Red Moles: a portrait of the Portuguese communists in the struggle against the New State through their memories

Abstract

This paper draws on the memories of communists, libertarians, socialists or simple opponents to the regime of Military Dictatorship and the Portuguese Estado Novo (1926-1974), to help establish a characterization of these people, and particularly the communists – who were they, how did they become militants, what did they become?
From the elements that could be used for this analysis, we’ve chosen –according to a hierarchy of priorities and to limit the size of the study– the role of education in political activism, work, clandestinity, repression and the evidence of what we call ‘the dark side of an elite group of brave people ‘: the extreme sectarianism of the Communists in relation to their comrades who leave or are separated from the party and those who claim to belong to the same social and political field (the working classes and their organizations), which seemed to contrast with a ‘constructive’ attitude towards other sectors of the opposition to Salazar and with the attitudes of elements with other political affiliations.