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Portugal The New State
As Salazar came to be seen as the civilian mainstay of
the
military dictatorship, he increasingly took it upon
himself to
lay out the country's political future. He set forth his
plans in
two key speeches, one on May 28, 1930, and the other on
July 30
of the same year. In the first, he spoke of the need for a
new
constitution that would create a strong authoritarian
political
order, which he dubbed the New State (Estado Novo). In the
second, he announced his intention to establish such a
state. The
military approved of Salazar's speeches, and on July 5,
1932,
after the collective resignation of the government of
General
Júlio Domingos de Oliveira, which had come to power two
years
earlier, he was appointed prime minister.
Salazar came from a peasant background. He had studied
for
the priesthood before turning to economics at the
University of
Coimbra, where he received his doctorate in 1918 and
afterward
taught. While a faculty member, he earned a reputation as
a
scholar and a writer, as well as a leader in Catholic
intellectual and political movements. After taking up the
reins
of government, he retained his professorial style,
lecturing the
cabinet, his political followers, and the nation. Salazar
never
married and lived ascetically. A skillful political
manipulator
with a capacity for ruthlessness, he was a respected
rather than
a popular figure.
The period of transition to the authoritarian republic
promised after the military takeover in 1926 ended in 1933
with
the adoption of a new constitution. The 1933 constitution,
dictated by Salazar, created the New State, in theory a
corporate
state representing interest groups rather than
individuals. The
constitution provided for a president directly elected for
a
seven-year term and a prime minister appointed by and
responsible
to the president. The relationship of the office of prime
minister to the presidency was an ambiguous one. Salazar,
continuing as prime minister, was head of government. He
exercised executive and legislative functions, controlled
local
administration, police, and patronage, and was leader of
the
National Union (União Nacional--UN), an umbrella group for
supporters of the regime and the only legal political
organization.
The legislature, called the National Assembly, was
restricted
to members of the UN. It could initiate legislation but
only
concerning matters that did not require government
expenditures.
The parallel Corporative Chamber included representatives
of
cultural and professional groups and of the official
workers'
syndicates that replaced free trade unions.
Women were given the vote for the first time, but
literacy
and property qualifications limited the enfranchised
segment of
the population to about 20 percent, somewhat higher than
under
the parliamentary regime. Elections were held regularly,
without
opposition.
In 1945 Salazar introduced so-called democratic
measures,
including an amnesty for political prisoners and a
loosening of
censorship, that were believed by liberals to represent a
move
toward democratic government. In the parliamentary
election that
year, the opposition formed the broadly based Movement of
Democratic Unity (Movimento de Unidade Democrática--MUD),
which
brought democrats together with fascists and communists.
The
opposition withdrew before the election, however, charging
that
the government intended to manipulate votes. General
Norton de
Matos, a candidate who had opposed Carmona in the 1949
presidential election, pulled out on the same grounds. In
1958
the eccentric General Humberto Delgado ran against the
official
candidate, Admiral Américo Tomás, representing the UN.
Delgado
pointedly campaigned on the issue of replacing Salazar and
won 25
percent of the vote. After the election, the rules were
altered
to provide for the legislature to choose the president.
Salazar's was a low-keyed personalist rule. The New
State was
his and not a forum for a party or ideology. Although
intensely
patriotic, he was cynical about the Portuguese national
character
that in his mind made the people easy prey for demagogues.
He
avoided opportunities to politicize public life and
appeared
uncomfortable with the political groups that were
eventually
introduced to mobilize opinion on the side of the regime's
policies. Politics in Salazar's Portugal consisted of
balancing
power blocs within the country--the military, business and
commerce, landholders, colonial interests, and the church.
All
political parties were banned. The UN, officially a civic
association, encouraged public apathy rather than
political
involvement. Its leadership was composed of a small
political and
commercial elite, and contacts within ruling circles were
usually
made on an informal, personal basis, rather than through
official
channels. Within the circle, it was possible to discuss
and
criticize policy, but no channels for expression existed
outside
the circle.
The UN had no guiding philosophy apart from support for
Salazar. The tenets of the regime were said to be
authoritarian
government, patriotic unity, Christian morality, and the
work
ethic. Despite a great deal of deference paid to the
theory of
the corporate state, these tenets were essentially the
extent of
the regime's ideological content. Although the regime
indulged in
rallies and youth movements with the trappings of fascist
salutes
and paraphernalia, it was satisfied to direct public
enthusiasm
into "fado, Fátima, and football"--music, religion, and
sports.
A devout Roman Catholic, Salazar sought a rapprochement
with
the church in Portugal. A concordat with the Vatican in
1940
reintroduced state aid to Roman Catholic education, but
Salazar
resisted involving the church--which he called "the great
source
of our national life"--in political questions. His
policies were
aimed essentially at healing the divisions caused within
Portuguese society by generations of anticlericalism.
Although
the church had consistently supported Salazar, the regime
came
under increasing criticism by progressive elements in the
clergy
in the 1960s. One such incident led to the expulsion of
the
bishop of Porto.
Whatever may be said of his political methods, Salazar
had an
exceptional grasp of the techniques of fiscal management
and,
within the limits that he had set for the regime, his
program of
economic recovery succeeded. Portugal's overriding problem
in
1926 had been its enormous public debt. Salazar's solution
was to
achieve financial solvency by balancing the national
budget and
reducing external debt. This solution required a strong
government capable of cutting public expenditures and
reducing
domestic consumption by raising taxes and controlling
credit and
trade. In a few years Salazar singlemindedly achieved a
solvent
currency, a favorable balance of trade, and surpluses both
in
foreign reserves and in the national budget.
The bulk of the Portuguese remained among the poorest
people
in Europe, however. The austerity that Salazar's fiscal
and
economic policies demanded weighed most heavily on the
working
class and the rural poor, forestalling the development
that would
raise their standards of living. Outside the cities,
traditional
patterns of life persisted, especially in the conservative
north,
which had been stabilized by evenly distributed poverty
and was a
stronghold of support for the regime. To create an
atmosphere of
rising expectations without having the means to satisfy
them,
Salazar argued, would return the country to the chaotic
conditions Portugal had known earlier in the century.
Stable government and a solvent economy would
eventually
attract foreign investment regardless of the attitude
abroad to
the nature of Salazar's regime. Cheap labor and the
promise of
competitive prices for Portuguese-made goods provided an
incentive for investment, particularly in labor-intensive
production, which was becoming uneconomic in Northern
Europe.
Priority was given, however, to colonial development.
Salazar
insisted that the overseas territories be made to pay for
themselves and also to provide the trade surpluses
required by
Portugal to import the essentials that it could not
produce
itself. In essence, he updated Portuguese mercantilist
policy:
colonial goods were sold abroad to create a surplus at
home.
In the years before World War II, Salazar cultivated
good
relations with all major powers except the former Soviet
Union.
Intent on preserving Portuguese neutrality, he had entered
into a
nonintervention convention with the European powers during
the
Spanish Civil War (1936-39); however, Soviet activity in
Spain
and the leftward course of the Spanish Republic persuaded
him to
support Francisco Franco's nationalists, with whom more
than
20,000 Portuguese volunteers served. The war in Spain also
prompted Salazar to mobilize a political militia, the
Portuguese
Legion, as a counterweight to the army.
Although he admired Benito Mussolini for his equitable
settlement of Italy's church-state conflict, Salazar found
the
"pagan" elements in German nazism repugnant. He opposed
appeasement, protested the German invasion of Poland in
1939, and
would appear to have been among the first, with Winston
Churchill, to express confidence in ultimate Allied
victory as
early as 1940. Portugal remained neutral during World War
II, but
the Anglo-Portuguese alliance was kept intact, Britain
pledging
to protect Portuguese neutrality. The United States and
Britain
were granted bases in the Azores after 1943, and
Portuguese
colonial products--copper and chromium--were funneled into
Allied
war production. Macau and Timor were occupied by Japan
from 1941
to 1945.
Portugal became a charter member of the North Atlantic
Treaty
Organization (NATO) in 1949, and in 1971 Lisbon became
headquarters for NATO's Iberian Atlantic Command
(IBERLANT).
Portugal also maintained a defensive military alliance
(the
Iberian Pact, also known as the Treaty of Friendship and
Nonaggression) with Spain that dated from 1939. Admission
to the
United Nations (UN) was blocked by the Soviet Union until
1955.
In 1961 Indian armed forces invaded and seized Goa, which
had
been Portuguese since 1510.
Into the early twentieth century, the European settler
communities in Portuguese Africa had virtual autonomy, and
colonial administrations were perpetually bankrupt.
Lisbon's
concern in Angola and Mozambique was to make good the
Portuguese
claim to those territories, and pacification of the
interior was
still underway in the 1930s. Control over the colonies was
tightened under Salazar.
The Colonial Act of 1930 stated that Portugal and its
colonies were interdependent entities. The New State
insisted on
increased production and better marketing of colonial
goods to
make the overseas territories self-supporting and to halt
the
drain on the Portuguese treasury for their defense and
maintenance. New land was opened for settlement, and
emigration
to the colonies was encouraged.
Portugal ignored the UN declaration on colonialism in
1960,
which called on the colonial powers to relinquish control
of
dependent territories. Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea were
made
provinces with the same status as those in metropolitan
Portugal
by constitutional amendment in 1951. Armed resistance to
the
Portuguese colonial administration broke out in Angola in
1961
and had spread by 1964 to Mozambique and Guinea. By 1974
Portugal
had committed approximately 140,000 troops, or 80 percent
of its
available military forces, to Africa; some 60 percent of
these
were African. Portuguese combat casualties were relatively
light,
and fighting consisted of small-unit action in border
areas far
from population centers. Only in Guinea did rebel troops
control
substantial territory. Portuguese forces appeared to have
contained the insurgencies, and although large numbers of
troops
were required to hold the territory, Portugal seemed to
some
observers capable of sustaining military activity in
Africa
indefinitely. These same observers considered that, from a
military standpoint, the wars had been won.
The wars did not interrupt the colonial production on
which
Portuguese economic stability depended. Indeed, they had
provided
a windfall to economic development in Angola and
Mozambique, both
with large settler communities. A large rural development
project
was underway in the Cahora Bassa region of Mozambique, as
was the
exploitation of oil in Cabinda enclave near Angola. More
colonial
income was being diverted into social services for
Africans and
Europeans, and in areas of medicine and education better
facilities were thought to be available in Luanda and
Lourenço
Marques (now Maputo) than in Lisbon. However, forced
native labor
remained a factor in the economic development of
Portuguese
Africa into the 1960s. Foreign investment capital often
came to
the colonies from countries whose governments had
officially
condemned Portuguese colonialism.
No one except Pombal left so broad a mark on modern
Portuguese history as Salazar. For nearly forty years, he
completely dominated Portuguese government and politics.
His
departure was prosaic: he suffered an incapacitating
stroke in
June 1968 after a freak accident and died, still in a
coma, more
than a year later.
Data as of January 1993
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