Thread by @enigma_pt

THE SOVIET-PORTUGUESE WAR;

Nobody has ever declared this war officially. But it was a real "hot" war and in fact a world war (for the Portuguese, of course), which lasted 13 years (1961-1974) on an area equal to Western Europe.

A THREAD

During the years of this war, about 1 million Portuguese participated in it, which, on the scale of this country, is equivalent to the fact that 20 million Soviet soldiers would have passed through the war in Afghanistan in the USSR.

The comparison is, of course, not correct. After all, the Portuguese believed that they were fighting on their own territory, defending their homeland from terrorists and foreign mercenaries, and not fulfilling a mythical international duty.

The consequences of this war still affect both Portugal and its former overseas provinces to this day, on the territory of which hostilities were fought: in Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau and by proxy, South Africa.

By the beginning of the sixties of the 20th century, Portugal remained the last colonial empire in the world, owning vast territories in Africa and Asia, rich in natural resources.

At the same time, Portugal itself was the poorest of the capitalist countries and had a modest army. This made her overseas possessions a convenient target for violent rejection under the plausible pretext of promoting the ideals of communism and marxism.

As a result, in 1961 a war broke out against Portugal, which was waged by the hands of partisans armed and trained by the USSR and other countries of the Soviet bloc, as well as Cuba and China. Cubas airforces were also in direct contact with SouthAfrican Airforces.

In fact, small Portugal (population 8.5 million) for thirteen years single-handedly waged a defensive war on three fronts against an enemy incomparably superior in its economic and military capabilities.

This required the mobilization of all material and human resources of the country. As a result, by the end of this war, Portugal spent up to 40% of the budget on the war. The Soviets knew the economic stress it would bring unto Portugal.

The Portuguese armed forces in the African colonies were not only limited, they were purely symbolic and completely unprepared to wage war with highly trained and armed partisans commanded by foreign advisers.

At the end of 1960, the Portuguese military contingent in Angola (the largest Portuguese colony by area) was limited to three regiments, two battalions of Hunters (infantry), a reconnaissance group and an engineer battalion.

A total of 6,500 soldiers, of which only 1,500 were from Portugal and the rest were Aboriginal. Within a year, this contingent increased fivefold to 33,000 soldiers. By the end of the war, there were 65,000 Portuguese troops in Angola.

In Mozambique, the strength of Portugal has increased from 11,000 to 51,000. In Guinea, from 5,000 to 32,000. Thus, by 1974, 148,000 Portuguese soldiers were fighting in Africa.

In the USSR, Africans from the Portuguese colonies underwent training in the Crimea near the village of Perevalnoye (the 165th training center for the training of foreign servicemen of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces).

There is no exact data on how many rebels were trained in the USSR over the years of the war with Portugal. But the main partisans were trained directly on the spot with the help of the Cubans.

So in Guinea since 1961 there were about 60 Cuban "internationalists" (Marxists) who not only trained, but also led and directly participated in hostilities against the Portuguese army.

Militants were also trained in China, in camps in African border countries. Soviet "comrades" also went to Africa under the guise of inspections.

Although they did not officially take part in hostilities, it is most likely that the first Portuguese aircraft sold in Africa with missiles from MANPADS are the work of Soviet instructors.

For reporting purposes, the curators even filmed guerrilla attacks on Portuguese garrisons. Accordingly, the leaders of the rebels sent their sponsors bravura reports on their "work".

A destroyed Portuguese armoured car in Guinea-Bissau

So, according to partisan reports, in the skies of Guinea alone, partisans, in seven years, managed to shoot down 21 aircraft (1963-1970).

PAIGC soldiers with a downed Portuguese aircraft, 1974

The Portuguese Air Force was armed with obsolete propeller-driven aircraft produced during the Second World War. The most common of these was the American single-engine aircraft converted from training to light bomber and attack aircraft.North American Aviation T-6 Texan.

The USSR's military assistance to its African puppets has reached significant proportions and, in the end, began to include the most modern weapons.

Initially, the USSR and its allies provided their "African friends" with cargo transport, fuel, uniforms, small arms, large-caliber machine guns, mortars, recoilless and anti-aircraft guns, anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, and ammunition.

After the leader of the Mozambican guerrillas Zamora Machel in 1971 took part in the 23rd Congress of the CPSU and met with the Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Army, supplies from the USSR included RPG-7, Grad multiple launch rocket systems, and MANPADS " Arrow 2M "

At the same time, the Guineans supplied MI-4 helicopters, T-34 tanks, PT-76 amphibious tanks, and BTR-40 armored personnel carriers.

The fact that the African partisans completely veiled from the USSR is evidenced by an amusing incident when one of the Soviet curators of African partisans, by regular mail, received a letter from Mozambique.

Weapons seized delivered from the USSR and the Warsaw Pact countries

The author of this letter complained that he was running out of cartridges for the TT pistol, and asked to urgently send them. In support of the request, so that no error occurred, he enclosed a sample cartridge in the envelope.

The last Colonial Possession to be handed over in 1999. Portuguese Macau to Communist China. Indeed they won. Indeed they crushed the Portuguese spirit.

One of the marxist/communist terrorist strategies was to terrorize the Portuguese farmers and their employees by killing them and cutting their bodies into pieces with machetes/katanas, in this attack in north Angola in 1961 around 800 coloners and servants were massacred

On the morning of March 15, 1961, some fifty places over a 400-mile front were attacked as part of a plan carefully prepared by the communist-backed terrorist “liberation movement” in Angola, then a Portuguese province.

The terrorists, primed with drugs, alcohol and native witchcraft, butchered over 200 Europeans and some 800 Africans. Women and children were raped, cut up and mutilated. Unborn children were cut out of the wombs of their still living mothers.

A young girl of 18 was crucified on a tree and her breasts cut off while she was still alive. An Italian priest, Father Graziani and his assistant Tiburcio, were tied to stakes and bestially tortured for two days before being killed.

In the town of Quitexe the men were castrated and killed, and most children had their eyes gouged out and died most likely from the resultant hemorrhages.

In Luvro the owner of the local saw mill, his wife, two small sons and several others were tied to planks of wood and sawed in half lengthwise while possibly still alive. These are only some examples among many; the photographs of the corpses of the victims were stomach-turning.

The American news media reported this event minimally if at all; at the time they vociferously promoted the “liberation” of European colonies like Angola.... We were slaughtered and betrayed, and not a word from the international marxist world... f**k my life.