Brazil's Military Dictatorship

On March 31^st, 1964, fearing that Communism was growing at an alarming rate under the rule of Brazilian President Goulhart, the military of Brazil staged a coup against their government and seized control over the country, ousting Goulhart and forcing him to flee to Uruguay. The military government placed into power five different presidents over the next twenty years and put into place the Institutional Acts to increase their power and assist in the fight against Communism. These acts included actions such as banning welfare and other social services, ending elections of governors and mayors, and outlawing virtually any form of civil rights. Unlike other Latin America Military states, one is able to see Brazil maintained a certain degree of democracy, or at least the idea of it, by still having the position of a president, but during the military's rule one can't really say that the presidents weren't anything more than dictators placed into the role by the military. Just like the military, these presidents were vehemently anti-communist and anti-socialist, and changed the Populist reforms in the country that could be seen as related to those ideologies. The military had also assumed control over the labor unions and farmer organizations in the country, helping to reduce opposition to their changes in social welfare significantly. Overall, the political instability that followed Vargas' suicide was a leading factor in the military's ability to take control as it allowed the military to begin to assert its power over government institutions in a manner that could be referred to as more gradual than other Latin American military regimes. The military's failure to actually help the country, their acute ability to make things worse, and the fact that revolutions were no longer a real threat made it to where the military finally began to transition their power to the civilians from 1979 to 1985 with the final military president Joan Figuerido.