Was Portugal’s Carnation Revolution Inevitable?
So called because it passed without a shot being fired, the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974 brought Portugal’s authoritarian Estado Novo to an end. Could the state have survived?
‘The Estado Novo was in a cul-de-sac of its own making’
Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses is Professor of History at Maynooth University
The answer to this question depends on what we mean by ‘Carnation Revolution’. If it is the Portuguese army’s coup on 25 April 1974, designed to topple Marcelo Caetano’s government and set Portugal on a path towards democracy and decolonisation, then the answer is a qualified ‘yes’: the Estado Novo (New State), inaugurated by António Oliveira Salazar in 1932 and led by Caetano since 1968, was in a cul-de-sac of its own making, unable to evolve while tied to a set of unwinnable wars in Africa. Junior and middle-ranking officers, who bore the brunt of the fighting, understood that a political solution acceptable to the African liberation movements would not emerge from Lisbon while Caetano remained at the helm, and resolved to act. That their plotting should have evaded the attention of the secret police was a surprise (a rising in March had failed), but there is no doubt that Caetano had run out of road.
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