Francisco Rolão Preto

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Francisco Rolão Preto
Francisco Rolão Preto
Leader of the National Syndicalist Movement
In office
15 February 1932 – 29 July 1934
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byOffice abolished
Personal details
Born(1893-02-12)12 February 1893
Lisbon, Portugal
Political partyNational Syndicalists (1932–1934)
People's Monarchist Party (1974–1977)
SpouseAmália Boavida Godinho
Children2
Alma materUniversity of Toulouse

Francisco de Barcelos Rolão Preto,

Francisco Higino Craveiro Lopes, and, ultimately, had a particularly important role (campaign press manager) in the 1958 campaign of another Salazar's opponent, General Humberto Delgado.[4]

After the Revolution of April 25, with Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles, Henrique Barrilaro Ruas, João Camossa de Saldanha, Augusto Ferreira do Amaral, Luís Coimbra, among others, he founded the People's Monarchist Party.

In 1994, the Portuguese President Mário Soares granted him, posthumously, the Great Cross of the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator.[5]

The national syndicalists

The national syndicalists, also called the "Blue Shirts" (camisas azuis), following the tradition of uniformed

right-wing paramilitary groups, was an organisation advocating syndicalism and unionism, inspired by Benito Mussolini's brand of Italian fascism. As Rolão Preto wrote in July 1922, "our organic syndicalism is essentially the basis of current syndicalist thought among Mussolini’s friends".[6] MNS was also built on previous allegiances to Integralismo Lusitano, but it was not inspired by the Action Française as alleged by their adversaries.[7]

He advocated especially the personalism of Emmanuel Mounier and some of the aspects of unionism. His unionist platform was based on leftist ideas of social justice, such as "a minimum family wage", "paid holidays", "working class education", and a world in which workers are "guaranteed the right to happiness".

Early life

Cutting short his

Université Catholique
there.

Rolão Preto had to flee Belgium when

Gomes da Costa, even before the 28 May 1926 coup d'état which established the Ditadura Nacional, and edited the 12 points the coup leaders published in Braga
.

Against Salazar's regime

In 1930, he approached

national syndicalism and as editor of the Diário Académico Nacionalista da Tarde, first published in 1932, which soon changed its name to the Diário Nacional-Sindicalista da Tarde. He founded the Blue Shirts, which used the Order of Christ Cross, displayed the Roman salute, and became very popular in universities and among the youngest officers of the Portuguese Army
.

The Preto personality cult grew in 1933 as the movement took to the streets and Preto engaged himself in a national propaganda tour. Preto became a regular presence at Italian Embassy receptions.

German Nazi Party became regularly attended at the rallies of Preto´s movement.[8] In the summer of 1933, the Civil Governors were instructed to prohibit public National Syndicalist demonstrations but Preto's followers managed to organize demonstrations, hiring a tugboat to greet the Italian Fascist leader Italo Balbo when he visited Lisbon.[9] Preto also started to organize militias(Shock Brigades). According to Police reports the Lisbon Brigade, known as the Black Brigade (Brigada Negra), composed of about 60 men, became quite active on the streets.[10]

After a long meeting with the chief of the political police, Salazar decided to dissolve the National Syndicalist Movement. On 4 July 1934 Preto was briefly detained and later exiled as part of purge of the leadership of the National Syndicalist Movement. Salazar denounced the National Syndicalists as "inspired by certain foreign models" and their "exaltation of youth, and the cult of force through direct action, the principle of the superiority of state political power in social life, [and] the propensity for organizing masses behind a single leader" as fundamental differences between fascism and the Catholic corporatism of the New State.[10] The British Embassy informed London with some satisfaction stating that the Portuguese National Syndicalist Movement took "its inspiration from the Italian Embassy" and described Preto as a "vain man with a strong sense of intrigue".[10]

Preto ended up opposing the Salazar's regime for being too moderate and due to Salazar's refusal to turn the emerging corporative state into a truly fascist regime.[11] Preto resided, for a while, in Valencia de Alcántara, near the border with Castelo de Vide, and then in Madrid, as a guest in the house of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, with whom he collaborated in formulating a program for the Falange.

Preto returned to Portugal in February 1935, and was once more detained after instigating a September rebellion with the crew of the Bartolomeu Dias and the garrison in the Lisbon-area Penha de França. Again exiled, he fought in the Spanish Civil War on Francisco Franco's side.

Preto returned, once more, to Portugal in the eve of the Second World War and published new editions of his work on Italian Fascism originally written in 1922. Preto placed high hopes on the Berlin-Rome axis, and in his introduction to Fascism (O Fascismo), he attacked the Salazar regime and exalted Italian and German Fascism.[2] With the rise of Nazism in Germany and Fascism in Italy, Rolao Preto was optimistic about the future of European fascism, he pinned all of his hopes on an Axis victory, and confronted those who were not "real fascists" but wished to adopt aspects of fascism.[3]

After

Bourgeois Betrayal"). The book criticised fascist regimes for becoming victims of social and political compromises with the bourgeoisie.[4] In 1945 he thought that "neither the glorious clarions of nationalist mysticism nor the powerful social projections of Nazi efforts can make us forget what Nazism represented — the deception of the revolutionary hopes that gave birth to National Socialism".[4]

In 1949 participated in

Francisco Higino Craveiro Lopes, and, ultimately, had a particularly important role (campaign press manager) in the 1958 campaign of another New State dissident, General Humberto Delgado.[4]

Later years

After the fall of the Estado Novo regime Preto attempted to unite the monarchist movement behind Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles's Movimento Popular Monárquico. Preto was one of the leaders of the Movimento (People's Monarchist Party) in the period between the Carnation Revolution (1974) and his death (1977).

In 1994, the Portuguese President Mário Soares granted him, posthumously, the Great Cross of the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator.[12]

Marriage and children

He married Amália de Brito Boavida Godinho (b. Fundão, Alpedrinha), and had two children:

  • Francisco Godinho Rolão Preto (b. Fundão, Soalheira), married to Maria Isabel Correia da Silva Mendes; and
  • Maria Teresa Godinho Rolão Preto (b. Fundão, Soalheira), married to Eduardo Teixeira Gomes.

Sources

  • ISBN 088033-9829
    .
  • S. U. Larsen, B. Hagtvet & J. P. Myklebust, Who Were the Fascists: Social Roots of European Fascism, Oslo, 1980
  • ISBN 9780299148737
    . rolao preto.

References

  1. ^ Probably the day of his christening.
  2. ^ a b Costa Pinto 2000, p. 15.
  3. ^ a b c d Costa Pinto 2000, p. 16.
  4. ^ a b c d e Costa Pinto 2000, p. 223.
  5. ^ ."Francisco Rolão Preto". Presidency of the Portuguese Republic. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
  6. ^ Preto, R., ‘Crónica social’, Nação Portuguesa, 2ª série, Nº 1, July 1922, p. 34.
  7. ^ José Hipólito Raposo, Dois Nacionalismos - L'Action française e o Integralismo Lusitano, Lisboa, Férin, 1929.
  8. ^ a b Costa Pinto 2000, p. 229.
  9. ^ Costa Pinto 2000, p. 173.
  10. ^ a b c Costa Pinto 2000, p. 112.
  11. ISBN 978-1929631902
    .
  12. ^ ."Francisco Rolão Preto". Presidency of the Portuguese Republic. Retrieved 30 April 2015.

External links

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