The Galician People's Union () is a Galician nationalist and communist political party, and is one of the registered political parties of Spain. The party publishes the magazine Terra e Tempo, and the secretary general is Néstor Rego. It was founded in 1964 with the intention of the independence of Galicia and its transformation into a socialist state. It caused the creation of nationalist fronts such as the Galician National-Popular Assembly and the Bloque Nacionalista Galego. Since 1982 it is one of the parties in the coalition. The current National Spokesperson (Ana Pontón) of the BNG is a member of the UPG. History First foundation In November 1963, Xosé Luís Méndez Ferrín, Bautista Álvarez, Reimundo Patiño and Xosé Antonio Arjona, members of the literary group Brais Pinto, founded Unión do Pobo Galego as a communist and nationalist political party. Refoundation In 1964 the Youth Council, under the direction of Ramón Piñeiro, expelled the leftist sector, which proceeded to refound the UPG in Santiago de Compostela on July 25, 1964, integrating the Brais Pinto group, former militants of the Federation of the Galicianist Youth (as Celso Emilio Ferreiro) and the Communist Party of Spain (Luís Soto) and independent left nationalists, a total no more than 25 people. In the first two years the party activities are reduced to sporadic contacts of its members and the publication of the journal Terra e Tempo, in which its first program was published in 1965: At first the UPG had a line of collaboration with the PCE, but this collaboration did not last long, and the UPG and the PCE became rivals for the hegemony in the galician communist movement. The PCE was accused by the UPG of españolismo (Spanish nationalism/Hispanocentrism). The opposition to the construction of the dam of Castrelo de Miño (1966) was the first major public action of the UPG. The UPG organized the local peasants in Assault brigades that torched and burned the machinery. The UPG also helped the local peasants through an advocate of the organization. In 1971 the expulsion of Xosé Torres and his followers, who joined the Communist Movement of Spain, left the organization almost without militants in Ferrol and Santiago de Compostela. Vigo thus became the core of an organization which at that time did not exceed 50 members. Expansion It is not until the formation of Galician Revolutionary Students (ERGA) by Manuel Mera in 1972 when