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On 25 April 1974, the Carnation Revolution, led by the Armed Forces Movement (MFA), brought an end to Portugal’s Estado Novo, the longest-running dictatorship in Western Europe. In a non-violent uprising, the population took to the streets to support the military, placing red carnations in the barrels of their rifles. José Afonso’s song “Grândola, Vila Morena” was broadcast on the radio to serve as a signal to the groups that simultaneously seized the various seats of power, and it became an anthem of freedom.

The revolution had, at least in its early stages, an anti-colonial character: it was forged in the trenches of the Portuguese Colonial War, in the colonised territories of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau. Since 1932, Oliveira Salazar’s dictatorship had maintained the Portuguese empire in African territories at all costs, whilst the Portuguese and occupied populations were impoverished under his iron-fisted rule. In the early 1960s, various armed groups in Angola and Mozambique began to organise for resistance, and entered a war that lasted 13 years and marked the beginning of the end of the Estado Novo.

The Carnation Revolution sparked a social revolution in which self-management groups were formed in universities, factories and the countryside, promoting a model of direct democracy. Companies were nationalised, the economic elites fled the country, and independence was granted to almost all the colonies.

Most political organisations initially embraced a socialist model, but by the end of 1974, the ruling classes, backed by US intelligence services, launched a counter-offensive involving two failed coups and smear campaigns against the communist parties. Eventually, the counter-revolution gradually triumphed, and Portugal adopted a liberal democratic system and a free-market economy.

In recent years, Portugal has faced a resurgence of the far right, as in the rest of Europe. In January 2026, the Judicial Police dismantled Group 1143, a neo-Nazi organisation that was planning violent actions against immigrant and Muslim communities. Recently, the far-right party Chega managed to reach the second round of the elections. Faced with this situation, more than seventy groups have joined forces in the Joint Action Group against Racism and Xenophobia to demand a stronger legal framework.

But Portuguese society is mobilising. The streets are filling up again today to defend decent housing and social rights, to halt the advance of fascism and to revive the spirit of the Carnation Revolution. On every corner, a friend. In every face, equality. It is the people who are in charge.

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