Fascism, colonialism and revolution: a reading of Eduardo Lourenço

Abstract

Product from a critical reading of Eduardo Lourenço's book O Fascismo NuncaExistiu (Fascism Never Existed) - an anthology of articles previously published between 1959 and 1976 -, this text tries, first of all, to determine exactly the meaningof what Eduardo Lourenço has successively said, as time was going on, about some major issues of the Portuguese national question: that of fascism, that of colonialism and that of revolution. To this purpose, he distinguishes two parts in his book: the first fills a long period of time, as it goes from 1959 till the 28^th September 1974; the second begins seven months after the end of the first one, lefting therefore behind the 11^th March 1975 and the April elections in the same year. Along two chapters the author summarizes the ideological and political evolution of Eduardo Lourenço, as far as that evolution is reflected in O Fascismo Nunca Existiu. But in third chapter he adopts a critical attitude that leads him to formulate, under a certain perspective, fundamental questions that try to direct themselves not only to Eduardo Lourenço but also to everyone concerned with the crucial issues of the national historical actuality. «One cannot remake history» says the author, «but one needs to know how to draw consequences from what was done in it. And what was done was to increase the «national historical debility», that Eduardo Lourenço considers to be the «matrix of fascism». A debility that is expressed under three characteristics in Portugal: the economic and social backwardness, the permanent hesitation of the Portuguese concerning the collective fate that is their own and the traditional feebleness of the civil society before the State.