Fifty years of Portuguese Revolution

by Vinod Moonesinghe

At 10.55 p.m. on the night of 24 April 1974, a disc jockey at a Lisbon radio station played E depois do adeus, by singer Paulo de Carvalho. The song had been the Portuguese entry at the Eurovision song contest that year. Nearly one and a half hours later, at 12.20 a.m. on 25 April, another Lisbon radio station broadcast folk musician Zeca Afonso’s banned song Grandola Vila Morena. The two songs together signalled the start of the “Carnation Revolution.”

Portugal had been under the fascist jackboot for nearly half a century. It had the oldest fascist regime and the oldest colonial empire. The fascist “New State (Novo Estado) banned opposition, including trade unions, and fostered crony capitalism. The dreaded PIDE/DGS suppressed dissent, even resorting to murder. The colonies were milked of their resources, using forced labour, and the population were kept down by an even more brutal police state than existed in Portugal.

However, both the fascist regime and the colonial empire began to unravel in 1961, when India liberated Goa, Daman and Diu in a humiliating defeat for the NATO-integrated Portuguese armed forces. Independence movements in Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea and Mozambique grew in the 1960s, and by the early 1970s all faced full-scale guerrilla wars.

In the face of war, the upper classes abjured military service, and the officers were drawn from the working class, the peasantry and the lower middle class. Mainly Marxist, the guerrillas received support from China and the USSR. In fighting them, the Portuguese troops came upon their political literature, which radicalised its readers. Facing a seemingly unending colonial war, the officers formed the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) and began to plan the overthrow of fascism and imperialism.

The Armed Forces Movement was led by Colonel Vasco Gonçalves, Captain Vasco Lourenço, and Captain Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho. The last-named was undoubtedly the most charismatic, his Goan ancestry contributing to his good looks. He was also the organisational brains behind the practical aspects of the revolution. Also joining them was Captain Salgueiro Maia, who was stationed at the Santarem barracks, not far from Lisbon.

In the early hours of 25 April, following the song-signals from the radio stations, the MFA mobilised its supporters among the troops and set off to occupy strategic points, such as radio and television stations, Lisbon Airport and army regional headquarters and barracks. At 4.20 a.m. the MFA’s first broadcast went out over the airwaves.

Meanwhile, Captain Maia took over the Santarem barracks and addressed the soldiers, who joined the revolution enthusiastically. Taking a large force with him, he set off to capture the “government quarter” of Lisbon, arriving at 6 a.m. Facing troops loyal to the regime, he persuaded the to join him. An attempt to bombard his troops from naval vessels in the harbour failed when the sailors mutinied. His troops surrounded the barracks in which the government ministers had taken refuge and persuaded them to surrender. It had been a nearly bloodless revolution, the only dead being four civilians killed by the PIDE/DGS who fired on demonstrators outside their headquarters.

The MFA had requested civilians to stay away from the streets, but the people poured out to demonstrate in favour of the revolution and to fraternise with the troops. Soldiers put red carnations from the flower market into their rifle barrels to show their peaceful intent, and the flower became the symbol of the revolution.

A Junta of National Salvation, headed by General Antonio de Spinola took power. The MFA announced its aims as “democratisation, de-colonisation and development.” The masses became radicalised and supported anti-fascist reforms on the streets. A Alarmed by the rapid left-ward movement of the revolution, Spinola and other like-minded officers attempted coups, which were stopped by the forces headed by Carvalho with support from the streets. A Revolutionary Council replaced the Junta. Spinola fled to Brazil and began underground terrorist attacks on Portugal.

Meanwhile, the decolonisation programme went ahead swiftly, and Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique and Angola achieved independence – although the last two faced civil wars due to intervention from Apartheid South Africa, backed by the USA.

However, the Portuguese Revolution remained incomplete, as “moderate” forces took over, replacing the radical leaders of the MFA. The constitutional commitment to socialism disappeared and reforms carried out earlier were rolled back. Carvalho was imprisoned on trumped up charges. Although parliamentary democracy prevailed, Portugal failed to develop as an egalitarian society.

A few days ago, Vasco Lourenço addressed a meeting of the 25 April Association in Lisbon. He said that he was proud that he helped make Portuguese society fairer.

The Carnation revolution set in motion the demolition of fascism in Greece and in neighbouring Spain; and the independence of Angola and Mozambique made easier the fight against Apartheid. However, part of the achievement of 25 April has been lost:

“… 98% of wealth is in the hands of 1% of the population. This has to provoke indignation. What I called at one point: there is going to have to be a new Carnation Revolution. In other words, society can’t be as unequal as that.”