Avante!
Cover of the December 1961 issue of Avante!.
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| Type | Tabloid |
|---|---|
| Owner(s) | Portuguese Communist Party |
| Founded | 1931 |
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.
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.
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 Portuguese Fascist 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.
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 the 2nd World War, denouncing the Nazi atrocities and reporting the role of the Allies, particularly the Soviets, in the war.
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