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The Party was founded in 1921 as the Portuguese section of the Communist International (Comintern). Later it played a major role in the opposition to the dictatorial and fascist-leaning "Estado Novo" regime [1] led by António de Oliveira Salazar, being brutally suppressed several times during the 48 years of resistance. After being one of the most influential parties in the years that followed the Carnation Revolution, mainly among the working class, it became less influential after the fall of the Socialist bloc in eastern Europe. It still enjoys popularity in vast sectors of Portuguese society, particularly in the rural areas of the Alentejo and Ribatejo, and also in the heavily industrialized areas around Lisbon and Setúbal, where it holds the leadership of several municipalities. It also has a major influence within the largest Portuguese trade union federation, the General Confederation of the Portuguese Workers.
Template:InoteThe 1st article of the Portuguese Communist Party statutes define it as:
The political party of the proletariat, the party of the working class and of all Portuguese workers.
The PCP is the vanguard of the working class and of all working people. The Party's vanguard role results from its class nature and its close and indestructible liaison with the masses, mobilizing them and winning their support.
The PCP organizes in its ranks the industrial and office workers, small and medium farmers, intellectuals and technical workers, small and medium shopkeepers and industrialists, who fight for democracy and for Socialism.
The Portuguese Communist Party is the legitimate pursuer of the Portuguese people's best traditions of struggle and of their progressive and revolutionary achievements throughout their History.
The following articles define its ideological guidelines:
The Portuguese Communist Party takes as its theoretical basis Marxism-Leninism, which is a materialist and dialectic conception of the world and a scientific tool of social analysis. These principles guide the Party's action and enable it to systematically answer new challenges and realities. However, this may not be assumed as a dogma, but instead these instruments should be constantly renewed.
The Portuguese Communist Party educates its members and carries out its activity in the spirit of loyalty to the cause of the Portuguese working class and in the defense of national interests.
The Party orients its members and its activity in the spirit of proletarian internationalism, of cooperation between the Communist parties and revolutionary and progressive forces and of solidarity with the workers of other countries.
The main principle that guides the Party's internal structure, being a Leninist party, is Democratic centralism. This implies that:
All party organs are elected from bottom to top and may be dismissed by those who elected them, if needed;
Those who are responsible for each structure of the Party are responsible to both lower and upper levels, being obliged to report the activities and to give consideration to their opinions and criticisms.
Lower-level structures must respect the decisions of the upper structures;
Every member is free to give his opinion during the discussion and the structures must take in account the contribution of every member;
Every member must obey the decisions achieved by consensus or by a majority;
Every member must work along with his own structure;
The Party doesn't admit to the existence of organized factions;
The structure and internal organization of the Portuguese Communist Party are defined by its statutes. The most recent statutes were approved in the seventeenth congress, held in 2004.
The upper organs of the Portuguese Communist Party at a national scale are the Congress, the Central Committee (CC), and the Central Commission of Control.
The supreme organ of the Party is its Congress, which is summoned by the outgoing CC and held every four years. The Congress is composed of delegates elected in the respective structures proportionally to each structure's membership size. The congress approves its theses after a wide discussion period inside the organizations and may also change the Party's program and statutes. All the decisions of the Congress are made by the delegates voting. With the exception of the voting for the CC, which a recent Portuguese law compels to be secret, all voting, including the approval of the theses, are conducted by a show of hands. The theses, after approval, guide all the Party's political actions and stances until the next Congress.
The main organ between the congresses is the Central Committee, which is elected in the congresses under a proposal of the retiring CC. This proposal may only be made after a long period of hearing the lower structures in order to include in it the names they propose.
The CC may not change the orientation present in the congress' theses. The main task of the CC is to trace the upper orientation of the Party's political work and decide the immediate tasks of the Party, assuring that the lower structures comply with those decisions.
The CC elects, from its members, its Political Bureau, its Secretariat and also the Central Commission of Control. This last must assure the compliance between the Party's activities and the statutes, and control the Party's finances.
The CC may, or may not, elect the Party's General Secretary from its members.
The intermediate organs of the Party are, by rule, the organs that are responsible for a structure of district, municipality and parish levels, but structures at a neighborhood or professional class level also exist.
The main organ of an intermediate structure is the Assembly. The Assembly works as a small Congress for the structure members. The Assembly elects the regional or municipal committees, which are responsible for applying the theses of the Assembly to the structure's work.
The base level organ of the Party is the cell. The cell is defined as being the link between the Party and the working class and the masses. A cell is composed by a minimum of three Party members and exists at a work place or neighborhood level. The cell may elect its own secretariat, which has the responsibility of discussing and putting into practice the Party's guidelines. The cell must assure the recruitment of new members, promote the reading of the Avante! and the other publications, assure that the members pay their quota and keep the upper structures aware of the cell's political work.
At the end of World War I, in 1918, Portugal fell into a serious economic crisis, in part due to the Portuguese military intervention in the war. The military involvement led to an abrupt rise in inflation and unemployment. The Portuguese working classes responded to the deterioration in their living standards with a vast wave of strikes. Supported by an emerging Labour movement, the workers achieved some of their objectives, such as the historic victory of an eight-hour working day.
In September of 1919, the working class movement founded the first Portuguese Labour Union Confederation, Confederação Geral do Trabalho (General Confederation of Labour) that saw a steady increase to 100,000 members in few months. But the feeling of political powerlessness, due to the lack of a coherent political strategy among the Portuguese working class, plus the growing popularity of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917, led to the foundation of the Portuguese Maximalist Federation (Federação Maximalista Portuguesa or FMP) in 1919. The goal of FMP was to promote socialist and revolutionary ideas and to organize and develop the worker movement. The FMP started publishing the weekly Bandeira Vermelha (Red Flag) which became a popular newspaper among the Portuguese working classes.
After some time members of the FMP started to feel the need for a "revolutionary vanguard" among Portuguese workers. After several meetings at various Labor Union offices, and with the aid of the Comintern, this desire culminated in the foundation of the Portuguese Communist Party as the Portuguese Section of the Communist International (Comintern), in 1921.
Unlike virtually all other European Communist Parties, the PCP was not formed after a split of a Social Democratic or Socialist Party, but from the ranks of Anarcho-Syndicalism and revolutionary syndicalism. Both of these groups, at the time, were the most active factions of the Portuguese labor movement.
The Party opened its first headquarters in the Arco do Marquês do Alegrete Street in Lisbon. In the same year, 1921, it also opened the Communist Centers of Porto, Évora and Beja. Seven months after its creation, the first issue of O Comunista (The Communist), the first newspaper of the Party, was published.
The first congress of the Party took place in Lisbon in November 1923, with Carlos Rates leading the Party. The theses had previously been published in O Comunista and discussed by all the local organizations. The congress was attended by about a hundred members of the Party and asserted its solidarity with Socialism in the Soviet Union and the need for a strong struggle for similar policies in Portugal; it also stated that a Fascist uprising in Portugal was a serious threat to the Party and to the country.
Outlawing of the Party and the long clandestine struggle
After the military coup of May 28, 1926, the Party was outlawed, and had to operate in secrecy. By coincidence, the coup was carried out on the eve of the second congress, forcing the suspension of the tasks. In 1927 the Party's Main Office was closed. The Party was first reorganized in 1929 under Bento Gonçalves. Adapting the Party to its new illegal status, the reorganization created a net of clandestine cells to avoid a wave of detentions.
Meanwhile, in 1938, the Portuguese Communist Party had been expelled from the Communist International. The reason for the expulsion was a sense of distrust inside the Comintern, caused by a sudden breakdown in the Party's activity after a period of strong communist tumult in the country and also accusations of alleged embezzlement of money carried out by some important members of the Party. The action against the PCP, signed by Georgi Dimitrov, was in part taken due to some persecution against Comintern member parties or persons (like the Communist Party of Poland or Bela Kun) led by Stalin. These series of events would, in part, lead to the end of the Comintern in 1943.
After the 1933 rise of Salazar's fascist-leaning Estado Novo regime, suppression of the party grew. Many members were arrested, tortured, and executed. Many were sent to the Tarrafal concentration camp in Cape Verde Islands. This included Bento Gonçalves, who would die there. A major reorganization in 1940–41 was named the Reorganization of 40, In 1943 the third congress was held, which stated that the Party should unite with all those who also wanted the end of dictature. At the time, the Party was able, for the first time, to assure a strong clandestine organization, with a net of clandestine cadres, which would make the Party the major reference of the Portuguese resistance against the regime.
In 1945, with a whole new international panorama created by the defeat of the major fascist regimes in World War II, Salazar was forced to fake some democratic changes in order to keep its image at the eyes of the western allies, so, in October of that year, the democratic resistance was authorized to form a platform, which was named Movement of Democratic Unity (Portuguese: Movimento de Unidade Democrática, or MUD). Initially, the MUD was controled by the moderate opposition, but soon became strongly influenced by the PCP [2]. This led to its being made illegal by the government in 1948.
The fourth congress was held in July 1946 and pointed to massive popular struggle as the only way to overthrow the regime, and stated the policies that would help the Party lead that same popular movement. This, along with the consolidation of the clandestine work, was the main conclusion of the congress.
The fifth congress, held in September 1957, was the first and the only to be held outside Portugal. In Kiev, Soviet Union, the Party approved its first program and statutes, revealing an increase of the Party's organic stability. The congress took, for the first time, an official position on Colonialism, stating that every people had the right of self-determination, and made clear its support of the liberation movements in the Portuguese colonies, such as MPLA in Angola, FRELIMO in Mozambique and PAIGC in Guinea-Bissau. This congress was also notable for being the first after the re-settling of the Party's relations with the International Communist Movement and the first since then to receive salutations from foreign communist parties.
In January 1960, a remarkable point in the Party's history occurred: a group of ten PCP members managed to escape from the high-security prison in Peniche. The escape returned to freedom many top figures of the Party, among them, Álvaro Cunhal, who would be elected in the following year the first Secretary-general in nineteen years. Among the escapees was also Jaime Serra, who would become the leader of a secret commando group, the Armed Revolutionary Action (Portuguese: Acção Revolucionária Armada or ARA). The ARA was the armed branch of the PCP that would be responsible in the 1970s for some military action against the Estado Novo regime. The ARA is still cloaked in mystery even today.
In 1961 the Colonial War in Africa began, first in Angola, and in the next year in Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau. The war lasted 13 years and devastated Portuguese society. The war forced many thousands of Portuguese citizens, mainly young people, to leave the country seeking a better future in countries like France, Germany or Switzerland, and also to escape the military service. The Party, that had been involved in the formation of the nationalist guerrilla movements, along with the Soviet Union, immediately stated its opposition to the war, and political support of the anti-colonial movements. The beginning of the war also initiated a process of unstoppable decline of the regime as it originated a growing unrest inside the Portuguese society.
In 1962 the "Academic Crisis" occurred. The Portuguese regime, fearing the growing popularity of democratic ideas among the students, carried out the boycott and enclosure of several student associations and organizations, including the important National Secretariat of Portuguese Students. Most members of this organization were intellectual communist militants that were persecuted and forbidden to continue their university studies. The students, with strong aid from the PCP, responded with demonstrations that culminated on March 24 with a huge student demonstration in Lisbon. The demonstration was brutally suppressed by the shock police, leading to hundreds of student injuries. Immediately thereafter, the students began a strike that became a mark in the resistance against the regime. After the Revolution of 1974, 24 March would become the National Day of the Students, being celebrated every year, mainly by university students.
The sixth congress in 1965 became one of the most important congresses in the Party's history. Álvaro Cunhal, elected General-secretary in 1961, released the report The Path to Victory—The tasks of the Party in the National and Democratic Revolution which became a document of major influence among the democratic movement. Widely distributed among the clandestine members, it contained eight political goals, such as "the end of the monopolies in the economy," "the need for agrarian reform and redistribution of the land," and "the democratization of access to culture and education" — policies that the Party considered essential to make Portugal a fully democratic country. Nine years later, on April 25, 1974, the so-called Carnation Revolution or Democratic Revolution occurred, putting an end to 48 years of resistance and marking the beginning of a new cycle in the Party's life.
The Carnation Revolution of 1974 and the first years of Democracy
File:Cartaz 25 anos abril pcp pt.jpgAPU Poster celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Revolution featuring the revolution's symbol, the carnation
Immediately after the revolution, basic democratic rights were re-established in Portugal. On April 27, the political prisoners were freed. On April 30, Álvaro Cunhal returned to Lisbon, where he was received by thousands of people. May 1st was commemorated for the first time in 48 years, and an estimated half million people gathered in the National Stadium in Lisbon to hear the speeches of the Party's leader Álvaro Cunhal and the socialist Mário Soares. A wave of social and economic changes, most of them supported by PCP, swept the country. A process to give independence to the colonies started with the full support of the Party. On May 17, the Party's newspaper, Avante!, produced the first legal issue of its history. The following months were marked by radical changes in the country, always closely followed by the Party.
Six months after the Revolution, on 20 October1974, the Party's seventh congress took place. More than a thousand delegates and hundreds of Portuguese and foreign guests attended. The congress set forth important statements that discussed the ongoing revolution in the country.
On January 121975 the Portuguese Communist Party became the first legally recognized party, after the opening of the legalizing process by the Supreme Court of Justice.
The revolutionary process continued. On 11 March1975, the left-wing military forces defeated a coup attempt intended to restore the Estado Novo. This resulted in a turn of the revolutionary process to the political left, with the main sectors of the economy, such as the banks, transportation, steel mills, mines and communications companies, being nationalized. This was done under the lead of Vasco Gonçalves, a member of the military wing who supported the Party and who had become prime-minister after the first provisional government resigned. The Party then asserted its complete support for this change and of the Agrarian Reform process that implemented collectivization of the agricultural sector and the land in a region named the "Zone of Intervention of the Agrarian Reform," which included the land south to the Tagus River. The Party took the lead of that process and drove it according to the Party's program, organizing thousands of peasants into cooperatives. That, combined with the Party's strong clandestine organization and support of the peasants' movement during the preceding years in that region, made the south of Portugal the major stronghold of the PCP. The Party gained more than half of the votes in Beja and Évora in the subsequent elections.
One year after the revolution, the first democratic elections took place to elect the parliament that would write a new Constitution to replace the Constitution of 1933. The Party achieved 12.52% of the voting and elected 30 MPs. In the end, as the Party wanted, the Constitution included several references to "Socialism" and a "Classless Society" and was approved with the opposition of only one party, the right-wing Democratic Social Center (Portuguese: Centro Democrático Social or CDS).
In 1976, after the approval of the Constitution, the second democratic election was carried out and the Party raised its share of the vote to 14.56% and 40 MPs. In that same year the first "Avante!" Festival took place, and the eighth congress was held in Lisbon from 11–14 November. The congress mainly stated the need to continue the quest for Socialism in Portugal and the need to defend the achievements of the Revolution against what the Party considered to be a political step backward, led by a coalition of the Socialist Party and the right-wing Centro Democrático Social, who were opposed to the Agrarian Reform process.
In 1979, the Party carried out its ninth congress, which analyzed the state of the post-revolutionary Portugal, right-wing politics and the Party's struggles to nationalize the economy. In December 1979, new elections took place. The Party formed the United People Alliance (Portuguese: Aliança Povo Unido or APU), in coalition with the Portuguese Democratic Movement (Portuguese:Movimento Democrático Português or MDP/CDE), and increased its vote to 18.96% and 47 MPs. The election was won by a right-wing coalition, led by Sá Carneiro, which immediately started a policy that the Party considered to be contrary to working-class interests. Meanwhile the Party achieved several victories in local elections, winning the leadership of dozens of municipalities, in the FEPU coalition. In 1983, another election took place, after the sudden death of Sá Carneiro in an aircrash, and again in APU, the Party achieved 44 MPs and 18.20%. Also in 1983 the Party held the tenth congress that again criticized what it saw as the dangers of right-wing politics.
In 1986, the surprising climb of the socialist Mário Soares, who reached the second round in the presidential election defeating the Party's candidate, Salgado Zenha, made the Party call an extra Congress. The eleventh congress was called with only two weeks' notice, in order to decide whether or not to support Soares against Freitas do Amaral. Soares was supported, and he won by a slight margin. Had he not been supported by the PCP he would have lost. The Congress was considered a success, despite being prepared with such short notice. In 1987, after the resignation of the government, another election took place. The Party, now in coalition with Partido Ecologista "Os Verdes" or PEV (The Greens) and with the Democratic Intervention (Portuguese: Intervenção Democrática or ID), a political association, in the Coligação Democrática Unitária or CDU (Unitarian Democratic Coalition) saw an electoral decline to 12.18% and 31 MPs.
The end of the Socialist Bloc and the new challenges
In 1988 another congress took place, the twelfth, in which more than 2.000 delegates participated, and which put forth a new program, titled, "Portugal, an Advanced Democracy for the 21st Century."
At the end of the 1980s, the Socialist Bloc of Eastern Europe started to disintegrate and the Party faced one of its biggest crises ever. With many members leaving, the Party called an extra thirteenth congress for May 1990, in which an huge ideological battle occurred. The majority of the more than 2.000 delegates decided to continue the Party's "revolutionary way to Socialism", clashing with what many other communist parties around the world were doing, by keeping its Leninist guidelines. The congress asserted that socialism in the Soviet Union had failed, but a unique historical experience and several conquests by the labour movement had been achieved thanks to the Socialist Bloc. Álvaro Cunhal was re-elected General Secretary, but Carlos Carvalhas was elected Assistant General Secretary.
In the legislative election of 1991 the Party won 8.84% of the national vote and 17 MPs, continuing its electoral decline.
The fourteenth congress took place in 1992 and Carlos Carvalhas was elected the new General Secretary, replacing Álvaro Cunhal. The Congress analyzed the whole new international situation created by the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the defeat of Socialism in Eastern Europe. The Party also traced the guidelines intended to put Cavaco Silva and the right-wing government on its way out, a thing that would happen shortly after. In 1995 the right-wing Social Democratic Party was replaced in the government by the Socialist Party after the October legislative election, in which the Party received 8.61% of the votes.
In December 1996 the fifteenth congress was held, this time in Oporto, with more than 1,600 delegates participating. The congress criticized the right-wing policies of the Socialist government of António Guterres and also debated the future of the Party following the debacle of the Socialist Bloc. In the subsequent local elections the Party continued to decline, but in the legislative election of 1999 the Party increased its voting percentage for the first time in many years. The sixteenth congress was held in December of 2000 and Carlos Carvalhas was re-elected General Secretary. In the legislative election of 2002 the Party achieved its lowest voting result ever, with only 7.0% of the votes.
The most recent Congress, the seventeenth, in November 2004 elected Jerónimo de Sousa, a former metallurgical worker, as the new General Secretary.
In the legislative election of February 2005 the Party raised its share of the voting and is now represented in the parliament by 12 MPs of 230, after receiving about 430,000 votes (7.60%).
Álvaro Cunhal died on June 132005 after being several years away from the public eye. Two days later, 250,000 people gathered in Lisbon to attend to his funeral, one of the biggest funerals in Portuguese history.
After the last local election, in 2005, in which the Party regained the presidency of 7 municipalities, the Portuguese Communist Party holds the leadership of 32 (of 308) municipalities, most of them in Alentejo and Setúbal, and has leadership of hundreds of civil parishes, and local assembly members. The local administration by PCP is usually marked by concern about issues such as preventing privatization of the water supply, funding culture and education, providing access to sports and promoting health, facilitating participatory democracy and preventing corruption. The presence of the Greens in the coalition also keeps an eye on environmental issues such as recycling and water treatment.
The Party's work now follows the program of "Advanced Democracy for the 21st Century". Issues like the decriminalization of abortion, workers rights, the increasing fees for the Health Service and Education, the erosion of the social safety net, low salaries and pensions, imperialism and war, and solidarity with other countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Cuba and the Basque Country are constant concerns in the Party's agenda. Since 21 April2005, Portugal has awaited a referendum on abortion decriminalization.
File:Autocolante cdu pt 01.jpgEarly CDU sticker, featuring a bee, intended to be an animal that works every dayCDU sticker: Schedule and tell your friends: in 13 July, Vote CDU to the European ParliamentFile:CDU electoral results.pngCDU results in the parliamentary election of 2005. (Azores and Madeira are not shown)
Results in Parliamentary Elections (year links to election page)
The Local elections results report the voting for the Town Councils only and don't include casual coalitions in some municipalities, for example in Lisbon, between 1989 and 2001. Voting for the Town Assemblies and Parish Assemblies are usually higher (11.7% and 12.0%, respectively, in 2005).
The number of mandates denotes the number of councillors in Local elections, MPs in Parliament elections and MEPs in European Parliament elections.
Results in presidential elections
Results in Presidential Elections (year links to election page)
The Portuguese Communist Party publishes the weekly Avante! (Forward!), widely distributed throughout the country, and also the magazine of theoretical discussion O Militante (The Militant), published each two months.
Avante! is the newspaper that was illegally printed and distributed for the longest time in the world: from February 1931 until May 1974. Many times, the newspaper distribution suffered breakdowns due to the suppression by the political police of Party members who helped to distribute the newspaper, or due to the destruction of the clandestine printing offices. Successfully evading official censorship, Avante! was one of the very few Portuguese newspapers that freely reported on events like the World War II, the Colonial War in Africa or the massive strikes and protest waves against the dictatorship carried out by the workers and the students. Avante! continues to be printed after more than three decades of democracy and has now a full online edition. Festa do Avante! was named after the newspaper, resembling the Party of L'Humanité in France.
Both Avante! and O Militante are sold in the Party's offices to the members. Buying Avante! is considered one of the members' duties. Avante! is also sold among other newspapers in many news stands around the country.
During the last campaign, the Party had a radio broadcast in its website and also a digital forum, being the first Portuguese party to use the internet actively in a electoral campaign. After the last Congress the Party considers its website as another official media and it is regularly updated.
Usually the Party's largest political campaigns and struggles are supported by massive leaflet distributions and advertising posters in hot spots like train stations, factories, universities, main streets and avenues or markets.
The free television spots that the Portuguese law grants to the parties, either in the campaign time or out of it, are used by PCP to promote initiatives and political campaigns.
The Party also owns a publishing company, Edições Avante! (Avante! Editions) that publishes and sells several books related to the Party's history or to Marxism, from The Communist Manifesto to the work of Soeiro Pereira Gomes and Álvaro Cunhal.
Recently, an online radio show was created, named Comunic, that broadcasts thematic interviews with Party's members, music and propaganda.
Mainly composed by students and some working class young people, the JCP has as its main political concerns issues like the promotion of a free and public education for all ages, employment, peace or housing. It also promotes international solidarity brigades for countries like Cuba, Palestine or Venezuela, alone or with other European Communist youth organizations like KNE and SDAJ.
The JCP has its main organizational strength among high-school and university students, with a strong presence among the Students' unions.
Every year, in the first weekend of September (since 1976) there is a gigantic festival, the Avante! Festival (Portuguese: Festa do Avante!) named after the Party's official newspaper. After taking part in different locations around Lisbon, like the FIL Park, Ajuda or Loures, it is now carried out in Amora, a town near Seixal in a ground bought by the Party after a massive fundraising campaign in the early 90s. The campaign was considered by the Party as the only way to avoid the boycott organised by the owners of the previous festivals grounds, that culminated in 1987 with the festival not being carried out after eleven editions. The festival is usually visited and participated in by hundreds of thousands of people, making the outside of the ground seem a gigantic camping park. The party itself consists of a three day festival of music, with the participation of hundreds of Portuguese and international bands and artists in five different stages, ethnography, gastronomy, debates, a book & music fair, theatre (Avanteatro) and sporting events. Several foreign communist parties also participate.
The preparation of the party begins right after the end of the previous party. Hundreds of the party's members and friends, mostly young people, volunteer for the hard work of building a small town in a few months.
The statutes of the party state that the General Secretary of the Portuguese Communist Party, if there is the need for one, is elected by the Central Committee among its members, this is usually done after each Congress. The current General Secretary is Jerónimo de Sousa.
José Carlos Rates — (1923– ?) — Carlos Rates was elected after the 1st congress, held in Lisbon in 1923. He was chosen to General Secretary by the delegate of the Communist International in Portugal, Jules Humbert-Droz, after several problems inside the newly founded Party. Later, Bento António Gonçalves would become the Party's General Secretary and criticize Rates' work as the leader of PCP.
File:Bento gonçalves pt.gifBento António Gonçalves — (1929–42) — Elected in 1929, Bento Gonçalves was born in Montalegre, near Bragança, in the North of Portugal. In September of 1928 he joined the Portuguese Communist Party and became a member of the cell of the Arsenal of Alfeite. In 1929 he participated in the reorganizing conference that adapted the Party to its illegal status after the military coup of 1926. Soon after, he became Secretary General. He was arrested several times by the political police and sent to the Tarrafal concentration camp, where he died in 1942.
File:Alvcunhal2.jpgÁlvaro Barreirinhas Cunhal — (1961–92) — Álvaro Cunhal (1913–2005) is considered one of the most influential personalities of the Portuguese 20th Century. Cunhal joined the PCP in 1931 and rapidly became one of the leading members of the Party. Cunhal was elected in 1961 after escaping from the prison in 1960. After the Carnation Revolution he returned and had a major role in the revolutionary process, being minister of several provisional governments. Cunhal had a degree in Law, but was also a writer and a painter. He died in June of 2005 and his funeral was attended by an estimated 250.000 people.
File:C carvalhas.jpgCarlos Alberto Carvalhas — (1992–2004) — Elected in 1992 after being elected assistant General Secretary in the 13th congress, in 1990. Carvalhas (b. 1941) is an economist. After participating in several protests and campaigns against the dictatorship, he became a member of the provisional governments after the Carnation Revolution in 1974/75 with the tasks of the employment. In the 1980s he was member of the European Parliament and of the Council of Europe. In 1991 he was the Party's candidate to the presidential election. He was later a member of the Portuguese Parliament for several years.
File:Jeronimo de Sousa pcp pt.jpgJerónimo Carvalho de Sousa — (2004– ) — Elected after the 17th Congress in 2004, Jerónimo de Sousa (b. 1947) is a former metallurgical worker and still member of the metallurgical workers' union. He was member of the Constituent Assembly and of the subsequent Parliaments and was noted for being among the few MPs with working-class origins, a strange fact at the time, and also today. Jerónimo was also the Party's presidential candidate in 1996, but left the race giving his support to the Socialist candidate Jorge Sampaio. He chosen again as presidential candidate again to the election of 2006.
List of some famous PCP members, friends and supporters
^ There is an ongoing debate about the nature of the political regime established by Salazar in Portugal. While many historians consider that Salazar's dictatorship shared many aspects with Mussolini's Fascism, others find it more accurate to describe his dictatorship as conservative and authoritarian.
Avante! Festival, 1986
