In 1928, with the economy collapsing around him, President Carmona pleaded with a brilliant young economics professor at Coimbra University to join the government as finance minister. The professor had briefly held the post in 1926 but quit over all the political infighting in the administration. This time the professor agreed, provided he was given total control of the state’s finances. Dr Salazar exercised his dictatorial control over Portugal for a further 40 years.
António Salazar first considered becoming a priest. But instead he was increasingly drawn towards an academic life, where his exceptional abilities were beginning to be widely recognised. Salazar was deeply cynical about politics – with reason. After the coup of 1910 which ended the monarchy, Portugal’s First Republic had been a study in chaos and incompetence. It became a republic that ran out of republicans, and it too was overthrown by a military coup in 1926. The army proved inept at handling the country’s problems, and the economy rapidly deteriorated, ultimately leading to President Carmona’s anxious invitation to Dr Salazar.
Within a year, Salazar had the economy under control and the state finances back in order. With this success, he met little resistance to his desire to widen his control over the affairs of the government. He introduced a new regime for Portugal’s colonies, all of which he saw as an extension of the Portuguese state, rather than far-flung dependencies. He sharply reduced foreign influences and curbed the rights of indigenous people, in particular in the Indian colonies.
By 1932, Salazar was prime minister. He immediately set about implementing a new constitution, which greatly increased state power, established a corporatist structure for the economy, and implemented a supine National Assembly, which met infrequently and whose elected members could only come from his own National Union. Although there was a high abstention rate, the constitution won approval in a referendum, and the Estado Novo (New State) was born.
Salazar was unlike his contemporary European dictators. He detested militarism; indeed he was nervous of the military’s tendency to dabble in politics. He was equally opposed to fascism and communism. He found the brash self-promotion of Franco and the other dictators distasteful, preferring to stay out of public view as much as possible. His creed was conservative, corporatist nationalism.
His desire to protect Portugal’s national interest resulted in his policy of neutrality in the Second World War. He also wanted to protect his colonies, which he knew would have been impossible to defend. He preferred to keep his military under control in their barracks. Meanwhile, he was happy to ship tungsten to both the Allies and the Axis powers.
The Salazar regime’s initial rock-solid foundations began to crumble in the post-war period. While other European states began a process of decolonisation, Salazar aimed to keep rigid control of his global territories, brutally quelling nationalist uprisings. At home, tolerance of the Estado Novo totalitarianism began to erode as memories of the First Republic faded, and a new generation yearned for an end to the snooping secret police and the establishment of the political freedoms that the World War had been fought for.
Gradually, tensions began to undermine the foundations of the New State. When the presidential election was held in 1958, Salazar’s hand-picked candidate found himself facing a robust challenge from Humberto Delgado, who made it clear that, if elected, he would immediately dismiss Salazar. Despite a massively rigged vote, Delgado polled 23%. Affronted by this, Salazar had Delgado exiled and immediately abolished the direct election of the president.
Salazar was shaken again in 1961 when a large Indian force invaded Goa and swiftly ended Portuguese rule. His unbending commitment to a rigid, centrally controlled colonial structure – dating back to his academic study of the impact on Portugal of the loss of Brazil – looked unsustainable. He was further affronted by Pope Paul VI’s official visit to India in 1964, which he interpreted as an endorsement of the country’s seizure of Goa.
Both political challenges at home and the erosion of the colonial structure abroad were risky moments for the Salazar regime. There were attempts to oust him, but his survival rested on the continued backing of the President of the Republic and the reluctance of the army to make any move against him. But the regime’s moral authority was eroding, not helped by the notorious 1967 Ballet Rose affair, which saw many of Salazar’s associates implicated in a child prostitution ring.
Sunbathing in 1968, Salazar’s deckchair collapsed. His head hit the concrete floor, and he later suffered a cerebral haemorrhage. The president appointed a new prime minister, but such was his stubbornness that Salazar continued to believe he was in charge of everything up to his death in 1970.
Out in his beloved colonies, radical army officers, disagreeing with the mission Salazar had sent them on, sore over their diminishing prestige, and frustrated by their commanders’ incompetence, began thinking it was time to force a more decisive change.
James Plaskitt is a retired politician who was a member of the British Parliament from 1997 until 2010. He now lives in the Algarve.
Next month: The Armed Forces Movement
Main photo: António de Olivera Salazar sitting at his desk 1940 Bernard Hoffman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
