Armed Forces Movement

The Armed Forces Movement (Portuguese: Movimento das Forças Armadas; MFA) was an organisation of lower-ranked left-leaning officers in the Portuguese Armed Forces. It was responsible for the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974, a military coup in Lisbon that ended the corporatist New State regime (Estado Novo) in Portugal, the Portuguese Colonial War and led to the independence of the Portuguese overseas territories. The MFA instated the National Salvation Junta (Junta de Salvação Nacional) which functioned between 1974 and 1976, following a communiqué of its president, António de Spínola, at 1:30 a.m. on 26 April 1974.

The military-led coup can be described as the necessary means of bringing back democracy to Portugal, ending the unpopular Colonial War where thousands of Portuguese soldiers had been commissioned into military service, and replacing the authoritarian Estado Novo (New State) regime and its secret police which repressed elemental civil liberties and political freedoms. In addition, academics have published works theorizing that the efforts made by the MFA were not in the strict interest of the people of Portugal or its Overseas Provinces, since the movement was initiated not as an attempt to liberate Portugal from the authoritarian Estado Novo regime, but as an attempt of rebellion against the new Military Laws that were to be presented the next year (Decree Law: Decretos-Leis n.os 353, de 13 de Julho de 1973, e 409, de 20 de Agosto). The Revolution and the whole movement were a way to work against Laws that would reduce military costs and would reformulate the whole Portuguese Military Branch. Younger military academy graduates resented a program introduced by Marcello Caetano whereby militia officers who completed a brief training program and had served in the overseas territories' defensive campaigns, could be commissioned at the same rank as military academy graduates. Caetano's Portuguese Government had begun the program (which included several other reforms) in order to increase the number of officials employed against the African insurgencies, and at the same time cut down military costs to alleviate an already overburdened government budget.

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