The First Color Revolution

Dmitry Gadalin
School of Governance and Politics, MGIMO University

Leysan Kabirova
School of Governance and Politics, MGIMO University

Abstract: The article focuses on the features of color revolutions and their correspondence with the main characteristics of the Carnation Revolution in Portugal in 1974. The authors substantiate that color revolutions are one of the most frequent technologies of changing political regimes at the present stage. In this sense, the paper seeks to determine what can be called a possible starting point for the development of technologies for color revolutions and whether the revolution in Portugal can be considered the first example of a color revolution. The research demonstrates that the objective reasons such as such as the inability of the regime in Portugal to social reset played crucial role for the further development of Portugal. The results suggest that, the Carnation Revolution can only partially correspond to the concept of a color revolution, since a number of key factors inherent in the color revolution were not seen in the events of 1974 in Portugal.

Keywords: "Carnation Revolution", color revolution, coup d'etat, Portugal 1974, external factors.

The “color revolution” can be viewed as a technology, as a rule, of a nonviolent coup, with the help of which the political leader and the political elite are displaced, followed by the replacement of the counter-elite with their leaders and their occupation of the power tops and the “place in the sun”, while changing the social the economic foundation usually does not occur.

Following this definition, it is possible to consider many coups as manifestations of "color revolutions", for example, the events of February 1917 in Russia, when behind large-scale protests and strikes in Petrograd, actions of the liberal opposition to remove the monarch took place. Nevertheless, in historical and political science, the "Carnation Revolution" in Portugal in 1974 is often singled out as the first color revolution. This is primarily due to the nature of the overthrown Portuguese regime, the degree of its stability, as well as the essence of the coup itself on April 25, 1974.

The main question is how Portugal reached the color revolution. In general, the path of the overthrown regime to a military coup was very logical.

Portugal in 1926-1974, better known as the "New State", was a backward agrarian country by 1974. Even the extraction of tungsten, the main source of income of the Portuguese state, was in deep crisis[1].

The history of Portugal at that time was associated mainly with the name of one person – Antonio di Oliveira Salazar. His authoritarian fascist regime emerged at about the same time as similar undemocratic regimes in Italy, the Third Reich, and the USSR. Salazar's state had gone through several cycles, at first there was a take-off associated with the qualitative economic policy of the government (Salazar himself was educated as an economist at the best university in Portugal in Coimbra), the integral components of economic success at that moment were the establishment of tungsten mining and trade, the activation of the agricultural sector and the production of port wine, which gained worldwide popularity. Portugal went from being the eternal debtor of the British Crown to its creditor, having managed to end almost a century of economic dependence on London during the Second World War. Further Salazar's policy was aimed exclusively at preserving and protecting the existing colonial regime, i.e. the absence of a real political struggle, the emphasis on the agrarian development of Portugal, the infusion of large funds into troubled colonies in Africa, primarily Angola and Mozambique. A distinctive feature of the regime of the New State was the great pride and desire of the Government to instill in its population its own status as a colonial power.

In this sense, the authoritarian regime of Portugal had demonstrated a clear lack of flexibility, using the example of the autocracy of F. Franco could see how the solution of state problems was achieved in the condition of the authoritarian regime's survival[2].

After the death of A. Salazar, conservatives remained in power, A. Tomas as President of Portugal and M. Coetano as its Prime Minister took the leadership of the state. Although M. Coetanu was a liberal, he could not oppose anything to the backstage players who adhered to Salazarism and demanded any suppression of liberal sentiments in society[3].

A natural consequence of this was the emergence of a conspiracy, and it demonstrated how Salazarism and the New State had outlived themselves. The Carnation revolution was actually a military coup, because the government lost its own supporters. The "movement of captains", officers dissatisfied with the protracted war in the colonies and the lack of high-quality social security, began preparations leading the state to eliminate the Salazar legacy. The conspiracy originated in 1973, received support in the middle and junior ranks. On April 25, 1974, the military took control primarily of communications and established control over the media. It is worth noting here that the military urged the population of Lisbon to stay in their homes and not go out on the streets. That is, initially there was a goal to avoid blood in the overthrow of the regime of the New state. Despite this appeal, the population came out and met the army units as "liberators" from the long oppression of the Salazarists[4]. This confirms that regardless of what beliefs the Portuguese Prime Minister sympathized with Coetano, the regime of the New State was at an impasse. The status of the poorest country in Western Europe was demonstrated by the example of the backwardness of agriculture and farming in Portugal compared to France. In this situation, the military, also hurt by the unwise decision of the government to carry out military reform, according to which the rank of captain for representatives of the political elite and their families was greatly simplified, decided to overthrow the regime, establish a National Salvation Council for the beginning, whose task was to eliminate the foundations of the Salazar past and make a real transition to civil society, hence to a rule-of-law state.

In a certain sense, the carnation revolution cannot be considered a «color revolution», because the necessary elements, namely the presence of rallies and demonstrations, a powerful opposition and free coverage of the political situation in the state by the media, were not observed. The overthrow of the New State was a military coup. And yet, a number of characteristic features of the change of power in 1974 fit into the mechanism of the color revolution.

First of all, this is the lack of support in the army from the ruling elite, moreover, this is a full-fledged conflict between the armed forces and the state authorities. Hence the following feature follows - this is actually the redistribution of power between the elite and the counter elite. As noted above, the officers were dissatisfied with their position. Not receiving the privileges necessary for themselves from the regime, the armed forces naturally went to overthrow the Salazarists.

The next important fact is the support of the counter-elite by the population. Residents of Lisbon welcomed the rebellious groups of the "Movement of Captains", their role in the coup was extremely insignificant, but nevertheless, it was their support that demonstrated the relative legitimacy of the overthrow of the regime of the New state. At the same time, the idea of "democratizing" society was by no means used as a weapon to raise the officers' own authority.

After the coup, the activities of the National Salvation Council were immediately launched, whose task was to work out the transition to democracy. This body ends its existence already in 1975, having fulfilled its main task, having formed the necessary democratic institutions of power in the state, providing Portugal with stable political development[5].

Thus, the events of 1974 in Portugal can relate to the "color revolutions" only partially, since the military coup was initially aimed at rejecting mass support on the streets of Lisbon and creating the illusion of large-scale discontent and actions, although it is precisely such a prop that allows the coup to give a certain revolutionary coloring when "the lower classes do not want to live in the old way." On the other hand, the revolutionism was manifested in the fact that the coup laid the foundation for the destruction of the existing corporatism in the economy of the "New State" and the further formation of economic diversity within the framework of a mixed system. The participation of the United States in the events of 1974 remains questionable, although the "external factor" and especially the "factor of US participation" is one of the key factors in the implementation of the "color revolutions"[6], however, it can be assumed that the increasing frustration of Portuguese society and the strengthening of communist ideas in this society created a convenient platform for the Soviet Union to shake the capitalist bloc like the one that was in the second half of the 1960s in France. Thus, the immediate overthrow of the regime and the coming to power of the military, followed by the evolution of the transitional regime towards a liberal-democratic one, can be considered as a necessary operational action to remove Portugal from the sphere of potential interest of the socialist bloc and the USSR.

References:

1. Ermakov V., Polyakov V. "the Crossroads of the Portuguese revolution" / M., 1978 — p. 85.
2. Henkin S.M. Modernization, authoritarianism and democracy: the experience of Spain // In the collection: Modernization, authoritarianism and democracy Collection of conference materials. Responsible editors: Zagladin N. In., Khetagurova V. I.; Institute of world economy and international relations. 2010. S. 12-20.
3. Historiographical discussions about the significance of the Carnation Revolution of 1974-1975 translated from the Portuguese by Candidate of Philological Sciences Ksenia Viktorovna Lopatina // BEREGINYA.777.OWL . 2014. No. 1(20).
4. Khazanov A.M.Salazar: 40 years of dictatorship in Portugal // New and recent history. 2009. No. 3. pp. 129-146.
5. Lane D. The Orange Revolution: A Popular Revolution or a Revolutionary Coup? // Policy. Political studies. 2010. No. 2. pp. 31-53.
6. Sukhanov, V. I. "carnation Revolution" in Portugal: Pages of history — M., Mysl', 1983, p. 19