Rendezvous With a Revolution: British Socialists in Portugal 1974–5

Abstract

This essay traces the presence of British left-wing radicals in Portugal during the Carnation Revolution of 1974–5, a phase of significant sociopolitical change that fired the imagination of layers of activists across Europe. The revolution, sparked by a captain’s coup within the military, also effectively ended Portugal’s colonial wars, and with its new armed forces movement and proliferation of workers’ commissions, held out the possibility of revolutionary socialism – and not simply the transition to a Western-style democracy. The revolution acquired wider international significance given the shock to the global Left of the right-wing military coup in Chile in September 1973. Moreover, British respondents refer to the period as a key moment of “revolutionary tourism” in the arc of revolt that swept the 1960s and 1970s. Groups such as the International Socialists sent delegations to Portugal to forge links with trade unions and left parties, and numerous individuals came as observers, or indeed to participate more fully in the events. Beyond generic analyses on the course and impact of the Portuguese Revolution, I conduct an oral and archival history which identifies the visitors’ motivations and experiences, their exchanges with Portuguese militants, the “lessons learned” and any political reorientation of the British radical Left prompted by the uprising. Indeed, the military counter-coup of 1975 proved a decisive moment, leading ultimately to a “normalization” of Portuguese society, and dashing the hopes of the European radical Left. For some on the British Left, Portugal 1975 came to represent the end of the European revolutionary movement that had begun in the late 1960s.