Barreiro was undoubtedly chosen as e congress site by the PCP because the workingclass character of the city Makes it compatible with the working-. Mass character of the party itself — More than 57% of the party’s member- Ship are industrial workers and 13% are *8ticultural workers. thee tteiro is near Lisbon, just across re broad expanse of the Tagus River. jlleast it seems near until you try to get tia, © — which involves either a ferry de-plus-bis from near the Praca ecto downtown or a roundabout ve which begins with the crossing of €April 25 Bridge (formerly named for hated dictator, Salazar). uch water has flowed under that Saceful bridge since the April day in an that witnessed the ‘(Carnation Re- Ution.”” The reactionaries were tik own into disarray by the democratic ae of that event. But they have fhreually recovered their boldness. In us they have been assisted by the “Cialist Party leadership. yt having like traditional European- : p € social-democrats, they refused to ae as part of a majority parlia- | ey government with the smaller manuBuese Communist Party parlia- hed contingent of 40 deputies, and : ad permitted control of the gov- ‘tnment to pass into the hands of a ‘cties of right wingers. This culminated ie despised government of Mota Poe (who resigned the day after the t Congress ended). , All the maneuvering of the reat- onaries has not succeeded in reversing ti, achievements of the April Revolu- n. But the declaration in the Por- d Guese constitution that the nation is a €Mocratic state on the road to “0cialism has not been honored and, in i Stegard of the constitution, efforts ; oe been made, not always unsuccess- Y, to subvert April’s gains. met despite these efforts the major Ae the revolution, while impaired, ref ain in effect, notably: the agrarian rm and the nationalization of the maj 8, the insurance companies and rhea, Sections of basic industry. The rey ution also helped expedite the ir- €rsible decolonization of Portugal’s “an empire. State ot need not speculate on what the have 5 the country would be if it did not helped = Communist Party. This party const; to achieve the most democratic Burpaution of any country in Western that Pe and has sirice sought to defend ments. “Balities of rightwing govern- liam It has led this struggle in par- tk tent as well as among the masses in ;8Ctories and farms. | reput € course of its work it has won a t % n for honesty. It has thus won hem; rect of its friends and its : oie accounts — at least in part—for rom amie growth of the PCP. It went Congr 15,000 members at the Eighth “the fee (November 1976) to 165,000 at largeat — a growth of 43%. It is the Porty and most influential party in Voteg AR (The Socialists get more ie are a much smaller party.) Make ,unist-Socialist unity would Proble Possible the solution of many Seeking The PCP, while constantly rj ay Such unity, at the same time Pg — the opportunist antics of the by stat ently the Socialists are trying Starteg to institutionalize what they "~@ when they set up a labor federa- ahs " and Constitution against the maneuvers — ] : es ae Two congress participants tion to compete with the dominant In- tersindal. The Socialists have drafted a law which would, among other things, legalize company unions. The many re- trogressive features of this measure led José Vitoriano, speaking on the trade union question at the congress, to de- nounce the proposed statute as having been modelled on the fascist National Work Statute. The existing unions are being harassed in the factories by the bosses in defiance of existing legisla- tion. The unions will be ill-served by the statute the PS is trying to put over on them. Three rounds of elections lie ahead this year and next. In December 1979 thousands of officials and representa- tives will be elected to local govern- ments. Next year, perhaps even sooner, a new parliament will be chosen. Then will come the election of a president. All this the Communist Party faces confidently, even eagerly. This confi- dence was evident when the Party Con- gress opened in Barreiro. The delegates had been preceded by thousands of vol- unteers who — with paint, light, and cloth streamers — transformed a drab, stark athletics arena into a cheerful, at- tractive and comfortable meeting place for thousands of people (complete with closed circuit TV and simultaneous translation equipment). : As one viewed the 1,750 Ninth Con- Leaders and international guests on the dais att * from the right. gress delegates from the vantage point of the press box, one could not help being impressed not only by the confidence they so obviously manifested but also by their combativeness and determination in the construction of a democratic Por- tugal. These delegates conveyed an im- pression of youth and discipline. They were representative of a party in which one-third of the members are under 30 years old and only 21.4% are over 50. Fifty-eight fraternal foreign parties were represented at the congress. The delegates poured out their hearts in welcome to these visitors. They came from small progressive countries like Afghanistan and Yemen; from the large countries of Western Europe like Fr- ance, Italy, and Spain; from the former Portuguese colonies like Angola, Cape Verde and Mozambique; and from the great countries of socialism like Bul- garia, Cuba, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. An especially moving welcome was given to the Vietnamese who were told, ‘‘The defeat of the Chinese aggressors in heroic Vietnam fills with joy the heart of the Portuguese Communists.” Emphasis thoroughout the Congress was on the working people, the princi- ples of Marxism-Leninism. and work- ingclass internationalism. In athree-hour address, Alvaro Cun- hal, the PCP general secretary, sketched the party’s growth and its work since the Eighth Congress. He also outlined the proposed course of the party in the period ahead. Antonio Gervasio reported on the ag- ricultural. question, noting that ‘“‘land reform has been the object of violent ‘hostility from the most retrograde classes in our country.”’ Reaction is aggressively striving also to reverse the important gains made by the workers in industry. This was re- lated by Domingo Abrantes, a member of the party secretariat, who said: ‘“‘The employers do not accept the deep trans- formation made by the Revolution of April.”” But he had no doubt that the workers’ struggle ‘‘will finally impose the democratic alternative necessary for the construction of a democratic Portugal, towards socialism.” Carlos Carvalhas, an alternate member of the central committee, spoke on the proposal to integrate Por- tugal into the Common Market. The PCP strongly opposes this, seeing it as a means to restore Portugal to the grip of the large capitalists and landlords under a system of state monopoly capitalism. The fight against involve- ment in the Common Market is part of the PCP struggle against imperialism and for Portuguese independence an democracy. ; Scores of delegates reported to the congress on all areas of work and all parts of the country. Before adjourning on Sunday, the delegates, foreign repre- sentatives, observers (plus, it must be admitted, a few of us ladies and gentle- men of the press) sang a few songs which included the PCP anthem, Av- ante and the Internationale. During the singing each person put an arm around the shoulders of the per- son on either side of him or her. Thus united, the bodies swayed to left and right in the rows of delegates, row upon row, scores of rows deep, so that — viewed from above — the Ninth Con- gress of the Portugal Communist Party looked like a restless, powerful sea. It was a mobile symbol of the party’s unity. As the delegates crossed back to Lis- bon over the April 25 Bridge they could see the mighty U.S. aircraft carrier Eisenhower anchored in midstream down toward the wide mouth of the Tagus River. This powerful visitor from NATO served as a reminder of what the continuing struggle in Portugal is largely about. SRS RSS SS as ° PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 27, 1979—Page 5