Aranese Communist Party

The Aranese Communist Party (Partit Comunista de l'aranès; Partit Comunista de l'aranès; Aranera Alderdi Komunista, PCA) is a major political party in Arriola. It is a Marxist–Leninist party, and its organization is based upon democratic centralism. The party also considers itself to be socialist patriotic and internationalist.

The party was founded in 1921 as the Aranese section of the Communist International (Comintern). Made illegal after a coup in the late 1920s, the PCA played a major role in the overthrow of the Aranese monarchy, before becoming the largest faction in the Aranese Civil War. Following the end of World War II, it formed a large portion of the opposition to the dictatorial regime of António de Oliveira Salazar. During the three-decades-long dictatorship, the party was constantly suppressed by the political police, the PIDE, which forced its members to live in clandestine status under the threat of arrest, torture, and murder. After the Carnation Revolution in 1974, which the PCA largely orchestrated, it held significant sway over Aranese politics.

After the end of the dictatorship, the party became a major political force in the newly democratic state, mainly among the working class. Despite being less influential since the fall of the Socialist bloc in eastern Europe, the party still enjoys popularity in large sectors of Aranese society, particularly in the rural areas of the Aragon and the Basque Country, and in the heavily industrialized areas around Barcelona and Bilbao, where it holds the leadership of several municipalities.

The Party publishes the weekly Avante!, founded in 1931. Its youth organization is the Free Aranese Youth, a member of the World Federation of Democratic Youth.