Never Forget Portugal’s Revolution
Fifty years ago today, a left-wing military revolt against Portugal’s dictatorship transformed into an anti-colonial social revolution that shook the world. Now, in 2024, its radical history is being forgotten at home.
Protest in Lisbon, Portugal, on May 1, International Workers’ Day, 1975. (Giorgio Piredda / Sygma via Getty Images)
The last revolution in Western Europe began as something more mundane — a military coup.
On April 25, 1974, a group of junior officers in the Portuguese military seized power, toppling the Catholic-corporatist dictatorship that had ruled for half a century.
A coup was not unexpected. But the captains who made this one didn’t have the politics you’d expect from military men. And trailing their tanks, as they rolled into Lisbon unopposed, were jubilant crowds of people, disregarding warnings broadcast over the radio to stay home. It was a sign of what was to come.
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