Soudobé dějiny

Between Maputo, Lisbon, Moscow and Prague. Autobiography of a Prominent
Portuguese Communist

The autobiography of the Portuguese communist intellectual and politician Cândida Ventura Můj rozchod s komunismem [My Break with Communism] was originally published in Portuguese under the title O „Socialismo” que eu vivi: Testemunho de uma ex-dirigente do PCP (Lisboa, O Jornal 1984). The review presents the extraordinary life story of Ventura. She was born in 1918 in what is today the Mozambican capital Maputo, and, after joining the Portuguese Communist Party, became involved in the illegal resistance against Salazar’s dictatorship in Portugal. She then became a member of the Communist Party leadership, but was imprisoned in the first half of the 1960s. After her release, she went into exile. From 1965 to 1975, she lived in Prague, where she was employed in the editorial office of the international journal Problems of Peace and Socialism, also commonly known as the World Marxist Review. She sided with the Prague Spring, and after her experience with the Soviet intervention in August 1968 and communist practices, she resigned from the party. She returned to her homeland after the Carnation Revolution. She died in 2015. According to the reviewer, her memoirs are a valuable source on the history of the international communist movement, Portuguese history, and the history of relations between Czechoslovakia and Portugal in the second half of the last century. Ventura’s main intention was to publish a testimony of her break with the Stalinist model of communism, but she wrote her book for an international readership, which the Czech edition does not take into account.

Keywords: Cândida Ventura; Portugal; Czechoslovakia; international communist movement; Portuguese Communist Party; exile; Prague Spring 1968