Land reform in the fields of southern Portugal (1975): a revolution in the revolution

Abstract

Held on April 25, 1974, soon the coup that overthrew the dictatorship led to a revolutionary process under which, in southern Portugal, the intensification of the struggle for better wages, working conditions and job security among rural workers, with particular emphasis on the casual workers and the farmers, gave rise to a powerful movement of land occupations, something that makes agrarian reform effective – its legal framework will happen only with the fourth and fifth Provisional Governments led by Vasco Gonçalves, with Fernando Oliveira Baptista as the secretary of Agriculture. In this process of land occupations, which takes place throughout the year 1975, there are three phases, characterized in connection with the progress of the political situation in the country and, therefore, with the agrarian policy of the state over this period. We use a wide range of sources, some new as the documentation of political parties, the sources of trade unions and workers’ councils, the legal provisions regarding the process and the image bank of the public television, RTP. We highlight in this article two main conclusions from the research that we’ve carried: 1) agrarian reform is a process that begins with the spontaneous occupations of land and the political parties will respond to this process trying to control it; 2) land reform is determined by a model based on collective production units and maximizing employment in rural areas.