Crisis of the Post-1946 Republic

Brazil’s republican history was marked by the conservatism of its liberal-oligarchic elites, predominantly agrarian and linked to the agro-exporting primary sector of the economy (coffee, rubber, cacao). Brazilian society contained strong social contrasts, aggravated by the late abolition of slavery (1888), the concentration of rural property ownership, and political exclusion. Throughout the First Republic (1889–1930), only 2 to 5 percent of the population had the right to vote, since illiterates and women were not allowed to cast a ballot. Between 1930 and 1945, the corporatist-inspired government of Getúlio Vargas stimulated industrialization and the modernization of the economy, but society itself remained unequal with an insulated and exclusionary political system. The liberal-democratic republic that followed the fall of Vargas, with the franchise extended to literate urban workers, marked Brazil’s first genuine experience with democracy. The political system was characterized by large national parties and the predominance of charismatic leaders (dubbed “populists”), such as Getúlio Vargas himself, the former dictator who converted to the electoral political game and was elected president in 1950. Elites and the electorate were divided into two camps: (1) reformist nationalists, who advocated for state-led industrialization and granting some rights to workers; (2) conservative liberals who defended “free enterprise” and the preservation of traditional social hierarchies, based on land ownership and control of the labor movement. The armed forces were divided between the two ideological camps, but were generally anticommunist and elitist.² The Brazilian Communist Party, founded in 1922 and operating illegally since 1947, had relative freedom of action during the “Republic of 46” and, as a rule, supported the nationalists and statist industrializing projects, making informal alliances with the Brazilian Labor Party as of 1955. The Republic of 46 was marred by political crises, such as the one that led President Getúlio Vargas to commit suicide in 1954 in response to the military’s ultimatum that he step down. The Juscelino Kubitschek government, elected in 1955, represented a brief moment of democratic stability, social peace, and a great industrializing leap forward.³ But political and economic problems returned in the early 1960s, just as urban and rural workers’ movements, their agency strengthened and newly resonant in the post-1945 system, began insisting on a number of social and political reforms.

The Conspiracy Against the João Goulart Administration

The ascension of João Goulart, leader of the Brazilian Labor Party and a political disciple of Getúlio Vargas, further aggravated political and social conflicts. Goulart, known as Jango by his colleagues and followers, was very popular with the labor unions (he had been labor minister for a short time between 1953 and 1954) and had a reformist reputation.⁴ Despite his moderate politics, Goulart was deeply distrusted by conservative elites and by segments of the military who saw him as an extreme leftist. Elected vice president in 1960, Goulart took office following the resignation of conservative president Jânio Quadros. At the time, electoral rules allowed the vice president to be elected without being on the same ticket as the presidential candidate, which had the potential to result in odd matches like Quadros-Goulart. The military opposed Goulart taking office, but after tense negotiations among the various parties in congress and the armed forces, he was allowed to be sworn in on September 7, 1961. The compromise was that Goulart would accept a constitutional reform creating a parliamentary system of government, which greatly reduced his powers as president. This model did not last long. Presidentialism was restored via a plebiscite convened by the government in early 1963. With full presidential powers, Jango promised to implement “base reforms,” a set of political and economic measures intended to more equitably distribute rural and urban properties, incorporate more voters into the electoral processes, modernize institutions of the economy and the state, and modify systems of higher education, banking, and fiscal administration.⁵ Conservative forces opposed these initiatives, especially “agrarian reform,” the central pillar of the “base reforms” agenda supported by leftists, including the illegal Brazilian Communist Party.⁶ Brazilian society split in two, and the right (national and multinational business, the traditional middle class, large landowners, and the Catholic Church) stood against Goulart government. The military was divided, but the high command tended to the right. The left, on the other hand, was equally heterogeneous, composed of radical nationalists, laborites, and communists, supported by the urban and peasant trade-union movements. The United States government was suspicious of Jango, concerned about Brazil’s independent foreign policy (sympathetic to “Third Worldism” and the countries of the socialist bloc), economic nationalism that threatened the interests of American companies, and the risk of another socialist revolution in the hemisphere, following in the footsteps of the Cuban Revolution.⁷ Beginning in late 1963, ideological polarization and political crisis undermined the Goulart’s ability to govern and the fragile institutional balance of his administration. The scene was set for the coup.

The Coup

The coup d’état of March 31, 1964, was the result of a confluence of conspiratorial groups that defended the forced removal of João Goulart, under the pretext that the country, with Goulart’s assent, was on the path to a “communist revolution.”⁸ João Goulart was not a communist or a radical, but he was considered indecisive and weak in the face of the crisis and the pressure for reforms from the left. The economy had been stalled since 1962, with inflation reaching 80 percent per year. The groups conspiring against Goulart had broad support in the Brazilian press, controlled by conservative and elitist liberals, in Congress, among the governors of the richest states, and the Catholic Church. High-ranking officers in the armed forces were part of the conspiracy, but the military only united around the plan to overthrow Goulart after a growing wave of political action among soldiers, corporals, and sergeants demanding better living conditions and an increase in pay. These junior officers carried out riots in military installations with the support of left-wing laborites like Leonel Brizola, former governor of the state of Rio Grande do Sul and Goulart’s brother-in-law. During one of these crises involving junior officers, several generals rebelled on March 31, 1964. At the same time, civilian sectors saw in the military uprising the opportunity to overthrow the president. Between March 31 and April 2, 1964, the political situation was chaotic, with military troops on the move, failed and uncoordinated attempts to resist the coup, and a dearth of leaders capable of managing the situation within the law. Gradually, Congress, dominated by anti-Goulart conspirators, began coordinating with civilian and military leaders. When Goulart retreated to his home state of Rio Grande do Sul, Congress took advantage of the president’s absence from the capital to declare the presidency vacant, an opportunistic and unconstitutional measure since Goulart remained on Brazilian soil.⁹ Within the military, the supreme command of the revolution took shape, controlled by Marshal Artur da Costa e Silva. The moderate wing of the armed forces was represented by Marshal Castelo Branco, supported by civilians, parts of the clergy, conservative Catholic movements, and the US Embassy, the latter of which had played a key role the conspiracy. Much of the middle class took to the streets to support the coup.¹⁰ The left, which seemed well organized and strong, was stunned and unable to react. President Goulart and other leaders fled to Uruguay, and several left-wing politicians and trade unionists were arrested. On April 11, 1964, offering a legalistic façade for the coup, Congress “elected” the first president-general of the new regime, Marshal Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco. Before the “election” was held, dozens of legislators were removed from office by the military.¹¹

Building the Regime

The coup was the product of a heterogeneous civil-military coalition that did not last long after the seizure of power. Economic and social conservatives had different objectives than the authoritarian sectors of the armed forces. The former wanted a swift military intervention to remove President João Goulart from office and repress the left, with general elections to be held soon thereafter in a “sanitized political environment,” as the newspapers put it at the time. The military, supported by technocrats and the business community, clearly had other goals. For them, all traditional politicians, especially those of the left, but also those of the right, were agents of political and institutional instability. The military preferred a centralized technocratic and tutelary government, with Congress and local politicians serving as supporting players in Brazilian politics. During the early years of the regime’s construction, which ran from 1964 to 1968, these two forces clashed, with the gradual assertion of an authoritarian, impersonal, and bureaucratic military regime with power centralized in the presidency, a position always held by a high-ranking general.¹²

Brazilian military men were heavily influenced by the National Security Doctrine, which was based on the policies of containing communism emanating from Washington.¹³ Since the early 1960s, they had also been enamored of the Counter-Insurgency Doctrine developed by the French during the Algerian War.¹⁴ The National Security Doctrine held that it was the responsibility of the armed forces to guarantee the stability of the state, supervise the political system to avoid ideological polarization, monitor society to counter the actions of communist “infiltrators,” and sponsor a general modernization of the economy to integrate into the international capitalist system of the Western bloc. The Brazilian military, historically anchored in positivist ideology, embraced state-led industrialization projects (which did not always fit into the classic liberal economic prescriptions) and also distrusted charismatic leaders who mobilized the masses. From the earliest days of the Brazilian military regime, the existence of different political factions within the armed forces was well known, although all were deeply anticommunist and cherished the military’s reputation for unity and cohesion.¹⁵ There was a group of more intellectual generals whose careers were more eminently bureaucratic within the high command. Dubbed the “Sorbonne” group by the press, alluding to the famous French university, these generals were more sympathetic to the civilian liberal tradition. General Castelo Branco was one of its leaders. The other important group was composed of generals more closely linked to the command of troops, generally more nationalistic and explicitly authoritarian. These two factions vied for political control over the officer corps (colonels, majors, and captains). None of the groups that controlled the political orientation of the armed forces favored ultranationalist and charismatic leaders, even if they were drawn from the military. The political tradition of the Brazilian military, in short, was positivist, not fascist. The military wanted to control the state and play a tutelary role for civil society, depoliticizing it and discouraging social mobilization around charismatic leaders and mass parties. According to this thinking, the political system should subsume itself to “national objectives” defined by the military.

The Regime’s Legal Framework

As part of this broad strategy, the institutionalization of the military regime was characterized by expanding the technical bureaucracy of the state and establishing a new set of legal norms. President Castelo Branco originally promised to hand off power to a successor elected by the people two years after his inauguration (April 15, 1964), but what in fact took place was the effective establishment of an authoritarian military regime through measures known as Institutional Acts. The president ultimately extended his term until March 1967 through a constitutional amendment approved in July 1964, a few months after he came to power.

Institutional Acts were always justified in the name of guaranteeing the aims of the “revolution,” as the military referred to the coup of 1964. Indeed, many right-wing members of the armed forces saw themselves as authentic “revolutionaries” who would build a new Brazil, although that terminology was traditionally linked to radicals on the left. The moment that the military seized power was seen as the zero-year of Brazilian national regeneration, although in practice the military preserved the longstanding privileges and powers of established elites.

During the twenty-one years of military rule, seventeen Institutional Acts were issued, all of which in some way reinforced the prerogatives and discretionary power of the executive branch, and the president in particular, to control Brazilian politics and society.¹⁶ They were each intended to keep Congress under the president’s control.¹⁷ After the first Institutional Act of April 9, 1964, which gave the president the power to restrict the political rights of citizens and legislators and to enact laws, initially for sixty days, other arbitrary decrees followed. Institutional Act No. 2 (October 1965) was one of the most important in the history of the military regime. In addition to abolishing the thirteen existing political parties, it established indirect elections for the presidency and further strengthened the power of the executive in constitutional, legislative, and budgetary matters. The act also granted military courts the authority to try civilians accused of crimes against “national security.” The president could close Congress and other legislative bodies around the country, dismiss congressmen, and decree a state of siege for 180 days without prior authorization. Complementary Act No. 20 of November 1965 imposed a minimum number of 120 deputies and 20 senators for the formation of a new political party. Given the number of deputies and senators who existed at the time, in practice, this measure imposed a two-party system that would last until 1980. By the end of 1965, deputies were grouped into two parties—the National Renovating Alliance (ARENA), the official party of the regime, and the “moderate” Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB)—both officially registered in 1966. Institutional Act 3 (February 1966) established indirect elections for governor and mayor in capital cities, further restricting the impact of voting rights. The two-party system eventually turned legislative elections into plebiscites indicating who favored and who opposed the military government.

Before handing power over to his successor, General Artur da Costa e Silva, indirectly elected by Congress, Castelo Branco promulgated the so-called Press Law, the National Security Law, and a new constitution, more authoritarian and centralizing. Thus, in spite of the post-hoc view of Castelo Branco as a “moderate” general, he institutionalized the military regime, based on control of the state and the political system as a whole as well as the curtailment of civil liberties. However, since state terror and censorship hardened by the end of 1968, with the implementation of the fifth Institutional Act, the previous period came to be seen as less restrictive, characterized by relative freedom of expression for the regime’s opponents. This conception, captured in the current expression “ditabranda” (“soft” or moderate dictatorship), needs to be assessed critically.

Marshal Artur da Costa e Silva promised to “liberalize” the regime and avoid issuing new Institutional Acts, which even many of the regime’s conservative technocrats saw as arbitrary “legal monstrosities.” However, challenged by opposition members of Congress and growing social dissatisfaction with the regime, led by the student movement and progressive intellectuals, the government became increasingly repressive over the course of 1968.¹⁸ Matters were made more complicated by the fact that some dissidents rejected peaceful protest. Part of the left opted for armed struggle against the regime.¹⁹ Amid the turmoil, the relative freedom of expression that remained in Brazil was buried by Institutional Act No. 5, the hallmark of an era of intense repression that would last until the end of 1978. Institutional Act No. 5 further strengthened the president’s power over the other branches of government and suspended habeas corpus for political prisoners, among other harsh measures. Other Institutional Acts enacted in 1969 allowed for the banishment of political prisoners exchanged for kidnapped diplomats and the death penalty for crimes deemed subversive.

It is important to stress that the Institutional Acts were not merely a “legalistic façade” for the regime, as if its actual power emanated solely from arms and violence. The Institutional Acts were essential for the strategy of avoiding the personalization of political power and guaranteeing some normative rules for political life.²⁰ The military feared that power exercised without bureaucratic and legal rules would degenerate into internal disputes among opposing factions and ultimately divide high-ranking officers. Nevertheless, there was always tension within the armed forces when it came to deciding presidential succession.

Guerrilla Movements and the Repressive Apparatus

In 1970, the repressive apparatus expanded, adding a new unit integrated into the army command known as Internal Defense Operations Center–Operation and Information Detachment (DOI-CODI). This move was partly a response by the military regime to the growth of leftist guerrillas who had been carrying out armed operations, mainly bank robberies and attacks on military units, since 1968. The military “hard line” did not believe it was possible to fight the guerrillas within existing legal rules, as harsh and arbitrary as they were. The extralegal DOI-CODI model spread to military headquarters in several Brazilian capitals.

The leftist guerrilla movement was composed of dozens of revolutionary groups, the majority being small organizations with a few hundred militants with no real firepower. The only organizations that developed truly bold actions were National Liberation Action (ALN, an offshoot of the Brazilian Communist Party—PCB), Popular Revolutionary Vanguard (VPR, which brought together Marxists and radical nationalists), and the Communist Party of Brazil (PC do B, a Maoist dissidence of the PCB). The first two carried out urban guerrilla actions, robbing banks and kidnapping foreign diplomats to be exchanged for political prisoners. The kidnapping of the United States ambassador, organized by ALN and a group called the October 8 Revolutionary Movement (MR-8), another PCB splinter organization, in September 1969, stood out as the most daring action of the Brazilian guerrilla movement. The PC do B, for its part, inspired by the Chinese Revolution, had been stealthily organizing a guerrilla base in the Amazon since 1967, which the military uncovered in 1971.

After some successes between the end of 1968 and the beginning of 1970, the armed organizations of the left were progressively dismantled and disbanded until 1974, when the cycle of guerrilla struggle against the regime ended. Repressive measures carried out with no legal or humanitarian considerations literally decimated armed left-wing organizations. The death of important guerrilla leaders like Carlos Marighela (a historic PCB militant who had broken with the party) in 1969 and Carlos Lamarca (a former captain of the Brazilian army who joined the guerrillas), was a blow to the armed left. Their assassinations vividly demonstrated the deadly efficacy of the campaign of state terror, inspired by the Counter-Insurgency Doctrine, waged against armed clandestine organizations. But other factors contributed to the rapid defeat of the armed resistance. For one thing, their social base of support was very small, concentrated in the more radical segments of the student movement, heavily repressed and surveilled by the police. There was little support from workers and peasants, despite the inflamed rhetoric of organizations who claimed to speak on their behalf. The clandestine and militarized structure of the guerrilla groups hindered more effective “mass action” among the popular classes. The Brazilian Communist Party itself, the most traditional and well-organized leftist organization in the country, did not support the armed struggle, preferring to concentrate on civil resistance to the regime. The guerrillas ended up socially isolated and politically fragmented, without the strength to face a trained army intent on defending the regime. The vast majority of people in the middle and working classes were focused on their jobs, earning money, and leading their lives in the best way possible, taking advantage of the impressive economic growth that began in earnest in 1969.

The “Economic Miracle”

In late 1969, the third general-president, Emilio Garrastazu Médici, took office. His administration was marked by the growth and institutionalization of the repressive apparatus, which did not limit its actions to fighting guerillas. The Médici government was also, paradoxically, the height of the military regime’s social prestige. Even soccer indirectly helped the government by stimulating a nationalist frenzy following Brazil’s triumph at the 1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico. Nationalist and patriotic rhetoric produced the discursive image of “Brasil Grande,” or “Great Brazil,” as if the military regime had finally succeeded in thrusting the country into the exclusive tier of developed nations and geopolitical heavyweights.²²

After taming inflation, Brazil experienced astronomical economic growth between 1968 and 1973, driven by a process of industrial and agricultural expansion that masked enduring social inequalities.²³ The biggest beneficiaries of this process, apart from major industrialists and capitalists, of course, were middle-class wage earners and some of the more skilled sectors of the working class. Indeed, for the middle class, there was essentially full employment, good wages, and widespread consumption of durable goods. The economy averaged 10 percent growth a year during that period, while government investment stimulated large infrastructure works (hydroelectric projects, roads, etc.), and abundant international capital flowed into the country. But the miracle also obscured many fragile points of the Brazilian economy. The country remained dependent on foreign technological expertise, imported oil, and multinational capital. In the absence of a consistent policy of income distribution, inequality increased. Indeed, the military itself, which tended to the right of the political spectrum, was historically unresponsive to disparities of income and wealth distribution. Rural holdings were still concentrated in the hands of large landowners and did not show the same rhythm of productive modernization the country as a whole was experiencing, with vast properties left unproductive for purposes of speculation. The exodus of landless rural workers caused large Brazilian cities to expand even more rapidly and chaotically, with inadequate infrastructure and employment opportunities to absorb so many people in such a short time.

Ultimately, the 1973 oil shock was fatal for Brazil’s rapid economic growth since the country imported about 90 percent of its petroleum. Inflation returned, and the government was forced to reallocate resources after 1974. After the crisis, it became clear to the military that the most important thing was to stimulate basic industries, especially the energy sector, and to become self-sufficient in that regard. The government also needed to stop subsidizing middle-class consumption. These policies became clearer during the administration of General Ernesto Geisel, which began in March 1974.²⁴ The “miracle” was over.

Social Movements

In addition to cultural opposition to the regime, resistance also came from new social movements linked to lower-class communities and neighborhoods, stimulated by the progressive wing of the Catholic clergy. In the 1970s, inspired by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council issued between 1962 and 1965, and liberation theology, the Catholic Church played an important social role in cities and in the countryside, helping popular organizations and denouncing state violence against dissidents.³⁰ Although a considerable part of the clergy supported the 1964 coup, the church as an institution was divided, with progressives making up a slight majority. Men like Dom Hélder Câmara, Dom Pedro Casaldaglia, and Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns, among others, became the public faces of Catholic opposition to the regime, fueling socially minded pastoral actions and the creation of Ecclesiastical Base Communities.

Drawing from this religious activism and longstanding involvement with the labor movement, the working class played an increasingly prominent role in denouncing the regime’s economic policies during the 1970s and 1980s.³¹ These groups also developed communal decision-making practices known as “base democracy,” which took up old leftist traditions that had been pushed aside by the centralizing tendencies of traditional communist parties. In neighborhoods of large industrial cities, starting with São Paulo, a new type of popular organizing emerged, centered around issues like the high cost of living, housing, health, and transportation, often linked to labor unions. Between 1978 and 1980, the reinvigorated labor movement staged unprecedented strikes in São Bernardo do Campo (São Paulo state), the industrial heart of Brazil. The strikes were notable for their defiant tone in defense of workers’ economic and social rights, neither of which were a part of the regime’s liberalizing agenda. The popular appeal of union leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stood out as well, introducing the nation to the man who would be elected president of the republic in 2002.

Along with opposition rooted in the struggles of daily life, causes like feminism and gay rights came to the fore during the 1970s, reflecting broader resistance to the regime’s overbearing conservatism.³² Afro-Brazilian activists also became radicalized, as demonstrated by the emergence of the Unified Black Movement (Movimento Negro Unificado) in 1978.³³ Environmentalists also became better organized and more visible in this period.

Liberal professionals, especially lawyers and public-health officials, were another important source of opposition to the regime after the defeat of the armed struggle. Along with non-manual workers, teachers, and intellectuals, they played an important role in shaping a democratic culture within the Brazilian middle class, traditionally conservative and elitist.

In the late 1970s, the confluence of grassroots social movements, labor unions, and non-manual workers (bankers); movements with new political and cultural demands (feminism, LGBT rights, environmentalism, racial consciousness); intellectuals; and militant socialist organizations converged in the formation of the Workers’ Party.³⁴

The emergence of new opposition movements influenced by the left, and their ability to garner support from politically moderate groups and leaders, eventually demanded responses from the military regime that went beyond mere police repression.

Political Amnesty

João Baptista Figueiredo took office as the social and economic crises were getting worse. While the uninterrupted flow of international capital enabled the Brazilian economy to respond relatively well to the first oil shock, the petroleum crisis in 1979, along with an increase in international interest rates in the early 1980s, had disastrous effects on Brazil and Latin America as a whole. The nation had developed new technology to produce automotive fuel from sugar cane, but oil was still an important commodity in the balance of payments. Inflation and foreign debt spun out of control, the balance of payments was thrown off once again, unemployment returned to haunt the working class, and middle-class incomes declined.

The dire economic situation swelled the ranks of the opposition, made up of moderate conservatives and the left, all of whom demanded a return to democracy. The Figueiredo government also had to contend with intense resistance to “abertura” within military ranks, where radical extralegal right-wing groups were proliferating, sheltered within the DOI-CODI repressive apparatus. These groups sponsored dozens of bombings on business entities, newspaper headquarters, and popular movements between 1979 and 1981.

The government nevertheless maintained the general guidelines of its controlled liberalizing agenda, which had three key components: (1) an amnesty law approved by Congress, (2) the return of a multiparty political system, (3) reinstating direct elections for state governors. Direct elections for president did not figure into the regime’s medium-term plans.

The government’s proposed amnesty law took advantage of the widespread desire to reintegrate former political prisoners and citizens who had had their civil rights suspended. An intense campaign in 1978 had placed the issue at the center of public debate. However, the government’s proposal excluded those accused of so-called blood crimes (that is to say, leftist guerrillas) at the same time that it exonerated agents of the state accused of what it called “connected crimes.” This legal euphemism for excesses carried out in the fight against subversives allowed the regime to amnesty torturers and murderers at the service of the repressive apparatus, preventing the legal investigation of human-rights violations. Protest from the left was of no avail, and Congress passed the amnesty law in August 1979.³⁷

Next, the government put forth a political reform ending the two-party system in place since 1966. The regime’s strategy of overseeing the political system no longer involved tight controls over partisan activity, long restricted to the pro-regime National Renovating Alliance (ARENA) and the opposition Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB). As dissatisfaction with the government mounted in the late 1970s, the new plan was to divide the opposition as much as possible while preserving a single unified pro-regime party. That is effectively what happened following the government’s reform. The MDB was divided between liberal democrats and moderates, supported by a few leftist groups like the PCB, PC do B, and MR-8 (grouped together in the PMDB), socialists and sectors of the left linked to labor unions and social movements (together they founded the Workers Party, or PT, whose most prominent figure was the union leader Luis Inácio Lula da Silva), and laborites (affiliated with the Democratic Labor Party, or PDT, led by Leonel Brizola). The Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) remained illegal and saw its influence among intellectuals and trade unions decline, but it maintained an alliance with the PMDB. The official party of the regime remained united under an ironic new name: Social Democratic Party (PDS).

Despite its internal divisions, the liberal opposition represented by the PMDB won important state governments in the November 1982 gubernatorial elections. The results made the party, especially its moderate wing led by Tancredo Neves, an important interlocutor in the transition to democracy.

The Negotiated Transition to Democracy

Between 1983 and 1984, the regime and the opposition began discussing how the armed forces would ultimately leave power. But the military’s return to the barracks was not a simple political operation. Despite the economic crisis and the loss of political prestige, including among those who had supported the 1964 coup, the military still controlled the state, a significant part of the bureaucracy that distributed public funds to states and municipalities, and, of course, the repressive apparatus. Indeed, while censorship and state violence had eased since 1979, the institutional infrastructure that made them possible remained in place and could be reactivated at any time.

Conservative opposition groups (PMDB, the press, and the business community) did not want to end the regime in a way that might strengthen the more assertive parties and movements of the left, popular among intellectuals and street demonstrators but with little institutional or legislative influence. They preferred to negotiate with moderate sectors of the armed forces who were no longer interested in maintaining power at any cost. For their part, members of the military were wary of a crisis similar to what had happened in Argentina, where the armed forces were removed from power after losing the Falklands War and forced to suffer the humiliation of seeing their generals tried in civil courts for crimes against humanity. Such a scenario was unlikely in Brazil, but the military nevertheless aimed to ensure an honorable and negotiated exit. Their plan was to transfer power to a “dependable” civilian politician elected according to the rules set by the regime, namely, indirect elections without popular participation that would not risk bringing a radical leftist or laborite to office.

As these negotiations were taking place, the PT and more progressive sectors of the PMDB launched a campaign demanding the return of direct elections for president called “Diretas Já,” essentially, “direct elections now.” The opposition joined the campaign en masse, drawing thousands, and in some case even millions, to the streets in virtually every Brazilian city between the end of January and April 1984. The goal of the campaign was to force Congress to pass a constitutional amendment that would establish an immediate presidential election to determine General Figueiredo’s successor. The military regime opposed the measure and sought to control and disqualify the street demonstrations by, as always, depicting it as the work of “communist infiltrators.” Brazil’s main television network, Rede Globo, boycotted the “Diretas Já” movement. But the nation had changed, and anti-communist hysteria was not the mobilizing force it had once been for the middle class and in the political system as a whole.

The problem was that part of the PMDB was not fully committed to the pushing for direct elections. Calculating that it would be possible to defeat the PDS candidate in the indirect election scheduled for January 1985, the group led by Tancredo Neves began developing an alternative plan for the transition. If the constitutional amendment failed, the opposition would appeal to the Electoral College.

Ultimately, the amendment fell short on April 25, 1984. The government had successfully convinced a number of legislators to boycott the vote, thereby preventing the chamber from reaching the quorum needed to approve the amendment (two-thirds of Congress).

In the second half of 1984, despite the boycott of leftist movements and parties, the PMDB put forth Tancredo Neves as candidate for president, a moderate and experienced political leader who had never committed to the military regime. His running mate, José Sarney, represented the clientilistic interests that had long dominated Brazilian politics. He had broken with the government after supporting the regime for years. The PDS also nominated a civilian for president. His name was Paulo Maluf, the controversial former governor of São Paulo who had been accused of rampant corruption throughout his career. He was not President Figueiredo’s preferred successor.

Tancredo Neves easily won the presidential elections in January 1985, causing great popular excitement. But before his inauguration in April, the negotiated transition experienced a major setback. Tancredo fell ill and, after a long hospitalization, died in April 1985. Thus, José Sarney, lacking Tancredo Neves’s social standing and ability to negotiate, became Brazil’s first civilian ruler after twenty-one years of military rule. Sarney’s administration relied heavily on the military, leading many analysts to view him as the last president of the dictatorship rather than the first president of a new democratic system. This probably overstates matters, not least because, under Sarney, a democratically elected constituent assembly was called, with full political freedom, including legalized communist parties. In 1988, the new Federal Constitution of Brazil was promulgated, the most democratic in its history.

Yet the new democratic system left many enduring problems unresolved, including the effective lack of civil rights for the poor, widespread corruption, police violence, and income inequality.³⁸ Furthermore, the economic crisis and rampant inflation, which reached more than 2000 percent a year, were not brought under control until 1994. Despite the institutional consolidation of Brazilian democracy since 1988, the nation’s political culture is still characterized by authoritarian tendencies, which helps to explain recent displays of nostalgia for the dictatorship. Such right-wing sentiments were especially palpable during the political crisis that engulfed the administration of President Dilma Rousseff (of the Workers’ Party), a former left-wing guerrilla in the 1970s. After winning elections in 2010 and 2014, she was removed in 2016 following a controversial and questionable impeachment process.