ABSTRACT
Brazil has been ruled by a military-technocratic fascist regime, a regime whose origins reveal a great deal about the relationship among democracy, fascism, and economic development in the Third World. The abolition of slavery helped undermine the empire. A bloodless revolution, in which army officers were prominent, abolished the empire a proclaimed the Republic of Brazil. Money, protection, promotion, contracts, attention, and more symbolic gratifications were directed especially toward the coffee barons, the industrialists, and the army. The presidency appeared to be firmly and permanently in the hands of representatives of urban populism, and the Congress, owing to voting restrictions and districting techniques, appeared equally firmly and permanently under to domination of a rural conservative, even feudal, majority. "Stability and economic development"—ironically the formula of Vargas—might be the motto of Brazilian military fascism. The army has gambled that its economic strategies will pay off in time to enable its retreat from power to be orderly and graceful.
