António de Oliveira Salazar
125 years ago on April 28th 1889 in Vimieiro near Santa Comba Dão ( Viseu ) António de Oliveira Salazar was born , an economist and a Catholic statesman a ("mystic devoted to God and numbers"); he came from the lower classes, entered the seminary and received lower ordination, but did not become a priest (although he remained in lifelong celibacy); Co-founder (1913) – with the later Cardinal – Patriarch of Lisbon, Fr . M. Gonçalves Cerejeira and future president of the parliament of the New M. de Figueiredo – of the Academic Centre for Christian Democracy (Centro de Democracia Académico Crist), transformed in 1917 into the Catholic Portuguese Centre (Centro Catolico Português), on whose behalf he became a deputy in 1921 but after the first meeting gave his mandate up because of his disgust with the customs of parliamentary democracy; since 1918 a Professor of Economics at the Coimbra University; after the military coup in 1926 he was offered the ministry of finance, but resigned after five days as well after the military did not adopt his stringent conditions on the budget; only undertook this mission again in April 1928 when his terms were accepted; the financial "Miracle” accomplished by him (the stabilisation of currency, convertibility and a return to the gold standard, a positive balance of the budget – for the first time since 1854) provided him with legitimacy to gradually take over full power and reconstruction of the system into an authoritarian form of governance – the so-called New State (Estado Novo), consistent with the conservative-nationalist ideas of its creator (influenced by, besides the papal social encyclicals, by "integral nationalism" of Ch . Maurras especially) however, criticised by the Portuguese integralists’ (as well as their national –syndicalist fascist faction) for not restoring the monarchy and Caesarism; from 5th of July 1932 to the 27th of September 1968 a Prime Minister of Portugal with actual dictatorial powers (a unique civilian dictatorship of an intellectual and so-called system of Prime Minister presidentialism based on the confidence of the President of the Republic, which could theoretically dismiss the prime minister at any time ), a Minister of Finance (until 1940), of Foreign Affairs (1939-1944) and defense (1961-1962) at the same time and President 18th of April – August 9th 1951; supported Alzamiento Nacional, sending the volunteer Legion of Viriatos, and the rule of General Franco ( Iberian Pact ) in Spain ; During the Second World War he allowed the British the usage of a base in the Azores; under his rule in 1949 Portugal entered into NATO as one of its founding members; during the last decades in power he had to contend with a communist aggression in the overseas territories (Ultramar) of the Portuguese Empire; conceded after a brain haemorrhage; he died in 1970.
prof. Jacek Bartyzel
translated by Arek Jakubczyk
Kategoria: Reactionary Diary
