50 anos de abril em Portugal: uma revolução de veludo?

In Europe, the Carnation Revolution marked the end of the revolutionary cycle opened in 1917 by the Russian Revolution. It was the result of a military uprising triggered by junior officers in the Portuguese Armed Forces. It put an end to a four-decade fascist and colonialist dictatorship and made Portugal a unique case in the processes of “democratic transition” in the second half of the 20th century, since its origin was revolutionary and not agreed upon. Based on a broad overview of the PREC (The Ongoing Revolutionary Process) [Processo Revolucionário em Curso], the article aims to highlight this revolutionary rupture which, although halted, has been directly responsible for the quality of “Portuguese democracy” since then. In the end, we point to the reconstruction of the unity of the working class and its revolutionary party as a historical requirement of April for the present time.