation to, for example, the recognition of their rights of association and the end of the military statute, creating great discouragement and sense of injustice.

There is a loss of faith in this government, even among the socialist leaders and their base of support. Recent events show a government with increasingly less cohesion and embroiled in disputes, contradictions and games of power and interests. Among the Socialist there are those who demand a new government reshuffle. It is significant. The way the Budget was adopted, the shady aspects surrounding the Foundation for Prevention and Security, the statements by the president of the Regional Health Administration of the North, confirming a policy of "jobs for the boys" and the incidents involving the Minister of Justice, the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Finance, increase the government's discredit among large sectors of the population.

Criticism of several ministers by Socialists, and the statements to the effect that "for the first time they are in pre-manoeuvres for the battle of succession" are revealing. The country cannot continue to pay the consequences and the bill of a policy of concentration of wealth, nor of this internal warfare. Government has no excuse.

And, as it well knows, the PCP's votes in the Parliament were never denied for a policy of the left.

Comrades,

The PCP is sometimes accused by the PS of carrying out a policy of "tearing down" its government, of continuous opposition and obstruction. But any elementary examination of parliamentary activity, for example, shows the falsehood of this accusation. The PCP has clearly positioned itself as a "left-wing opposition" towards the PS government's policy, trying to promote and adopt all that which is positive and opposing, inside and outside Parliament, all that appeared countering the interests of the workers, the people and the country.

In truth, at first count, and leaving aside consensus legislative proposals, such as those to upgrade the administrative status of towns and cities, since our 15th. Congress, the PCP voted in favour of 136 government and PS bills, adopted by Parliament. The PCP gave its favourable vote to all proposals representing advances, even though limited ones. On at least 19 occasions, the PCP's favourable vote or abstention, were crucial for the adoption of government or PS bills.

This is the case of important laws such as: the basic law on the system of Social Solidarity and Security, the Financial Mechanisms for Local Administration, the basis of the policy of Land Ordainment and Urbanism, the Statute of Public Attornies, the changes to the Civil Process Code, the basic law of the Accounts Court, the new Organic Law of PSP, the Disciplinary Code of GNR, the transposition of the directive on the organisation of working times, the Statute of the top officials in Public and Local Administration, the change in the Code of the Stamp Tax, the change in the time limits of exclusion of illegality in cases of abortion, the legal regime of unwedded couples …

And there was even a Project jointly proposed by MPs from PS and PCP benches and which was adopted. It sought to review the situation of the military personnel involved in the April 25th Revolution, whose careers suffered during the 1975 political-military process.

From these facts, it is completely absurd to insist on the theory of the PCP's "negativism". Furthermore, the PS has no right to invoke the excuse
of any systematic convergence of votes to block Parliament.

And if PCP did not vote in favour of more PS proposals, it was only because PS, instead of a left-wing policy chose a neo-liberal policy and convergences with the right.

It is the PCP that is right in saying that, since our 15th. Congress, the PS obstructed and blocked, on at least 39 occasions, important laws, which, if adopted, would have meant important positive changes in the policies being carried out, and substantial improvements in the quality of life of the workers, the youth, women and pensioners.

This was the case with the extra-ordinary rise in the lowest pensions, the increase of the national minimum wage, the change in the regime of collective layoffs, the fight against non-permanent jobs, the guarantee of the rights of workers in cases of company transfers, the granting of unemployment subsidies to public education teachers, the geographic widening of inter-modal transport passes, the programme of reductions in expenses with medicines, a special regime of access by the youth to services in transport, health and culture, free school textbooks in compulsory education, the regulation of the situation of undocumented foreigners, the Law of support to Associations, financing and management of Higher Public Education, the administration and management of hospitals and systems of the National Health Service, etc. etc..

We also have to speak out on the responsibility of PS in the continuation of illegal abortions, the reduction of women's retirement age to 62 years, an electoral promise broken by the PS with the rejection, by that Party, in Parliament of a PCP proposal.

We can truly say that the most positive measures taken in Parliament always had the seal of the initiative, struggle, commitment and the vote in favour of the Portuguese Communist Party.

It was so during the debates on the State Budgets, namely in the tax field, where the PCP presented concrete proposals and which, for example, in the 1999 Budget enabled around 700 000 Portuguese with lower incomes to be exempted from the IRS [Income Tax] and around 2 million others to pay less tax than the previous year, as was largely proved by higher tax returns experienced by thousands of workers this year.

It was so in the case of many laws proposed by the Party, adopted in general terms and still under parliamentary appreciation. As is the case, for example, of Income Tax reform, the creation of Judges of the Peace, of Popular Legislative Initiative, the constitution of Youth Associations and the access to emergency contraceptive medicines.

It was the PCP's initiatives, proposals and vote in Parliament, together with the social struggle, that enabled some legislative advances.

This is the case, among others, of the creation of a network of public services for the treatment and reinsertion of drug addicts; the creation of Municipal Councils of Citizens Security; the revision of the legal regime of labour accidents and professional illnesses; of the prohibition of youth discrimination in the fixing of minimum wage; of the strengthening of the protection of women subject to violence…

These are laws of the Republic, in many cases deriving from difficult and prolonged struggles. These are laws, which not always correspond exactly to what we proposed or wished, but which represent positive advances in answer to the great and small problems of our country, or which lessened the more serious aspects and consequences of the policies of the right. These are laws which surely give prestige to the PCP and its Parliamentary Group.

A Party of proposals and struggle

The intervention of the PCP to answer the serious problems faced by the country and society is manifest in all areas of national life.

Instead of declaring a passion for education, for propaganda reasons, the PCP presented concrete proposals and demanded, and demands, that government promote a quality public schooling, improve the rates of educational success, defend higher public education and guarantee professional outlets, fighting against an education policy which increasingly favours an education of exclusion and discrimination, namely in accordance with people's socio-economic conditions.

Instead of presenting demagogic proposals to fool pensioners and gain their support for the privatisation of Social Security, to fatten private insurance companies, the PCP gave a decisive contribution for the adoption of a basic law on a more progressive Social Security, has countered neo-liberal guidelines and defended an improvement in pensions and retirement pay and the improvement of the public system of social security as an effective guarantee of a fundamental right - the right of all to social security.

Instead of declaring, in a second phase, a passion for health - like a late blooming "lovebird" - the PCP has presented measures to answer the more severe problems and has assumed the need for a democratic reform of the National Health Service, based upon a set of strategic guidelines simultaneously defending the adoption of immediate policies in the fields of the right to health, quality of the services and primary health care, waiting lists, medicines, the promotion of the rights of patients and a special attention to the problems of mental health, drug addiction, alcoholism and AIDS, where our country holds the second place in Europe by the number of the infected teenagers: For this reason also, the PCP has insisted on prevention and sex education.

We are among the countries with the highest rates of unwanted and teenage pregnancies.

As is well known, a law on sex education in school was adopted from a bill presented by the PCP, which, we hope, will be implemented in a serious way, even during the present school year. We also consider urgent the approval of projects which enable access to "the day after pill", without medical prescription, which should be accompanied by a correct information to women, specially the young ones, on the differences between "the day after pill" and "the abortive pill", specially due to the demagoguery spread by PSD and CDS/PP.

Another area where serious problems persist and a foreseeable unending crisis looms, is the area of justice.

A few immediate measures, here and there of a positive nature, which the government was forced to take, pressed by the unsustainable conditions in which the legal system operates, have proved to be merely palliative, without attacking the deep causes of the malady.

We have a justice system that does not carry out the constitutionally established principle of equality, which treats differently the rich and the powerful (who have access to legal information and good lawyers) and all the others who, without access to these means are faced with a lesser justice.

We have a justice that fills the prisons with drug addicts and petty traffickers while freeing the corrupt and big-time dealers.

It is not easy to explain, and even less to understand, perhaps due to the existence of a tangled web of powerful interests and connections, that important and well known cases in the area of the so-called "white collar crime" systematically continue to be filed away or prescribe from criminal proceedings, as recently happened with famous cases.

It is this feeling of impunity, this slowness, this inequality in treatment which are at the base of the discredit of the justice system, of distrust in the judicial institutions and inexorably undermine a lawful democratic state.

The PCP's engagement is well known, both on the political as well as parliamentary field, having presented a bill to enforce measures, at all levels, to modernise and make more efficient the legal system, to defend the independence of magistrates and judicial power, to dignify all those who work in justice.

But above all, we dot tire, nor will tire, in the struggle for a justice accessible to all, specially the workers and the disfavoured, administered respecting the dignity and equality of all citizens under the law.

The struggle is the course

During these last four years, taking into account the dimension, militancy, diversity and objectives of the mass struggle, we can surely say that it constituted a decisive factor in characterising the nature of the PS government's policy, to stop it, and in some case to defeat its intentions and objectives.

And, in this struggle, the struggle of the workers was decisive. It also drove and was accompanied by the struggle in other sectors and social strata which, in different degrees and forms tried to defend concrete and specific interests and rights, mistreated and targeted by the policy of the PS government.

The thousands of small and large struggles, translated into a vast social front, did not produce an arrangement of the forces on a political level capable of producing a real alternative. But they constituted factors of evolution of social conscience and transformed initial discontent and disillusion into protest and activity.

Overestimating and enforcing its electoral strength, the PS government directed its offensive, although disguised with great social rhetoric, against social and labour rights gained by generations of workers, favouring the interests, actions and goals of big business and its confederations.

It did so, when, under the scope of the reduction of the working week to 40 hours, it supported and defended that work breaks no longer count as working time.

It did so, when, it presented and tried to materialise a labour legislation package with profoundly negative aspects for the workers, and, in particular, the youth.

And. it did so, in a framework where the rights of the workers were not, (nor are), materialised in thousands of companies, of widespread low wages and increasingly precarious jobs.

The answer was the struggle. A remarkable struggle, long and fruitful, of the textile workers and other sectors, in defence of their breaks and, de facto, reductions in the working week to 40 hours.

The answer was the struggle against the labour package, in which CGTP -Intersindical Nacional reaffirmed as the great Trade Union Central of the Portuguese workers, by its ability to inform, involve, mobilise, organise and ensure workers' participation in plenary meetings, initiatives and actions in companies, sectors and districts, converging in huge street actions, whose highest expression was the great demonstration of March 23 of this year, when more than 50 000 workers, on a week day, mostly on strike, showed their firm determination to defend the right to work and jobs with rights, firmness and determination reaffirmed on June 19, in Oporto where, under the leadership of the ETUC [European Trade Union Confederation], one of the largest mass actions in Europe took place.

In the recent past there was practically no sector which did not carry out important actions or struggles, including some who had never gone on strike, as was the case of the fuel truckers and the computer sector.

Outstanding was the 78 day strike, without pay, of the purse-seine fishermen, winning a historic demand for a work contract on board.

And risking some omission, we have to stress the struggle of civil servants, workers from local administration, teachers, nurses and doctors, metallurgy and mining, chemical, electrical and power supply industries, construction workers, from commerce and service, communications and transport, rail, road and air workers, from wool and paper industries, so often silenced in the great media, but meeting with success and results in terms of wages, employment, working hours, professional careers, exercise of individual and collective rights.

And let it be said, because it was proved, that in many of these struggles, the presence and participation of women and youth was marked, that all these actions also gave encouragement and stimulus to the struggle of the farmers, the retired, pensioners and disabled, the struggle of communities, and the appearance and action of new social movements around issues like the environment and ecology, for equality and against discrimination, in the family, at the workplace, due to sexual orientation, against racism and for peace and international solidarity, whose most prominent example was the solidarity with the struggle of the people of East Timor.

It is unavoidable to refer, in this process of resistance and struggle, to the unique and irreplaceable role of the broad trade union movement and its
Trade Union Central, CGTP - Intersindical Nacional.

Countering the predictions of the pessimists and prophets of capitalism and neo-liberalism, who dated for the end of this century the demise of class trade unionism, the great project that CGTP-IN represents and congregates hundreds of thousands of Portuguese workers, continues laden with future.

Because it was able to face the difficulties resulting from growing precariousness, premature and massive departures through pre-retirements and early retirements, following processes of union restructuring, new union memberships, elections of thousands of shop stewards and, fundamentally, by carrying out actions and by organising within companies and workplaces. Through struggle, action, proposals in defence of workers' interests and rights, it is fair and right to consider CGTP-IN as the great Trade Union Central of the Portuguese workers.

We also have to note the broad action of the movement of Workers Councils, which, although not immune to the destruction of the productive tissue, constitute an important detachment in the workers' struggle, who have increasingly given their vote of confidence to the members of our Party, due to their work, dedication and engagement in defence of workers' rights.

The broad-based slates won around 80% of mandates and continue to increase their share of the votes and mandates in the most recent elections, having even won again, after many years, an absolute majority of mandates in companies like TAP and Metro.

The Party was present in the political initiative and in all these struggles, in all this action. Firstly, through the engaged, generous and militant activity of the communist militants in CGTP-IN, in Trade Councils and Federations, in Trade Unions, in Workers' Councils, allying their action and intervention with many Catholic, Socialist and non-Party male and female workers.

But the Party, in the struggle for jobs with rights, to value labour, without accepting mutilations to the citizenship of workers, without accepting that democracy is left standing at the door of the workplace, as well as in its intervention and political activity, in companies, regions and sectors, in Parliament, in its general political action, honoured its pledges towards the workers: it was present or went there, to draw their attention, gain their conscience and mobilise them for the action and struggle, with its organisation, its national campaigns, its proposals and stands, stimulating combat, giving back hope, freeing energies and contributing towards their class consciousness.

I believe that, without boasting, we can say that we were in keeping with this Party of great causes, social justice and democratic values, the Portuguese Communist Party.

And also, when we supported great movements and organisations of the social front of struggle, such as the movement of the small and medium farmers, who carried out great protest actions against the worsening of agriculture's main problems; the movement of intellectuals and technical cadres, a fast growing social group of around 20% of the population; the movement of the youth and the action of JCP fulfilling an essential role in the action of the Party among the youth; the movement of the pensioners and the movement of the disabled who carried out important struggles for specific claims; the popular association movement; the movement of environmental defence, the movement of immigrants, ethnic minorities and anti-racist movements; the movement of women which, through their intervention and struggle managed to bring to the forefront important demands. From this rostrum, I want to greet CGTP-IN's National Committee of Women, MDM [Women's Democratic Movement] and the organisation of Communist Women in their common struggle, to defend women's rights and the struggle against precarious jobs, wage and professional discrimination, violence and poverty, lack of infrastructures of child and family support and the struggle for equality and which has been increasing its action in several broad-based platforms.

And, doing what we have done, fighting all we have fought and proposing all we have proposed, we continued to battle, day after day, week after week, month after month, so that Portugal can defeat the tiresome alternance between PS and PSD in carrying out their right-wing policy, so that the experience of the left-wing policy can win more support and wills, so that the Portuguese people can conquer an alternative of the left, which is needed to answer the seriousness of the country's problems, to give a different course to life, to meet the workers' and the people's true concerns and to open the way for the constitution of a democracy, which is simultaneously political, economic, social and cultural.

And let no one doubt, if the Congress adopts the proposed line, which is before you, that day after day, the growing erosion and discredit of the PS government, and the reality of a right-wing which cannot differentiate itself from PS and whom nobody longs for, implies that we shall continue to work hard so that, based upon our Party's reinforcement, the development of the mass struggle, institutional activity and aggregation of democratic forces, energies and wills, we may pursue the difficult, but necessary path for the construction of a left-wing alternative to the policy of the right.

The forthcoming electoral battles

The presidential electoral battle, with the presentation of the candidacy of comrade António Abreu, whom I warmly greet, has long been on the field asserting the PCP's voice, its distinct values, proposals and project for Portuguese society, giving added value to the electoral campaign and contributing to strengthen the popular demand for a left-wing alternative in national policies. In spite of the multiple tasks which the Party faces, there has been a profound involvement of the organisations in asserting our candidacy, which must continue after the Congress.

The Local government elections of next year, which are undoubtedly one of the most important political battles of the coming times, demand the involvement of the whole party collective …

Excepting Lisbon, PCP is preparing to run within the framework of CDU [the Broad Democratic Coalition].

We will face a demanding battle, taking into account that some of our opponents, headed by the government party, will use powerful means and resources, some of which of dubious legitimacy. The already blatant intervention by the government, favouring investments in local government run by their own Party, the whirlwind of ministers travelling around the country, launching stones and holding inaugurations, in a growing fusion between Party and Government, are a sign of a political scenario which will increase with the approach of the elections.

It is not too early to prepare our intervention. Aware of our difficulties, but also of our chances. The support and prestige of the Party and CDU in local government among large sectors of the populations is well known. A work which is not only distinct by the volume of the undertakings and the quality of their action, but also because of their democratic characteristics, of closeness to the populations and their problems, of identification with their main aspirations and interests.

In minority or majority, the presence and positions of the PCP and CDU, are a guarantee of the defence of popular interests, of the resolution of their problems and the improvement of the conditions of life and local and regional progress. To confirm our positions, win new local governments and mandates, increase the presence of CDU in the country's local governments, constitutes a demanding, but positive and necessary objective. It is with this determination that we set forward for this political battle. With justified trust in our chances of progressing our presence and influence in Portuguese villages and municipalities. A confidence based upon the work and undertakings, whose dimension and value is not contested, A confidence supported by the generous availability of thousands of members of PCP, Verdes (Green Party) , Intervenção Democrática and independents, who breathe life and confirm CDU as a broad space of democratic participation and undertaking at the service of Portugal and the Portuguese.

A strong Communist Party for the 21st Century

Comrades,

Since our last Congress, the Party has guaranteed a demanding response and carried out a dynamic activity, having managed to garner the strength and forces necessary to move forward, despite facing adverse objective conditions.

In a contradictory and difficult context, the Party has given a decisive contribution towards developing the mass struggle, and that has represented a powerful factor in clarifying and unmasking the true nature of the right-wing policy, and of asserting the need for a left-wing alternative. The Party has also carried out a qualified, dynamic and productive action in the Assembly of the Republic [the national Parliament], in the European Parliament, in Local Government and in the Regional Assemblies of the Azores and Madeira [archipelagos], where it strengthened its positions in the recent elections.

The Party collective has kept up an intense activity, in some cases beyond its real strength, and that has only been possible thanks to the effort and the utmost dedication of Party organisations, thanks to the militancy, generosity and commitment of so many Party members.

But if it is undeniably true that this activity is globally positive, it is also true that problems subsist which we have not managed to overcome, as is stated in the draft Political Resolution and as was also highlighted during the pre-Congress debate.

Yet this fact, and the many other aspects which we recognise in a clear and open way, which knows no parallel in the country's political reality, does not deprive us of the authority to denounce activities which have been particularly evident and brutal in the past few months, namely of phenomena which have, once again, exposed the nature of our opponents and of the professional "PCP-terminators" who suffer the illnesses which they see in the PCP and the Communists.

It is they who can only speak of the PCP based on the utmost dogmatism, the most blatant black-or-white schematism, the most tragic forms of blindness and autism. And if we consider their special taste for anonymous "sources", it is they, and not us, who seem to feel a special attraction and longing for living in the underground.

Their prejudice is so deep and entrenched, and their will to present us as a relic wrapped up in mothballs is so strong that they have no time, nor space, nor eyes left to face the reality which hurts them most, and which is, at the same time, one of our greatest strengths, one of our most solid foundations for the future and an essential element for our true identity.

And that is the fact that we have a role and responsibilities in the country's life and know how to live up to them; that we fight, wage battles and win achievements and advances for the workers, the people and the country; that we embody with unique courage, coherence and seriousness, causes, both small and large; that we analyse in detail and in a constructive way the country's problems, and present well-grounded proposals for practically all areas of the country's life; because we think that citizens, through their initiative and participation, have a role to play in defending their interests and in building their future; because we preach human dignity, non-submissiveness and an opposition to fatalism; because we are honest and unselfish in the way we hold public office and public roles, and view and practice politics as a noble form of human activity.

Our opponents treat us as if we were pieces in a museum, but that is precisely because they know that yes, we have a history, but above all we are committed to pursuing it and enriching it; because they know that where we really belong, where we are honoured and proud to be Communists, is in everyday life and in the struggle to transform it; is wherever it is necessary to fight against injustice and the arrogance of the powerful, and to raise a voice in defence of the exploited, the oppressed, the humiliated and forgotten; it is wherever it is important to light the flame of hope and the will to change.

Comrades,

One of the major goals facing our Party is to gather strength in the social, political, electoral and institutional levels.

The increase in the PCP's influence, with its own identity, with a stronger organisation and more intense activity are decisive goals and tasks that all Party members and organisations confront and which are at the core of this Congress.

But, in order to achieve these goals, we need to pursue and materialise guidelines and steps that strengthen and rejuvenate the militant grassroots, which can give more responsibilities to members and ensure their more active participation.

We need greater dynamism of the grassroots organisations, in the struggles, on the issues and expectations of the workers and the people, of the communities in which they operate; we need to give greater momentum to our political initiative, to the presentation of proposals and measures that make the PCP's assertion as a Party of struggle and a Party of projects increasingly visible and strong.

We need to adopt guidelines for our work, to define priorities and some measures of positive discrimination for those regions and sectors where our influence is not so strong, so as to invert those situations and increase the Party's influence.

We need to be bolder in recruiting, namely in recruiting young people and women, and we need to integrate and organise all those who have joined the Party in recent years, encouraging their participation and making good use of their aptitudes, willingness, preferences and militancy. The renewal and rejuvenation of Party organisations and structures which have had positive developments in recent years cannot be paralysed by the problems that the Party has faced in recent months, nor because we are now at our Congress. We need a new thrust after the Congress, with great determination and commitment. And this thrust must necessarily include the revitalisation and dynamisation of the grassroots structures.

And we need to continue taking steps to strengthen the organisation and activity among the workers, to intensify the creation of shop-floor cells and to promote the best forms of organisational and political work that can encourage the militancy and active participation of Party members and which can reflect and promote inner-Party democracy. In short, we must ensure a new momentum in implementing the guidelines that we adopted in the document which we called "A New Impetus", with lines of work that are, one by one, contained in the Political Resolution submitted to this Congress.

And this cannot but take into account the changes that have been taking place in the productive structures, the evolving conditions of exploitation of the labour force, based on the deregulation of labour relations, as well as their impact on the structure of employment and in the changes in the organisation of production and of work, with significant reflections upon the country's class structure.

It is of the utmost importance for the Party to know this structure, to know the relative composition in social and regional terms, in its characteristics, in terms of class consciousness, in its structural elements and in attitudes, in the class social relations. This research and study is a requirement that we face.

The decrease in the number of rural wage labourers, the persistence in absolute numbers, but decline in relative terms of industrial employment, the increase, in both absolute and relative terms, of employment in the service sector, women's increasing participation in the composition of employment, the increasingly precarious forms of work (20% of all workers have precarious jobs and 37% of all jobs without permanent contracts involve young people), all of these facts must have major consequences in terms of the Party's structure, of its forms of organisation and activity, and in the steps that must be taken to strengthen it. As a classic said: "we must scientifically study with all our energy the facts on which our policies are based".

And in the same way that "socialism is not built by decrees from above living, creative socialism is the work of the masses themselves", and is foreign to blueprints and speculative slogans, so too the Party needs the involvement, the participation, the initiative and activity of its members and needs to know with accuracy and truthfulness the reality in which it operates.

Strengthening the Party is decisive in achieving a left-wing alternative, and is therefore in the interest of, not just the Communists, but of all workers and of the people.

And we are convinced that it is possible to advance and to increase our influence.

We do not ignore the difficulties, nor do we underestimate the offensive which is being waged against our Party by certain mass media, nor the harm caused by the spiralling edginess and by attitudes which stand outside the principles of our forms of organisation that have occurred in the Party, nor the sadness and confusion and the disappointment that these facts have caused among many Party members.

Nor do we view in a light-hearted way the distancing - that we do not want and which we regret - of comrades with Communist and revolutionary convictions from holding greater responsibilities. They were not and are not ill-placed in this Party. They will certainly continue giving a valuable and necessary militant contribution. That is certainly what we all hope. Nor do we underestimate the negative effects of the defeats in the experiences of building socialism in the East, which continue to be felt in the assertion of our Party and of its project. But we think that it is possible to overcome these negative factors and also overcome the wounds and the edginess which have arisen. We must work towards this, and commit energies, strength and will towards re-establishing our party's methods of work and the fraternal rules of behaviour among Communists, extending our influence in the struggle for better living conditions for the workers and the people, for the progress of the country, for democracy and for socialism.

It is for a Communist party, open to life, that closely monitors developments, that fights for social change, that is proud of its 80 years of struggle, that is stronger and increasingly capable of corresponding to the demanding tasks and to the new challenges that the future brings with it, that we must continue to study and to work to overcome well-known difficulties, liberating new energies and capabilities, asserting and projecting our proposals, policies and project.

What we are and what we want

Knowing this Party, knowing its rank-and-file and its grassroots, knowing the feeling, the expressions and the will of this great Party collective, it can be seen that, regardless of this or that statement or challenging by one or other member, the Party's identity was not, and is not, at stake.

We do not, therefore, subscribe to simplistic notions and interpretations of a complex process which, in the final analysis, merely seek to justify behaviours and attitudes which deviate from the Party constitution, both within and outside the Party. We do not subscribe to the interpretations of a threat of a social-democratising derivation, nor to the threat of a sectarian and workerist derivation.

The PCP is Communist and shall be Communist, because that is the will of its members, in its nature as a working-class Party and a Party of all workers, in its theoretical foundations - dialectical materialism, in its ultimate goals. It is always useful to recall and to never forget that our Communist identity represents a legacy that is open to enrichment and renewal, and that has a richer and denser content than the few words or short definitions with which we usually characterise it.

But it is useful to reiterate that we are a Party that views its theory, not as a recipe book with ready-made solutions, nor as a catalogue for quotes.

We have already said, and I think that it is also useful to say again, that Marxism-Leninism is not for us a label, a slogan, nor the a-critical attachment to ready-made theories, concepts and ideas that have been made obsolete by life. In the PCP, we have long since stressed that "those who transform theoretical principles into eternal truths are bad defenders of Marxism-Leninism", as are those who "transform the theoretical principles into dogmas, dogmas into objective laws and hope that the supposedly objective laws, because it is objective, may change reality according to the principle which was transformed into a dogma".

And we concluded, in analysing the causes for the defeat of socialism in the East, that the dogmatisation of Marxism-Leninism was one of those causes, because it led to serious deformations and mistakes in the policies and practice of Party and State.

In reality, we do not have a unilateral or simplistic vision of Marxism-Leninism. We view it as an open system, which necessarily has developments in its constituent theories and concepts, that are the result of experience, of practice, of new knowledge and of a critical dialogue with other theories. We view it as a fruitful instrument in analysing a changing reality, and a guide for the activity of those who do not just seek to interpret the world, but who fight to change it.

And in this sense, at our 14th Congress in 1992, we changed the Party constitution underlining the essentially materialist and dialectical nature of our theoretical basis, and the need to enrich and renew it.

Unlike what is insidiously said by some, what is at stake in this Congress is not any "return to ideological purity", nor a simplification of that which is complex, nor a sedimentation of that which is dialectical, nor a closing of eyes to the heartbeat of life.

Organisational principles "Solidarity Pact"

Some of our opponents and self-serving commentators challenge many of our organisational principles.

On this issue, and also considering the critical opinions and disagreements which have been legitimately put forth by members of the Party, we wish to recall and explicitly state the following:

For the PCP, there are no timeless and unchangeable rules in the way a Communist Party functions. The PCP condemned, condemns and rejects views and attitudes which arose in Communist parties and in the societies and States, under the umbrella of the classic principles of democratic centralism which were reflected in an authoritarian and bureaucratic centralism with serious limitations and exceptions to inner-Party democracy, falsifying its values and its goals. The fundamental organisational principles which preside over our Party's life, and which result from the specific developments that we have given to the concept of democratic centralism, seek to ensure a profound inner-Party democracy; a single general guideline and a single central leadership; not through the purely centralised functioning of the Party's hierarchical structure, but through a committed and conscious militancy, through an intense and constant democratic participation. Deepening inner-Party democracy is, and must be, for us, for each and every one of us, a daily requirement seeking to strengthen members' rights, to conceive and generalise a collective leadership and collective work, to decentralise responsibilities.

Have we followed and materialised these guidelines? Not always. It is necessary to correct incorrect attitudes. We do not accept, and we are convinced that the Party also does not accept, and does not view as fait accompli either the behaviour of those who have intervened from within the Party, outside their own organisations and outside the Party constitution, or that of those who intervened from outside, via the mass media. We accept neither of these attitudes.

If one asks:

Is it necessary to extend rights, to encourage members' initiative, to dynamize the grassroots organisations, to strengthen the Party's links with the workers, to pay more attention to the movements in society, to deepen what we have coined the "New Impetus"? Without any hesitations, we say yes.

Another issue is that of the horizontal circulation of information. On this, it must be stressed that it is not true that Party members are just restricted and confined to their organisation in relation to the debate of ideas.

As is known, we have an important experience of information and horizontal discussion through plenary meetings of members, seminars, auditions, assemblies, meetings of co-ordination, national meetings, meetings of cadres, national meetings, Conferences and, also, through the pages of "Avante!", namely in the preparatory debate for this Congress. Does this mean that we do not have to examine this issue in order to extend it, to make these arenas for debate more frequent, not just in relation to sectoral issues, but also in relation to more general issues of tactics, political alternative, Party organisation, prospects, etc.? The answer is yes.

Even "Avante!" can give a greater contribution in this respect, ensuring space for debate, for points of view, round tables, without compromising its editorial line. It is an issue that must be considered, assessed and put into practice in the context of our possibilities.

But one thing is the horizontal circulation of information within the Party. A different thing is in the mass media, promoting as we just recently witnessed within the PSD, the PP and the PS the "cockfights between barons and baronesses" which we clearly reject.

And those who from within other Parties arrogantly and hypocritically pass judgement on the PCP's inner life, would do well to put their actions where their mouth is. If they look at their own parties' constitutions, at their strong centralism, at their limited and impoverished democratic content, at the imposition of the will of the "boss" or of the "barons", if they do so with honesty, they won't find it hard to conclude who really has a more democratic inner-Party life.

We must also do everything to expose and defeat the lines that have developed, both within and outside the Party, tending to create divisions and fault-lines between the intellectuals and the working class, between the intellectuals and the Party.

This Party has always had within its midst the progressive intellectuals, the better part of the Portuguese intellectuals which always stood side by side with the working class and the workers in the common struggle for freedom, for democracy, for the well-being of the people, for social change.

In its Programme, the PCP considers that in the system of social alliances, one of the basic alliances is the alliance of the working class with the intellectuals and other intermediate strata. This is a line and goal of the PCP which is not new. For this reason, we will continue striving to ensure that this alliance may be extended and deepened, so that we can continue to encourage and intensify the participation, contribution and activity of the Communist intellectuals in the whole of the Party's activity.

Many are the difficulties which we face. But there is no shortage of potential that we can count upon within the Party collective.

In order to successfully live up to the challenges which life will confront us with, in order to achieve greater organisational strength and influence, we will work to overcome organisational weaknesses, to proceed with the Party's rejuvenation and renewal, to strengthen and expand the grassroots organisations and to give greater responsibilities to cadres, paying more attention and initiative towards the problems of workers and of the people, seeking to strengthen the Party's organisations in the companies and shop-floors.

In order to rejuvenate the Party's action, it is of the utmost importance to develop our work in close connection and co-operation with JCP, which has been giving a contribution of great importance in this respect.

In greeting JCP, in greeting the Communist youth, we greet their struggle, their activity, their participation and, through them, all young people who, in the Party, expand our capacity to reach out to broader sectors of the youth. The definition and materialisation of Party policies for the youth, as well as for a left-wing policy, requires greater analysis and co-ordination of work in the various areas in which the Party works and relates to the younger strata.

And we need to improve the information to the Party, which was one of the issues that had great presence in many members' concerns during the pre-Congress debate. And we need to extend and heighten the militancy, seeking the best forms of contact and linkage with Party members.

Another issue that will require analysis is that of the operationality and improvement in the work of the Central Committee and its executive bodies, taking into account the vast experience which has been accumulated and the positive and negative aspects which were detected.

But in order to materialise these demanding goals, we must unite efforts, strengthen our unity, extend the debate and dynamise the activity and the struggle. And we must continue turning the Party towards the outside world, towards activity and participation. We want a stronger and more influential Party, in order to be increasingly useful to our people, in their struggles, in their just demands, in building their future.

Finally, a brief reference to the method of voting. In abstract, the constitution of a Party may determine whether there should be an open vote, or whether a secret ballot should be imposed. But I don't think that it may be considered any less democratic if it is the members of each electoral assembly who decide whether to use one or other form of voting, as happens in our Party. As is known, there are at this Congress delegates who were elected by a show of hands and delegates who were elected by a secret ballot, according to the majority will in the electoral assemblies.

Throughout these four years, naturally with shortcomings, the PCP lived up to its responsibilities towards the people and the country. And without mincing words we can say that it was the major actor in the struggle for better living conditions for the workers and the people, for the country's progress and to deepen democracy, it was the force that fought and fights for new horizons of hope and for a real turn to the left in the country's politics, that wishes to enter the new millennium with renewed boldness and determination in the struggle for freedom, democracy and socialism.