New Look in Brazil:
ALEXANDER, ROBERT J.
President Quadros is determined to have his country play a more independent role in hemispheric and world affairs New Look in Brazil By Robert J. Alexander JANIO Quadros, Brazil's new...
...Forced to resign by the Army in 1954, Vargas committed suicide...
...This has been almost universally condemned as a white elephant by foreign observers, particularly North Americans...
...Another major difficulty is the chronic shortage of foreign exchange, the result of the previous administration's spending beyond its means...
...For a quarter of a century its political life was dominated by Getulio D. Vargas, who led a military junta which successfully staged a revolution in 1930...
...Brazil is a nation of close to 75 million people, with an area considerably larger than our old 48 states...
...In the past, many Government employees worked only half a day and supplemented their incomes with second jobs...
...Although he himself belongs to no party, he has said on many occasions that he wants to strengthen the position of all legitimate political groups...
...They feel that if they can successfully carry out such a gigantic enterprise, they are capable of a great deal more...
...Constitutional democracy, however, is still endangered by widespread corruption, the lack of discipline and excessive opportunism of the political parties, the ever-present threat of military intervention and a growing menace from the Castrooriented Left...
...These include the need to continue economic development and industrialization, land distribution and the situation of the "depressed areas...
...Brazil also faces several longrange problems...
...As his opponents are quick to note, though, in five years he also brought inflation to a level the country might normally expect in 50...
...During its last year, the Kubitschek Administration launched a program to deal with the Northeast...
...He can be expected to make policy decisions on any given issue strictly in terms of what he thinks is best for his country's interests...
...Brazilians tended to suffer from a national inferiority complex...
...Already Quadros has indicated that he favors discussing" Communist China's entry into the United Nations when the issue is raised again in the General Assembly...
...Indeed, the building of Brasilia has unleashed energies and enthusiasm which have surprised the Brazilians themselves...
...The first try was made under the leadership of the Communists in Sao Paulo in the early 1950s, and it received some encouragement from the Kubitschek Administration...
...Of course Brasilia has been exceedingly costly and has greatly accelerated local inflation...
...He rigidly enforced a law requiring all local auto firms to use 90 per cent Brazilian components by 1960, thus encouraging the development of several hundred small businesses to supply parts to the 16 companies which assemble cars...
...A massive effort is needed to make it habitable for the Government's hundreds of thousands of employees...
...It has tended to be torn between the forces of Vargas' Partido Trabalhista and the Communists...
...Quadros has started negotiations with the U.S...
...Perhaps the most serious problem that Quadros faces is Brazil's rampant inflation, which raised prices 60 per cent in 1959 and somewhat less last year...
...The military is well disposed to the new President and should not present him with any difficulties...
...many doubted that their country would ever "amount to something...
...He did not quite succeed, but his Administration did much to develop the country...
...Quadros may even be able to accelerate this pace, by cutting down the waste and corruption characteristic of previous governments and by encouraging foreign investment (as he did when Governor of Sao Paulo...
...He was later elected Governor of the state of Sao Paulo and applied the same "clean broom" and budget-balancing techniques which he had used so effectively in the city...
...In Pernambuco, the Communists have been more influential...
...President Quadros is determined to have his country play a more independent role in hemispheric and world affairs New Look in Brazil By Robert J. Alexander JANIO Quadros, Brazil's new President, is likely to present his country and the hemisphere with several shocks and surprises...
...In 1945, his one-man rule came to an end, although he remained a power, and in 1950 he was re-elected President...
...Land ownership is a highly explosive issue in Brazil...
...In the 1945, 1950 and 1955 elections a loose coalition of opposition groups challenged the Getulistas...
...the mere task of moving them presents serious difficulties...
...A change in the Constitution last year made possible the election of a President and Vice President from different parties, and this is just what happened last November...
...Under the leadership of the Socialist party, a network of peasant leagues has sprung up in the Pernambuco region...
...Far from being erratic or irresponsible, the new President simply feels that the time has come for Brazil to play a more important and a more independent role in hemispheric and world affairs...
...Indeed, Goulart is virtually leader of the opposition in spite of his official post...
...This is one of numerous complicated and pressing problems that the Kubitschek regime has dumped in the lap of Quadros' new Administration...
...Most of the cultivated arable land is in the hands of large holders, an inheritance from the slave-holding plantation system which characterized colonial and imperial Brazil...
...Of course, although Brasilia was officially declared the nation's capital last April, it is still not so in fact...
...The peasant leagues in Pernambuco make little secret of their sympathy for the Cuban dictator and their belief that his example must be followed in their own country...
...The balance of payments deficit runs from $300$400 million a year...
...He soon broke with the party, and in 1953 he was the successful reform candidate for Mayor...
...Two years later, he was the most logical candidate to represent the opposition in the Presidential election, and he defeated Marshall Teixeira Lott, who represented the once invincible coalition built up by Vargas and reinforced by Kubitschek...
...In addition, he initiated a large-scale economic development program, including highway construction, exploitation of water resources and the attraction of new industries...
...will do better in the long run if it treats Brazil as it treats Britain or France...
...The fast pace of economic development set by the Kubitschek regime must be continued, both to keep up with the rising numbers and aspirations of the Brazilian people and to maintain internal political stability...
...For 15 years the nation has enjoyed a relatively quiet political life, in spite of two major crises: Vargas' suicide in 1954, and interference on the part of some elements with the inauguration of President Kubitschek a year later...
...The revolution of 1930 transferred political control of the nation from the landholding aristocracy to the urban middle and working classes, but little has been done to change the aristocracy's control of the rural areas...
...Quadros managed to outflank his political opponents by inveigling the Partido Trabalhista—to which he did not belong—-to place his name at the head of the list of candidates to the Federal Chamber of Deputies from the state of Paran, south of Sao Paulo...
...Quadros, whose political perspicacity is considerable, undoubtedly understands the political significance of the agrarian reform issue, and some kind of a land distribution program on a nationwide basis is likely in the near future...
...But since Fidel Castro's rise to power in Cuba, the Brazilian Socialists have tended to drift into his orbit...
...This region has not only lagged behind the more progressive South, but has been blighted continually by droughts...
...Quadros will probably intensify these efforts...
...Quadros has said frankly that he hopes a sizable number of civil servants will quit their posts, thus effecting an automatic reduction in government expenditures...
...In any case, there is little chance of forcing Janio Quadros' Government merely to follow in the wake of this country...
...The Socialist party of Brazil hitherto has been unable to find a fixed place for itself in the country's political firmament...
...Nevertheless, Quadros will undoubtedly face serious political problems...
...There is growing discontent in the countryside, which for the first time is being organized...
...Chosen as Vice President was Joao Goulart, Marshall Lott's running mate...
...for help in meeting the short-run foreign exchange shortage...
...They were backed by the urban working class, organized politically in the Partido Trabalhista, headed by Goulart...
...Though Quadros now says that he is the titular leader of the Partido Tabalhista, pointing out he was a member of that party's delegation in the Chamber of Deputies from 1958 until his inauguration as President, Goulart is challenging the President's claim...
...His political career has been spectacular...
...Both rural and urban employers are paternalistic toward their workers, but only a few have made any effort to improve the living standards...
...Kubitschek, who took office in January 1956, had promised during his campaign that in five years he would bring Brazil the economic progress that would normally come in 50 years...
...The new capital has removed the last doubts on this score from the minds of the great majority of people...
...The traditionally paternalistic stance which Washington has adopted toward the Latin American nations is not only outmoded, but is detrimental to the future peace and progress of the whole western hemisphere...
...The construction of Brasilia has also had an important psychological effect on the nation...
...The U.S...
...The President's new independence in foreign policy is also likely to take much of the wind out of the sails of the opposition, which has been calling Quadros "a Yankee tool...
...While in office he managed to curtail local corruption, clean up the city's fiscal affairs and set a new tone in urban administration...
...This is the poorest part of the country, and the region most marked by the traditions of the slave plantation economy...
...Success in its economic efforts will help the Quadros Administration to stabilize the country's political situation...
...In Sao Paulo the Government of Dr...
...Kubitschek's economic efforts centered on three projects: development of the automobile industry, road construction and the building of a new capital, Brasilia...
...Indeed, Brazil's clearly independent handling of its foreign relations, together with the Brazilian people's realization of their own wealth, importance and power, is likely to mitigate anti-Yankeeism...
...Judging FROM his past record, however, Quadros should be able to handle these problems...
...But the coalition lacked ideological homogeneity, its only cohesive force being anti-Vargasism and opposition to corruption...
...Brazil's third major economic problem—the so-called depressed areas—is closely linked to that of agrarian reform, particularly in the Northeast...
...After World War II, sizable immigration into the region south and east of what is now Brasilia finally made the effort practicable...
...And in addition to several well-publicized roads to the new capital, his regime built numerous new highways and connecting links and paved many old roads...
...The U.S...
...Moreover, the new highways through unoccupied areas leading to the capital are playing much the same role that railways did in the development of the Central and Western parts of the U.S...
...should certainly not adopt an attitude which would acerbate still further the anti-Yankee sentiment that has become widespread in Latin America since World War II...
...At the same time, in his inaugural address Quadros proclaimed his strong opposition to Communism, and one of his first official acts was to cashier eleven top military officers reputed to be Communist sympathizers...
...For to a large degree this phenomenon is a reflection of a feeling of national inferiority vis-â-vis the United States...
...During the last decade, however, there have been increasingly successful attempts to organize rural workers and tenants...
...He has also begun to reduce the Government's budget by ordering all ministries to cut their expenditures by 30 per cent, and all Government employees to give a full day's work for a full day's pay or quit their jobs...
...Carvalho Pinto, one of Quadros' principal lieutenants, has already undertaken agrarian reform on a state-wide basis...
...Brazil's new independent foreign policy naturally raises serious questions for the United States, but if this country is to retain the friendship of the Brazilian people and Government, it must recognize their right to chart their own course in world affairs...
...More recently, a similar effort has been under way in the Northeast, particularly in the state of Pernambuco...
...Janio Quadros can be expected to act quickly on the land reform problem...
...Kubitschek and Goulart were also supported by the Communist party...
...If the unrest continues unabated, it may seriously undermine the whole constitutional structure of the country, a process which is being encouraged from the outside by the Communists and the followers of Fidel Castro...
...Quadros' progressive domestic program may well disconcert the opposition and upset Goulart's claim that his faction of the Partido Trabalhista is the only genuine representative of the humbler sections of the community...
...it was joined by the small Socialist and Christian Democratic parties...
...It established an overall agency to push irrigation and hydroelectric projects, entice industry to the area and otherwise halt the decay of the region...
...The most controversial part of Kubitschek's program was the construction of Brasilia in the virtually uninhabited geographical center of the country, 700 miles northwest of Rio...
...His new Administration also has extended diplomatic recognition to several East European countries, intends to do the same to the Soviet Union and has hinted it may recognize Communist China...
...Quadros promises to deal drastically with the corruption problem...
...and by rural and small town bosses and big business elements who had been associated with the Vargas regime, organized in the Partido Social Democratico...
...He entered politics only a decade ago when he won the post of City Councilman in Sao Paulo under the Christian Democratic party banner...
...These groups have sought to establish collective bargaining with rural landowners and have begun serious agitation for redistribution of the land...
...After he retired as Governor in 1958...
...The core of the opposition was the Uniao Democratica Nacional, composed of middle-class and professional elements, and remnants of the old conservative regime ousted in 1930...
...His political influence, however, was still strong enough to assure the victory of his faction's candidates for President and Vice-President in the 1955 election, Juscelino Kubitschek and Joao Goulart...
...Finally, his program is likely to be one which will cut the ground from under the Communists and Castro-like Leftist elements...
...For the next 15 years he was President and virtual dictator...
...But the transfer of the capital to the center of the country has been a Brazilian ambition for more than a century...
...These roads make previously uninhabited areas accessible to the outside world and help stimulate development of vast tracts of land...
Vol. 44 • March 1961 • No. 12
