The history of the PCP in the Revolution of Carnations

Abstract

In the history of Portuguese history, this book will be recorded as the work that definitively dispelled one of the most extraordinary and persistent misconceptions of contemporary times: the absurd myth that the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) aimed to seize power through a coup by hand, between the summer and autumn of 1975, having finally tried his luck – and failed, on November 25th of that year. As with many mistakes, this one owed much of its longevity to a certain pact of tacit understanding between the slanderer and the slandered. The Thermidorian right wanted to justify its real anti-worker coup by invoking the bogeyman of an imaginary communist coup. The PCP was interested in maintaining a certain nebulous aura of “Leninist” orthodoxy, which implied, at least, the willingness to face playing, at some point, the card of proletarian insurrection.