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History of Portugal (1974-1986)
Encyclopedia
The Processo Revolucionário Em Curso (English
: Ongoing Revolutionary Process) is the period of the history of Portugal from the Carnation Revolution
in April 25, 1974 to the establishment of a new constitution and the legislative elections in April 25, 1976.
, first occupied by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, but was powerless to intervene when the Indian army marched in and incorporated the province into India in 1961. Salazar took the unusual step of appealing to the United Nations
against the Indian action but was shunned (see Invasion of Goa
). Salazar's appointed successor Marcelo Caetano
continued the costly war in the colonies. By 1973, Portuguese control of Portuguese Guinea
was collapsing rapidly. In Angola
and Mozambique, it faced several guerrilla groups, like the Soviet-backed MPLA in Angola and FRELIMO in Mozambique. Losses in its conscript army, increasing military expenses, and the determination of the government to remain in control of the overseas territories, led a right-of-centre General Antonio de Spinola
to openly criticise the government's colonial policy. This gave expression to a growing rumbling of discontent within the army led by the captains. The Revolution and the whole movement were also a way to work against Laws that would reduce military costs and would reformulate the whole Portuguese Military Branch (Decree Law: Decretos-Leis n.os 353, de 13 de Julho de 1973, e 409, de 20 de Agosto). Younger military academy graduates resented a program introduced by Marcelo Caetano whereby militia officers who completed a brief training program and had served in the overseas territories' defensive campaigns, could be commissioned at the same rank as military academy graduates. The protesting capitains were to form the backbone of the military revolt against Caetano and the eventual overthrow of the Estado Novo regime.
Portugal's right-wing, authoritarian dictatorship had taken root when Salazar assumed the role of Prime Minister in 1932 having been Minister of Finance since 1928. The regime evolved into a classic fascist dictatorship heavily influenced by the corporatist ideas of Benito Mussolini
in Italy. This was evidenced in the formation of the Estado Novo – the new state – and the permanent rule of the governing party. Trade unions were to be vertically integrated into the state machine. By 1974, this lack of democracy in a western European country came under increasing criticism from within and abroad. Amnesty International
was formed after the experience of its founder who encountered examples of torture in Portugal.
Salazar's personal ideology was pro-Catholic, anti-communist and nationalistic. Economic policy was frequently protectionist and mercantilist. One former economics minister has expressed amazement at how little economic integration there was between Portugal and neighbouring Spain (currently, under European Union
-driven market liberalisation, there has been corporate integration though often seen in Portugal as an economic takeover by Spain). While the two countries on the Iberian peninsula experienced economic growth in the 1960s and 70s – largely as a source of low cost labour and tourist destinations – poverty and illiteracy remained high. Portugal experienced high levels of emigration and this remains a feature of the economy today.
The revolution led to an explosion of political activity with sixty political parties active at one point. The Portuguese Communist Party
had long operated underground under the leadership of Alvaro Cunhal
. Though its electoral support was limited, its position in the trade unions and countryside gave the party huge influence. A combination of this and the country's poverty levels as well as a lack of social and economic development gave impetus to calls for nationalisation. By different estimates, sixty to eighty per cent of the economy was taken over after the revolution. For many on the left in Portugal, the 1974 revolution had overthrown both the dictatorship and those economic forces that had benefited from it. Only in the eighties did the centre-right in Portugal win the argument, decoupling fascism from capitalism and privatising state concerns while maintaining democracy.
and dislocation of hundreds of thousands of people who returned from the colonies to Portugal as refugees.
, in the following months after the Carnation Revolution
. After the military coup of 25 April 1974 Portugal faced political turmoil and the colonial army, often highly politicised by the Salazar Regime and the Independence Wars returned home, taking with them much of the European populations of Portuguese Angola, Portuguese Mozambique and to a lesser extent from Portuguese Guinea
. From May 1974 to the end of the 1970s, over a million Portuguese citizens from Portugal's African territories (mostly from Portuguese Angola and Mozambique) left those territories as destitute refugees – the retornados. The total number of those among these refugees that arrived in Portugal is not clear: they range from 500,000 to 1 million. Some, especially from the military, came into conflict with the communist wing of the new government, and their involvement fed into both right-wing and pro-democracy political forces, which overthrew an attempted coup by radical leftist military units on 25 November 1975. Among these forces were the Salazarist
ELP (Army for Portuguese Liberation) and the Spinola
-led and Francoist funded MDLP (Democratic Movement for the Liberation of Portugal). These groups carried out a number of attacks and bombings during the "Hot Summer" of 1975, mostly in the north of Portugal, while the MDLP was involved in the attempted coup of 11 March. When Spinola and his allies came to power in November, the MDLP disbanded, the ELP continued its campaign.
This term is also applied to Portuguese settlers who fled former Portuguese Timor
in 1975 after its independence. The territory was taken by Indonesia
n rule after 9 days and thousands of civilians were massacred.
and the overseas territories' independence, East Timor was invaded by (US backed) Indonesia in 1975, resulting in an estimated 200,000 civilian casualties. Angola
would enter into a decades long civil war
which became a proxy war for the Soviet Union, Cuba, South Africa and the United States. Millions of Angolans would die either as a direct consequence of the war or of malnutrition and disease. Mozambique
, would also enter into a devastating civil war
that left it as one of the poorest and least developed nations in the world.
(7.8 percent).
Shortly after the Carnation Revolution, the change of direction from a purely pro-democracy
coup to a communist-inspired one, became known as the Processo Revolucionário Em Curso (PREC). Abandoning its moderate-reformist posture, the revolutionaries of the Movimento das Forças Armadas
(MFA) leadership set out on a course of sweeping nationalizations and land expropriations. During the balance of that year, the government nationalized all Portuguese-owned capital in the banking, insurance, petrochemical, fertilizer, tobacco, cement, and wood pulp sectors of the economy, as well as the Portuguese iron and steel company, major breweries, large shipping lines, most public transport, two of the three principal shipyards, core companies of the Companhia União Fabril
(CUF) conglomerate, radio and TV networks (except that of the Roman Catholic Church), and important companies in the glass, mining, fishing, and agricultural sectors. Because of the key role of the domestic banks as holders of stock, the government indirectly acquired equity positions in hundreds of other firms. An Institute for State Participation was created to deal with the many disparate and often tiny enterprises in which the state had thus obtained a majority shareholding. Another 300 small to medium enterprises came under public management as the government "intervened" to rescue them from bankruptcy following their takeover by workers or abandonment by management. Several high profile entrepreneurs had to leave the country due to the pro-communist radicalism of both a section of the population and the new revolutionary leadership in charge of the government - the Junta de Salvação Nacional (National Salvation Junta).
Portugal's per capita GDP had reached 56.4 percent of the EC-12 average in 1974. Post military coup it would collapse and it would only be in 1991 – 16 years later that the GDP as percentage EC-12 average climbed to 54.9 percent. In the longer term the revolution led to democracy and Portugal's economic resurgence due to participation in the European Economic Community since 1985.
In the agricultural sector, the collective farms set up in Alentejo after the 1974–75 expropriations due to the leftist military coup of 25 April 1974, proved incapable of modernizing, and their efficiency declined. According to government estimates, about 900,000 hectares (2,200,000 acres) of agricultural land were occupied between April 1974 and December 1975 in the name of land reform; about 32% of the occupations were ruled illegal. In January 1976, the government pledged to restore the illegally occupied land to its owners, and in 1977, it promulgated the Land Reform Review Law. Restoration of illegally occupied land began in 1978.
's experience with democracy before the Carnation Revolution of 1974
had not been particularly successful. Its First Republic
lasted only sixteen years, from 1910 to 1926. Under the republic, parliamentary institutions worked poorly and were soon discredited. Corruption and economic mismanagement were widespread. When a military coup d'état
ended the First Republic in 1926, few lamented its passing. This was the beginning of a dictatorship under the Estado Novo regime.
In the early 1960s, independence movements in the Portuguese overseas provinces of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea
in Africa, resulted in the Portuguese Colonial War
(1961–1974). Throughout the colonial war period Portugal had to deal with increasing dissent, arms embargoes and other punitive sanctions imposed by most of the international community.
In April 1974 a bloodless left-wing military coup
in Lisbon
, known as the Carnation Revolution
, would led the way for a modern democracy as well as the independence of the last colonies in Africa, after two years of a transitional period known as PREC (Processo Revolucionário Em Curso, or On-Going Revolutionary Process), characterized by social turmoil and power disputes between left- and right-wing political forces. These events left Portugal on the brink of a civil war and made it a fertile ground for radicalism. Some factions, including Álvaro Cunhal
's PCP, unsuccessfully tried to turn the country into a communist state. The retreat from the colonies and the acceptance of its independence terms which would create newly-independent communist states in 1975 (most notably the People's Republic of Angola
and the People's Republic of Mozambique
) prompted a mass exodus of Portuguese citizens from Portugal's African territories (mostly from Portuguese Angola and Mozambique), creating over a million destitute Portuguese refugees — the retornados. The country continued to be governed by a military-civilian provisional administration until the Portuguese legislative election of 1976
.
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
: Ongoing Revolutionary Process) is the period of the history of Portugal from the Carnation Revolution
Carnation Revolution
The Carnation Revolution , also referred to as the 25 de Abril , was a military coup started on 25 April 1974, in Lisbon, Portugal, coupled with an unanticipated and extensive campaign of civil resistance...
in April 25, 1974 to the establishment of a new constitution and the legislative elections in April 25, 1976.
The causes for the revolution
By 1974, half of Portugal's GDP and the vast majority of its armed forces were engaged in wars in three of Portugal's African colonies. Whereas other European powers had ceded independence to their former African colonies in the late 1950s and 1960s, the Portuguese dictator Antonio Salazar had refused to even countenance the option of independence. He had further resisted independence for the province of GoaPortuguese India
The Portuguese Viceroyalty of India , later the Portuguese State of India , was the aggregate of Portugal's colonial holdings in India.The government started in 1505, six years after the discovery of a sea route to India by Vasco da Gama, with the nomination of the first Viceroy Francisco de...
, first occupied by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, but was powerless to intervene when the Indian army marched in and incorporated the province into India in 1961. Salazar took the unusual step of appealing to the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
against the Indian action but was shunned (see Invasion of Goa
Invasion of Goa
The 1961 Indian annexation of Goa , was an action by India's armed forces that ended Portuguese rule in its Indian enclaves in 1961...
). Salazar's appointed successor Marcelo Caetano
Marcelo Caetano
Marcelo José das Neves Alves Caetano, GCTE, GCC, also spelled Marcello Caetano , was a Portuguese politician and scholar, who was the last prime minister of the Estado Novo regime, from 1968 until his overthrow in the Carnation Revolution of 1974....
continued the costly war in the colonies. By 1973, Portuguese control of Portuguese Guinea
Portuguese Guinea
Portuguese Guinea was the name for what is today Guinea-Bissau from 1446 to September 10, 1974.-History:...
was collapsing rapidly. In Angola
Angola (Portugal)
Angola is the common name by which the Portuguese colony in southwestern Africa was known across different periods of time...
and Mozambique, it faced several guerrilla groups, like the Soviet-backed MPLA in Angola and FRELIMO in Mozambique. Losses in its conscript army, increasing military expenses, and the determination of the government to remain in control of the overseas territories, led a right-of-centre General Antonio de Spinola
António de Spínola
António Sebastião Ribeiro de Spínola , GCTE, ComA was a Portuguese soldier, conservative politician and author, who was important in the transition to democracy following the Portuguese Carnation...
to openly criticise the government's colonial policy. This gave expression to a growing rumbling of discontent within the army led by the captains. The Revolution and the whole movement were also a way to work against Laws that would reduce military costs and would reformulate the whole Portuguese Military Branch (Decree Law: Decretos-Leis n.os 353, de 13 de Julho de 1973, e 409, de 20 de Agosto). Younger military academy graduates resented a program introduced by Marcelo Caetano whereby militia officers who completed a brief training program and had served in the overseas territories' defensive campaigns, could be commissioned at the same rank as military academy graduates. The protesting capitains were to form the backbone of the military revolt against Caetano and the eventual overthrow of the Estado Novo regime.
Portugal's right-wing, authoritarian dictatorship had taken root when Salazar assumed the role of Prime Minister in 1932 having been Minister of Finance since 1928. The regime evolved into a classic fascist dictatorship heavily influenced by the corporatist ideas of Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
in Italy. This was evidenced in the formation of the Estado Novo – the new state – and the permanent rule of the governing party. Trade unions were to be vertically integrated into the state machine. By 1974, this lack of democracy in a western European country came under increasing criticism from within and abroad. Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
was formed after the experience of its founder who encountered examples of torture in Portugal.
Salazar's personal ideology was pro-Catholic, anti-communist and nationalistic. Economic policy was frequently protectionist and mercantilist. One former economics minister has expressed amazement at how little economic integration there was between Portugal and neighbouring Spain (currently, under European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
-driven market liberalisation, there has been corporate integration though often seen in Portugal as an economic takeover by Spain). While the two countries on the Iberian peninsula experienced economic growth in the 1960s and 70s – largely as a source of low cost labour and tourist destinations – poverty and illiteracy remained high. Portugal experienced high levels of emigration and this remains a feature of the economy today.
The revolution led to an explosion of political activity with sixty political parties active at one point. The Portuguese Communist Party
Portuguese Communist Party
The Portuguese Communist Party is a major left-wing political party in Portugal. It is a Marxist-Leninist party, and its organization is based upon democratic centralism. The party also considers itself to be patriotic and internationalist....
had long operated underground under the leadership of Alvaro Cunhal
Álvaro Cunhal
Álvaro Barreirinhas Cunhal, who used the name Álvaro Cunhal , was a Portuguese politician. He was one of the major opponents of the dictatorial regime of Estado Novo. He served as secretary-general of the Portuguese Communist Party from 1961 to 1992...
. Though its electoral support was limited, its position in the trade unions and countryside gave the party huge influence. A combination of this and the country's poverty levels as well as a lack of social and economic development gave impetus to calls for nationalisation. By different estimates, sixty to eighty per cent of the economy was taken over after the revolution. For many on the left in Portugal, the 1974 revolution had overthrown both the dictatorship and those economic forces that had benefited from it. Only in the eighties did the centre-right in Portugal win the argument, decoupling fascism from capitalism and privatising state concerns while maintaining democracy.
The revolution
Two indirect consequences of the Carnation Revolution were a collapse of the economyEconomic history of Portugal
The economic history of Portugal covers the development of the economy throughout the course of Portuguese history. It has its roots prior to nationality, when Roman occupation developed a thriving economy in Hispania, in the provinces of Lusitania and Gallaecia, as producers and exporters to the...
and dislocation of hundreds of thousands of people who returned from the colonies to Portugal as refugees.
The retornados
The retornados (from the Portuguese verb "Retornar", to return) are a Portuguese population who fled their overseas colonies during the decolonization process which was managed by the revolutionary National Salvation JuntaNational Salvation Junta
The National Salvation Junta was a group of military officers designated to maintain the government of Portugal in April 1974, after the Carnation Revolution had overthrown the Estado Novo dictatorial regime. This junta functioned between 1974 and 1976, following a communiqué of its president,...
, in the following months after the Carnation Revolution
Carnation Revolution
The Carnation Revolution , also referred to as the 25 de Abril , was a military coup started on 25 April 1974, in Lisbon, Portugal, coupled with an unanticipated and extensive campaign of civil resistance...
. After the military coup of 25 April 1974 Portugal faced political turmoil and the colonial army, often highly politicised by the Salazar Regime and the Independence Wars returned home, taking with them much of the European populations of Portuguese Angola, Portuguese Mozambique and to a lesser extent from Portuguese Guinea
Portuguese Guinea
Portuguese Guinea was the name for what is today Guinea-Bissau from 1446 to September 10, 1974.-History:...
. From May 1974 to the end of the 1970s, over a million Portuguese citizens from Portugal's African territories (mostly from Portuguese Angola and Mozambique) left those territories as destitute refugees – the retornados. The total number of those among these refugees that arrived in Portugal is not clear: they range from 500,000 to 1 million. Some, especially from the military, came into conflict with the communist wing of the new government, and their involvement fed into both right-wing and pro-democracy political forces, which overthrew an attempted coup by radical leftist military units on 25 November 1975. Among these forces were the Salazarist
António de Oliveira Salazar
António de Oliveira Salazar, GColIH, GCTE, GCSE served as the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1932 to 1968. He also served as acting President of the Republic briefly in 1951. He founded and led the Estado Novo , the authoritarian, right-wing government that presided over and controlled Portugal...
ELP (Army for Portuguese Liberation) and the Spinola
António de Spínola
António Sebastião Ribeiro de Spínola , GCTE, ComA was a Portuguese soldier, conservative politician and author, who was important in the transition to democracy following the Portuguese Carnation...
-led and Francoist funded MDLP (Democratic Movement for the Liberation of Portugal). These groups carried out a number of attacks and bombings during the "Hot Summer" of 1975, mostly in the north of Portugal, while the MDLP was involved in the attempted coup of 11 March. When Spinola and his allies came to power in November, the MDLP disbanded, the ELP continued its campaign.
This term is also applied to Portuguese settlers who fled former Portuguese Timor
Portuguese Timor
Portuguese Timor was the name of East Timor when it was under Portuguese control. During this period, Portugal shared the island of Timor with the Netherlands East Indies, and later with Indonesia....
in 1975 after its independence. The territory was taken by Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
n rule after 9 days and thousands of civilians were massacred.
Post-colonial
After the fall of the Portuguese EmpirePortuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire , also known as the Portuguese Overseas Empire or the Portuguese Colonial Empire , was the first global empire in history...
and the overseas territories' independence, East Timor was invaded by (US backed) Indonesia in 1975, resulting in an estimated 200,000 civilian casualties. Angola
People's Republic of Angola
The People's Republic of Angola was a self-declared socialist state that was established in 1975 after it was granted independence from Portugal, akin to the situation in Mozambique. The newly-founded nation enjoyed friendly relations with the Soviet Union, Cuba, and the People's Republic of...
would enter into a decades long civil war
Angolan Civil War
The Angolan Civil War was a major civil conflict in the Southern African state of Angola, beginning in 1975 and continuing, with some interludes, until 2002. The war began immediately after Angola became independent from Portugal in November 1975. Prior to this, a decolonisation conflict had taken...
which became a proxy war for the Soviet Union, Cuba, South Africa and the United States. Millions of Angolans would die either as a direct consequence of the war or of malnutrition and disease. Mozambique
People's Republic of Mozambique
The People's Republic of Mozambique , was a self-declared socialist state that lasted from June 25, 1975 through December 1, 1990, becoming the present day Republic of Mozambique.After gaining independence from Portugal in 1975, the People's Republic of Mozambique was established shortly...
, would also enter into a devastating civil war
Mozambican Civil War
The Mozambican Civil War began in 1977, two years after the end of the war of independence. The ruling party, Front for Liberation of Mozambique , was violently opposed from 1977 by the Rhodesian- and South African-funded Mozambique Resistance Movement...
that left it as one of the poorest and least developed nations in the world.
Economy
The Portuguese economy had changed significantly by 1973 prior to the revolution, compared with its position in 1961: Total output (GDP at factor cost) had grown by 120 percent in real terms. Clearly, the pre-revolutionary period was characterized by robust annual growth rates for GDP (6.9 percent), industrial production (9 percent), private consumption (6.5 percent), and gross fixed capital formationGross fixed capital formation
Gross fixed capital formation is a macroeconomic concept used in official national accounts such as the UNSNA, NIPAs and the European System of Accounts . The concept dates back to the NBER studies of Simon Kuznets of capital formation in the 1930s, and standard measures for it were adopted in the...
(7.8 percent).
Shortly after the Carnation Revolution, the change of direction from a purely pro-democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
coup to a communist-inspired one, became known as the Processo Revolucionário Em Curso (PREC). Abandoning its moderate-reformist posture, the revolutionaries of the Movimento das Forças Armadas
Movimento das Forças Armadas
The Movement of the Armed Forces was an organisation of lower-ranked left-leaning officers in the Portuguese Armed Forces which was responsible for the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974, a military coup in Lisbon which ended the corporatist New State regime in Portugal, the Portuguese...
(MFA) leadership set out on a course of sweeping nationalizations and land expropriations. During the balance of that year, the government nationalized all Portuguese-owned capital in the banking, insurance, petrochemical, fertilizer, tobacco, cement, and wood pulp sectors of the economy, as well as the Portuguese iron and steel company, major breweries, large shipping lines, most public transport, two of the three principal shipyards, core companies of the Companhia União Fabril
Companhia União Fabril
The Companhia União Fabril is a Portuguese chemical corporation and a part of Grupo José de Mello.-History:The company was founded by Alfredo da Silva in 1871 and managed by his descendents, including José Manuel de Mello as a family-run business conglomerate. CUF was one of the largest and most...
(CUF) conglomerate, radio and TV networks (except that of the Roman Catholic Church), and important companies in the glass, mining, fishing, and agricultural sectors. Because of the key role of the domestic banks as holders of stock, the government indirectly acquired equity positions in hundreds of other firms. An Institute for State Participation was created to deal with the many disparate and often tiny enterprises in which the state had thus obtained a majority shareholding. Another 300 small to medium enterprises came under public management as the government "intervened" to rescue them from bankruptcy following their takeover by workers or abandonment by management. Several high profile entrepreneurs had to leave the country due to the pro-communist radicalism of both a section of the population and the new revolutionary leadership in charge of the government - the Junta de Salvação Nacional (National Salvation Junta).
Portugal's per capita GDP had reached 56.4 percent of the EC-12 average in 1974. Post military coup it would collapse and it would only be in 1991 – 16 years later that the GDP as percentage EC-12 average climbed to 54.9 percent. In the longer term the revolution led to democracy and Portugal's economic resurgence due to participation in the European Economic Community since 1985.
In the agricultural sector, the collective farms set up in Alentejo after the 1974–75 expropriations due to the leftist military coup of 25 April 1974, proved incapable of modernizing, and their efficiency declined. According to government estimates, about 900,000 hectares (2,200,000 acres) of agricultural land were occupied between April 1974 and December 1975 in the name of land reform; about 32% of the occupations were ruled illegal. In January 1976, the government pledged to restore the illegally occupied land to its owners, and in 1977, it promulgated the Land Reform Review Law. Restoration of illegally occupied land began in 1978.
Political changes
PortugalPortugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
's experience with democracy before the Carnation Revolution of 1974
Carnation Revolution
The Carnation Revolution , also referred to as the 25 de Abril , was a military coup started on 25 April 1974, in Lisbon, Portugal, coupled with an unanticipated and extensive campaign of civil resistance...
had not been particularly successful. Its First Republic
Portuguese First Republic
The Portuguese First Republic spans a complex 16 year period in the history of Portugal, between the end of the period of constitutional monarchy marked by the 5 October 1910 revolution and the 28 May coup d'état of 1926...
lasted only sixteen years, from 1910 to 1926. Under the republic, parliamentary institutions worked poorly and were soon discredited. Corruption and economic mismanagement were widespread. When a military coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
ended the First Republic in 1926, few lamented its passing. This was the beginning of a dictatorship under the Estado Novo regime.
In the early 1960s, independence movements in the Portuguese overseas provinces of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea
Portuguese Guinea
Portuguese Guinea was the name for what is today Guinea-Bissau from 1446 to September 10, 1974.-History:...
in Africa, resulted in the Portuguese Colonial War
Portuguese Colonial War
The Portuguese Colonial War , also known in Portugal as the Overseas War or in the former colonies as the War of liberation , was fought between Portugal's military and the emerging nationalist movements in Portugal's African colonies between 1961 and 1974, when the Portuguese regime was...
(1961–1974). Throughout the colonial war period Portugal had to deal with increasing dissent, arms embargoes and other punitive sanctions imposed by most of the international community.
In April 1974 a bloodless left-wing military coup
Movimento das Forças Armadas
The Movement of the Armed Forces was an organisation of lower-ranked left-leaning officers in the Portuguese Armed Forces which was responsible for the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974, a military coup in Lisbon which ended the corporatist New State regime in Portugal, the Portuguese...
in Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
, known as the Carnation Revolution
Carnation Revolution
The Carnation Revolution , also referred to as the 25 de Abril , was a military coup started on 25 April 1974, in Lisbon, Portugal, coupled with an unanticipated and extensive campaign of civil resistance...
, would led the way for a modern democracy as well as the independence of the last colonies in Africa, after two years of a transitional period known as PREC (Processo Revolucionário Em Curso, or On-Going Revolutionary Process), characterized by social turmoil and power disputes between left- and right-wing political forces. These events left Portugal on the brink of a civil war and made it a fertile ground for radicalism. Some factions, including Álvaro Cunhal
Álvaro Cunhal
Álvaro Barreirinhas Cunhal, who used the name Álvaro Cunhal , was a Portuguese politician. He was one of the major opponents of the dictatorial regime of Estado Novo. He served as secretary-general of the Portuguese Communist Party from 1961 to 1992...
's PCP, unsuccessfully tried to turn the country into a communist state. The retreat from the colonies and the acceptance of its independence terms which would create newly-independent communist states in 1975 (most notably the People's Republic of Angola
People's Republic of Angola
The People's Republic of Angola was a self-declared socialist state that was established in 1975 after it was granted independence from Portugal, akin to the situation in Mozambique. The newly-founded nation enjoyed friendly relations with the Soviet Union, Cuba, and the People's Republic of...
and the People's Republic of Mozambique
People's Republic of Mozambique
The People's Republic of Mozambique , was a self-declared socialist state that lasted from June 25, 1975 through December 1, 1990, becoming the present day Republic of Mozambique.After gaining independence from Portugal in 1975, the People's Republic of Mozambique was established shortly...
) prompted a mass exodus of Portuguese citizens from Portugal's African territories (mostly from Portuguese Angola and Mozambique), creating over a million destitute Portuguese refugees — the retornados. The country continued to be governed by a military-civilian provisional administration until the Portuguese legislative election of 1976
Portuguese legislative election, 1976
The Portuguese legislative election of 1976 took place on April 25, exactly one year after the previous election, and two years after the Carnation Revolution...
.
External links
- BBC website article on Portuguese revolution http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/25/newsid_4754000/4754581.stm
- A huge resource of newspaper articles from across Europe in 1974 and after http://www.ena.lu/europe/19801986-enlargement-south-single-european/first-anniversary-revolution-carnations-1975.htm
- EU website http://www.eu2007.pt/UE/vEN/Bem_Vindo_Portugal/Passado/A_Revolucao_dos_Cravos.htm
- AFP article on thirtieth anniversary of Portuguese revolution http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_kmafp/is_200404/ai_kepm454693
- Portugal Timeline on history website http://www.portugal.bz/history/second-republic.htm