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a António Costa Pinto is Senior Fel- Also by António Costa Pinto o The Blue Shirts t t s António Costa Pinto n low at the Institute of Social Sci- i o P ences and Professor of Modern Salazar’s Dictatorship and European Fascism C o European History and Politics at 1996 230 pp. Cloth ISBN 0-88033-968-3 i António Costa Pinto n the ISCTE, University of Lisbon. ó t He has been a Visiting Professor at n With this book, António Costa Stanford University (1993-94) and «This book makes a major contribution to the comparative analysis of A Pinto offers a theoretically ground- a Senior Visiting Fellow at Prince- authoritarian regimes in twentieth-century Europe (...) ed and empirically rich portrait of ton University (1996). His previ- There are very few politically taxonomic studies dealing with authoritar- The Blue Shirts Portuguese Fascism, its origins and ous books include Salazar’s Dicta- ian systems that equal the rigor of this analysis. It succeeds at one and the same influence. torship and European Fascism (1996) time in elucidating the boundaries of Salazarism and generic fascism, and adds The book examines the rise and fall and, Ed., Modern Portugal (1998). in important ways to our understanding of the general phenomenon of rightist of the Portuguese National Syndic- authoritarianism in early and mid-twentieth century Europe. It is thus both an Portuguese Fascists alist movement and the life of its important contribution to Portuguese studies and to comparative politics.» charismatic leader, Rolão Preto. It and the New State starts with the emergence of the — Stanley G. Payne, University of Wisconsin, Madison first radical right-wing groups in the 1910s and culminates with a conflict between the Fascists and «The Salazar regime has been generally neglected in comparative politics the conservative Catholic dictator, and Portuguese Fascism even more. The work of António Costa Pinto succeeds Oliveira Salazar, who successfully extremely well in placing the regime in the context of the theoretical debates crushed the movement with the over non-democratic regimes and for the first time analyses in detail, with s institutionalization of the ‘New empirical data, the role of the fascist movement in Portuguese politics. Those t r State’ in 1934. of us working on non-democratic politics and on fascist movements are great- i The author compares the Nation- ly indebted to him for filling a serious vacuum.» h al Syndicalist Movement with — Juan J. Linz, Yale University S other Fascist parties, particularly the Spanish Falange, Valois’ move- e ment in France and Mussolini’s Fas- u «...This work will long stand as a basic reference for any and all interest- l cist Party. The study shows how the ed in Portugal experience with forty-eight years of authoritarian rule.» B ‘New State’ was one of the most successful examples of authoritari- — Lawrence S. Graham, University of Texas, Austin e an ‘absorption’ and co-optation of h native Fascism among inter-war T dictatorships in Europe. «... an excellent introduction both to the latest research on Portugal, and the wider issues related to generic fascism» — Roger Eatwell, University of Bath For information on books of relat- ed interest, or for a catalog, please write: Order Department, Colum- bia University Press, 136 South Broadway, Irvington, New York 10533. SOCIAL SCIENCE MONOGRAPHS To order by phone call: Jacket illustration: Caricature from (800) 944-8648. Distributed by Columbia University Press The Bulletin, Glasgow, 1933. www.columbia.edu/cu/cup www.columbia.edu/cu/cup Design by Joaquim António Silva. SSM SOCIAL SCIENCE MONOGRAPHS The Blue Shirts Portuguese Fascists and the New State António Costa Pinto The Blue Shirts Portuguese Fascists and the New State SOCIAL SCIENCE MONOGRAPHS, BOULDER DISTRIBUTED BY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW YORK 2000 This book was supported by the Portuguese Institute for Book and Libraries Copyright 1999 by António Costa Pinto ISBN 0-88033-982-9 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 00-131-173 Printed in the United States of America Contents GHJ List of Figures ix Preface and acknowledgements xi 1. Rolão Preto and the Origins of Portuguese Fascism 1 Lusitanian Integralism, 2 • Rolão Preto: The Portuguese Valois, 15 • Fascism and the Radical Right in the 1920s, 32 • Fascism and the Breakdown of the Republic, 44 • Fascists and Conservatives under the Military Dictatorship, 52 2. The Emergence of National Syndicalism 69 The Political Programme of National Syndicalism, 76 • National Syndicalist Political Activity, 87 3. The National Syndicalist Organisation: A Political and Social Profile 103 The National Syndicalists, 105 • Leaders, Militants and Members, 120 4. National Syndicalism and the National Union: A Comparative Analysis 131 The UN and Authoritarian Single Parties, 132 • The Fas- cists and the Government Party, 135 • The UN and Nation- al Syndicalism Compared, 141 • National Union -National Syndicalist Tension, 154 • Concluding Remarks, 158 5. "Without Power": Conflict and Prohibition 161 Opposition to National Syndicalism, 161 • The Salazar Offensive: Separation versus Integration, 167 • The Crisis of 1933, 174 • The Salazarist Split, 178 • Preto’s Nation- al Syndicalism: Integration and Exile, 184 6. "Against the Regime": The Conspiratorial Years, 1934-1945 193 A Fascist Opposition? 198 • Pro-Coup Agitation, 201 • The Impact of the Spanish Civil War, 211 • A Persistent Sub-Culture, 215 • The Fascists and the New State, 220 7. National Syndicalism and International Fascism 225 An “International Family”, 226 • The Nature of Portuguese Fascism, 236 • A Variant of European Fascism, 240 Sources and Bibliography 245 Index 263 List of Figures GHJ Figure 3.1: NS Organisational Structure (1933) 107 Figure 3.2: NS District Secretariats 114 Figure 3.3: NS National Leaders’ Socio-Professional Profile 122 Figure 3.4: NS District Leaders’ Socio-Professional Profile 123 Figure 3.5: NS Leaders’ Political Origins 124 Figure 3.6: Rank of NS Military Members 126 Figure 3.7: National Distribution of NS Membership 128 Figure 3.8: Socio-professional Profile of NS Membership 129 Figure 4.1: Political Origin of UN Local Commissions 147 Figure 4.2: Socio-professional Composition of NS-UN District Commissions 150 Figure 4.3: National Distribution of NS-UN Membership, 1933 153 Figure 4.4: Socio-professional Composition of NS-UN Membership, 1933 154 Preface and Acknowledgments GHJ This book about Portuguese fascism focuses on the National Syndicalist Movement (Nacional Sindicalismo, NS) led by Rolão Preto, and its relations with the Salazar regime. Like other cases where the crisis and downfall of democracy was led by authoritari- an elites either in opposition to or alliance with the fascists, this study aims to analyse the factors that led to the rise of fascism, as well as the conditions for its success in the inter-war period. The first chapter examines the foundation and political trajec- tory of Lusitanian Integralism (Integralismo Lusitano, IL), the main Portuguese radical right movement, and the political profile of the charismatic leader of the National Syndicalists, Rolão Preto. It analyses the main factors that led to the late emergence of fascism in Portugal, as well as the peculiarities of the fall of the Liberal Republic and the transition to authoritarianism in the twenties. The second chapter looks at the foundation of National Syndi- calism in the context of the Military Dictatorship established in 1926, and assesses its political and social characteristics. The third chapter describes the organisational structure as well as the political and social profile of the leaders and members of the NS. The fourth chapter draws some parallels between NS and National Union (União Nacional, UN), the government’s party, which became the single party of Salazar’s New State (Estado Novo) regime. xii The Blue Shirts The last three chapters of the book consist of a diachronic analysis of the growing tension between the fascists and Salazarism. Chapter five assesses the attitude of the fascists towards the forma- tion of the New State and their ‘forced integration’ into the new authoritarian order. The sixth chapter, which is perhaps the most difficult to reconstruct empirically, looks at anti-Salazar radicalisa- tion by a part of the movement, which culminated in the attempt- ed coup of September 1935. To place this analysis in context, chap- ter seven undertakes an assessment of the role of the fascists in Salazar’s New State in comparative perspective. Given its monographic nature, this book does not analyse in detail the wider context in which the events described take place. For an introduction to the period and more details about context the reader can refer to a previously published book on the New State and European fascism1. Three kinds of primary sources were used to carry out research for the book: The records of the political police of Salazarism (PIDE/DGS) and of the Ministry of the Interior, held in the Torre do Tombo National Archives in Lisbon. Internal NS correspon- dence, mainly what is left of Rolão Preto’s personal records and those of other national syndicalists were important, as were first- hand accounts, although there were few of these given that not many of the leaders and militants are still living. The first of these sources allowed me to fill in some information gaps, given that NS left no formal party archives. The police files were essential, as they provided quantitative data on age, social profile and political careers of NS leaders and information allow- ing a reconstruction of their political action, particularly during the ‘underground’ period. The records of the Ministry of the Inte- rior provided a more accurate idea of the initial strategy adopted by 1 António Costa Pinto, Salazar’s Dictatorship and European Fascism. Problems of interpreta- tion, 1995, in this series. Also useful is the debate organised by the Camões Center of Columbia University on this issue published as “The History of Fascism Revisited: Portugal in the European Context”, Camões Center Quarterly, Vol.