History of Portugal

New State (Estado Novo)

:Main article: Estado Novo (Portugal).

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Political chaos, several strikes, harsh relations with the Church, and considerable economic problems aggravated by a disastrous military intervention in the First World War led to a military coup d'état in 1926, installing the Second Republic that would later become the Estado Novo in 1933, led by António de Oliveira Salazar, which transformed Portugal into a Fascist leaning state, which later evolved into some mixture of single party corporative regime. {{Inote | Constituição da República Portuguesa, VI Revisão Constitucional, preamble}}India invaded and annexed Portuguese India in 1961. Independence movements also became active in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea, and a series of colonial wars started.

Related Topics:
Military intervention in the First World War - Coup d'état - 1926 - Estado Novo - 1933 - António de Oliveira Salazar - Portuguese India - 1961 - Angola - Mozambique - Portuguese Guinea - Colonial war

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Not all who claim that the negative view historians have taken of this period are sympathizers with the later Fascistic regime (saudosistas), but most agree that Salazar and Caetano's corporative regime installed by the military coup d'état of 1926 was a repressive dictatorship, though the regime was slowly trying to democratize and to solve the problems of the colonies. Portugal,never an outcast, was a founding member of OECD, NATO and EFTA.

Related Topics:
Coup d'état - Colonies - OECD - NATO - EFTA

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After the death of Salazar in 1970, his replacement by Marcelo Caetano, offered a certain hope that the regime would open up, the primavera marcelista (Marcelist spring), howeverhe colonial wars in Africa continued, political prisoners remained incarcerated, freedom of association was not restored, censorship was only slightly eased and the elections remained tightly controlled. The regime retained its characteristic traits: censorship, corporativeness, with a market economy dominated by a handful of economical groups, continuous surveillance and intimidation of all sectors of society through the use of a political police and techniques instilling fear, such as arbitrary imprisonment, systematic political persecution, and assassination.

Related Topics:
Political prisoners - Censorship - Elections - Surveillance - Intimidation - Society - Political police

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The largely symbolic opening up of the 70s was meant to reduce social pressures generated by poor living conditions and to send a positive signal to the international community from which Portugal had been marginalized.

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The solutions envisioned for the colonies, called ultramarine provinces following the French precedent, it is said it was to remove the concept of colony and the idea of Portugal from Minho to East Timor.

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Furthermore the richness produced in the great growth of the economy in the 1960's in the country (and empire), was being accumulated by a small minority, while the workers (both nationals and from the Empire) remained ignorant, illiterate and living in poverty.

Related Topics:
Empire - Illiterate

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Portugal's acceptance in the OECD, NATO and EFTA, was not an unconditional sign of the international acceptance of the regime: in the context of the cold war and international pragmatism, Portugal was a small country with a relatively important geostrategical position, thus Western interests turned a blind eye on the regime's policies.

Related Topics:
OECD - NATO - EFTA - Cold war

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