Revolutionary Socialist Party (Portugal)

The Revolutionary Socialist Party (in Portuguese: "Partido Socialista Revolucionário", pron. IPA2|pɐɾ'tidu susiɐ'liʃtɐ ʁɨvulusiu'naɾiu, or PSR) was a small far-left Party in Portugal, founded in 1978 after the merger of two Trotskyist parties - the Internationalist Communist League (Portuguese: Liga Comunista Internacionalista or LCI) and the Workers Revolutionary Party (Portuguese: Partido Revolucionário dos Trabalhadores or PRT). The LCI and PRT were both part of the reunified Fourth International. The International recognised the PSR as its Portuguese section.

In 1998 Party renamed itself in order to join with some other left-wing parties in founding the Leftwing Bloc (Portuguese: Bloco de Esquerda or BE). The organisation retains the acronym PSR, and has become the association "Revolutionary Socialist Politics". The historical leader of the PSR is Francisco Louçã, now a leader of the Leftwing Bloc.

The Party had never achieved parliamentary representation before the merger in the Leftwing Bloc, although it may be considered the 3rd or 4th biggest left-wing Party in the country.

In the 1970s

In 1979, the Party ran in a legislative election for the first time, achieving 0.6% of the voting. In the next year, another legislative election took place and the Party achieved 1.0% of the votes.

In the 1980s

In 1983, the Party ran in the legislative election in coalition with the People's Democratic Union (Portuguese: União Democrática Popular or UDP) in some constituencies, receiving 0.4% in those constituencies and 0.2% in the others In 1985, after some splits, the Party gained a new life, mainly due to its anti-militaristic and anti-racist campaigns and in that year's election, the PSR got 0.6% of the vote. In 1987, the Party contested the first European Election held in Portugal, achieving 0.5%, and in the legislative election, achieving 0.6%.

Also in 1987, the Party started publishing of the "Combate" (Struggle) monthly newspaper, which the PSR association continues. In elections for the European Parliament of 1989, the PSR got 0.8%.

In the 1980s

In the legislative election of 1991 got 1.12%, the best result in the Party's history. It ran for the last time in an election in 1995, achieving 0.6%.

Leftwing Bloc

In 1998, the Party merged along with the People's Democratic Union, the Politics 21 and the Revolutionary Front of Left, creating the Bloco de Esquerda ("Leftwing Bloc"). In 2005, in the last congress in the Party's history, it ceased to be a party, being now a political association, due to the good results of the Leftwing Bloc's existence.

External links

* [http://combate.info PSR association website]