First Portuguese Republic

Portuguese Republic
República Portuguesa
←
1910–1926 →
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem
A Portuguesa  (Portuguese)
The Portuguese
Capital Lisbon
Languages Portuguese (in Continental Portugal, Madeira and Azores, official in the Portuguese Empire)
Religion Secular state
Government Parliamentary republic
President
 •  1911–1915 Manuel de Arriaga (1st)
 • 1925–1926 Bernardino Machado (last)
Prime Minister
 • 1911 João Pinheiro Chagas (1st)
 • 1925–1926 António Maria da Silva (last)
Legislature Congress of the Republic
 •  Upper house Senate
 •  Lower house Chamber of Deputies
History
 •  Established October 5, 1910
 • Constitution August 21, 1911
 •  Disestablished May 29, 1926
Area
 •  1911 92,391 km² (35,672 sq mi)
Population
 •  1911 est. 5,969,056 
     Density 64.6 /km²  (167.3 /sq mi)
 •  1920 est. 6,032,991 
     Density 65.3 /km²  (169.1 /sq mi)
Currency Portuguese real (1910–1911)
Portuguese escudo (1911–1926)

The First Portuguese Republic (Portuguese: Primeira República) spans a complex 16-year period in the history of Portugal, between the end of the period of constitutional monarchy marked by the 5 October 1910 revolution and the 28 May coup d'état of 1926. The last movement instituted a military dictatorship known as Ditadura Nacional (national dictatorship) that would be followed by the corporatist Estado Novo (new state) regime of António de Oliveira Salazar.

The sixteen years of the First Republic saw nine presidents and 44 ministries, and have been described as consisting of "continual anarchy, government corruption, rioting and pillage, assassinations, arbitrary imprisonment and religious persecution".[1]

The republic

As far as the October 1910 Revolution is concerned, a number of valuable studies have been made,[2] first among which ranks Vasco Pulido Valente’s polemical thesis. This historian posited the Jacobin and urban nature of the revolution carried out by the Portuguese Republican Party (PRP) and claimed that the PRP had turned the republican regime into a de facto dictatorship.[3] This vision clashes with an older interpretation of the First Republic as a progressive and increasingly democratic regime which presented a clear contrast to Salazar’s ensuing dictatorship.[4]

A republican Constitution was approved in 1911, inaugurating a parliamentary regime with reduced presidential powers and two chambers of parliament.[5] The constitution generally accorded full civil liberties, the religious liberties of Catholics being an exception.[6]

Religion

The First Republic was intensely anti-clerical. They were secularists and indeed were following liberal tradition of disestablishing the powerful role the Catholic Church once held. Historian Stanley Payne points out, "The majority of Republicans took the position that Catholicism was the number one enemy of individual list middle-class radicalism and must be completely broken as a source of influence in Portugal."[7] Under the leadership of Afonso Costa, the justice minister, the revolution immediately targeted the Catholic Church: churches were plundered, convents were attacked and clergy were harassed. Scarcely had the provisional government been installed when it began devoting its entire attention to an anti-religious policy, in spite of the disastrous economic situation. On 10 October – five days after the inauguration of the Republic – the new government decreed that all convents, monasteries and religious orders were to be suppressed. All residents of religious institutions were expelled and their goods confiscated. The Jesuits were forced to forfeit their Portuguese citizenship. A series of anti-Catholic laws and decrees followed each other in rapid succession. On 3 November, a law legalizing divorce was passed and then there were laws to recognize the legitimacy of children born outside wedlock, authorize cremation, secularize cemeteries, suppress religious teaching in the schools and prohibit the wearing of the cassock. In addition, the ringing of church bells to signal times of worship was subjected to certain restraints, and the public celebration of religious feasts was suppressed. The government also interfered in the running of seminaries, reserving the right to appoint professors and determine curricula. This whole series of laws authored by Afonso Costa culminated in the law of Separation of Church and State, which was passed on 20 April 1911.

The republicans were anticlerical and had a "hostile" approach to the issue of church and state separation, like that of the French Revolution, and the future Mexican Constitution of 1917 and Spanish Constitution of 1931.[8] On 24 May 1911, Pope Pius X issued the encyclical Iamdudum which condemned the anticlericalism of the new republic for its deprivation of religious civil liberties and the "incredible series of excesses and crimes which has been enacted in Portugal for the oppression of the Church."[9] Even the PRP had to endure the secession of its more moderate elements, who formed conservative republican parties like the Evolutionist Party and the Republican Union. In spite of these splits the PRP, led by Afonso Costa, preserved its dominance, largely due to a brand of clientelist politics inherited from the monarchy.[10] In view of these tactics, a number of opposition forces resorted to violence in order to enjoy the fruits of power. There are few recent studies of this period of the Republic’s existence, known as the ‘old’ Republic. Nevertheless, an essay by Vasco Pulido Valente should be consulted,[11] as should the attempt to establish the political, social, and economic context made by M. Villaverde Cabral (1988).

The Republic repelled a royalist attack on Chaves in 1912.

The PRP viewed the outbreak of the First World War as a unique opportunity to achieve a number of goals: putting an end to the twin threats of a Spanish invasion of Portugal and of foreign occupation of the colonies and, at the internal level, creating a national consensus around the regime and even around the party.[12] These domestic objectives were not met, since participation in the conflict was not the subject of a national consensus and since it did not therefore serve to mobilise the population. Quite the opposite occurred: existing lines of political and ideological fracture were deepened by Portugal's intervention in the First World War.[13] The lack of consensus around Portugal’s intervention in turn made possible the appearance of two dictatorships, led by General Pimenta de Castro (January–May 1915) and Sidónio Pais (December 1917–December 1918).

The "República Nova" ("New Republic")

Sidonismo, also known as Dezembrismo (Eng. Decemberism), aroused a strong interest among historians, largely as a result of the elements of modernity that it contained.[14][15][16][17][18][19] António José Telo has made clear the way in which this regime predated some of the political solutions invented by the totalitarian and fascist dictatorships of the 1920s and 1930s.[20] Sidónio Pais undertook the rescue of traditional values, notably the Pátria (Eng. Homeland), and attempted to rule in a charismatic fashion. A move was made to abolish traditional political parties and to alter the existing mode of national representation in parliament (which, it was claimed, exacerbated divisions within the Pátria) through the creation of a corporative Senate, the founding of a single party (the National Republican Party), and the attribution of a mobilising function to the Leader. The State carved out an economically interventionist role for itself while, at the same time, repressing working-class movements and leftist republicans. Sidónio Pais also attempted to restore public order and to overcome, finally, some of the rifts of the recent past, making the Republic more acceptable to monarchists and Catholics.

Return to the "República Velha" ("Old Republic")

The vacuum of power created by Sidónio Pais' assassination[21] on 14 December 1918 led the country to a brief civil war. The monarchy’s restoration was proclaimed in the north of Portugal, as the Monarchy of the North, on 19 January 1919 and, four days later, a monarchist insurrection broke out in Lisbon. A republican coalition government, led by José Relvas, coordinated the struggle against the monarchists by loyal army units and armed civilians. After a series of clashes the monarchists were definitively chased from Porto on 13 February 1919. This military victory allowed the PRP to return to government and to emerge triumphant from the elections held later that year, having won the usual absolute majority.

It was during this restoration of the "old" Republic that an attempted reform was carried out in order to provide the regime with greater stability. In August 1919 a conservative President was elected – António José de Almeida (whose Evolutionist party had come together in wartime with the PRP to form a flawed, because incomplete, Sacred Union) – and his office was given the power to dissolve Parliament. Relations with the Holy See, restored by Sidónio Pais, were preserved. The President used his new power to resolve a crisis of government in May 1921, naming a Liberal government (the Liberal party being the result of the postwar fusion of Evolutionists and Unionists) to prepare the forthcoming elections. These were held on 10 July 1921 with victory going, as was usually the case, to the party in power. However, Liberal government did not last long. On 19 October a military pronunciamento was carried out during which – and apparently against the wishes of the coup's leaders – a number of prominent conservative figures, including Prime Minister António Granjo, were assassinated. This event, known as the "night of blood"[22] left a deep wound among political elites and public opinion. There could be no greater demonstration of the essential fragility of the Republic's institutions and proof that the regime was democratic in name only, since it did not even admit the possibility of the rotation in power characteristic of the elitist regimes of the nineteenth century.

A new round of elections on 29 January 1922 inaugurated a fresh period of stability, since the PRP once again emerged from the contest with an absolute majority. Discontent with this situation had not, however, disappeared. Numerous accusations of corruption, and the manifest failure to resolve pressing social concerns wore down the more visible PRP leaders while making the opposition’s attacks more deadly. At the same time, moreover, all political parties suffered from growing internal faction-fighting, especially the PRP itself. The party system was fractured and discredited.[10][23] This is clearly shown by the fact that regular PRP victories at the ballot box did not lead to stable government. Between 1910 and 1926 there were forty-five governments. The opposition of presidents to single-party governments, internal dissent within the PRP, the party's almost non-existent internal discipline, and its constant and irrational desire to group together and lead all republican forces made any government's task practically impossible. Many different formulae were attempted, including single-party governments, coalitions, and presidential executives, but none succeeded. Force was clearly the sole means open to the opposition if it wanted to enjoy the fruits of power.[24][25]

By the mid-1920s the domestic and international scenes began to favour another authoritarian solution, wherein a strengthened executive might restore political and social order. Since the opposition's constitutional route to power was blocked by the various means deployed by the PRP to protect itself, it turned to the army for support. The armed forces, whose political awareness had grown during the war, and whose leaders had not forgiven the PRP for sending them to a war they did not want to fight, seemed to represent, to conservative forces, the last bastion of "order" against the "chaos" that was taking over the country. Links were established between conservative figures and military officers, who added their own political and corporative demands to the already complex equation. During 1925 there were two attempted military coups - on April 18 and July 19. The military prosecutor was general Oscar Carmona, who refused to fulfill his duties and advocated acquittal of coup plotters.[26]

The Revolution of 28 May 1926 against the last Republican Party government of António Maria da Silva enjoyed the support of most army units and even of most political parties. As had been the case in December 1917, the population of Lisbon did not rise to defend the Republic, leaving it at the mercy of the army.[27] There are few global and up-to-date studies of this turbulent third phase of the Republic’s existence.[28][29] Nevertheless, much has been written about the crisis and fall of the regime and the 28 May movement;.[25][30][31][32][33][34]

Heads of state and government

The First Portuguese Republic was an unstable period in the History of Portugal. In a period of 16 years (1910–1926) Portugal had 8 Presidents of the Republic, 1 Provisional Government, 38 Prime Ministers and 1 Constitutional Junta:

Evaluation of the republican experiment

The First Republic continues to be the subject of an intense debate which is impossible to summarise in these paragraphs.[35] Nevertheless, one can distinguish three main interpretations. For some historians, the First Republic was a progressive and increasingly democratic regime. For others, it was essentially a prolongation of the classical liberal regimes of the nineteenth century. A third group, finally, chooses to highlight the regime's revolutionary, Jacobin, and dictatorial nature.

Most historians have emphasized the failure and collapse of the republican dream by the 1920s. José Miguel Sardica in 2011 summarized the consensus of historians:

within a few years, large parts of the key economic forces, intellectuals, opinion-makers and middle classes changed from left to right, trading the unfulfilled utopia of a developing and civic republicanism for notions of "order," "stability" and "security." For many who had helped, supported or simply cheered the Republic in 1910, hoping that the new political situation would repair the monarchy’s flaws (government instability, financial crisis, economic backwardness and civic anomie), the conclusion to be drawn, in the 1920s, was that the remedy for national maladies called for much more than the simple removal of the king....The First Republic collapsed and died as a result of the confrontation between raised hopes and meager deeds.[36]

Sardica, however, also points up the permanent impact of the republican experiment:

Despite its overall failure, the First Republic endowed twentieth-century Portugal with an insurpassable and enduring legacy—a renewed civil law, the basis for an educational revolution, the principle of separation between State and Church, the overseas empire (only brought to an end in 1975), and a strong symbolic culture whose materializations (the national flag, the national anthem and the naming of streets) nobody has dared to alter and which still define the present-day collective identity of the Portuguese. The Republic’s prime legacy was indeed that of memory.[37]

References

  1. ↑ Hugh Kay, Salazar and Modern Portugal, Eyre & Spottiswoode (London), 1970, p. 26
  2. ↑ Wheeler, 1972
  3. ↑ Pulido Valente, 1982
  4. ↑ Oliveira Marques, 1991
  5. ↑ Miranda, 2001
  6. ↑ Anderson, James Maxwell, The History of Portugal, p. 142, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000
  7. ↑ Payne, A history of Spain and Portugal (1973) 2: 559
  8. ↑ Maier, Hans (2004). Totalitarianism and Political Religions. trans. Jodi Bruhn. Routledge. p. 106. ISBN 0-7146-8529-1.
  9. ↑ IAMDUDUM: ON THE LAW OF SEPARATION IN PORTUGAL Papal Encyclicals Online
  10. 1 2 Lopes, 1994
  11. ↑ 1997a
  12. ↑ Teixeira, 1996a
  13. ↑ Ribeiro de Meneses, 2000
  14. ↑ José Brandão, 1990
  15. ↑ Ramalho, 1998
  16. ↑ Ribeiro de Meneses, 1998
  17. ↑ Armando Silva, 1999
  18. ↑ Samara, 2003
  19. ↑ Santos, 2003
  20. ↑ Teixeira, 2000, pp. 11-24
  21. ↑ Medina, 1994
  22. ↑ Brandão, 1991
  23. ↑ João Silva, 1997
  24. ↑ Schwartzman, 1989
  25. 1 2 Pinto, 2000
  26. ↑ Portugal: A Twentieth-century Interpretation
  27. ↑ Ferreira, 1992a
  28. ↑ Marques, 1973
  29. ↑ Telo, 1980 & 1984
  30. ↑ Cruz, 1986
  31. ↑ Cabral, 1993
  32. ↑ Rosas, 1997
  33. ↑ Martins, 1998
  34. ↑ Afonso, 2001
  35. ↑ Armando Malheiro da Silva, 2000
  36. ↑ José Miguel Sardica, "The Memory of the Portuguese First Republic throughout the Twentieth Century" (2011) E-Journal of Portuguese History (Summer 2011) 9#1 pp 1–27. online
  37. ↑ José Miguel Sardica, "The Memory of the Portuguese First Republic throughout the Twentieth Century" (2011)

Further reading

Coordinates: 38°42′N 9°11′W / 38.700°N 9.183°W / 38.700; -9.183

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