Mój portugalski przyjaciel Jorge Silva Paulo (ekspert w zakresie wojskowych spraw morskich) skomentował majowy blog , w którym porównałem ustrojowe meandry Polski i Portugalii.
Jego uwagi, które zamieszczam w całości, stanowią fascynującą lekturę.
I was fascinated by your essay and facts you assembled (Przemyslaw Grudziński - Um Conto de Dois Países (para a letra P) (przemyslawgrudzinski.pl)). I bet I am just one among many to feel that.
But I am not qualified to discuss it.
I am not an expert on Salazar. I know really little about Poland history and politics. And I never read Eliade, before you cited it. His 1941-1945 diary was published in portuguese in 2008; it is very difficult to find now (but I will, and will read it, soon).
And yet, I am going to discuss it, more in an analytic approach than as an opinion.
On a first and very superficial impression, to bring together any current Polish politician and Salazar seems far fetched.
However, intellectual analysis and discussions should not be biased by first impressions, and even less stopped by them.
Of course, History does not repeat itself; but great similarities may become apparent, as one climbs the levels of abstraction.
This can be the case, when one realizes similarities in nationalism, conservatism, authoritarianism, and perhaps popularity between Salazar and, say, Jarosław Kaczyński.
On the other hand, I suppose few would discord that there are major differences between them in context and constraints and incentives.
These are the points I consider on my review, roughly guided by your essay.
Let me start by noting some facts.
I am not aware of a serious illness of Salazar in 1942, as Eliade mentions. Whatever health problems he had then, they were not major influences on either his conduct nor policies.
Also, it is not at all a consensual view that Salazar was a totalitarian; nor his regime. Nobody disputes he was a dictator, that he presided over a repressive regime, and that he admired Mussolini until the early 1930s. But he explicitly rejected totalitarian regimes, like communism and fascism, and his regime, “New State”, accepted some political debate. What Salazar and the political practice rejected in absolute was communism and active communists, and diminishing the hero figure or the authority of Salazar. Most of the people understood these constraints and kept away from trouble. I had a communist uncle, who was one of the most distinguished mathematicians until the 1960s, who became vice-rector of the high-school where he taught since the mid-1960s (did not reach the top, because he was deaf for decades).
Next, Salazar was not involved in the 1926 coup d’État. It was a totally military affair (like many that had occurred in the previous hundred years, as in Spain). In 1926, Salazar was invited to be Finance Minister, due to the conservative and economic opinions he published in the previsous decade; but it was only in 1928 that the military was ready to accept his condition to enter the job: he (Salazar) would decide financial policy and public expenditure unchallenged. And so he did, for forty years.
Salazar’s dictatorship emerged from the military dictatorship, overpowering the military in two years (1928-1930), by cutting public expenditure until there was a superavit. It was a show of nationalism, because the alternative was to borrow from a syndicate organized by the League of Nations, with the consequent portuguese loss of sovereignty. It proved one of Salazar´s famous slogans: “proudly alone”. It was also a show of conservatism, because Salazar believed that the masses should be “poor, but honored”. And it was a show of authoritarianism, as his first speech showed: “I know what I want and where I am going”. Many generals disliked being subordinated to a young civilian, but no one in the military knew how to do better, and the doubters were progressively marginalized. The submission of the military by and to Salazar is perhaps a greater achievement than the control of public finances – but is, in fact, more nuanced than the first impressions suggest. Of course, he had absolutely unswerving military officers working for him, that served under him all their careers: “the lieutenants of 1926”. And so, he was, with no reaction of the highest ranks of the military, also Minister of War (1936-1944) and Defense (1961-1962).
Because of all that, or despite of all that (a much longer discussion), Salazar was very popular. Bearing in mind that emmigration was in full swing, and many young men were dying or getting wounded in the colonial wars, how to explain the hundreds of thousands of poor and common people that wanted to pay their respects to the deceased (away from power for 2 years), or just his coffin passing by in a train? To no portuguese was ever addressed this show of emotion: The death of Oliveira Salazar / A morte de Salazar, 1970. - YouTube
Salazar´s flavour of nationalism could be called imperialism: Salazar, as the republican leaders and activists in 1910-1926, were very much in favour of the Portuguese Empire (Angola, Moçambique, Índia, Timor, Guiné, Cabo Verde e S.Tomé e Príncipe). Salazar was supported by intelectuals on the left when he decided to defend the colonies in 1961 from the invasion (India) and insurgencies that erupted in most of the rest.
More recently, researchers have shown that Catholic Church, and mostly its Rerum Novarum Doctrine, were means to Salazar´s ends of political domination. He was a pious catholic, but never mixed religion and politics, except to serve his policies and ends. He made very clear to his great and old friend from Coimbra, the Patriarch Cerejeira, that he (Salazar) was in charge of the country and its people – not the Church nor any of its priests. And that was clear when he expelled some priests, and forced Oporto Bishop Gomes to exile in 1959, for criticising the fake 1958 presidential elections.
Also related to the Rerum Novarum Doctrine is the Corporatist Doctrine, that Salazar also said to embrace, to the point of making it the essence of the 1933 Constitution. However, it was not until the 1950s that corporations were created, and they were all dominated by the State. It was an authoritarian corporatist model, far away from the concept of “family” on each sector or self-organization advocated by Manoilesco. Again, Salazar used religion and catholic doctrine for his authoritarian political ends.
Last, but not least, Cardeal Stefan Wyszyński is factually wrong when he asserts that Portugal became prosperous with Salazar. Salazar’s idea of prosperity was based on small property rural subsistence living; he praticed it on his own holidays in his homeland of Vimieiro, near Santa Comba Dão (Viseu). He did not aprove of most of the elites; had to accept them, and live with them (failed romantic affairs early in Coimbra are said to explain this). It was only by the end of the 1950s that he accepted the pressure of economists for free trade, and adhesion to EFTA, as the only way to increase the prosperity of the masses (mostly by industrialization, through european foreign investment and technology transfer). By then, his early ideas of making Portugal self-sufficient on bread, by forcing Alentejo to specialize on wheat production, and focusing the fisheries on subsistence and cod had completely failed. It should be noted that, also, by the 1950s, Franco also accepted in Spain the pressure of economists for free trade; but Franco also accepted many more technocratic views, and industrialization went much further than in Portugal (although standards of living did not improve much in comparison to Portugal; but they started much below, in 1939, Spain being in ruins after the Civil War).
It is also consensual that Salazar´s expressed his authoritarian views in the way he saw the People – ie, for him, the masses. He thought that politics should be left to the Government; the People should just be thankful for what God had given them, and for having someone (him) that just lives to take care of the People. His sucessor, Marcello Caetano, did not differ much, but had a nuanced view: he was a reformist, and also thought that the People should only care about their economic and social welfare; Government would listen to the People on that, and tried to improve prosperity in the aggregate and of individuals, but politics would still be restricted to an elite of politicians.
(It is a matter for concern that many politicians on the left in Portugal since 2005 adhere to this view: the masses just have to care about their social and economic welfare, and leave politics to politicians. It appears to me that polish politicians are following the same path.)
I think I mentioned enough facts to show why there was a divergence between Europe of Integration and The Communities, Europe of The Rule of Law, and Portugal of Salazar.
Much more debatable is the context and the constraints and incentives.
Salazar was assumedly antiliberal and antidemocratic, in an epoch (1920s and 1930s) when those views were mainstream; democracy and liberalism became discredited during the 1920s, and authoritarian and even totalitarian views were tolerated, even admired, by many in most countries, not anglophone, as a means to have peace.
These days, even the nationalist and far right parties in Europe, talk about democracy, and say they are in favour – most likely, as the communists, when it suits them. Like Erdogan said once: “democracy is like a bus”. Many politicians think they can act cannily against democracy, but cannot say they are against it – and even less against elections.
Salazar was also convinced that Portugal should keep out of WWII, not just because war creates all sorts of disruptions, that he sought to avoid, but also as a reaction against First Republic (1910-1926) leaders (failed) ideas, that entering WWI on the side of the winners was the best way to keep the Empire and even acruing territory. It was not even clear to Salazar, until perhaps 1944 who would be the winners.
Also, in line with his nationalism, Salazar disdained of the Americans, whose foreign policies he thought were immature. Salazar only ceded airbases to the USA and the UK, after 1943, in the Azores, under the threat of losing sovereignty over those islands. Portugal even rejected the Marshall Plan to avoid any loss of sovereignty. In 1951, it accepted military aid through the Military Security Plan, the sucessor to the Marshall Plan, only as a means to ensure interoperability with other NATO allies. Again, it was because of the Azores that Portugal is a founding member of NATO; and again, against the inclinations of Salazar – although the military, even Salazar´s most committed supporters, were very much in favour.
Salazar was an isolationist, even when it was not mainstream in Europe and the USA.
Poland is a member of the European Union.
However much Polish leaders subscribe to values of nationalism, conservatism, and authoritarianism, or the exultation of the family, like Salazar, they also need – and, so far as I understand, want – the money that comes from the EU to maintain the popularity needed to win elections and remain in power.
I see no sign of Polish leaders wanting to leave the EU.
Also, Poland is very much aligned with the USA and American foreign policy, since Polish leaders feel the USA is their best ally, given the Russian long living existential threat. Polish leaders are much more internationalist, even in its support of Ukraine, than Salazar ever was of any other country or politician (“proudly alone”); not even Spain or South Africa deserved any sort of magnanimous support.
I am not sure that Polish leaders conservatism or nationalism goes as far as Salazar´s, and embrace a poor life as a healthy and God-blessed life, as Salazar did after he left Coimbra. But who knows if Kaczyński would be like Salazar, if he lived in the 1930s? How much of his positions depend on context or of his reasoning, is someone´s guess, I think.
What one would wish is just that the context in Poland does not become too similar to the 1930s, so that our uncertainty is not eliminated by the realization of the worst scenario: a backward dictatorship, as Salazar presided.
I have a concluding thought.
Politicians that bet on the masses dumbness, that just care about own wealth (money in their pockets, in a nutshell) and hedonistic welfare, may have a winning bet – at least, almost always.
There may be a good reason for this: the complexity of modern societies may be too much for the average citizen and so it is better value-for-time to concentrate on wealth and welfare. It is simple, and it is direct; it gives straight “answers”.
It makes sense: economics, politics, administration of justice, administration of health systems, healthcare, international and national security, etc. are all matters highly specialized, about which most people do not even know which are the right questions to enquire to understand the problems – let alone having the tools to evaluate policies and politicians. This all points to superficiality: evaluation by wealth, welfare and image. And what is worse: even the elites are superficial in most subjects, because nobody has the capacity to digest all complex matters, not even in the few areas exemplified in this paragraph. In a sense, we are all amateurs – in all the subjects where we have not an academic or professional background, or in which we dealt a long time ago and forgot many subtleties. It is not like riding a bicycle.
This is fertile ground for demagogues (or populists, as demagogues are called these days).
But also to those that appear to stand on a higher moral ground.
Both these groups images appeal to the masses, because both sound good and “ethical”.
What I hypothesize is that both are as vulnerable as any other politician or party, to losses of wealth or welfare; these are the independent variables.
There should be the ocasional exception; there always are exceptions in human matters. But I would hypothesize that exceptions will be very grievous situations, where the masses feel they are so damaging to their welfare, that wealth is not the most important issue in that particular case.
Of course, The People are not only the masses.
How can the “not-the-masses” feel accomplished in a society geared by most politicians to wealth and hedonistic welfare, since that is what the majority values and aims for?
That is a matter for individual opinion about how one leads its own life, very far from the matters your essay summoned, and goes much beyond the analysis I undertook about your essay – that I thought would be much shorter.
Sorry for being too long!
And thank you for the unique opportunity to ponder about these very important matters to the “not-the-masses”!