Original sentence: Ideologically the National Union was an authoritarian, clerical fascist organisation.It was dominated by António de Oliveira Salazar during most of its existence
Edited sentence: Although Salazar admired Mussolini and was influenced by his Labour Charter of 1927, he distanced himself from fascist dictatorship, which he considered a pagan Caesarist political system that recognised neither legal nor moral limits.At the time, many European countries feared the destructive potential of communism.In 1934, Salazar exiled Francisco Rolão Preto as a part of a purge of the leadership of the Portuguese National Syndicalists, also known as the camisas azuis ("Blue Shirts").It was founded in 1930 and dominated by António de Oliveira Salazar during most of its existence.Just before World War II, Salazar made this declaration: "We are opposed to all forms of Internationalism, Communism, Socialism, Syndicalism and everything that may divide or minimise, or break up the family.Ministers, diplomats and civil servants were never compelled to join the National Union.Salazar also viewed German Nazism as espousing pagan elements that he considered repugnant.Salazar denounced the National Syndicalists as "inspired by certain foreign models" (meaning German Nazism) and condemned their "exaltation of youth, the cult of force through direct action, the principle of the superiority of state political power in social life, [and] the propensity for organising masses behind a single leader" as fundamental differences between fascism and the Catholic corporatism of the Estado Novo.Salazar not only forbade Marxist parties, but also revolutionary fascist-syndicalist parties.Salazar was against the whole-party concept and when in 1930 he created the National Union he created it as a non-party.The National Union was formed as a subservient umbrella organisation to support the regime itself, and therefore did not have its own philosophy.The National Union was set up to control and restrain public opinion rather than to mobilize it, the goal was to strengthen and preserve traditional values rather than to induce a new social order.The Portuguese corporatist state had some similarities to Benito Mussolini's Italian fascism, but considerable differences in its moral approach to governing.Unlike Mussolini or Hitler, Salazar never had the intention to create a party-state.We are against class warfare, irreligion and disloyalty to one's country; against serfdom, a materialistic conception of life, and might over right