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Radio War Nerd #329 — Portugal's Carnation Revolution (Part 1) (Patreon)

Published:
2022-05-14 18:37:59
Imported:
2026-06
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Guest: João Santos

Recorded: May 11, 2022

April 25th was the 48th anniversary of Portugal's Carnation Revolution, when junior officers overthrew the crypto-fascist dictatorship, inadvertently setting off a popular leftist revolution. In part 1, we discuss the background to the revolution, and the events on April 25th, 1974, the point at which the coup transformed into a revolution.

Links to songs used to signal the coup:"Grândola, Vila Morena" by Zeca Afonso"E Depois Do Adeus" by Paulo de Carvalho 

Total time: 2:10:21

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

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Comments

DF$

Hell yeah dude

Frogposting

An anecdote from a Portuguese relative of mine. Back in the days of the Carnation Revolution, he was, like many young Portuguese in Lisbon, a committed Marxist and revolutionary. However, it so happens that the revolution occurred on a day after a night which he spent drinking. So when his friends came to wake him, saying "Manuel, the revolution is happening!" he rudely told them to stop making dumb jokes and spent much of the revolution sleeping away his hangover.

Al Goehring

portugal caralhoooooooooooooooo

CR

I love the reference to the joke that Carrero Blanco was Spain's first astronaut. It's an interesting story because he had that precise routine to go to church everyday and it wasn't hard for ETA to know when to take him out. I lived a block down the street from that church when I was in Madrid, and the popular conspiracy theory of the day was that the U.S. knew about it. See, the U.S. Embassy is one street over on the other side of the block from that church. It's a wealthy neighborhood crawling with diplomats (other embassies are also in that neighborhood) and security. Yet, somehow no one caught them casing the route or setting the bomb. Oh, in case you didn't know, Admiral Carrero Blanco was Franco's heir-apparent. So after he went to the moon, Franco had to scramble for Plan B. Plan B turned out to be reinstalling a monarchy that immediately turned over control of the government to the civilians. Anyway, I also found it interesting that as JD and general awareness has made clear, the Air Force once again turned out to be the most conservative and loyal branch.

Ander Pierce

"Hey boss, the revolutionaries are gonna shoot the door with a bazooka, what should I do" "Fight them to a standstill "Aight Imma head out.

etienne

"hey boss I can't shoot that door there's a bunch of civvies in front" "DO IT ANYWAYS" "okay cool peace out"

J P 3

Did the Cuban revolution have any influence or impact on the Carnation revolution? e.g. I know there must have been an indirect impact in terms of Cuba's support for revolutionary independence movements in former Portuguese colonies, but were the attitudes within the junior officer corp generally sympathetic to the Cuban revolution, hostile, or was it seen as ancillary and irrelevant to the domestic situation in Portugal at the time?

David Andrews

Great episode. Maps would make it even better.

Torgeir Tannenwald

Some years ago, I was hitchhiking through Portugal when an old woman driving back from the store with her granddaughters mistook me for a pilgrim bound for Santiago. It was Easter weekend, and she took me in. She lived in a lavish compound with an Atlantic Ocean view where her family was gathered to spend the holiday together. I was served some great Bacalao and wine. For dessert, the smoothest Port I'd ever had. "this Port wine is two years older than you!" I remember her son telling me as I drank it. Anyway, the son later showed me around the property and in one room there was a massive collection of antiques. He told me that it was his late fathers collection, and that once this collection had been twice the size. But they lost it because of the cursed Communists during the Carnation revolution. I asked what had happened, and he said that his father was afraid they'd steal it, so he buried everything underground only to dig it up years later, and found that half the treasures had suffered water damage and were insalvagable. I am very polite so I waited until later to laugh about it. I think about this story a lot.

a clash of purple

Darned communists, sneaking moisture into the ground in order to ruin buried antiques... Is there no limit to their depravity?

Zhentian

Portugal was allowed to join Nato as it remained truly neutral during ww2 (unlike spain), it sold tungsten to both sides and had allowed uk and us to use the azores as a naval base which was decisive in winning the 'battle of the atlantic' to keep lend-lease supply line to uk and ussr going. Funnily roosevelt had tried to entice brazil to invade the azores before portugal agreed.

William

It makes sense from the point of view that the air force and fighter pilots are the modern incarnation of the cavalry of old; I think someone made that observation on an older RWN episode, or I might've made it up. It seems to fit well, though, with the attitude of the cavalry and fighter pilots, the training involved, etc.

CR

JD has said it a few times.

CR

I keep thinking of all the little differences between postwar Spain and Portugal because of this. Because Franco was an arch Catholic, when NATO came in and saved them just in the nick of time (autarky isn’t sustainable. Who knew?), all the technocrats he brought in were famously (notoriously?) Opus Dei. So its recovery with American investment wasn’t as neoliberal as if it was just bum rushed by Chicago Boys like Chile or, it seems, Portugal. But the conditions were similar. I remember a fifties movie about a small town expecting Americans to visit after 1953 and the farmer is just dreaming of getting a tractor. He was tilling using oxen and a wooden plough that, as my Spanish film prof noted, was the method unchanged since the Roman Empire.

CR

I can’t imagine the Cubans having zero influence, especially after the information about the Angolan forces’ treatment of Portuguese officers. I’m sure there were Cuban officers and counterintelligence hanging out with those POWs. However, influence doesn’t necessarily lead to definitive inspiration in theory or tactics.

Andrew Murray

I did a whole bunch of work in Port Alberni! Awesome little town

Doug Cartel

turkey is kind of like the Belarus of NATO, I guess. Sort of.