Carnation Revolution: Encyclopedia - Carnation Revolution

Carnation Revolution

The Carnation Revolution (Portuguese, Revolução dos Cravos) was an almost bloodless left-leaning military-lead revolution started on April 25, 1974, in Lisbon, Portugal, that effectively changed the Portuguese regime from an authoritarian dictatorship to a liberal democracy after a two-year process of a Left-wing semi-military administration. Although government forces killed four people before surrendering, the revolution was unusual in that the revolutionaries did not use direct violence to achieve their goals. The population, holding red carnations, 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 (but not the last to fall) authoritarian regime in Western Europe.

Carnation Revolution - Context

In the beginning of the 1970s, the authoritarian regime of the Estado Novo continued to weigh heavily on the country, after a half-century of rule under António de Oliveira Salazar. After the military coup of May 28, 1926, Portugal implemented an authoritarian regime of fascist inspiration. In 1933, the regime was recast and renamed Estado Novo ("New State"), and Oliveira Salazar came to control the country until 1968, when he was incapacitated. Marcello Caetano replaced him, and led the country until he was deposed on April 25, 1974.

Under the Estado Novo, Portugal was not considered a democracy, whether by the opposition, by foreign observers, or even by the regime leaders themselves. There were formal elections and these were always contested by the opposition, who always accused the government of electoral fraud and of disrespecting its duty to remain impartial. During Caetano's reign, attempts at political reform were annihilated by the inertia of the regime. 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 Vigilancia e Defesa do Estado) — persecuted opponents of the regime.

The International context was not favourable to the Portuguese regime. The Cold War was near its peak, and Soviet interests were supporting the guerrillas in the Portuguese colonies; attempting to bring these under communist influence (which happened in 1975). The intransigence of the regime led to one of the worst decolonisation processes, with millions deported and the extention of the war for at least another 20 years in Angola and Mozambique. The Estado Novo chose to occupy Portugal's colonies beyond the 1960s essentially because the maintenance of a colonial empire was part of the historical vision of the regime's ideologues. Despite objections in world fora such as the United Nations, Portugal maintained a policy of force and felt obliged to militarily defend its colonies against independence groups, particularly after the annexion by India of Goa, Daman and Diu, Portuguese enclaves in that country (1961).

Independence movements in the African colonies — Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, Cape Verde — were in revolt since the start of the 1960s, and forced the regime to invest more and more energy in a vain war of pacification as Portugal aimed to keep a strong hold on the rest of its colonial empire. Such a war contrasted the actions of most European colonial powers, who were seeking to decolonise altogether. Young people driven by conscription, and the officers engaged in this war, were themselves confronted by the impasse in which the regime was engaged. The colonial war was becoming fertile ground for the revolution, due to the dissensions that it created in civil and military society.

The military sector that stated the revolution were generally unhappy with the professional and personal situation, resulting from the apparent deadlock of the situation in the field and questions about professional career.

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 especialy after the late 1950s, and Portugal co-founded EFTA, the OECD and NATO. The war in Africa cost the Portuguese state almost 40% of its annual budget throughout most of the conflict; this also contributed significantly to the impoverishment of the Portuguese economy, as money was diverted from infrastructural investments and education. Until the 1960s the country remained relatively poor, which stimulated emigration after WWII to fast growing, labour scarce west European countries. The regime was aging, seemingly lethargic in a world that was undergoing great cultural and intellectual change.

Carnation Revolution - Events

In February 1974, Caetano was obliged by the old guard to remove General António Spínola and his underlings as the General tried to change the direction of Portuguese colonial policy, which had become too expensive. The divisions of the powerful elite became visible, at which point a mysterious Movimento das Forças Armadas (MFA, "Movement of Armed Forces"), headed by Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho and joined by Salgueiro Maia, chose to lead a revolution. This movement was borne in secrecy in 1973 through the conspiracy of some army officers of leftist tendencies who had been radicalized by the colonial war. Some say that Francisco da Costa Gomes actually led the revolution.

There were two secret signals in the revolution: first the airing of the song E depois do adeus ("After goodbye") by Paulo de Carvalho, the song had been Portugal's entry to the Eurovision Song Contest, which alerted the rebel captains and soldiers to start the revolution; and then Grândola, Vila Morena ("Grândola, Grândola, the brown town") by Zeca Afonso, confirmed the actions and "announced" that the revolution had started and nothing would stop it except "the possibility of a regime's repression". The revolution was closely watched from neighbouring Spain, where democrats and totalitarians were planning for the succession of Francisco Franco, who died a year later, in 1975.

On April 25, 1974 at 12:15 am, the national radio broadcast Grândola, Vila Morena, a revolutionary song by Zeca Afonso. This was the signal that the MFA gave to take over strategic points of power in the country. Six hours later, the dictatorial regime caved in. 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 march of flowers in Lisbon, 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". Caetano found refuge in the main Lisbon military police station. This building was surrounded by the MFA, which pressured him to cede power to General Spínola. Both Caetano (the prime minister) and Americo Thomaz (the President) fled to Brazil. Caetano spent the rest of his life in Brazil, while Thomaz returned to Portugal a few years later.

Carnation Revolution - Consequences

The revolution in Portugal initiated the process which political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, called the "third wave of democratisation;" a process of democratisation which then spread to Greece, Spain and Latin America. Soon after the 25th, all of the hundreds of political prisoners were liberated from prison. Exiled opposition political leaders, like Álvaro Cunhal and Mário Soares returned to the country in the following days and were received in apotheosis. One week later, May 1st was legally celebrated in the streets for the first time in many years. In Lisbon, about 1,000,000 people from all the country joined this occasion and listened to the speeches of Cunhal and Soares.

Portugal went through a turbulent period, commonly called the Ongoing Revolutionary Process (Portuguese: Processo Revolucionário em Curso, or PREC) that lasted until November 25, 1975, marked by a fight between the right and left. 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 carried out and the first Constitutional government, led by Mário Soares, entered office. Meanwhile, the colonial war ended and the African colonies gained independence (The granting on independence to Mozambique was one of the major factors that led to the fall of Rhodesia four years later). The colony of East Timor also proclaimed its independence, but was invaded by Indonesia in 1975.

The decolonisation process, whose guidelines were approved with the Alvor Agreement, was generally marked by the handover of power, without free elections, to liberation movements supported by the Soviet Union and by the general disregard for the interests and property of Portuguese-born or Portuguese-origin population.

Carnation Revolution - Freedom Day

Freedom Day on April 25 is a national holiday in Portugal, with official and some popular commemorations, though some right-wing sectors of population still regard the developments after the coup d'état as pernicious for the country. On the other hand, some of the military leaders lament that the leftist inspiration of the uprising has since been abandoned. The carnation is the symbol of this revolution, since soldiers put these flowers in their guns, in what came to symbolise the absence of violence in changing the regime in Portugal — a regime that had been one of the longest single right-wing party regimes of the 20th century.

Carnation Revolution - External References

• George Wright, The Destruction of a Nation, ISBN 074531029X

See also

• Estado Novo (Brazil)
• Portuguese Colonial War

Categories: History of Portugal | Revolutions | Carnation Revolution | 1974

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Carnation Revolution", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki