On April 25, Portugal celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution, which ended authoritarian rule and paved the way for democracy in 1974.
There were military parades in Lisbon, with swarms of military personnel flooding the streets and plazas. Tanks cruised the main road, and there were even warships along the Tagus River. The citizens joined in by walking the main streets wearing red flowers.
Portugal fell under authoritarian rule between 1932 and 1968. The prime minister at the time, António de Oliveira Salazar, created an autocratic, totalitarian regime that he called Estado Novo (“New State”) with himself as dictator. It continued on after Salazar stepped down and even following his death, keeping Portugal under fascist rule for half a century until democracy was established under the Carnation Revolution in 1974.
The year 1960 was known as the “Year of Africa.” Seventeen independent nations were born when countries like England and France completely released their colonial holdings in the continent. Portugal held Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Príncipe—a colonial area twenty times that of its national territory. The colonies provided critical resources for the Portuguese manufacturing industry, which struggled to compete internationally. Salazar continually ignored UN resolutions pushing for decolonization.
The people of the Portuguese colonies eventually lost patience, and when attacks on police stations broke out in Angola in 1961, they served as a signal fire for the battle for liberation. The movement spread to Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau, and independent freedom fighters backed by the Soviet Union and Cuba ended up battling colonial armies for thirteen years.
Portugal continued to send young men into battle during this time to suppress the uprisings, investing some 40% of its national budget towards the end of the war effort. Public finances suffered, bringing hardship to the lives of everyday people.
University reservists had questioned the war from the beginning, but gradually even the young commissioned officers began criticizing the colonial war. They eventually arrived at a policy to overthrow the totalitarian regime, make Portugal a democratic state, and free its colonies. Military officers who opposed the regime organized the Armed Forces Movement on the front lines of the guerilla war, successfully initiating a revolution in 1974.
The military coup that started in 1974 put an end to the Estado Nuevo, Europe’s longest-running dictatorial regime, with almost no shots fired, making it a nearly bloodless revolution.
The name “Carnation Revolution” comes from red carnations that the soldiers who overthrew the dictatorship put in the muzzles of their guns to celebrate.
Lisbon is planning a series of commemorative events throughout the year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the revolution on April 25.
