How It Was

Zita Seabra joined the Portuguese communist party at the age of 15 to fight Salazar’s dictatorship. Two years later, she was forced to go underground. For seven years she switched identities and changed houses working to defeat the dictator. After the revolution of Carnations (25th april 1974), she became the right hand of the communist party secretary general Álvaro Cunhal. Representing the Portuguese communist party she met, among others, Brejnev, Jaruzelski, Suslov and Ponomariov. In 1988, after presenting her disagreement about the lines of the party, she faced three public judgements and was expelled in one of the most controversial episodes of Portuguese politic.

So it was is the portrait of those years and the record of an ancient communist that, after 24 years of dedication, understood how the crimes of communism are in fact similar to the crimes committed by Hitler, and how the ideals she fought for all her life were tragically wrong.