The transition to democracy in Portugal in the 1970s provides the socio-historical background for this article. It focuses on the period of 1974–76, known as the revolutionary phase, when a series of progressive political programmes, forms of direct democracy, collective mobilisation and widespread grass-roots initiatives emerged in the aftermath of the dictatorial regime. The experiences of Portuguese social workers in the aforementioned revolutionary vanguards will be compared and interpreted by using the radical social work approaches that sprang up in the UK and US at the time. Ten in-depth interviews with social workers involved in radical intervention during the revolutionary phase will be compared to the key tenets of the radical social work literature of the 1970s.