Democracy Without Reform

Joao Goulart, deposed president of Brazil, hated the United States and countries that fawningly follow its policies. He refused to support anti-Castro sanctions. He was an anti-American, pro-Brazilian radical social reformer who admired Communist China but was too great a nationalist to be Communist himself.

This week Goulart was thrown out by the military which had deposed Vargas and Quadros before him. Getulio Vargas, a reforming dictator, committed suicide in 1954 when the army foiled his attempt at land reform. Quadros had been forced out in 1961 for a "pro-Communist" foreign policy. Now Goulart had favored both land reform and an independent foreign policy. Since he knew from the experience of his predecessors that one could only institute reforms from a position of total power, he undoubtedly planned to grasp that power before the army dispensed with him. He lost, however, and now the army has sought to replace him with men who it finds more palatable.

These, roughly, are the facts, and one can do whatever one wishes with them. One can argue that the army acted to save democracy, and to banish Communism from Brazil. The argument is supported by the probability that Goulart planned to rule, at best, by Gaullist plebiscite and by the fact that in its first two days the army regime has arrested two thousand Brazilians which it has labeled Communists.

Governor Carlos Lacerda of Guanabara (Rio de Janiero), a bitter enemy of Goulart who backed the coup, insists this is not enough. He wants the Congress purged of its "pro-Communist elements," namely the Labor Party congressmen. If he and his allies gain ascendancy as the new government takes shape--it must select a new President within thirty days--Brazil will have a period of repressive anti-leftism which could set off, in turn, a bloody and popular leftist revolution.

While the army did act to save democracy, the motive was far from pure: it also acted to avoid the reforms the country needs. The new government is not going to be popular with the peasants, the workers, and the students, all of whom supported Goulart from the left. The anti-Communist purge will make them unhappy, and if the economic situation continues to deteriorate during the eighteen months that the congressionally appointed president will serve, the new rulers will face a tremendous crisis in 1965. An election would probably bring in a candidate at least as radical as Goulart, while calling off elections and trying to maintain a conservative government supported by the military will make the regime unpopular very fast.

It is theoretically possible that the new government will take a progressive president and give him the power to push the reforms through which Goulart was powerless to achieve; this is the liberal justification for U.S. support of the coup. But given the political complexion of the new regime, and the past history of the man who made up its leadership, such reform is not likely to take place.

There is little point in mourning Goulart. He was a fiercely independent leftist prepared to sacrifice democracy for the power to mold the reforms he felt his country needed in order to survive. He did hate the United States; if an allegiant rather than an independent world is the U.S. aim, the State Department should be glad to see him go. But there is even less point in glorifying the coalition that has replaced him: it is opposed to meaningful reform, and it remains to be seen whether it will stand so religiously beside democracy when democracy promises to vote radical social reformers back into power.