On his return to Portugal he was constantly watched, he was prevented from working in any public position, his doctorate was not recognised and he was refused a scholarship by the Institute for High Culture (IAC) to continue his research on Portuguese Contemporary History – all of which led him to write Regressar para quê? (Why return?) in 1970, a work that was seized by the PIDE in the very same week it went on sale. He therefore threw himself into his work as a bookseller and turned his bookshop into a meeting place for intellectuals, democrats and those opposed to the regime. He took part in the Republican Congresses in Aveiro and stood in the 1973 elections, from which the Opposition had once again to withdraw.

Only in 1974, after Decree nº 25317, of 13 May 1935, was revoked and nº 173/7, which ensured the reintegration of State employees in public services from which they had been removed for political reasons, was promulgated on 26 April, did it become possible for him to devote himself to university teaching once his application to the Faculty of Letters of Porto had been approved unanimously in July 1974. In the same year he was invited by both the Faculty of Letters in Lisbon and the Faculty of Economics in Porto to join them, but he declined both invitations. Having been reintegrated into the staff of the 10th Group A of the Escola Técnica Alberto Sampaio, a secondary school in Braga, he was then requisitioned as an Auxiliary Professor and put in charge of the following courses: “Contemporary History of Portugal and the Iberian Peninsula”, “Economy and Society”, “History of Colonialism and Decolonisation” and the “Seminar of Contemporary History”. He also took on another job, collaborating with the University of Minho between 1975/76 and 1979 where he coordinated the courses “Portuguese Culture I and II” and “Portuguese Society and Culture I and II”. In 1979 he became the first Portuguese Communist Party deputy to be elected in the electoral circuit of Braga. He was present in the National Assembly as a deputy between 3 January and 12 November 1980. In the legislative elections of 1980 he was elected again (and he is recorded as being in the National Assembly between 13 November 1980 and 30 May 1983). Having taken up residence in Rio de Mouro, he became a candidate in the local municipal elections in Sintra held in 1985 and was elected President of the Municipal Assembly.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | (Pdf)