The importance of being Ferreira de Castro… political repression and the opposition of “intellectuals” under the “Estado Novo”

Abstract

The “New State”, commonly called “Portuguese Fascism”, a corporative system with a unique ideology and “one party” system, deployed its political police that dealt with a variety of cases according to each person’s ideology, their social status or individual importance. The “intellectuals”, for the most part, exerted from the beginning opposition in defense of freedom, having been, however, subjected to a different repression, i.e. depending on whether these intellectuals were simply liberals or communists, according to their overt criticism against the regime or their literary importance. Ferreira de Castro was a nationally and internationally consecrated writer. As such, by examining his case, it becomes obvious that despite his participation in almost all the pacific actions directed against the New State (that were described and surveilled by the police), he was not victim of excessively violent repression, such as prison, torture or a loss of political rights.