Estado Novo (Portugal) - Aftermath

Aftermath

After a period of social unrest, factionalism, and uncertainty in Portuguese politics, between 1974 and 1976, both far left and far right radicalism did not prevail. However, pro-communist and socialist elements retained control of the country for several months before elections. Some factions, including Álvaro Cunhal's PCP, unsuccessfully tried to turn the country into a totalitarian communist state. The retreat from the colonies and the acceptance of its independence terms which would create newly-independent communist states in 1975 (most notably the People's Republic of Angola and the People's Republic of Mozambique) prompted a mass exodus of Portuguese citizens from Portugal's African territories (mostly from Portuguese Angola and Mozambique), creating over a million destitute Portuguese refugees — the retornados. By 1975, all the Portuguese African territories were independent and Portugal held its first democratic elections in 50 years. However, the country continued to be governed by a military-civilian provisional administration until the Portuguese legislative election of 1976.

For the Portuguese and their former colonies, this was a very difficult period, but many felt that the short-term effects of the Carnation Revolution were well worth the trouble when civil rights and political freedoms were achieved. The Portuguese celebrate Freedom Day on 25 April every year, and the day is a national holiday in Portugal.

By refusing to grant independence to its overseas territories in Africa, the Portuguese ruling regime of Estado Novo was criticized by most of the international community, and its leaders Salazar and Caetano were accused of being blind to the "Winds of change". After the Carnation revolution in 1974 and the fall of the incumbent Portuguese authoritarian regime, almost all the Portugal-ruled territories outside Europe became independent. Several historians have described the stubbornness of the regime as a lack of sensibility to the "Winds of change". For the regime, those overseas possessions were a matter of national interest.

In 2011 when the Portuguese Republic avoided default by requesting international financial assistance to the International Monetary Fund, Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho, one of the best known captains who coordinated and organized the April 1974 military coup – the Carnation Revolution, stated that he wouldn't have made the revolution if he had known what the country would become after it.