Revolutionaries before the Revolution. Students’ mobilization and political radicalization at the end of the Portuguese New State

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze the role of the students’ movement in the process of social mobilization and political radicalization that characterized the last years of the Estado Novo, before the fall of the regime and the start of the revolutionary process. Until some years ago, the studies on Portuguese students’ movement considered the 1969’s crisis as the most relevant event during the last period of the Estado Novo’s life: the Marcelismo. Nevertheless, more recent analyses show strong mobilizations and a process of political radicalization in the university milieu from the beginning of the 1970s, under the influence of new radical left-wing groups. This mobilization anticipated numerous claims and part of the contention repertoire itself at the base of the revolutionary process.