The Portuguese Revolution

This book interprets the Portuguese revolution of 1974–75 and emphasizes its significance as a political and economic rapture. It describes the events leading up to the coup of April 25, 1974, the coup itself, the role of the Armed Forces Movement (MFA), subsequent institutional conflict among the MFA and the political parties including the Portuguese Communist Party, and the impact of labor unions and new popular and social movements. Advancing a class theory of the state, Chilcote (Univ. of California, Riverside) argues the November 25, 1975, countercoup ended prospects for any socialist transition and ensured the state's control over the eventual consolidation of capitalism and parliamentary democracy. He believes Portugal's revolution failed for many reasons, including the country's conservative nature, its traditionally weak proletariat, and a lack of an independent workers' movement under the António Salazar/Marcelo Caetano regime. Chilcote's key argument, however, is that the continuity of the state throughout Portugal's uneven movement from authoritarianism to liberal democracy best explains the revolution's political and economic outcomes. This analysis is well grounded in extensive archival research, numerous interviews of the revolution's participants, and a careful reading of the academic literature's vast coverage of the topic. Summing Up: Recommended.