Word: cunhal
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...meeting in Stockholm between Soares and Western Europe's leading Social Democrats, who have given his party modest financial support. Soares has also developed good relations with such pragmatic Communist bosses as Italy's Enrico Berlinguer and Spain's Santiago Carrillo, who are wary of Cunhal's Stalinist tendencies. The Soviet Union and other East European nations have been more active in supplying the Communists with funds. Estimates of the amount range from an implausibly high $120 million a year to a more realistic $15 million...
Despite this aid, there is good reason to think that the Russians are a bit concerned that Cunhal may push Lisbon leftward too quickly. If Moscow is too blatantly associated with such developments, it could galvanize the West into taking some kind of concerted, direct action to help the moderates. This might then jeopardize Soviet Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev's cherished dream of détente. Washington has made it unmistakably clear that it will not tolerate any meddling by Moscow in Portugal's internal affairs. Shortly before flying to the Helsinki Conference, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger...
...likely loser and the mercurial Saraiva de Carvalho emerging as a new strongman. Despite his popularity with the radical masses, the charismatic boss of the security forces would polarize discontent; he could only govern by imposing the kind of repressive measures the April 25 revolution supposedly abolished for good. Cunhal's party might be forced back into the opposition if that came to pass, because, it is believed, Saraiva de Carvalho has adopted the Maoist left's contempt for orthodox, pro-Soviet Communists. Because of their discipline, however, the Communists would be in good position to pick...
Even today, party members are reluctant to discuss their underground activities. "After all," says Party Chief Alvaro Cunhal, 61, "we may have to go back underground some day." His deputy, Octavio Pato, claims that good organization has at least partly been the answer: "There were big cells and small cells, a structure that was relatively centralized. The overwhelming majority of the Central Committee was inside Portugal, and that is one of the reasons the party managed to survive." Indeed, according to António Dias Lourenço, editor of the Communist weekly Avante, the party emerged from hiding with...
There was also some help from outside. Party Chief Cunhal enjoyed close links with Moscow and Prague, where he spent nearly 14 years in exile. He even supported the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia-the only West European party leader to do so. Jan Sejna, a onetime major general in the Czech army who defected in 1968 and is now in Washington, has testified that in an average year, Moscow supplied $820,000 for the Portuguese Communists and rebels in the African colonies. There were other forms of assistance: under orders from the Soviets, Czech Communists printed newspapers and pamphlets...