coup - ine government's provocation, for example, in dismissing Carvalho - ine minary 'adventure nas allowed the right, at a time when it was on the retreat. to take ine initiative again. Responsibility for this set-back lies clearly with such ultra-lett groups as the MES and PRP who had been agitating for an 'immediate insurrectColonel Neves: put down coup.
Such groups no doubt hoped that the uprising of military units in the cap•al would spread, like a spark, in he armed forces and the workers! movement. They probably based this assumption on the growing anti-government campaign launched by he Stalinists, in alliance with them, since last August. «hich had led to increasingly adenturist acts such as the disastrous occupation' in Faro last October, specialised in demagogic appeals to seoples! power'.
What the ultra-lett dian't realise -or realised too late - was inal ine S:alinists' campaign was merely... semagogy. It was designed purely as = cover to pressurise the military -to granting them those positions ir -e government from which they had seen ousted, last August, by the Socialist Party.
while prepared to go along with seriain adventuristic acts - which with the AFM - they were never preaared to directly challenge them.
After all, denunciations of the -ghtists' within the government •ere always accompanied by calls •or the re-instatement of 'revolutomary officers' sympatneric to une Communist Party, such as General Concalves.
Ir's is the reason why, when lic coup took place, ine Stalinists suickly disassociated themselves •mom it to the extent o arstriburny ealers in the capital appealing for their guilt was twotold since, ..-!e encouraging this type of adthey left the other groups : = axe :he consequences alone.