"The PS's attitude is incomprehensible. The PS's attitude is allowing a presentation of the events of November 25 with Jaime Neves as the hero, and killing what happened on November 26, what Melo Antunes did," defended Pacheco Pereira, referring to the fact that this military and political leader at the time opposed the illegalization of the PCP.

The historian was speaking at a debate about November 25, 1975, organized by the commemorative commission for the 50th anniversary of April 25 at the Rectory of the University of Lisbon.

Pacheco Pereira stressed that, in 1975, there was "an atmosphere of civil war, of division in the country, with deep social roots and equally political roots".

The historian recalled that Mário Soares - a man "with enormous political intuition, who knew the country and was very brave" - was one of the first to understand "what was happening between 1974 and 1975 and to realize that he had to resist, but, at the same time, to approach the Church".

"Why does the PS diminish itself and affront the memory of Mário Soares, by not talking about the fundamental role in the civil plan that it had in 1975? It's not even the PSD, it's the PS. The PS has a decisive role from the issue of trade union unity to the process of November 25 itself," he stressed.

For the historian, this attitude of the PS is explained by the "'generational turnover'" which, often, makes one go "from more knowledge or more testimony to more ignorance".

"It's really like this: try asking them some things that a socialist leader is supposed to know about the history of his own party and country and you'll see that there is in fact a degradation, which in a political leader makes no sense, of knowledge about what his History is, even the recent one," he said.

Pacheco Pereira, who was parliamentary leader and MEP for the PSD, defended that the PS "was caught up in a controversy about November 25 from the right, and reacted to the controversy without even worrying about the essential role that the PS had played that year".

"There has been this type of mechanism for a long time, and then it becomes entrenched, and when it becomes entrenched, there is a retrospective view of history. Those who work on the sources know that there is a permanent retrospective reconstruction of historical events," he said.

The historian considered that the "great acquisition of November 25 is not strictly in the political plan", although it contributed to the stabilization of the institutions, but it is above all because it "avoided a radicalization that was happening essentially within the Armed Forces".

Pacheco Pereira thus said he thought "it's very good" that November 25, 1975 is commemorated as long as it is commemorated "for what happened and for the meaning of what happened".

"It's obvious that they don't want that: are they going to talk about Costa Gomes, Vasco Lourenço and the other military there? They won't and they don't want to. Or about Soares, or the role of the PS. I totally agree that it should be commemorated, but that it should be commemorated as it happened. If it is commemorated as it happened, they can put me on the organizing committee, 'pro bono'," he joked.

In turn, historian Irene Flunser Pimentel considered it "absurd" that the Government wants to create a commission to commemorate the 50th anniversary of November 25, stressing that the current commission for April 25 already includes the celebration of that ephemeris, and considered that the controversies around the date "have to do with the present and not with the past".

The historian defended that November 25 "was a continuation of April 25" and it is important that, when talking about this ephemeris, the role of the Group of Nine, the PS and General Costa Gomes is addressed.

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