Against the PCP's “directed freedom”: anti-communist discourse in the Constituent Assembly debates during the “Hot Summer” of 1975

Abstract

The aim of this article is to identify the key lines of anti-communist argumentation in the political discourse of the members of the Constituent Assembly during the so-called “Hot Summer” of 1975. At a time when the revolutionary process was strongly felt by large sections of portuguese society, the climate of political and ideological struggle went beyond demonstrations, rallies and slogans and was clear in the Constituent Assembly. At the same time as the country's future democratic constitution was being prepared, an argumentative device was being established to fight the PCP, whose origins were to be found in all the parties, except for the MDP/CDE. Based on the concepts of anti-communism and political discourse, we will analyse the way in which these parties systematically discredited the PCP, going beyond simple political opposition.