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Thread ID: 9047 | Posts: 8 | Started: 2003-08-15
2003-08-15 03:57 | User Profile
It gives me great pleasure to post here this English translation of an article on Portugese National-Syndicalism which was translated by Madrid Burns. Some of yumay know that I am very interested in Portugese N-S and integralism as it was a decentralized folkish expression of National Revolution. Unfortunately, very little is in English so hopefully this will cover a little bit of that ideology.
The national-sindicalism in Portugal.
By a falangist author
The Lusitanian National-Syndicalism
by José Luis Jerez Riesco
The Portuguese National-Sindicalist Movement was a fleeting, blinding and quick star, with a vertiginous ascent, but eclipsed with great velocity. Its ideological antecedents are in the Lusitanian Integralism that began in the exile, with the magazine Alma Portuguesa (Portuguese Soul), published in Lovaina in 1913, the which was a answer and a spiritual and doctrinal reaction against the demagogic Republic that had settled in Portugal in 1910. The active core of the Integralism was formed by a realistic, restless, audacious, original youth and at the same time a youth rooted in the old lusitanian traditions. In contour of that incipient publication, spark of an entire ideological position, it joined to Domingos de Gusmao Araújo - the director -, Luis of Almeida Braga, the son of the duke of Cadaval, Antonio Alvarez Pereira, and the very young Francisco Rolão Preto who exercised the functions of writer secretary and he would, lapsed the years, the founder and the director of the National-Sindicalist Movement in Portugal. The Lusitanian Integralism, predecessor of the National-Syndicalism, it would enrich with the immediate incorporation of the Integral Nationalism of Antonio Sardinha, an ideologist, philosopher, thinker and the creator of a ambitious project that it would culminate with the work of the Alianza Peninsular (Peninsular Alliance). Sardinha would be the promoter of the Nação Portuguesa (Portuguese Nation) magazine, in whose first number was already inserted the manifesto and the Integralism's program that it was declared antiparliamentary - anti-liberal - pro-decentralization, municipalist and corporative. In the magazine collaborated people like Alberto Monsaraz - who would be later the general secretary of the National-Syndicalism, Hipólito Raposo, Pequito Rebélo and other outstanding personalities that some authors have denominated the rectificator generation. In 1917 it appeared the first edition of the one that was the first newspaper of the Integralism, titled A Monarquia (The Monarchy), that it was published under the political direction of Antonio Sardinha and Alberto Monsaraz and that Rolão Preto would direct it later when in 1920, Hipólito Raposo, the director of the newspaper was imprisoned by crime of opinion, he was called to assumes the direction of the newspaper. Mainly, and above all, the Integralism made a call of recovery of the Intelligentsa. The pillars on those youths were settled they were of an important religious and spiritual component, coinciding in that 'the hand of God is there in the serene eternity, marking the road for where they will have to pass the fate of the peoples.' They were convinced humanists and radicals that synthesized in the sentence coined by Preto of ëtudo pelo homenû (everything for the man) as the only acceptable formula, because all the institutions are created by the man and the man is not able to, without denying the divine laws, to be its slave, having that sense the Christian concept of the human life that considers to ëChrist as the supreme height to the man one day he/she rose.û Francisco Barcelos Rolão Preto had been born in February 12 1893 in the small town of Gaviào in Alentejo. His great-grandfather, the medical Antonio das Neves Cameiro, he had been a deputy in the Constituents of 1836 and he was pursued because he was a Jacobin and mason. His grandfather, Antonio MarÃÂa, was an academic from Coimbra and he died in the fork because he defend the freedom and the justice. Almost in his adolescence, when he had begun his Law degree in Coimbra, he enrolled in the troops of Henrique Paiva Couceiro in Galiza, in 1912, for what he had to eat, from his youth, the bitter bread of the exile. He fixed his residence in Belgium, being licensed in 1917 with a Social Sciences degree in the University of Lovaina. It was in that city where it appeared in 1913 the first magazine of the Lusitanian Integralism Alma Portuguesa (Portuguese Soul), where he collaborated as writing secretary. Later, he would also graduate of lawyer in the University of Toulouse. He frequented in Paris to Charles Maurras, to who he visited in his office of the Rome's street of Paris, where he had the opportunity to know to Léon Daudet. He was part of the Central Meeting of the Lusitanian Integralism, cohabiting with Sardinha, Rebelo, Raposo, Monsaraz... He collaborated closely with the general Gomes da Costa in the rising of May 28 1926, and he was the author of his manifesto of twelve lines that was placed on the walls of Braga and that it invited to the Portuguese to the fight ëfor the freedom and the honor of the Nationû, Rolão Preto was also author of the proclamation in the one that the bases of the movement were formulated and that it began with the following: ëPortuguese!, the nation wants a national government formed by the best capacities to establish in the administration of the State the discipline and the honor that have gotten lost. The nation has already had enough with the tyranny of irresponsible politicians. And she wants a strong government that has for mission to save to the Homeland and to institute the true national representation of the real, vital and permanent interests of Portugalû Rolão Preto is considered as one of the ideologists of the pronouncement of May 28, and, after the nationalist victory, he was the effective director of the general Gomes Da Costa's Journal "Revolução Nacional" (National Revolution), the apparent director was the lieutenant Armando Pinto Correia - who wrote the editorials and who signed his articles with the pen names of ëPluresû and ëPluribusû. He supposed that the Nationalist Revolution, begun by Gomes da Costa, continued by Carmona and monopolized later by Salazar, it could be bicephalous, that is to say, calm and frantic, conservative and revolutionary, serene and convulse, salazarist and national-syndicalist ââ¬Ë. In February 15 1932, a new daily "Revolução" (Revolution) appeared, directed by Preto,and it started the National-Syndicalist Movement that, according to its own mentor: "it arose from the longings and restlessness of the new generations and in front of the sleepless liberal democracy, the democracy that led to Portugal to the socialism and the communism that are the quintessence of the morals and of the economic approach of the capitalism transformed into State". It meant that, in Portugal, the reaction against the democratic-liberal errors in its political aspect it was called Lusitanian Integralism, and the reaction against those same errors in its economic and social aspect were those that gave origin to the National-Syndicalist Movement. The symbiosis of the national and syndicalist terms are made to be an internal movement, Portuguese, autochthonous, that it looks for the human person's redemption through an union mark and the socio-economic unit that ëfreely organized and exactly representative of the values of the technical formation, the labor and the capital reinforces the own possibilities - personalists - and communitarian. The National-Syndicalism was a call in favor of the solidarity among the diverse elements of the production, and of the *.. transformation of the social morals, with a call to the revolutionary mystic. It was sought to erect ëa great spiritual movement, because it is an error, and tragic error, of those that judge to be able to change the conditions of the world that it surrounds us, without first to create a new spirit. The revolutions are not only made with ordinances and official bulletinsû " The motto of the movement said: ëIt is necessary that the very rich people wil be less rich, so that the very poor people wil be less poorû. The National-Syndicalism tries to endow the municipality with a new social and economic sense, picking up this way the municipalist character from the Integralism. It is descentralizador, but organic and syndicalist. It recognizes the attraction of those ëelitesû, but it feels populist considering that ëthe revolution is only effective when it supports it the peopleû that ëonly march for the imperial roads when the climate of their exaltation is able to carry out miracles with a faith without limits to have a great trust in itself and a heroic disposition before any sacrificeû One of the mottos was: ëNeither against the left, neither against the right. Ahead! û The left-right fictitious bipolarity had already been rejected by Preto, who considered to the left and the right: ëold unconscious words, deposed mythsû sustaining that to the nationalism will have a great mission in the wave of the future. He justified the rising of the National-Syndicalism as a reaction to the Liberalism because the later, coldly ëit consents that the strongest enslave freely to the weakest and that he/she has to the lucre as the only rule of lifeû, specifying that ëall the conscious workers should understand that it is not worthwhile to substitute the tyranny of the Capitalism made State, for the tyranny of the State made Capitalist û ". The National-Syndicalism was a revolutionary movement that made of the word ërevolutionû synonym of ëjusticeû and that it was deeply sensitive for the urgent agrarian reformation and for the principles of corporative order. According to a pamphlet that, under the name of "0 Ressurgimento" (the Resurgence), diffused in Funchal, distributed and published by the National-Syndicalism Movement in May 28 of 1933, the basis of the Movement were: a) the family; B) the tradition; c) the municipality; d) the union; e) the corporation and f) the nation. It coincided with the definition of the Movement that it had appeared in the newspaper "0 Nacional Sindicalista" (The National-Syndicalist) from Faro where National-Syndicalism was defined as ëFamily-friendly, Municipalist, Regionalist, Syndicalist, Corporatist, Representative, Authoritarian, Nationalist and Revolutionary.û In December 1932 the lieutenant of Engineers and collaborator of Rolão Preto, A. Neves da Costa published a book that, under the epigraph National-Syndicalism, it had the title "Para além da ditadura" (beyond the dictatorship), where it was made a reflection, a ensay, a development and a program on what was the National-Syndicalism, synthesized in a series of statements: ëWe affirm that the invigoration of the family will stop the moral decadence, conserving the homes. We affirm that the reestablishment for all of the representation of the general interests will stop the political decadence. We affirm that the liberalism, also well-known as capitalism, it is contrary to the nature and it is noxious as much to the production as to the worker. We affirm that the capitalism, the basis of the whole modern social system, is a system of clumsy speculation that has only for objective to increase the yield of the capital in detriment of the cost price, of the labor force and of the quality and quantity of the finished productû In Spain, the Portuguese National-Syndicalist thought was spread by the magazine Acción Española (Spanish Action) that Ramiro of Maeztu directed in whose 45 issue the twelve Principles of the Production were inserted, the which were the basic norm of the movement. The birth and rising of the National-Syndicalism in Portugal was meteoric. Initiate its march with the newspaper Revolusao (Revolution), in February of 1932, soon begins the period of affiliation and militancy, the figure of followers and sympathetic it reaches several thousands and the public acts and rallys begin, both in the peninsular territory and in the islands. Before concluding 1932 they already had other important newspaper, the weekly 0 Nacional Sindicalista (The National-Syndicalist) from Algarbe, whose headquarters was in Faro and it began to be printed the December 18 under the direction of Rodrigo de Sousa Pinto. Soon, in Lisbon, a new weekly publication appeared, the Revolução dos trabalhadores (the revolution of the workers), directed by Antonio Tinoco, that it was included on Saturdays in the newspaper Revolusao (Revolution) since 1932, when the movement already had several newspapers and it reached the approximate figure of 50.000 members. The public acts were resonant. We could highlight the banquets that took place in Lisbon. The first one in Parque de Eduardo VII, February 18 of 1933, that it gathered to more than 750 diners, many of which already dressed the blue shirt adopted by the Portuguese National-Syndicalism and that they greeted with Roman salute when the members of the presidency of the act made their entrance, and especially Rolão Preto that would pronounce a vibrant speech in which he said that ëwe represent the permanent revolution, the revolution that doesn't stop that must totally transform this glorious Homelandû. The second great meeting of the Movement was the great banquet that took place in Palacio de Cristal de Oporto in May 7, after a parade that it was attended by more than 6,200 followers. In May 28, with occasion of the seventh anniversary of the military coup d'etat, the national-syndicalists commemorated it with a parade of more than three thousand followers by the streets of Braga. The day closed with some problems when in the return of the participants of the parade for the town of Ermezinde, they were attacked - it was said that by saboteurs from the Government - and, when they defended themselves from the aggression, a shooting took place of which it was wanted to accuse to Rolão Preto, who didn't participate in any of the incidents, because after the acts of May 28 in Braga he moved to Vila do Conde with the general secretary Alberto Monsaraz, arriving the following day to Viana do Castelo, where he had knowledge about what happened, that it motivated him to travel immediately to Oporto to visit the wounded. The calumnious campaign against the national-syndicalists had begun. In July 5 Rolão Preto was received in the Palacio de Belem by the president of the Republic, the general Carmona that gave him guarantees that inside the spirit of May 28 all the nationalists fit. The day 16 of that same month the leader of the National-Syndicalism pronounced his last public speech as maximum leader of the movement, and he made it in the theater San Carlos where he attended the conference of the captain Correia Campos, but, when the assistants detecting his presence they shouted him and he was forced to pronounce an address in the one that, he said that ëthey should abandon the old financial theories, the absurd economic concepts, on behalf of which the man is slave of the plutocracy, of the usury and of the Stateû. He affirmed that the modern economy should be based on the justice and that ëwe want the individual framed in the family, in the union and integrated in the nation, because each one of those marks is a circle of freedom that it protects the man against the arbitrary will of the tyrantsû The Portuguese government saw with mistrust those samples of enthusiasm, that wave of blue shirts whose power it seemed to grow with the winds to its favor. The government began to be hostile to the movement, if not in a front way, but with subterfuges. The newspaper Revolução published its last edition in September 23 of 1933 after 418 issues. Before, in June of that same year the weekly publication had stopped to exist the weekly 0 Nacional Sindicalista (The National-Syndicalist), month in which it was also canceled the weekly Revolução dos trabalhadores (the workers' revolution). Starting from July of 1933 it was forbidden the whole propaganda and all the acts of the party, what motivated that in November it was summoned a congress of the party from the which three positions or divergent tendencies from the Movement came out: 1) the revolutionary national-syndicalists, with Rolão Preto and Alberto Monsaraz that they opposed directly to Salazar. 2) the philosalazarists whose more outstanding members were Dutra Faria, Ramiro Valadão, Cabral, and Pires de Lima that obeyed to the government of Salazar. 3) the abandonment of movement by some of followers, like it was the case for the doctor L. Cabral de Moncada. With indirect grants and economic means the national-syndicalists dissidents, those that followed the line of the political observance to the government of Salazar, they created in March of 1934 a newspaper with the name A Revolução Nacional (The National Revolution) that the journalist Manuel Múrias would direct and that it would be published until August of that same year. In June, Rolão Preto sent to the President of Portugal a representation that exposed the situation of the country and the national-syndicalists recoveries. Among them, their right, according to the Constitution, to their freedom of association without limitations. Rolão Preto was made prisoner and expelled in July 14, through the Spanish-Portuguese border of Alcántara. Later, in July 29, it appeared a note subscribed by Oliveira Salazar (the President of Portugal) and directed ëto those national-syndicalistsû inviting them to incorporate to the Partido Unión Nacional (National Unity Party), because the government could consider to the National-syndicalist movement as agitator and subversive to the New State if they doesn't do it. Rolão Preto remained in the exile in Spain until February of the following year when he returned to Portugal, restarting his political activity with a speech to the nationalist intellectuals that offered to him a homage, with a public intervention in Oporto in April and with continuous displacements for the whole country to try to recompose the Movement, until, finally, in September 10 of 1935, irrevocably he is expelled from the country because it was thought that he was implied in the coup d' etat of the monarchic commandant Méndez Norton. The government's note, once neutralized the rebellion, mentioned to the national-syndicalists as the main instigators of the revolt, a accusation that Preto rejected it who said later that ëthe National-Syndicalist movement doesn't have among its methods the intention of armed revolution in the streets, because always it proclaimed, on the contrary, its desire of conquest of the people by the persuasion, the mystic's heat, the loveû The Portuguese National-Syndicalist Movement felt itself as a predecessor of the brother movement: Falange Española, for its precedence in the time, for the exhibition of the doctrine and for the adoption of its main distinguishing characteristics of identification. In February of 1932 the blue shirts arose in Portugal and until the autumn of 1933 it didn't take place the founder speech of the Falange Española in the Comedia de Madrid theater, they adopted the blue shirt as uniform one year before the Falange. Rolão Preto considered to Falange a similar movement to his group, even, in November of 1934, when the 27 points of the programmatic norm of the Spanish Falange were editing, Roláo Preto intervened in the writing of the points giving his opinion in the social aspects and he exposed his ideas to José Antonio Primo de Rivera in his office, where he visited him when Primo de Rivera finished the definitive text of the draft of the fundamental rules of the Falange during the Spanish Civil war. Rolão Preto visited the combat fronts and he said that if ëthe Falange is able to destroy all the obstacles from all the reactionary sectors, it was able to carry out the great work of the National-Syndicalist Revolution reconciling the freedom with the authority, with the conquest of the bread and the justice. We trust in the value of our comrades and we see in the Falange a great hope of revolutionary realizations. For Portugal, with a different human face - he referred to Salazar - and with the traditional alliance, would carry out in its territory the work of distribution of bread and justice that the Falange, our spiritual daughter, it already undertook in the other side of the borderû He wrote a book titled Revolução Espanhola (men, facts, ideas) that he dedicates to the armed forces and ëto my pilgrimage partners for lands in the other side of the frontier, Spaniards and Portuguese. To ours comrades that, in Spain, they fight for their dream...û During his visit to the fronts in 1937, he pronounces an speech in March 29 in Radio Seville. His speech began with these words: ëSpain of the Cid, and more than of the Cid, Spain of the heroes from Alcázar de Toledo. Glory to your eternal name of great, free and one nationû With regard to José Antonio who dedicated him a picture in November 26 of 1934, with who he converse a lot and worked enough, Preto said that José Antonio made his political battle as an apostolate and that ëhe loved the ideas in the true sense of the word love, this is, surrendering totally. He was a believer, before being a soldier. He was a personality. A nobleman. A Great man from Spainû. Under the epigraph ëThe Portuguese National-Syndicalist Movementû it were published in the magazine Acción Española, a series of articles that appeared in the issues 39, 45, 46, 47, 49 and 50 between October 16 1933 and April 1 1934. In the introduction of the first article it was said: ëRolão Preto, the magnifies pupil of Antonio Sardinha, the one that was founder of the powerful Portuguese National-Syndicalist Movement with the count of Monsaraz, the director of the fighting organ of his party "Revolução" (Revolution); the author of the excellent book Para além do comunismo, that it comes to honor the pages of Acción Española with a very interesting study that we publish todayû The appearance of the first issue gave origin to a controversy with the weekly Libertad (Freedom) from Valladolid that Onésimo Redondo directed it and that in its Vol. 64 of November 20 of 1933 published an official statement in which it was said: ëa separatist collaborates with Acción Españolaû under the argument that the Portuguese blue shirts wanted to annex Galicia, a derived presumption from the sentence pronounced by Rolão Preto during an intervention in Oporto in the which he call to the Galicians ëPortuguese d'alem Minhoû (Portuguese from the other side of the Minho River). Onésimo Redondo said: ëvery good is the Spanish nobility that she forgives easily and she sometimes favors those that slap us... to put to them in her tribune, while in their speeches and newspapers they make fun of the sacred integrity of our Homeland and we find this excessive in a nationalist and Hispanicist journal like Acción Española. Now we have arrived to the height of that unconsciousness, or that is, we are giving the first pages from that magazine to the leader of the Portuguese Nazis that in Oporto, called to the Galicians ëPortuguese d'alem Minhoû. Because all those that we militate in the national youth have appreciation for Acción Española and because in fact from her many of our doctrinal inspirations come, we want that our protest is heard in that magazineû The answer appeared at once. In the issue 45 of Acción Española and as a note on foot page it was published the following thing: ëThe combative and dear colleague Libertad from Valladolid published the alarming news that a separatist collaborated in Acción Española, referring to the illustrious leader of the Portuguese Nazis...When the illustrious accused writer knows that, he sends us for the publication the following explanatory lines that we didn't need, but that it will tranquilize, properly, to our colleague from the Libertad magazine: In extract he came to say that Libertad it confused annexation with separatism and that the Portuguese National-Syndicalist Movement was not neither ultranationalist neither annexionist, but a ëeconomic and social movement exclusivelyû, finishing with: ëwe consider Spain as our next Latin sister, and not only for her geographical position, but for spirit likeness. This vicinity, very real for us, it is accentuated when we contemplate it through the material and spiritual landscape of Galicia. And for it, when we call to the Galicians ëPortuguese of the other side of the Miño Riverû we don't have in the mind another desire that the one of proclaiming a formula of friendship. Libertad had the obligation of knowing that nobody as us, Antonio Sardinha's pupils, we can understand with an eternal Portugal, the eternity of Spainû
The rectification from Libertad was not made wait and with the title ëa forced Answer: The Portuguese National-Syndicalismû, Onésimo Redondo described the pleasure that had produced him to read the explanatory letter from Rolão Preto, with that he gave up with own satisfaction his insistence in the separatist appellative - logically correlative, but not contradictory of annexionist - and he accepted the rectification from the outstanding Portuguese politician. Also, he made allusion to SardÃÂnha and his book Alianza Peninsular (Peninsular Alliance) and he finished with ëif this attempt of polemic, was good somehow to extend among the followers of Rolão Preto a sardinhista trust in the harmonic future of both Homelands, we would consider as good our modest intervention in topics of so much transcendencyû The works that in six issues, as we have already pointed, Acción Española published, it were a comment and a development to the twelve Principles of the Production, a integrative axis of the whole basic theory of the Portuguese National-Syndicalism. The program of those twelve points had already been published in a book that was published in 1920 in Lisbon, with the name A MonarquÃÂa e a Restauração da inteligencÃÂa and in that book Rolão gave an explanation and an analysis of those points, an upgrade and a justification. The conclusion of this series of articles was that ëwe are in a European revolutionary and nationalist time. The revolution, as the bayonets, it won't allow them to destroy it. Salazar has to work revolutionarily to carry out his work. Only in this we can help him. The national-syndicalists are the organized militias of the National Revolution of the workersû Rolão had known during his reiterated exile in Spain - in 1934, in 1935 and during his visit to the military fronts in 1937 - to the main political leaders as José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the who we have already named, Ramiro de Maeztu, Victor Prairie or José MarÃÂa Gil Robles - for who he didn't have any sympathy - Ernesto Giménez Caballero and others. The history of the Portuguese National-Syndicalism, is not a forgotten page for the Spaniards, it has been, up to now, an unknown page, in spite of the analogies and convergence points with the thought of a identical denomination in Spain.
2003-08-23 11:11 | User Profile
Portugalôs Movimento Nacional-Sindicalista, led by Francisco Rolão Preto and having as its second figure Alberto de Monsaraz, was an outgrowth of Integralismo Lusitano which apllied a more "popular" and "fascist" organizatonal style, aiming its message at segments of the population which the Integralist Monarchist movement traditionally had difficulty in reaching.
Rolão Pretoôs movement was also characterized by its antagonism in relation to Salazar and his New State. The movement collapsed when a pro-Salazar faction, led by José Cabral and followed by the influential group of Coimbra University professors, including Dr. Cabral de Moncada, led a motion to oust Rolão Preto and other founders from the movement and pledge allegiance to Salazar. The leaders of the faction, which was a small minority, integrated in the União Nacional, the "official" political association which was by then a branch of the Interior Ministry and under the direct control of Salazar. Cabral was "rewrded" by Salazar and was given a seat in the National Assembly. The pro-Salazar Nacional-Sindicalistas were incorporated into the SPN (Secretariado de Propaganda Nacional), the state Propaganda Secretariat which was led by the famous author António Ferro, a non-Integralist and Republican pro-Fascist (he conducted several interviews with dôAnnunzio and Mussolini for the Portuguese press before it became fashionable to do so). Other pro-Salazar Nacional-Sindicalistas were given positions in the official Corporations and National Syndicates which were being formed "from the top down" as Rolão Preto would say, that is, they were formed by Decree and staffed mostly by regime Bureaucrats.
In contrast, Rolão Preto and his close supporters formed a group which actively opposed the regime and were thus imprisioned and exiled. Rolão was exiled in Spain twice, in part due to his support of coup activities led by the Monarchist and African Wars military hero Henrique de Paiva Couceiro, who was himself exiled to Tenerife in 1937. During Rolãoôs first exile (1934) he worked closely with José Antonio and the Falange and during his second exile, which occored after the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, he followed the activities of the Falange and the Nationalists in general. He was, however, arrested by the orders given by Salazarôs government to Gen. Franco after he made a speach on Radio Sevilla, which could be heard in Portugal, where, in addition to supporting the Falange and Franco, he attacked Salazar and the Estado Novo. Rolão Preto remained a life-long opponent of Salazar.
In later years, when many of these former Nacional-Sindicalistas were older and more mature, several leading and non-leading figures of Nacional-Sindicalismo went on to gain important positions within the Estado Novo. Amongst these were Dutra Faria who became the director of Portugalôs state television in the 1960s, Barradas de Oliveira, an influential radio-tv editorialist and editor of the União Nacional newspapoer, Diário da Manhã. Portugalôs interior minister in the 1960s, Gonçalves Rapazote, was also a "Blue Shirt" in his youth.
Other former Blue Shirts were in later life not directly involved in politics but remained influential in Portugalôs artistic-intelectual scene. Amongst these we find the novelist LuÃÂs Forjaz Trigueiros as well as the surrealist painter António Pedro.
Most of the founders and core members of Integralismo Lusitano, which was founded in 1914, never belonged to the Movimento Nacional-Sindiclaista although they were generally sympathetic to its activities. This contrasts with Maurras and the old Action Française cadreôs violent disagreement with Valoisô "Le Faisceau" movement in France, which broke away from AF in a somewhat violent manner. No such conflict ever existed between Integralismo and NS in Portugal.
It should also be noted that the majority of the founders and leaders of the Integralismo Lusitano acted in opposition to Salazarôs Estado Novo, which they considered a form of modern Statism and inorganic corporativism which preserved many classical Liberal and Republican concepts in the 1933 Consitution. Salazarôs position on the Restauration of the monarchy and authoritarian nature of the State was also a main point of contention for the Integralistas, who, in addition to being monarchists believed in a neo-medieval concept of municipal and guild freedoms.
However, not all of the original and early leaders of Integralismo opposed the Estado Novo, we can cite Pedro Teotónio Pereira as well as, and most importantly, Marcello Caetano, premier of Portugal from 1968 to 1974, as two very important figures in the Estado Novo with Integralist origins.
2003-08-24 06:58 | User Profile
Excellent post!
I am quite a big fan of Francisco Rolão Preto and I very admire the societal vision of the Portugese Integralists and National-Sydicalists. I have a very good article about how those schoolds differed from French and Italian NS and Fascist doctrines and feel that they were every bit a original and as worth while as anything to have come from those nations. While I was not hostile to the New State and I found some worth while elements there I find much that was objectionable and in many ways believe that both the New State and Franco's Spain shared a great many problems which were very serious which I addressed before.
Cruz de Cristo, please tell me a bit about your back ground. Are you a Eurocentric revolutionary of some sort? Do you speak Portugese? What sort of stuff do you read?
2003-08-26 16:08 | User Profile
Anti Yuppie:
Yes. You are correct to a certain extent. Salazar rose to power with the backing of a large spectrum of the Portuguese right-wing, most importantly the Military establishment, which was responsible for the 28th of May revolution in 1926, and especially the Catholic church. Salazarôs political origins since his early days at Coimbra University was with the Social-Catholic doctrine, based on the papal encyclicals of Leo XIII. He was in his youth a member of the CADC (Centro Académico da Democracia Cristã). One of the principal ideological pillars of this group was what was known in France as the ralliement, that is, the distancing of the Catholic Church and of Catholics in the Republic vs. Monarchy dispute, which was the main fulcrum of political violence during Portugalôs unhappy 1st Republic. This distancing of right-wing Cathoicism from supporting the Monarchic principle as a political dogma was an important feature of Salazarism, whoôs Estado Novo preserved the Republican regime in Portugal. This differed from Franco who was very sympathetic towards Monarchism and ensured a Monarchic restauration with his 1966 changes of the Spainsh consitution. Salazar, in contrast, believed that the foundations of the Estado Novo and the 1933 Constitution were sufficient for ensuring a smooth political continuity after his death.
There is an ongoing debate as to the organic nature of the Estado Novo. Salazar did most definately persue Corporativist and Organicist objectives, as theorized by Salazar himself and the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church. However, due to the regimeôs dependance on the support of the military, which included a powerful (but unofficial) Republican and Masonic lobby (Freemasonry was made illegal in Portugal in 1935 but right-wing freemasons were tolerated in practice), as well as conservative elites who supported 19th century-style constitutional liberalism but grew wary of the radicalism of the 1st Republic, Salazar was never able to introduce a fully organicist representation. Portugal had official Presidential elections, and a theoretically representative Parliament. In order to reconcile these classical liberal concepts, supported by a significant section of Portugalôs conservative elites with his Social-Catholic and Authoritarian Statist political vision, Salazarism used authoritarian methods, which was in line with pressures from the Military. The liberal concepts of the 1933 Constitution were recognized by all as formalities, despite some official post-war propaganda, describing the Estado Novo as an "organic democracy" which was aimed at attracting the symapthy of the US, the UK and other anti-communist western powers in relation to the Estado Novo and which was largely effective. In practice this system in place was a single-party system: all members of the National Assembly belonged to the União Nacional and the "National Candidate" always won the presidential election. The single party in question, the União Nacional, was nevertheless completely subordinated to the Ministry of the Interior, under the direct control of Salazar and was seen as by many as more of a state employment agency rather than an autonymous or dynamic political organization. These were the conditionalisms in relation to pure Organicism, as envisioned by Integralismo, which were put into practice during the Salazar regime.
The Estado Novo also had little interest in restauring the Monarchy given the fact that the Presidnecy of the Republic was in the hands of the Military, which were unwilling to give up this (in practice theoretical and formal) position of dominance over the State. Despite this, most Monarchists did support Salazar given his devout Catholicism and Authoritarian positions.
One aspect of this topic which we should all be aware is the difficulty of putting organicist doctrine into practice. Salazar was a Social-Catholic of an Authoritarian and Statist disposition and not an Integralista or pure Organicist. He therefore, especially given some of the "pillars" of the regime, had no strong reason to go out of his way to introduce the full Integralista programme into the Estado Novo. He did sympathize with some Integralist, as well as Maurrasian, principles and he did put a partial Corporativism into practice. The Organicist tendencies of Salazarism were always compromised by the regimeôs dependance on certain powerful social/economic/political lobbies which constituted the backbone of the Portuguese right-wing and which were basically inorganic, pro-capitalist and authoritarian. It should be noted that the Corporations were given official recognition in Portugal only in 1956 and that the Corporative Chamber of parliament was technically subordinated to the non-organic National Assembly from its inseption in 1933 right until the 1974 coup dôétat.
The above was one of the main reasons for Integralismoôs founders opposition to Salazar. Amongst these we find LuÃÂs de Almeida Braga, Hipólito Raposo, Francisco Rolão Preto, Alberto de Monsaraz, and José Pequito Rebello, all of whom were at some point arrested by the Estado Novo. The original Integralistas were neo-medieval organicists who believed in regional, municipal, corporate and syndical Freedoms in a decentralized Monarchy, as well as a "a free Church in a free State". The Estado Novo was based on a centralized state, tolerated Monarchist and Republican tendencies but in practice (due to the Military) tended towards the latter, and instituted a State-dependent and non-representative system of official Corporations and Syndicates (which, as is well known, tended in practice to serve the interests of the state-protected large capitalist interests), all within the framework of an Authoritarian police state.
I am not very familiar with Francoôs regime and I am sure a Spaniard can do a better job of explaining it than I. Given that Spain and Portugal were, especially during the time period in question, very similar societies with similar political, economic and social forces in play, I am certain that some of the things stated above about Salazarismo can also be applied to Franquismo.
Tryskelion:
Yes. The Estado Novo put only some of Integralismoôs principles into practice. However, it was done in a manner that many Integralistas found dubious and insincere. Most Integralistas and Nacional-Sindicalistas who gained positions of power within the Estado Novo did so as a way of furthering their career by supporting what was seen as "the lesser of two evils", when Salazarism was contrasted with Liberal Republicanism or Marxism.
You are also correct in stating the profound differences between Integralismo and Nacional-Sindicalismo and similar movements which emerged in other nations such as France. In relation to other countries, Integralismo had its closest contacts with Spanish Monarchists, Carlistas and Falangists as well as Brazilôs Acção Integrlaista Brasileira, which was headed by PlÃÂnio Salgado who was forced into exile in Portugal by Brazilôs Estado Novo regime, headed by Getúlio Vargas.
I am a Portuguese nationalist and I sympathize with Integralist Monarchist doctrine as announced by the founders of Integralismoôs 1st generation and all the latter generations until the present, many of whoôs members are fortunately still with us. In Portugal we are considered neo-Integralistas or neo-Integralists given the fact that our Doctrine is not static or rigidnly dogmatic and that the points which were announed in 1913 are not totally applicable to the situation in 2003. As sons of Portugal and the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church we believe in God, Family, the King, and in the Portuguese Fatherland which we believe was the work of God, as demonstrated in the miracle of Ourique and the apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima.
In short, we believe in the triumph of the Spirit over Materialism.
2003-08-27 04:06 | User Profile
Raul Proença and Integralismo Lusitano
Stewart Lloyd-Jones Paper presented to the ACIS Annual Conference, Leeds, 7-9 September 1999
We can all think of examples in which someone deliberately sets out to misrepresent, distort or in some way exaggerate the policies of their adversaries in order to cast them in the least favourable light. Normally, the opponentââ¬â¢s beliefs and values are described in relation to the beliefs and values of the detractor who will also shroud their explanations in a cloak of apparent reasonableness - playing on the suspected fears and suspicions of their audience.
One of the most ubiquitous forms of such political campaigning is the creation of "straw men". This involves interpreting an opponentââ¬â¢s positions in such a way as they may easily be brought down. Excessive praise, a feigned intellectual vigour and half-truths all liberally sprinkled with a conscious disregard for historical truths are all brought into the mix to create a plausible alternative interpretation of an opponentââ¬â¢s position. Plausible, but definitely and deliberately unappealing.
Herein lies the crux of the political "straw man". Its value as a political tactic lies in its very plausibility - the fact that it offers a reasonable, and, crucially, the only reasonable interpretation of an opponentââ¬â¢s position. The purpose of "straw men", therefore, is not simply to reject the opponent out of hand, rather it is supposed to portray them as valued and worthy, if wrong - otherwise why go to the trouble of discussing them at all. Similarly, it is not a tactic designed to be "preached to the converted", its aim is more focused and is directed towards those constituencies that are in some way sympathetic to those positions held by the opponent currently under attack whilst remaining uncommitted to them. The main purpose is to convince these possible sympathisers that they are being fooled, that they are not being told the whole truth.
The "straw man", therefore, is intended as a means to provide this truth. This then is a second important aspect of any successful "straw man" - its ability to make the subjective appear objective. Thus, to achieve its aim and sow the seeds of doubts in its target audience, the "straw man" must be able to withstand all but the most detailed analysis and criticism. Essentially, this means that the "straw man" must appear to be the result of considered analysis, it must appear in itself to represent an objective interpretation of the positions it seeks to undermine. It must be more than superficial and it must avoid propagandistic or doctrinal language in order to prevent its rejection as mere politicking thereby revealing its own inherent subjectivity.
Another important aspect of the "straw man" is its ability to continue influencing attitudes in the longer term. A successful "straw man" will sow enough seeds of doubt in its target that the "truth" it presents becomes accepted as an objective "truth". Having succeeded in having this "truth" normalised, the task of those who maintain faith with the opposite view becomes infinitely more difficult as they are forced to pit their subjective ideas against an accepted objective truth.
One of the most successful Portuguese examples of the "straw man" was that created by Raul Proença. In a series of six articles written in late 1921 and early 1922 for Seara Nova he set out to highlight the contradictions within the ideological programme and doctrinal statements of the Portuguese nationalist movement, Integralismo Lusitano, and to expose it as a mere "carbon copy" of Action Française. By so doing, Proença aimed to portray Portuguese integralist nationalism as an insincere and essentially derivative movement whose underlying goal was the restoration of the monarchy for its own sake. His initial goal was to:
[Provar]ââ¬Â¦ que não é o seu monarquismo que está subordinado ao seu nacionalismo e ao seu tradicionalismo; a tradição e o carácter nacional só lhes servem quando são monárquicos e no grau exacto em que o são; podendo, pois, dizer-se que, longe de serem monárquicos por serem tradicionalistas, eles são antes tradicionalistas por serem monárquicos.
His contention was that Integralismo, whilst promoting nationalism and asserting itself to be "essentially Portuguese", was actually little more than a reworking of the teachings contained in Charles Maurrasââ¬â¢ Enquête sur la monarchie, and that when António Sardinha, Integralismââ¬â¢s founder and leading intellectual, states that "it is the facts, and only the facts, that inspire us", he implies national facts but actually means the facts as revealed in the French nationalistsââ¬â¢ "bible". The nationalist myth as promoted by the Integralists was discovered, according to Proença, in this "French bible". In the end, Proença feels able to dismiss Integralism as lacking in any internal nationalist coherence, and the Integralists as little more than apologists for a set of ideals designed by a foreigner to be applied in an altogether different context. In the end, he comments that:
ââ¬Â¦nunca houve em Portugal geração ou facção alguma que se relevasse intelectualmente tão servile como este partido de aristocratas.
Proençaââ¬â¢s attack on Integralismââ¬â¢s dependence on the works of the French master of Action Française are highly probable because he uses the statements of Integralismââ¬â¢s leaders to great effect in illustration of his examples. To give some examples, Proença compares Integralist statements with extracts taken from Enquête. On a general level, Proença comments that Integralismââ¬â¢s programme is dedicated towards the attainment of a "monarquia orgânica, tradicional e anti-parlamentarista" whilst Maurras demands a "monarchie héréditaire et traditionaliste, anti-parlementaire et décentralisée". He goes on to give several examples of the coincidence between the doctrines of the Portuguese Integralists and the goals of their French mestre, from their common belief in the family as the ultimate social unit, the need for administrative decentralisation, and the need for a hereditary and absolute monarchy. Proença concludes with a sarcastic flourish:
Meu Deus! A verdade aparece em toda a sua luz! O priminho mais novo é filho do priminho mais velho; o português vêm do adultário com um francês: que escândalo para a famÃÂlia nacionalista!
Thus having constructed his "straw man", Proença proceeds to set it alight. The first of his three criticisms of Portuguese Integralism is its proclaimed distaste for ââ¬ËFrench ideasââ¬â¢ "quando também a papa deles é francesas". The second refers to the Integralistââ¬â¢s ââ¬Ëelitist inconsistencyââ¬â¢ in refusing to practice, either in their evidence or in their doctrinal discussions, the same ââ¬Ëconscious loyaltyââ¬â¢ that they ââ¬Ëdemand from previous generationsââ¬â¢: the Integralists are, according to Proença ââ¬Ëguilty of practising a confidence trick by continuing the cult of a national lieââ¬â¢. His third criticism concerns his belief that Integralism has proved itself ââ¬Ëincapable of developing their own critique without running to Maurrasââ¬â¢, resorting to "a simples e encapotada tradução literal de fórmulas e analogias de polÃÂticos franceses, S. Alteza o Duque de Orleans, André Buffet e o conde de Lur-Saluces, Barrès, Valois, e Maurras super omnia."
Proençaââ¬â¢s analysis of Integralism in these essays was so persuasive that almost from that moment on, Integralismo Lusitano and Action Française have come to be perceived as synonymous. It is, in fact, difficult - almost impossible - to consider the Portuguese movement in isolation and separate from its French counterpart. The conception that Portuguese Integralism merely transplanted Maurrasian nationalism into the Portuguese context has gained so much weight that it has become the accepted wisdom amongst historians who are at pains to stress the connection between the two movements. For example, Richard Robinson states that "[Portuguese] integral nationalism was influenced by the French right, by Barrès and Maurras", HermÃÂnio Martins declares that "Integralismo was ââ¬ËMaurrasianââ¬â¢", Braga da Cruz asserts that António Sardinha was "influenced by Maurras and Action Française", and so on.
There is no question that the Integralists themselves contributed in no small measure to their being so closely associated with Action Française. Indeed, it often seemed as if they were anxious to encourage the perception of synonymity between themselves and Maurrasââ¬â¢ movement. Sardinha himself made explicit his debt to Action Française when he called for the "rehabilitation of the discredited Miguelist literature and, with the popular dissemination of Action Françaiseââ¬â¢s doctrinaire programme,ââ¬Â¦ the organisation of a counter-revolutionary theory". Other Integralist leaders also admitted a debt to the French movement; Rolão Preto confessed that in 1913, whilst he was a student at Louvain and editor of Integralismââ¬â¢s first journal, Alma Portuguesa, he "used to visit the offices of the Action Française in the Rue de Rome, where [he] spent many evenings with Charles Maurras, Bainville, Pujo and Léon Daudet".
Yet, despite Proençaââ¬â¢s protestations, there is a great deal of difference between the fact that Integralismo Lusitano was influenced by Action Française and the assertion that its doctrine was plagiarised, word for word, from Maurrasââ¬â¢ Enquête sur la monarchie. But herein lies the strength of Proençaââ¬â¢s "straw man" - it contains enough germs of truth to be a plausible critique. Its very construct forces its target onto the defensive as they are forced to answer its criticisms on its terms. Its success in this respect can be measured by the tone of Alberto Monsarazââ¬â¢s reply, published in A Monarquia on 3 January 1922, which includes an apparently desperate comment that "a Seara Nova [está a] receber um largo subsÃÂdio do Estado", an allegation that is easily refuted and, more easily still ridiculed, thereby handing the "straw man" its apparent victory on a plate.
However, despite Monsarazââ¬â¢s ill thought out reply, he does manage to force Proença to concede that Integralism does contain some original elements. Proença, however, manages to turn this to his advantage by arguing that his critique cuts through the Integralistââ¬â¢s lack of clarity:
[E] quem conhece os livros integralistas sabe bem que nunca eles deram às suas ideias a ordem, a seriação, a limpidez, a claridade que eu pretendi dar-lhes quando não achei mais conveniente, para efeitos da polémica futura ou por escrúpulos de fidelidade, limitar-me a transcrevê-los.
A case, we may say, of heads I win, tails you lose, as the "straw man" chalks up another score through the simple expedient of moving the goal post, and saying ââ¬Ëif you cannot explain your doctrine, let me do it for youââ¬â¢!
The perception that Integralismo Lusitano relied on Action Française for almost all of its doctrine has been accepted as an "objective truth" since 1922. Proençaââ¬â¢s "straw man" was an important instrument in ensuring that this would be so. By stating that Integralism was a derivation of a foreign nationalism, and that its leaders were devoid of any intellectual capability, Proença succeeded in his immediate goals, which were to exploit the disarray that currently existed within right-wing and monarchist circles in the wake of the failure of Sidónioââ¬â¢s New Republic, the monarchist defeats of 1919, the reconciliation of the Legitimist and Constitutionalist branches of the Portuguese royal family and the after effects of the Noite Sangrenta. Taken as a whole, these occurrences encouraged a disaggregation of the forces of the radical right, although they also represented an opportunity for its resurgence. This opportunity, however, depended on the development and acceptance of a programme that would be capable of acting as a standard under which the right could unite. By 1922 it was apparent that, of all the groups on the right, the Integralists offered the best hope. Therefore, they became the principal opponents whose doctrines had to be undermined. Moreover, Seara Nova emerged to provide an alternative doctrine, one which also rejected the Democratic Republic and which advanced a political programme that was in many respects similar to that of the Integralists.
Thus it may be seen that Seara Nova perceived the Integralists as an opponent competing for the ideological leadership of the same, or at least for a substantially similar political and social space. At the very least, this would serve to explain Proençaââ¬â¢s desire to remove Integralismo, which was the only political organisation, other than themselves, to possess a coherent and positive ideological programme.
It is at this stage that we reach the essence of Proençaââ¬â¢s critique. He was, it must be assumed, very aware that Integralism were a threat, and that their ideological and doctrinal programmes were original even if inspired by Maurras. Moreover, he must also have been aware that, excluding the monarchical aspects of both Integralism and Maurrasianism, many of the charges he laid against the Integralists could also be placed at his own door - a fact that the Integralists were forced to overlook for fear of admitting their own guilt.
That Integralism was not a simple imitation of its French peer has been recognised recently by several historians. One finds it difficult to disagree with António Costa Pinto when he comments that fin de siècle Paris was the centre of counter-revolutionary intellectualism and, consequently, a beacon for the attention of the European intellectual elites who were often being harassed in their own countries. That Paris should become a centre for the new counter-revolutionary doctrine is perhaps not surprising when one considers that this was the locale of the original revolution, and that France had, for over a century, been at the forefront of political and philosophical developments. Indeed, Maurras himself summed it up quite well when he stated that as it was "through France that the Revolution had begun in the world, it would also be through France that the counter-revolution must begin".
There can be little surprise then that the counter-revolutionary doctrine of the Integralists would follow the example of the French. The enemy was a common enemy, and the French had a much longer experience of combating it than did the Portuguese, for whilst the liberal and constitutional ideas had been imported from France into Portugal during the course of the 19th century, its effects were only really beginning to be felt with the proclamation of the Republic in 1910. At a stroke, the remaining elements of what the Integralists called the ââ¬ËpolÃÂtico do factoââ¬â¢ were swept away by the urban republican and anti-clerical elites as they set about imposing their Jacobin policies over the smouldering ruins of the paÃÂs real. Such events had been almost a commonplace in post-Revolutionary France, with the result that the French right had had more time to develop and systematise its counter-revolutionary doctrines. Given that post-Revolutionary France, that is to say the entire history of 19th century France resembled a laboratory for new economic, social and political ideas, it is hardly surprising that this country produced a whole raft of anti-liberal theorists and champions, ranging from Saint-Simon, through Fourier, Proudhon, Sorel, Comte, Taine, Le Play, Tour de La Pin, Renan, Barrès and, of course, Maurras, with the successes and failures of the earlier generations informing those who followed. Looking from the outside, as it were, the young Portuguese exiles were attracted to Maurras because he was the latest in a long line of counter-revolutionary and anti-plutocratic theorists. Yet, even with these credentials and these predecessors, Maurrasââ¬â¢ ideas were not adopted without question, rather, it was the example that was embraced. Rather than simply repeating Maurras, the young Portuguese Integralist movement absorbed his doctrines, and those of his lineage and, taking what was useful and pertinent to the Portuguese context, they were not so blind in their devotion that they could not alter and discard the French lessons when it was appropriate to the Portuguese situation. Thus, we can read Sardinhaââ¬â¢s declaration, quoted above, that Integralism sought to organise a counter-revolutionary theory through the dissemination of Action Françaiseââ¬â¢s doctrines, in a new light - one that suggests that this doctrine was to be used as a guide to assist in the resurrection of a truly national theory, to breath new life a Portuguese form of nationalism that had fallen victim to the march of plutocratic liberalism. That is to say that Integralism accepted that it was not entirely original, but then neither was it a transposition of Maurrasian monarchism, as Costa Pinto quite correctly observes:
[Integralismo] exprimem um movimento mais lato que nos remete para as mutações ideológicas que em finais do século XIX presidem ao aparecimento, em França, de uma nova direita nacional.
But what was it that differentiated Portuguese from French integralism? If we accept that their doctrines were substantially similar, as Proença claims - that they both accepted the need for a monarchical restoration, administrative decentralisation, a strong executive and the establishment of corporatist representation, and the evidence is overwhelming that this was indeed the case, then can we similarly claim that the ideological explanations developed to justify these doctrinal demands were also similar?
The answer to this second question is both yes and no. Yes to the extent that both movements consistently argued that the real root of the problem afflicting their respective societies was liberalism and the steady march of materialist individualism that it brought in is wake. Both movements could, and did, make reference to the breakdown of social values, of the steady increase in state power, which was accompanied by and encouraged by a growth in governmental incompetence and corruption. They both made reference to a ââ¬Ëgolden pastââ¬â¢, a past of order and peace maintained by a strict and Divinely ordained hierarchy - of a time when each person knew their place and accepted it without question. Yet here the similarities begin to cloud, as the Portuguese integralists begin to posit a historical interpretation that makes use of the symbols, rituals and teachings of Portuguese experience rather than blindly following Maurras.
For his inspiration, it is true that Sardinha had studied the works of French writers such as Renan, Barrès, Le Bon and Maurras. His major influences, however, were 19th century Portuguese romantics, particularly Almeida Garrett and Alexandre Herculano. He followed their lead in his attempts to resurrect those historical figures through whom Portugal could "reconstruct its dignified past". It was to "this small Portuguese home" that Sardinha and his fellow first generation integralists sought to guide and restore the Portuguese nation, arguing that "the Portuguese of today are what they always have been, and what they can be once more" through the development of an "essentially organic doctrine" which could end the conflict between Portugalââ¬â¢s essential ruralism and the alien urban ideologies, and from thence lead to the "a national spiritual rebirth".
For Maurras, the justification and inspiration came from elsewhere, as would be expected. He believed that Franceââ¬â¢s rulers had forgotten what it was to be French, that their individualistic and economistic beliefs led them to the conclusion that the nation was a secondary concept, conditional upon economics and politics. This new emphasis, according to Maurras, had led to a growing and widespread sense of alienation as people were torn from their ââ¬Ënaturalââ¬â¢ environment and forced to compete with each other. The community, the very core of the nation, had been rent apart and its atomised elements left to fend for themselves within an alien democratic framework, that ââ¬Ëleprous plagueââ¬â¢ brought from the Teutonic forests by the ââ¬ËGerman barbariansââ¬â¢ to cast down ââ¬ËGoddess Franceââ¬â¢.
Both also acknowledged that their societies had been victims of an intractable and constantly mutating foe from beyond their own national boundaries, external to their culture and alien to their traditions. For the Portuguese integralists, Portuguese society and Lusitanian morality were being corrupted by the ââ¬ËFrench diseaseââ¬â¢ of individualism and materialism, the offspring of 1789, which was itself the culmination of a process that had begun in Portugal 300 years earlier with the Descubrimentos:
Cortado a meio da sua jornada histórica, não pode Portugal, pela perturbação cosmopolita de Quinhentos, seguir a linha natural da sua formação. Abastardou-se a realeza, corrompeu-se o MunicÃÂpio, as classes, de núcleos necessários àresistência da Nação, mudaram-se, com o andar dos tempos, em simples cariátides do poder.
During its formative period (1914-1917), Portuguese Integralism adopted the saudismo of Portuguese romanticism as their guiding principle rather than the classicism and rationalism that underpinned Maurrasââ¬â¢ nationalism. Integralismââ¬â¢s projected vision of Portugal stressed the past over the present and the present over the future, they attempted to recreate a mythical ââ¬Ëgolden ageââ¬â¢ that could operate in the spirit, a maneira de ser e de ver that would develop as a motivational myth driving backwards towards an idyllic society that was agrarian, communal, self-sufficient, protectionist, paternalist and nationalist. In many respects this vision of Portuguese society shared an ethic more akin to Proudhonian and Andalusian anarchism than to Maurrasian nationalism insofar as it was messianic and, essentially, anti-modern.
Maurras, on the other hand, was motivated by the perception that France was falling further behind the other Great Powers, and that it was, in fact, perilously close to losing this status: "All those countries which have resolutely maintained those ââ¬Ërelics of the pastââ¬â¢ - traditionalism, authoritarianism, the subordination of the masses to natural leaders - manufacture more products than we do, sell them at better prices than we do, even produce more children than we do. Look at monarchist and feudal Prussia, at aristocratic England". Franceââ¬â¢s economic and military decline was, he believed, a direct consequence of its moral decline. This moral decline was itself the culmination of the growth of romanticism, particularly German romanticism - a system of beliefs that denied God and nature and which placed the individual above society. Lutherââ¬â¢s proclamation was more than an attack against the Church, it was an attack against Latinity. The Reformation created confusion in the mind, and caused men to question their superiors - if Godââ¬â¢s Vicar can be denied, then everyone and everything can be denied, even the distinction between good and evil. By ending certainty, free examination brought only chaos, enfeeblement, decadence, inertia and tyranny. For Maurras there were only two choices, it could either disappear as a great power or it could re-establish itself as a true monarchy "with the King of France as the arbiter of the peace of the world".
We can examine other elements of Integralismo Lusitanoââ¬â¢s and Action Françaiseââ¬â¢s doctrines, and we will find similar differences. On the question of the monarchy, for example, Action Française followed a dogmatic line while the Integralists approached it pragmatically. Maurras was uncompromising in his declared support for the House of Capet, a "dynasty that is truly of the earth and the soil, since it rounded out our land and shaped our country", "power should be entrusted to the ââ¬Ërace of Capetââ¬â¢. It is the oldest royal line in Europe, and it belongs to us. Even better, ââ¬Ëit is usââ¬â¢. Its history is our historyââ¬Â¦ without it there is no France". The monarchy, and only the monarchy can, according to Maurras, restore Franceââ¬â¢s pride and grandeur, because it is only a monarch who can act with absolute impunity in accordance with his belief that "Les droits de lââ¬â¢homme étaient inconciliables avec ceux de la nation et un pouvoir qui reposait sur la souveraineté se désintéressait nécessairement du bien public." Franceââ¬â¢s dictator "must be the servant only of France, and such a man can only be the King".Central to Maurrasââ¬â¢ monarchism was his contention that "unwise decisions may be made by a king, but such decisions are purely due to errors of judgement rather than any desire to cause harm to the nation, which the monarchy itself embodies."
The Portuguese Integralists were eager to proclaim their support for the legitimist heir to the Bragança heritage, however, their adherence to the monarchist ideal was much more closely associated with the institution of the monarchy than it was with the person of the monarch. The novelty of the Portuguese Republic ensured that reaction to the Republic was one of the central elements of the Integralist philosophy in a way that opposition to Republican France could no longer be. This imbued Integralism with an immediacy that was largely absent from Action Française, allowing a leading Integralist to proclaim that which Maurras could never accept:
Nós não professamos a legitimidade da pessoa do Rei, proclamamos a legitimidade do interesse nacional. Numa palavra; somos nacionalistas antes de somos monárquicos e somos monárquicos porque só pela monarquia podemos servir a Nação.
Thus Integralismo could play an active part in the life of Republican Portugal, even to the extent of collaborating in Sidónio Paisââ¬â¢ República Nova of 1918, and, immediately on its collapse, to participate in the monarchist uprisings of 1919, after having received assurances the previous year from the Constitutionalist D. Manuel IIââ¬â¢s lieutenant, Aires de Ornelas, that the exiled King would support the monarchist struggle against the Republic. The Integralists lack of coherence with regard the question of the monarchy can be attributed to the pragmatism of the movementââ¬â¢s core leaders to obtain support from both monarchist camps as well as from the conservative Republican right. This interpretation becomes compelling when one takes into account their interpretation of Sidónioââ¬â¢s regime as a question of morals rather than of politics. The restoration of the monarchy may have been sufficient for the good government of the nation, but, according to Sardinha, it was not a necessary condition. Thus armed, the Integralists felt able to present their Sidonista adventure as a means towards an end: "mais do que a simples alteração de forma do governo, é a instauração de toda uma nova ordem que mobiliza os integralistas". Thus we readily observe a key difference between the Portuguese integralists and their French peers - one, moreover, that would not have escaped Proençaââ¬â¢s notice. While Integralism clearly sought to achieve leadership of the Portuguese right, and were prepared to utilise any opportunity that came their way so to do, Action Française under Maurras preferred to maintain an aspect of intellectual superiority and separation from the political battleground.
Both France and Portugal were experiencing distinct political, economic and demographic challenges during the fin-de-siècle period, challenges that had an important bearing on the subsequent development of their respective integralist nationalist movements. Whilst it is fair to state that the Portuguese integralist movement borrowed heavily from Action Française in terms of doctrine and ideology, it is no less clear that Integralismo Lusitano recognised that it would be unwise, even futile, to merely transplant Maurras' thoughts into the Portuguese arena without making several important adjustments to it.
Of the two movements, Action Française was undoubtedly more concerned with maintaining doctrinal purity than with direct intervention in the political process. This political aloofness was to be a continuing trait of the Maurrasian movement that was pursued, at no small cost to the movement's effectiveness, largely through the efforts of Charles Maurras himself. Integralismo Lusitano, on the other hand, had no such qualms concerning intellectual and doctrinal purity. The Portuguese monarchy had only recently been overthrown, a result they argued, of the urban elite's desire to create a system through which, according to Hipólito Raposo, they could "aniquilar o Passadoââ¬Â¦, renegar de todos os valores tradicionaisââ¬Â¦ para que a História de Portugal só começasse no glorioso ano de 1910". This, of course, made Integralism's goal of monarchic restoration much more immediate - in Portugal the iron was still hot, and it would have been irresponsible for integral monarchists to effect a disdain for political action in such an atmosphere.
Where Maurras believed that the nationalist path had been laid out by a supreme navigator and that sentiments had to be raised through a clear explanation of the failures and deceits effected by the democrats, his Portuguese counterparts could, and did, respond that in their situation there was quite simply no time for such a plan and that it was imperative to prevent the Republic from institutionalising itself:
A crise histórica que o nosso paÃÂs atravessa reveste de exigências imperiosas o que noutras condições bem poderia ser apenas para a mocidade culta uma pacÃÂfica atitude psicológica.
Rural Portugal was being ignored, and its role in the nation's success was being minimised. Integralismo Lusitano, as the self-proclaimed defender of the traditional way of life, did all it could to promote dissension and disunity between the urban and rural populations. Unlike Action Française, which was effectively prevented by its leader from actively entering the political arena, Integralismo Lusitano and its followers were on the constant lookout for bandwagons that could be used to bring their message to a larger audience. Where the French movement retained its intellectual disdain for active politics, Integralismo Lusitano threw itself headlong into the battle. Integralist leaders, and many of their followers, were active supporters of the short-lived Monarquia do Norte and Levantamento do Monsanto of 1919. Also, as we have seen above, leading Integralists, including Sardinha, were quite willing to lay their monarchist beliefs to one side in order to participate in Sidónio's New Republic, both as members of its legislature and as its ideologues. Such opportunism, which would have been anathema to Maurras, was, according to the Integralists, essential for keeping their movement at the forefront of nationalist politics. They could not, they believed, afford to be complacent.
Similarly, following the Pact of Paris of April 1922, Integralismââ¬â¢s leaders did not impose a line on its followers as to which claimant they should support in the future. Rather, Integralismo declared itself to be "nationalist in principle, syndicalist in means, monarchist in aim", stating that it would embrace supporters of this policy regardless of their personal dynastic preference. In many respects, this constant repositioning of the Integralist message can be interpreted as its leadership's desire to accept all "bons portugueses" into its ranks, suggesting that Integralismo Lusitano had more in common with other Portuguese monarchist groups rather than with Action Française.
This highlights another important difference between the two movements, that of their respective attitudes towards the monarchy. As we have seen, Action Française, was a primarily royalist organisation that sought to lay the proper foundations for the restoration of the rightful heir of the House of Capet. Although Maurras did briefly accept that it would be possible for a person to rise from the ranks to become king, he nonetheless believed it improbable that even if such a person could establish a claim of legitimacy to that position that he would be able to maintain it. Consequently, he devoted his and Action Française's energies towards forming opinion in favour of the ââ¬Ëtraditionalââ¬â¢ monarchy and the hereditary principle which he believed to be the cornerstone of France's natural, traditional and historical superiority. Kings, he claimed, are not made, but are born. In this sense, therefore, we can quite reasonably state that Action Française was Royalist rather than Monarchist, insofar as Maurras believed that only the head of a family of ancient lineage and with a historic claim to the throne could be considered. In effect, Maurras and Action Française were supporters of a royal line in such a way as it could be claimed that they were "monarchist by means, royalist in aim." Integralismo Lusitano, to the contrary, was much less exercised by this problem. Sardinha's movement sought to present itself as a rallying point for all monarchist factions, and even for conservative non-monarchist supporters of strong government. This attitude can clearly be seen through their active participation in Sidónio's 1918 regime, and by their willingness to grant Pais the title ââ¬ËEl Presidente-Reiââ¬â¢, accepting the belief that certain strong individuals could rise to assume the supreme position without holding any historic claim to that position. Similarly, by accepting, indeed by embracing Sidónio's dictatorship, the Integralistas tacitly accepted that the hereditary principle, which was so important to Charles Maurras, was of secondary importance to the necessity to achieve strong government, despite Raposo's comment that "[Sidónio's] mentalidade, ainda deformada pelo influxo de fortes ligações e por simpatias de antigo jacobino, não podia visionar outras linhas ou outros planos de reforma que não importassem a reincidência nos erros que procurava remediar".
The essential difference between Action Française and Integralismo Lusitano, therefore, was more a difference in method. Both sought to achieve broadly similar ends, but utilised different strategies towards reaching them. These strategies, moreover, were developed and applied largely as a result of the differing historical experiences that had affected the two nations, and of the distinct cultural differences that separated them from each other. Maurras had a wealth of historical evidence to support his theory that the simple imposition of a strong man, with or without popular consent, could be no more than a short term measure, and could in no way be construed as a solution to the problems which had afflicted France since 1789. His main objective, and that of Action Française, was to change the way the French thought about their system of government - he sought to encourage them to unlearn the principles of the Revolution that had brought nothing but instability and decay to a once great nation. Only a return to its historical roots could save France, and this could only be achieved if the French themselves were able to cut through the mist of half-truths and lies that had been perpetuated by the heirs of the Revolutionary cause. In order to do this, he believed, Frenchmen had to take control of their own destinies once more. For Maurras, the essential and fundamental truth was that only the experience of time can lend legitimacy to any institution, and it is only those individuals who are the bearers of that legitimacy who can truly claim to represent the soul of France.
The differences in method, however, indicate a much more significant distinction between the two movements, a distinction that was fundamental to the success of Portuguese Integralists in shaping politics in their country over the following decades. By engaging in direct action and in blatant entryism, Integralismo Lusitano, perhaps more than any other nationalist integralist movement, including Action Française, was able to exercise an influence in Portuguese politics that exceeded by far that which it should have expected by its numerical support. Whilst it was unsuccessful as a political party (a policy that was in any event quickly abandoned following the assassination of Sidónio Pais), its tolerance of internal difference and its opportunistic nature permitted it the flexibility to make tactical alliances where Action Française could not.
Action Françaiseââ¬â¢s policy of doctrinal purity and political aloofness had the twin effect of discouraging potential new members from signing up and of disillusioning existing members who were keen to participate in the political mêlée. This had an ultimately debilitating effect on Action Française's ability directly to effect the political situation in France during the 1920s and led, albeit indirectly, to a proliferation of heterogeneous right wing mini-movements that were distinguished more by the personal differences between their respective leaders than by any clearly obvious ideological goals.
Returning to Proençaââ¬â¢s "straw man", we can admit that the Portuguese Integralists had indeed modelled their organisation and many of their beliefs on those of Action Française, although we must conclude that their tactics and their interpretations were their own, and reflected the reality as it existed in Portugal at the time. Integralismââ¬â¢s willingness to dispense with doctrinal purity in order to pursue promising tactical alliances led it to obtain greater material successes than its French peer did. This was largely the result of the different social, economic and political situations in which the movements operated. Whilst frequent ministerial changes gave the French Third Republic an appearance of almost immanent collapse, it was in fact remarkably durable. It is clear that in these circumstances, Maurras and his followers had a difficult task persuading people that democracy was destined to fail, when it was so apparently surviving. The recent installation of the Portuguese First Republic, and its obvious instability, evident throughout its 16 year life, made for a different set of political circumstances altogether, circumstances that Integralismo Lusitano could exploit to its advantage.
2003-08-27 04:21 | User Profile
First I wish to say how pleased I am to see a Portugese Integralist here.
With respect to the Estado Novo I have very much mixed feelings. I am of course delighted that Salazar stoped Bolshevism and stablized Portugese society. My view of his corporatist doctrine is rather poor in that I don't think he was ever serious about it as a means of intrest articulation which is the heart of anti-parlimentarian corpratist doctrine of any sort. Rather I view the Estado Novo as simply a patronage system designed to bolster the regime. Salazar used principled men of the integral and N-S tradition not for creating a folkish society but to strenghten his rule and he repressed those that helped him in much the same fashion as Franco did. While I hold Salazar in higher regard then Franco I fell that both betrayed genuine National Revolutionaries rather then serve a Folkish/Organic ideal. My criticism of Franco's regime was detailed in a thread on the subject of Falangism and the criticism I have of Franco aplies to Salazar although it's not as harsh.
My interest these matter stems from their ultity in terms of Organicism and economis so hopefully Cruz de Cristo will post more on these matters.
2003-08-27 18:27 | User Profile
Triskalion:
I have read your personal message but have faced some technical difficulty in replying. If you wish to e-mail me please write to: cruz_de_cristo@yahoo.com
Regarding Salazarôs vision of Corporatism, I believe he was sincere in its application but was hindered by the political situation in which he found himself. Salazar was a devoutly religious man and, whether you agree or not with his policies, Salazar was truly convinced that he was serving God and doing the right thing. He found himself in a situation in which he had to balance between pro-Organicist elements and non-Organicist elements. Salazarôs adherence to Statism as a solution to solving this problem is what made the Estado Novoôs organicism superficial and ineffective in the long run. An organic representation has to flow from the bottom, from the various natural communities and professions and regions, upwards to higher levels and canôt be simply legislated into existance by the central government.
2003-08-27 19:52 | User Profile
Hello Cruz de Cristo,
I am delighted to hear from you. I will admit that my last comment was overly harsh with respect to Salazar as he did feel that what he do what thought was was right. I do feel that his version of corporatism was far from genuine and little more then patronage but I believe that such was largely not his fault. You are totally correct that Organicism must flow from the people upwards. Statism is a very flawed doctrine in my mind and one that Eurocentrics should avoid.
I will post the material to you shortly.