Partido Comunista Portugués...Local Clubhouse

Unlike what happened in virtually all other European countries, the Portuguese Communist Party was not created as a result of a split in the Socialist Party. It was essentially set up by militants from the ranks of revolutionary trade-unionism and anarcho-syndicalism, who represented the most active, militant and revolutionary sections of Portugal’s working-class movement.


The party was founded in 1921 as the Portuguese section of the Communist International (Comintern). Made illegal after a coup in the late 1920s, the PCP played a major role in the opposition to the dictatorial regime of António de Oliveira Salazar.

Despite being less influential since the fall of the Socialist bloc in eastern Europe, the party still enjoys popularity in large sectors of Portuguese society, particularly in the rural areas of the Alentejo and Ribatejo, and in the heavily industrialized areas around Lisbon and Setúbal.