Avante! (Onwards!) is the official newspaper of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP). Founded in 1931, it continues to be published to this day. The newspaper's motto is Workers of the World, Unite! and has been present in every edition of the newspaper since the very first. Its headquarters is in Lisbon.
The newspaper started to be an irregular publication due to the constant repression against the Portuguese Communist Party led by the authorities, who consistently assaulted the clandestine printing offices. After a major regorganization in 1940, the Party was able to make Avante! a better distributed newspaper among the working class, reporting events such as World War II or the Colonial War without censorship. After the Carnation Revolution, Avante! had a major role among the working class, supporting the revolutionary changes. After those years, the paper lost influence, but has still a major influence among the workers, mainly in Lisbon, Setúbal and Alentejo.
The newspaper also lends its name to a famous festival organized by the PCP - the Avante! Festival. The festival usually boasts participation from hundreds of thousands of visitors, making the outside of the grounds seem like a giant camping park. The events themselves consist of a three-day festival of music, with hundreds of Portuguese and international bands and artists across five different stages, ethnography, gastronomy, debates, a book & music fair, theatre and sporting events.
The History
The early years
Avante! was first published 15 February 1931, as an appeal to the Portuguese proletariat, asking it to join the Communist Party's ranks. Despite this, it only started to be a regularly published newspaper in 1941 due to the constant and brutal repression against the PCP led by the Ditadura Nacional authorities, who consistently assaulted the clandestine printing offices as well as the regular persecution, arrest and torture actions against the members of the Communist Party, some of whom were responsible for the newspaper.
The 1940s and the 1950s
After August 1941, with the deep reorganization of the Communist Party, the newspaper started to be published at least once per month and, with the new party structure, including working from more remote locations, members responsible for the newspaper could now avoid the persecutions with much more efficiency. During the early 1940s, Avante! avoided official censorship, and thus became one of the very few (if not the only) Portuguese media to freely report the events of World War II, denouncing the Nazi atrocities and reporting the role of the Allies, particularly the Soviets, in the war.
In the early 1950s, the Fascist repression against the communists grew again. Protected by the new western allies of NATO, Salazar was able to keep the dictatorship without major problems, and several Communist Party members were imprisoned. Among those was Álvaro Cunhal, who was judged in a show trial in which he denounced the Fascist crimes. In 1958 the Regime was shaken, with popular support shifting to Humberto Delgado, who seemed slated to win the Presidential election, but did not, due to extreme manipulations carried out by the Fascist government. The Communist Party was among Delgado's supporters and Avante! had documented some of his democratic actions.
The 1960s
In 1961 the Colonial War in Africa started, first in Angola, then spreading to Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea. Avante! was one of the few newspapers to give voice to the anti-colonialist feelings of a large part of the Portuguese society who were noticing the military and political developments in the colonies. Avante! also documented several of the protests and demonstrations against the Estado Novo regime, among these, the Academic Crisis, a period of upheaval, led by students in support of Democracy. By the end of the 1960s, thousands of Portuguese citizens had been imprisoned for resisting the dictatorship, and Avante! regularly expressed the PCP's solidarity for them.