He finished his studies, marrying a 23-year-old Portuguese woman who was born in Trás-os-Montes, Maria Eugénia da Silva, the same day he graduated.

[1][3] In December 1956, the Angolan Communist Party (PCA) merged with the Party of the United Struggle for Africans in Angola (PLUAA) to form the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola with Viriato da Cruz, the President of the PCA, as Secretary General and Neto as president.

The MPLA delegation will then continue with their official trip to Yugoslavia on the 18-22nd of February to meet with President Josip Broz Tito.

The same year on the 15-16th of July 1973 Tito and Ceausescu meet in Yugoslavia to discuss the situation in Angola,[10] whilst the leader of MPLA attended the 17-19th of July 1973 for the Bulgarian Communist Party Plenum Committee,[11] joined by his sister Ruth Neto and Dino Matrosse, who was studying engineering in Bulgaria.

[12] Following the Carnation Revolution in Portugal during April 1974 (which deposed Salazar's successor Marcelo Caetano), three political factions vied for Angolan power.

On 11 November 1975, Angola achieved full independence from the Portuguese, and Neto became the nation's ruler after the MPLA seized Luanda at the expense of the other anti-colonial movements.

He established a one-party state and his government developed close links with the Soviet Union and other nations in the Eastern Bloc and other Communist states, particularly Cuba, which aided the MPLA considerably in its war with the FNLA, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and South Africa.

As a consequence, he violently repressed a movement later called Fractionism which in 1977 attempted a coup d'état inspired by the Organização dos Comunistas de Angola.

In December 1977 at their first congress, they changed their name to MPLA-PT (MPLA Partido do Trabalho) officially adopting the Marxist-Leninist ideology, requested by Nito Alves.

[16] Poems included collections like Sacred Hope, which was published in 1974 (Titled Dry Eyes in the Portuguese Version).

He was later awarded the Lotus Prize presented by the Conference of Afro-Asian Writers'[17] Agostinho Neto died on Monday, 10 September 1979 in Moscow after travelling to the Soviet Union to undergo surgery for cancer and hepatitis.

[19] An airport in Santo Antão, Cape Verde, is named after him, due to the beloved work he performed there as a doctor.