The years 1945 – 1947 were a period of intense political debate concerning the living conditions of Brazil’s urban working class, the public services and urban facilities available to workers, and the countless expectations resulting from the sacrifices working-class families had made during the war. For over a decade, Brazil had experienced a dictatorship in which popular demands were silenced with violence. The new political relationships that accompanied the legalization of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB); the activities of the Brazilian Socialist Party; and the intense disputes among the Social Progressive Party (PSP), the Brazilian Labor Party (Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro or PTB), the Social Democratic Party, and the National Democratic Union (UDN), not to mention smaller parties, reconfigured the political scenario. The intense climate of electoral dispute and the agitation caused by popular demands broadened the debate on pressing urban issues and moved it out of the realm of Parliament...

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