The text advocates increased opposition to the PS and right-wing parties and prioritizes the formation of new cadres.
The new wording approved today also added a clause on the international situation, which considers “an urgent demand for an end to the incitement of war in Ukraine by the United States, NATO and the European Union” and “opening of negotiations with other actors, namely with the Russian Federation, which is striving for a political settlement of the conflict” .
The party defines in the text as “problems and demands of the intervention of the PKP” “a change in the balance of power at the political and institutional level with the achievement of an absolute majority of the PS, accompanied by a decrease in electoral expression with an impact on the reduction in the representation of the PKP – achieved on the basis of blackmail and mystification aimed at creating conditions to break with “albeit limited” by restoring rights, they write.
The PSD, Iniciativa Liberal, Chega and CDS are characterized as forces with “an agenda of a retrograde, demagogic, neoliberal or fascist nature” that pose a “threat” to workers and democracy. The communists accuse the PS of “staging and fanning” a confrontation with these forces, but in reality it is a “convergent action”.
In terms of internal organization, the PKP aims to strengthen its structure of “1000 new cadres, especially workers and other workers, youth and women, for permanent tasks and party organizations” in the next two years.
Recruiting more activists is another goal that is part of efforts to restructure the PKP and counter the “anti-democratic offensive with a strong anti-communist slant” – one of the widely accepted justifications for the party’s electoral failure. voiced by leaders in recent years.
Despite what she considered “an extraordinary reaction of the party collective in recent years, which ensured not only the functioning of the organization as a whole, but also political intervention”, the PKP lost almost half of its MPs in two years (it was elected by ten to the legislature of 2019, but was reduced to six in the early elections in January this year).
The development and intensification of the “struggle of the workers and the masses” through work towards rapprochement with trade union structures, namely the CGTU, is also part of the task of achieving an “alternative, patriotic and leftist politics” – an expression almost always present in the speeches of the general secretary of the PCP Jeronimo de Souza, who is defended by the party.
In the 16 pages that make up the conference’s draft resolution, the PKP praises the importance of supporting the party’s propaganda newspapers, Avante! and “Militant”, as well as the need to ensure financial independence.
Two new paragraphs were added to the resolution originally circulated by the delegates: one on youth and the other on the international situation and the war in Ukraine.
With regard to young people, the PKP intends to take the initiative “together with young workers, helping them to mobilize around wage increases, fighting instability.”
“The action, which values the youth as an important social force, is combined with the initiative of the Communist Youth of Portugal (JCP) and the young communists in their various interventions in schools and workplaces, in the youth and student movement,” the text says.
The original text already mentioned the conflict in Ukraine in several places, but the final resolution added a new paragraph on the international situation, entitled “Initiative for Peace and Solidarity with the Peoples”.
The PKP opposes “militarism and the arms race”, “NATO expansion and dissolution”, against the militarization of the European Union and defends “agreements on the control, limitation and reduction of arms and on the abolition of nuclear weapons”.
“Urgently demand an end to the US, NATO and European Union incitement to war in Ukraine and the opening of negotiations with other actors, namely the Russian Federation, with a view to a political solution to the conflict, a response to the problems of collective security and disarmament in Europe, respect for the principles of the UN Charter and the Helsinki Final Act,” the text adds.
Outside the text rejected by the board, amendments were proposed, introduced by activists linking the party’s vote against the state budget for 2022 to the shortfall in the elections, as well as those that “revised the assessment of the international situation, devaluing the role of American imperialism as the main factor in its exacerbation.”
