Fifty years ago, on the 25th of April 1974, under pressure
from national liberation movements in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau
and confronted with the inability of the dictatorship to
resolve the serious crisis the the country was facing,
a military coup in Lisbon brought down the fascist government.
After that, peasants and workers began to take over fields and factories.
Between 1974 and 1975, Portugal experienced a revolutionary phase.
The official goal was to replace the fascist regime with a bourgeois democracy
that would end the war, reform the institutions, modernise the economy
and make concessions to the urban and rural proletariat,
which was becoming increasingly rebellious and took to the streets.
A wave of strikes and factory, land and house occupations began.
Together with the release of political prisoners from the radical left
and massive demonstrations on the 1st of May, this marked the beginning
of an 18-month intensification of class struggles in Portugal,
which ended on the 25th of November.
I saw this people fighting to end their exploitation.
Streams of crowds carrying history in their hands.
On one side stood the armed forces fighting for supremacy
in this new phase of bourgeois dictatorship,
by suppressing the popular and workers' movement
and subjugating them to the institutions.
These forces ranged from the fascists who had fled to Spain and Brazil
to the counter-revolutionary petty bourgeoisie of the PS, the MFA and COPCON,
to the governments of Vasco Gonçalves, to the eternal conciliator:
the Portuguese Communist Party.
Loyal to the doctrine of the 7th Comintern Congress
after decades of struggle against fascism
the PCP would also fight against the seizure of power by the working class in Portugal.
On the other side stood a mass movement
that was able to exert enormous pressure through proletarian initiative
to create institutions and organs of class struggle:
The famous commissions of workers and residents, soldiers and sailors,
occupied land and arrested fascists
administered factories and estates and created a new way of life.
We were over a million neighbours without a roof over our heads and without any means.
We made a virtue out of necessity each in our own way
We lived without water, we lived without dignity a life without rest
In old barracks and dilapidated flats
And from the combination of these factors the idea slowly emerged
to form residents' committees elected in assemblies
We occupied houses and built roofs
With the population – and even some architects
Forward with the people's organisation!
Victory means fighting!
The people's and workers' movement was now facing a fundamental problem.
It was split into two wings: One saw its future in an alliance
with parts of the military left, the COPCON, and even Gonsalvism,
or with the petty bourgeoisie,
who dreamed of military or patriotic socialism.
The other wing focused on taking over production
and social reproduction, without directly confronting the bourgeois state.
Both defended the power of the people.
They linked the proletariat with the radical petty bourgeoisie
and the armed forces
instead of trusting in their own strength and establishing their own class power.
Thus, 50 years have passed
since the first attempt to introduce a democracy of the rich and the bosses,
which the MFA wanted to enforce with the military coup of the 25th of April.
This attempt was delayed by the mass movement during the PREC
and finally achieved after the 25th of November.
Today, as yesterday, the class struggle continues.
In a country where wages are stagnating, the cost of living and rents are rising,
where two million people live in poverty, hundreds of thousands of workers and
migrants are rejected by bourgeois society
and the climate crisis is increasingly becoming a reality,
in which patriarchal violence persists and reactionary movements are growing,
where 50 far-right MPs sit in parliament
it is inevitable that mass resistance will intensify.
That is exactly what is happening right now.
Even if we are still a long way from a situation like the 18 red months,
it is obvious that class struggle is intensifying.
The large demonstrations for housing, the increase in strikes,
the solidarity protests with Palestine, the occupations for climate protection
and the growing anti-fascist struggle
show that a popular movement against the current state of affairs is emerging.
Forward with the people's organisation!
Forward with people's organisation!
Victory means fighting!
On this 50th anniversary of the 25th of April, we would like to emphasise
that, in addition to preserving the memory and lessons of this period,
one of the most important tasks is the fight against the ‘April myth,’
which confuses a conciliatory and populist message with the class struggle
and the necessity of the struggle for power.
We must not descend to the level of the petty bourgeoisie and its goals.
We will fight for the proletarian revolution, for communism,
without any form of reconciliation with interests other than our own.
We must draw clear boundaries between ourselves and our class enemies,
but also between all middle layers that waver between revolution and reaction.
That is the greatest honour and tribute we can bestow on those
who have set out to seize power.
Like them, we will storm the heavens,
for this time we are armed with the knowledge
of the defeats of the past and will triumph!
They have guns and machine guns, tanks and grenades,
not to mention the truncheons. You have the police and the guards,
who you pay very little, but are ready for anything
But what good is such an arsenal to them?
One minute before the end they will see that they are lost,
that nothing will save them.