Carnation Revolution
On 25 April 1974 the Movimento das Forcas Armadas (MFA), a movement of junior officers exhausted by the unwinnable colonial wars consuming 40-45% of the state budget, launched a near-bloodless coup that toppled Marcelo Caetano's Estado Novo. Crowds placed carnations in soldiers' rifle barrels, giving the revolution its name. The coup unleashed a mass popular mobilisation (the PREC, 1974-75) that transformed it into a full revolution, dismantling the PIDE secret police, legalising parties including the long-underground Communist Party, and producing a contested transition to democracy. Abroad, it triggered the immediate independence of Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and the other colonies. Structurally this is a revolution: a coup that combined with mass mobilisation to overthrow the regime and its entire institutional order.
- Year: 1974 CE
- Category: Political
