Paraguayan Communist Party

(PCP; Partido Com-munista Paraguayo). The Paraguayan Communist Party was founded on Feb. 19, 1928, on the day a group of Marxists published their manifesto To the Citizens of the Republic! The manifesto set forth the party’s program of action and the basic tasks of the communist struggle. The party has always been forced to work underground, with the exception of February 1936 and the second half of 1946. It was accepted into the Communist International at the Sixth Congress of the Comintern (1928).

In the 1920’s and 1930’s, the PCP fought for the formation of the first workers’ organizations, held meetings, and undertook political education work among Communists. In 1932 it took a stand against the fratricidal war between Paraguay and Bolivia, instigated by foreign oil monopolies. Owing to the active work of the Communists, the League of Maritime Workers was formed in 1935, the Paraguayan Confederation of Labor was founded in 1936, and the first workers’ congress of Paraguay was held in 1939. The First Congress of the PCP (June 1941) adopted a party program and called for intensification of the struggle for democratic rights and agrarian reform. During World War II, despite the difficulties of working underground, the party carried out work among the masses to aid the anti-Hitler coalition. The Communists participated in the armed struggle of March 1947 against the dictatorship of H. Morínigo. The Second Congress of the PCP (August 1949) adopted a program of national transformation, providing for the reestablishment of national independence, the implementation of agrarian reform, and the raising of workers’ standard of living. In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, the party made a significant contribution to the struggle against the dictatorship of A. Stroessner, who came to power in 1954. In 1959 the PCP helped organize the United Front for National Liberation, a group that was formed abroad from representatives of the main opposition parties to fight the dictatorial regime.

In March 1967 the National Conference of the party adopted the document Principles of Party Reorganization. The document defined the principal actions and measures necessary for the radical restructuring of the party. The Third Congress (April 1971) discussed and approved the new program, party rules, and political theses and elected the new leadership of the PCP. The program states that the ultimate goal of the PCP is the building of socialism and communism and that its immediate task is the struggle for a democratic, agrarian, and anti-imperialist revolution. The political theses note that as long as there is military-police dictatorship in the country only a general popular uprising can bring about a revolution.

Delegations of the PCP have participated in the international conferences of Communist and workers’ parties held in Moscow in 1957, 1960, and 1969. The party approved the documents adopted at these conferences.

The PCP is built on the principle of democratic centralism. Its highest organ is the Congress; between congresses the party is directed by the Central Committee, which elects from its membership the Political Commission and the Secretariat. The president of the PCP is A. Maidana. The main organ is the newspaper Adelante!; the party also publishes the theoretical political journal Bases.