‘The orquestra of economic sabotage’: discursive radicalization and labour unrest during the Portuguese Revolution (1974-75)

Abstract

The subject of ‘economic sabotage’ gained a decisive importance during the Portuguese revolutionary process of 1974-75. The diversity of meanings it assumed, of situations in which it was employed and of effects it produced, offered it a fundamental role, as the guideline of a narrative economy that portrayed the country’s main business man as conspiring members of a counterrevolutionary plot. This article sustains that the articulation between an ever bigger State economic intervention and social conflicts was a key element in the radicalization of the revolutionary process, making the performance of commercial banks a decisive subject of political struggle.