Taking Stock (with discomfort) of the Military Dictatorship Fifty Years after the 1964 Coup: a Bibliographical Essay

This essay reviews the main analyses produced for publication in 2014 alluding to the 50th anniversary of the 1964 coup and the dictatorship that followed (1964-85). It is noteworthy that most of these analyses, authored by historians and journalists, relativize several Manichaean concepts and versions; chiefly, they enhance society's responsibility for this authoritarian experiment. The coup, they claim, was not an atypical event in the country's political history; it simply expanded conservative and authoritarian values. In daring fashion, they point out the precarious or absent democratic vocation of the forces of the Left, as well as the advances in terms of the country's economic and social modernization under the military governments. The duration of the dictatorship is also questioned. In the eyes of some, it lasted only from 1964 to 1979, and arguments to this end are exhaustively presented. The fact that the report of the National Truth Commission (NTC) was released also in 2014 raised an intense debate in the press and in academia about repression and the crimes of the dictatorship, especially against urban guerrilla organizations, which are also examined in instigating fashion in this bibliography.

This essay reviews the main analyses produced for publication in 2014 alluding to the 50 th anniversary of the 1964 coup and the dictatorship that followed . It is noteworthy that most of these analyses, authored by historians and journalists, relativize several Manichaean concepts and versions; chiefly, they enhance society's responsibility for this authoritarian experiment. The coup, they claim, was not an atypical event in the country's political history; it simply expanded conservative and authoritarian values. In daring fashion, they point out the precarious or absent democratic vocation of the forces of the Left, as well as the advances in terms of the country's economic and social modernization under the military governments. The duration of the dictatorship is also questioned. In the eyes of some, it lasted only from 1964 to 1979, and arguments to this end are exhaustively presented. The fact that the report of the National Truth Commission (NTC) was released also in 2014 raised an intense debate in the press and in academia about repression and the crimes of the dictatorship, especially against urban guerrilla organizations, which are also examined in instigating fashion in this bibliography. interest from several sectors in touching on a subject normally restricted to a minute circle of intellectuals who do not exactly tend to be reader-friendly.
The fact that this 50 th anniversary coincided with the last year of the work of the National Truth Commission motivated the publication of breaking news stories with new findings about the period brought to light not just by the NTC but also by investigative journalists 2 .
In general, these pieces innovated in many regards. They publicized the names and biographies of torturers, the locations of clandestine prisons and torture chambers, and the actions of anti-dictatorship lawyers and (not few) military personnel 3 . They also dared to question more explicitly than before the democratic credentials of much of the Left that fought the dictatorship, drawing attention to the fact that authoritarianism and scant zeal for the legal rules of the political game were features common to left-and right-wing groups.
These are not new themes when one looks at the period, but the dimension and emphasis given to them were altered in the midst of the ideological debate resulting from the creation and work of the NTC.
From the point of view of academic production in the strict sense and of memoir-type publications by politicians and journalists, a few dozen books and numerous articles came to light to reminisce and at times to reinterpret the meaning of the coup and the contents of the military governments . The focus here is on some of these books published in 2014 4 . Historians were the in 1994 and 2004, for instance (already under democratic rule); a good theme for theses and dissertations. 2 The NTC was charged with looking into serious crimes against human rights committed by state agencies from 1946 to 1988. These two time limits have to do with the promulgation of the country's first democratic Constitution (which continued in force during the first four years of the dictatorship, though coexisting with authoritarian measures) in 1946 and the current Constitution, promulgated in 1988. Between 1946  These questions touch upon an ever more sensitive point: the dimension of the responsibility of society, and even of the opposition, in the consummation of this dramatic event (1964) and of the maintenance of the military in power.
Despite many disagreements, there are convergences vis-à-vis accepting that both the coup and the dictatorship were the work of civilians and the military, although the emphasis placed on each may differ.
Another common feature is their use of "military regime" as a synonym for "military dictatorship". Conceptually, regimes are democratic, authoritarian or totalitarian regardless of the clothes or institutional affiliation of those who rule.
The bibliography in question maintains this synonymy, and such conceptual license has not been questioned. The expression that has been coined in recent years and ratified at the 50 th anniversary is "civilian-military" dictatorship or (2014); Serra (2014); Tavares (2014) and Villa (2014). Additionally, two book chapters (Motta (2014b) and Ridenti (2014)) and one article in a periodical (Carvalho (2014)) were chosen.
regime, thus categorically pointing out the political responsibility of non-military people for state policies in this period.

A coup with no resistance
If in the heat of the moment, political science's key concern was to understand the reasons for the coup; fifty years later, the chief motivation, especially for historians, is finding plausible explanations for the absence of a In the end, these explanations can be grouped in one of two ways: those that emphasise economic questions and those that emphasise political questions.
In the midst of all this, there emerged an innovative literature that sought to examine the specificity of the military institution and to what extent it could be reduced to the social and economic interests of a class. Organizational analyses of the armed forces gained strength, particularly those that lent significant weight to the aspects of military discipline and hierarchy, i.e., to the organizational ethos of the military institution 5 . 5 The most important pioneering work on this subject is the book by Coelho(1976). (...) at 3am, the parliamentarians gathered outside the Congress building for the short walk to the Planalto presidential palace. The chosen president, Mazzilli, was taken to the palace in a car literally covered in armed men. The solemn procession of congress people was barred at the presidential palace by apprehensive guards carrying machine guns who did not know what was going on (FICO, 2014, pp. 85,86).
The parliamentarians convinced the guards to let them enter the palace. At 3.30am on April 2, Mazzilli took office. According to Bentley, the "finishing touch had been put on the coup d'état" (FICO, 2014:86).
Symptomatically, while in Brasília Congress improvised apparently legal and constitutional rites for the transfer of power, in Rio de Janeiro, General Costa e Silva, the longest-serving general in the Army and the one with the most prestige among young, radically anticommunist officers, declared himself chief of the Command of the Revolution. Since the "revolution" was the highest objective of the victors of those days, whoever commanded the "revolution" commanded the country, under the thinly veiled fantasy of an active legislative branch of government.
Hours after Mazzilli was sworn in, the US government recognized the new president, even though Goulart was still in the country. In the words of Tavares Fico (2014) is among those who wonder how the coup was possible, why so many people supported it and why the coup became a military dictatorship. In his eyes, "one must bear in mind that it was not an initiative by rash military men" (FICO, 2014, p. 07  Goulart decided to head for Montevideo on April 4, knowing that the United States would support the plotters in case of a reaction and realizing that no significant front of politicians or military men had been formed in his favour.
All the authors agree that Congress acted ahead of the president's resignation, declared the presidency to be empty and facilitated the military's path to power along tortuous routes that nevertheless alleged constitutional bases.
Goulart's exit and the arrival days later of an unelected military man at the presidency took place inside a National Congress that was indeed partly coerced, but according to these sources also largely relieved by the closure given to the political crisis.
The military's concern with institutional formalities in this whole process is highlighted by Chagas (2014), when he carefully details how the leadership struggle between Costa e Silva and Castelo Branco was overcome -such concern was the key motivating factor.
The coup was crowned in Congress by means of a vote for a new, military president. It was not by chance that the first "legal" text passed by the new government was called Institutional Act. The institutionalization of the regime was a formality pursued obsessively. Reis (2014a) joins the chorus of those intrigued by the fact that the civilian-military movement of 1964, as he terms it, was not immediately challenged: What surprised contemporaries was the ease with which Jango was toppled and the plotters prevailed. As far as prevailing interpretations are concerned, the forces of the right won because they were more powerful and organized. Meanwhile, the forces of the left, disorganized, incapable of fighting, were strong only in terms of their discourse. All that remained for them, converted as they were into victims, was defeat (REIS, 2014a, p. 82).
The coup is depicted as a political conflict between two broad ideological currents -forces of the Left and Right -that nonetheless had internal ambiguities.
In the author's eyes, the ideological radicalization paved the way for the coup. In this radicalized dispute, the victor was the side with more power of initiative. The forces of the Left were paralysed. There was "a complete absence of resolve, of which the clearest expression was Jango's behaviour". Thus, the unlikely prevailed: "the plotters' victory without a fight" (REIS, 2014a, pp. 84,85).
Ferreira and Gomes (2014) reconstitute the João Goulart government (1961)(1962)(1963)(1964) with acuity. Although they do not espouse a theoretical or analytical view of the reasons for the coup, they are guided by the idea that it was not the product of exclusively military planning, or even of detailed planning by civilians or the many other groups that made up the political scenario at the time, whether within parliament and the political parties or the Armed Forces. Equally, they ask themselves the question that has been present in all reflections on the lack of reaction and why it was that those who wanted to react were abandoned by the president's dispositivo militar ("military device") or by Brizola's Group of Eleven 8 .
Like many other works, they refute Manichaean arguments about the 8 Groups announced by Leonel Brizola, on a mission to preach anti-imperialist ideology in October 1963, over which there were doubts as to whether they were armed or not. His aim was to "consolidate and cement the unity of the popular and progressive forces of nationalists, civilians and the military, and of all Getulista and labour groups that consider themselves summoned by Vargas' letter" (MARKUN, 2014, p. 105, quoting Mariza Tavarez).  An important witness account from those hectic, utopian, transgressing and intolerant years can be found in José Serra's (2014) book. In it, two important theses are stated: that Jango understood that he would not be able to see his term of office through to the end, as opposition to the government grew with each day that passed among left-wing groups, liberals, conservatives and in the barracks. In addition, like many actors of the time, Jango himself understood that this would be just another coup and that there would be a "PSDization" of the new government 9 .
The radicalization of the new government took place quickly, however, guaranteeing the hegemony of the more radical sectors, that is, the anti-communist ones 10 . The book is also another contribution to the remembrance of Brazilian political exiles who crossed seas and faced perils and deprivation in order to remain alive.
In the same memorialist vein, journalist Carlos Chagas (2014) recalls that the lack of mobilization surrounding the coup demonstrates a structural element of the country: 9 The notion that the coup would lead to a "PSDization" of the government was held by many observers at the time and shared by one of the most famous books on the period, the polemical Quem dará o golpe no Brasil [Who will stage the coup in Brazil?] (SANTOS, 1962). On the other hand, the account of one of the most important leaders of the PSD, Amaral Peixoto, is spot on in its description of the other side of the story, that of the uncertainty of those staging the coup: "We were still imagining what that revolution would be like, we didn't have the faintest idea. In fact, neither did the revolutionaries; I found that out later. Castelo and Costa e Silva had no idea, they didn't know whether to close down Congress, depose the governors, instate a new regime or if it was to be a deposition of the Brazilian president, pure and simple, with Mazzilli taking over government (...) I sensed the same in everyone: a profound lack of definition. They had staged a revolution but nobody knew how far it would go" (CAMARGO, 1986, p. 469). 10 Needless to say, communism and anticommunism were overblown concepts in the context of political radicalization of the time.
The elites were running the show and had the complete backing of the media. And, much as in countless other episodes, starting with Getúlio's death, the masses, with the exception of a few union leaders, remained amorphous, neutral and complacent as long as news was not broken to them that their salaries were being frozen and their labour rights removed -something that was not to take long (CHAGAS, 2014, p.50).
With this perception of the "masses", the impossibility of a reaction is explained.
Napolitano (2014)  The regime's support Napolitano (2014, p. 11) sustains that in spite of wide social support for the coup, the government that ensued could not be called a civil-military dictatorship because it was the military who were at the centre of the decision- making process throughout the entire period. To Reis (2014b), the dictatorship's success (1964)(1965)(1966)(1967)(1968)(1969)(1970)(1971)(1972)(1973)(1974)(1975)(1976)(1977)(1978)(1979) was not only owed to the support it had from entrepreneurs, multinationals and conservative sectors. Workers and the public sector also gave the regime legitimacy and obtained gains from it, whether material or symbolic.
Among the public servants of large state-owned companies or mixed-ownership companies, or among those who occupied the islands of excellence of high public administration, there seemed to be pride in belonging to the great agencies at the centre of the country's planning and development, which paid them up to 16 monthly salaries a year. Equally, according to the author, the workers' silence cannot be attributed only to the repression. The dictatorship increased inequality but reduced poverty and gave job opportunities to a large stratum of independent workers and qualified blue-collar workers. The so-called leaden years, the harder years of political repression, were also, according to the author, golden years in terms of employment, opportunities for increasing growth, opening of borders, social mobility and cultural effervescence (REIS, 2014b, p. 88,90).
Among the books that deal with the economic modernization along conservative and authoritarian lines that took place during this period, Motta's work (2014a) is an essential and pioneering one. According to him, relations between universities and the military regime were ambiguous. Many Brazilian universities were marked by an intense student movement of political, social and cultural dimensions. They had all the ingredients to be the new regime's mortal enemies, particularly because many members of teaching bodies held ideological positions that were more to the Left. However, the author recalls that there was also a right-wing and even an anti-communist student movement and that many lecturers spontaneously collaborated with the government. Relations between the government and universities were marked by tensions, conflict, co-optation and accommodation and were therefore far from binary or a case of "resistance versus collaboration" (MOTTA, 2014a, p. 13). According to the author, this goes back to our conciliatory tradition, especially prominent among the elites. Here we are referring to an intellectual elite, which mostly overlaps with economic and cultural elites and with the military elites, which, their social extraction aside, were the elites in power. Motta (2014a) recalls that unlike Argentina and Chile, for example, the Brazilian dictatorship opted for economic modernization along industrial lines and for that, science and technology were vital. It was the military governments that drove forward the postgraduate system in Brazil, making it one of the few developing countries to possess an actual academic network encompassing all areas of knowledge, including social subjects. They were also responsible for the university reform, copying other countries' models. In some cases, academics sympathetic to the Communist Party were even hired or remained in their jobs.
The "witch hunt" in universities was a fact. Many lost their jobs, numerous students were expelled, but the fact is that there is another side to this story, the side in which the regime had much to gain from knowledge production and What the author highlights is that relations between academia and the government were not only marked by the persecution, expulsion and arrest of lecturers and students. There were also mutual gains. More than that, in cultural terms, hegemony was in the hands of university intellectuals, not of the government. This is no doubt a polemical and courageous book, balanced and lucid, which insightfully shows pragmatic nuances and how strategic interests  for the coup, but attempts to discuss the legacy of the dictatorship, avoiding "simplified or reductionist interpretations", focusing instead on the thesis that dictatorships must be regarded as acts of social construction: "dictatorships have just been moments of a larger history whose strong links to the past and the future are not hard to make evident" (REIS, 2014a, p.26). According to him, the dictatorship was implemented without one gunshot and drew to a close without one blow. It was instated and survived thanks to the protective mantle of authoritarianism and the elitist pact existent in Brazilian society. In the same way, Villa (2014) recalls that authoritarianism in Brazil "is part of a solidly rooted antidemocratic tradition that was born with Positivism at the end of the Empire.
Contempt for democracy is a spectre that has haunted our country during the 100 years of the Republic" (VILLA, 2014, p. 10).
Also focusing on the idea of modernization, sociologist Ridenti (2014) recalls that the government disseminated the idea that only with strong governments could there be economic progress: "The regime's legitimization was based on its successful modernization, which also involved social welfare measures". Whether this was due to an a priori calculation or well-planned circumstances, the fact is that "since 1964 a project of modernization of Brazilian society was gradually constituted with economic and political measures taken by the authoritarian State, associated with private enterprise, which came to be known as a conservative modernization" (RIDENTI, 2014, p. 37 [1973][1974][1975][1976][1977][1978][1979][1980][1981][1982][1983][1984][1985][1986][1987][1988][1989][1990]. In 2014, several authors stood out with their questioning of the role of the guerrilla during the dictatorship, among them Reis (2014b), Reis, Ridenti and Motta (2014) and Villa (2014), two historians with distinct ideological positions.
For precisely that reason, it can be said that never before have authors dared to question the Left's contribution to fighting the dictatorship so much, or even, to think about responsibility for this initiative and its consequences, whether anticipated or not. Inexperienced and full of daring, for Reis (2014b): ...far from being the radically innovative forces they [the guerrillas] thought themselves to be, they were the final froth on the waves made by movements preceding 1964. Authoritarian and haughty, generous and audacious, bordering on arrogant, they mistook the moment in history and society -and paid with their existence, both physical and political, for the mistakes made and for wanting the revolution they loved so much, but which had definitely failed to come to them (REIS, 2014b, p. 78).
In the words of Villa (2014), the guerrilla did not result from resistance to the dictatorship: ...many of these groups existed before 1964 and others were created shortly after, when there was still the democratic space (it suffices to note the great cultural activity of the period 1964-1968). In other words, the option for the armed struggle and disregard for a political struggle and participation in the political system, and the sympathy for Guevarist foquismo preceded the AI-5 (December 1968), when the regime did in fact close down (VILLA, 2014, p.11).
In an even more conclusive fashion, he states that all the armed struggle groups advocated socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. None of them, at any given moment, espoused democracy and a regime of full democratic freedoms. On the contrary, to speak of democracy was a petty-bourgeois diversion. Thus, all political and "mass" struggles were disregarded. It was precisely what the regime wanted (VILLA, 2014, p.382  Thus, we see that for several reasons a heroic version of the guerrilla cannot be found in the bibliography examined. In the same way, the social rejection of the government of the Armed Forces is not disregarded, neither is the fact that the military governments were always dictatorial admitted to.

Open debate on the coup and the military dictatorship
In this outline of the bibliography cited, certain aspects draw our attention. Firstly, paradigmatic authors or books whose interpretations are commonly used by all texts cannot be identified. Neither is there a predominant choice of any given theoretical model. What can be noticed, however, is a greater freedom of the authors to accept historical and conceptual revisions and to interpret acts and facts from the past. The Right versus Left debate remains dominant and the manner in which these currents are addressed is at times freer and at others more complex. As a larger result of all the important texts examined, some uncertainties and concerns remain. Among them is the doubt regarding whether or not the authoritarian bias is as structuring as some presume it to be, and whether liberal democracy or democratic socialism are impossible in Brazil.
Equally, they provide more resources for dealing with the important polemics between politics and economic development.
Authoritarianism is a theoretical theme in political science and the empirical forms through which it is expressed are valuable resources for understanding authoritarianism in action. These writings are generous in that they question the values of our democracy and undo case-based reasoning for our retrogression or democratic deficits. No doubt they have all played and will play a crucial role in possible interpretations of the commitment of relevant political actors such as parties, Congress, the Armed Forces, business, the Church, universities, the press and others to the democratic Rule of Law, and particularly to the type of democracy we will be able to build.
Translated by Leandro Moura Submitted in January 2015 Accepted in July 2015