What happened essencially was that, with the fall of fascism in the 1940's, the regime switched from an ideological one to a maintenance regime. This was the end of an era and delegitimized the Estado Novo rule.

The colonies were redefined as "overseas territory" and there was a huge effort to make it look like Portugal was a multiracial nation that spread over the continents. The UN didn' t buy this however, and Portugal lost international support.

The isolationism of the regime eventually obliged Salazar to change its policy. The "proudly alone" policies were starting to fall apart, and the modernisation required made the regime lose its ideological legitimacy, ruralism, isolation, traditionalism and nationalism.

Portugal began to join international organisations like the WTO to save the regime. The very protectionist policies were failing.

Also, ruralism fell because of a simple reason - in 1939-45, emmigration was no option, and as such the country had a demographic boom. Agriculture could no more be the foundation of Portuguese society - and the subsequent rural exodus forced a shifting of the economy towards a more industrialist approach. This created a new class of miserable workers.

Eventually, very much like Stalin's 5-year plans, the government introduced modernisation plans. The regime was losing all of its core ideology and became just another dictatorship trying to survive.

Meanwhile, the liberation of Africa was underway. First India retook Goa, and then the liberation spread to the most oppressed of continents.

The revolutionary wars started with the massacre at Baixa do Cassange, when striking Angolan forced labourers were napalmed by the Portuguese Air Force. They then retaliated.

As the wars evolved, the situation was worsening for Portugal. The war in Portuguese Guinea was lost (PAIGC even had AA-missiles that made air support dangerous), Portugal was fighting in three fronts (Guinea, Angola, Mozambique).

The military was not satisfied. Many wanted a peaceful solution. Many, including António de Spínola, a general who was in favour of liberalising the regime and increasing civil liberties.

Later on, the lack of officers in the armed forces made the government pass a law that facilitated non-career military person to ascend in rank. It's implementation was however poorly thought out, and lead to the creation of the "movement of captains", that would eventually be responsible for toppling the regime.

It should also be added that inflation in Portugal with the 197d3 oil crisis rounded 60% in many important household products. There was an economic crisis that weakened stability.

There was also a political crisis - Salazar's successor had attempted to liberalise the regime and increase civil liberties, letting a " liberal wing" join the single party. Among these were people such as Francisco Sá Carneiro, important right-liberal politician after the revolution. The liberalisation was very weak however, since the hard-line conservatives, the "ultras", were pushing hard for nothing to change. The single party's name changed, the political police changed its name, little else changed in effect.

Portugal's political scene had stagnated. The economy had stagnated. The war was being lost. People wanted change.

I have a teacher who told me that, when the revolution was happening, more precisely, when the crowds knew of the ongoing coup, they supported if without knowing who were the revolutionaries. Left or right, they wanted change. Peace, freedom and bread, essentially.

What started as a coup had such a large popular support (even though the revolutionaries on the radio urged the people to stay at home for their safety) that the reactionary forces had serious reasons to believe they couldn't win. Popular power is what made the coup a revolution, and what made it so bloodless (five civilians were however shot dead by the political police when they where besieged by the army and protesters).

This is not very well structured, mostly since it's dawn and I am writing on my phone. Do more that I am left-wing biased. I am not a historian nor a history student, and am still yet to enter university.

Good night.

Before the 1926 revolution, Portugal had a parliamentary regime that was immensely unstable and changed governments by the month. The 1st republic had failed, in great part due to its irrational anti-catholic stance and how it cost popular support and triggered reactionary movements.

In 1926, the Military Dictatorship started. After that, came the National Dictatorship in 1928, presided by a general who picked Salazar for finance minister in 1930. He would have joined the government earlier, had he been granted immediately his prerequisite of supremacy of the finance ministry over the rest of the government. He implemented strict policies in regards to raising taxes and cutting spending. Not much later, he became head of government, and this began the "New state", a very catholic approach to fascism that was more focused on tradition than Mussolini's fascism, maintaining the corporativism regime, the paramilitary organisations, the single-party state, nationalism, authority (Salazar's most famous speech contains " we do not question the authority", said in the voice of a teacher of 6 year-olds), and the syndicalist organisations. Portugal even had a version of "Kraft durch Freude", the FNAT.