Carnation Revolution - Overview

Overview

The name "Carnation Revolution" comes from the fact no shots were fired and when the population started descending the streets to celebrate the end of the dictatorship and war in the colonies, carnation flowers were put into the muzzles of rifles and on the uniforms of the army. These events effectively changed the Portuguese regime from an authoritarian dictatorship (the Estado Novo, or "New State") into a democracy, and produced enormous social, economic, territorial, demographic, and political changes in the country, after two years of a transitional period known as PREC (Processo Revolucionário Em Curso, or On-Going Revolutionary Process), characterized by social turmoil and power disputes between left- and right-wing political forces.

Despite repeated appeals from the revolutionaries on the radio asking the population to stay home, thousands of Portuguese descended on the streets, mixing with the military insurgents.

The military-led coup returned democracy to Portugal, ending the unpopular Colonial War where thousands of Portuguese soldiers had been conscripted into military service, and replacing the Estado Novo regime and its secret police which repressed elemental civil liberties and political freedoms. It started as a professional class protest of Portuguese Armed Forces captains against a decree law: the Dec Lei nº 353/73 of 1973.

A group of Portuguese low-ranking officers organised in the Armed Forces Movement (MFA – Movimento das Forças Armadas), including elements who had been fighting the pro-independence guerrillas in the Portuguese empire's territories in Africa, rose to overthrow the Estado Novo regime that had ruled Portugal since the 1930s. Portugal's new regime pledged itself to end the colonial wars and began negotiations with the African independence movements. By the end of 1974, Portuguese troops had been withdrawn from Portuguese Guinea and the latter had become a UN member. This was followed by the independence of Cape Verde, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe and Angola in 1975. The Carnation Revolution in Portugal also led to Portugal's withdrawal from East Timor in Southeast Asia. These events prompted a mass exodus of Portuguese citizens from Portugal's African territories (mostly from Angola and Mozambique), creating over a million destitute Portuguese refugees — the retornados.

Although the regime's political police, PIDE, killed four people before surrendering, the revolution was unusual in that the revolutionaries did not use direct violence to achieve their goals. Holding red carnations (cravos in Portuguese), many people joined revolutionary soldiers on the streets of Lisbon, in apparent joy and audible euphoria. Red is a symbolic color for socialism and communism, which were the main ideological tendencies of many anti-New State insurgents. It was the end of the Estado Novo, the longest-lived authoritarian regime in Western Europe, and the final dissolution of the Portuguese Empire. In the aftermath of the revolution a new constitution was drafted, censorship was formally prohibited, free speech declared, political prisoners were released and the Portuguese overseas territories in Sub-Saharan Africa were immediately given their independence as communist states. East Timor was also offered independence, being invaded by neighbouring Indonesia afterwards.