Everything about The Carnation Revolution totally explained
The
Carnation Revolution was an almost bloodless, leftist, military-led
coup d'état, started on
April 25,
1974, in
Lisbon,
Portugal, that effectively changed the Portuguese regime from an
authoritarian dictatorship to a
democracy after two years of a transitional period known as
PREC (
Processo Revolucionário Em Curso), characterized by social turmoil and power dispute between left and right wing political forces.
Although the government police,
PIDE, killed four people before surrendering, the revolution was unusual in that the revolutionaries didn't use direct violence to achieve their goals. The population, holding red
carnations (
cravos in
Portuguese), convinced the regime soldiers not to resist. The soldiers readily swapped their bullets for flowers. It was the end of the
Estado Novo, the longest authoritarian regime in
Western Europe.
Context
In the beginning of the
1970s, the authoritarian regime of the
Estado Novo ("New State") continued to weigh heavily on the country, after a half-century of rule under President of the Council of Ministers
António de Oliveira Salazar. After the
military coup of May 28, 1926, Portugal implemented an authoritarian regime of social-Catholic and Integralist inspiration. In
1933, the regime was recast and renamed
Estado Novo ("New State"), and Oliveira Salazar was named as President of the Council of Ministers until 1968, when he suffered a stroke following a domestic accident. He was replaced by
Marcelo Caetano in September who served as President of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) until he was deposed on
April 25,
1974.
Under the
Estado Novo, Portugal's undemocratic government was tolerated by its NATO partners for its anti-communist nature; this attitude changed dramatically during the mid-sixties, under pressure of public opinion and left wing movements rising in Europe. There were formal elections but they were rarely contested - with the opposition using the limited political freedoms allowed during the brief election period to openly protest against the regime, before withdrawing their candidates before the election so as not to provide the regime with any legitimacy. In 1958, General Humberto Delgado - a former member of the regime - stood against the regime's presidential candidate, Américo Tomás, and refused to allow his name to be withdrawn from the competition. Tomás won the election, but only amidst claims of widespread electoral fraud that denied Delgado of his 'legitimate' victory. Immediately after this election, Salazar's government abandoned the practice of popularly electing the president, with that task being given thereafter to the regime-loyal National Assembly. During Caetano's time in office, his attempts at minor political reform were obstructed by the important Salazarist elements within the regime (known as the Bunker). The Estado Novo's political police — the
PIDE (
Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado), later to become DGS (
Direcção-Geral de Segurança), and originally the PVDE (
Polícia de Vigilância e Defesa do Estado) — persecuted opponents of the regime, who were often tortured, imprisoned or killed.
The International context wasn't favourable to the Portuguese regime. The
Cold War was near its peak, and both Capitalist and Communist-bloc nations were supporting the guerrillas in the Portuguese colonies, attempting to bring these under, respectively, American and Soviet influence (see
Portuguese Colonial War). The intransigence of the regime and the desire of many colonial residents to remain under Portuguese rule led to a delayed decolonisation process, in the case of
Angola and
Mozambique, nearly 20 years.
Unlike other European colonial powers, Portugal had long-standing and close ties to its African colonies. In the view of many Portuguese, a colonial empire was necessary to continued national power and influence. In contrast to Britain and France, Portuguese colonial settlers had extensively inter-married and assimilated within the colony over a period of 400 years. Despite objections in world forums such as the
United Nations, Portugal had long maintained that its African colonies were an integral part of Portugal, and felt obliged to militarily defend them against Communist-inspired armed groups, particularly after
India's unilateral and forcible annexation of Portuguese
exclaves Goa,
Daman and
Diu, in 1961 (see
Operation Vijay).
Independence movements in the African colonies —
Mozambique,
Angola,
Portuguese Guinea,
São Tomé and Príncipe, and
Cape Verde — all eventually manifested some form of armed guerrilla resistance. Except in Portuguese Guinea, these armed guerrilla forces were easily contained by Portuguese counterinsurgency forces and home defense militia, despite various arms embargoes against Portugal. Nevertheless, the various conflicts forced the Salazar and subsequent Caetano regimes to spend more of the country's budget on colonial administration and military expenditures, and Portugal soon found itself increasingly isolated from the rest of the world. After Caetano succeeded to the presidency, colonial war became a major cause of dissent and a focus for anti-government forces in Portuguese society. Many students and anti-war activists were forced to leave the country so they could escape imprisonment and torture by government forces.
Economically, the regime maintained a policy of
corporatism that resulted in the placement of a big part of the Portuguese economy in the hands of a few industrial groups. However, the economy was growing strongly, especially after the late 1950s, and Portugal co-founded
EFTA, the
OECD and
NATO. In fact, despite the cost of the
Colonial war - the
Portuguese economy was growing at much faster annual rate than the rest of
Western Europe and was averaging an impressive 6% annual growth. It was rapidly catching up with its wealthier neighbours in Europe. It would take almost 20 years for Portugal to reach the same level of parity of GDP compared to its Western European neighbours as it had prior to the revolution.
Events
In February 1974, Caetano determined to remove General
António Spínola in the face of increasing dissent by Spinola over the promotion of military officers and the direction of Portuguese colonial policy. At this point, several left-wing military officers who opposed the war formed a conspiracy - the
Movimento das Forças Armadas (MFA, "Armed Forces Movement"), to overthrow the government by military coup. The MFA was headed by
Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho and joined by
Salgueiro Maia. The movement was significantly aided by other officers in the Portuguese army who supported Spinola and democratic civil and military reform. Some observers have speculated that
Costa Gomes actually led the revolution.
There were two secret signals in the military coup: first the airing of the song
E depois do adeus by
Paulo de Carvalho, Portugal's entry in the 6th of April
1974 Eurovision Song Contest, which alerted the rebel captains and soldiers to begin the coup. Next, on
April 25,
1974 at 12:15 am, the national radio broadcast
Grândola, Vila Morena, a song by
Zeca Afonso, a progressive folk singer forbidden on Portuguese radio at the time. This was the signal that the MFA gave to take over strategic points of power in the country and "announced" that the revolution had started and nothing would stop it except "the possibility of a regime's repression".
Six hours later, the Caetano regime relented. Despite repeated appeals from the "captains of April" (of the MFA) on the radio inciting the population to stay at home, thousands of Portuguese descended on the streets, mixing themselves with the military insurgents. One of the central points of those gathering was the Lisbon flower market, then richly stocked with carnations, which were in season. Some military insurgents would put these flowers in their gun-barrels, an image which was shown on television around the world. This would be the origin of the name of this "Carnation revolution". To clarify the above context, this wasn't a popular revolution but a military coup- there were no mass demonstrations by the general population prior to the coup.
Caetano found refuge in the main Lisbon military police station at the Largo do Carmo. This building was surrounded by the MFA, which pressured him to cede power to
General Spínola. Both Caetano (the prime minister) and
Américo Tomás (the President) fled to
Brazil. Caetano spent the rest of his life in Brazil, while Tomás returned to Portugal a few years later.
The revolution was closely watched from neighbouring
Spain, where the government and opposition were planning for the
succession of
Francisco Franco, who died a year later, in 1975.
The aftermath of the revolution
Portugal went through a turbulent period, commonly called the
Continuing Revolutionary Process (Portuguese: Processo Revolucionário em Curso, or PREC) that lasted until
November 25,
1975, marked by constant friction between liberal democratic forces and communist ones. After a year, the
first free election was carried out on
April 25,
1975 in order to write a new Constitution that would replace the Constitution of 1933 that ruled the country for the reign of the Estado Novo. In 1976, another
election was held and the first Constitutional government, led by Mário Soares, assumed office.
Decolonization
A direct consequence of the military coup was the dislocation of hundreds of thousands of people and complete chaos in newly independent overseas territories. Hundreds of thousands of Portuguese people were left homeless and destitute due to rising conflicts in the former overseas territories and were forced to return to Portugal as
retornados.
East Timor was
invaded by
Indonesia in 1975 and
occupied until 1999. There as an estimated 102,800 conflict-related deaths in the period 1974-1999, (approximately 18,600 killings and 84,200 'excess' deaths from hunger and illness), the majority of which occurred during the Indonesian occupation. Angola would enter into a decades long civil war which involved nations like 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 nations in the world. One exception to the decolonization process was
Macau, which remained a Portuguese colony until 1999.
China, pursuing an agreement with the
United Kingdom on
Hong Kong, didn't want to complicate matters. All the former overseas territories suffered greatly from the abrupt Portuguese decolonization.
Economic issues
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. 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 formation (7.8 percent). The following period was characterized by a slowly growing economy that only impetus has been the entering of the European Economic zone. It has never reached pre-revolutionary period growth rates.
Portugal's per capita GDP had reached 56.4 percent of the EC-12 average in 1974. After the military coup it would collapse and it took 16 years for the GDP as percentage of the EC-12 average to climb to 54.9 percent again. A slightly higher level than had existed prior to the revolution. Portugal had been one of the founding members of EFTA (
European Free Trade Association) in 1960. After the fall of the
Estado Novo regime and the loss of its overseas territories in 1974 and 1975, Portugal's economic resurgence would be helped by its entry into the
European Economic Community in 1985.
In the longer term the military coup eventually led to
democracy and the fulfilment of the criteria needed to join the
European Community (now the
European Union) as a small peripheral
member-state.
Freedom Day
Freedom Day on April 25 is a
national holiday in Portugal, with official and some popular commemorations, though some right-wing and apolitical sectors of the population still regard the developments after the
coup d'état as pernicious for the country. On the other hand, some of the military leaders are unhappy that the leftist inspiration of the uprising has since been abandoned.
External references
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