The national outcry against the permanence of Dilma Rousseff in power is considered by politicians linked to PT (Workers Party) as a coup d'etat attempt by comparing the current situation to the situation experienced by presidents Getúlio Vargas in 1954 and Joao Goulart in 1964. It is a attempt to save a dying government that has completely lost the ability to govern the nation because only count on the support of 7% of the population according to recent research. Unlike Vargas and Goulart governments which marked their actions in defense of national interests and workers, the Dilma Rousseff government as its predecessor, Lula, is characterized by the lack of commitment of both government and PT with the great struggles of the Brazilian people taken along the last 50 years, a historical inconsistency traitor. It can be seen from this article that the alleged coup d'etat that was being articulated against Dilma Rousseff bears no resemblance to the coup d'etat that led to the suicide of Getulio Vargas and the deposition of João Goulart. Unlike Vargas and Goulart governments, the Dilma Rousseff government is submissive to the national and international financial capital, and devastate the Brazilian economy.
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POLITICAL CRISIS OF 1954, 1964 AND 2015 IN BRAZIL
Fernando Alcoforado *
The national outcry against the permanence of Dilma Rousseff in power is considered
by politicians linked to PT (Workers Party) as a coup d'etat attempt by comparing the
current situation to the situation experienced by presidents Getúlio Vargas in 1954 and
Joao Goulart in 1964. It is a attempt to save a dying government that has completely lost
the ability to govern the nation because only count on the support of 7% of the
population according to recent research. Unlike Vargas and Goulart governments which
marked their actions in defense of national interests and workers, the Dilma Rousseff
government as its predecessor, Lula, is characterized by the lack of commitment of both
government and PT with the great struggles of the Brazilian people taken along the last
50 years, a historical inconsistency traitor.
The inconsistency of Lula and Dilma Rousseff on the economic level is manifested in
the fact that both leaders have given continuity to the neoliberal and anti-national policy
of Fernando Collor, Itamar Franco and Fernando Henrique Cardoso governments
following what established the Washington Consensus in the 1990s. Even the state-
owned enterprises privatization policy opposed by PT in its infancy is being carried
forward by the Dilma Roussef government. The so-called public private partnership
(PPP) implemented by the present government is nothing more nor less than the new
name given to the process of privatization of ports, airports, highways, etc. It can be
seen from what is exposed in the following paragraphs, that the alleged coup d'etat that
was being articulated against Dilma Rousseff bears no resemblance to the coup d'etat
that led to the suicide of Getulio Vargas and the deposition of João Goulart. Unlike
Vargas and Goulart governments, the Dilma Rousseff government is submissive to the
national and international financial capital, and devastate the Brazilian economy.
It is worth recalling that, with the rise of Getulio Vargas to power with the Revolution
of 1930, becomes victorious nationalism ideology: autonomous development with a
strong industrial base. Industrialization would develop through the import substitution
process, ie producing in country what was imported from abroad. The deposition of
Vargas in 1945 through a coup d'etat occurred after the end of World War II, to meet
the pressures of sectors of Brazilian society who considered an incongruity maintaining
the dictatorial regime after the victory of democratic forces around the world against
fascist nazi dictatorship and the United States that wanted Brazil have a government
more attuned to their interests, as President Eurico Dutra, elected in 1946.
Getulio Vargas, who came to power through elections in 1950, inherited from his
predecessor, Eurico Dutra, a Brazil with great economic difficulties and financial
imbalance in the public sector. By adopting in their government the same populist and
nationalist policy adopted from 1930 to 1945, Vargas became a target of the US
government and its local allies, who wanted him out of power. The attacks on his
government came from both the right over the leadership of Carlos Lacerda and left on
the Luiz Carlos Prestes command. At that time, there were two competing projects for
political power on the one hand the liberal-conservative linked to US interests that used
different ways to attack him and insult him. The other was the Getulism-Labour under
the leadership of Getúlio Vargas who had nationalism and industrialization the political
foundations for the future of Brazil.
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The deposition of Getúlio Vargas in 1945 and his suicide in 1954 were consequences of
this process. At that historical moment, during the Cold War, it was of fundamental
importance to the United States in its confrontation with the former Soviet Union,
keeping under control their areas of influence in Latin America, including Brazil, and
other parts of the world. Not to accept his resignation or deposition by the military in
1954, President Vargas committed suicide, having represented his attitude, too, the final
act of the first ruler of Brazil that guided his action in defense of national sovereignty.
Several factors explain the outbreak of the coup d'etat that deposed in 1964 President
João Goulart. The first is related to the decline in the economic growth process in Brazil
inaugurated in Juscelino Kubitschek government (1955- 1960) which aggravated social
tensions in the country. The second concerns the increase of existing internal
contradictions in Brazil between, on the one hand, capital and labor and on the other,
between landowners and peasants. The third concerns the conflict between the political
forces interested in national economic emancipation and the defending forces of Brazil's
tying maintenance to international capital. The fourth factor relates to the global conflict
between the capitalist system, led by the United States and the socialist system led by
the Soviet Union. Finally, the fifth factor concerns the crisis between the presidency and
the Armed Forces not addressed by President Goulart. All these factors contributed to
the 1964 coup d'etat and the deployment of the military dictatorship that lasted 21 years
in Brazil.
In the brief period when João Goulart ruled the country (1961-1964), political conflicts
and social tensions have become serious. During the government of João Goulart, the
contradiction between capital and labor has skyrocketed due to the fall in economic
growth, the loss of purchasing power of the workers resulting of rising unemployment
and hyperinflation and the existence of a working class and a syndicalism gestated by
industrialization increasingly claimant in defending the interests of workers. In turn, in
the countryside, increased tensions between landowners and peasants organized by the
Peasant Leagues demanding the implementation of agrarian reform with the
expropriation of large estates of land. Before major structural problems experienced by
Brazil and to tackle the economic crisis, political and social context in the early years of
the 1960s, the Goulart government sought to implement called basic reforms based on
the Triennial Plan prepared by the then Minister of Planning Celso Furtado.
Throughout 1963, the country was social unrest stage that polarized the right and left
political position around the conduct of government policy. In 1964 the political
instability worsened. The discontent of the national business, the ruling class as a whole
and of broad sectors of the middle class was accentuated against the João Goulart
government. On the other hand, trade union and popular movements pressing for the
government to carry forward the social and economic reforms that benefits them. Public
events and demonstrations of support and opposition to the government hatch
nationwide. On March 13, the rally took place in Central do Brasil Station, in Rio de
Janeiro, attended by 200,000 workers in support of João Goulart. A week later, the
landlords sectors, the industrial bourgeoisie and conservative sectors of the church held
the "March of the Family with God and Freedom", considered the opposition
movement's apex against the government.
Fears about the possibility of a future coup d'etat of leftist orientation with the support
of sergeants, corporals, soldiers and sailors and breaking the principles of hierarchy and
discipline in force in the armed forces have worsened with the outbreak in March 28
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1964, a revolt of sailors and Marines in Rio, concentrated at the headquarters of the
United Steelworkers. Goulart refused to punish the unruly which led to a deep crisis
between the government and sectors of the military. On March 30, 1964, Goulart
attended, as a guest of honor at a party hosted by the Association of Sergeants and
subofficers at the headquarters of the Automobile Club. These events precipitated the
outbreak of the coup d'etat movement, begun in Minas Gerais in the early hours of
March 31, 1964 that led to the ouster of President João Goulart.
For the above, the reasons that led to the deposition of Getúlio Vargas and João Goulart
are not the same that may lead to the deposition of Dilma Rousseff.
*Fernando Alcoforado, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor of Territorial
Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, a university professor and
consultant in strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is
the author of Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova
(Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São
Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado.
Universidade de Barcelona, http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e
Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX
e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of
the Economic and Social Development-The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Muller
Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe
Planetária (P&A Gráfica e Editora, Salvador, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e
combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011),
Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012) and
Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV,
Curitiba, 2015).