The Estado Novo was a dictatorial regime with an integralist orientation, which differed from fascist regimes like Nazi Germany or Italy by its more moderate use of state violence. Salazar was a Catholic traditionalist who believed in the necessity of control over the forces of economic modernisation in order to defend the religious and rural values of the country, which he imagined under threat. One of the pillars of the regime was the PIDE, the secret police which killed dissidents and political opponents. Many others were imprisoned at the Tarrafal prison in the African archipelago of Cape Verde, on the capital island of Santiago, or in local jails. Strict state censorship was in place.
The Estado Novo enforced Nationalist and Catholic values on the Portuguese population. The whole education system was focused toward the exaltation of the Portuguese Nation and its overseas colonies (the Ultramar). The motto of the regime was Deus, Pátria e Familia (meaning God, Fatherland and Family). After 1945, the main raison d'être of the regime became resistance to the wave of decolonization which swept Europe after the end of World War II.
The Estado Novo accepted the idea of corporatism as an economic model. This policy was pursued in order to protect the élites and defend oligarchic capitalism as the economic system, under state paternalist supervision. Although Salazar refused to sign the Anti-Comintern pact in 1938, the Portuguese Communist Party was intensely persecuted. So were Anarchists, Democrats, Republicans and anyone opposed to the regime. The only allowed party was the União Nacional (National Union), which encompassed a wide range of right-wing politics, passing through monarchism, fascism, nationalism and extreme capitalism.
The Legião Nacional was a Popular Militia similar to the Italian Blackshirts. For young people, the Mocidade Portuguesa, an organization similar to the Hitler Youth, replaced the Boy Scouts. These two organizations were heavily supported by the State and imposed a martial style of life.
During the 1940s and 1950s Portugal experienced great economic growth due to increased raw material exports to the war-ravaged and recovering nations of Europe. Salazar managed to discipline the Portuguese economy, after the chaotic First Portuguese Republic of 1910–1926. A brand new road system was built, new bridges spanned the rivers and the Educational Program was able to build a primary school in each Portuguese town. Further education was discouraged except for a tiny élite, and was closely supervised. Salazar believed that education destroyed the basic conservative and religious values of the people and should only be accessible to a minority with close ties to the regime.
With the economic recovery of Europe in the 1960s, the Portuguese economy stagnated, and Portugal underwent a significant economic downturn compared to other countiries in Europe. Liberal economic reforms advocated by some of the elements of the ruling party, which were successfully implemented under similar circumstances in neighbouring Spain, were rejected out of fear that industrialization would destabilize the regime and its ideological base and would strengthen the Communists and other left-wing movements.
In 1962 the "Academic Crisis" occurred. The regime, fearing the growing popularity of democratic ideas among the students, carried out the boycott and closure of several student associations and organizations, including the important National Secretariat of Portuguese Students. The students, with strong support from the Portuguese Communist Party, responded with demonstrations which culminated on March 24 with a huge student demonstration in Lisbon that was brutally suppressed by the shock police, which led to hundreds of student injuries. Immediately thereafter, the students began a strike that marked a significant point in the resistance against the regime.
The economic dead-end forced hundreds of thousands of Portuguese workers each year to seek better economic and political conditions in other countries, or to escape conscription. In all, over 15 years nearly one million emigrated to France, another million to the USA, many hundreds of thousands to Germany, Switzerland, the UK, Luxembourg, Venezuela or Brazil. Political parties, such as the Socialist Party, persecuted at home, were established in exile.
The end of the Estado Novo began with the uprisings in the colonies in the 1960s. The Independence Movements in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea were supported by both the USSR and the USA, which wanted to end all colonial empires and expand their own spheres of influence. The colonial wars had the same effects in Portugal as the Vietnam War in the United States, or the Afghanistan War in the Soviet Union: they were unpopular, messy and ultimately lost, killing many thousands, and struck at the ideological foundation of the regime.
Although Portugal was able to maintain some superiority in the colonies by its use of élite paratroopers and special operations troops, the foreign support to the guerillas made them more maneuverable, allowing them to inflict heavy losses on the Portuguese army. The situation was aggravated by the death of Salazar, the strong man of the regime, in 1970. His replacement was one of his closest advisors, Marcelo Caetano, who tried to slowly democratize the country, but could not hide the obvious dictatorship that oppressed Portugal. In 1974, the Carnation Revolution, organized by left-wing military officers, overthrew the Estado Novo.
