The use [and refuse] of “progress” and “technology” as ideals of the Portuguese Estado Novo regime: a possible analysis of Lições de Salazar posters, 1938

Résumé

From 1926 to 1974, Portugal went through a far-right dictatorship regime. At first, the main concern was to validate its arrival to power by presenting itself as the regime that was finally able to save the nation from previous circumstances. In order to achieve this, it was necessary to demonstrate how the government had the capacity of hauling the nation to the so-called developed countries level of progress. In 1938 seven posters entitled Lições de Salazar were printed and affixed at every school. Six represented different viewpoints of Salazar’s economic miracle; the seventh represented the moral values over which education should be established, and hence the Nation. Through these posters analysis a contradictory message is perceived: the pressure to employ “progress” and “technology” as propaganda concepts, but also the reluctance in its use, since these notions were commonly associated to a “disruptive modernity”, contrary to a conservative regime conscience.