[4] After the Revolution of April 25, with Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles, Henrique Barrilaro Ruas, João Camossa de Saldanha, Augusto Ferreira do Amaral, Luís Coimbra, among others, he founded the People's Monarchist Party.

[5] The national syndicalists, also called the "Blue Shirts" (camisas azuis), following the tradition of uniformed right-wing paramilitary groups, was an organisation advocating syndicalism and unionism, inspired by Benito Mussolini's brand of Italian fascism.

His unionist platform was based on leftist ideas of social justice, such as "a minimum family wage", "paid holidays", "working class education", and a world in which workers are "guaranteed the right to happiness".

Cutting short his lyceum studies, Rolão Preto left for Galicia in Spain, where he joined the monarchist army officer, Henrique Mitchell de Paiva Couceiro, in his 1911–1912 failed attempts to topple the Portuguese First Republic.

He then left for Belgium and worked for the integralist magazine, Alma Portuguesa, while completing secondary studies at the Liceu português in Louvain and then attending the Université Catholique there.

Rolão Preto had to flee Belgium when World War I began, and he took refuge in France; he finished his studies at the University of Toulouse, where he earned a degree in law before returning to Portugal.

In 1930, he approached David Neto and other sidonista (conservatives, initially members of the Partido Republicano Nacionalista), with whom he created the Liga Nacional 28 de maio, self-proclaimed defender of the "national revolution".

Preto returned to Portugal in February 1935, and was once more detained after instigating a September rebellion with the crew of the Bartolomeu Dias and the garrison in the Lisbon-area Penha de França.

[3] After World War II, Rolão Preto abandoned fascism[3] and joined the left-wing forum Movement of Democratic Unity, and he published a volume entitled A Traição Burguesa ("The Bourgeois Betrayal").