The Blue Shirts : Portuguese fascists and the new state

Focuses on the National Syndicalist Movement of the early 1930's, exploring its defeat in 1935 by Oliveira Salazar, the rising Catholic dictator of Portugal, and comparing the entire history of Portuguese fascism to other projections of fascism worldwide. This book about Portuguese fascism focuses on the National Syndicalist Movement (Nacional Sindicalismo, NS) led by Rolão Preto, and its relations with the Salazar regime. Like other cases where the crisis and downfall of democracy was led by authoritarian elites either in opposition to or alliance with the fascists, this study aims to analyse the factors that led to the rise of fascism, as well as the conditions for its success in the inter-war period. In this work on Portuguese authoritarianism in the context of European fascism, Pinto focuses on the National Syndicalist Movement of the early 1930's. He explores its defeat in 1935 by Oliveira Salazar, the rising Catholic dictator of Portugal, and compares the entire history of Portuguese fascism to other projections of fascism worldwide.