Portugal started acquiring an overseas empire in the 16th century. It soon had such a large one that it was difficult for Portugal with its population of a few million to supply the staff to control and administer it. Later the Netherlands relieved Portugal of that burden in Indonesia and Sri Lanka. The Portuguese Empire was further reduced when in the 19th century Brazil declared independence. But coming into the 20th century Portugal still had Angola, Mozambique and Timor plus the enclaves of Goa in India and Macau in China.

By this time it was uncertain whether there was any net benefit for Portugal of having an empire. In the earlier period the superiority of European military organization and weaponry over that of the natives kept the cost low for maintaining the empire. By mid-20th century that had changed. Rebels had acquired rifles and explosives. In the 1960's the Soviet Union was willing to train the rebels and supply them with modern military technology.

Even with this outside help the rebels were not able to win militarily, but they were able to force Portugal to draft its young men into the army and send them overseas to fight in difficult conditions for a cause they did not believe in. At home the Portuguese taxpayers were burdened with the cost of maintaining a moribund empire. Politically the Portuguese were also suffering under the corporatist dictatorship that had been created by Antonio Salazar.

Neighboring Spain was suffering under the similar and more severe corporatist dictatorship of Francisco Franco. Franco was losing his grip on Spain in 1974 and there was the promise of things improving materially and culturally in Spain. (He died in 1975.) This made it difficult in 1974 for the Portuguese to accept the continuation of the old regime.

On April 25th, 1974 a group of young, junior officers in the Portugues Army staged a coup d'etat. The officers called themselves the Movement of the Armed Forces (Movimento das Forças Armadas MFA). The immediate goals of the MFA were limited to ending the battle to maintain the empire. They simply gave Angola and Mozambique their independence in 1975, somewhat to the chagrin of the rebel movements there which were expecting to have years to prepare for governing their countries.

However to achieve the goal of ending the imperial wars the MFA had to purge the country of the old political elite. When they did this political power was up for grabs. One of the groups prepared to grab was the Portuguese Communist Party (Partido Communista Português PCP). The PCP was a disciplined organization with a long history of working outside of the law and had a strong following among the rural poor. Some large estates were collectivized. By 1974 the communist parties of France and Italy had become moderate. This was not the case in Portugal where the underground PCP was still Stalinist in its organization and radical in its objectives. The PCP contolled major labor unions. These unions were collectivizing factories and other enterprises. It was quite plausible that the PCP could take power or throw Portugal into a civil war.

The political parties that emerged after the April Revolution were:

The leaders of the Socialist Party and the Communist Party were in exile but immediately came to Portugal after the April Revolution. Álvaro Cunhal had been directing the PCP from Eastern Europe.

At the same time movements were forming on the political level there were movements taking place within the military that were also political. The MFA created a military command within the army called the Continental Operations Command (Commando Operacional do Continente COPCON). An interim government was created under the command of General António de Spinola. This was replaced by a succession of provisional governments under the control of military officers. These were progressively more radical and motivated by increasingly leftist agendas. In March of 1975 General Spinola attempted unsuccessfully to take power again to end the leftist progression. The lefist officers reacted to this attempted coup by instituting a program of further nationalization. These nationalizations included banks, large enterprises and large estates in southern Portugal. When the regime attempted to carry out nationalization of smaller farms in nothern Portugal there was stiff resistance.

In April of 1975 an election was held for a Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution for Portugal. This Assembly was not as leftist oriented as the provisional governments had become. During the summer of 1975 control of the MFA shifted to proponents of a welfare state socialism and away from the proponents of doctrinaire state control of the economy. This shift resulted in a less radical provisional government in September of 1975. In November the radical elements in the MFA attempted to gain control again by a coup but this was thwarted by more moderate elements of the MFA under the leadership of General António dos Santos Ramalho Eannes. As a result several hundred radical officers were arrested and taken out to the political picture and COPCON, the radical suborganization within the army, was dissolved.

The new constitution provided for a democratically elected government but allowed the military a role of overseers through a Council of the Revolution. General António dos Santos Ramalho Eannes became the first president of Post-revolutionary Portugal.

The new constitution called for a single parliamentary legislature, the Assembly of the Republic. In the first election (April 1976) the Socialist Party under Mário Soares received a plurality of 35 percent. The PS formed a government on its own that lasted for one year, until there was a vote of no confidence. The PS then arranged a coalition with the Christian Democrats to create a government. This government also lasted for one year, again until there was a vote of no confidence. The President, António Eannes, then appointed a caretaker government to govern until the next parliamentary elections in 1980. This caretaker government failed as did two subsequent ones. Finally President Eannes called for early parliamentary elections.

(To be continued.)