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Dictatorship and Revolution: Socio-Political Reconstructions of Collective Memory in Post-Authoritarian Portugal ; Dictadura

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Dictatorship and Revolution: Socio-Political Reconstructions of Collective Memory in Post-Authoritarian Portugal ; Dictadura Culture & History Digital Journal 3(2) December 2014, e017 eISSN 2253-797X doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.3989/chdj.2014.017 Dictatorship and revolution: Socio-political reconstructions of collective memory in post-authoritarian Portugal1 Manuel Loff Universidade do Porto and Instituto de História Contemporânea (Universidade Nova de Lisboa), Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, Via Panorâmica, s/n, 4150-564 Porto PORTUGAL e-mail: [email protected] Submitted: 15 September 2014. Accepted: 31 October 2014. ABSTRACT: This article inserts itself into larger discussions regarding post-dictatorship memory politics in Portu- gal and comparative studies of similar histories of violence in Europe, particularly examinations of National-Social- ism, Nazism and the Holocaust, as well as comparative studies of twentieth-century fascist dictatorships in the Ibe- rian peninsula. In spite of the revolutionary, radical nature of the Portuguese democratisation process, studies conducted during the last four decades on the social and political (re)constructions of memory regarding the Portu- guese dictatorship (1926-1974) have demonstrated that state policies regarding the past have depicted the dictator- ship as one that is very similar to events in countries where the process of democratic transition was actually quite different from that of Portugal. Right-wing groups and those who self-describe as “victims” of processes of decolo- nisation that occurred between 1974 and 1975 have established a pattern of public debate that leaves no room for discussing the dictatorship without also referring to the 1974-1975 Revolution. This mode of debate seems to sug- gest that these two periods of history are indicative of a global regime phenomenon and that both the processes of decolonisation and revolution affected Portuguese society in similar ways. This paper attempts to complicate these narratives in order to question the democratic forms that emerged after the Revolution and to compare it to Salazar’s dictatorial regime. KEYWORDS: Collective memory; memorial controversies; Salazar; Estado Novo; 25 April Revolution; revision- ism; politics of memory Citation / Cómo citar este artículo: Loff, Manuel (2014). “Dictatorship and revolution: Socio-political reconstructions of collective memory in post-authoritarian Portugal”. Culture & History Digital Journal, 3(2): e017. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.3989/ chdj.2014.017 RESUMEN: Dictadura y Revolución: Reconstrucciones sociopolíticas de la memoria colectiva en la Portugal po- sautoritaria.- Este artículo se encuadra en una discusión más amplia sobre las políticas de la memoria de la posdicta- dura salazarista en Portugal, y en estudios comparados sobre historias semejantes de violencia en Europa, especial- mente las relativas al nacional-socialismo, el nazismo y el Holocausto. También se refiere a los estudios comparados sobre las dictaduras fascistas en la Península Ibérica. A pesar de la naturaleza revolucionaria y radical del proceso de democratización portugués, los estudios llevados a cabo durante las últimas cuatro décadas sobre las (re)construccio- nes sociales y políticas de la memoria de la dictadura portuguesa (1926-1974) demuestran que las políticas de estado han elaborado un relato de la dictadura en relación con procesos de transición a la democracia que son muy diferen- tes del portugués. Grupos de extrema derecha y aquéllos que se describen a sí mismos como “víctimas” del proceso de descolonización que tuvo lugar entre 1974 y 1975 han conseguido consolidar en el debate público unos argumen- tos que no deja espacio para discutir la dictadura sin relacionarla con la revolución de 1974-1975. Los términos de este debate sugieren que estos dos procesos históricos – descolonización y revolución – afectaron a la sociedad de manera semejante. Este texto trata de descifrar la complejidad de estos relatos para poder cuestionar las formas de- mocráticas que emergieron tras la revolución, y compararlas con el régimen dictatorial de Salazar. PALABRAS CLAVE: Memoria colectiva; controversias sobre memorialización; Salazar; Estado Novo; Revolución del 25 de abril; revisionismo; políticas de la memoria Copyright: © 2014 CSIC This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution- Non Commercial (by-nc) Spain 3.0 License. 2 • Manuel Loff I think that a crucial part of the interest in a compara- which the fall of authoritarian regimes allowed, in some tive analysis of the Portuguese (and, for that matter, the cases for the first time in history, the sort of political and Spanish) process of coming to terms with a dictatorial social changes in which the role of Communists and/or past, which began with the democratization of the 1970s, other left-wing radical forces was central. Those post-au- lies mainly in the fact that it occurred while other Euro- thoritarian transitions of 1944-47 leading, if not to classic pean societies were confronted with a retour du refoulé, a liberal-democratic regimes, at least to openly anti-Fascist third and fourth stage (Rousso, 1990) of the post-WWII political systems, were cycles of strong confrontation be- remembrance of Nazism, Holocaust and collaboration. tween those who gained their political legitimacy from Clashes in the 1970s and 1980s over attempts to histori- resistance to dictatorship and those who represented the cize National-Socialism and the Holocaust – the West old order and their collaborators. Very soon, those who German 1986 Historikerstreit, although not only that – suffered the post-war French épuration or the Italian epu- De Felice’s critique of the Italian anti-Fascist version of razione pushed forward a representation of the days Fascism, controversy over French Holocaust negationism around 1944 and 1945, as having been as violent and ar- and revisionism, added to the nature of the Vichy regime bitrary as Italian fascism or Vichy and the Occupation and genocidal responsibilities were, broadly speaking, (See Cointet, 2008; Woller, 1997; Germinario, 1999), or, contemporary to the Portuguese Revolution (1974-76), indeed, even more so. Spanish democratic transition (1976-78) and the first In other words, in these narratives, one dictatorship stages of the Iberian democracies. followed another, as in post-war Poland, Czechoslovakia As with the European regimes that resulted from the or East Germany, except, perhaps, that the Communists’ Nazi and Fascist defeat in 1945, any comparative scheme ban from power in France and Italy had prevented, as which brings face to face the Portuguese revolutionary they would have it, further sovietization of these coun- democratization model and others, like the Spanish, in tries. The same is said of the sacking and imprisonment which transition from dictatorship to democracy was of Portuguese left-wing military in November 1975 and based on a (series of) pact(s), should, presumably, find the definitive ban on Communists in government in the Portuguese public policies of memory of the authoritarian summer of 1976, after the fall of the last of the pre-consti- past designed to develop a democratic critique of dicta- tutional governments in which every major democratic torship, in a context in which no agreement had been party was represented. made or even negotiated between representatives of the Moving on in time, the complete picture is not as dif- authoritarian state and opposition movements. But this is ferent as one might imagine from, for instance, the post- not the case in Portugal, and it has almost never been so. Pinochet process of memory reconstruction in Chile in To some, it may seem surprising that what emerges from the early 1990s. In this case, the Armed Forces response the study of the social and political (re)constructions of to the Rettig Report (of the National Committee for Truth the memory of the Portuguese 1926-74 dictatorship in the and Reconciliation, February 1991) submitted to Presi- last four decades is that State policies on the matter drew dent Aylwin was to describe its own attitude in the Sep- a very similar picture to those countries in which transi- tember 1973 coup as a preventive action to “prevent revo- tion was completely different (see Loff, 2014). lutionary civil war in its larval form” (Chilean Army to Very soon, as early as the last political clashes of National Security Council of Chile, quoted in Ensalaco, 1975, a sort of memory screen2 was created, especially 2002: 321) – very similar language, in fact, to that Franco amongst right-wing groups and those in Portuguese soci- always used to explain the July 18th, 1936 military upris- ety who describe themselves as victims of decoloniza- ing against the Spanish Republican democratic govern- tion, through which no public debate on the 1926-74 ment, and, for that matter, the very crux of the neo-Fran- years is allowed without being forced to discuss the coist thesis on the responsibilities of Socialists, Communists, 1974-75 Revolution, as if both periods were historically Anarchists and Republicans in the 1936-39 Civil War, or politically comparable, as if each of them had pro- and thus in all Francoist repression.4 duced a historical global phenomenon which could legit- In all four cases (France, Italy, Chile, Spain), right- imately be called a regime, and as if they both had com- wing memorial discourses (sometimes conveyed through parable consequences in Portuguese society. For a historiography) use concepts like dictatorship and revolu- significant part of society, and quite clearly for
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