Speech by Jerónimo de Sousa, General-Secretary, Rally celebrating the 97th anniversary of the PCP

«97 years of life and struggle of a Party that assumes with energy and audacity the demands of the future»

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Our most cordial greetings to all those who are here in this wonderful initiative celebrating the 97th. anniversary of the Portuguese Communist Party!

97 years ago, with the goal of building a society free from the exploitation of man by man, a generation of fighters gave birth in our country to a political force that would inaugurate a new stage in the process of development of the Portuguese labour movement. Sprouting from its bosom and under the influence of the October Revolution was born the PCP - Portuguese Communist Party.

Celebrating the 97th. anniversary of the Party's life is to point out and recall the struggle of our people against fascism, for freedom, the April revolution and its achievements, but also the struggle to defend it in a relentless struggle against the right-wing policy, the capitalist and monopolist restoration undertaken by PS, PSD and CDS-PP.

The hundreds of initiatives that throughout the country give expression to the celebrations of the 97th. anniversary of the Party are unequivocal proof of the continuation of the strength and vitality of this Portuguese Communist Party, its deep roots with the Portuguese workers and people.

We celebrate 97 years of the life of a Party's with a unique history. A Party that is the result of the abnegation of comrades who, over decades, have faced repression, in some cases even giving their lives, of its heroes fallen in the struggle.

But it is also the result of an intense and dedicated militancy of many thousands of comrades. All of them have brought to us this Party, with the great vitality and strength it holds today.

To all of them, our simple and heartfelt tribute, in this initiative of the Party's anniversary.

Tribute that at a time when we celebrate the anniversary of our Party, we want to extend to this exceptional figure of the international labour movement who is Karl Marx, whose bicentenary the PCP celebrates in this year of 2018, under the motto «Legacy, Intervention, Struggle. Transform the World».

Tribute justly owed to his work as a researcher and theoretician, who has in Capital one of its mainstays and his selfless contribution as a revolutionary leader, for the emancipatory struggle of workers and peoples.

To Marx we owe, with the collaboration of his friend and companion of struggle Engels, a scientific elaboration of a new conception of the world, materialistic and dialectical, aimed at the effective liberation of Humanity from all forms of exploitation and oppression.

Emphasizing the role of the vanguard of the working class and of the working masses in the struggle against capitalist exploitation, and of social power which, through their objective conditions of existence, holds the historical mission of ending the domination of the bourgeoisie, Marx and Engels also showed that, in its liberation from the yoke of capital the working class needs to organise itself into an autonomous Party with its own class programme - the Communist Party.

Marx and Engels drew up the first programme of action of the communists, organised in the Communist League, the Manifesto of the Communist Party, presented in 1848 «openly to the whole world», as proclaimed - its «merit» consisted in that «we do not attempt dogmatically to prefigure the world, but want to find the new world only through the criticism of the old. » 

A society to end wage slavery, to which capitalist society condemns the workers for having nothing of their own but their force of labour, in an unequal and subordinate exchange of exploitation.

The theoretical heritage that Marx's prodigious scientific and revolutionary activity bequeathed to Humanity is not something timeless and finished, but a starting point for new insights and new developments in the knowledge and response to the realities of a system based on capitalist exploitation.

A heritage that withstood the erosion of time and established itself as the most powerful weapon of emancipatory social transformation.

A heritage that has been enriched and developed with the struggle of the world communist and revolutionary movement and the experiences of countless liberating struggles of the workers of the capitalist countries, of the liberation movement of the colonized peoples, of the socialist countries, of the broad democratic, anti-imperialist and peace movements.

An enrichment that had a marked contribution from Lenin, so marked that the International Communist Movement and our Party associated in the concept of Marxism-Leninism all this common theoretical heritage.

This heritage is not seen as a doctrine revealed, but a "guide for action", an instrument for "concrete analysis of the concrete situation". A heritage that the programmed initiatives of the commemorations on the bicentenary of the birth of Marx promoted by the PCP will continue to valorise and reveal, showing its timeliness and redoubled usefulness as an instrument of knowledge and transformation of the world.

Of a world that is today, in this second decade of the 21st. century that we live, increasingly unequal, inhuman and more dangerous. A world marked by great instability and uncertainty, by the accumulation of dangers arising from the exploitative and aggressive offensive of imperialism, in particular of the United States of America.

A world where the world's main imperialist powers are in permanent confrontation with the peoples and countries that affirm their sovereignty and independence and their right to development and where their choice of militarism, destabilization, interference, nuclear blackmail and war is present. A choice clearly evident in the accumulation of tensions and dangers of war in various regions of the world.

A situation that is inseparable from the deepening of the structural crisis of capitalism, as a result of the continuous worsening of its contradictions.

Contrary to an announced time of prosperity and peace and promised solutions to the problems of humanity that the propagandists of capitalism spread, following the defeat of socialism in the USSR and Eastern Europe, we now have a world with increased problems and no prospect of solution within the framework of a capitalist system that sharpens its exploitative, oppressive, aggressive and predatory nature.

A world where social inequalities have worsened and continue to worsen, where unemployment, hunger and misery grow. A world where primary healthcare is denied to millions of human beings.

A world where imperialism freed from the restraining factor that the Soviet Union and the socialist countries then constituted, takes war and destruction to the four corners of the world, always thinking of exploitation and greed for profit.

However, the wheel of history does not stop. The struggle of workers and peoples throughout the world, revolutionary, progressive, anti-imperialist processes developed in some cases, deepened in others, prove that it is possible to resist, advance and win.

It is life itself that ends up by proving every day that capitalism is not the solution to the problems of humanity!

With a history marked by war, crimes against humanity, the suffering of millions of human beings, economic irrationality and destruction of important natural resources, its revolutionary overcoming is indispensable, is inevitable!

Two and a half years ago, with the struggle of the workers and the people and with the intervention of the PCP, it was possible to end the destructive action of the PSD/CDS-PP government. It was possible, as it had not been for a long time, to resume in the country the adoption of measures not only to restore liquidated rights but also to make new advances and achievements. These are achievements and advances that we must valorise. They are proposals of the PCP that have either improved or will improve the lives of many thousands of Portuguese.

Proposals that resulted in measures in the field of restoration of extorted wages, in general improvement of retirement and pensions, of tax relief on income from work, in the Income Tax and Property Tax, the replacement of stolen holidays and of the 35 hours working week, in the extension and increase of family allowances, in free textbooks and many others that are now increasing with the materialisation of measures defined in the State Budget for the year 2018, where the decisive contribution of our Party weighs, and how.

A contribution that was translated into dozens of adopted proposals presented by PCP’s Parliamentary Group and which will mean new advances in the improvement of pensions with a new special increase. But also a further cut in taxes on workers and pensioners in the Income Tax, the unfreezing of career progression in Public Administration, the replacement of the value of overtime and night-time work, the elimination of the cut of 10% in the unemployment benefit, the extension of support for the long-term unemployed, the extension of free textbooks to 200,000 students in the second cycle, among many others, in the field of public services and support for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.

But if we have registered positive features in the evolution of the country's situation, there are still many problems that need to be answered.

The situation in the country in recent years highlights some important aspects.

The struggle of the workers and the people and the intervention of the PCP succeeded in defeating and removing the PSD/CDS government, achieving real advances in the defence, replacement and achievement of rights, proving, once again, that nothing is offered, that everything is conquered, that the struggle of the workers and the people and the intervention of the Party, with determination and persistence, turns into reality what many thought was impossible.

It also proved that the defence, replacement and achievement of rights, essential for the improvement of the living conditions of workers and people, is at the same time a decisive factor for economic growth and creation of jobs and that the policy of increased exploitation and impoverishment, cuts in wages, pensions and other social rights was not only a policy of social injustice, but also of recession, unemployment and the country's sinking.

These advances were achieved in a situation of a minority government of the PS, this party does not have enough MPs to determine whatever it wants. Advances that a government of the PS, in other circumstances, would not adopt, as it never before adopted. Each advance was hard won against the resistance of the PS in a path that shows the determining value of the influence of the PCP and its intervention to ensure the defence and valorisation of the rights of workers and the people.

The current situation shows that serious national problems persist, a lasting consequence of the right-wing policy brutally aggravated by the SGPs and the Pact of Aggression signed by PS, PSD and CDS-PP and applied by the PSD/CDS-PP government. Problems that persist and worsen with the class options of the PS and its government, in convergence with PSD and CDS-PP.

The strategic sectors of the economy are today dominated by monopolies, national and especially foreign, with successive governments siding with big business. It pursues a policy guided by options to curb wage growth. Precariousness continues to be huge, with increasing deregulation of working hours, repression and violation of the rights and freedoms of trade union organisation and intervention, including the right to strike, collective bargaining remains subject to caducity, and the grievous norms of the Labour Code and Labour Legislation of Public Administration were not reviewed.

Public services continue to have shortage of workers, equipment, investment in its maintenance and improvement with consequences in the response to populations. The situation in healthcare or public transport companies is a good example of this.

Public debt remains a drain on national resources. The class nature of the policies of the European Union and the Euro is in conflict with the need for a policy that adopts structural measures that truly respond to the deficits and problems that the country faces.

In a correlation of forces that would enable to meet the problems of the country, this is not materialised because the PS and its government, in convergence with the PSD and the CDS-PP, confirm their commitment to the interests of big business and its submission to the imposition of the Euro and the European Union.

The recent developments following the PSD Congress with this party seeking to recover the policy of worsening of exploitation, impoverishment and national disaster that it executed, deepens expressions of consensus and registers an assumed articulation between PS and PSD on "structural reforms" - this misleading denomination which involves measures of worsening labour exploitation, economic regression and social injustice. We know what they are talking about when they talk about "structural reforms." Their "structural reforms" are those of the monetarist and neoliberal formulas, concocted in the laboratories of big business, and which the PS, PSD and CDS governments have taken as a core of their government programmes in recent years, here and in the European Union.

They did not go as far as they intended and wanted, because the struggle had a say in containing their purposes, but they went far in their destructive action under that reforming umbrella.

These "reforms" resulted in a criminous programme of privatisations, including of essential public services, economic deregulation and financial liberalisation, opening the way to the "casino capitalism" with well known results in banks like BES, BPN, BPP, BANIF, lack of social protection, including unemployment, subversion of Social Security which they tried, but failed, dismantling of the social functions of the State, application of the so-called labour flexibility, sacrificing wages and fundamental rights of workers and emptying collective bargaining, as well as using tax systems to favour capital and penalize labour, among others.

This is a path not only to consolidate but to reinforce under the mask of "structural reforms" and under the umbrella of a supposed harmless decentralization (but in fact, a transfer of responsibilities and without holding the State responsible) and a consensual investment policy and application of EU funds, sold as the most natural thing, as natural as the air we breathe.

A first step, on the path of consensus and restoration of an informal centre bloc for further steps, with many aspiring to once again include Social Security.

The last legislative elections have shown in practice that they serve to elect MPs to the Assembly of the Republic, which results in their distribution by the various parties, not to choose the prime minister. As reality has shown, what counts are the majorities that are formed in the Assembly and the more MPs for the PCP the better for the workers, the people, the Country. Not a single vote of the PCP Parliamentary Group will fail to reject that which is negative and to adopt what is necessary to go further in the defence, replacement and conquer of rights and give strength to the necessary alternative for the Country, not wasting any possibility of achieving it.

To make a break with the right-wing policy, regardless of whether it is carried out by the PSD and CDS, or by the PS alone or not, to develop the political alternative and a government that materializes an alternative policy is the essential question that is posed to the workers and the Portuguese people, and whose implementation will only be possible with the decisive strengthening of the PCP and its influence.

The PCP affirms itself as the driving force of this policy, the Patriotic and Left-wing Policy. A policy that makes a break with exploitation, impoverishment, decline and dependency, and ensures a Portugal with a future, developed and sovereign.

A Patriotic and Left-wing Policy that, by assuming the commitment to the workers and the people, with all the democrats and patriots, that negotiates the debt, restores to the Country what belongs to the Country - its resources, its strategic sectors, its inalienable right to growth, development and job creation - to ensure the right to healthcare, education, culture and social protection.

A Patriotic and Left-wing Policy, which necessarily means putting Portugal to produce, with more agriculture, more fisheries, more industry, to create more wealth and to distribute it better, supporting micro, small and medium-size enterprises, valorising work and workers, their individual and collective rights.

In this struggle we wage for the affirmation and implementation of another policy, patriotic and of the left, the valorisation of work and of the workers assumes an important priority in the combats of the present time.

This is why, we are currently engaged in a national campaign to clarify, inform and contact workers, with the motto «Valorise the Workers. More Strength to the PCP»!

A campaign aimed at stimulating the initiative, action and struggle of each worker to uphold his rights, those that are now established and demanding the replacement of those that have been stolen by the right-wing policy, implemented by PS, PSD and CDS, and conquering many of those that correspond to a decent life.

A campaign to stimulate the claiming initiative and the struggle for wage increases; to combat attempts that are underway to deregulate working hours and demand a 35 hour- week for all; to combat precariousness, advancing more vigorously in the process initiated in the Public Administration and also advancing in the private sector; improvement of working conditions; by eliminating the grievous norms of labour legislation, in particular the repeal of the caducity of Collective Bargaining Agreements.

An essential element of an alternative policy, the valorisation of work and workers is not only a distinctive factor of a true left-wing policy, but an object and condition of development and social progress.

Development and social progress that cannot wait, hence the PCP has also presented a set of initiatives with very concrete proposals to restore rights and incomes unjustly confiscated and not only delayed in implementing, but which also face an unacceptable resistance by the PS and its government.

A resistance clearly evident in the rejection last month of the draft proposal of the PCP that aimed to reinstate the payment of overtime and work on a holiday. A resistance where PSD and CDS were present alongside the PS in defeating our proposal, as they had done together in the recent past making it impossible to restore workers' fundamental rights in labour legislation. A position that shows the class commitment of all of them with big business. Commitment by PS that remains on essential issues, which does not dispel the guidelines that have been present in recent years and enforced by PSD and CDS governments, but also by PS, labour deregulation and liquidation of labour rights and cuts in wages.

A resistance that shows the persistence and identity of aims in defence of big economic interests and that shows us the huge task that we have ahead to remove the disastrous social consequences of the old policy that indistinctly all their the governments carried out in the Country.

We are aware of the difficulties that lie ahead. We are aware of the resistance and insistent action of big business to consolidate the setbacks imposed by governments determined to serve their interests, but this cannot mean giving up in this struggle that we are waging for the valorisation of work and the workers.

The proposals that we have presented are viable and correspond to the fair and deep-seated aspirations of the workers.

Proposals that represent, in addition to the replacement of the amounts and rules for calculating the payment of overtime, extra work and on a public holiday, for the replacement of the amounts and rules of calculation in the compensation for termination and dismissal, such as the guarantee of the criterion of one month of base pay and seniority payments for each full year of seniority, without any maximum ceiling of years.

For the guarantee of the annual holiday period with a minimum duration of 25 working days for all workers.

For the repeal of mechanisms of individual adaptability and bank hours and other forms of work time deregulation.

To reinstate the principle of more favourable treatment and to forbid the caducity of collective agreements by means of their successive renewal until their replacement by another freely negotiated between the parties.

Proposals to add to others that have also been the subject of legislative initiatives by the PCP, including those aimed at combating precariousness with very concrete proposals or the repeal of the provisions of the Labour Legislation in Public Administration.

Proposals that have an even greater raison d'être when, in the last two years, there has been an average stagnation in real wages and increase of precarious work.

An evolution that tells us that it is not enough to make the economy grow. It must be placed at the service of all and the improvement of the quality of life of all working Portuguese.

And that is why we will not give up this fight, because this is a fight that a left-wing force, like the PCP, has to fight with full determination!

A fight that necessarily needs the struggle of the workers to be successful!

The struggle of the workers and the people continues to be, as it always has been, the key factor to resist, restore, uphold and conquer rights and to achieve an alternative policy. A struggle that also includes the celebrations of March 8, International Women's Day, and in particular the participation in the National Rally of Women, promoted by the MDM, on March 10, in Lisbon, on March 28, National Youth Day, with the national rally of the working youth, the dynamization of the popular celebrations of the 44th. anniversary of the April Revolution and the preparation and holding of May 1st, called and organised by the CGTP-IN, an expression of the struggle of the workers of every company and sector and a day of great struggle of all workers and people.

Those early years of the PCP were not easy. From the very first day, and soon after 1926, with the military coup of May 28 that led to the establishment of the fascist dictatorship, the Party, only five years old, was banned and persecuted, forced to act in conditions of most severe clandestinity and brutal repression, including sacrifice of the lives of many who with their militancy, dedication and courage, helped to erect, defend and build the Party we have and are.

Those early years of the PCP were not easy, as they are not easy today. During the year 2017, to go no further, the Party was called to an intense intervention with a great demand and a response that we appraise. A response in general political action, in the development of the mass struggle, in the preparation of the Avante! Festival, in the battle of the local elections, in the Centenary of the October Revolution and in other actions and initiatives.

The current situation and developments require a stronger and reinforced PCP, strengthening means and capacities and improving their use. Stronger and reinforced at all levels - political, ideological, organic, financial - with intervention on all fronts - mass, political, institutional, electoral and ideological.

Stronger to give more strength to the struggle and political intervention, structuring the organisation and improving its functioning at all levels, ensuring the strengthening of leadership work and collective work, individual responsibility, initiative, coordination and discipline, ensuring accountability of cadres, regular and efficient functioning of leadership bodies, the structuring of local organisations, taking into account the actual strength of the organisation, its strengthening, its renewal and rejuvenation, political initiative and work with the new generations and the retired and pensioners, organising the propaganda work, systematizing and extending the use of electronic means, increasing the diffusion and reading of Party press, namely the "Avante!" and "The Militante", ensuring the financial independence of the Party, having as essential factor the increase in dues.

Stronger and reinforced in particular among workers, in companies and workplaces, with an active policy of recruiting new members and consequent integration, primarily in the workplace, with the creation and dynamization of company and workplace cells, ensuring their political and ideological formation, particularly important in the year in which we celebrate the Bicentenary of the birth of Karl Marx.

To this effect it is very important to implement the decisions of the Central Committee among which we highlight the contact with 5 thousand workers and tell them why we consider it very important, for the struggle we are waging in our Country, to join the Party giving it more organised force, completing the ongoing action with the workers and that will last the whole year, informing, listening and learning.

We hereby call on all the comrades present to look around, see who they should contact to join the Party and make these contacts, beginning with all those who are here with us on this anniversary and are not members of the Party.

Throughout its 97 years of existence, the Party has faced and experienced great dangers and difficulties, always finding the paths that have allowed it to overcome, with creative audacity and firmness of principles, great changes and turnabouts in the national and international situation.

Confidence, confidence that 97 years of life and struggle of a Party that, proud of its history, learning from its own experience, firm and determined in the present, assumes with energy and audacity the demands of the future.

Confidence in a Party that, far from succumbing as its enemies would wish and so often announced, affirms itself stronger, more necessary, more determined to continue its path with the workers and the people for progress and social justice, for national sovereignty and independence .

Confidence! Confidence in a Party that assumes and affirms its communist identity, in this collective that resists and advances, which does not yield to adversity, which is where it has always been, at the forefront of the battle for the rights and interests of workers and people, at the vanguard of struggle for "An Advanced Democracy - The Values of April in the Future of Portugal", for a society free from the exploitation of man by man, for a land without masters, for socialism and communism.