Half a century of the Carnation Revolution in Portugal

50 years ago, on April 25, 1974, the Carnation Revolution ended 48 years of dictatorship in Portugal, when democracy was also advancing in Spain and Greece.

– A long dictatorship –

From 1926 to 1974, Portugal was subjugated by the longest dictatorship in Europe, established after a military coup d’état against a politically unstable republic.

Coming to power in 1932, António de Oliveira Salazar founded the “Estado Novo”, a fascist-inspired regime based on three pillars: censorship, the single party and the political police (PIDE).

The International and State Defense Police (PIDE) – which tortured and murdered opponents – was the dictatorship’s main instrument with 30,000 political prisoners.

Among the opponents executed was General Humberto Delgado, leader of the democratic opposition murdered with a shot to the head in Spain.

The memories of opponents arrested, deported or convicted such as Mário Soares, future founder of the Socialist Party and President of the Republic from 1986 to 1996, remained in the collective memory.

Seriously ill, Salazar was replaced by Marcelo Caetano in 1968, two years before he died. The country had been facing a serious economic crisis and colonial wars in Africa since 1961.

– Red carnations –

More than a decade of wars in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau prepared the ground for the revolt of the Army, which supported a peaceful and non-military solution.

On April 25, 1974, the “Captains Movement”, formed by soldiers who participated in these colonial wars, ended an already worn-out regime.

In Lisbon, the insurgents occupied the radio, television and the airport and the population took to the streets to applaud them. Some soldiers carried red carnations on their rifles, a gesture that became the symbol of the revolution.

After hours of tension, the hostile units aligned themselves with the Revolutionary Movement of the Armed Forces, consecrating the defeat of the dictatorship.

Democracy arrived accompanied by political and social achievements: universal suffrage, freedom of expression, equal rights between men and women, the right to strike, creation of a minimum wage, social security for all.

– The end of the empire –

The revolt also resulted in the dismantling of Europe’s last colonial empire.

Between 1974 and 1975, five African countries (Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe and Angola) gained independence.

Macau was returned to China in 1999. East Timor, which declared itself independent in 1975 but was immediately invaded by Indonesia, only achieved independence in 2002, thanks to UN intervention.

Portugal repatriated almost a million people from its colonies, more than 10% of its population.

– Other winds in Europe –

In the 1970s the last dictatorships in Western Europe fell. In addition to Portugal, the winds of freedom also reached Greece and Spain.

Neighbor of Portugal, Spain turned the page on the dark dictatorship of Francisco Franco, who died on November 20, 1975.

The death of the last far-right dictator in Europe ended 36 years of authoritarian and reactionary rule.

Juan Carlos de Borbón, designated his successor since 1969, was proclaimed king two days later and chose to move towards democracy.

The dictatorship was formally abolished in 1978 with the adoption of the current Constitution.

In Greece, freedom arrived with the student movement of November 17, 1973, at the Athens Polytechnic School, whose repression left 44 people dead.

This event led, a year later, to the fall of the dictatorship established in 1967 with a military coup d’état.

The regime’s fate was sealed in the summer of 1974 by Turkish intervention in Cyprus, following an attempted coup by Greek ultranationalists in Nicosia.

Every November 17th, Greeks celebrate the return of democracy with a march between the Athenian school and the American embassy to protest Washington’s, and the CIA’s in particular, support for the military dictatorship.