Portugal S Revolution

On April 25, 1974, a coup destroyed the ranks of Estado Novo's fascist government in Portugal. Ordinary people flooded the streets of Lisbon, placing red carnations in the barrels of guns and demanding a land for those who work in it. This spontaneous revolt placed power in the hands of the working classes, trade unions, and women. In order to understand the Carnation Revolution, we must recognize it as an international coalition of social movements, comprised of struggles for independence in Portugal's African colonies, the rebellion of the young military captains of the Armed Forces Movement, and the uprising of Portugal's long-oppressed working classes. Cutting against the grain of mainstream accounts, Raquel Cardeira Varela shows how it was through the organizing power of these diverse movements that a popular-front government was instituted along with the nation's withdrawal from its overseas colonies. Offering a rich account of the challenges these coalitions faced and the victories they won through revolutionary means, this book tells the tumultuous history behind the Carnation Revolution.

Title Page -- Table of Contents -- List of Figures -- Acknowledgments -- List of Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. Two Decades That Shook the World: 1956-1974 -- Chapter 2. The First Protest Cycle: 1956-1965 -- Chapter 3. 'The Marcelo's Spring' and the Opening of a Second Protest Cycle -- Chapter 4. Protest Cycle or Permanent Conflict? -- Chapter 5. The Demise of the New State -- Conclusions. Social Movements and Authoritarianism -- Bibliography -- Index

"In a vigorous book, the author stresses what he sees as the revolution's most important feature: ordinary people spontaneously taking power for themselves."--New Society

This 1986 book is a major socio-political study of the fate of Portugal in the decade since the coup d'état. In over ninety hours of tape-recorded interviews, the authors have conducted discussions with officers of both left and right involved in the shaping of Portugal's political evolution.

Despite worldwide interest in the Portuguese Revolution of 1974, Portugal remained for most people a little known and poorly understood country, neglected for years by social scientists. Editors Graham and Makler brought together for the first time in one substantive volume most of the leading social science experts on Portugal. The contributors' highly original research represents the best work generated by the International Conference Group on Modern Portugal at its two major conferences held in 1973 and 1976. The result is a comprehensive collection of essays discussing in detail the events leading up to the revolution, the causes of the military coup, and the movement of a society on the brink of revolutionary upheaval toward open, democratic parliamentary elections. As the first interdisciplinary study to span fifty years of Portuguese history from the Estado Novo of 1926 to the eventual social democratic republic, this book stands alone in its field. The specialist as well as the general reader will find insights into the dynamics of Portugal's people, politics, and economics.