Modern Brazilian history has been the subject of a flood of publication in the last fifteen years.1 Clearly it is too soon to make a comprehensive evaluation of this vast literature in the context of the previous bibliography.2 What has been attempted here is an interim report on the principal historiographical trends evident in the recent study of the seventy-five year era between the fall of the Empire in 1889 and the military-civilian coup of 1964.

Principal emphasis will be given to the political and economic aspects of Republican history. Several important subject areas, such as social history and intellectual history, receive no separate treatment, not because they have failed to produce new interpretations, but because space limitations preclude any pretense of comprehensive coverage.3 Work on economic history, on the other hand, merits treatment in detail, both because of its exceptionally rapid growth and because of the implications of the new findings for all other aspects of Republican history. This article is divided into two parts. Part I, which follows, begins with a discussion of ideologies and assumptions. It then surveys political history, with separate sections devoted to the birth of the Republic, the “Old Republic” (1889-1930), and the periods from 1930 to 1945, and from 1945 to 1964. Part II, to be published in a subsequent issue, will cover state and local politics, labor and the Left, economic history, and foreign relations.

When the military conspirators and their Republican collaborators deposed Emperor Dom Pedro II in 1889, history writing was still in the hands of the amateurs. Although often talented, they lacked the opportunity to gain professional historical training. Equally important, most of their readers viewed history primarily as a literary exercise. Since the 1870s Capistrano de Abreu, Brazil’s first “modern” historian, had been pointing the way toward a more critical and conceptually sophisticated historiography, which he amply demonstrated in his pioneering publications on the colonial era. His example bore fruit only slowly, as institutional and cultural factors gradually promoted the professionalization of history writing during the course of the twentieth century.

The process was closely linked to the growth of a sense of national identity among the elite. It was an intense search for the essence of Brazilianness, which necessarily led to a reexamination of Brazilian history. One of the clearest expressions of this cultural ferment was the Modernist movement, usually dated from the São Paulo Modern Art Week of 1922. The exuberant Modernist leaders sought new artistic motifs in their country’s popular culture and past, and their iconoclastic attitude toward the established culture helped to reinforce the younger intellectuals’ attack on the style and assumptions of the prevailing historiography. Finally, in the 1930s, the emergence of formally organized universities began to give Brazil the institutional base for the training and support of professional historians.4

Much of the important bibliography on the Republic written since 1945 has come from economists, sociologists, and political scientists. Brazilian social scientists, as pioneers in their disciplines within Brazil, have often begun by investigating historical topics, in order to better understand institutions and social phenomena in the contemporary era. Since 1964 the personal and political risk incurred by any Brazilian probing contemporary socioeconomic and political phenomena has also tended to steer Brazilian social scientists toward historical topics, considered less likely to arouse the interest of the security authorities. Historians, in turn, have frequently adopted concepts and methodologies from the social sciences. The result has been a fruitful exchange between social scientists and historians, both Brazilian and foreign.5

An equally important development for historians in recent years has been increased access to document collections. By the 1960s a growing number of researchers were permitted to consult unpublished sources on post-1889 history in the Arquivo Nacional and the Arquivo do Ministério das Relações Exteriores (Itamaraty), although regulations for their use have sometimes been inconsistent. Private archives containing the papers of such important figures as Getúlio Vargas, Oswaldo Aranha, and Prudente de Morais have also been opened. Any substantially new understanding of Republican Brazil must rest on careful research in these documentary collections, a labor which is just beginning.

Finally, since the late 1950s, foreign researchers, especially from the United States, have contributed heavily to the scholarly analysis of Brazilian history.6 This development has perturbed some Brazilians, who fear that they may lose control over the writing of their own history. Yet most Brazilians have remained notably receptive, in spite of their understandable concern over the extraordinary degree of foreign interest.7

Studies of the historiography on the Republic have varied widely in coverage and depth. The process leading to the creation of the Republic is covered in Stanley Stein’s admirable study of the historiography of the Empire, which is essential reading for any student of the early Republic. In his Conciliagao e reforma no Brasil, José Honório Rodrigues, Brazil’s premier historiographer, argues that throughout Brazilian history the dominant classes have skillfully prevented or minimized any significant socioeconomic reforms—a feat continued through the Republic. At work was “a tradition of determined yet intelligent conservatism,” in the words of Stanley Stein. In a survey highly critical of modern trends in Brazilian historiography Rodrigues described the dominant motifs of Brazilian history as “conservatism and compromise, liberalism and conspiracy.” Recent surveys of modern Brazilian historiography by two younger Brazilians, Carlos Guilherme Mota and Roberto Amaral Lapa, stress the great influence on historians of contemporary events such as the sudden political turns in the coups of 1937 and 1964.8

Ideologies and Assumptions

Brazilian writing about the Republic has been shaped by the prevailing ideological assumptions in Brazil, which in turn have been closely linked to elite political views about the viability of the Republic itself. From the time of its founding in 1889, the Republic aroused sharply conflicting emotions. The most immediate battle was between Republicans and Monarchists. The latter included many talented intellectuals who directed a steady fire of criticism at the foundering Republic during the first decade after Dom Pedro II’s ouster. They argued that under the Empire difficult national problems (such as ending slavery and maintaining a strong credit rating in London) were finding peaceful yet successful solutions. In their campaign to discredit Republicanism and pave the way for a restoration of the house of Braganza, the Monarchists presented the portrait of a civilized monarch presiding over a harmonious society where order was maintained without repression. This picture stood in vivid contrast to the new regime, which they described as inept, selfish, and dangerously unBrazilian. Although their restorationist hopes had faded significantly by 1900, their nostalgic view of the Empire had an important influence on subsequent historiography. One of the clearest examples was Affonso Celso’s portrait of the magnanimous Emperor serenely accepting expulsion from the country he had served for almost fifty years.9

Despite the passage of many decades, the influence of this interpretation persists. Neither Dom Pedro II, nor his historical role within the politico-constitutional imperial system, have escaped the sentimentalized portrait that proved so appealing in the strife-filled early years of the Republic.10 Other monarchist polemics have had a similar influence. Eduardo Prado’s devastating attack on the first Republican government’s pro-United States policy set the tone for subsequent nationalist critiques of an “alienated” elite’s uncritical imitation of North American institutions and its resulting failure to protect Brazil’s vital economic interests.11 Prado, along with Afonso Arinos, Carlos de Laet, Visconde de Ouro Preto and Affonso Celso, all represented a respectable precedent for later critics who agonized over Brazil’s failure to develop more rapidly as a strong and independent nation.

Comtian philosophy was another ideological influence on the interpretation of the early Republic. Although the direct influence of Positivism within the new Republican government was short-lived, it continued to permeate the ranks of Army officers. The “official” Positivist account of the Republic’s birth is found in the biography of Benjamin Constant, the officer-professor at the Rio de Janeiro Military Academy who helped convert so many army cadets to Positivism. The continuing influence of this doctrine among leading Army officers and the persistence of a Positivist historiography of the Republic can be seen respectively in the careers and biographies of General Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, the explorer of the Brazilian interior and founder of the Serviço de Proteção aos Indios, and of General Tasso Fragoso, leader of the junta that delivered power to Getúlio Vargas in 1930.12

Although the Republic looked more stable after 1898, doubt about it remained the hallmark of commentary. At one end of the spectrum of criticism were liberal reformists, who believed Brazil could and should be governed through liberal democratic institutions.13 But from the early years of the 1890s, when regional revolts and urban agitation threatened the very unity of the country, liberals realized that changes were needed. The political reformers among them looked on the instability of the Republic—the regional revolts of the 1890s and the later federal interventions in state politics during 1910-1914— as evidence of the need for adjustments in political institutions. Extending the franchise or adopting a parliamentary system in place of the U.S.-style presidential one were among the more frequent suggestions. When the Revolution of 1930 ended the “Old Republic,” liberal reformists continued as an important force, but they faced increasing competition from the anti-liberals.14

The moral reformers, the other clearly identifiable reformist group, cast their critique in terms of values—personal and collective. They agreed that liberal democratic institutions could only work if the elite achieved a true leadership role in promoting the common good. Ruy Barbosa, the towering but flawed orator-politician, was the liberal moralist par excellence. It was a position that appealed greatly to the expanding urban middle sector, strongest in São Paulo.15 The moralist streak also influenced the rebellious younger military officers (the tenentes), whose vague political ideas often came down to an appeal for the traditional elite to rededicate itself and its heirs (presumably including the officers) to a more modern leadership role. Not surprisingly, many spokesmen endorsed the liberal reformist viewpoint in both its political and moral forms.

By the 1920s liberal reformers faced a growing challenge from other critics, who argued that liberal democracy was an alien system whose malfunction was dangerously weakening the country. These “anti-liberal nationalists” extended from the extreme of nationalist authoritarians on the Right to social revolutionaries on the Left.16 The Rightist wing proved stronger. It included many of the political and economic elite who feared possible popular mobilization in the fast-growing economic centers such as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The most important pre-World War I precursor of Rightist authoritarianism was Alberto Tôrres, the disillusioned Republican politician-jurist, who advocated the adoption of some corporatist innovations while still speaking from within the liberal democratic school. But the tone of Tôrres’s criticism of Republican political incompetence, coupled with his attack on foreign economic interests, made him a bridge to the outright anti-liberalism of his younger followers, of whom Oliveira Vianna was the most articulate and widely read. Jackson de Figueiredo and Azevedo Amaral were other prominent anti-liberal intellectuals of great influence.17

The rightist position got its systematic formulation in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Its advocates moved toward authoritarianism out of a fear that liberal democratic institutions could never give Brazil the strong government needed to direct its development. Even worse, those institutions might fall under the control of “Bolshevik” leaders commanding a mass following. The more farsighted bankers, lawyers, merchants, military officers, and industrialists realized that the survival of their rule required a dual strategy of material concessions for the organizable urban workers (minimum wages, health care, retirement pensions), and repression for the dissenters and their few followers.18 The intellectual foundation of this strategy depended on the anti-liberal historiography that had undermined the legitimacy of liberal democratic principles and thereby prepared the way for acceptance of authoritarian methods.19

After the Revolution of 1930 the Rightist anti-liberals grew bolder in translating their historical views into political action. Oliveira Vianna became an important policy maker who helped draft the laws on labor union regulation and social welfare programs. In the mid-1930s the militantly anti-liberal Integralist movement gained wide support among the middle and upper sectors. The logical climax to the loss of faith in liberalism was the coup of November 1937 and the authoritarian Estado Novo which followed.20

The other extreme of anti-liberalism was the radical nationalist attack from the Left, although it was far less influential before 1945 than the ideas of the Rightist anti-liberals. During the Old Republic systematic critique from the Left was limited to a handful of figures, such as Anarchist professor of law Joaquim Pimenta and the sardonic civil rights lawyer Maurício de Lacerda. Only after 1945 did Marxism become a significant influence on Brazilian historiography, although Marxian ideas, as well as Communist organizational efforts, were gaining influence among the elite in the 1930-1945 era.21

With the end of the Estado Nôvo in 1945 there was a rapid growth in writing on the history of the Republic. As the military withdrew support for the Vargas regime in 1944-1945, the representatives of democratic liberalism reentered the political arena. The Constitution of 1946 was their new conquest, as Brazil swung from the highly centralized Estado Nôvo back toward the federal model of the first Republican constitution. Not surprisingly, liberal reformist assumptions once again prevailed in historical writing on the Republic, while the authoritarian Rightist theoreticians virtually disappeared. But the most notable post-1945 trend in ideological influence on history writing about the Republic was the spread of radical nationalist ideas among the elite. They predominated in most of the Brazilian attempts at a systematic analysis of the 1889-1945 period, such as those of Nelson Werneck Sodré, Leoncio Basbaum, and Edgard Carone, although the Marxian influence has been far less evident in the monographic literature. During the same years the social sciences, especially economics, political science, and sociology, have grown rapidly in Brazil. Scholars trained in these disciplines have developed new methodological approaches and are no longer forced to choose between the traditional political historiography (essentially liberal reformist) and the rigid application of Marxism. On the other hand, their works sometimes betray an uncritical faith in functionalist assumptions, especially in those of scholars most influenced by the U.S. academic ethos. A recent antidote to that naiveté has come in the form of the “dependency” model, which Brazilian social scientists such as Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Hélio Jaguaribe, and Theotonio dos Santos have been leaders in elaborating. The application of the dependency model to the analysis of Brazilian history has thus far proved disappointing, however, seldom going beyond a highly schematic set of assertions.22

Political History: General

The political history of the Republic is usually divided into three principal periods: 1889-1930 (the “Old Republic”), 1930-1945, and 1945-1964. Relatively few attempts have been made at a single interpretation of the entire 1889-1964 era. One is the four-volume work by Leoncio Basbaum, a political activist who was purged from the Central Committee of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) in 1934.23 His skepticism about the PCB gives his third and fourth volumes an interesting perspective, although his analysis often suffers from a mechanical application of Marxist class analysis. He sees the Empire as incorporating the rule of sugar planters, who then ceded power to the coffee planters, the dominant sector of the “Old Republic,” who in turn lost power vis-à-vis the industrial bourgeoisie after 1930. The proletariat is seen as having been diverted from political power by repression, preemptive social welfare concessions, and the incompetent “sectarianism” of the Communist Party. Basbaum finds constant pressure on Brazil exerted by the foreign capitalist powers—first England and then the U.S. Nelson Werneck Sodré, another heterodox Marxist, has published two widely read survey histories that cover the Republic. His approach suffers from a similar rigidity, although his História da burguesia brasileira, a more detailed work on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, offers much statistical data and bibliography.24

The most widely consulted general history of the Republic is that of José Maria Bello, who had been an active politician during the Old Republic.25 The coup of 1930 prevented his inauguration as governor of Pernambuco and ended his political career. Bello’s historical approach was largely limited to a description of politics on the federal level. His own views were clearly liberal reformist, and he often reverted to an analysis of personalities (Pinheiro Machado, Ruy Barbosa, Getúlio Vargas) to explain historical turning points. Bello’s História remains useful as a reference work on political history, although its explanatory value has been steadily diminished by the rapid growth of more detailed works that probe the social and economic bases of Republican history. Other attempts to interpret the entire era, from 1889 to 1964, have come in one-volume histories of Brazil by U.S. scholars, designed for use in North American college classes. Researchers will find the volumes by Rollie Poppino, E. Bradford Bums, and Donald Worcester valuable largely for the manner in which the authors choose to link institutional changes, especially political ones, with long-term economic and social forces.26

From Empire to Republic

The persistence of a romanticized interpretation of the Empire can be explained in part as a reaction to Republican exaggeration of the Emperor’s power. The Republicans had been able to organize easily, while the Crown showed little resistance to the military conspiracy. The imperial political system had been neither as oppressive as the Republicans charged, nor as benevolent as the Monarchists claimed. Why, then, did the Empire fall? Until recently the conventional explanation centered on three issues that had shaken the Empire during its last two decades—slavery, military indiscipline, and church-state strife. Conflict over each was said to have undermined the Crown’s support among the planters, military officers, and clergy.27

Since the early 1960s a strongly revisionist campaign has been underway in the interpretation of 1889. In his detailed two-volume study of the Empire’s demise, Heitor Lyra downplayed the supposed alienation of the planters and clergy, while giving great weight to the military opposition. George Boehrer pointed to the evidence that had already rendered the traditional interpretation dubious, building upon his own research on the Republican Party from 1870 to 1889, the church from 1840 to 1889, and the church’s putative role in the overthrow of the monarchy.28 In two important articles Emilia Viotti da Costa gave her explanation of the kind of data needed to document the structural “contradictions” apparent in the late imperial politico-economic system. She noted that the emerging revisionist interpretation would perforce stress socioeconomic forces, especially the growth of an urban middle class, as had been emphasized in the earlier pioneering studies by San Tiago Dantas and Aliomar Baleeiro. Richard Graham has contributed notably to the revisionist interpretation by hypothesizing, on the basis of preliminary evidence, that the landowners embraced the Republic “to avoid what seemed to them an even greater disaster than abolition: land reform.”29

An obvious consensus exists on the need to revise the traditional interpretation of the Empire’s replacement by the Republic. There is no shortage of hypotheses, but none can be confirmed without extensive research in primary sources. It is all the more fortunate, therefore, that a subtle and superbly written synthesis on the Empire from 1861 to 1889 by Sergio Buarque de Holanda has recently appeared. His account also stresses the central role of the military. It would appear that the revisionist analysis of the Empire’s fall may lead back to an examination of the institutional basis of military politics, as well as the social and economic forces at work. The prerequisite for further progress in understanding the late Empire will be a new and thoroughly documented investigation of the imperial system as it was consolidated after Dom Pedro II’s accession in 1840.30

The “Old Republic”: 1889-1930

In 1889 the victorious Republicans set about the task of decentralizing government and increasing the political power of the electorate. Their work yielded unexpected results over the next four decades, as Brazil began to undergo industrialization fueled by the profits of the rapidly growing coffee economy. The relationship between this economic development, with its attendant social transformation, and accompanying political change is the most important and yet incompletely explained aspect of the Old Republic.

Edgard Carone has made the most valuable contribution toward an explanation. His strengths are an impressive grasp of the printed sources and a continuous effort to understand the economic and social forces at work. Analysis of these has been given in a separate volume, with sections devoted to the economy, social classes, the military, and political and constitutional institutions. Carone earlier published a collection of documents from each of these subject areas, thus furnishing scholars and students a readily accessible entrée to the era. Political history has been separated from Carone’s treatment of economic and institutional developments, thus leaving the integration of the two largely up to the reader. The author’s adherence to a Marxian and, often, dualist approach takes him into areas of class analysis where he poses important questions for further research.31

Soon after the Revolution of 1930 there appeared two essentially narrative surveys of political history during the Old Republic. Sertorio de Castro, a journalist, produced a lively chronicle of national politics, with frequent quotations from contemporary politicians, while Dormund Martins, a medical doctor and a former Carioca government official, emphasized how the armed rebellions had steadily eroded the legitimacy of the Republic since 1914.32 Two other works of the early 1930s analyzed the Old Republic from sharply differing political perspectives. In a work written just after the coup of October 1930, José Maria dos Santos offered a passionate defense of the “liberal monarchy,” which had been replaced by “republican tyranny.” Santos denied that Brazil had experienced a revolution in 1930. Rather, it was merely an alteration in the method of political succession, an inevitable result of having adopted the presidential system in a country for which it was ill-suited. Maurício de Lacerda agreed that Brazil had not yet experienced a social revolution. He spoke from experience, since he had been one of the few Congressmen prepared to consider revolution. An outspoken defender of civil liberties during the Old Republic, Lacerda warned against the “two extremisms of the century—fascism and communism,” and argued for “a joining of the social and political lefts” in order to prevent the liberals or the conservatives from perverting the Revolution of 1930 to their own purposes. Lacerda’s analysis of the political options Brazil faced in 1930 stands as a prophetic historical document.33

Our understanding of the operation of political institutions during the Old Republic is very incomplete. What was the relationship between political participation and political parties? How did important interest groups, such as the coffee growers, bring influence to bear on state and federal government? How much power did the national Congress or the federal Supreme Court wield? Recent research has helped begin to answer these questions but much remains to be done.34

The years between 1889 and 1902 were critical for the new Republic, yet their study by Histórians has been rather scant.35 The Republican strategy behind the elections for the Constituent Assembly of 1890-1891 and the first decade of Republican politics has to be deduced primarily from the memoirs of leading Republican politicians, such as Campos Salles, or the biographies of others, such as Prudente de Morais or Bernardino de Campos. The key role of Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca, father of the coup of November 15 and first president of the Republic, is clearly depicted in Raymundo Magalhães Júnior’s carefully documented biography.36 Yet we lack a comparable work on Marshal Floriano Peixoto, the “Iron Marshal,” who succeeded Deodoro in 1891. Monarchist critics quickly charged that this military government would degenerate into caudilhismo, but Floriano gave the lie to that prediction when he presided over the election and inauguration of Prudente de Morais, the first civilian president.37 The new political system was consolidated by a de facto consensus among the leaders of the Republican political machines in the most important states—Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, and Pernambuco. The Republican machines of each state (which varied greatly in their local strength and leadership) were tacitly given carte blanche internally, in return for supporting the President on questions of national politics.

The years between 1902 and 1909 have usually been seen as the high period of the Old Republic. Political stability prevailed (meaning, in effect, that the state Republican party machines faced few serious challenges) and Rio de Janeiro was given the urban facelifting which Brazil’s elite hoped would make it comparable to the prosperous Europeanized facades of Buenos Aires and Mexico City. The political leaders who earned credit for these changes were Rodrigues Alves and Afonso Pena, leaders of the Republican forces in São Paulo and Minas Gerais.38

In 1909 the “politics of the governors” began to malfunction seriously, as the state leaders failed to reach agreement on the presidential succession. Minas Gerais Governor João Pinheiro, the consensus candidate for the 1910 presidential election, died in 1908. Incumbent President Pena’s own death the following year cut short his attempt to arrange the nomination of another mineiro, Finance Minister Daví Campista. Instead, Pena’s own War Minister, General Hermes da Fonseca, finally emerged as the official candidate and was duly elected. He was opposed in the election campaign by Ruy Barbosa, the Bahian Senator who attempted to tap the discontent of the liberal reformist voters, especially in the major cities.39 The best analysis of Hermes da Fonseca’s turbulent presidential term is given in Chapter Six of Joseph Love’s skillfully architected monograph on Rio Grande do Sul’s role in national politics from 1882 to 1930. By focusing on Pinheiro Machado, leader of the Riograndense Congressional delegation in Rio, and Borges de Medeiros, the autocratic governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Love explains quite effectively the functioning of the national political system.40

The question of how Brazil reacted to World War I and how she adjusted to the immediate postwar years has gotten more attention from the economic Historians (discussed in Part II of this article) than the students of political change. For 1914-1918, the presidency of Wenceslau Braz, the bibliography is limited either to contemporary apologias or the superficial study by Darcy Bessone.41 For Epitácio Pessôa’s term (1919-1922), the situation is almost as bleak, despite the great importance of the period. Pessôa was the first President from the Northeast, and he used his power to launch the first large-scale federal program to alleviate the catastrophic effects of drought in that region.42

The military proved to be the most devisive force during Pessôa’s term. Army revolts punctuated the entire decade of the 1920s and merit a separate, if brief, discussion here. Officer discontent burst into the open when rebels launched a mutiny at Copacabana Fort in Rio de Janeiro on July 5, 1922. Histórians have often tried to discern a single program of the military rebels, tenentismo, but in fact there was no monolithic position.43 The revolts—Copacabana Fort in 1922, Rio Grande do Sul in 1923-1924, São Paulo in 1924, and the epic march of the “Prestes Column” from 1924 to 1927— have generated a large body of memoirs and polemical pamphlets. In his excellent study of the “Prestes Column,” Neill Macaulay has made use of a wide range of sources to convey the flavor of back-country guerrilla adventures. Macaulay argues convincingly that “in 1927 Brazil wanted heroes but not a revolution.” Genuinely radical leaders, such as Luís Carlos Prestes and Miguel Costa, made little headway among their fellow officers or with the Brazilian bourgeoisie. Tenentismo was never a unified movement, and the fate of its leaders over the next four decades must be seen in the light of their widely divergent ideological goals. Most were satisfied to trim their ideas in return for positions of power within elitist regimes after 1930.44

There has been little attempt to explain the institutional background of the military dissension that wrecked the Old Republic. A starting point for scholars will be a careful study of the memoirs of officers. An important contribution toward the analysis of military politics has come from José Murilo de Carvalho, who carefully examines the evolution of the federal army’s strength vis-à-vis the state militia. The first two volumes of Hélio Silva’s ambitious history of “the Vargas era” contain important documentary material on political conflict of the 1920s, including the military, but offer little interpretation.45

As for other aspects of Epitácio Pessôa’s presidential term, one significant development was the eruption of an emotional nationalist campaign, often directed against Portugal, and the influence of Portuguese merchants in most of Brazil’s largest cities. Since these nationalists, such as Alcibíades Deiamare and Jackson de Figueiredo, were contributors to the influential rightist authoritarianism described earlier, we need to know more about their relationship to the Pessôa presidency and its brand of nationalism. The same could be said of domestic social policy and the response to working-class organization when Brazil, like Argentina and Chile, suffered a series of strikes in 1917-1919 which were unprecedented in their scope and militancy.46

Repression became the hallmark of the presidency of Arthur Bernardes (1922-1926), whose term began in the shadow of the tumult created by the publication of the notorious forged letters, purportedly containing threats by Bemardes against the military. The election campaign of 1922, poisoned by increasingly ugly distrust between military and civilians, had deepened the divisions among the national political leaders. For the second time since the civilians assumed power in 1894 (the first had been in 1910), the official nominee was opposed by a dissident group, now calling itself a reação republicana. An understanding of the divisions within the established political elite of the Old Republic is essential for understanding the Revolution of 1930 and the political alignments of the three decades which followed. Analysis has unfortunately been restricted either to general accounts, of which one of the clearest and most informative is by Carone, or to biographies of such leading figures as Bemardes and Pessôa.47

The bitterness generated by the government reaction to the military rebels has heavily influenced the historiography about the 1920s, which has been dominated by liberal reformist critics of the Old Republic. Contemporary defenses of Bemardes, pamphletic in style, have been followed by other favorable studies based on the president’s papers.48 Bernardes’s successor, Washington Luiz, was nominated and elected in an atmosphere of deceptive calm in 1926. The persistent political divisions became evident in São Paulo, where the founding of the Partido Democrático in 1926 signalled growing opposition to the established Paulista party (PRP).40 Most conspicuously lacking in the historiography of the later Old Republic is any well-documented research on the socioeconomic bases of the political divisions that made possible the Revolution of 1930.

1930-1945

The era between 1930 and 1945 has come to be known, conveniently and misleadingly, as the “era of Vargas.” Yet an undue concentration on Getúlio’s personality and supposed motives can produce a distorted and imbalanced picture. The tumultuous years from the Provisional Government of 1930 to the authoritarian coup of 1937 have received increasing attention, although a well balanced synthesis must await further research in unpublished sources. An excellent overview, covering economics, social classes, and politics, is offered in Carone’s A República nova (1930-1937). Carone has also published a collection of documents with cogent introductory notes. It is done in the same format as his A Primeria República, which covered 1889-1930. Hélio Silva’s successive volumes on the years between 1930 and 1937 include a wealth of detail that awaits digestion and intelligent use by other Histórians. The best-documented study of the political radicalization, which helped end the liberal reformist hopes (as incarnated in the Constitution of 1934), is Robert Levine’s The Vargas Regime: The Critical Years. Although Levine had access to unpublished personal papers—such as those of Vargas and Oswaldo Aranha—and access to records of DOPS (political police) in Rio de Janeiro, additional documentation on this complex and important period will undoubtedly be forthcoming from other research.50

The Revolution of 1930 impressed its contemporaries as a seminal event, and the outpouring of analysis and memoir literature was appropriately vast. Among the most profound was that of Barbosa Lima Sobrinho. An important guide to the historiography of the Revolution of 1930 is given in the incisive volume of Boris Fausto, who argues convincingly that when the coffee growers lost their politico-economic dominance in 1930, the initial result was a power vacuum. Since the “industrial bourgeoisie” was far from ready to assume power, what emerged was an ideologically hybrid state. The largely abortive efforts at revolutionary mobilization in 1930 have been little studied, with the exception of Peter Flynn’s account of the “Revolutionary Legion” in Minas Gerais. An interesting attempt to specify the political data that would be needed to verify or deny the best-known interpretations of the 1930 Revolution has been given in a cogent article coauthored by Celina do Amaral Peixoto Moreira Franco.51

In-depth analysis of the struggles among the disparate elements that had so recently united against Washington Luiz and his would-be successor, Júlio Prestes, must await research in government and private archives. The most dramatic clash was in São Paulo, where the Provisional Government in Rio accomplished the impressive feat of uniting against it the several warring elements of the Paulista elite, whose regionalist amour propre erupted in the “Constitutionalist Revolution” of 1932. Most writing on 1932 came from Paulista liberal reformers who sought to legitimize São Paulo’s rebellion by proving that Vargas had betrayed the Revolution of 1930 and was bent on humiliating São Paulo.52

After the end of the São Paulo revolt in September 1932, major national movements emerged on the left and right. Most important on the right was Integralism, insightfully analyzed by Helgio Trinidade, who incorporated into his monograph much biographical information gathered in personal interviews with surviving Integralistas. Other research has shown the significant support given the Integralists by high church figures who saw the movement as a possible means of strengthening the church.53

Mobilization on the Left culminated in the Aliança Nacional Libertadora (ANL), in which the best organized force was the Brazilian Communist Party. The federal government’s repression of the ANL in 1935 was followed by the disastrously unsuccessful military revolt of November 1935, engineered by the PCB. I have related the story of the revolt and Ronald H. Chilcote’s excellent history of the PCB puts it into the perspective of party history. Robert Levine has made the most satisfactory attempt to present an overall view of the political radicalization of the mid 1930s.54

The history of the authoritarian Estado Nôvo, launched in November 1937, has yet to be written. One of the most incisive works on the period was by Karl Loewenstein, who concluded that the regime, although authoritarian, was neither totalitarian nor fascist. Since Loewenstein’s coverage extended only to 1941, his work is of no help in understanding the important policy innovations of the 1942-1943 period.55

To analyze this Brazilian era is perforce to answer many fundamental questions about twentieth-century Brazil. Is a democratic participatory system or an authoritarian dirigista system more compatible with Brazil’s political tradition? What social and economic forces lay behind the coup that began the Estado Novo? And the coup of 1945 that ended it? Did the latter merely restore a liberal patina, while the semi-corporatist structure, created after 1930, continued functioning? I stressed the discontinuities in Politics in Brazil, while Philippe Schmitter has argued that there may have existed “some elective affinity between Brazil’s delayed-dependent developmental context and authoritarian rule in the 1930-1945 period.” His logic leads to seeing the 1945-1964 period as an interlude before outright authoritarian government became necessary again in the mid-1960s.56

A wealth of unpublished source material awaits the researcher who focuses on the 1930-1945 era. The need for caution in reaching conclusions after an incomplete search of the sources is highlighted by the revision to which John Wirth’s study of trade and steel policy has been subjected by Stanley Hilton. In two of his three case studies (trade and steel; the third was on oil) Wirth pictured the higher military as a principal lobbying force behind the creation of a Brazilian steel plant, and as relatively disinterested in trade policy. Both theses have been modified, as Wirth acknowledges, in the light of Hilton’s detailed documentation from unpublished sources.57

Much investigation of institution building during the Estado Novo remains to be done. Lawrence S. Graham has shown how Vargas used authoritarian powers to create a merit-oriented federal civil service (DASP), which suffered a loss of professionalism at the hands of the patronage-hungry politicians who came to power after Vargas’s ouster in 1945. Hélio Silva’s volumes on the Estado Nôvo, not yet complete, are closer to a documentary collection than an interpretive history.58

The interpretation of Vargas’s role is as difficult as interpretation of the Estado Nôvo. His career in national politics spanned almost four decades, and his repertoire of roles was startlingly large. It included positions as Finance Minister in the Washington Luíz government, Governor of Rio Grande de Sul, Provisional President of Brazil, President elected by the Constituent Assembly of 1933-1934, self-appointed president from 1937 to 1945, then elected senator for five years before his final return to Catete Palace in 1951 as the popularly elected President. Only Getúlio’s last presidential term was gained by a direct popular election. Vargas had moved from the role of a promising young product of a political machine during the Old Republic to a populist in the 1950s. He was a supremely political personality with an extraordinary ability to adapt his ideas and leadership style to the era. Significantly, however, Vargas had neither the charisma nor the vanity of a Perón; his suicide in 1954 left a country divided, but less deeply embittered than Argentina after Perón’s ouster in 1955.

The only scholarly biography of Vargas, by J. W. F. Dulles, is a useful reference work based largely on printed sources and supplemented by interviews with surviving contemporaries. The approach is that of a chronicle, and there is little effort to relate Vargas’s turbulent career to the economic and social forces of his era. The personal memoirs of the president’s former aide, Luiz Vergara, and talented daughter, Alzira Vargas do Amaral Peixoto, give only enough biographical detail to tantalize the reader.59 A balanced, in-depth portrait of Vargas must await careful research in the Vargas archive and the private papers of his more prominent collaborators, such as Oswaldo Aranha, Artur de Souza Costa, and Góes Monteiro, as well as the extensive government archives. In the meantime, historical judgments about the Vargas era will continue to depend on the memoirs of Getulio’s contemporaries. Among them none played a more critical role than General Góes Monteiro, whose dictated recollections give only a hint of what historians may hope to find in his personal papers. Other memoirs include those of João Neves da Fontoura, the gaúcho who also gave detailed background on pre-1930 politics in Rio Grande do Sul and the formation of the Aliança Liberal, General Pantaleão Pessôa, Chief of the Army General Staff in the mid-1930s and João Café Filho, Getúlio’s vice-presidential running mate in 1951, whose role in the conspiracy to depose Vargas in 1954 has remained much disputed.60

One of the least studied but most important features of the Estado Nôvo was the system of political police and censorship. It was a natural target for the liberal reformists, who hoped to discredit Vargas by associating his methods with European fascism. The organization and coordination of the police, state militias, and federal military, for example, must be analyzed in order to understand how social control was maintained. Documentation in this area is obviously difficult to obtain, but until it is explored we are likely to underestimate the importance of police terror and harassment in maintaining the façade of public order.

1945-1964

The “democratic era” of 1945-1964 is closer to our own day and is correspondingly more difficult to place in historical perspective. Most Brazilian opinion-makers, since they identified themselves with liberal reformism, have regarded 1945 as the moment of return to the quest for a viable participatory democracy, although the Constitution of 1946 excluded half of the adult Brazilian population by attaching a literacy requirement to the franchise. The confrontation between Vargas and his liberal reformist enemies in 1944—1945 had more long-term significance than Histórians have yet succeeded in explaining.61 Brazilians have produced relatively few detailed historical analyses of the entire 1945-1964 era, hardly surprising in view of the closeness of the period, complexity of the events, practical difficulties of research and political sensitivity of the subject. Among the attempts are the essays by Octávio Ianni and L. C. Bresser Pereira, who stress the virtual inevitability of a political crisis because of the incapacity of the economic model to maintain itself.62

The 1945-1964 period saw a deepening struggle between the “populist” politicians, whose opportunities were enlarged by the rapidly expanding political participation after 1945, and military officers, who feared that popular mobilization might come under the control of revolutionary leaders. To analyze that process requires considerable attention both to the constant economic pressure resulting from rising domestic inflation and to an increasingly unmanageable schedule for repaying the foreign debt. Emphasis must also be given to the radicalization of views among the “middle sectors,” who in the early 1960s grew increasingly fearful of the revolutionary potential of the urban lower classes.

Their fear was reflected in the reaction to Vargas’s return to power in 1951. He was still seen as the “ex-dictator” by the liberal reformists typified by the UDN party leadership and O Estado de São Paulo, the leading conservative newspaper. In truth, Vargas had skillfully adapted to the new electoral system by combining support from the PSD and the PTB, the two major parties he had helped to found in 1945. The Vargas presidency from 1951 to 1954 proved turbulent as Getúlio sought to maintain an uneasy equilibrium between orthodoxy and nationalism in economic policy, the most important and also the most complex aspect of his government.

The historical interpretation of Vargas’s final presidency and the crisis leading to his suicide in 1954 is a key to an interpretation of the entire 1945-1964 era.63 To what extent was Getúlio an early “populist?” How did interest groups influence his attempt to accelerate industrialization under the leadership of a dynamic state sector? How did foreign creditors, customers, and investors constrain Brazilian choices? What forces were at work among the military? What role did military officers play in setting limits to civilian political behavior? Were the political parties capable of representing group interests and at the same time maintaining coherence of action?

These and many more questions arise. They are all relevant to the entire post-1945 era, yet a careful look at the literature on the 1951-1954 presidency shows how few have received detailed analysis. Did the particular circumstances of Vargas’s exit in 1954 merely postpone the political showdown for another decade? If so, a close examination of the period from 1945 to 1954 should have first priority.

Because political parties lacked a clear ideological focus and exhibited lax party discipline, observers have tended to overstate the importance of individual leaders. In fact, analysis of electoral data and congressional behavior of the parties can reveal much about how the widely differing levels of economic development were reflected in politics. The sources for the study of the three major parties are copious, as can be seen in the case of the UDN. The “equilibrating” role of the PSD has been analyzed by Lúcia M. Lippi de Oliveira, who gained valuable insights from interviews with former party leaders.64 Excellent analysis of the connection between voting patterns and such variables as region and socioeconomic stratification has been done by Gláucio Ary Dillon Soares. One of the most difficult patterns to interpret was the practice of electoral alliances that often seemed to unite political enemies.65 Recent studies have also shown that between 1945 and 1964 the federal legislature played a central role in government, a fact often given too little weight in analyses concentrating on the president’s powers.66 No discussion of the 1945-1964 period would be complete without reference to “populism.” Adhemar de Barros, governor of São Paulo and the leader of a personalistic party (PSP), which made him a power on the national scene, has often been seen as an archetypical “populist” leader and obviously deserves further study.67

Students of modern Brazil have differed over the relative importance of interest groups in the political process. Philippe Schmitter concluded that the formally constituted “representational associations” have little direct influence on the formulation of government policy, although their weight is sometimes felt when laws or regulations are applied.68 Yet surprisingly little research has been done in the form of historical case studies. One exception is the struggle in 1951-1953 to create Petrobrás, the state oil-drilling monopoly. Another exception is the building of Brasília, one of the best-known accomplishments of the Kubitschek presidency. The planned new capital was accompanied by the rapid growth of unplanned “squatments,” which added an air of unexpected reality to the futuristic site.69

Other important groups in the political process include peasants, the church, and the military. The increasing political mobilization of the rural population, which proved to be an important factor in the polarization that culminated in the coup of 1964, has been the subject of extensive analysis.70 The same is true for the church, whose role in modern Brazilian politics had been little studied until recently. Notable contributions are Eul-Soo Pang’s survey of the role of priests in Northeastern politics, from 1889 to 1964, and Margaret Todaro Williams’s work on the Liga Eleitoral Católica. In analyzing the changes forced on the church by its reactions to the political crises since 1950, Thomas Bruneau has traced Brazil’s departure from the close church-state relations created in the 1930s. Since the 1950s the radical wing of the church has gained the most attention. The Catholic Left’s brief taste of power in the early 1960s was followed by a dark era of repression that revealed how the institutional weaknesses of the contemporary church greatly limit any effort at promoting social change.71

The military before 1945, like the church, has seldom been analyzed from the standpoint of its institutional evolution. Murilo de Carvalho’s excellent study on the “destabilizing power” of the military during the Old Republic is, therefore, a pioneering and important work. In his influential monograph on the evolution of the military’s political role from the “moderating pattern” of 1945-1964 to the military government as it was consolidated after 1964, Alfred Stepan has paid special attention to how officers were influenced by, inter alia, service in the Brazilian Expeditionary Force in World War II (FEB), the ideas promoted by the Higher War College (ESG), and the frustrations suffered during successive military interventions between 1945 and 1964. Only by a careful analysis of such factors will it be possible to understand the central role that the military played in the postwar world.72

(Part Two of this article, to be published in a subsequent issue, will draw on other areas in which recent research has been extensive. A brief sampling of work on state and local politics will be followed by more extensive surveys of writing on labor and the Left, economic history, and foreign relations.)

1

This article was written during the course of 1974. Although an effort was made to remain abreast of new publications, 1972 was the last year for which a reasonable degree of comprehensiveness could be attempted. Because of the frequent delays in the distribution of books and periodicals, some publications bearing a 1973 imprint undoubtedly escaped attention.

2

For a brief survey written on the eve of the expansion of interest in Brazil among U.S. historians, see George C. A. Boehrer, “Brazilian Historical Bibliography: Some Lacunae and Suggestions,” Inter-American Review of Bibliography, 11:2 (1961), 137-144. Bibliographies on Republican Brazil have dated quickly, for obvious reasons. The starting point remains the section on the Republic in the Manual bibliográfico de estudos brasileiros (Rio de Janeiro, 1949), edited by Rubens Borba de Moraes and William Berrien. Gilberto Freyre’s introductory essay to that section contains many of the ideas later spelled out in detail in his Ordem e progresso, 2 vols. (Rio de Janeiro, 1959), translated by Rod W. Horton as Order and Progress (New York, 1970). This ill-organized work is filled with interesting observations and ideas on Brazilian social and cultural history between 1889 and 1918. For further discussion of this work’s value as a source and an interpretation, see Thomas E. Skidmore, “Gilberto Freyre and the Early Brazilian Republic: Some Notes on Methodology,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 6:4 (July 1964), 490-505. The sections on Sociology, Geography, and Ethnology in Moraes and Berrien, Manual bibliográfico are also relevant for Republican history. Américo Jacobina Lacombe, Brasil: Período nacional (México, 1956) includes many judicious comments on sources and secondary works. Nelson Werneck Sodré, O que se deve ler para conhecer o Brasil, 4th ed. (Rio de Janeiro, 1973) is a useful manual that also offers many leads to the researcher in its nonhistorial sections. Two U.S. specialists on Brazil have recently contributed carefully selected and annotated bibliographies: John D. Wirth, “Brazil, the Republic,” in Latin America: A Guide to the Historical Literature, eds. Charles C. Griffin and J. Benedict Warren (Austin, 1971), pp. 607-618; and Rollie E. Poppino, whose one-volume history, Brazil: The Land and People, 2nd ed. (New York, 1973) includes a guide to the literature on Brazil. See also note 8 below.

3

A discussion of the secondary literature on Brazilian intellectual history since 1870 is given in Thomas E. Skidmore, Black Into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought (New York, 1974), especially in the “Note on Sources and Methodology,” where survey works on fields such as political thought and religious ideas are cited. Although that book is devoted primarily to racial ideas, the notes include commentary in the bibliography about Positivism (chap. 1, nn. 24-29) and Modernism (chap. 6, nn. 7-16), and on major figures in the cultural history of the late Empire and Old Republic such as Sílvio Romero (chap. 1, nn. 89-117; chap. 4, nn. 54), Nina Rodrigues (chap. 2, nn. 50-62), Monteiro Lobato (chap. 6, nn. 18-35), Capistrano de Abreu (chap. 3, nn. 59-61), Euclides da Cunha (chap. 3, nn. 62-77; chap. 4, nn. 40), Graça Aranha (chap. 3, nn. 78-83), Manoel Bomfim (chap. 3, nn. 86-99), Alberto Tôrres (chap. 3, nn. 100-114), Afonso Arinos (chap. 5, n. 3), Mário de Andrade (chap. 6, nn. 11-12), Roquette-Pinto (chap, 6, nn. 41-52), Gilberto Freyre (chap. 6, nn. 54—61), Oliveira Vianna (chap. 6, nn. 78-88), and Paulo Prado (chap. 6, nn. 89-95).

4

There is much discussion of the Brazilian elite’s search for national identity after 1870 in Skidmore, Black Into White; the Modernist movement is discussed in chap. 6. For a good overview of the principal cultural influences on Brazilian historical thought in this period, see Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, “Historical Thought in Twentieth-Century Brazil,” in Perspectives on Brazilian History, ed. E. Bradford Bums (New York, 1967), pp. 181-196.

5

This trend has been encouraged by a deliberate effort of certain financing authorities. The Ford Foundation has usually required a commitment to interdisciplinary approaches as a condition for its support of Brazilian research and training programs, and of the Foreign Area Fellowship Program and the Joint Committee on Latin American Studies in the U.S., as well as for the Foundation’s direct grants to U.S. universities for Latin American Studies. The U.S. Office of Education, in administering its fellowships and university grants for “language and area studies” on Latin America (NDEA and NDFL programs), has specifically required integrated interdisciplinary programs.

6

Increased North American interest in Brazil was no accident. Although U.S. research and teaching on Latin America had been more extensive than on any other world region before 1940 (with the prominent participation of noted “Brazilianists” such as Percy Alvin Martin and John Casper Branner), Latin American studies lost out in the competition for support during the first postwar decade-and-a-half, while African, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Soviet and East European Studies all received extensive governmental and foundation funding. The radicalization of Fidel Castro’s regime in Cuba changed all that. Suddenly Latin America became an area of greatly increased strategic concern for the U.S. The longtime pleas for funds by the neglected Latin Americanists were now heeded. Both the federal government and prominent foundations singled out Portuguese America for special attention because of its obvious strategic importance (geographical size and location, population, natural resources). Not surprisingly, Brazil’s linguistic isolation in a Spanish-speaking continent had contributed to its relative neglect among U.S. scholars; the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), first passed in 1958, identified Portuguese as a critical language and earmarked fellowship funds for its study on the university level. In the first half of the 1960s the Ford Foundation-funded Joint Committee on Latin American Studies (JCLAS) and the Foreign Area Fellowship Program (FAFP) made a special effort to solicit applications for research on Brazil. Thirty percent of the 181 FAFP fellowships awarded for doctoral research on Latin America between 1961-1962 and 1969-1970, went for research on Brazil. The comparable figure for JCLAS postdoctoral grants in the same period was 21 percent. American Council of Learned Societies/Social Science Research Council, Joint Committee on Latin American Studies and Joint Committee on the Foreign Area Fellowship Program, Report on Activities, 1959-70 (New York, 1971), pp. 13-14, 164. Sometimes the resulting publications showed scant regard for quality. A succinct review of the early history of Latin American Studies in the U.S. is given by Charles Wagley in the introductory chapter to Social Science Research on Latin America, ed. Charles Wagley (New York, 1964). At the height of the boom in the 1960s, Lewis Hanke showed a keen awareness of the political factors that had stimulated the new support: Lewis Hanke, “Studying Latin America: The Views of an ‘Old Christian,’” Journal of Inter-American Studies, 9:1 (Jan. 1967), 43-64. For a comprehensive analysis of the growth in the U.S. of foreign language and area studies and their status by 1970, see Richard D. Lambert, Language and Area Studies Review, The American Academy of Political and Social Science: Monograph 17 (Philadelphia, 1973). The most systematic critique of the relationship between the scholarly orientation of U.S. Latin Americanists and the political concerns of the U.S. elite is Susanne J. Bodenheimer, “The Ideology of Developmentalism: The American Paradigm-Surrogate for Latin American Studies,” Sage Professional Papers in Comparative Politics (01-015), II (Beverly Hills, Calif., 1971). A more pamphletic attack is made in North American Congress on Latin America, Subliminal Warfare: The Role of Latin American Studies (New York, 1970).

7

The alarm was sounded in Franklin de Oliveira, Morte da memória nacional (Rio de Janeiro, 1967); and in “A história do Brasil: O passado do país está sendo escrito em inglês,” Veja, 168 (Nov. 24, 1971), 32-38. Américo Jacobina Lacombe, Introdução ao estudo da história do Rrasil (São Paulo, 1974) suggested this surge of foreign research should stimulate Brazilians to increase their own efforts. For the comments of one of the most persistent advocates of reform in the institutional framework sustaining Brazilian historians, see José H. Rodrigues, A pesquisa histórica no Brasil 2nd ed. (São Paulo, 1969); and his “O ensino da história e a reforma universitaria,” Revista Civilização Brasileira, 4:21/22 (Sept.-Dec. 1968), 3-39. For discussion of recent historiographical trends and institutional research facilities, see Universidade de São Paulo Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros, Anais do Encontro Internacional de Estados Brasileiros, 2 (1972), 3-162; and Francisco Iglesias, “A pesquisa histórica no Brasil,” Revista de história, 43:88 (Oct.-Dec. 1971), 373-415. Since the present article is on the recent period, it cites a very large number of works by non-Brazilians. This reflects their productivity over the past 15 years but is not meant to imply that Brazilians’ contribution to the interpretation of Brazilian history is in proportion to the frequency with which their works are cited here. It should be emphasized again that this article does not attempt a comprehensive evaluation of the entire bibliography, even within its limited coverage.

8

Stanley J. Stein, “The Historiography of Brazil, 1808-1889,” HAHR, 40:2 (May 1960), 234-278. Rodrigues, A pesquisa histórica no Brasil; José Honório Rodrigues, Teoria da história do Brasil: Introdução metodológica, 3rd ed., 2 vols. (São Paulo, 1969); História e historiadores do Brasil (São Paulo, 1965); Vida e história (Rio de Janeiro, 1966); and Conciliação e reforma no Brasil: Um desafio histórico-cultural (Rio de Janeiro, 1965). Stanley J. Stein, “Latin American Historiography: Status and Research Opportunities,” in Social Science Research on Latin America, ed. Charles Wagley (New York, 1964), pp. 86-124. José Honório Rodrigues, “Brazilian Historiography: Present Trends and Research Requirements,” in Social Science in Latin America, ed. Manuel Diégues Júnior and Bryce Wood (New York, 1967), p. 231. For a suggestive neo-Marxian analysis of the conservative ideology dominant in Brazilian history writing between 1900 and 1930, see Pedro de Alcântara Figueira, Historiografia brasileira, 1900-1930: análise critica, Diss. Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Assis (São Paulo, 1973). A useful inventory on historiographical trends since 1930 appeared in Hélio Vianna, “Atuais tendências da historiografia Brasileira,” Inter-American Review of Bibliography, 13:1 (1963) 30-59. A brief discussion of the post-1945 historiographical trends in writing on the entire national period may be found in Richard Graham’s chapter in Latin American Scholarship since World War 11, eds. Roberto Esquenazi-Mayo and Michael C. Meyer (Lincoln, 1971), pp. 51-72. Carlos Guilherme Mota, “A historiografia brasileira nos últimos quarenta anos: Tentativa de avaliação crítica,” Comunicação apresentada ao Primera Encuentro de Historiadores Latinoamericanos (July 15-19, 1974, Mexico City). José Roberto do Amaral Lapa, “Historiografia brasileira contemporânea,” mimeographed (Campinas, 1973).

9

Affonso Celso, O imperador no exílio (Rio de Janeiro, 1893).

10

The continuing nostalgia could be seen in Heitor Lyra, História de Dom Pedro II, 3 vols. (São Paulo, 1938-1940); and Mary Wilhelmine Williams, Dom Pedro the Magnanimous: Second Emperor of Brazil (Chapel Hill, 1937).

11

Eduardo Prado, A illusão Americana (Paris, 1895).

12

Raimundo Teixeira Mendes, Benjamin Constant, 2nd ed. (Rio de Janeiro, 1913) was the “official” version of these events published under the auspices of the Apostolado Positivista do Brasil. Esther de Viveiros, Rondon conta sua vida (Rio de Janeiro, 1958). Tristão de Alencar Araripe, Tasso Fragoso: um pouco de história do nosso exército (Rio de Janeiro, 1960).

13

The political tradition discussed here is the “liberal constitutionalism” described in Thomas E. Skidmore, Politics in Brazil, 1930-1964: An Experiment in Democracy (New York, 1967), p. 9.

14

In Do govêrno presidencial na República Brasileira (Lisbon, 1896), Joaquim Francisco de Assis Brasil argued for the introduction of a parliamentary system, while Alberto Salles, another “historic” Republican, called for less fundamental institutional changes in 1901. Luís Washington Vita, Alberto Salles: ideólogo da República (São Paulo, 1965), pp. 42-47.

15

A typical expression was Mário Pinto Serva, Patria nova (São Paulo, 1922).

16

The political and intellectual context of this “new nationalism” is analyzed in Skidmore, Black Into White, chap. 5.

17

The two major works by Alberto Tôrres were O problema nacional (Rio de Janeiro, 1914); and A organização nacional (Rio de Janeiro, 1914). For a more detailed discussion of Tôrres and a bibliography on him, see Skidmore, Black Into White, pp. 118-123. Oliveira Vianna’s fluent style helped make his thoroughgoing critique of liberal democratic institutions accessible to many of the elite. His most important works of the 1920s include Francisco José de Oliveira Vianna, O ocaso do Império (São Paulo, 1925); O idealismo na evolução política do Império e da República (São Paulo, 1922); and Evolução do povo brasileiro (São Paulo, 1923). A first-rate study of Jackson de Figueiredo’s reactionary thought is included in the collection of essays and articles by Francisco Iglésias: História e ideologia (São Paulo, 1971), pp. 109-158. A brief discussion of Jackson’s career from the psychoanalytic viewpoint is offered in Margaret Todaro Williams, “Psychoanalysis and Latin American History,” in New Approaches to Latin American History, eds. Richard Graham and Peter H. Smith (Austin, 1974), pp. 194-224. The best analysis of Azevedo Amaral’s thought is Aspásia Brasileiro Alcântara, “A teoria política de Azevedo Amarai,” DADOS, Nos. 2/3 (1967), 194-224. A résumé of Amaral’s principal political ideas is given, with virtually no criticial discussion, in Jarbas Medeiros, “Introdução ao estudo do pensamento político autoritário brasileiro: 1914-18/1939-45, III: Azevedo Amaral,” Revista de Ciência Política, 17:3 (July/Sept., 1974), 3-106.

18

This strategy was aptly labelled “neo-Bismarckian” in Hélio Jaguaribe, Desenvolvimento económico e desenvolvimento político (Rio de Janeiro, 1962), pp. 21-26.

19

Ruy Barbosa, the indefatigable liberal and principal author of the Constitution of 1891, became a chief target of the anti-liberal critics, as in Martins de Almeida, Brasil errado: Ensato político sôbre os erros do Brasil como paiz (Rio de Janeiro, 1932). Ruy has remained a key figure in the historiography of the Republic, because he so fully embodied the liberal impulse that undermined the Empire and because he later sought reformist formulae to save the new institutions. Raymundo Magalhães Júnior, Rui, o homen e o mito (Rio de Janeiro, 1965) is a debunking biography, which provoked extravagant defenses, such as Jorge Salomão, Um piolho na asa da águia (São Paulo, 1965). The ensuing controversy has been described with wit in Phil Brian Johnson, “Up-Tight about Ruy: An Essay on Brazilian Cultural Nationalism and Mythology,” Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs, 15:2 (May 1973), 191-204. As Johnson notes, the best single source on Ruy remains Luiz Viana Filho, A vida de Rui Barbosa (São Paulo, 1949).

20

The ideological ferment of the early 1930s was reflected in an outpouring of publications. For an analysis of one of the best-known book series, the “coleção azul” (published in 1932-1933), see Edgard Carone, “Coleção azul: Crítica pequenoburguesa à crise brasileira depois de 1930,” Revista Brasileira de Estudos Políticos, Nos. 25/26 (julho 1968/jan. 1969), 249-295. Carone lumps together as “petit bourgeois” positions that I distinguish as contrasting ones along an ideological spectrum. The career of Francisco Campos, author of the Constitution of 1937, is an enlightening story of a bright young lawyer who grew disillusioned with liberalism during the last decade of the Old Republic. For a précis of his thought, see Jarbas Medeiros, “Introdução ao estudo do pensamento político autoritário brasileiro 1914-1945, I:Francisco Campos,” Revista de Ciência Política, 17:1 (Jan.-Mar. 1974), 59—102.

21

One of the very few significant historical works to come from the Left before 1940 was Virginio Santa Rosa, O sentido do tenentismo (Rio de Janeiro, 1933). Caio Prado Júnior, Evolução política do Brasil (São Paulo, 1933) was a stimulating socioeconomic survey on Marxian lines, but it stopped with the fall of the Empire.

22

Nelson Werneck Sodré, História da burguesia brasileira (Rio de Janeiro, 1964). Leóncio Basbaum, História sincera da República, 4 vols. (São Paulo, 1962-1968). Edgard Carone, A primeira República, 1889—1930: texto e contexto (São Paulo, 1969); A República velha: Instituições e classes sociais (São Paulo, 1970); A República velha: Evoluçõo política (São Paulo, 1971); and A segunda República, 1930-1937 (São Paulo, 1973). Nelson Werneck Sodré and five young colleagues were preparing a “História Nova do Brasil” for distribution by the Ministerio de Educação and Cultura on the eve of the coup of April 1, 1964. The new government seized the inventory of the five pamphlets already printed and then initiated an investigation into the project, arresting several of the authors. Werneck Sodré, “História da história nova,” Revista Civilização brasileira, 1:3 (July 1965), 27-40; continued in 1:4 (Sept. 1965), 71-84. A São Paulo commercial publisher, Editôra Brasiliense, attempted to publish the collaborative history, but got out only two of six volumes before police intervention. One of the two was Joel Rufino dos Santos, et al., História nova do Brasil, IV (São Paulo, 1964), which covered “Abolição; Advento da República; Florianismo.” For a critique of Werneck Sodré’s correlation of economic classes with political events, see Paula Beiguelman, Pequenos estudos de ciencia política (São Paulo, 1967), pp. 61-77. After the coup of 1964, and especially after the sharper authoritarian turn in 1968, Marxist ideas were much less openly discussed in Brazilian universities. Yet the appeal of radical nationalist interpretations has remained strong. This is all the more significant in view of the extensive purges of faculty in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Brasília, and Recife. For influential works on the dependency theory, see Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Dependência e desenvolvimento na América Latina, 2nd ed. (Rio de Janeiro, 1973) and Hélio Jaguaribe, Aldo Ferrer, Miguel S. Wionczek, Theotonio dos Santos, La dependencia político-económica de América Latina (México, 1970). There is an exhaustive discussion of the dependency literature in Latin American Perspectives, 1:1 (Spring 1974). Theotonio dos Santos, “Brazil,” in Latin America: The Struggle with Dependency and Beyond, eds. Ronald H. Chilcote and Joel C. Edelstein (New York, 1974), pp. 409-486, is a schematic essay relying more on assertion than the careful examination of historical evidence.

23

Basbaum, História sincera.

24

Nelson Werneck Sodré, Formação histórica do Brasil, 2nd ed. (São Paulo, 1963); and Sodré, História da burguesia.

25

José Maria Bello, História da República, 1889-1954, 4th ed. (São Paulo, 1959). Translated by James L. Taylor, as A History of Modern Brazil, 1889-1954 (Stanford, 1966). The first edition (1940) covered only 1889-1902, and fully half of the 1959 edition was still devoted to the years before 1902.

26

Poppino, Brazil; E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil (New York, 1970); Donald E. Worcester, Brazil: From Colony to World Power (New York, 1973). Jânio Quadros and Afonso Arinos de Melo Franco, História do povo brasileiro, 6 vols. (São Paulo, 1967) is a popularly oriented survey history. The seven chapters written by Francisco de Assis Barbosa in the last two volumes convey the flavor of political history during the Republic in an engagingly fluent style.

27

The classic summation of this position was given in Percy Alvin Martin, “Causes of the Collapse of the Brazilian Empire,” HAHB, 4:1 (Feb. 1921), 4-48. Evaristo de Moraes, Da monarchia para a República, 1870-1889 (Rio de Janeiro, n.d.) compares differing firsthand historical explanations for the fall of the Empire. Vianna’s O ocaso do imperio was the most influential account in Brazil; Vianna stressed the Crown’s loss of support but saw no popular following for the coup of 1889.

28

Heitor Lyra, História da queda do Imperio, 2 vols. (Sào Paulo, 1964). George C. A. Boehrer, “The Brazilian Republican Revolution: Old and New Views,” Luso-Brazilian Review, 3:2 (Dec. 1966), 43-57; Da monarquía à República: História do Partido Republicano do Brasil, 1870—1889 (Rio de Janeiro, 1954); “The Church in the Second Reign, 1840-1889,” in Conflict & Continuity in Brazilian Society, eds. Henry H. Keith and S. F. Edwards (Columbia, S.C., 1969), pp. 113-140; and “The Church and the Overthrow of the Brazilian Monarchy,” HAHR, 48:3 (Aug. 1968), 380-401.

29

Emília Viotti da Costa, “Sobre as origens da República,” Anais do Museu Paulista, 18 (1964), 63-120; and “A proclamaç£o da República,” Anais do Museu Paulista, 19 (1965), 169-207. San Tiago Dantas, Dois momentos de Rui Barbosa (Rio de Janeiro, 1949). Aliomar Baleeiro, Rui, um estadista no Ministerio da Fazenda (Rio de Janeiro, 1952). Richard Graham, “Landowners and the Overthrow of the Empire,” in Luso-Brazilian Review, 7:2 (Dec. 1970), 44-56.

30

Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Do Império à República in História geral da civilização brasileira: O Brasil monárquico, ed. Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Tomo II, vol. 5 (São Paulo, 1972). Frederick M. Nunn, “Military Professionalism and Professional Militarism in Brazil, 1870-1970: Historical Perspectives and Political Implications,” Journal of Latin American Studies, 4:1 (May 1972), 29-54, contributes little new because of its ambitious scope and reliance on well-known printed sources. An important start toward analyzing the institutional factors at work among the late imperial Army officers has been made in John Schulz, “The Brazilian Army in Politics, 1850-1894,” Diss. Princeton University 1973, and William S. Dudley, “Institutional Sources of Officer Discontent in the Brazilian Army, 1870-1889,” HAHR, 45:1 (Feb. 1975), 44-65. Both authors did extensive research in the contemporary sources, especially official publications. Schulz applied his findings in writing the chapter on “O Exército e o Império” in História geral da civilização brasileira: O Brasil monárquico, ed. Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Tomo II, vol. 4 (São Paulo, 1971), pp. 235-258.

31

Carone, República velha: evolução política, has a bibliography of 1044 titles. The economic and social analysis is in Carone, República velha: instituições. Carone, Primeira república: texto e contexto is the collection of documents.

32

Sertório de Castro, A República que a revolução destruio (Rio de Janeiro, 1932). Dormund Martins, Da república à dictadura (Rio de Janeiro, 1931). José Vieira, A Cadeia velha (Rio de Janeiro, 1912?) is a witty commentary on the 1909 session of the Chamber of Deputies.

33

José Maria dos Santos, A política gérai do Brasil (São Paulo, 1930). Maurício de Lacerda, A segunda República (Rio de Janeiro, 1931), pp. 352, 358.

34

Roberto Paulo Motta, Movimentos partidários no Brasil: A estratégia da elite e dos militares (Rio de Janeiro, 1971) is useful in setting the context. Important evidence on the growth of participation is given in Maria Antonieta de A. G. Parahyba, “Abertura social e participação política no Brasil, 1870 a 1920,” DADOS, 7 (1970), 89-102; and Joseph L. Love, “Political Participation in Brazil, 1881-1969,” Luso-Brazilian Review, 7:2 (Dec. 1970), 3-24. Maria do Carmo Campello de Souza, “O processo politíco-partidário na Primeira Republica,” in Brasil em perspectiva, ed. Carlos Guilherme Mota (São Paulo, 1968), pp. 181-252 stresses the influence of the coffee-growers. On the Congress, see Sérgio Henrique Hudson de Abranches, “O processo legislativo: Conflito e conciliação na política brasileira,” Diss. Universidade de Brasília 1973; and on the court, see Lêda Boechat Rodrigues, História do Supremo Tribunal Federal, 2 vols. (Rio de Janeiro, 1965, 1968).

35

An exception is Eduardo Kugelmas, “A primeira República no período de 1891 a 1909,” in Pequenos estudos de ciência política, 2nd ed., ed. Paula Beiguelman (São Paulo, 1973).

36

[Manuel Ferraz de] Campos Salles, Da propaganda à Presidência (São Paulo, 1908). Among the extensive biographical studies of Republican leaders are Antonio Barreto do Amaral, Prudente de Moraes, urna vida marcada: Ensato biográfico (São Paulo, 1971); José Maria dos Santos, Bernardino de Campos e o Partido Republicano Paulista (Rio de Janeiro, 1960); and A. C. de Sales Júnior, O idealismo republicano de Campos Sales (Rio de Janeiro, 1944); Raymundo Magalhães Júnior, Deodoro: A espada contra o Império. 2 vols. (São Paulo, 1957).

37

The accession to power by the Paulistas is skillfully told in June Edith Hahner, Civilian-Military Relations in Brazil, 1889-1898 (Columbia, S.C., 1969). There is a cogent analysis of the 1898-1902 period in Francisco de Assis Barbosa, “A presidência Campos Sales,” Luso-Brazilian Review, 5:1 (June 1968), 3-26. Presently available biographies of Floriano include Salm de Miranda, Floriano (Rio de Janeiro, 1963) and Cyro Silva, Floriano Peixoto, o consolidador da república (São Paulo, 1963).

38

Afonso Arinos de Melo Franco, Rodrigues Alves: apogeu e declínio do presidencialismo, 2 vols. (Rio de Janeiro, 1973) is a richly documented and imaginatively written account. We lack a comparable study of Afonso Pena.

39

The background to this political drama is given in Décio Azevedo Marques de Saes, “O civilismo das camadas médias urbanas na Primeira República brasileira, 1889-1930,” [Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas: Cademos: No. 1] (Campinas, 1973). Luiz Viana Filho, Vida de Ruy Barbosa.

40

Joseph L. Love, Rio Grande do Sul and Brazilian Regionalism, 1882-1930 (Stanford, 1971). The most satisfactory biography of Pinheiro Machado is Costa Pôrto, Pinheiro Machado e seu tempo (Rio de Janeiro, 1951). Other studies include Hermes da Fonseca Filho, Pinheiro Machado: Urna individualidade e urna época (Rio de Janeiro, 1938); and Cyro Silva, Pinheiro Machado (Rio de Janeiro, n.d.). Hermes da Fonseca Filho, Marechal Hermes (Rio de Janeiro, 1961) contains some useful information.

41

Pedro Cavalcanti de Albuquerque, A presidência Wenceslau Braz, 1914-1918 (Rio de Janeiro, 1918). Anonymous, O governo Wencesláo, 1914-1918 (São Paulo?, 1918). Darcy Bessone [de Oliveira Andrade], Wenceslau: Um pescador na presidência (Belo Horizonte?, 1968).

42

That story has been concisely told in Albert O. Hirschman, Journeys toward Progress: Studies of Economic Policy-Making in Latin America (New York, 1963), chap. 1.

43

John D. Wirth, “Tenentismo in the Brazilian Revolution of 1930,” HAHR, 44:2 (May 1964), 161-179, largely supersedes Robert J. Alexander, “Brazilian Tenentismo,” HAHR, 36:2 (May 1956), 229-242. Santa Rosa, O sentido remains a classic analysis from the Left. For an example of the link with local political grievances, see José Ibarê Costa Dantas, O Tenentismo em Sergipe: Da revolta de 1924 à revolução de 1930 (Petrópolis, 1974).

44

The more significant memoir literature includes Abílio de Noronha, Narrando a verdade: Contribuição para a história da revolta em São Paulo (São Paulo, 1924); Juarez Távora, À Guisa de depoimento sôbre a revolução brasileria de 1924, 3 vols. (São Paulo, 1927—28); Lourenço Moreira Lima, A Coluna Prestes: Marchas e combates, 2nd ed. (São Paulo, 1945); Ítalo Landucci, Cenas e episódios da coluna Prestes e da revolução de 1924, 2nd ed. (São Paulo, 1952); João Alberto Lins de Barros, Memórias de um revolucionário, 2nd ed. (Rio de Janeiro, 1954); João Cabanas, Columna da Morte: Sob o commando do Tenente Cabanas, 5th ed. (Rio de Janeiro, 1927). Neill Macaulay, The Prestes Column: Revolution in Brazil (New York, 1974), p. 234.

45

Many of the questions are posed in John J. Johnson, The Military and Society in Latin America (Stanford, 1964), but the broad scope of his treatment precluded analysis based on new research. The most important memoirs include Estevão Leitão de Carvalho’s two works: Dever militar e política partidaria (São Paulo, 1959); and Memorias de um soldado legalista, 3 vols. (Rio de Janeiro, 1961-1964). Other important memoirs are: Pantaleão Pessôa, Reminiscências e imposições de uma vida, 1885-1965 (Rio de Janeiro, 1972); Bertholdo Klinger, Parada e desfile duma vida de voluntário do Brasil na primeira metade do século (Rio de Janeiro, 1958); Joaquim Justino Alves Bastos, Encontro com o tempo (Pôrto Alegre, 1965); Juarez Távora, Uma vida e multas lutas (Rio de Janeiro, 1973); Tristão de Alencar Araripe, Tasso Fragoso: Um pouco de História do nosso exército (Rio de Janeiro, 1960). José Murilo de Carvalho, “As forças armadas na Primeira República: O poder desestabilizador,” Cadernos do Departamento de Ciência Política [Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais] 1 (1974), 113-188. Nelson Werneck Sodré, História militar do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, 1965) is based on well-known published sources and contributes little that is new. Hélio Silva, 1922: Sangue na areia de Copacabana (Rio de Janeiro, 1964); and the same author’s 1926: A grande marcha (Rio de Janeiro, 1965). Glauco Cameiro, História das revoluções brasileiras, 2 vols. (Rio de Janeiro, 1965), includes a useful bibliography.

46

Joáo Pandiá Calogeras, et al., Epitácio Pessôa e o juizo de seus contemporáneos (Rio de Janeiro, 1925). Pessôa was a much-attacked president when he left office in 1922. He later defended himself in Epitácio Pessôa, Pela Verdade, 2nd ed. (Rio de Janeiro, 1925). His daughter elaborated his case in Laurita Pessôa Raja Gabaglia, Epitácio Pessôa, 2 vols. (Rio de Janeiro, 1951). Further discussion of the government’s reaction to labor mobilization will be found in the section on labor and the Left, in Part II of this article.

47

Carone, República velha: evolução.

48

Ary Pavão, Arthur Bemardes e o Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, 1931); Amarílio Júnior, Arthur Bemardes e a revolução (Rio de Janeiro, 1931); Paulo Amora, Bemardes: O estadista de Minas na República (São Paulo, 1964); Bruno de Almeida Magalhães, Arthur Bemardes: Estadista da República (Rio de Janeiro, 1973).

49

Much detail on the new party may be found in Paulo Nogueira Filho, Idéais e lutos de um burguês progressista: O Partido Democrático e a Revolução de 1930, 2 vols. (São Paulo, 1958). A stimulating analysis of the socioeconomic context is offered in Paulo Sergio de Moraes Sarmento Pinheiro, “La fin de la Première République au Brésil: Crise Politique et Révolution, 1920-1930,” Diss. Fondation Nationale de Sciences Politiques, Paris, 1971.

50

The distortion is evident in Affonso Henriques, Ascensão e queda de Getúlio Vargas, 3 vols. (Rio de Janeiro, 1966). Edgard Carone, A República Nova: 1930-1937 (São Paulo, 1974). The documentary collection is Carone, A Segunda República: 1930-1937 (São Paulo, 1973). Carone, Primeira República. Carone’s earlier essay, Revoluções do Brasil contemporâneo, 1922-1938 (São Paulo, 1965), remains an excellent point of departure for understanding the Vargas era. The volumes by Hélio Silva covering 1930-1937 are: 1930: A revolução traída (Rio de Janeiro, 1966); 1931: Os Tenantes no poder (Rio de Janeiro, 1966); 1932: A Guerra Paulista (Rio de Janeiro, 1967); 1933: A crise do tenentismo (Rio de Janeiro, 1968); 1934: A constituinte (Rio de Janeiro, 1969); 1935: A revolta vermelha (Rio de Janeiro, 1969); and 1937: Todos os golpes se parecem (Rio de Janeiro, 1970). Robert M. Levine, The Vargas Regime: The Critical Years, 1934-1938 (New York, 1970). A survey of the 1930-1945 era, based on secondary sources, constitutes the opening chapter of Skidmore, Politics in Brazil.

51

Alexandre José Barbosa Lima Sobrinho, A verdade sobre a Revolução de Outubro (São Paulo, 1933). An earlier but less-penetrating volume by another member of the political elite was Virgilio de Mello Franco, Outubro, 1930 (Rio de Janeiro, 1931). Boris Fausto, A Revolução de 1930: Historiografia e história (São Paulo, 1970). Fausto has given his own account of the revolution in “A Revolução de 1930,” in Brasil em perspectiva, ed. Carlos Guilherme Mota (São Paulo, 1968), pp. 253-284. Peter Flynn, “The Revolutionary Legion and the Brazilian Revolution of 1930,” in St. Antony’s Papers, No. 22: Latin American Affairs, Raymond Carr, ed. (London, 1970), pp. 63-105. Celina do Amaral Peixoto Moreira Franco, et al., “O contexto político da Revolução de Trinta,” DADOS, 7 (1970), 118-136. Detailed studies of individual states can help us understand what the events of 1930 meant on the local level, as for example, Octacílio Anselmo [e Silva], A Revolução de 30 no Ceará (Fortaleza, 1970).

52

There is as yet no scholarly history of São Paulo treating in detail that state’s role in national politics. For bibliography on 1932, see Aureliano Leite, “Causas e objetivos da Revoluçào de 1932,” Revista de História, 25:51 (Jul.-Dec. 1962), 139-144. The most detailed account is by the Paulista leader, Paulo Nogueira, Ideáis e lutas de um burguês progressista: A guerra cívica, 1932, 4 vols. (Rio de Janeiro, 1965-1971).

53

Hélgio Henrique Casses Trinidade, Integralismo: o fascismo brasileño na década de 30 (Säo Paulo, 1974), which supersedes Karl Heinrich Hunsche, Der brasilianische Integralismus: Geschichte und Wesen der Faschistischen Bewegung Brasiliens (Stuttgart, 1938). Stanley Hilton, “Agäo Integralista Brasileira: Fascism in Brazil, 1932-1938,” Luso-Brazilian Review, 9:2 (Dec. 1972), 3-29, documents the extent of military support for Integralism and the lack of any important link with official German elements. Church support is documented in Margaret Todaro Williams, “Integralism and the Brazilian Catholic Church,” HAHR, 54:3 (Aug. 1974), 431-452.

54

Thomas E. Skidmore, “Failure in Brazil: From Popular Front to Armed Revolt,” Journal of Contemporary History, 5:3 (1970), 137-157. Ronald H. Chilcote, The Brazilian Communist Party: Conflict and Integration, 1922-1972 (New York, 1974) also gives valuable commentary on printed sources. Levine, Vargas Regime.

55

Karl Loewenstein, Brazil Under Vargas (New York, 1942).

56

Skidmore, Politics in Brazil. Philippe C. Schmitter, “The ‘Portugalization’ of Brazil?” in Authoritarian Brazil: Origins, Policies, and Future, ed. Alfred Stepan (New Haven, 1973), p. 185. Schmitter had earlier given his analysis of the semi-corporatist structure of interest representation that emerged after 1930 in his Interest Conflict and Political Change in Brazil (Stanford, 1971). I have since laid greater stress on the continuity between the Estado Novo and the “experiment in democracy,” which separated it from the new authoritarian era after 1964: Skidmore, “Politics and Economic Policy Making in Authoritarian Brazil, 1937-1971,” in Stepan, ed., Authoritarian Brazil, pp. 3—46. For a discussion of the reluctance of U.S. scholars to adopt a class-oriented approach in their study of contemporary Brazil, see Peter Flynn, “Brazil: Authoritarianism and Class Control,” Journal of Latin American Studies, 6:2 (November 1974), 315-333.

57

John D. Wirth, The Politics of Brazilian Development, 1930-54 (Stanford, 1970). Stanley Hilton, “Military Influence on Brazilian Economic Policy, 1930-1945: A Different View,” HAHR, 53:1 (Jan. 1973), 71-94. Wirth’s conclusions are modified in the Brazilian edition of his book: A política do desenvolvimento na era de Vargas (Rio de Janeiro, 1973), esp. pp. 3, 36, 40, 45—46, 48.

58

Lawrence S. Graham, Civil Service Reform in Brazil: Principles versus Practice (Austin, 1968). Francis Lambert, “Trends in Administrative Refonn in Brazil,” Journal of Latin American Studies, 1:2 (Nov. 1969), 167-188 stresses the difficulties in trying to combine technical and political functions in DASP. The relevant volumes by Hélio Silva are: 1937: Todos os golpes; 1938: Terrorismo em Campo Verde (Rio de Janeiro, 1971); 1939: Véspera de guerra (Rio de Janeiro, 1972); and 1942: Guerra no Continente (Rio de Janeiro, 1972).

59

John W. F. Dulles, Vargas of Brazil: A Political Biography (Austin, 1967); Luiz Vergara, Fui secretário de Getúlio Vargas: Memórias dos anos de 1926-1954 (Rio de Janeiro, 1960); Alzira Vargas do Amaral Peixoto, Getúlio Vargas, meu pai (Rio de Janeiro, 1960).

60

Lourival Coutinho, O General Goes depõe . . . (Rio de Janeiro, 1955); João Neves da Fontoura, Memórias, 2 vols. (Rio de Janeiro, 1958, 1963); Pantaleão Pessôa, Reminiscências e imposições; João Café Filho, Do sindicato ao Catete: Memórias políticas e confissões humanas, 2 vols. (Rio de Janeiro, 1966).

61

Sources on the UDN drive for redemocratization are discussed in Skidmore, Politics in Brazil, chap. 2, nn. 1-17. Also informative is Carolina Nabuco, A vida de Virgílio de Melo Franco (Rio de Janeiro, 1962). Francisco Weffort has given an interesting analysis of the 1944-1946 political confrontation in his “Origens do sindicalismo populista no Brasil: A conjuntura do após-guerra,” Estudos CEBRAP, 4 (Apr./May/June 1973), 65-105.

62

Octávio Ianni, O colapso do populismo no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, 1968); trans. Phyllis B. Eveleth, as Crisis in Brazil (New York, 1970); Luiz Carlos Bresser Pereira, Desenvolvimento e crise no Brasil entre 1930 e 1967 (Rio de Janeiro, 1968). John W. F. Dulles, Unrest in Brazil: Political-Military Crises 1955-1964 (Austin, 1970) is a useful chronicle.

63

Many of the sources on Vargas discussed in the preceding section on 1939-1945 are also relevant for the 1951-1954 presidency. No understanding of Vargas would be complete without an appreciation of how he succeeded in becoming a folk hero for many “non-elite” Brazilians, as can be seen in Orígenes Lessa, Getúlio Vargas na literatura de cordel (Rio de Janeiro, 1973).

64

References to the literature on the party system are given in Skidmore, Politics in Brazil, chap. 2, nn. 20-21, 39; chap. 2, nn. 24, 34; chap. 3, n. 15; chap. 4, n. 25; chap. 8, n. 29. A useful survey may be found in Phyllis Peterson, “Brazilian Political Parties: Formation, Organization, Leadership, 1945-1959,” Diss. University of Michigan 1962. The findings in Lúcia M. Lippi de Oliveira, “Partidos políticos Brasileiros: O Partido Social Democrático,” M.A. thesis Instituto Universitário de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro 1973, are summarized in Lippi de Oliveira, “Notas sôbre o estudo do Partido Social Democratico.” DADOS, 10 (1973), 146-153.

65

The abundant literature on federal elections before 1964 is cited in Skidmore, Politics in Brazil, chap. 2, n. 19; chap. 3, nn. 28, 57; chap. 4, n. 3; chap. 6, n. 9; chap. 7, nn. 30-31, 48, 50. Gláucio Ary Dillon Soares, Sociedade e política no Brasil: desenvolvimento, classe e política durante a Segunda República (São Paulo, 1973) includes citations of his earlier publications. The electoral alliances are discussed in Isabel Ribeiro de Oliveira, “Notas sôbre o comportamento das coligações eleitorais no Brasil, 1950-1962,” DADOS, 10 (1973), 166-183, and Phyllis Peterson, “Coalition Formation in Local Elections in the State of São Paulo, Brazil,” in Sven Groennings, et al., The Study of Coalition Behavior: Theoretical Perspectives and Cases from Four Continents (New York, 1970), pp. 141-159. Other important electoral studies are Amaury de Souza, “Determinismo social, racionalidade e o voto flutuante em 1960,” DADOS, 9 (1972), 135-145; Antônio Octavio Cintra, “Partidos políticos em Belo Horizonte: Um estudo do eleitorado,” DADOS, 5 (1968), 82-112; Altiva Pilatti Balhana, “Eleições em Santa Felicidade, 1945-1965,” Revista Brasileira de Estudos Politícos, 27 (July 1969), 203-260.

66

An analysis of the legislative role between 1889 and 1971 is given in Sérgio Abranches, “Processo Legislativo.” The degree of issue-oriented positions taken by parties is analyzed in Clovis Brigagão, Poder e legislativo no Brasil: Análise política da produção legal de 1959 a 1966 (Rio de Janeiro, 1971). An enlightening discussion of the congressional role is found also in Robert Packenham, “Legislatures and Political Development,” in Legislatures in Developmental Perspective, ed. Allen Kornbery and Lloyd Musolf (Durham, N. C., 1970), pp. 521-582; and the same author’s “Functions of the Brazilian National Congress,” in Latin American Legislatures: Their Role and Influence, ed. Weston Agor (New York, 1971), pp. 259-292.

67

Sources on Brazilian populism are discussed in Skidmore, Politics in Brazil, chap. 2, nn. 49-51. Much information can be gleaned from Mário Beni, Adhemar, imagem de um período socio-econômico decisivo para o Brasil, 1930-1964 (São Paulo, 1974). Beni was a longtime political associate and admirer of Adhemar.

68

Schmitter, Interest Conflict. Schmitter’s research was limited to an opinion survey among federal legislators, executive policy makers, and leaders of representational associations.

69

The saga of the creation of Petrobrás is related in Wirth, Brazilian Development and Gabriel Cohn, Petróleo e nacionalismo (São Paulo, 1968). For an example of the extensive polemical literature on oil, written from a radical nationalist viewpoint, see Mário Victor, A batalha do petróleo brasileiro (Rio de Janeiro, 1970). Details on the ideas and realities behind Brasilia are to be found in David G. Epstein, Brasília, Plan and Reality: A Study of Planned and Spontaneous Urban Development (Berkeley, 1973); Norma Evenson, Two Brazilian Capitals: Architecture and Urbanism in Rio de Janeiro and Brasília (New Haven, 1973); and Maurício Vaitsman, Quanto custou Brasília? (Rio de Janeiro, 1968).

70

Peasant mobilization provoked widely differing interpretations, as indicated in the discussion of sources in Skidmore, Politics in Brazil, chap. 5, nn. 45-46; chap. 6, n. 47; chap. 8, n. 2. Valuable detail may be found in Cynthia N. Hewitt, “Brazil: The Peasant Movement of Pernambuco, 1961-1964,” in Latin American Peasant Movements, ed. Henry A. Landsberger (Ithaca, 1969), pp. 374-398; and in Clodomir Moraes, “Peasant Leagues in Brazil,” in Agrarian Problems and Peasant Movements in Latin America, ed. by Rodolfo Stavenhagen (Garden City, N. Y., 1970), pp. 453-501. An excellent survey of the literature on this subject is given in Shepard Forman, “Disunity and Discontent: A Study of Peasant Political Movements in Brazil,” in Protest and Resistance in Angola and Brazil: Comparative Studies, ed. by Ronald H. Chilcote (Berkeley, 1972), pp. 183—205. For an interesting essay on the history of the Brazilian peasantry, see Maria Isáura Pereira de Queiroz, o campesinato brasileño (Petrópolis, 1973). Two studies on the Northeast put the rural mobilization there into the larger perspective of national politics and U.S.-Brazilian relations: Joseph A. Page, The Revolution That Never Was: Northeast Brazil 1935-1964 (New York, 1972); and Riordan Roett, The Politics of Foreign Aid in the Brazilian Northeast (Nashville, 1972).

71

Eul-Soo Pang, “The Changing Roles of Priests in the Politics of Northeast Brazil, 1889-1964,” The Americas, 30:3 (Jan. 1974), 341-372; Margaret Todaro Williams, “The Politicization of the Brazilian Church: The Catholic Electoral League,” Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs, 16:3 (Aug. 1974), 301-325; Thomas c. Bruneau, The Political Transformation of the Brazilian Catholic Church (Cambridge, 1974). Works on the efforts of Catholic progressives include: Thomas G. Sanders, “Catholicism and Development: The Catholic Left in Brazil,” in Churches and States: The Religious Institution and Modernization, ed. Kalman Silvert (New York, 1967), pp. 81-99; Emanuel de Kadt, Catholic Radicals in Brazil (London, 1970); Marcio Moreira Alves, L’Eglise et la politique au Brésil (Paris, 1974); Rowan Ireland, “The Catholic Church and Social Change in Brazil: An Evaluation,” in Brazil in the Sixties, ed. Riordan Roett (Nashville, 1972), pp. 345-374.

72

Carvalho, “Forças armadas”; Stepan, Military in Politics; and Alfred Stepan’s chapter in Stepan, ed., Authoritarian Brazil. Bibliography on the military is discussed in Skidmore, Politics in Brazil, chap. 2, n. 27, chap. 3, nn. 37—11, 69-72. Sources on military participation in the anti-Goulart conspiracy and the coup of 1964, as available a few years thereafter, are discussed in ibid., chap. 8, nn. 14, 80; and in Amaury de Souza, “Março ou abril? Uma bibliografia comentada sôbre o movimento político de 1964 no Brasil,” DADOS, 1 (1966), 160-175.

Author notes

*

The author is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He wishes to thank Thomas Holloway and Michael Kolstad for research assistance. Joseph Love, Thomas Holloway, Stanley Hilton, Francisco Iglésias, John Wirth, and Alberto Venancio Filho were generous with comments and suggestions. The author is grateful to the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation for the financial support that gave him time to prepare the article. George C. A. Boehrer, a friend from whom the author learned much about Brazil, was originally commissioned to write this article. His untimely death deprived the profession of this and other important scholarly contributions he was preparing.