The flowers of freedom
News
Feature
How a red carnation freed Portugal of tyranny – 50 years
ago today
Thursday, April 25th, 2024
Reading time: 10 min
From Unite Live
https://unitelive.org/portugal-carnation-revolution-50-years-ago-today/
April 25, 1974 – and the world witnessed a 48-year
authoritarian reign of terror that had stunted industrial development being
swept aside in Portugal by a coup led by middle ranking army officers.
Known as the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) they had become
radicalised by the Iberian nations determination to retain its sprawling
colonial empire, large parts of which in Africa were fighting back and winning.
The MFA cut the head off the armed forces by getting rid of 100 generals.
The coup, mainly in Lisbon, unleashed a torrent of workers’
activity that, following a 19-month period when their existed the possibility
of a socialist transformation, helped bring about a democratic revolution
that dramatically raised Portuguese living standards, freedoms and horizons.
Portugal’s fascist dictator, Antonio de Oliveira Salazar was
a contemporary of Hitler, Franco and Mussolini and ruled one of Europe’s oldest
countries, a key UK ally, from 1932 to 1968. He died in 1970.
Sham elections had followed in which the government
candidate ran virtually unopposed whilst other parties used the limited
freedoms to protest. The secret police – the PIDE – which could arrest anyone
considered to be plotting against the regime continued to harass, imprison and
murder communists, socialists and trade unionists, forcing all of them to
organise secretly.
Meanwhile, brutal colonial wars continued to be waged in
Mozambique, Angola and Guinea-Bissau by the Portuguese state that, with Salazar
keen to retain his title of Emperor, had, unlike other major colonial
powers that had abandoned their colonies following WWII, chosen to continue to
occupy.
Change was desperately needed.
Yet hardly anyone was aware when they woke up on April 25,
1974 that it was already happening. A coup had started after rebel soldiers had
heard their secretly agreed signal at 12.20am on Radio Renascence. This
consisted of the playing of a song by Zeca Afonso ‘Grandola, Vila Morena.’
Following which troops immediately began occupying strategic points of power in
the country. The song later became famous as the anthem of the revolution.
When the generals then found troops not involved in the plot
were unwilling to follow orders to attack their comrades and were, in fact,
desperate to participate in the revolt then it was clear that, despite the PIDE
shooting dead four of the demonstrators, an unstoppable movement had begun.
It was one that with rebel troops taking to wearing red
carnations in their gun barrels became known as the Carnation Revolution.
A spontaneous mass movement then exploded across the
country. Factories were occupied and enormous demonstrations organised.
Now married to Unite Landworker photographer Peter Smith and
happily living in Norfolk, the then 17-year-old João Zilanova (pictured
in main photo) was a high school student living with her grandparents in the
University town of Coimbra outside Lisbon.
She had spent her formative years in Mozambique. Her dad was
an agronomist providing technical support to the white farmers, many of whom
treated local people very badly, sent to populate the southeast African country
occupied by the Portuguese following their arrival there in 1498.
“He was a secret socialist. The local people who worked for
us were not treated as servants. My mother, a kindergarten teacher, began
providing social services like weighing babies locally for everyone, black and
white. We were unusual but being so far from Portugal meant the secret police
were not everywhere. We had books from all the great socialist writers.”
The Mozambique War of Independence between the FRELIMO
guerilla forces and Portugal had started in 1964. Despite driving everywhere in
his Land Rover; João’s dad was never attacked. “The guerilla’s saw their enemy
as the Portuguese military led by General Spinola. Dad was often told to stay
away from areas that might prove to be dangerous.” João s dad was also in
Lisbon on April 25, 1974.
“No one knew what was coming. My sister and I went to High
School on the morning of the 25th and at lunchtime they told us
to go home. We caught the bus, when we saw a demo, we joined in. My father was
delighted,” states Joao.
“The disastrous overseas wars had inspired the initial
rebellion but then the workers came to play a big role. It was like the cork
coming out of a bottle of Champagne. Workers occupied factories and mass
meetings discussed how to re-organise society. The atmosphere was electric,
everything seemed possible. Women played a big role.”
Backed by the Catholic Church, Salazar’s reactionary family
values had blocked women from working in many workplaces.
The Catholic radio station Renascensa, founded in 1936, was
occupied. People tuned to hear what was happening. It told people, who for
decades had feared talking openly to their neighbours in case it led to them
being reported to the authorities, to come to protest in the streets or support
occupations.
Searching for a new way of living was difficult. In
1975, London born Carlos
Guarita, a Unite Community member from Dorset, returned to the country
where he had lived with his grandparents in the 1950s.
His Portuguese parents had fled to London to escape poverty
and possible persecution after his dad participated in a tram strike that was
defeated when his workplace was occupied by the PIDE and military.
Speaking from Lisbon, where he has joined the 50th anniversary
celebrations, Carlos, who was later a TGWU steward at Ford Dagenham before
becoming a photographer who specialised in working in war zones, said: “It was
a very confused situation in 1975. That was not too surprising especially as
many people were illiterate plus there was no recent history of open political
discussion. There were 13 parties of the left. Workers were left confused.
Plus, change had not been initiated from below by the masses. There were no
horizontal structures and state power remained.” This later allowed members of
the Salazar government and his PIDE thugs to escape justice for their crimes.
A coalition government that included the Socialist Party and
the Communist Party was established. Yet despite the fact that the elections in
April 1975 took place in a period of revolutionary ferment, most Portuguese
voted for parties committed to pluralistic democracy.
Meanwhile, new forms of trade unions had been established.
It is estimated that around 380 self-managed factories and 500 co-ops were in
operation by the summer of 1975. Empty housing properties too were occupied.
Banks were nationalised.
By August 1975 official statistics showed that over 330
different land collectives were operating.
“This was because landless farmworkers seized land allowing
them to secure production of crops from their land that were collectively
organised and controlled by the workers not the government. This allowed
farmworkers to provide themselves with regular employment, lifting themselves
out of poverty but also increasing agricultural products to be exported,”
explains Bev Clarkson, Unite National Officer for Food, Drink and
Agriculture (FDA). “This is the power workers have if they work
collectively together, in short this is grass roots trade unionism.”
By September 1975, Guinea-Bissau had gained
independence and talks were underway on the liberation of the other colonies.
According to retired farmworker John Burbidge, who chairs the
Tolpuddle Unite FDA branch, these developments helped create revolutionary
change across Southern Africa. “Ian Smith’s Rhodesia and the Apartheid
regime in South Africa could no longer rely on Portuguese military backing and
Mozambique became a base for guerilla raids into South Africa by the APLA. This
forced De Klerk to release Nelson Mandela and negotiate the end of Apartheid.”
In Portugal in November 1975 an attempted coup by far-left
activists keen to establish communism was supressed in favour of more
democratic means of running the country.
A new constitution, followed by elections, was accepted in
April 1976. By declaring the extensive nationalisations and land seizures of
1975 irreversible meant, even though the co-ops, collectives and workers’
committee had to negotiate on capitalist terms for the price of the labour, a
much brighter future lay ahead for the Portuguese people.
Such has proved to be the case. “Electrification of
the whole country has facilitated a stronger industrial base. There have been
massive improvements in the education and health systems,” states Carlos, who
is also proud that after 1974, Portuguese exiles in Britain established the
International Workers’ Branch in the TGWU.
João too recognises how life for ordinary Portuguese has
improved in the last 50 years.
“When my granddad died, my grandmother did not even have a
pension to exist on. People worked till they died. And there were no social
services. That changed after the mid-70s. Life has improved as a result
of the April 25, 1974 Revolution that was so exciting to be a part of and that
ended fascism in Portugal and brought about a form of social democracy. I am
delighted to be here today in Lisbon on the 50th anniversary.”
Sue Longley, general secretary of the International
Food, Farm and Hotel workers told UNITElive, “The 50th anniversary of the
Carnation Revolution is a timely reminder that we can never take democracy for
granted.
“It brought an end Europe’s longest-lasting dictatorship and
was the beginning of the end of Portugal’s colonial empire.
“Looking around the world today we see the rise of the right
and the increasing attacks on democracy. As in 1974 so now, trade unions around
the world must fight to protect democracy. This should be our way to honour the
Carnation Revolution.”
FIND OUT MORE
João recommended the novel A Small Death in
Lisbon by Robert Wilson for readers keen to find out more about
the historical context of the 1974 Revolution and its aftermath.
By Mark Metcalf
Photos by Peter Everard-Smith
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)