António de Oliveira Salazar
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| President of the Council of Ministers of Portugal (Prime Minister)
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| Order: | 101st (47th of the Republic, 7th since the 1926 revolution, 1st of the Estado Novo)
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| Term of Office | July 5, 1932 - September 25, 1968
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| Predecessor: | Domingos da Costa e Oliveira
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| Successor: | Marcello Caetano
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| President of Portugal (interim)
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| Order: | 12th (4th since the 1926 revolution, 2nd of the Estado Novo)
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| Term of Office | April 18, 1951 - August 9, 1951
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| Predecessor: | António Óscar Carmona
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| Successor: | Francisco Craveiro Lopes
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| Date of Birth | April 28, 1889 |
| Place of Birth: | Vimieiro, Santa Comba Dão |
| Date of Death | July 27, 1970 |
| Place of Death: | Lisbon |
| Nickname | Salvador da Pátria (Saviour of the Homeland) |
| Wife: | Not married |
| Occupation: | Assistant professor of economical sciences, Professor of political economy and finances |
| Political Party: | Academic Centre of Christian Democracy, later National Union |
António de Oliveira Salazar (pron. IPA /ɐ̃'tɔniu dɨ oli'vɐiɾɐ sɐlɐ'zaɾ/; April 28, 1889—July 27, 1970) was the President of the Council of Ministers of Portugal from 1932 to 1968.
Rise to power
Salazar was born in Vimieiro, Santa Comba Dão, in central Portugal, from a poor family. He was the last of a family of 11, and he was also the only male child. He studied at the Seminary, from 1900 to 1914, and thought of becoming a priest, but he later changed his mind. He studied Law at Coimbra University during the first years of the Republican regime.As a young man, his involvement in politics stems from his catholic views which were aroused by the new anticlerical Portuguese First Republic. Writing in catholic newspapers and fighting in the streets for the rights and interests of the church and its followers were his first forays into public life.
During Sidónio Pais's brief conservative and presidentialist rule, from 1917 to 1918, he was invited to become a minister, but he refused. He entered politics in the following years, joining the conservative Catholic Centre, and was even elected to Parliament, but left it after a single session. He taught political economy at the University of Coimbra.
After the May 28, 1926 revolution (in which Salazar took no part), he briefly joined José Mendes Cabeçadas's government, but quickly resigned. He became finance minister in 1928, after the Ditadura Nacional was consolidated, and this paved the way to his becoming Prime Minister of Portugal in 1932.
His rise to power can be explained by three factors: the good image he was able to build as an effective finance minister, the strong support by President Carmona, and a very shrewd political positioning. The authoritarian government consisted of a coalition of the rights and Salazar was able to co-opt the moderates of each political current while fighting the extremists, using censorship and repression. The Catholics were his earlier and most loyal supporters although some resented it that he maintained the separation of state and church. The conservative republicans who could not be co-opted, during the early period his most dangerous opponents, attempted several coups, but never presented a united front so these coups were easily repressed. Never a true monarchist, Salazar nevertheless gained most of the monarchists' support as he had the support of the exiled deposed king which was given a state funeral at the time of his death. The National Syndicalists were torn between supporting the regime and denouncing it as bourgeois. As usual, they were given enough symbolic concessions to win over the moderates and the rest were repressed by the political police.
The, at the time, prevailing view of political parties as elements of division and parlamentarism as being in crisis led to general support, or at least tolerance, to an authoritarian regime.
In 1933 Salazar introduced a new constitution to Portugal, which gave him wide powers, establishing an anti-parliamentarian and authoritarian regime that would last four decades.
Estado Novo
Salazar developed the "Estado Novo" (literally, New State). The basis of his regime was a platform of stability; his reforms were advantageous to the upper classes while detrimental to the poorer sections of society. Education was not seen as a priority and therefore not heavily invested in. Salazar relied on the secret police (often known by the name it carried from 1945--1969, PIDE) to repress, torture and, in extreme cases, murder dissidents. However, Salazar's regime was much less bloody than other European dictatorships, such as Franco's. This was mostly because Portugal lacked the death penalty.Salazar's regime was a dictatorial regime. His political philosophy was based around authoritarian Catholic social doctrine, much like the contemporary regime of Engelbert Dollfuss in Austria. The economic system, known as corporatism, was based on the papal encyclicals Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno, which was supposed to prevent class struggle and supremacy of economism. Salazar himself banned Portugal's National Syndicalists, a much more unambiguously Fascist party, for being, in his words, a "Pagan" and "Totalitarian" party. Salazar's own party, The National Union, was formed as a subservient umbrella organisation to support the regime itself, and was therefore lacking in any ideology independent of the regime. It could be argued whether Salazar's government can truly be considered 'Fascist', given the strong reactionary Roman Catholic, monarchist, regionalist, agrarian and restorational tendency of his rule, which is in sharp contrast to the innovative and revolutionary re-structuring of society so prevalent in Fascist countries. There is no doubt, however, that he admired (or at least respected) especially Fascist leader Benito Mussolini at some point in time. He said once "I'm with Mussolini in Italy, but I can´t be in Portugal!"
Neutrality during World War II
During World War II, Salazar steered Portugal down a middle path. Although a dictator and a supporter of Nationalist Spain (the planned rebel leader General Sanjurjo was authorized to fly from a non-military airport in Portugal, and Salazar sent aid to the Nationalists against the Republicans), he did not side with any of the contenders in the war. The Iberian neutrality pact was put forward by Salazar to Franco in 1939. Indeed, Salazar provided aid to the Allies, letting them use the Terceira Island in the Azores as a military base. Portugal, and particularly Lisbon, was then one of the last European exit points towards the US, and a huge number of refugees found shelter in Portugal. Siding with the Axis would have meant that Portugal would have been at war with Britain, which would have threatened Portuguese colonies, while siding with the allies might compromise the European territory (there is at least speculation of a plan by Franco in the early months of the war of invading both Portugal and Gibraltar, jointly with the Nazis) or the survival of fascism in Portugal. Portugal continued to export tungsten and other goods to both the Axis (partly via Switzerland) and Allied countries.In 1945 Portugal had a vast colonial Empire, with the overseas territories of Cape Verde Islands, São Tomé e Principe, Angola (including Cabinda), Portuguese Guinea, and Mozambique in Africa; Goa, Damão (including Dadra and Nagar Haveli), and Diu in India; Macau in China; and Portuguese Timor in Southeast Asia. Salazar, a fierce colonialist, was determined to retain Portuguese control of these territories.
Post-war Portugal
Salazar wanted Portugal to be relevant internationally, and the country's large overseas provinces made this possible, while Portugal itself rejected influence from the Western powers. Portugal was the only non democracy among the founding members of NATO in 1949 and this reflected Portugal's role as an ally against communism during the Cold War. Portugal was offered help from the Marshall Plan, namely because of the aid it gave to the Allies during the final stages of World War II. Throughout the 50's, Salazar maintained the same economic policy that had ensured Portugal's neutral status during the great war, investing in an imports replacement industrial model. The rise of the "new technocrats" in the early 60's, however, led to a new period of economic overture, with Portugal standing as one of Europe's most attractive countries for international investment. Industrial development and economic growth would continue all throughout the 60's. During Salazar's tenure, Portugal was also a co-founder of OECD and EFTA.
From the Indian capture of Portuguese Cities in 1961 and until after Salazar's death, the overseas provinces remained a continual source of trouble for Portugal, especially in the African colonial wars. Increasingly, Portugal was isolated from other Western countries who were gradually releasing their colonies into independence. In the 1960s, the rebellion of the African colonies intensified. Salazar's attempts to crush it and to maintain intact his dream of the Portuguese empire were widely criticized by newly independent nations and NATO allies alike and cost the lives of many African rebels and civilians as well as soldiers of the Portuguese army, including many Africans. The opposition to de-colonisation and gradual liberalization of press was a matter of disagreement with Franco in the 1960's.
Economic policies
Economically, the Salazar years were marked by immensely increased growth, from 1950 until his death, Portugal saw its GDP per capita rise at an average rate of 5.66% per year. This made it the second fastest growing economy in Europe behind Francisco Franco's Spanish Miracle. Maybe due to his own rural origins, Salazar is sometimes referred to as resisting full scale industrialization, seeing it as a threat to rural values and communities. The deeds of his governments economic policies do not seem to corroborate that, at least fully.His reluctance to travel abroad, his increasing stubbornness regarding the status of the Portuguese colonies, to understand the new world order, and to grasp the impossibility of his regime outliving him, marked the final years of his tenure in a generally accepted negative way. "Proudly alone" was the motto of his final decade.
Salazar was a close friend of Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith: After Rhodesia proclaimed its UDI from Great Britain, Portugal - though not officially recognizing the new Rhodesian state - continued to support Rhodesia economically and militarily through the neighboring Portuguese colony of Mozambique until 1975, when FRELIMO took over Mozambique. Ian Smith later wrote in his memoirs that had Salazar lasted longer than he did, Rhodesia would still be in existence today.
Death
In 1968, Salazar became seriously ill with brain damage after falling from a chair in his summer house, forcing President Américo Tomás to replace him with Marcello Caetano, in 27 September 1968. It is believed that to his dying day, Salazar thought that he was still Prime Minister of Portugal, but some of his aides claim that he was aware of the situation and just played the game. He died in Lisbon, 27 July 1970. Thousands paid last respects in the funeral and at the passage of the special train that carried the coffin to his hometown of Santa Comba Dão.See also
External references
- [Fundação Oliveira Salazar]
- George Wright, The Destruction of a Nation, ISBN 074531029X
- Franco Nogueira, Salazar
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