ABSTRACT
Demonstrations in the streets, rumors of plots in the military, and arrests made at night marked the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Caetano government in 1974. In the parched Alentejo, Communist organizers found fertile soil among the local peasantry to rail against the wealthy while they promised a new revolutionary society. The radical and nondemocratic path Portugal was treading helped draw the mainstream parties together and made them exert pressure on the government to hold true to its promise of national elections. Consequently, the MFA leadership found itself bound to the schedule of elections that had been established in the immediate wake of the Revolution—whereby a Constituent Assembly election had been set for April 25, 1975, with the presidential contest to occur one year later. Portugal avoided the systemic political breakdown that afflicted other countries in the face of such difficult economic and political conditions.
