Post-war Brazil in the spotlight

Journalist and playwright Nelson Rodrigues wrote in 1958 that Brazilians suffered from what he calls a “mongrel complex,” which he defines as “the inferior position in which Brazilians regard themselves compared to the rest of the world. This feeling can be perceived in all areas, especially football.” Little did he know that later that same year Brazil was to win the World Cup in Sweden and be dubbed the country of football. And that was just the beginning.

The golden years

In the period between 1945 and 1964 – i.e., from the end of Getúlio Vargas’s fascist-inspired dictatorship called “Estado Novo” (New State) to the year in which the military coup was staged – 1958 was an emblematic year. The country was experiencing a state of euphoria brought about by the developmentalist stance of President Juscelino Kubitschek; the construction of the country’s new capital city, Brasília; and dozens of new highways built to allow the large flow of vehicles beginning to be manufactured in Brazil. “A year as good as this has yet to come,” journalist-author Joaquim Ferreira dos Santos wrote in his book Feliz 1958: O Ano que Não Devia Terminar (1958: The Year That Should Never Have Ended), published in 1997.

In fact, Brazil had been under the spotlight for a few years then, as Carmen Miranda attained international fame through Hollywood with her frilly, exotic costumes and her fruit-hat turban, which helped disseminate Brazil’s image abroad as a country of stunning colors and sounds. She went as far as to become the highest-paid artist in the United States in the 1940’s. But the movies have also conveyed a quite contrasting notion of Brazil when another film, O Cangaceiro (The Bandit), released in 1953, was named the best adventure film at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1959, Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus), a co-production of Brazil, Italy and France, based on a play written by Vinicius de Moraes, won the Palme d'Or at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, and the Oscar for best foreign language film in 1960. Two years later, O Pagador de Promessas (The Keeper of Promises), directed by Anselmo Duarte, also won a Palme d'Or at Cannes, and the Oscar nomination for best foreign film.

Brazilian music came into vogue when Carmen Miranda sang Ary Barroso's Aquarela do Brasil (Brazil) in the movie The Gang's All Here. The song became a worldwide hit after being recorded by Frank Sinatra in 1957. It was the first song in the US to be played over a million times on the radio. Also, in 1960, the soundtrack to Black Orpheus gave international prominence to the music of Tom Jobim and the bossa nova style. Smash hits like Garota de Ipanema (The Girl from Ipanema) by Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes would be immortalized through new versions recorded by great artists in the decades to come.

The 1950's also saw the advent of television in Brazil through the hands of Assis Chateaubriand, an entrepreneur who owned the country’s biggest radio and newspaper network. An arts enthusiast, he created what would later become the largest museum in the country, the São Paulo Museum of Art, featuring masterpieces of the world's greatest artists, from Giotto and Fra Angelico to Picasso and Renoir.

Brazilian literature was also flourishing, as Brazilian poet Gullar notes: “During this period, some of the most prominent authors, like Jorge Amado, Graciliano Ramos, and Guimarães Rosa, and such influential poets as Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Jorge de Lima, João Cabral de Melo Neto, and Murilo Mendes published their most important books. I published my first book [A Luta Corporal, 'Bodily Struggle'] in 1954.”

Brazilian theater was also in its heyday. In the aftermath of the war, several artists came from Europe to Brazil. One of them was Franco Zampari, who founded the Brazilian Comedy Theater (“TBC”) in 1948. Along with a playhouse, he ran a permanent theater company that remained active until 1964, featuring a pool of the best actors in the country.

Also in the late 1940's, Zampari started the Hollywood-inspired Vera Cruz film company, with large state-of-the-art studios, European directors, and a regular cast. Meanwhile, in Rio de Janeiro, another company was created, Atlântida Cinematográfica, which enjoyed enormous success with the masses with its musical, carnivalesque comedies known as chanchadas. According to journalist-writer Sérgio Augusto, author of Este Mundo é um Pandeiro (“The World is a Tambourine”), the chanchadas were a harmonious combination of Brazil's popular culture and the sociopolitical context of the time, where topics and criticism would range all the way “from such everyday problems as shortage of water (...) to broader issues like underdevelopment, authoritarianism, and geopolitics.”

The ghost of communism

All this was made possible by a Constitution quite ahead of its time, which granted political and social liberties only comparable with those of the present time. But those were the times of the Cold War, and Brazilian democracy, still an incipient one, was undermined by the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. The country was stricken by a series of crises. Attorney Rosa Maria Cardoso, coordinator of a workgroup on the 1964 Civil Military Coup affiliated with the Truth Commission, explains that "it was a period of great instability. Just remember, there were five coup attempts by the military that are very well-known, among which the one aimed at removing Getúlio Vargas [in 1954] and another one designed to prevent Juscelino Kubitschek from taking office, [in 1955].”

The Armed Forces refueled the anti-communist fears in the country. In 1961, as President Jânio Quadros took office – only to resign seven months later – Brazilian democracy started to falter. “Jango [João Goulart], vice president-elect, was a source of concern for the military and the right wing, and this fear was much worsened by the Cold War,” Barbosa noted.

The greatest concern was a set of so-called “basic reforms” planned by Jango. However, Rosa Maria Cardoso points out, “the basic reforms he was pursuing weren't leftist reforms. They included land reform, for example, like the one implemented in France after the French Revolution. The United States had staged their own Revolution before, [and later] the Civil War, and had settled their issues on the North/South divide, the industrialized and the rural sides – and that included the issue of slavery.”

She admits, however, that “those were reforms aimed in the direction of modernization, to ensure people’s participation in the government's decisions, and enable them to benefit from the wealth produced in the country.”

Jango took office under a parliamentary system, with limited powers as a head of state. In order to strengthen his position, he proposed a referendum, which ended up with voters choosing to restore presidentialism. By that point, it was only a matter of time before a coup d’etat was staged.

A shift in values

In the 18 years preceding the coup, the country experienced a period of unprecedented economic growth, with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) reported to increase over 7.12% per year. On average, Brazilians also became richer, but at a slower pace – per capita GDP rose 4.09% per year in the same timespan.

But Brazil's economic policy was far from the national developmentalist trend found in most European countries in the 20th century. While the model of industrialization based on import substitution and government intervention in the economy was emulated, other features were left out, including the priority given to domestic capital and social development.

Moreover, economists told Agência Brasil, the process took place in reverse order, as consumer good industries were prioritized over the heavy industry – which would not be well established in the country until the 1970's.

Despite these peculiarities, Brazil's version of national developmentalism resulted in significant economic growth – though not for all.

“As far as capital accumulation goes, income grew and results were positive. But the structural problems persisted, such as social inequality, and poor education, housing and sanitation standards,” explained Reinaldo Gonçalves, professor at the Economics Institute of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). He is the author of Desenvolvimento às Avessas ("Development Upside Down"), an insight into the history and the evolution of Brazilian economy.

Professor emeritus at UFRJ and the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) Maria da Conceição Tavares, PhD, agrees: “The country chose to begin by fostering industrialization of goods consumed by the higher sectors of society at the time, such as cars and electrical appliances. Because of Brazil's market orientation and unequal income distribution, the process ran backwards.”

According to Gonçalves, this exclusionary approach remained unchanged during the military dictatorship, when economic growth was fostered with no concern for income distribution. “The military didn't do anything new, they only helped further a model that had proved successful. They had no reason to change long-term development policies,” he explained.

Notwithstanding initiatives launched during Getúlio Vargas’s administration, including the creation of Petrobras and Brazil’s Development Bank, foreign capital was prioritized in the period before the dictatorship. Juscelino Kubitschek’s National Development Plan (known as Plano de Metas, "Plan of Targets") invited international companies to the country, especially those in the automotive industry. “This is Brazil’s model gone astray, and the results were the dependence on highway transport and oil which persists up to this day,” Gonçalves says.

In Tavares’s view, stages were inverted. “Traditionally, the government seeks to develop basic industry first, then the industry of intermediate goods [like cement and steel], and only after that, as the last stage, it stimulates the consumer goods industry. It was all reversed in Brazil. The heavy industry, like petrochemicals, would only had its development fostered by the military in the 1970’s, during the last phase of the country’s national developmentalism,” she argues.

Industrialization diversified exports in the country, but the lower dependence on foreign products took its toll. As external debt increased, Brazil’s national developmentalism in the 1950’s and 60’s resulted in an foreign exchange crisis which, according to Gonçalves, set the stage for the military coup.

“The significant changes in Brazil’s political regime have always been associated with foreign exchange crises. Getúlio rose to power during the Great Depression. The 1964 coup was launched during a time when inflation levels were high and there was a crisis in external accounts. In the 1980’s, the military left the power amid the external debt crisis,” he explains.

The two economists points out that, despite its imperfections, national developmentalism was responsible for the period with the most significant economic growth in the country’s history, with an average rate of 6.5% per year from 1931 to 1979. “The current model, which has been in effect since the Plano Real [Brazil's present-day currency introduced in 1994], reports one of the lowest growth rates in Brazilian history, second only to the hyperinflation experienced in the 1980’s,” he adds.

Tavares argues that Brazil’s experience with national developmentalism can hardly repeat itself in the future. And she adds, “Globalization, especially the globalization of foreign capital, has left less room for import substitution and state intervention. What we can do today is focus on social policies and income distribution.”

Translated by Mayra Borges and Fabrício Ferreira

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