Autonomies

The Portuguese experience between 1974 and 1976 shows that revolutionary activity does not develop as the result of strategies devised by system analysts or bourgeois planners … It emerges in the course of the struggle itself, and its most advanced forms are expressed by those whom it is a necessity to struggle.

Hundreds of thousands of workers entered the struggle. But the enemy constantly appeared before them in unexpected garb: that of their own organisations. Every time they set up an organisation they found it manipulated by so-called vanguards or leaders who were not of their class and who understood little of why they were struggling. Even the groups who paid lip-service to a critique of state capitalism did so because of their weakness. They were forced to support the base organisations for the time being. They were no less Leninist for having a critique of state capitalism for their denunciations proved to be denunciations of particular sets of bureaucrats, not critiques of the system per se.

The revolutionaries – on a massive scale were found to be part of the problem, not part of the solution. In this the Portuguese experience may prove to be a pre-figuration of revolutions to come. The lessons should be pondered while there is yet time. The alternative is clear. It was put concisely many years ago: ‘the liberation of the workers is the task of the workers themselves’

Phil Mailer, Portugal, The Impossible Revolution?

The Portuguese revolution brought a tremendous upsurge of political activity. Though it was brief, it gave rise to a dynamic mass movement involving people from all levels and sectors of society. Revolutions must not only bring changes in political structures; transforming a society requires transforming the lives of ordinary people too. In Portugal in 1974 and 1975, ordinary people challenged the social order forcefully, turning a military coup into an attempted revolution.

Their political activity arose in the context of their everyday lives. … The movements were concrete in their demands and their actions; people did not act in response to an abstract ideology. This was the revolution’s strength: because it was directly related to the lives of individual participants, they could appropriate the revolution and make it their own.

John L. Hammond, Building Popular Power: Worker’s and Neighbourhood Movements in the Portuguese Revolution

The Portuguese Revolution was a massive movement of social disobedience. The very dynamics of the day of April 25, which transformed a military revolt into a street insurrection in Lisbon, with unexpected and spontaneous popular participation, is an aspect little emphasized. What happened after April 25 was not foreseen in the plans of the rebel soldiers. The expanded possibilities were the fruit of popular intervention. Likewise, the second military intervention, on November 25, 1975, which ended the revolutionary period, signifies the end of possibilities that were considered impossible before April 25. It is the return to “normal” possibilities, the return to a society of obedience.

“Portugal: une révolution, cinquante ans d’état démocratique et, au final, le retour des monstre d’hier…”, Interview with Charles Reeve, lundi matin #425 (23/04/2024)

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Portuguese revolution of 1974-1975, a revolution framed by two coups d’état: the overthrow of the fascist regime on the 25th of April, 1974, by a group of career military officers and the men they commanded (known as the “MFA-Movimento das Forças Armadas”) and the intervention of conservative elements of the military on the 25th of November, 1975, disbanding and arresting more “leftist” military units in the Lisbon area, then inaugurating a more widespread action against the revolution and creating the conditions for a “liberal-parliamentary democracy”.