relied mainly on the export of coffee, the basis for
its later industrial growth was laid during the
Vargas dictatorship.
That dictatorship came to an end in October
1945, when the army forced him into exile. In
the conditions prevailing after the war, with the
victory of the Western free world over Nazi
tyranny – although Vargas had shrewdly joined
the Allied cause in 1942 – Vargas’s authoritarian
state was regarded by the army as an embarrass-
ment. The US was now all-powerful in the
Western hemisphere. An election was held in
December 1945, though only half the electorate
was enfranchised; two generals competed for the
presidency. The outcome was the formation of a
conservative government ardently hostile to com-
munism. In 1950 Vargas entered the next elec-
toral contest and won, but his attempt to create
a power base by gaining the support of the
workers with wage rises and sympathetic labour
legislation soon revealed the limits of Brazil’s con-
stitutional system. He did not last out his term.
The right-wing military charged Vargas’s admin-
istration with corruption and communist pene-
tration. Driven from office for a second time in
1954, Vargas ended his contest for leadership by
committing suicide.
The presidential election of 1955 was won by
Juscelino Kubitschek with the popular João
Goulart, Vargas’s minister of labour, as running
mate. Kubitschek campaigned for the defence of
democracy and fast economic growth. The army
watched to make sure that he did not stray too
far to the left, but mounted no military coup, as
some urged it to do. In a limited sense it could,
therefore, be credited with safeguarding parlia-
mentary government. The military saw it as their
patriotic duty to stabilise a guided democracy
with a preference for civilian rule. A decade later,
elected president again, Goulart attempted to
reform the country’s archaic land and tax struc-
tures. He also wanted to extend the franchise
to the illiterate peasantry to check the power of
the rural oligarchies. Frustrated by Congress,
Goulart’s policy initiatives grew more radical as he
appealed to the left for support, and not only to
the industrial workers but to the peasants as well.
He now added land expropriation to his reform
package. This brought the wrath of the army and
opposition down on him.
A conspiracy had been taking shape in 1964
among right-wing army officers and conservative
politicians, with urban middle-class support, to
stage a coup. It was assured in advance of US
goodwill. On 1 April 1964 Goulart was over-
thrown virtually without a struggle and fled to
Uruguay. The military took over. This time they
did not hand power back to civilian politicians.
During the early years of the generals’ rule,
repression had not yet taken its more extreme
forms. A façade of parliamentary government was
maintained. Then a new constitution in 1967,
which curtailed political rights, prompted left-
wing urban and rural guerrillas to resort to arms,
but they never secured a mass following. Their
only spectacular success was the kidnapping of the
US ambassador in 1969. From 1968 to 1973 the
military junta reacted with ferocity. The torture
and murder of opponents became common and
widespread, and the repressive security apparatus
survived the defeat of the guerrillas. The various
attempts made by the generals to enlist broader
support and a more acceptable constitutional
image all failed. Internal opposition, strikes and,
particularly, the condemnation of the most radical
Catholic Church in Latin America wore down the
generals’ desire to accept the responsibility of
ruling Brazil. They handed the government back
to civilian rule in 1985. It was no coincidence that
this was done at a time of severe and prolonged
economic crisis. And the military in the 1990s had
not abandoned their role of intervening when they
judged it to be necessary.
The Brazilian economy had expanded spectac-
ularly since the Second World War, transforming
the country into a modern industrial giant. Coffee
no longer dominates and amounts to only about
10 per cent of total exports. By 1981 Petrobas,
the huge oil and chemical state industrial
complex, was the largest corporation in Brazil by
far. Modern technology is represented in the
armaments and aircraft industries, which export
to the rest of the world. The multinational oil
companies have established themselves, while
Ford, General Motors and Volkswagen have
developed an efficient motor industry. Foreign