"It is a book for history" as stated Miguel Real, during the national presentation held last Literary Festival Madeira 2014 . The book discusses the social conflicts at the time of PREC and makes an interpretative literature on the April´s post -revolution.
You argue in his book that the Portuguese Communist Party ( PCP ) during the revolutionary period was after all a blocking force.
Raquel Varela : What is decisive in the revolutionary period is the massive participation of anonymous people, who were not part of the politics, of course there were the parties of the extreme left the PCP and the Socialist Party ( PS ) , the Popular Democratic Party itself ( PPD ) that will grow and try to influence. But we have something like a third of the population, 3 million people directly involved in demonstrations, strikes and occupations and therefore is a country deeply involved in critical democracy, hour -to- hour, day -to-day, in factories, businesses and schools. It is such an important revolution that will serve as an example, unlike the case of Spain and Greece, where the Franco´s and Greek dictatorship were scared with the Portuguese revolution. In fact , these dictatorships of southern Europe fall after the April Revolution and is a key time for this, this is a very extensive revolution in the sense of the working population and participation. The PCP acts here more as a force of social restraint and attempts to link these people to the state, rather then to try that people have autonomy.
Also you discusse in his book the committees of workers, who had great power, much as the people in calling strikes .
RV : Absolutely. We had thousands of workers committees, some numbers point to 4000, but in addition to these, there were several factories, that were not official as work councils, but it means that democratically gather where they work, in each school , culture center, theater , hospital and medical services and where they decide how to organize their life. Democracy happens with the of day-to -day, hand votes, everyone voted. Even the leaders could be revocable, ie, were mandated and if they do not fulfill orders are destitute, no need to wait for an election such as trade unions or representative democracy .
Even though all these commissions have failed, because they never gathered all in one central committee .
RV : Of course, in the end is not a central committee, let just say is that there was never a central coordination of all these committees of workers and residents. If there had been it would have increased its capacity ... but I do not know why they failed, is a very important question and I do not know the answer .
If it had avenged , what would have happened ?
RV : I do not know, because I am a historian, I know what did not happen, in fact there was no coordinate resistence in the coup of 25th of November. Thousands of people took it to the streets and tried to resist, but there was no central command to resist this move.
You speak in his book of a third hypothesis for the fall of the marshal Spinola.
RV : I think the Spinola falls on 28th of September and definitely goes away on March 11th just because of the strength of the strikes, from August 1974 and the occupations and workers' control in February 1975. It is completely superficial and mechanical to explain the history of a struggle between Spinola, Soares, Cunhal and Saraiva de Carvalho. People respond to social movements that change and we have to go looking in the background , knowing which were and how musch impact had these forces. The political struggle is not just a conversation between politicians offices, if so the story would be completely mechanical .
Another interesting fact is that this is a book of history and interpretation is not limited to just a compendium of historical facts .
RV : Of course , often the history books are descriptive and do not risk doing historical interpretation, why something happened .
So why you decided to do it this way ?
RV : Because we, historians, have an obligation to try to explain reality . The historian must describe it on the ground, with rigor, hour -by-hour, minute-by - minute, but then we have to move a historical interpretation is difficult because we have to deal with the theory, with the world of hypotheses, with attempts of error, but we should do it .
And 40 years is a sufficient distance?
RV : Absolutely. We have a vast range of historical sources , is a late revolution. In 1974 there was a massive use of propaganda, paper, painting, art, audio and video recordings, we have many sources .
If not for the social blockade would have entered a communist dicdatorship ?
RV : I do not think so, there was never a threat of communist dictatorship in Portugal and the Communist Party or ever wanted to do it and as I prove it in my other book: "The history of PCP in the Carnation Revolution ", it was never on the table .
