Comrades and friends,
We are here to celebrate and mark the 105 years of the life of our Party, the PCP, a creation of the Portuguese workers, always connected to the masses and to life.
105 years of life and determined and confident struggle, rooted in the past, updating itself in the present and projected into the future.
A Party with a long history of intervention and struggle, with a vast and unparalleled history that blends with that of this People and this Country.
A class-based Party, to give expression to and organise the working class politically and ideologically, to defend its interests and those of the anti-monopolist strata and classes.
A new and different type of Party, with deeply democratic operating principles, based on the creative development of democratic centralism;
A Party with a theoretical basis, Marxism-Leninism, a materialist and dialectical conception of the world, an instrument of analysis and a guide for action;
A Party with a future, a future that is built every day with its intervention in defence of the rights and interests of the workers, with its eyes set on its ideal and project of emancipation and social transformation, of overcoming capitalism and building a new society, socialism and communism.
This Party, independent of the interests and ideology of capital, patriotic and at the same time internationalist.
These 105 years of the Party have been inseparable from the struggle of the workers, the people and the youth.
There has been no advance in the history of these 105 years in which the Portuguese communists have not been involved: this was the case in the heroic resistance and the overthrow of fascism; it was the same in the April Revolution and in each and every one of its achievements; it is the same today in the resistance to the counter-revolutionary process and in the ongoing struggle to defend rights, freedoms, national sovereignty and peace.
And we are intervening at a particularly demanding moment in our collective life, with capitalism revealing its true nature, which is expressed in imperialist action with all its violence, confrontation, militarism and war, as witnessed in Palestine, Ukraine, Venezuela, Cuba and also Iran.
Imperialism is the greatest threat to peoples and is an expression of the structural crisis of capitalism and the difficulties of its powers, at the outset with the US, imposing their domination and resorting to all means to ensure their hegemony in a world where great dangers coexist with great potential.
At the national level, we intervene in a Country in the hands of economic groups and multinationals, under the orders of Brussels, submissive to US imperialism and NATO.
A Country with an ongoing policy that heightens exploitation, injustice, inequality, concentration of wealth, theft and transfer of public resources to economic groups.
The workers, the youth and the people are called upon to act in a clearly evident context of an intense class struggle and confrontation between those who seek at all costs and by all means to complete the counter-revolutionary process and the forces that oppose it.
Where space is being given to reactionary, anti-democratic, racist and xenophobic concepts and forces; and where the PSD/CDS Government in service, with the support of Chega and IL and the viabilization of the PS, is pursuing its programme of regression.
It wants to go ahead with the privatisation of TAP, SATA and CP's profitable lines; negotiates the renewal of road PPPs; seems willing to give in to CTT's blackmail over the postal service; it is at the beck and call of ANA/Vinci, which calls the shots and is determined not to let go of Portela airport; remains silent on the possibility of the Country's only refinery falling into foreign hands; seeks at all costs to dismantle the National Health Service and close services, last week it was the announcement of the closure of the Barreiro obstetrics emergency department and now it is the turn of the Vila Franca de Xira emergency department, and there are still more in the pipeline.
And while it closes services, it increases the transfer of public resources to private groups and with them prepares new PPPs and the basic law on healthcare.
Faced with the dramatic housing situation, it approves measures with Chega that serve the banks, real estate funds, landlords and speculation.
It has underway deep changes in education, to serve private groups and attack teachers.
Faced with a lack of means and resources in the justice system, it has opted to legalise lobbying.
It is very quick to make promises and announcements, but does little or nothing to deliver on them, as the security forces can attest.
Based on the so-called reform of the State, it is developing a frenzied campaign to attack public services and dismantle State structures.
It has begun the assault on Social Security so that capital can get its hands on workers' money.
It is committed to diverting billions of euros in tax revenue to economic groups through corporate tax cuts, tax benefits and tax amnesties, among other measures.
Faced with the difficult lives of those who work, pensioners and youth, with a brutal increase in the cost of living, at the outset with food prices, which have risen 30% in three years, it chooses to protect the economic groups that have increased their profits by 270% in five years.
Faced with employers obsessed with trying to further increase precariousness and deregulate working hours, undermine rights, wages and trade union action, and try to impose unfair dismissals, the Government at their service wants to push through a labour package that has already been rejected by the workers and which, on February 28, in the streets of Lisbon, Porto and Funchal, received another huge response in the demonstrations called by the CGTP-IN.
Faced with a Country that has long been confronted with structural deficits, serious problems of critical infrastructure security and sovereignty, the Government's political choices, supported by Chega and IL and made viable by the PS, are setting the country back even further.
A Country, as was evident in the aftermath of recent storms, whose electricity grid, communications and motorways are in the hands of economic groups; whose infrastructure maintenance is carried out by service providers; a Country with destroyed or impoverished State services and structures – all this became obvious when the wind blew away the mask.
The populations, workers, small and medium-sized farmers and entrepreneurs have no time to lose, they do not need propaganda or more tools for disastrous policies, such as those seen in the so-called PTRR. What the populations need are answers.
The situation the Country has reached and the harsh reality of life for workers, pensioners and youth demand courageous responses and options that meet the needs of the majority.
“Another course for the country. Reject the labour package, exploitation and injustice” is what is needed to assert the alternative and contribute to the mobilisation and development of the mass struggle.
It is to the affirmation and construction of this new course that the PCP is committed; proposing, acting, intervening and fighting to save the National Health Service and retain the professionals who are lacking, guaranteeing homes to live in and a public Housing policy, withdrawing the labour package, significantly increasing wages, pensions and retirement benefits, defending Public Schools, its professionals and Social Security, combating injustice and imposing a fairer distribution of wealth, affirming sovereignty, complying with and enforcing the rights enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic.
This is the path that must be followed, a path that is affirmed in the struggles and processes that are developing on different fronts, in different strata and sectors, starting with young people.
A struggle that is already underway and to which the PCP calls, a struggle to defeat the labour package, for rights and wages, for the defence of the National Health Service, for the right to housing, for Public Schools and culture, for production and farmers, for the economy and small entrepreneurs, a struggle for the present and future of the youth.
A struggle that will take place this coming Sunday during the celebrations of International Women's Day.
A day to which we are all called and for which we must all be mobilisers and participants.
There is no democracy without women's rights, and every time rights are rolled back, whether materially or ideologically, democracy is rolled back.
A struggle that we need to give great prominence to in the popular celebrations of 25th. April and on the great May Day.
A struggle in defence of Peace that is even more necessary in view of the escalation of aggression by the US and Israel against Iran.
An act of war that the PSD, CDS, Chega and IL parties have not only associated themselves with but also openly support.
A position of submission that shames the country and confronts the Constitution of the Republic and international law.
They threw open the doors of the Lajes base to the US military machine and said yes to war, when what is needed is to affirm, without hesitation, the path to Peace.
By choice of these people, the Country has been dragged into aggression and war, with consequences for the lives of our people.
We will not accept that, once again, it is the people who foot the bill and line the pockets of the US military-industrial complex and the energy, banking and large retail businesses, which, as always, will seek, and are already seeking, to take full advantage of this situation.
Fuel price increases are already being pre-announced for next week.
And the question that needs to be asked at this point is: what role do Galp's profits of over a billion euros play in this whole situation?
Doesn't this level of profit allow it to withstand market fluctuations?
Will it come down on the same people as always?
Among other things, there are two fundamental lines that must be taken in this situation: the first is for Portugal to refuse to submit to the impositions of the US Administration and to commit all its efforts to reject war and build Peace.
And the second line of action is for the Government to, once and for all, look after the interests of the majority and stop serving the wishes of the few.
Regulate prices, yes, as is already the case today, for example, with medicines.
Restore, regulate and fix fuel prices, even if this means reducing the enormous margins of oil companies.
Fix the price of gas cylinders at €20, regulate prices as happens next door in Spain.
Regulate the prices of essential foodstuffs, and not just the so-called zero VAT.
Intervene in bank spreads and commissions, halt increases in bank, housing or consumer instalments, which are already suffocating thousands of families today.
Expand, rather than end, as the Government intends, the number of customers in the regulated energy and gas markets.
It is necessary to respond to this major emergency by increasing wages and pensions.
Intervening and regulating the prices of essential goods and services is essential to halt the deterioration of living conditions for the majority.
On this coming 12th, the PCP will be out on the streets in an information and contact campaign to make it clear that we do not accept that the people should foot the bill for a war that serves the interests of large economic groups.
We will be there and we call on all those who are rightly outraged by war and the irresponsibility with which death and violence are normalised, especially the youth, to come out, take a stand for Peace, take to the streets and participate in the demonstrations called by various organisations for March 14, in Lisbon and Porto.
“Peace, sovereignty and solidarity. End US threats and aggression.”
It is everyone’s responsibility, and no one should be absent.
We are well aware of what we are facing, the situation we are in, and the means and instruments available to our class enemy in the struggle we are waging.
They with many powerful means at their disposal, and we with decisive means: we have the strength of the workers and seek to build their unity, while they seek to divide, isolate and weaken them; we with the wisdom of the people, while they attempt to rewrite history and dominate minds; we with the creativity of youth, while they seek to isolate, individualise and indoctrinate them; we with our ideal and project of confrontation and alternative to capitalism, an ideal and project that they seek to denigrate and criminalise; we in the struggle for a better life, while they are committed to even greater exploitation; we with this immense strength, capacity for resistance and factor of confidence that the Party and its militancy are, and they have been focused on destroying us for 105 years.
And in the face of this brutal class struggle, in the face of the difficult situation of the workers, the people and youth, in the face of the situation in the Country and the consequences of the current political course and the dangers that lie ahead, a stronger PCP is a necessity for the workers, the people and youth.
A stronger PCP is necessary! Is possible!
A stronger PCP is necessary because a better life is necessary for the majority, because it is necessary to have someone to stand up to the steamroller of right-wing politics, someone is necessary to denounce the power, role and dominance of economic groups and multinationals, a stronger PCP to assert sovereignty; a stronger PCP because the courage that only the PCP has is increasingly urgent to confront reactionary and retrograde forces and concepts; because it is necessary to assert and build a patriotic alternative at the service of the Country and of the left, with the workers, the people and youth at the centre of its action; a stronger PCP to energise and mobilise for the struggle, with what this constitutes as a sign of hope and confidence for all democrats and patriots, a safe and reliable haven.
A strogger PCP.
It is necessary, it is a need of the people and the Country, and it is possible, as demonstrated every day we face demanding challenges and can only count on our own strength, which is an immense force that needs to be further activated.
Strengthening the Party with this remarkable party collective, an example of resistance, militancy and commitment.
Strengthening the Party based on the Central Committee Resolution, which sets out five priorities and ten fundamental lines of action, is what the entire Party is called upon to undertake.
Take the initiative to strengthen the Party, provoke the necessary shock to make it happen.
Build more Party in an integrated and dialectical way: more Party – more struggle, more struggle – new people to strengthen the Party.
Build and strengthen the Party with boldness and risk, risking with others in the same way that they risked with each of us at a certain point.
Strengthen the Party based on the Party we have.
How many of us are there, where are we and, above all, where do we need to be and how do we get there?
What action should be taken, what initiatives should organisations take, what should be done to go further?
Responding today to the challenges of tomorrow are questions that the whole Party needs to answer as we move forward.
Strengthen the Party where the Party was born and cannot be absent, alongside workers in companies and workplaces; strengthen the Party in particular among the youth; strengthen the Party for ideological confrontation, a confrontation that is fought intensely and with deeply unequal means; strengthen the Party in its work of information, propaganda and the press.
Strengthen the Party with more militants, more intervention and action in specific areas and fronts and in mass organisations, ensure financial independence, and more Avante! Festival.
With confidence and persistence, take the initiative to strengthen the Party.
Project. Struggle. Confidence.
We have a project that corresponds to the interests of the majority; we have continuous mobilisation for the struggle and we have unwavering confidence, unwavering confidence in our ideal and in the strength of the masses.
When the vast majority who are the targets of injustice and inequality, when the workers, the people and youth become aware of the strength they have, the strength of their struggle, the strength of their unity, that huge strength that was expressed in the general strike, then things will really change.
May all this diverse strength express itself and take on an even greater role in finding solutions, may it take sides with their Party.
Here, in their Party, in the Portuguese Communist Party, are the aspirations of the people and the tireless engine of struggle and convergence of all those who want a better life.
Here is your Party, dependable and not swayed by whims of winds, which does not give in to fear, blackmail, threats or lies, and which never abandons the workers, the people and the youth.
A Party connected to life, which is where it needs to be, and no amount of organised silencing can erase this reality.
They can pass all the sentences they want, but a Party like this, which belongs to the workers and at the service of all workers, is destined to grow, expand and strengthen.
We are the Party of freedom, democracy, sovereignty and national independence, the Party of the values of April.
We are a Party rooted in the history, culture and heroic struggle of our people, a Party that is both patriotic and internationalist.
This Party has a project and an ideal, with its own struggle, experience and construction, based on a party collective with an impressive militant dedication.
This is our Party, the Portuguese Communist Party, the Party we are proud to belong to.
A pride that cannot be expressed in words, but which is in every smile, every embrace, every shoulder to shoulder, every struggle, a pride that cannot be explained, that is lived and felt.
A pride that comes, as comrade Álvaro Cunhal so aptly described, from the just, exciting and invincible cause for which we fight.
And it is for this cause that, aware of the situation we face and with our feet firmly on the ground, we stand here with confidence and our eyes set on the future.
With the same joy as always, with the enthusiasm of youth, with the experience of our elders, with the wisdom of the people and, above all, with the decisive strength of the working class and workers, here we are, 105 years later, with the same calm and deep conviction that there is no ideal more beautiful, more just and more necessary than ours, an ideal and a project that guides and mobilises the construction of a new society, the new society, socialism and communism to which the future belongs.
The struggle goes on!
Long live the JCP!
Long live the Portuguese Communist Party!