Everything about Ant Nio De Oliveira Salazar totally explained
António de Oliveira Salazar,
GColIH,
GCTE,
GCSE,
pron., (
April 28,
1889 –
July 27,
1970) served as the
Prime Minister and
de facto dictator of
Portugal from 1932 to 1968. He founded and led the
Estado Novo ("New State"), the
authoritarian,
right-wing government that presided over and controlled Portugal's social, economic, cultural and political life from 1932 to
1974.
Rise to power
Salazar was born in Vimieiro,
Santa Comba Dão, in central Portugal, from a family of modest income. His father, a small landowner, had started as an agricultural laborer. He had four older sisters, and was the only male child of two fifth cousins, António de Oliveira and Maria do Resgate Salazar whose paternal grandfather was a land owner and possibly a nobleman. He studied at the
Viseu Seminary from 1900 to 1914 and considered becoming a priest, but changed his mind. He studied Law at
Coimbra University during the first years of the Republican government.
As a young man, his involvement in politics stemmed from his
Roman Catholic views, which were aroused by the new anti-clerical
Portuguese First Republic. Writing in Catholic newspapers and fighting in the streets for the rights and interests of the church and its followers were his first forays into public life.
During
Sidónio Pais's brief dictatorship from 1917 to 1918, Salazar was invited to become a minister, but declined. He formally entered politics in the following years, joining the conservative
Catholic Centre, and was elected to Parliament but left it after one session. He taught
political economy at the
University of Coimbra.
After the
28th May 1926 coup d'état, he briefly joined
José Mendes Cabeçadas's government but quickly resigned, explaining that since disputes and social disorder existed in the government, he couldn't do his work properly. He became
finance minister in 1928 after the
Ditadura Nacional was consolidated, paving the way for him to be appointed prime minister in 1932. He remained finance minister until 1940, when
World War II consumed his time.
His rise to power is due to three factors: the good image he was able to build as an effective finance minister, President
Carmona's strong support, and shrewd political positioning. The
authoritarian government consisted of a right-wing coalition, and Salazar was able to co-opt the moderates of each political current while fighting the extremists, using censorship and repression. The Catholics were his earliest and most loyal supporters, although some resented the continued
separation of church and state. The conservative republicans who couldn't be co-opted became his most dangerous opponents during the early period. They attempted several coups, but never presented a united front, so these coups were easily repressed. Never a true monarchist, Salazar nevertheless gained most of the monarchists' support, as he'd the support of the exiled
deposed king, who was given a state funeral at the time of his death. The
National Syndicalists were torn between supporting the regime and denouncing it as bourgeois. As usual, they were given enough symbolic concessions to win over the moderates, and the rest were repressed by the political police. Even if they were to be silenced shortly after 1933, as Salazar attempted to prevent the rise of
National Socialism in Portugal.
The prevailing view, at the time, of political parties as elements of division and parlamentarism as being in crisis led to general support, or at least tolerance, of an authoritarian regime.
In 1933, Salazar introduced a new constitution which gave him wide powers, establishing an anti-parliamentarian and authoritarian government that would last four decades.
Estado Novo
Salazar developed the "
Estado Novo" (literally,
New State). The basis of his regime was a platform of stability. Salazar's early reforms allowed financial stability and therefore economic growth. After the chaotic years of the
Portuguese First Republic (1910–1926) when not even public order was achieved, this looked like an impressive breakthrough to most of the population, Salazar achieved then his height in popularity. This transfiguration of Portugal was then known as "A Lição de Salazar" - Salazar's Lesson.
Education wasn't seen as a priority and wasn't heavily invested in. Nevertheless, basic education was granted to all citizens, even if literacy levels kept a very low level for Western Europe. There was substantial investment in educational infrastructure. Many of the schools he created are still active today.
Salazar relied on the
secret police for fighting the communists and other political movements that opposed the regime. First being called PVDE (Polícia de Vigilância e Defesa do Estado) that followed Gestapo-inspired organization, (often known by the name it carried from 1945–1969,
PIDE) resulting in repression and elimination of dissidents especially those related to the international communist movement or the
USSR. Constant references to the near-chaos that prevailed before 1926 served to keep the opposition in check until the 1950s.
Salazar's regime was rigidly authoritarian. His political philosophy was based around
Catholic social doctrine, much like the contemporary regime of
Engelbert Dollfuß in
Austria. The economic system, known as
corporatism, was based on the papal encyclicals
Rerum Novarum and
Quadragesimo Anno, which was supposed to prevent class struggle and supremacy of economism. Salazar himself banned Portugal's
National Syndicalists, a much more unambiguously Fascist party, for being, in his words, a "Pagan" and "Totalitarian" party. Salazar's own party, the National Union, was formed as a subservient umbrella organisation to support the regime itself, and was therefore lacking in any ideology independent of the regime. It is debatable whether Salazar's government can truly be considered 'Fascist', given the strong
Roman Catholic, monarchist, regionalist, agrarian and restorational tendency of his rule, which is in sharp contrast to the innovative and revolutionary re-structuring of society so prevalent in Fascist countries. There is no doubt, however, that he at least respected Fascist leader
Benito Mussolini at some point in time. He once said, "I'm with Mussolini in
Italy, but I can't be in Portugal." At the time many European countries feared the destructive potential of
communism. Many neutral states in
World War II, from the Baltic to the Atlantic, at least in principle, sympathized with any state that would wage war on the USSR. When
Hitler's death was announced, he declared 3 days of national mourning for the Fuhrer's death. The popular demonstrations rejoicing the defeat of
Nazism were repressed.
Neutrality during World War II
Nobel Prize winner
Maurice Maeterlinck was in Portugal on the eve of World War II under the protection of Salazar and in 1937 he wrote the introduction to the French translation of a work by the Portuguese politician ("Une revolution dans la paix").
During
World War II, Salazar steered Portugal down a middle path. He didn't officially side with any of the contenders in the war though a dictator and supporter of the
Nationalist Spanish State. Salazar allowed General
Sanjurjo, the rebel leader, to fly from a non-military airport in Portugal and Salazar sent aid to the Nationalists. Salazar initiated the
Iberian Pact in 1939. Indeed, Salazar provided aid to the
Allies, letting them use
Terceira Island in the
Azores as a military base, although he only agreed to this after the alternative of an American takeover by force of the islands was made clear to him by the British. Portugal, particularly Lisbon, was one of the last European exit points to the U.S., and a huge number of refugees found shelter in Portugal, many of them with the help from the Portuguese consul general in Bordeaux,
Aristides de Sousa Mendes, who issued visas against Salazar's orders. Siding with the
Axis would have meant that Portugal would have been at war with
Britain, which would have threatened Portuguese colonies, while siding with the Allies might prove to be a threat to Portugal itself. There is some evidence that Franco planned to invade both Portugal and
Gibraltar, together with the Nazis. Portugal continued to export
tungsten and other goods to both the Axis (partly via
Switzerland) and Allied countries.
In
1945, Portugal had an extensive colonial Empire, including
Cape Verde Islands,
São Tomé e Principe,
Angola (including
Cabinda),
Portuguese Guinea, and
Mozambique in
Africa;
Goa,
Damão (including
Dadra and Nagar Haveli), and
Diu in
India;
Macau in
China; and
Portuguese Timor in
Southeast Asia. Salazar, a fierce integralist, was determined to retain control of Portugal's territories.
Post-war Portugal
Salazar wanted Portugal to be relevant internationally, and the country's overseas provinces made this possible, while Salazar himself refused to be overawed by the Americans. Portugal was the only non-democracy among the founding members of
NATO in
1949, which reflected Portugal's role as an ally against
communism during the
Cold War. Portugal was offered help from the
Marshall Plan because of the aid it gave to the Allies during the final stages of World War II; aid was initially refused but eventually accepted. Throughout the 1950s, Salazar maintained the same
import substitution approach to economic policy that had ensured Portugal's neutral status during World War II. The rise of the "new technocrats" in the early 1960s, however, led to a new period of economic opening up, with Portugal as an attractive country for international investment. Industrial development and economic growth would continue all throughout the 1960s. During Salazar's tenure, Portugal also participated in the founding of
OECD and
EFTA. At the dawn of the 1970s Portuguese credibility was enough to grant membership of many international organizations.
The colonies were under a constant state of disarray after the war. The Indian possessions were the first to fall. After the Indian Union was formed on 15th of August 1947, the nationalists in Goa continued their struggle to join Goa to India. This resulted in a detailed operation which included both civilian and military phases. The civilian phase involved a series of strikes and other protest movements by the Goan people against the administration in Goa. The military phase included the role of Indian defence forces. The
Indian Armed Forces wrested control of
Portuguese India, specifically
Goa,
Daman and Diu, in
Operation Vijay in 1961. The overseas provinces were a continual source of trouble and wealth for Portugal, especially during the
Portuguese Colonial War. Portugal became increasingly isolated on the world stage as other European nations with African colonies gradually began granting them independence. In the 1960s, armed revolutionary movements and scattered guerilla activity had reached Mozambique as well as Angola and Portuguese Guinea. Except in Portuguese Guinea, the Portuguese army and naval forces were able to effectively suppress most of these insurgencies through a well-planned counter-insurgency campaign using light infantry, militia, and special operations forces. Most of the world ostracized the Portuguese government because of its colonial policy, especially the newly-independent African nations. In the 1960s, Salazar's opposition to decolonization and gradual
freedom of the press created friction with the Franco dictatorship.
Economic policies
Economically, the Salazar years were marked by immensely increased growth. From 1950 until Salazar's death, Portugal saw its GDP per capita rise at an average rate of 5.66% per year. This made it the fastest growing economy in Europe. Indeed, the Salazar era was marked by an economic program based on the policies of
autarky and
interventionism, which were popular in the 1930s as a response to the
Great Depression. However, during his tenure, Portugal was co-founder of
OECD and
EFTA. Financial stability was Salazar's highest priority. In order to balance the Portuguese budget and pay off external debts, the dictator instituted numerous taxes. In the meantime, Salazar adopted a policy of neutrality during World War II, taking advantage of this neutrality to simultaneously loan the Base das Lages in the Azores to the Allies and export military equipment and metals to the
Axis powers.
Colonialist ideology
His reluctance to travel abroad, his increasing stubbornness against delivering the
colonies to the Marxist movements endorsed by the
African Unity Organization, his blind will to fight the so-called "winds of change" sponsored by the superpowers (
USSR,
U.S.), and his refusal to grasp the impossibility of his regime outliving him, marked the final years of his tenure. "Proudly alone" was the motto of his final decade.
In order to support his colonial policies, Salazar adopted Gilberto Freyre's notion of
Lusotropicalism, maintaining that since Portugal had been a multicultural, multiracial and pluricontinental nation since the
15th Century, if the country were to be dismembered by losing its overseas territories, that would spell the end for Portuguese independence. In geopolitical terms, no critical mass would then be available to guarantee self-sufficiency to the Portuguese State. Salazar had strongly resisted Freyre's ideas throughout the 1930s, partly because Freyre claimed the Portuguese were more prone than other European nations to miscegenation, and only adopted Lusotropicalism after sponsoring Freyre on a visit to Portugal and its colonies in 1951-2. Freyre's work "Aventura e Rotina" was a result of this trip.
Salazar was a close friend of
Rhodesian
Prime Minister Ian Smith: after
Rhodesia proclaimed its
Unilateral Declaration of Independence from
Great Britain, Portugal - though not officially recognizing the new Rhodesian state - supported Rhodesia economically and militarily through the neighbouring Portuguese colony of
Mozambique until
1975, when
FRELIMO took over Mozambique after negotiations with the new Portuguese regime which had taken over after the Carnation Revolution. Ian Smith later wrote in his
memoirs that had Salazar lasted longer than he did, Rhodesia would still be in existence today.
Death
In 1968, Salazar suffered a major
stroke, caused by his falling from a chair in his summer house, forcing President
Américo Thomaz to replace him with
Marcelo Caetano on
27 September 1968. It is believed that to his dying day Salazar thought that he was still Prime Minister of Portugal, but some of his aides claim that he was aware of the situation and just played along. He died in
Lisbon on
27 July 1970. Tens of thousands, possibly many more, paid their last respects at the funeral and the
Requiem Mass and at the passage of the special train that carried the coffin to his hometown of Santa Comba Dão, where he was buried according to his wishes in his native soil, next to his ancestors and the modest farmers of the region, in a plain ordinary grave. As a symbolic display of his views of Portugal and the Portuguese, there's well known footage of several members of the "
Mocidade Portuguesa," of both African and European ethnicity, paying homage at his funeral.
Post-Salazar Portugal
After Salazar's death, his
Estado Novo regime persisted under the direction of one of his longtime aides,
Marcelo Caetano. Despite tentative overtures towards an opening of the regime, Caetano balked at ending the colonial war, despite the condemnation of most of the international community.
On
April 25 1974, the Estado Novo finally fell with the
Carnation Revolution.
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