Estado Novo

Portugal, 1933–1974. Draft, not yet reviewed

The Estado Novo was the corporatist Portuguese state installed in 1933. It evolved from the Ditadura Nacional ("National Dictatorship") formed after the coup d'état of 28 May 1926 against the unstable First Republic. Opposed to communism, socialism, syndicalism, anarchism, liberalism and anti-colonialism, the regime was conservative, corporatist, and nationalist in nature. On 25 April 1974, the Carnation Revolution in Lisbon, a military coup organised by left-wing Portuguese military officers of the Armed Forces Movement, led to the end of the Estado Novo.

Seat of power: Lisbon

Rulers

Óscar Carmona

President of Portugal, 1926–1951

Carmona was very active in the 28 May 1926 coup d'état that overthrew the First Republic. In practice, Carmona had mostly turned over the government to Salazar.

Portrait of Óscar Carmona: Manuel Alves de San Payo, Public domain, file

Francisco Craveiro Lopes

President of Portugal, 1951–1958

Prime Minister António de Oliveira Salazar chose Craveiro Lopes as the regime's presidential candidate in 1951 to succeed the late Óscar Carmona. Craveiro Lopes was not willing to give Salazar the free hand that Carmona had given him.

Portrait of Francisco Craveiro Lopes: Manuel Alves de San Payo, Public domain, file

Américo Tomás

President of Portugal, 1958–1974

He was a Portuguese Navy officer and politician who served as the president of Portugal from 1958 to 1974. He was the last president of the authoritarian and corporatist Estado Novo.

Portrait of Américo Tomás: Manuel Alves de San Payo, Public domain, file

Culture

Portugal was a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949, and joined the United Nations (UN) in 1955.
From 1950 until 1970, Portugal saw its GDP per capita increase at an annual average rate of 5.7 per cent, leading to significant economic convergence with wealthier Western European nations.
Despite this economic growth, by the fall of the Estado Novo in 1974, Portugal still had the lowest per capita income and the lowest literacy rate in Western Europe.

Picture

The Monument of the Discoveries in Lisbon, conceived in 1939, represented a romanticized idealization of the Portuguese exploration that was typical of the Estado Novo regime of António de Oliveira Salazar.

Image: Alvesgaspar, CC BY-SA 3.0, file

Sources

Text adapted from the Wikipedia articles listed as sources, CC BY-SA 4.0.