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Europe’s elite are worried once again
NICK WRIGHT recalls the Portuguese revolution and its degradation, arguing that now the pay-off for neoliberalism is spent, socialism is back with a bang
Young socialists march in London, summer 2018

PORTUGUESE medic Carlos Placido de Sousa was exiled to Britain following a daring prison break in January 1960 which freed the leadership of the Portuguese Communist Party.

A quiet man, tall, bookish and modest, it was De Sousa who both procured the drugs used to immobilise the guards in the fearsome Peniche fortress and drove one of the getaway vehicles.

With the notorious PIDE secret police on their tails, the revolutionaries went underground and into exile. For years De Sousa led the work of the PCP in Britain and edited the internationally renowned Portuguese and Colonial Bulletin which was the English language voice of the PCP’s strategy which culminated in the April 25 Carnation revolution.

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