Portuguese Communist Party

The Portuguese Communist Party (, , PCP) is a communist and Marxist–Leninist political party in Portugal based upon democratic centralism. It is one of the strongest communist parties in Western Europe and the oldest Portuguese political party with uninterrupted existence. It is characterized as being between the left-wing and far-left on the political spectrum. Since 1987, it runs to any national, local and European elections in coalition with the Ecologist Party "The Greens" (PEV), assembled in the Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU).

PCP has seats in the Assembly of the Republic and the European Parliament, where it is part of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left group. After the death of its secretary-general, Bento Gonçalves, in the Tarrafal concentration camp, the Party went through a period, from 1942 to 1961, without a secretary-general. In 1961, the historic leader Álvaro Cunhal is elected. In 1992, he is succeeded by Carlos Carvalhas, and in 2004 Jerónimo de Sousa is chosen by the Central Comitee to be PCP's Secretary General until 2022, when Paulo Raimundo is elected.

The party was founded in 1921, establishing contacts with the Comintern in 1922 and becoming its Portuguese section in 1923. The PCP was banned after the 1926 military coup and subsequently played a major role in the opposition against the dictatorial regime of António de Oliveira Salazar and Marcelo Caetano. During the nearly five-decade-long dictatorship, the PCP was constantly suppressed by the secret police, which forced the party's members to live in clandestine status under the threat of arrest, torture, and murder. After the Carnation Revolution in 1974, which overthrew the regime, the 36 members of party's Central Committee had, in the aggregate, experienced more than 300 years in jail.

After the end of the dictatorship, the party became a major political force in the new democratic government. One of its goals, according to the party is to maintain its "vanguard role in the service of the class interests of the workers". Currently, the PCP is the joint sixth largest in the Portuguese Assembly of the Republic, where it holds 4 of the 230 assembly seats.

The party publishes the weekly ''Avante!'', founded in 1931. Its youth organization is the Portuguese Communist Youth, a member of the World Federation of Democratic Youth. Provided by Wikipedia