- Title: PORTUGAL: FAR LEFT PARTY DROPS HAMMER AND SICKLE EMBLEM IN BID FOR WIDER APPEAL.
- Date: 23rd March 1976
- Summary: 1. GV PAN AROUND Auditorium TO officials seated beneath banner showing new emblem of hoe acrose a wheel. 0.16 2. SV PAN ACROSS Officials seated TO speaker on rostrum. 0.27 3. SV PAN Audience listening. 0.42 4. SV Workers banner. 0.45 5. SV Audience stand with arms raised singing new anthem. 1.12 6. SV AND GV Officials lead audience in chant. 1.41 Initials VS 16.00 VS 16.15 Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 7th April 1976 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: LISBON, PORTUGAL
- Country: Portugal
- Reuters ID: LVA466BXAY35LJNKOYUO0ZNZ3YJY
- Story Text: Portugal's Popular Democratic Union (UDP) on Sunday (21 March) decided to drop its Marxist-Leninist label, its hammer and sickle symbol and the World Socialist Anthem, the "Internationals."
A party spokesman speaking at the Party's 2nd National Congress in Lisbon said the Party had greatly increased its influence last year, but it had also been guilty of "leftism, sectarianism and obsession with the working class."
The Party's move away from a strong Soviet line to make itself more appealing to Portuguese voters is a move similar to that of the French and Italian Communist parties, which are becoming more nationalistic.
The UDP's new anthem is the Portuguese revolutionary song "We will win the arms have in our hands".
The hammer and sickle symbol has been replaced by the five pointed star of proletarian internationalism and a hoe and a wheel, representing the union between peasants and workers.
The party spokesman said it was impossible to carry out a revolution in Portugal only with the support of Communists, because there were too few of them
He said the party was open to all non-Communists as long as they were against poverty, fascism and imperialism and were not actually anti-Communist.
The UDP was formed two years ago, and has considerable influence in militant unions such as steel-workers, building workers and in the naval dockyards.
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