25/04/2014
Juan Carlos Jiménez Redondo. Tenured Professor of History of Thought and Social Movements. CEU San Pablo University
The Carnation Revolution put an end to one of the longest dictatorships in the recent European history, and one of the most deceptive dictatorships established in the old continent throughout the 1930s. It was deceptive because, under the guise of a benevolent dictatorship, a highly repressive regime was concealed, as shown by the dark history of its feared political police, the PIDE. It was deceptive because, under a semi-liberal political structure, a true personal dictatorship was developed, that of the Head of the Council of Ministers, Antonio de Oliveira Salazar. It was deceptive because, under the protection of a Constitution, that of 1933, which included a substantial declaration of rights and fundamental freedoms, the freedom of the Portuguese people was strongly limited and its fundamental rights were restricted throughout decades. It was deceptive because, under the banner of an integral nationalism, Portugal was involved in a long colonial war that ripped the country apart, financially mortgaged it and, worst of all, generated an ideological and political exacerbation that killed any possibility of carrying out a consensual and orderly transition process to democracy.
Long, medium and short-term effects of the colonial wars explain why the dictatorship ended with a coup d’état, the aim of which was to achieve democracy. In other words, Portugal began its transition to democracy the only way it could actually begin: with the intervention of an army that was weary of an unwinnable war. The key factor is that the colonial wars led to an extreme political and ideological radicalisation process, encouraged by the insufficient development accomplishments of the dictatorship. One could claim that the last years of Estado Novo were a period of strong economic growth but, in relative terms, Portugal continued to display very low levels of development. This provided grist to the mill for those who defended a radical solution for the country, namely all military and political sectors which believed that the dictatorship and the underdevelopment that it generated could only be solved by means of a socialist revolution. The Carnation Revolution was therefore the start of Portugal’s democratization process and, at the same time, the start of a revolutionary process led for months—specially throughout the so-called hot summer of 1975—by an extreme left-wing radicalism that almost imposed an alleged revolutionary legitimacy on the democratic legitimacy expressed in the elections of April 1975.
The so-called Ongoing Revolutionary Process was finally redressed due to the strength of the pluralist democracy. The country, led by General Ramalho Eanes, lived a new period of institutional normalization supported by the 1976 Constitution which, despite some reminiscences of the previous military “revolutionism”, established a liberal democracy model. For many people, this change of course put an end to the revolutionary aspirations, this is, to the created myth which would allegedly lead Portugal to build a Socialist society, equal and classless. For many others, those to whom liberal democracy was—and is—the most perfect institutional framework, Portugal opened up to a new period of progress where it would finally join an increasingly integrated Europe, not only economically, but also due to being open societies based on shared values such as freedom, democratic pluralism, the Rule of Law and welfare.