September 18, 2026
By Jorge Cadima
Avante! is the weekly newspaper of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP). The Festival of Avante! held in the suburbs of Lisbon, the capital, held annually the last 50 years, has attracted masses of Portuguese workers, party members and sympathizers and representatives from other countries. Jorge Cadima is a regular contributor to the Opinion section of the newspaper. Translation: John Catalinotto
Festival of Avante! — weekly newspaper of the Portuguese Communist Party. / Photo: Avante!
International solidarity has always been a hallmark of the 50 gatherings of the Festival of Avante!, reflecting the internationalist nature of the PCP. This was once again the case at the massive 2026 Festival, where solidarity with Cuba — a country subjected to a brutal intensification of the already brutal blockade that U.S. imperialism has imposed for nearly seven decades — naturally took center stage.
Cuba is subject to the blockade, because the U.S. has never come to terms with the “loss” of its neocolony. It has never tolerated the example of a small country with few economic resources that, having freed itself from the plunder of imperialism and its old mafia-like ruling classes, began to allocate its limited resources to the well-being of its people.
Over the course of its seven decades of Revolution, socialist Cuba has achieved enormous and internationally recognized victories in the fields of health, education and the well-being of its people. It has repeatedly set examples for the world of genuine and selfless solidarity, sending its doctors and teachers to countries where they were in short supply (including European countries during the COVID-19 pandemic). And imperialism finds this unbearable.
Just as they seek to subdue the martyred people of Palestine through starvation, the imperialists also seek to subdue the Cuban people to punish the defiance and sovereignty of Cubans and their heroic Revolution. But the 2026 Avante! Festival stood in solidarity with the struggle of all peoples facing the imperialist offensive — namely, the martyred people of Palestine, the Lebanese people, the Iranian people and other peoples of West Asia who are on the front lines of attacks by the genocidal U.S.-Israel duo, as well as the Sahrawi people [of Western Sahara] and the peoples of Latin America, who are today subjected to a brutal offensive by Trump and the oligarchies subservient to U.S. imperialism.
This dimension of solidarity deeply irritates the servants of the ruling classes [in Portugal], just as the very existence of our Avante! Festival irritates them. Every year, campaigns against the Festival are repeated, whatever the pretexts may be. This year, the pretext was accusations that Avante! extended invitations to “terrorist” organizations. Those who launch these campaigns do not include the genocidal Netanyahu on their list of terrorists.
On March 1 of this year, the day after the barbaric U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran — which began with the massacre of 168 people at the Minab elementary school, the vast majority of whom were children — NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte appeared on the U.S. television network Fox News to declare NATO’s unconditional support for this illegal, treacherous and murderous aggression.
Rutte did not call Donald Trump a terrorist. He called him “the leader of the free world.”
In June 2025, following Israel’s first attack on Iran — which resulted in thousands of civilian deaths — German Chancellor Merz did not call the Israeli regime “terrorist.” On the contrary, he declared on German TV channel ZDF his “great respect” for Israel’s “courage” and added: “Israel is doing the dirty work for us.”
Those waging this campaign against the Festival of Avante! are the heirs of those who called the liberation movements of the former Portuguese colonies and other European colonial powers — or the African National Congress and Nelson Mandela — “terrorists.” Their view of the world is turned upside down: state terrorism and the genocides committed by imperialist powers are “defending the free world,” and anyone who opposes them is a “terrorist.” It really is “dirty work.”
The PCP stands where it has always stood, with its head held high and with pride: on the side of the peoples who resist and fight against imperialism.
