ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to show that an understanding of the golpe and the period of exception does not require the abandonment of conventional assumptions about what constitutes a revolution. Immediately after the golpe the Moviinento das Forgas Armadas (MFA) created the Board of National Salvation composed of seven sympathetic, high-ranking officers chosen to give the movement legitimacy. The elections for the constituent assembly brought to the fore civilian political forces which heretofore had not played a critical role in the events of the period of exception. The constituent assembly election legitimated these forces and brought civilian political elites into the struggle for control of the "situation." The various factions within the MFA were maneuvering to gain control of the "situation," a wave of spontaneous, non-elite activity broke over Portugal. The period of exception can be seen as the reemergence of the crisis as well as the crisis of distribution and a new search for solutions by elites.
