 Salgueiro Maia and his troops peacefully forced the then ruling dictatorship to resign and it is in a large part due to his brave intelligence, humble and sensible character and strategic/social genius that bloodshed was avoided at all cost during the Revolution and there were "only" four dead people during the Carnation Revolution — these were not killed by the revolutionaries nor Maia's troops, but by the political police of the regime (PIDE) itself, when civilians were demonstrating in front of its headquarters in Lisbon.Red carnations became the symbol of the peaceful revolution because, besides having happened in the beginning of Spring, some of the soldiers and civilians asked a flower seller who was passing by for some flowers to put in the muzzles of their guns and tanks, as a sign that there would be no bloodshed.Salgueiro Maia never wanted to assume any political power position after the Portuguese 1974 coup d'état.