Don’t Believe in Miracles

The U.S. government lost a steadfast ally when the ex-Shah of Iran was forced into exile. The repercussions of that revolution are only beginning to be felt. No authoritarian regime can ignore its lessons, whatever the size of its military arsenal. And in Washington, the godfather of those regimes is being forced to pay increased attention to potential trouble spots around the world. In the Americas, an immediate and obvious source of concern is the political future of Brazil. Its role in the hemisphere, in economic, political and military terms, is analogous to that once reserved for Iran in the Persian Gulf. Both regimes came to power as the result of coups engineered in the United States. Under the Nixon Doctrine, both were assigned the role of regional gendarme and supplied with massive military aid. Both became havens for foreign investment and trusted borrowers from foreign banks. But the signs of unrest that went unnoticed or ignored in Iran are now being closely watched in Brazil, as it enters its fifteenth year of dictatorial rule. President Carter has announced that steps have been taken to improve intelligence reports from Brazil, and to expand contacts with the opposition forces. After a decade of defeats, U.S. imperialism does not want to lose yet another important outpost. Brazil is the fifth largest and sixth most populous country in the world. Measured by its Gross National Product, the Brazilian economy now ranks eighth among all Western nations. It leads the rest of Latin America in the production of automobiles, chemicals, steel and computers. In the 1960s and early 70s, the Brazilian success story was being told far and wide. The Brazilian model was “proof’ that authoritarianism was just the medicine that Latin America needed to cure the ills of economic stagnation and political instability. After all, Brazil’s own “experiment in democracy,” from 1945 to 1964, had led only to economic ruin and communist subversion. By 1964, Brazilian populism had taken a more radical turn. President Joao Goulart was talking about plans to redistribute land, nationalize certain industries and legalize the Communist Party. In the wake of Cuba’s victorious revolution, he was seen as either a conscious agent of communism or its dupe. The Brazilian economy was in fact in trouble. The U.S. government had stopped all economic aid and capital had fled to safer havens. Inflation hovered near 100%. But Goulart’s broad based support among workers and peasants was undeniable. A pretext for military intervention had to be invented. So the story went that Goulart would not be satisfied with stepping down in 1966, and was plotting a coup to perpetuate himself in power. The Brazilian military cast itself in the role of defending democracy by taking “preventive measures.” (The same story was revised and edited for Chile, 1973). The U.S. government actively participated in the coup preparations and justified the outcome.’ Dean Rusk, Secretary of State at the time, said this was not a traditional military coup serving the interests of a privileged oligarchy; the Brazilian military would act instead as a modernizing force. Freed from political pressures, impartial generals and no- nonsense technocrats would rationalize the economy and promote rapid development in the interests of all. The flow of funds from Washington resumed and foreign capital came knocking once again. The economic policies of the Brazilian military did give rise to economic development. Between 1968 and 1973, the Brazilian economy grew at 10% a year, outpacing every other country in Latin America. 2 Its performance was hailed as an “economic miracle.” The excesses of the dictatorship, such as the systematic use of torture, were lamented by the liberal press. But they were seen as temporary and incidental to a larger process that would set the stage for a return to democratic rule, once the economy was “back in shape” and the Left annihilated. Fifteen years later, however, the dictatorship is still in place, the Brazilian economy is no longer the envy of the hemisphere, and opposition is steadily growing in numbers and militancy. Since 1974, Brazil has felt the effects of the worldwide recession and of its own economic policies. Oil imports (90% of domestic consumption), foreign components and equipment for manufacturing, and food imports have created a serious trade gap, totaling $4.7 billion in 1978. Heavy reliance on foreign loans to finance development has incurred a public and private debt of $41 billion, the highest in the developing world.” 3 To make up for the trade gap and to service its debt, the government has been forced to emphasize exports over production for local needs. Debt-servicing alone will absorb more than 60% of export earnings in 1979.4 The economy’s growth rate has slowed significantly, and inflation now averages 40% a year, evoking plans for austerity measures that are sure to heighten social tensions. Business Week reported recently that after a decade of stability in Brazil, the national mood is now one of defiance. “The predictability of Brazil’s politial and economic climate,” it warns, “can no longer be taken for granted.” 5 Prolonged strikes have disrupted the public and private sectors; mass demonstrations and rallies recall the turbulence of the 60s; church activists, professionals and even some within the military have joined the movement to end the dictatorship. The Brazilian military is increasingly conscious of the regime’s isolation and vulnerability. The U.S. government fears another Iran. So the catchword of the day is “liberalization”–a controlled transition to democratic forms. What went wrong with the Brazilian miracle? And what does “liberalization” offer as an alternative? BRAZILIAN-STYLE DEVELOPMENT The dictatorship decided on a simple recipe for economic development in 1964: Increase the size of the pie first; then struggle about how to divide it. In other words, give every possible advantage to capital in order to stimulate investment and expand the economy. Crumbs would be thrown to the working class at a later date. Success would be measured by the number of cars coming off the assembly line and the profits of Ford do Brasil, and not by the living standard of its work force. The main ingredient of the development scheme was foreign capital. Massive amounts of U.S. dollars, Japanese yen and German marks poured in as the transnationals jockeyed for a place in the Brazilian sun. In association with sectors of the local bourgeoisie, foreign capital came to dominate key areas of the economy. Smaller, domestic producers were eliminated from the competitive field, particularly in the production of consumer durables and capital goods. “Development” was clearly not aimed at satisfying the needs of the masses. The government encouraged investors to produce for export by offering generous subsidies and, in some instances, setting obligatory quotas. With the country’s internal market shrinking as living standards declined, foreign firms were only too glad to use Brazil as an export base to penetrate European, African and Latin American markets. Brazilian-made tractors have been exported to Turkey, machine tools to England, home appliances to Nigeria and jet planes to Togo. 6 Brazil is now the world’s second largest exporter of food, while 40% of its population still suffers from malnutrition. 7 If the success of the Brazilian model was dependent on foreign capital, it was also subsidized by the working class. Low wages and high levels of productivity were essential elements of the “miracle.” Repression of the labor movement in 1964 and thereafter enforced a tenuous peace between labor and capital. Wage increases were unilaterally decreed by the state, on the basis of a complex indexing system. Taking into account the past year’s rate of inflation, estimated inflation for the coming year and productivity, labor courts would conduct annual wage reviews for different sectors of the labor force. Indexing was hailed as an unbiased method of minimizing the impact of high inflation rates and avoiding labor disputes. In reality, however, it has been used to lower the real wages of the Brazilian working class throughout the post-1964 period, despite rising levels of productivity. By 1970, the minimum wage in Brazil had lost nearly a quarter of its pre- coup purchasing power. 8 Even Barron’s, which caters to the Wall Street crowd, has remarked that “by rigging the official statistics, the authorities have consistently understated both the decline in the purchasing power of the cruzeiro and the adjustments needed to make the hapless holders whole.”‘ It concludes that Brazilian workers have been “systematically victimized” by the government’s economic policies. STATIZATION Brazil’s development strategy also specified an expanded economic role for the state. State-owned enterprises, often in association with foreign capital, would provide the infrastructure for industrialization, as well as essential inputs such as steel, petroleum and minerals. Parenthetically, they also turned military managers into millionaires, as the state sector became notorious for corruption and graft. Some sectors of the bourgeoisie have fared better than others under military-technocratic rule. A recent analysis suggests the following order of state priorities: (1) internationalized private capital, primarily controlled by transnational corporations and their local associates; (2) state capital; (3) wholly Brazilian capital producing for export; and (4) wholly Brazilian capital producing wage goods for the internal market. “The state then used its apparatus for economic policy-making and policy instruments to maintain this set of priorities while attempting to smooth over, as far as possible, conflicts among the various sectors.”‘ Praised as a revitalization of the “free market system,” the Brazilian development strategy has ensured the survival of the strongest, while eliminating the weak. The result has been a progressive denationalization of the economy and expansion of the state sector. Today, approximately half the country’s industries are controlled by foreign capital and most of the rest is in the hands of the state. Few Brazilian manufacturers are in a position to compete with these two huge blocs.” Not surprisingly, then, some of the dictatorship’s most ardent original supporters have begun calling for a slow, cautious process of transition. Even the ranks of the most favored sectors of the bourgeoisie, tied to large, foreign capital, are split over investment priorities and over tactics to avert a radicalization of the opposition forces. While they lay their cautious plans, however, united in the need to preserve the essential elements of the Brazilian economic model, the momentum of forces demanding an immediate end to dictatorship is building rapidly. THE LEGAL OPPOSITION Prior to 1964, thirteen political parties took part in the Brazilian electoral process. All were banned by the military government of Castelo Branco, and two new ones were created. ARENA (Alliance for National Renewal) was designated the official government party, while the MDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement) became the obedient party of opposition. According to most Brazilians, the only difference between the two was that one said “Yes” and the other said “Yes, Sirl” Much to the military’s dismay, the differences between ARENA and the MDB have become more substantial over the years. Since the MDB is the only legal channel for voicing opposition, a broad spectrum of forces has taken shelter under its umbrella. The ranks of the MDB include liberal professionals and intellectuals; trade union leaders; members of the banned Brazilian Labor Party (PTB); militants of proscribed leftist groups, and bourgeois elements who never questioned the legitimacy of the military coup, but who seek to modify certain policies. In broad strokes, the MDB is divided into two main currents. The “authentic” faction, composed of populists and socialists of varied stripes, is demanding free direct elections to a Constituent Assembly as a prelude to establishing civilian, democratic rule. It also calls for a general, unrestricted amnesty for political prisoners, those deprived of their political rights and exiles. The “moderates,” on the other hand, opposed the campaign for a Constituent Assembly until forced by public opinion to change their stance. They do not support the call for a general amnesty, nor direct elections to precede the Assembly. As a result of the MDB’s tremendous growth as a vehicle for electoral dissent, the exercises programmed by the government to legitimize its rule have become a source of embarrassment instead. Although the Brazilian Congress wields no real power, congressional elections are a barometer of public opinion. In 1974, the MDB captured 65% of the popular vote.” 2 The military immediately took steps to avoid another defeat in November 1978. Six months before the elections, the Geisel Administration suspended Congress and decreed a series of electoral “reforms” designed to stack the deck against the MDB. This “April package,” as it came to be known, stipulated that one-third of the Senate would be appointed by the president, ensuring a safe ARENA majority; small towns and rural areas, where government caciques control the vote, were given disproportionate weight in the Chamber of Deputies; and the MDB was barred from radio and television during the so-called campaign. The results of the November elections made a mockery of these maneuvers. In Senate races, the MDB polled 15 million votes to ARENA’s 10 million-despite numerous reports of vote-rigging in the countryside. In polling for the Chamber of Deputies, the MDB majority was narrower. Significantly, 15% of the electorate chose to protest the artificial two-party system with blank or spoiled votes.’ 3 A call to write in “none of the above” on ballots was particularly successful in urban working class districts.” 14 The MDB won more votes, and ARENA less, than in 1974. Candidates of the “authentic” faction gained leverage within the heterogeneous grouping. The “April package,” however, did produce its primary goal: MDB victories were not translated into congressional seats. In the Chamber of Deputies, the under-representation of the more populous industrial states preserved a slim ARENA majority, while the “bionic Senators,” appointed by the President, had the same effect in the Senate. BRIZOLA AND THE PTB The future of the MDB is now being debated by its different political components. The dominant view is that the MDB should remain intact, at least until the dictatorship is brought to an end. A minority maintains that the MDB’s unity is artificial, aimed only at scoring electoral victories and lacking a coherent political program. The time is ripe, they argue, for rebuilding a multi-party structure, while preserving the MDB as a broad electoral front. Sectors of the Brazilian Labor Party (PTB) support this second option. Prior to the coup, the PTB had the largest political following in Brazil, and many believe that if free elections were held today, the PTB would be an easy winner. Founded in 1945, the PTB was the party of President Joao Goulart. Throughout the 1950s and 60s, the party mobilized broad support among workers and peasants behind a program of economic and social reforms. But the PTB was a multi-class party, dominated at the top by those sectors of the bourgeoisie imperiled by large agrarian and industrial interests in Brazil and by the influx of foreign capital. Its populist program sought to enlist the support of the exploited in the name of nationalism and social progress. Leonel Brizola, leader of the party’s radical wing in the 60s, was exiled by the dictatorship in 1964. Brizola is still a powerful figure in Brazilian politicsand even in exile, he functions as one of the party’s leading spokespersons. As State Governor of Rio Grande do Sul, he is remembered for expropriating ITT’s subsidiary and paying the symbolic sum of one cruzeiro. He is remembered also for his advocacy of agrarian and educational reforms, and the expansion of public services. In 1961, he was elected a federal deputy with the largest number of votes ever won by any candidate. The Brazilian military remember Brizola as the embodiment of their fears of a “communist” takeover. Now he must await a general amnesty to return to Brazil, and there is no telling when that will come. Meanwhile, Brizola is busily meeting with international figures, particularly with social-democratic leaders of the Second International. He wants to pressure the dictatorship into calling elections, and to prepare the PTB for winning them. Brizola’s vision of a revived PTB would unite diverse forces, including the urban and rural poor, workers, the middle classes and sectors of what he calls the national bourgeoisie. The working class, he says, would be the backbone of the party.'” It is unclear, however, whether a younger, more industrial working class, steeled by years of repression, will be as receptive to PTB politics as the workers of the early 60s. Brizola’s critics on the Left say that the neopopulism of the PTB would subordinate, once again, the interests of the working class to one fraction or another of the bourgeoisie. Instead, trade union militants argue that the ground must be prepared for the creation of a genuine workers’ party, based in the working class and led by its most conscious elements. THE WORKING CLASS The irony of capitalism is that it plants the seeds of its own demise. In Brazil, massive injections of foreign capital have produced the rise of a modern, industrial proletariat within a relatively short period of time. The penetration of capitalism into the countryside has also created a rural proletariat of landless peasants dispossessed by the expansion of large-scale, export agriculture. By keeping wages down and imposing a cooperative leadership on the labor movement, the military dictatorship has ensured high profits for the bourgeoisie and its foreign partners. At the same time, and unavoidably, it has fostered a militant and consistent source of opposition to its rule. Since the military first took power in 1964, the Brazilian working class has grown from eight to 17 million.’ 6 It has seen its standard of living progressively eroded. Today, 43% of the Brazilian labor force earns the minimum wage of $92 a month; yet a basic food basket in Brazil costs three times that amount.” A worker earning the minimum wage in 1965 had to work 87 hours a month to buy a family’s basic food requirements; today, that worker must labor 167 hours. As a result, the number of working family members has doubled from one to two, but the average family income is still lower now than in 1958.”8 Changes within the Brazilian working class have been qualitative as well as quantitative since 1964. Competition between capitalist firms engenders a process of concentration and centralization -larger and larger units of production, controlled by an ever smaller number of firms. A necessary corollary is concentration of the work force. Workers that formerly were dispersed among many small- scale factories are brought under one roof, harnessed to more modern machines and subjected to more sophisticated techniques of industrial “management.”‘ In Brazil, this tendency toward concentration of production and its corollaries has been hastened by the arrival en masse of the large transnationals. Nowhere is the trend more apparent than in the state of Sao Paulo, the most dynamic area of Brazilian capitalism. Its capital city is often compared to Pittsburgh or Dusseldorf, but surpasses both in industrial pollution. A drive through the industrial suburbs of Sao Paulo is a lesson in the urgent need for internationalism among workers, to counter the perfected internationalization of capital. Telefunken, Philco, Volkswagen, Fiat, Krupp, General Motors, Ford and others, from all over the globe, have settled in Sao Paulo to reap superprofits from the Brazilian working class. Each employs several thousand workers under one roof. After all, an assembler at Ford do Brasil starts at US$180 a month, only a fraction of the wages paid in hometown Detroit.20 Although the connection is neither immediate nor mechanical, concentration does tend to breed greater consciousness, as workers become more aware of their strength in numbers and their pivotal role in produc- tion. A thousand workers in one plant can be infinitely more powerful than the same number scattered in fifty plants. Work stoppages become a more potent weapon, with the potential to disrupt entire sectors of production and even the economy as a whole. Workers in the most modernized sectors of Brazilian industry are beginning to flex their collective muscle, with the industrial proletariat of Sao Paulo in the forefront of this resurgence. In the past year alone, the metalworkers of Sao Paulo, numbering more than 350,000, have waged three militant and illegal strikes for higher wages and basic trade union rights [see next article]. Militant trade unionism, by itself, however, does not call into question the capitalist system. According to Ruy Mauro Marini, a Marxist sociologist and activist, it is essential for the working class movement in Brazil to formulate its own political project and wage an independent political struggle, together with the rural proletariat and other exploited sectors. The pattern of development imposed by the dictatorship has sharpened contradictions between the working class and all fractions of the bourgeoisie, calling for solutions that are far more radical than those proposed by the populists of the early 60s. 21 THE BRAZILIAN SPRING “We are at a dead end, trapped, and know it,” says a former Cabinet minister. 2 2 Military rule is opposed, for different reasons, by vast sectors of society. More repression will only spark greater opposition. The lessons of Iran are being carefully digested. Those that stand to lose the most from a political upheaval, the U.S. government, the Brazilian bourgeoisie and the Brazilian military, have devised a formula for averting such a calamity. They call it “limited liberalization,” alternatively known as “controlled decompression.” The terminology dates back to the Geisel Administration (1974-79). Promising a “slow and gradual” return to democracy, Geisel announced the first steps toward institutional reform in June, 1978. He rescinded Institutional Act No. 5, which for ten years had given presidents the right to close Congress, override the judiciary and the Constitution, deprive elected officials of their mandates and suspend the political rights of any citizen. Jornal do Brasil greeted the June announcement with a banner headline: “THE DICTATORSHIP IS OVER.” But Geisel was hardly a reformer. Between 1974 and 1978, he passed the “April package”; he tolerated torture centers, crushed demonstrations and persecuted the Left. Characteristically, then, he included a safeguard provision in his June reforms, giving the president “emergency” powers similar to those that expired with Institutional Act No. 5. The main difference was that Congress, controlled by the ARENA party, would have to grant these powers. The difference was largely cosmetic. Geisel’s so-called reforms, however tame, were denounced by hardline factions of the military. As the end of his term drew near, the choice of a successor engendered sharp struggle between the “gradualists” and those determined to keep the military in power. Hardliners supported the candidacy of the Army Minister, General Sylvio Frota, and accused Geisel of being soft on communism and subversion. Frota was dismissed from his post in October 1977, and without consulting the military high command, Geisel selected General Joao Baptista Figueiredo, a retired four star general, as his successor. Revealing a different side of military discord, another retired four star general accepted the MDB nomination for the presidency. Military relations with the opposition had always been icy at best, but General Euler Bentes Monteiro- leader of a nationalist wing of the armed forces-broke with that tradition. He pledged a return to civilian rule within three years, promised economic reforms and hinted at curbs on the transnationals. While Bentes Monteiro had no support within the Army high command, he did command loyalty from some colonels and lower- ranking officers, many of whom had signed a manifesto in 1977 calling for the abolition of “emergency” powers and an end to corruption in high places. Given the Brazilian system of indirect elections to the presidency, the result was a foregone conclusion. But the contentious campaign put General Figueiredo on notice that he would face pressures from both ends of the military spectrum–to halt plans for liberalization and to hasten them. THE INTELLIGENCE CZAR Figueiredo took office on March 15, 1979, declaring that he expects to be the last of the series; that he foresees handing power to a civilian president when his term expires in 1985. Figueiredo’s antecedents, however, offer little encouragement to those who hope for genuine liberalization. His public statements and actions, after only several months in office, offer even less. General Figueiredo is a former cavalry officer who once said, “For me the smell of a horse is better than the smell of the people.””2 Following the 1964 coup, Figueiredo was named director of the Rio office of the National Intelligence Service (SNI), moved on to head the military police in the state of Sao Paulo and to become the Chief of Staff under President Emilio Medici. Prior to his presidential nomination, Figueiredo was national head of the SNI- the agency most implicated in the dictatorship’s heinous crimes against its opponents. The new President’s choices for Cabinet ministers indicate a strong continuity with the past. Mario Simonsen, Minister of Economics under Geisel and an industrial millionaire in his own right, now heads the Ministry of Planning. He plans to devote the next two years to fighting inflation, opposes any relaxation of wage controls and urged hardline tactics against the striking metalworkers of Sao Paulo. Simonsen has also urged his new boss to postpone the municipal elections scheduled for 1980, arguing that austerity policies will necessarily prejudice the outcome against the ruling party. 2 4 Delfim Neto, Finance Minister from 1967 to 1973, is another familiar face in the Cabinet. As Minister of Agriculture, he now plans to do the same for farming as he did for industry: provide fiscal incentives for the large capitalists, including foreign agribusiness firms, while weeding out the small- scale producers. General Golbery do Couto e Silva, author of the “national security doc-rine” and president of Dow Chemical do Brasil, heads the president’s civilian household. INSTITUTIONALIZATION The essence of “controlled liberalization” -emphasis on the adjective-is continuity. Figueiredo, representing a centrist tendency within the military, has six years to institute changes that will pave the way for presidential and parliamentary elections in 1985, and a return to civilian rule. But these very changes are geared to preserving the essential features of Brazilian capitalism and perpetuating the hegemonic role of the military within the state, despite a softer, civilian facade. Figueiredo’s reforms are intended to quell domestic unrest and satisfy the shallow requirements of “human rights” as defined by Jimmy Carter. They include a more subtle and selective system of repression, firmly controlled by the military and justified by the doctrine of “national security”; a regulated form of parliamentary democracy to direct discontent into safe electoral channels; and a civilian president groomed by the military and subordinate to its dictates. The most complex element of the formula concerns the party line-up for parliamentary elections. The current two-party system- the military’s own creation- has not worked in its favor. Hence, a plan devised by General Golbery do Couto e Silva aims at breaking the unity of the MDB by creating two new parties and refurbishing the old ones. The new party line-up would look something like this: * The much discredited ARENA, under a new name, would attract right-wing members of the MDB to its ranks. * A new centrist party would be created to attract the “moderate” faction of the MDB and isolated “progressives” from ARENA. * A new left-wing party would be tolerated to attract “authentics” from the MDB and socialists. * A reconstituted Labor Party would attract PTB elements from within the MDB. Dominated by the party’s right-wing tendency, it would contest Brizola’s leadership.25 This new configuration would provide a semblance of pluralist democracy, while preventing any one sector of the opposition from gaining hegemony. ARENA and the new center party would form a parliamentary bloc, in exchange for government positions; the left-wing party, according to Golbery’s plan, would “disappear” by the 1982 parliamentary elections, because it would fail to win the required minimum of votes; and the struggle for right-wing leadership of the PTB would be led by Ivete Vargas, a party leader and close associate of General Golbery. In April, Vargas announced the formation of a PTB variant-the Christian Brazilian Labor Party (PTBC)-which could fit nicely into this design. 2 6 The name most dropped as a potential civilian candidate for president is Aurelio Chaves, ex-Governor of Minas Gerais and now Vice-President under Figueiredo. Chaves was recently an honored guest of the Center of Brazilian Studies, part of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. The Center is supported by Brazilian and U.S. banking and business groups, especially those connected with the Brazil-U.S. Business Council. Introduced as “one of the most experienced civilian politicians in Brazil,” Chaves was also warmly received by David Rockefeller of Chase Manhattan in New York; A.W. Clausen, President of Bank of America in San Francisco; and Walter Mondale in Washington. The Brazilian military, backed by the bourgeoisie and U.S. policy, describes its plan as “a calculated risk”–a risk it is attempting to minimize by every possible means. Liberalization means that political forces must be molded and taught the rigid rules of so-called democracy under military tutelage. But in case the game-plan fails, the repressive apparatus stands ready to act. Figueiredo set forth the alternatives in a pre-inaugural speech to the Brazilian War College: “The game is beginning and as soon as I’m in office the ball will belong to me. If the politicians play well, fine, but if they play badly, I will put the ball under my arm and leave the field. The playing around will be over.”” The risks, however, are still substantial. The danger of a right-wing coup to pre-empt the liberalization process cannot be discounted. The danger of Figueiredo and the centrists retreating from even their timid reforms is ever present, as the essential element of control slips away. Much will depend on the development of the mass movement in Brazil, on its ability to pry open the door to liberal reforms, while relying on its own strength to carry out a genuine democratic revolution. Fifteen years of dictatorship and development have shown that the Brazilian economic model, predicated upon super-exploitation of the working class, is incompatible with real democracy; that the Brazilian bourgeoisie, beholden to this model, will not approve reforms that would fundamentally alter the balance of power in Brazil. When millions of Iranians took to the streets demanding “Death to the Shah,” the U.S. press invoked the specter of retrograde Islam to explain this mass aversion to “modernization.” The Brazilian situation offers no such scapegoat, not even communist subversion. Yet increasingly, masses of Brazilians are organizing to end the dictatorship and rejecting the economic principles that brought it to power and kept it there. DON’T BELIEVE IN MIRACLES 1. Gayle Hudgens Watson, “It All Began with ‘Brother Sam,”‘ The Nation, January 15, 1977. 2. Severo Salles, “Desnacionalizacion Galopante,” Cuadernos del Tercer Mundo, Vol. II, No. 23 (August/September 1978), p. 16. 3. New York Times, January 7, 1979. 4. Barron’s, September 18, 1978. 5. Business Week, July 31, 1978. 6. New York Times, January 7, 1979. 7. “Agribusiness Targets Latin America,” NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol. XII, No. 1 (January/Feb- ruary 1978). 8. Kenneth Erickson, The Brazilian Corporative State and Working-Class Politics (University of California Press, 1977), p. 164. 9. Barron’s, September 18, 1978. 10. David R. Dye and Carlos Eduardo de Souza e Silva, “Perspective on the Brazilian State,” Latin American Research Review, Vol. XIV, No. 1 (1979), p. 87. 11. New York Times, February 4, 1979. 12. Teotonio dos Santos, “Brasil: Despues de la Dic- tadura,” Cuadernos del Tercer Mundo, Vol. II, No. 23, p. 8. 13. Latin America Political Report (LAPR), November 24, 1978. 14. The Brazilians, February/March 1979. 15. Movimento, December 25-31, 1978. 16. Antonio Almeida, “Sindicatos: El Rosal se va a Balancear,” Cuadernos del Tercer Mundo, Vol. II, No. 23, p. 20. 17. Latin America Economic Report (LAER), September 22, 1978. 18. LAER, May 12, 1978. 19. Interview with Ruy Mauro Marini in Em Tempo. 20. Report from the U.S. Department of Labor, Oc- cupational Safety and Health Team to Brazil, November 14-December 2, 1977. 21. Marini, op. cit. 22. Washington Post, March 31, 1979. 23. New York Times, March 16, 1979. 24. LAPR, February 23, 1979. 25. LAPR, October 24, 1978. 26. Movimento, April 23-29, 1979. 27. Teotonio dos Santos and Herbert de Souza, “Las Relaciones Estados Unidos-Brasil bajo la Administracion Carter,” Cuadernos del Tercer Mundo, Vol. III, No. 27 (February 1979). 28. New York Times, March 18, 1979.