Revolution in Portugal
Thirty years ago Portugal’s dictatorship collapsed when a
military coup unleashed a revolutionary tide of mass working class action. After
50 years of brutal repression, the Portuguese people burst onto the streets. The
future of capitalism was in the balance as workers took over factories and land.
MANNY THAIN looks back at these tumultuous events.
IT TOOK ONE day to overturn half-a-century of fascist rule
in Portugal. Thursday, 25 April 1974. At 12.25am the signal was given: the rebel
song, Grandola, Vila Morena, by Zeca Afonso, played on Rádio Renascença. Captain
Salgueira da Maia left Santarém (50 miles north-east of Lisbon) with eight
armoured cars and ten trucks, moved on the capital. Other divisions under the
command of the Movimento das Forças Armadas (MFA – the Armed Forces Movement,
radicalised mid-rank officers, typically captains) were mobilised. The 5th
Infantry Regiment took Rádio Clube Português, transmitting the first MFA
communiqué at 5.30. It appealed to police and troops to stay in barracks.
Prime minister, Marcello Caetano, sought refuge at the Carmo
barracks, which housed the Guarda Nacional Repúblicana (GNR, the regime’s
praetorian guard). En route to Carmo, Maia’s detachment was confronted by tanks
from the 7th Calvary Division under Brigadier Reis. After a stand-off, however,
Reis’s men went over to the side of the coup. Workers and youth came out on the
streets in their thousands.
Key installations were secured: military headquarters
occupied, airport closed, leading ministers arrested. Troops sealed off access
to Lisbon and secured the second city, Porto. The only resistance came from the
hated secret police, the Direcção Geral de Segurança (DGS, still known by its
original name, PIDE), besieged by angry crowds at their headquarters. Several
protesters were shot by DGS agents in their futile last stand.
At 8pm the MFA announced that the regime had been deposed.
Caetano, refusing to surrender to anyone under the rank of general, handed power
over to General António de Spínola. Caetano fled to Madeira, with President
Américo Tomás close behind. A month later they were granted political asylum by
the military dictatorship in Brazil.
The streets thronged with people. Although no one knew what
the MFA intended to do – it had no clear long-term strategy itself – the yoke of
totalitarianism had been lifted. A practically bloodless coup had brought down
Europe’s oldest dictatorship. It was festival time. MFA armoured vehicles were
mobbed by adoring crowds. Thousands of school students marched into the city
centre, shouting ‘Down with fascism’. Red carnations, which became the symbol of
the unfolding revolution, blossomed in rifle barrels, and flooded the streets in
the hands of joyous crowds. This was the ‘joyful revolution’, the ‘revolution of
flowers’.
Caetano’s regime had seen its social support steadily erode.
Fascist rule had been consolidated in the early 1930s by António Salazar. The
preceding two decades of social and political upheaval, and worldwide economic
depression, made Salazar’s promise of stability attractive to some sections,
providing a social base for his policies, especially among landowners,
colonialists and some sections of the middle classes.
Caetano took over in 1968. It was a ‘corporate republic’
with a handful of rich families controlling the financial/industrial
conglomerates, ensconced behind protectionist walls. Acção Nacional Popular (ANP),
the state fascist party, was the only political organisation permitted,
alongside its youth wing. Paramilitary groups terrorised left-wing and
industrial militants. Independent trade unions and the right to strike were
illegal. PIDE (Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado) was backed up by a
massive network of agents and part-time informers. Torture was systemic. The
revolution blew the PIDE/DGS vaults wide open: armaments, torture implements,
instruction manuals, sadistic photos, files on informers, close links with the
CIA.
Regime in crisis
PORTUGAL WAS A colonial power and a satellite of Western
imperialism. It held strategic and valuable territories, above all in Africa:
Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé e Principe, and Cabo Verde. The
plantations and mines generated enormous wealth for a section of the ruling
class. But Portugal had an isolated and backward economy centred mainly on the
export of sardines, textiles, cork, wood and wine. Manufacturing was dominated
by foreign-owned corporations. The economy was in hock to other imperialist
countries, particularly Britain.
1961 saw the launch of the armed Angolan liberation
struggle, followed by Guinea-Bissau (1963) and Mozambique (1964). Portugal had
no hope of winning these wars, and this desperate position made the brutal
repression of the liberation movements all the more severe. There were major
atrocities, including the massacre at Wiriyamu, Mozambique, where 400 villagers
were slaughtered.
The wars were a massive drain on Portugal’s beleaguered
economy, consuming over 40% of the budget. At the time of the coup, 160,000 out
of a total of 220,000 troops were stuck in the Africa quagmire. Desertion and
draft-dodging gathered pace. Mass emigration from Portugal to Western Europe and
Brazil led to a decline in the population from 1960-70. While individuals in the
ruling class grew rich from the colonies, the big landed estates in southern
Portugal were neglected. And the small-scale farming typical in the north was
inefficient. By April 1974, agricultural productivity was one-third of the
average in Western Europe and Portugal was its poorest country. The economic
crisis was exacerbated by the oil shock of 1973, which helped trigger a
worldwide recession.
Workers continued to fight the system. Illegal trade unions
operated. The Partido Comunista Português (PCP), founded in 1921, maintained a
clandestine organisation. Student protest flared up intermittently, particularly
in November 1968 and January 1971. In July 1971, bank workers in Lisbon and
Porto fought running battles with riot police after the arrest of their leader,
Daniel Cabrita. In 1973, 40 major strikes were recorded, including in
foreign-owned businesses such as Plessey, British Leyland, Grundig and ITT.
Preparations were under way for the first civil service strike, on 1 May 1974
(but by then May Day was a public holiday).
These pressures impacted on the ruling elite, with splits
developing over how to deal with them. The strict limits of cosmetic or
short-lived measures to ‘liberalise’ the regime were shown when an independent
trade union federation, Intersindical, was set up in October 1970. It was
initially tolerated, then banned in June 1971 after it campaigned for full trade
union rights and sought recognition from the International Labour Organisation.
The trade unions involved had their leaderships purged and compliant yes-men put
in their places. Intersindical went underground.
Finally, it was the wars in Africa and the armed forces
which delivered the fatal blow to the regime. And, in spite of his impeccable
fascist credentials, General Spínola played a role in its demise. He had fought
for General Francisco Franco in the 1930s Spanish civil war, and with Adolf
Hitler’s armies on the Russian front in the second world war. He was
commander-in-chief in Guinea-Bissau for five years. Typically for a leading army
officer in the corporate state, he was tied in with big business as a director
of Companhia União Fabril, Portugal’s largest conglomerate (which dominated
Guinea-Bissau’s economy), and Champalimaud, a steel and banking giant, also with
extensive interests in Africa.
In February 1974, Spínola published a book, Portugal and the
Future. He realised that military victory was impossible and raised the need for
a managed release of direct colonial power, with Portuguese influence maintained
behind the scenes. In a speech in 1970, however, Caetano stated what was at
stake for the regime: "Africa is more than an area which must be exploited.
Without Africa, we would be a small nation; with Africa we are a big power".
Spínola’s plan was rejected.
The MFA had been created from the erosion of Portugal’s
prestige in the world and demoralisation from fighting expensive and unwinnable
wars against people fighting for freedom. In addition, the middle ranks had been
downgraded by panic measures to fast-track officers to fill gaping holes in
recruitment.
On 15-16 March, junior officers in the 5th Infantry Regiment
based at Caldas da Rainha (50 miles north of Lisbon), took higher ranks captive.
Under threat of bombing, they surrendered. With 200 officers arrested, the MFA
moved quickly to avoid any further clampdown. The week of 22 April was chosen by
Otelo de Carvalho, the main organiser of the coup.
The revolution unfolds
ON 26 APRIL, the MFA announced that a ‘junta of national
salvation’ would rule until a provisional civil government was formed, with
elections within a year. The ANP, DGS and other state agencies would be
disbanded. It declared freedom of association and expression, an amnesty for
political prisoners and the independence of the judiciary.
It was vaguely pro-working class, talking of an economic
policy "at the service of the Portuguese people, notably those sectors of the
population until now the most under-privileged". But it did not put forward any
concrete proposals. It said that "the solution to the overseas wars is political
and not military", and aimed for "a policy leading to peace in the overseas
territories".
The pronouncements on the colonies reflected the differences
between Spínola and most of those in the MFA. This time, Spínola succeeded in
removing any reference to the right of self-determination. The junior officers
recognised that the wars were unwinnable, and that other imperialist powers,
such as Britain and France, had been forced out of their colonies. As part of
their counter-insurgency training, they read the works of Mao Zedong, Ché
Guevara and Carlos Marighella (Brazilian proponent of urban guerrilla warfare in
the late 1960s). Many were already influenced by Marxist ideas before coming
into contact with liberation fighters in Africa itself.
The MFA reflected a wide range of political views. The
lefts, including Carvalho and Vasco Gonçalves, were strongly influenced by
socialist and Stalinist ideas, looking to Eastern Europe, Cuba or Algeria for a
model. Others, such as Melo Antunes, were reformists, linked with the social
democrats around Mário Soares.
The workers had many accounts to settle. Having suffered at
the hands of bosses and landowners linked to the fascist regime for the best
part of 50 years, they took the initiative in driving them out of the factories
and off the land. The editor of Portugal’s main daily newspaper, Diário de
Notícias, for example, was forced out on 7 June after the printers seized the
presses, publishing a front-page article exposing his fascist connections.
Instinctively, workers were also attempting to maximise this
opportunity to fight for their rights and improvements in pay and conditions.
All sections of society were caught up in the revolutionary fervour. Students at
Lisbon university refused to take entrance exams, which they considered a
fascist method of selection. A meeting of 500 Catholics in Porto denounced the
cooperation of the Catholic church with the old regime and called for the
resignation of all bishops.
Homeless people seized empty properties. Offices were used
for workers’ campaigns and community centres, and schools were established. On
15 May, 8,000 Lisnave shipyard workers went on strike for a 50% pay rise. Car
workers won a 40-hour week. Bakery and textile workers struck. Train and tram
conductors employed tactics developed under the fascist regime. Instead of
striking, they refused to collect fares. Lisbon underground workers won a 50%
increase.
Spínola became president on 15 May, forming a coalition
which included politicians with ties to the old regime – including the
newly-formed conservative Partido Popular Democrático (PPD, led by Francisco Sá
Carneiro) – alongside members of the PCP, Partido Socialista (PS) and the
Movimento Democrático Português (MDP/CDE linked with the PCP).
Capitalists looked in horror at developments in Portugal.
Seeing the PCP in the government of a Nato country petrified the imperialist
powers. They feared that they were witnessing the formation of a ‘communist’
state – in a Western European country. However, their room for manoeuvre was
limited. The strength of the revolutionary movement left a very limited base for
reaction. The US was paralysed by the ‘Vietnam Syndrome’, having pulled out in
1973, and the international economic crisis made immediate action more
difficult.
Communists & Socialists
IN AN ATTEMPT to turn back the revolutionary tide, Spínola
leant on the PS and the PCP, making Avelino Gonçalves labour minister. The
inclusion of political parties which were either emerging from decades of
clandestine activity or were being built from scratch added a new dimension to
the revolution and the often fraught relations between the MFA, junta and the
parties themselves.
Mário Soares, PS leader, returned to Portugal from exile in
Paris on 28 April. He was a lawyer, funded by the social democratic Second
International (and the CIA), well-known in Portugal thanks to BBC Foreign
Service broadcasts. Álvaro Cunhal, PCP leader, got back on 30 April after 14
years in exile in Eastern Europe. He had been sentenced to ten years in prison
in 1959 but had escaped. Almost as soon as they arrived back, these leaders
found themselves sharing power.
Both parties saw explosive growth after the coup, as did a
number of far-left groups. PS membership rose from a mere 200 in April to 20,000
by September, and 60,000 in early 1975. The PCP was in a dominant position in
the Intersindical trade union federation, giving it a strong base among
industrial workers. Its other stronghold was with agricultural workers in the
south. PS support was weighted more among white-collar workers and professional
grades, and in the intelligentsia.
Although ideally placed, the PCP leaders did not use their
influence to develop independent mass action by the working class towards
socialism. They relied on their influence with the MFA left, exerted in meetings
behind closed doors. Leaders like Cunhal based themselves on the methods of the
Soviet Union’s ruling bureaucracy, not on mass action by the workers. The PCP
sat alongside Spínola in cabinet as he manoeuvred for power with the aim,
ultimately, of derailing the revolution. The reason Spínola could not move
decisively was because of the overwhelming public support for the MFA – the
deliverers of freedom – and the spur this had given to working class militancy.
The PCP leaders’ perspective centred on supporting the MFA left. The working
class was mobilised when that support was required, as auxiliaries in the
struggle for social change.
The thoroughly Stalinist PCP leadership never had any
intention of advocating workers’ control and management of the economy on the
basis of a democratic, socialist plan of production and distribution. An
international appeal for solidarity from a workers’ state in Portugal would have
provided a huge boost to revolutionaries fighting dictatorships in Spain and
Greece at the time. It could have been the first step towards the formation of
voluntary federations of socialist states.
The radical measures taken by the MFA were in response to
the mass movement from below. One of the first was a minimum wage of £55 a
month, affecting 65% of the workers. Controls were brought in on prices and
house rents. Taxes were increased on higher incomes, under-utilised farmland
(especially on big estates in the south), and luxury goods. A thousand leading
company directors connected with the old regime were dismissed.
Thirty thousand postal workers struck from 17-21 June. Rail,
electricity, shipping, and major industries saw strikes. The PCP leaders did
what Communist Parties always do when they find themselves in office – they
tried to hold back the working class. They denounced "unrealistic wage demands"
and "disruption playing into the hands of reactionary forces". Its newspaper,
Avante, criticised bosses for conceding wage increases which were "too high"!
On 27 July, Spínola reluctantly announced the "immediate
recognition" of the right to independence for the African colonies. He demanded
greater powers. When the MFA refused, the first provisional government fell. A
new prime minister, Brigadier Vasco Gonçalves (for years linked to the PCP), was
appointed. A revolutionary guard, Copcon, was established under Carvalho to
circumvent the line of command from Spínola.
On the other hand, a new trade union law was brought in on
29 August. While legalising industrial action, it attempted to impose severe
restrictions on strikes and occupations. It required a minimum seven days’
notice of a strike (ten in public utilities), and a 30-day negotiation period.
Workers had the right to picket but not to occupy. Strikes on religious or
political grounds, and solidarity action, were declared illegal. The right of
lock-out was accorded where an illegal strike was in progress. On 2 September,
in a populist appeal aimed at undermining support for the PCP and bolstering its
own position among the working class, the PS condemned the ‘restrictive nature’
of the laws.
This was nothing new. Soares would litter his speeches with
calls for the ‘socialist transformation of society’. This was part of his
strategy of winning over the radicalised working class, above all from the PCP
and far-left. Once the revolutionary heat had cooled, he planned to direct the
working and middle classes down a safe, reformist, capitalist road.
In practice, the restrictions were largely ineffectual due
to the fraternisation between the troops and workers. However, TAP national
airline was put under military control on 28 August after maintenance staff
struck. More than 200 workers were later dismissed by the military commander in
charge. Lisnave workers struck again on 12 September and marched, illegally, on
the ministry of labour. They stated that while they supported all progressive
measures they would "actively fight" the strike law because it would undermine
workers’ struggle "against capitalist exploitation".
One of the many remarkable aspects of the Portuguese
revolution was the way the working class consistently mobilised to defend the
MFA and the gains made. Lacking a revolutionary socialist leadership and so
unable to move decisively to secure a genuine, democratic workers’ state, it was
often counter-revolutionary reaction which stirred it into action.
To test the balance of power, Spínola called for a
demonstration of the (illusory) ‘silent majority’ for 28 September. Rumours
circulated of a right-wing coup and training camps in Spain run by former DGS
agents. Carvalho was detained by Spínola in an attempt to sabotage Copcon’s
plans to deal with potential clashes. This time the workers set up armed
roadblocks to stop reactionary groups moving on Lisbon. At midday on the 28th,
Spínola called the whole thing off. His support in the armed forces and among
working class people was fast evaporating. Right-wing officers and civilians
were arrested, and 100 navy and 200 army officers purged.
MFA & political parties
ELECTIONS WERE CALLED for 12 April 1975, eventually taking
place on the 25th, with those who held positions in the former regime excluded
from voting. The election campaign would stretch the relationship between the
MFA and the political parties almost to breaking point. MFA spokesmen frequently
used the bitter rivalry between the parties, especially the PCP and the PS, as
justification for strengthening their own political role. On 3 April, Commander
Correia Jesuino, put it bluntly: "It was the armed forces and not the
clandestine political parties nor the intellectuals who made the 25 April
revolution… We are the vanguard of that revolution and thus have the right to
assume direction of the nation".
Another battleground was over trade union representation.
Since the coup, most trade unions were in the PCP-dominated Intersindical
federation, representing two million workers. The PCP and the MFA wanted to set
up Intersindical as a single, mandatory federation, and mobilised 100,000
workers in support of that demand on 14 January. The PS, PPD, and Catholic
church, wanted a more ‘pluralist’ movement – one they had a better chance of
influencing. The proposal was narrowly accepted, but a series of amendments
curbed Intersindical’s power.
There had been setbacks for the PCP in several unions,
including losing the leadership in two postal worker elections in Lisbon to
opportunist lists of the PS and MRPP (Movimento Reorganizativo do Partido
Proletário, a Maoist group), and the União Democrátíca Popular (UDP, a
Marxist-Leninist group). Avelino Gonçalves, former labour minister, lost the
bank workers’ union election.
Political confrontations were becoming increasingly violent.
The first national congress of the right-wing Centro Democrático Social (CDS –
based on members of the former regime), in Porto on 25 January, was called off
after it was besieged by left-wing protesters, leading to violent clashes with
police. Soldiers from nearby barracks sided with the demo. The MRPP attacked a
CDS rally and its headquarters in Lisbon. On 7 March, a PPD meeting in the
industrial city of Setúbal was broken up. Two protesters were shot dead and 26
injured in clashes with the police. The police station was besieged by workers.
PPD offices were destroyed in Beja, in the PCP’s southern stronghold, Alentejo.
On 21 February, a three-year plan proposed a 51% state
holding in all major mines, oil and natural gas, steel, electricity, tobacco,
and arms manufacture. There were further price controls. It proposed the
expropriation of large land holdings.
The plan did not, however, touch the banks, the key to
breaking the power of the conglomerates. Workers took the initiative and
investigated the Espírito Santo family’s links with the fascist regime. They
found that money to provide jobs for troops returning from Africa had been
siphoned off as part of an elaborate scheme to safeguard the family’s wealth in
the event of nationalisation. The bank was funding the CDS and PPD. Inspectors
were placed in all banks to check their operations. But this move was as much to
reassure international big business that capitalism was safe, as it was to
placate the workers.
Spínola would make one more pathetic bid for power. On 11
March, paratroopers from the Tancos airbase in the Tomar region moved against
RAL-1 (one of the most left-wing army units, which played a key role in forming
the MFA and in the coup). It was a farce. Troops at Tancos mutinied when they
found out that they were being used against other units. Spínola fled.
Immediately, the whole structure of the MFA was dissolved
and a Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC) set up. It had full legislative
powers, absorbing all the previous institutions of state.
The fact that six members of the Espírito Santo family were
among many leading industrialists implicated in the coup fiasco enraged bank
workers. They occupied the banks, preventing the bosses from removing
incriminating documents or transferring funds abroad. They refused to work until
the banks were handed over to workers’ committees. On 14 March, it was announced
that all Portuguese banks (except agricultural credit institutions) would indeed
be nationalised. The next day, the insurance companies went the same way.
The elections would be the first based on universal suffrage
in Portugal’s history. More than six million people were eligible to vote. Seven
of the twelve parties involved were to the left of the PCP, including
‘Marxist-Leninists’, ‘Maoists’, and ‘Trotskyists’. Only three parties were
clearly on the right: PPD, CDS and the monarchist PPM. Such was the strength of
the socialist mood that even the PPM had to attempt to be radical, calling for
communes headed by a king!
Attempting to undermine support for the PCP and far-left, an
assembly of bishops in Fátima (9-12 April) forbade Catholics from voting for
parties whose ideology was incompatible with ‘Christian concepts’. It declared
against spoiling ballots. MFA leaders had said that they would interpret a
significant number of spoiled ballots and abstentions as support for the armed
forces.
Over five-and-a-half million people voted, a massive 91.73%,
with 6.9% blank or spoiled ballots. The PS gained 37.87% and 115 deputies; PPD
26.38%, 80; PCP 12.53%, 30; CDS 7.65%, 16; MDP-CDE 4.12%, 5; UDP 0.79%, 1. In
total, 58.5% had voted for left-wing parties (counting votes for the far-left
parties which did not win seats).
PCP support was concentrated in its southern heartlands. In
the north it received less than 5%, rising to 15-20% in the industrial areas
around Lisbon and Santarém. The PPD stronghold was in the north, while the PS
picked up support around the country. The PS would not be allowed to hold the
reins of power immediately. On 30 April, the SRC granted official recognition to
Intersindical, and at the national May Day rally, Intersindical and PCP members
physically blocked Soares from speaking. The following day, the PS organised a
30,000-strong demo against the PCP.
Stalinist models
A SECTION OF MFA leaders around Carvalho was clearly moving
towards a left-wing military dictatorship. Before a general assembly of the MFA
on 26/7 May, Carvalho said: "Either we build really solid socialism in Portugal
using the MFA and the political parties, as long as the parties are able to
mobilise the masses, or we abolish the party leaderships and link ourselves
directly to the people".
PCP leaders were putting forward the need for ‘revolutionary
defence committees’, looking to Eastern Europe as its model. Carvalho seemed to
favour the ‘workers’ revolutionary councils’ set up in Cuba under Fidel Castro.
Neither was a call for genuine workers’ democracy. They were intended to
mobilise backing, cheerleaders for a military-led Stalinist regime.
There was widespread support for socialist ideas in general,
as witnessed by the election results. There was also a deep suspicion of
Stalinism. The model provided by the former Soviet Union was not attractive to
the working class, especially one which had so recently emerged from
totalitarianism, even if on a different economic base. The PS cynically
exploited this genuine fear to undermine the PCP.
On 11 July, Soares announced that the PS would withdraw from
the government because the SRC had sanctioned the takeover of the PS-oriented
República newspaper by Communist print workers. Soares accused the armed forces
of attempting to impose a ‘communist-style police state’. On 17 July, the PPD
also withdrew. The fourth coalition government was dissolved. A ruling
triumvirate of President Francisco de Costa Gomes, Prime Minister Vasco
Gonçalves, and Copcon head Carvalho was set up.
Carvalho’s ominous warning at a press conference on 30 July,
after a visit to Cuba, gave credibility to Soares’s cynical denunciations: "[It]
is becoming impossible to have a socialist revolution by completely peaceful
means", he said. He called the PS "the strongest enemy of the left": "Sometimes
I think it would have been better in April 1974 for us to have put the
counter-revolutionaries’ backs against the wall, or ordered them to the bullring
in hundreds or thousands". (Keesing’s Contemporary Archives 1975, 27321)
Right-wing parties were growing in confidence, and regional
political differences were being played out. Attacks on PCP and MDP-CDE offices
and members intensified in the northern cities of Porto and Bragança, and in
Leiria. The MFA pro-Soares wing around Antunes was also emboldened, the
instability fuelling demands for ‘order’ to be restored. On 29 August, Vasco
Gonçalves was forced to resign as prime minister and was replaced by Admiral
José Azevedo. A ‘Group of Nine’, supported by the PS and PPD, emerged as leaders
of the MFA. On 19 September, a new cabinet – the sixth – was sworn in, its make
up reflecting the election results.
There was increased polarisation in the armed forces.
Far-left army groups appeared, for example, Soldados Unidos Vencerão (Soldiers
United Will Win), which described itself as a ‘unified anti-capitalist and
anti-imperialist front’. Around 1,500 automatic weapons were diverted from the
army to left-wing militias. Two companies of military police refused to embark
for Angola.
A far-right Portuguese Liberation Army planted bombs around
Lisbon. Rumours of coups circulated. On 27 September Copcon stood by as
demonstrators, protesting at the Franco regime’s support for far-right forces in
Portugal, set fire to the Spanish embassy.
On 13 November, 30,000 construction workers demanding higher
wages and the nationalisation of all building sites surrounded the assembly.
Again Copcon troops refused to intervene. After a day trapped inside, the
government conceded to the workers’ demands.
The rightwing moved. The SRC dismissed Carvalho and
suspended Copcon. The government purged PCP members and sympathisers from the
ministries. Right-wing groups mobilised farmers who set up barricades on 24
November to try to isolate ‘Red Lisbon’. Next day, troops led by right-wing
Lieutenant Colonel António Eanes occupied military bases. A state of emergency
was called.
The tide had turned. After 18 months of frenetic
revolutionary action, ‘order’ was restored. Such had been the inroads into
capitalist rule, however, so deep had been the shock to the system – three
quarters of the economy nationalised, and a working class which had shown an
almost superhuman capacity for struggle – that the full restoration of
untrammelled capitalism had to proceed very cautiously. The weakness of reaction
meant that the counter-revolution could not drown the workers’ movement in
blood, as it had done in Chile in 1973.
The revolution ended 50 years of brutal dictatorship. That
alone is a magnificent achievement, a historical justification. The scale of the
movement, however, meant that it could have achieved much more. Had there been a
revolutionary party equipped with a developed socialist programme and respected
by the working class, a socialist revolution would have been possible. Today,
the government is implementing a neo-liberal onslaught against the working
class. Portugal’s workers will need to draw on their rich revolutionary
traditions to resist these attacks before they are able, one day, to complete
the tasks left over from 1974-75.
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