By John Green
The Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974 shook the Western world to its foundations and took almost everyone by surprise. The oldest and seemingly most stable fascist regime in Europe was overthrown within only a few hours by a small group of brave and adventurous young officers of the Portuguese armed forces. And unlike almost all other military coups elsewhere, this was a progressive one with the aim of restoring real democracy to the country.
The young officers, or “captains” as Burchett calls them, achieved their main aim, and did pave the way to a parliamentary democratic system in Portugal. However, its most profound legacy is arguably the dismantling of Portugal’s colonial empire, ushering in liberation and independence in Mozambique, Angola, Guiné Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe and Macao. The African countries had been waging a protracted guerrilla struggle for more than a decade in attempt to throw off the Portuguese yoke. Although these guerrilla struggles were not completely successful, their resilience and successes were the underlying reasons for, and gave impetus to, the captains’ coup. Portuguese coffers were almost emptied by these protracted wars, young Portuguese officers and men were being killed in increasing numbers and there was no prospect of Portugal ever winning the battle.
When I was shooting a news report for GDR television in Mozambique in 1972, even then an eventual Portuguese defeat was very apparent. The army had been virtually confined to the urban centres by the insurgents and the countryside was largely under the control of Frelimo guerrilla fighters. Portuguese soldiers told us quite openly that the war was unwinnable and they felt they were risking their lives in a pointless exercise. Despite the fact that the army was being supplied by NATO – as we could see clearly stencilled on the ammunition crates and vehicles – no amount of weaponry could defeat a people determined to win its freedom. The capital Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) was very much a cheap sex and gambling centre for the wealthy Portuguese elite and white South Africans. It was encircled by shanty towns where the black Mozambiquan workers eked out a squalid existence. That was the reality at the time of the coup. In the other colonies the situation was no different.
Winning freedom and independence in the former Portuguese colonies, however, as in the Francophone and British ones, did not usher in the bright and serene future the subjugated peoples had hoped for. Even after they gained independence, centuries of Portuguese exploitation continued to cast its dark shadow over their countries. In 1974, the Portuguese army withdrew abruptly, and the majority of the Portuguese ruling elite fled back to Portugal or elsewhere, taking with them assets, and expertise. They left behind a population with little education or training, unable to take over the smooth running of the country. On top of that, the Portuguese also left behind a fifth column of traitors and saboteurs who were then financed and supported logistically by South Africa and the then Rhodesia, unleashing vicious and bloody civil wars.
This book, however, doesn’t cover all that. Wilfred Burchett reports on the ground in Portugal during the first year of revolution and gives us a powerful account of its early stages, as well as the root causes that led up to it. The interviews he made with multiple leaders of the MFA (Movement of the Armed Forces) during that time are long, detailed and provide an unparalleled insight into their thinking at that time, but he doesn’t deal specifically with the colonies or colonial legacy.
Burchett was one of the most respected journalists of the 20th century and much admired by his Australian compatriot John Pilger. He had a long, distinguished career from reporting from the front during the Second World War, on the effects of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, through the Korean and Vietnam wars and the Portuguese Carnation Revolution, the subject of this book. It was written in 1975 -76 but only published in Portuguese; this is the first English edition. The editors and Verso are to be thanked for making Burchett’s incisive commentaries on the 25th April 1974 revolution available to non-Portuguese speaking readers.
By chance, Burchett and I arrived in Portugal at the same time – 3 days after the coup by disgruntled army officers – to find ourselves thrown into the tumultuous revolutionary ferment of those heady times. He was a consummate journalist with a keen nose for key historical forces and events. He interviewed a number of leading figures of the revolution, from army officers Otelo de Carvalho and Melo Antunes, key members of the MFA (Movement of the Armed Forces), to Communist leader, Alvaro Cunhal, but more importantly perhaps he meets some of the many ordinary citizens who played key roles and were caught up in the revolutionary and counter-revolutionary events that took place during those first two years after the coup. He allows the young officers to explain their motivations and their goals.
Burchett had the ability of locating key figures and drawing out of them their stories that bring alive the history of that period. He also gives essential context, using facts and statistics but without slowing the gripping narrative. This is history as it happened, seen through the lens of a perceptive, compassionate but also committed journalist of impeccable integrity.
Rather oddly the publishers chose to include an afterword by Tariq Ali written in 1976 and from a very blinkered Trotskyist perspective, in which he predictably blames the Communist Party and their “manipulative deviousness” for “selling out the workers”. Burchett’s narrative eloquently contradicts Tariq Ali’s simplistic interpretation and, instead, explains the complexities of the situation.
As the response of the radical prime minister Vasco Goncalves shows, when asked by Burchett if the country’s economic problems could be solved within the framework of the MFA’s programme, there were no easy answers: “We have a heritage of half a century of fascism, compounded by the problem of colonialism … and our people are not very political yet … Many hoped that the fall of fascism would be like the salvo of the Aurora in the Soviet Union, ushering in a new era …” but that was not the case.
Indeed, many on the left at the time did view the 25th April revolution as one that would usher in full-bloodied socialism, brought about by mass popular pressure. The only aim of the young MFA officers, however, was to overthrow the old fascist regime and introduce democracy.
He also spoke to veteran trade unionists who warned him of the dangers of a right-wing resurgence, provocateurs and even misled enthusiasts who would push the strike situation to a point at which the armed forces would intervene “to restore law and order”, with disastrous consequences for the People-Armed Forces Movement alliance. Promoting economic chaos was one of the chief weapons used by the capitalist forces to discredit the revolution.
There were, of course, strong elements both within the military and among the population that wished to take the revolution further and bring about a socialist transformation, but the forces ranged against them were too strong. The very reactionary Catholic Church (a mainstay of the old fascist state), along with a powerful capitalist elite, with support from the US, the CIA and Western conservative and social democratic forces managed to divert its course and, in the end, consolidate the old power structures, albeit within a democratic parliamentary system.
Apart from ushering in a stable democratic system in Portugal, undoubtedly the revolution’s greatest achievement was to bring the bloody colonial wars to an end and grant full independence to Portugal’s former colonies. And, one could argue that it was the successes of those struggles for liberation in Africa that actually gave the impetus for the Portuguese revolution rather than the other way around.
This book, edited with verve and insight, as well as useful footnotes by Daniela F. Melo and Timothy D. Walker, is a rewarding read for anyone interested in this climactic period and its global impact.
The Captain’s Coup – From Dictatorship to Democracy in Portugal (1974-1976), By Wilfred Burchett, Eds. Daniela F. Melo and Timothy D. Walker, Pubs. Verso, Hardback £25
John Green is a former trade union official, a journalist and former documentary film-maker, which in the 1970s involved clandestine filming assignments in South Africa in the 1970s aimed at helping bring the abhorrent practices of the apartheid regime to world attention. He is the author of numerous books, including Ken Sprague, People’s Artist, A Revolutionary Life: Biography of Friedrich Engels and Britain’s Communists: The Untold Story.
The views expressed in the articles published on this website do not necessarily represent those of Liberation
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