“The president does not consider March 31, 1964 a military coup”: The Armed Forces and Historical Revisionism under Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022)

“The president does not consider March 31, 1964 a military coup”: The Armed Forces and Historical Revisionism under Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022)

By Andre Pagliarini

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Keywords: Jair Bolsonaro, Dictatorship, Brazil, Cold War, Revisionism, Armed Forces

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‘History cannot be rewritten, in a mere act of revisionism, without proper contextualization.’ – Brazilian Ministry of Defense statement commemorating the 1964 coup, March 30, 2022

In 2019, for the first time in decades, a Brazilian president deemed the anniversary of the 1964 military coup to be an occasion worth celebrating.[1] Former army captain and longtime member of Congress Jair Bolsonaro had won the presidency the year before, in part due to his staunch right-wing profile.[2] His controversial views included the notion that the military had acted correctly in ousting President João Goulart, the legitimate head of state according to the country’s Constitution at the time, and that the dictatorship that followed had been insufficiently brutal in its crackdown on dissent.[3] As president, Bolsonaro ordered his Defense Ministry to carry out “due commemorations” for the fifty-fifth anniversary of the coup. When asked to explain what that entailed, presidential spokesperson General Otávio Rêgo Barros was vague, leaving it up to military commanders.[4] He also expounded on Bolsonaro’s well-known view of Brazil’s dictatorial past:

Until 2011, the armed forces annually marked the anniversary of the coup. That year, however, President Dilma Rousseff, who had been arrested and tortured by the dictatorship in her youth, forbade commemorations of the event. Her vice president, who took over after her impeachment in 2016, did not make of the 1964 coup a cause célèbre. Under Bolsonaro, however, the Defense Ministry would formally observe the anniversary of the coup for the first time since the return of democracy.

What set Bolsonaro apart from earlier defenders of the dictatorship is not only his overt nostalgia for authoritarian rule, but also his ability to operationalize that nostalgia through the political mobilization of the armed forces.[6] In an effort to bring the military in line with his administration, Bolsonaro replaced the army’s top commander three times during his term, a degree of turnover unseen in nearly sixty years.[7] His government marked a dramatic escalation in the formal reentry of military men into symbolic and administrative roles normally reserved for civilian authorities, culminating in unprecedented state commemorations to legitimize authoritarian memory. This article argues that such commemorations were not merely symbolic but part of a broader project of authoritarian legitimation that sought to normalize military rule in public discourse, with lasting institutional consequences. Bolsonaro’s growing entanglement in legal investigations—including inquiries into plots to intimidate or harm key democratic figures—further underscores the urgency of understanding how authoritarian narratives are weaponized by illiberal movements such as the one organized around the former president.[8]

Bolsonaro’s inaugural minister of defense insisted the government was not “celebrating” the coup. Rather, “we’re going to remember and mark a historic date that Brazil went through, with the decisive participation of the Armed Forces, as has always been done.” Unlike previous administrations, he added, the Bolsonaro government “thinks that younger people need to know what happened on that date, at that time.”[9] Amid broad pushback, Bolsonaro himself asserted that his intent was not to exalt the coup but to remember it, a rhetorical calibration that beggars belief given his explicit, long-standing support for the military dictatorship.[10] With Bolsonaro in power, the military would renew its yearly observation of the coup’s success with explicit presidential backing. The government thus became an active sponsor of the military’s memory politics.

At stake in the military’s commemorations of the 1964 coup is more than just historical interpretation—it is a claim to institutional virtue and moral authority. Such claims rest on the assumption that the dramatic intervention sixty years ago was justified at the time given prevailing conditions and in hindsight given where the country stands today. In his 2022 observation of the coup’s anniversary, General Walter Souza Braga Netto, Bolsonaro’s last minister of defense, captured the military’s sense that its motivations have been frequently misunderstood or mischaracterized: “to analyze and understand an event that occurred more than half a century ago, with impartiality and honesty of purpose, requires an in-depth understanding of what society was experiencing at that time. History cannot be rewritten, in a mere act of revisionism, without proper contextualization.”[11] The terms revisionism or revisionist, as historian James McPherson has pointed out, are often used pejoratively in political debates about the past. Braga Netto certainly meant it as such, overlooking the fact that the military itself is deeply invested in its own form of revisionism.[12] While insisting on a supposedly impartial reading of the facts, the armed forces have long embraced a self-serving contextualization of the 1964 coup aimed at neutralizing criticism while reinforcing its historical legitimacy. Under Bolsonaro, these efforts were conspicuously doubled down on.

This article examines military statements issued under the Bolsonaro government in order to illuminate enduring historical justifications for the 1964 coup. In addition to considering the words and deeds of Bolsonaro himself as well as members of his administration, I focus here on official military declarations known as “orders of the day” (ordens do dia) released around the anniversary of the coup between 2019 and 2022.[13] An order of the day is a written or spoken directive issued by a commanding officer to provide instructions, guidance, or information to troops under their command. It typically contains information about the day’s activities, such as the schedule, any special events, or any changes to routine procedures. It may also include motivational messages or reminders of military values and discipline. Orders of the day can be issued at various levels of command, from a small unit to an entire military force, and are usually disseminated through written bulletins, verbal briefings, or electronic communications. In this case, they were signed by Bolsonaro’s ministers of defense, General Fernando Azevedo e Silva (January 1, 2019-March 29, 2021) and General Braga Netto (March 29, 2021-April 1, 2022).

Given that they were produced under Bolsonaro, the most reactionary, pro-dictatorship chief executive in the history of Brazil’s young democracy, these documents carry particular ideological weight. The military had commemorated the coup in the past, but Bolsonaro was the first president to actively prompt it to do so.[14] Combined with Bolsonaro’s apologetics for the regime, the orders of the day pertaining to the coup sought to resignify the meaning of 1964, or at least to reanimate and reproduce pro-regime talking points from the past. Far from neutral or bureaucratic, the orders of the day functioned as vehicles for reasserting the military’s heroic self-image and for reinscribing the coup as a narrative of national salvation. In so doing, they blurred the line between military professionalism and political propaganda, reinforcing Bolsonaro’s broader effort to align the armed forces with a reactionary vision of Brazilian history.

Despite its novelty in many respects, the right-wing movement organized around the former president—in a word, Bolsonarismo—incarnates several long-standing authoritarian impulses in Brazilian society.[15] One of the ways Bolsonaro set himself apart from previous antidemocratic figures, however, was by seeking to legitimize his claims to leadership by appealing to a nostalgic if frustrated view of the last period of dictatorial rule.[16] By insisting that the military regime did good but not enough, Bolsonarismo implicitly embraces a logic of continuity with a political agenda disrupted by the democratic consolidation of the last three decades. Where the armed forces stand on the matter has been a disquieting source of uncertainty in recent years.

This article examines how those orders of the day, texts ultimately produced by and for Brazil’s men in uniform, explained the events that culminated in Goulart’s ouster and the implantation of military rule as well as the role of the armed forces in Brazilian life. In doing so, it offers a fresh analytical contribution by centering on the discursive apparatus of the military itself, rather than presidential rhetoric or judicial battles. By treating the ordens do dia as ideologically loaded acts of speech, it underscores the role of internal military communications in shaping public memory and signaling political orientation. I argue that these orders of the day illustrate the endurance of the military’s aspiration to justify rather than atone for the 1964 coup. In addition to discussing each of the documents in some detail in the paragraphs that follow, I have also translated and included them here in full as appendixes.

If anything, Bolsonaro’s victory at the polls in 2018, the narrowness of his defeat four years later, and the assault on Brazil’s democratic institutions carried out by his supporters on January 8, 2023, make it less likely than ever that the military will express contrition for its past misdeeds. This consequence of Bolsonaro’s election has received little attention given the myriad other problems he left in his wake, but it is worth emphasizing nonetheless. His administration did not merely permit the military to remember 1964—it encouraged a full-throated rehabilitation of its meaning. This marked a qualitative shift in the memory politics of redemocratization, one that links the institutional authority of the military to contemporary illiberal projects. Bolsonaro is gone from power, yet one of his clear legacies is a fervent and vocal right-wing base disinclined to fault the military for its assault on Brazil’s constitutional order decades ago. Bolsonarismo is itself an impediment to a deeper reckoning with the past within the armed forces and beyond.

The sixtieth anniversary of the 1964 coup is a propitious moment to assess how that event is discussed today and to try and gauge the strength of the competing narratives surrounding it. Anniversaries of controversial events often serve as catalysts for renewed debate and discussion as different groups seek to shape public understanding of the past. In some cases, these efforts can lead to a more nuanced and inclusive understanding of history. However, there is the risk that historical facts may be distorted through revisionism in order to advance a particular agenda. Bolsonaristas and key members of the military brass (the distinctions between these groups have not always been clear in recent years) are unequivocally invested in shoring up a particularly positive understanding of the 1964 coup and the regime that followed. Recognizing this, and attempting to excise explicit pro-coup sentiments from the armed forces, the head of the army under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva forbade celebrations of the coup in 2023.[17] It will take time to grasp the impact of such actions on views within the military, but the intent is clearly to reverse Bolsonaro’s politicization of the armed forces.

Indeed, as the dictatorship’s most prominent partisan in decades, Bolsonaro himself is central to my analysis even as he recedes to the background at times. His views matter to this study, not least because they clarify the extent to which the former president and the armed forces want the same thing for the military vis-à-vis the 1964 coup in the eyes of history: praise, not condemnation; gratitude, not resentment; respect, not contempt. Unlike earlier post-dictatorship figures on the right, who maintained ambiguity or silence on the regime’s legacy, Bolsonaro gave voice to its most extreme apologists and elevated them to positions of power. In this regard, rather than simply recycling authoritarian nostalgia, Bolsonarismo retooled it for contemporary political ends. It draws strength not only from the past, but from a disenchanted public eager for order and vengeance as well.

The continued vitality of the pro-coup arguments, as expressed annually by the armed forces from 2019 to 2022, is bound inextricably with an explicitly pro-Bolsonaro political orientation. In light of ongoing investigations into Bolsonaro’s alleged links to political violence, including reported assassination plots targeting political opponents, it is imperative to view these commemorative practices not in isolation but as part of a larger authoritarian repertoire. Before discussing the specific orders of the day that form the substantive heart of this article, I begin by briefly noting the challenges and opportunities of historical revisionism during important anniversaries.

Historical Narratives and Memory-Making

To the extent that they do, societies arrive at consensus regarding historical narratives through variegated means shaped by several factors that often shift with time. Such shifts can reanimate old debates or spark new ones that disrupt common understandings of the past. In Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History, Margaret MacMillan notes that while responsible history can be a powerful tool for understanding the present and shaping the future, irresponsible or superficial history can be manipulated to serve narrow political, social, and personal agendas.[18] Since history is not a static collection of facts but rather a dynamic and contested field of inquiry, it is not incidental that historical memory emerges from different places, ranging from individual recollections to institutional initiatives. At the national and state level in Brazil, these include academic research and Truth Commissions, as well as rhetorical strategies of state institutions—especially the armed forces—which have long sought to shape official historical narratives to defend their institutional legacies.

In conceptualizing the interplay between memory, history, and politics, historian Steve Stern coined the term “memory knots” to describe particularly charged and contested sites of collective memory. These knots represent moments or events in a society’s past that continue to provoke intense debate, disagreement, and emotional responses. They are often associated with traumatic experiences, social divisions, or unresolved conflicts. Memory knots are not simply individual recollections; they are social phenomena that emerge from the interaction of personal memories, public narratives, and cultural representations. They are often embedded in symbols, rituals, and commemorative practices that shape how a society understands its past and its present. The concept of memory knots is particularly relevant in societies that have experienced periods of violence, repression, or social upheaval. In these contexts, memory knots can become focal points for struggles over historical interpretation, political legitimacy, and social justice. They are related to the formal production of history but not limited by its constraints.[19]

In many societies, historical narratives are initially formed through collective memory and oral traditions passed down through generations. Written records and archival materials are particularly important in the construction of complex historical narratives. Rigorous research, primary-source analysis, interpreting evidence, and debating different perspectives on past events are central elements of the historian’s craft. Through such endeavors, scholars contribute to public discourse, including media representations, political debates, and cultural expressions related to historical events, all of which help sculpt popular understandings of the past. Indeed, educational institutions at every level also play a significant role in shaping historical narratives by selecting and teaching specific interpretations of what happened years ago and why.[20] In the Brazilian context, scholars like Maria Celina D’Araujo, Gláucio Ary Dillon Soares, and Celso Castro have highlighted the military’s active role in producing and preserving a version of history in which the 1964 coup is cast as a legitimate institutional intervention, thus embedding it within the armed forces’ collective self-image.[21]

Power and politics are deeply woven into the ways societies remember their past. Different groups often interpret history in conflicting ways, with social movements and marginalized communities frequently challenging dominant narratives to recover voices long excluded. Revisionist historians may also revisit the past, offering alternative readings that shift public understanding. Which stories take hold often depends on access to media, institutional backing, and other forms of influence. In today’s interconnected world, historical narratives cross borders—sometimes deepening perspective, other times inviting shallow or misleading comparisons. History is never fully settled; it evolves through a continuous exchange between evidence, scholarship, and public debate. Major anniversaries, in particular, often reignite debate, shaped as much by present-day politics as by the events being remembered. Consider, for instance, the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas, which sparked fierce disagreement about his legacy—some emphasizing his role in opening the continent to European colonization, others underscoring the catastrophic impact on Indigenous populations.[22] The 150th anniversary of the American Civil War similarly prompted a reexamination of slavery’s centrality to the conflict and challenged lingering myths about Confederate leaders.[23] And the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki reopened long-standing ethical debates, with renewed criticism of the argument that the bombings were necessary to end the war.[24]

Brazil’s coup anniversary commemorations offer another such, local variant of this global dynamic, particularly in how they reflect the evolving place of the armed forces in the national imaginary. The date of the coup has not always been widely observed. Carlos Fico, a leading historian of the Brazilian dictatorship, noted much broader interest in the fortieth anniversary of the coup compared to the thirtieth, a fact he attributed as much to growing scholarly interest in the period among young historians as to the erosion of facile clichés regarding the coup with the passage of time.[25] The fiftieth anniversary of the coup in 2014 saw an even greater outpouring of scholarly publications, articles, conferences, transnational symposia, and exhibits.[26] This was not only because of the special significance of the half-century mark but also likely because Brazil found itself at the time enmeshed in the fallout of the widespread 2013 demonstrations that brought unprecedented numbers of Brazilians to the streets to air a host of grievances regarding the quality of Brazilian democracy.[27]

It was in this lingering context, with the sensation that “with every anniversary, the 1964 coup is more present in debates about Brazilian politics,” as historians Jorge Ferreira and Angela de Castro Gomes noted in 2014, that Bolsonaro prevailed at the ballot box.[28] By elevating an impassioned defender of the 1964 coup and inaugurating the dictatorship that followed, the 2018 election marked a potential turning point in the nation’s understanding of its past. Bolsonaro’s success in definitively shifting public debate around the memory of the coup after four years in power is dubious, but there is no doubt that he and his ideological allies in the armed forces tried to do so. That effort was inseparable from Bolsonarismo’s larger antidemocratic project, which sought not only to rehabilitate the military’s past but also to undermine the institutions of Brazil’s contemporary democracy—its courts, electoral system, and civil society watchdogs. The following section explores one front in that campaign, organized around recognizing the annual commemoration of the coup by the armed forces as a memory knot.

Orders of the Day

Competing narratives about the 1964 coup and the dictatorship that followed have long shaped Brazil’s political imagination.[29] In most cases, these have as much to do with the specific historical event as they do about Brazil’s past, present, and future. Some Brazilians view the coup as a tragic turning point that set Brazil back decades in terms of democracy and human rights, whereas others see it as a necessity that kept the country from plunging into Communist chaos. These divergent understandings carry real political weight. Interpretations that center President João Goulart’s reformist agenda as the key trigger of the coup often call attention to the deeper structural drivers of political instability—most notably, Brazil’s enduring patterns of inequality and exclusion. From this perspective, confronting the legacy of 1964 demands accountability for past atrocities and a recommitment to building a fairer, more inclusive democratic order.

By contrast, defenders of the coup have tended to emphasize the Communist threat at the height of the Cold War to justify the authoritarianism and human rights abuses of the military regime. Such arguments contributed to an enduring culture of fear and suspicion toward leftist movements, of which the virulent sentiment against the Workers’ Party (PT)—antipetismo—championed by Bolsonaro is a recent iteration.[30] Against that rhetorical backdrop, military statements about the coup should not be taken as expository boilerplate. They are ideological constructs intended to validate a past assault on Brazil’s constitutional order so as to shore up the military’s position today. Despite the transition to democracy in the 1980s, the Brazilian military has retained significant influence in government. It reached its apex in that regard under Bolsonaro, who included more military men in his cabinet than any president since the height of the dictatorship.[31] This prominence fed the military’s historical sense of itself as a distinct force in Brazilian life, only occasionally accountable to civilian oversight.[32] Consequently, one of the early challenges of Lula’s third administration was to quell concerns about the military’s potential to undermine democratic institutions.[33]

The orders of the day released to mark the coup between 2019 and 2022 are not identical, but they share a set of assumptions, arguments, and oversights. The overlap between the enduring pro-coup narratives presented in the orders of the day can be distilled as follows.

WHAT THE ORDERS OF THE DAY SAY

1. The 1964 coup was a product of the ideological polarization that characterized international politics from the 1930s through the Cold War.
2. Historical perspective is paramount to understanding the military’s decision to intervene.
3. The military acted with overwhelming popular support, stepping into the political arena only once it became clear that society as a whole expected it to.
4. The 1979 Amnesty Law, issued by the military regime to forgive certain crimes committed by members of the organized opposition as well as state actors accused of human rights violations, was a foundational element in the pacification of Brazilian society.
5. The military is a living institution constantly evolving and adapting to meet Brazilians’ needs.
6. Brazilian democracy exists today because of the 1964 military intervention.

WHAT THE ORDERS OF THE DAY DO NOT SAY

1. Communism never threatened the Brazilian government.
2. The United States government supported the 1964 coup and was prepared to intervene if necessary.
3. The dictatorship that followed the 1964 coup routinely employed torture, censorship, and other human rights violations to maintain or strengthen its grip on power (there is no apology or statement of regret in any of the documents).
4. The military regime left a profound economic crisis in its wake. Its policy legacy is mixed at best.
5. Despite its pleas for historical perspective, the military itself has been a frequent impediment to a deeper historical understanding of the period of military rule.

The opening sentence of the first order of the day, released on March 27, 2019—it is the longest of the four—placed the military at the center of Brazilian life: “the Armed Forces have been part of the history of our people, always aligned with their legitimate aspirations.” The second order of the day concluded with that sentiment, noting that the armed forces had evolved with time and helped to avert disaster, while the third asserted that the military in 1964 embraced “the responsibility of pacifying the country.”[34] The final order of the day made a similar point, placing the armed forces in lockstep with other Brazilian institutions “on par with the country’s geopolitical stature and strictly observing constitutional regulations, in the defense of the Nation and in the service of its true sovereign—the Brazilian people.”[35]

Each of the documents offers a kind of lecture on the need for historical perspective. “Understanding historical facts only makes sense when appreciated in the context in which they are found,” read the 2020 order of the day. The 2022 version insisted that “to analyze and understand an event that occurred more than half a century ago, with impartiality and honesty of purpose, requires an in-depth understanding of what society was experiencing at that time. History cannot be rewritten, in a mere act of revisionism, without proper contextualization.” That contextualization involves a broader consideration of the twentieth century, including the two world wars, superpower struggle between Washington and Moscow, and rise of revolutionary movements across the so-called Third World. “Utopic agents,” as the 2020 order of the day put it, “packaged dreams with promises of easy equality and magical freedoms, deceptions that attracted even the well-intentioned. Institutions moved to sustain democracy, in the face of pressures from groups fighting for power. Instability and conflict intensified and spread uncontrollably.”

Notably, even though the military has been at the center of every coup attempt against Brazilian democracy, these documents fail to mention the military’s history of political involvement prior to the 1964 coup.[36] The narrative holds that geopolitical factors prompted the intervention against Goulart, with apparently no weight given to the fact that Communism did not actually threaten Brazil’s constitutional order in 1964 or to the pattern of explicit and implicit attempts by the armed forces to dictate the course of Brazilian politics since the creation of the republic in 1889.[37]

In this way, the orders of the day serve not only to defend the 1964 coup but also to cast suspicion on any contemporary political project that might be framed as utopian or redistributive. While not explicitly naming Lula’s PT, the critique of “magical freedoms” and “easy equality” echoes long-standing elite and military anxieties about leftist mobilization and state-led transformation. The implicit target of this narrative is not only the past specter of Communism but also present-day political forces challenging entrenched hierarchies. These statements equating social reform with destabilizing radicalism work to delegitimize contemporary progressive governance by linking it, however obliquely, to the same threats the military claims to have neutralized in 1964. The incomplete contextualizations contained in the orders of the day thus have politicized and self-serving ends.

Each document also relies on popular support as a justification for the coup. As tensions mounted in the early 1960s, the 2021 order of the day notes, “Brazilians realized the emergency and took to the streets, with broad support from the press, political leaders, churches, the business sector, various sectors of organized society, and the Armed Forces, interrupting the escalation of conflict, resulting in the so-called movement of March 31, 1964.” It is true that thousands took to the streets in the days before Goulart’s ouster to protest his administration and to renounce the purported threat of Communism. The 2022 document notes that widespread support for military intervention “can be proven by the records of the main media outlets of the period.” None of the orders of the day recognize, however, that popular support alone was insufficient grounds for the removal of a president according to the 1946 Constitution, to say nothing of the fact that contemporaneous polling suggests Goulart actually enjoyed majority support ahead of his ouster.[38]

Of course, there is no mystery as to why the military insists there was popular support for the coup. Such backing would indicate—or at least lend plausibility to the argument—that the armed forces are not villains who struck at Brazilian democracy at a delicate historical turning point, but responsive custodians of the will of the people. Bolsonaro invoked a similar kind of legitimation two decades before taking office, when he said he was in favor of torture “and the people are favorable as well.”[39] This is as flimsy legal argumentation as the insistence that the military was justified in intervening in 1964 because some organized sectors of society urged them to.

The 1979 Amnesty Law is cited in all but the last of the orders of the day as a critical legacy of the period of military rule. That year, according to the 2019 order of the day, “a pact of pacification was configured in the Amnesty Law and enabled the transition to a democracy that was established definitively and enriched with the lessons learned from those difficult times.” The third document asserted that the Amnesty Law enabled “a solid transition, enriched with the maturity of collective learning. The country multiplied its capabilities and changed its stature.” The Amnesty Law is presented as the product of various social forces, which obscures the fact that it was ultimately a legal artifact crafted by and for the armed forces.[40] It did allow for the return of several key opposition figures who had been exiled abroad and for the broad resumption of political activity, yet the reason the Amnesty Law figures so prominently in military remembrances of that era is that it deliberately shielded state actors from prosecution.

Unlike in Chile and Argentina, crimes against humanity committed by agents of the Brazilian government have gone unpunished because of the protections granted by the Amnesty Law.[41] For years, activists, former militants, and relatives of those killed or tortured by the dictatorship, among others, have called for revising or even annulling the Amnesty Law on the grounds that a government cannot pardon itself for crimes against humanity.[42] “Without a revision of the Amnesty Law,” Rogerio Sottili, the executive director of the Instituto Vladimir Herzog, argued in 2021, “the past will keep knocking on the door.”[43] When the National Truth Commission created by President Rousseff issued its final report in 2014, it called the Amnesty Law illegal and recommended that it be overturned.[44] This was, and likely still is, a nonstarter. By consistently placing the Amnesty Law at the center of the story of the military regime, the orders of the day assert that it was key to the return of civilian rule while arguing implicitly that political chaos would follow its revocation today. The celebration of the Amnesty Law as a “pact of pacification,” along with the assertion that institutions have since been strengthened, obscures the law’s role in institutionalizing impunity and its failure to produce accountability for state violence. Such language functions less as a reckoning with the past than as a means of foreclosing it.

The idea that Brazilian democracy exists today thanks to the actions of the armed forces in 1964 is perhaps the fundamental tenet of the narrative advanced across the four orders of the day. “The 1964 Movement is a landmark for Brazilian democracy. All the more so for what it avoided,” stated the second document from 2020. The following year’s statement reinforced this view, crediting the armed forces with “assuming the responsibility of pacifying the country, facing the strain of reorganizing it, and guaranteeing the democratic freedoms that we enjoy today.” These formulations are not mere historical retrospection—they are active attempts to position the military not as an impediment to democracy, but as its guarantor, both then and now. The history of the dictatorship is rewritten as one of constitutional rescue rather than constitutional rupture. Yet such a framing is at odds with the constitutional order the military claims to have been defending in 1964 and the one it is sworn to protect now. According to Article 142 of Brazil’s 1988 Constitution, the armed forces are permanent, regular institutions under civilian authority, responsible for national defense and for guaranteeing constitutional powers and public order when formally requested by one of those powers. Nowhere does the Constitution grant the military an autonomous or moderating role in the political process. Its function is protective and subordinate, not interventionist.

Reasserting this constitutional vision is increasingly vital amid Brazil’s ongoing democratic challenges, many of which were intensified by Bolsonaro’s overt courting of military tutelage and efforts to undermine the 2022 election. The orders of the day issued during his presidency reveal an institution eager to legitimize its past and ambivalent about its current responsibilities. They convey institutional defensiveness by insisting the military has always championed democracy despite historical evidence to the contrary. This tension between the pursuit of institutional prestige and the demands of democratic accountability lies at the heart of Brazil’s post-authoritarian dilemma. The armed forces’ ability to balance these competing imperatives will be crucial for the country’s democratic future. However, so long as they downplay or obscure their central role in dismantling the constitutional order in 1964, the prospects for a genuine reckoning and lasting respect for civilian supremacy remain dim. As political scientist Alfred Stepan noted during Brazil’s transition from military rule, “increasing effective control of the military and intelligence systems requires an effort by civil and political society to empower themselves.”[45] The Bolsonarista ethos rejects this imperative outright, dismissing even the pretense of holding the military to account for violating its democratic mandate yesterday and today. In this light, the struggle over how to remember the 1964 coup exposes the past as a critical battleground shaping Brazil’s democratic future.

Considering the Coup on its Sixtieth Anniversary

“At some stage,” Michel-Rolph Trouillot has written, “for reasons that are themselves historical, most often spurred by controversy, collectivities experience the need to impose a test of credibility on certain events and narratives because it matters to them whether these events are true or false, whether these stories are fact or fiction.”[46] The sixtieth anniversary of the 1964 coup in 2024, with a center-left administration having replaced a far-right one, was one such moment of collective reckoning. Lula obviously would not celebrate the military intervention, as Bolsonaro and the armed forces under his command had done. The president’s supporters expected a somber acknowledgment of the enduring social, political, and moral costs of the dictatorship instead. To the disappointment of many, however, Lula ultimately chose not to confront the anniversary at all, declaring that:

To that end, in the days leading up to March 31, Lula canceled a series of commemorative initiatives that had been prepared by members of his own administration to mark the coup’s sixtieth anniversary. Among the canceled actions was a public apology to be delivered on behalf of the Brazilian state by the Ministry of Human Rights, as well as the launch of a national campaign under the slogan: “60 years of the coup 1964-2024: without memory, there is no future.”[48] He also canceled plans to create a Museum of Memory and Human Rights focused on the dictatorship, a decision that drew criticism from within the PT and human rights groups, which saw the move as a political and historical mistake.[49]

Lula’s relationship with the military has been fraught for decades. His decision to forgo official acts of remembrance reflected a calculated gesture of appeasement toward the armed forces following the politicized upheavals inspired by Bolsonaro. The move underscored the delicate position he faced after the January 8, 2023, insurrection in the nation’s capital by supporters of Bolsonaro: governing amid ongoing distrust from a politicized officer corps without compromising historical truth or alienating his own political base.[50] Rather than provoking institutional backlash, Lula opted for quiet containment—an approach that speaks to the limits of transitional justice in a country where the authoritarian past remains not only unresolved but actively disputed. “Lula’s slight tension with the social sectors closest to him is compensated by this gain in tranquility on the military front,” one analyst concluded, suggesting that Lula’s decision not to “brood over” the past had paid political dividends.[51]

Yet it is precisely this reluctance to engage publicly with the legacies of 1964 that has created space for revisionist accounts to flourish. The 1964 coup was a complex event with far-reaching consequences. While it is widely acknowledged that the military dictatorship that followed was responsible for numerous human rights abuses, many Brazilians remain invested in revising the common view that the coup itself was a negative event. The orders of the day examined in this article illustrate that impulse. Seeking to normalize and even celebrate the coup as a legitimate and patriotic response to political disorder, these official statements invoked Cold War tensions, social instability, and the specter of Communist subversion to frame the coup not as a rupture of the constitutional order but as its salvation. Their language reinterprets 1964 as a moment of democratic restoration rather than democratic collapse, recasting historical memory in a way that resonates with long-standing elite and military anxieties over popular mobilization. Lula’s calculated silence on the sixtieth anniversary of the coup, while politically strategic, left these narratives unchallenged.

Some may believe that the coup was necessary to prevent Brazil from becoming a Communist dictatorship. Others may feel that the dictatorship brought stability and economic growth to the country. Still others may simply be nostalgic for a time when they believe Brazil was more orderly and less corrupt. Reading the history of 1964 and its aftermath in a nostalgic light, however, is a dangerous impulse in a pluralistic society. Revisionist narratives that justify attacks on established constitutional orders and glorify authoritarian rule or downplay its negative consequences undermine democratic values. They foster conditions ripe for the emergence of antidemocratic leaders and the perpetuation of authoritarian tendencies. There is no clearer illustration of this dynamic than the rise of Bolsonaro, who faced no electoral consequences for his long-standing support of the 1964 coup during his first presidential run in 2018.

Bolsonaristas have consistently promoted a positive account of the coup as a patriotic triumph over Communism and social disorder—older figures like Bolsonaro nostalgically valorize the regime they lived through, while many younger supporters, lacking direct experience of the dictatorship, have absorbed a revisionist version of that history. Indeed, even before his election, Bolsonaro secured surprising support from young men drawn to his brazen reactionary politics.[52] One young, working-class supporter interviewed just after the election exemplified this sentiment, recalling, “I was born in 1997, so I didn’t live through it…But when you ask normal people who lived their lives and worked, and weren’t out doing bullshit on the streets, all those people say it was the best period of their lives.” He went on to cite his grandfather—a former colonel who, he claimed, had admitted to torturing people during the dictatorship—as a source of moral and political authority, arguing that military rule had been not only justified, but necessary.[53]

The point here is not to claim that Bolsonaro’s time in Brazil’s highest office successfully shifted the way most Brazilians see the coup. Rather, it is to suggest that his rise lent credibility and weight to a kind of historical revisionism about 1964 that disrupted, if not shattered, a generally condemnatory historical consensus. His administration revealed the extent to which nostalgic and exculpatory narratives of 1964 could be weaponized to serve a reactionary political agenda, one that not only distorts public memory but also actively undermines the authority of historical scholarship and produces tangible institutional consequences. As Rebecca Atencio has argued, while cultural production does not always directly determine policy outcomes, widely circulated narratives can catalyze political processes that ultimately culminate in substantive actions by those in power.[54] Bolsonaro’s embrace of the claim that the 1964 coup was not a rupture of the constitutional order but a legitimate and necessary intervention provided the rhetorical justification for systematically hollowing out institutions tasked with reckoning with the dictatorship’s crimes. One key example was his deliberate sabotage of the Amnesty Commission, a federal body created in the early 2000s to evaluate individual claims of state violence and recommend reparations to victims. As Diva Santana of Grupo Tortura Nunca Mais da Bahia observed, this was “a historical revisionism that cannot occur. But we couldn’t expect anything different from someone who has defended a torturer from the military dictatorship in public speeches.”[55]  

The attempt to define the coup and the subsequent regime as noble and just is not a purely civilian exercise. The military is enmeshed in this effort, as this article has demonstrated. The orders of the day issued under Bolsonaro, a period when the armed forces enjoyed the greatest political cover since the end of the dictatorship, provide succinct templates for the kinds of pro-coup arguments that have long circulated among parts of the Brazilian body politic, receiving new life between 2019 and 2022. They offer striking evidence of this institutional investment in narrative control. These texts serve both as ritual commemorations and as carefully calibrated ideological interventions, distilling long-standing pro-coup arguments into state-sanctioned form. They make clear that like civilian Bolsonaristas, the military also remains eager to contest the narrative that 1964 was a coup. It is probably safe to assume that the enduring narratives contained in the orders of the day will not simply fade away in the near future. We can expect to hear them again on the next anniversary of the coup, and probably the one after that. After all, they have survived this long.

Appendixes

STATEMENT 1

Ministry of Defense

Order of the Day Regarding the 31st of March 1964

Brasília, DF, March 31, 2019

The Armed Forces have been part of the history of our people, always aligned with their legitimate aspirations. The 31st of March 1964 was a symbolic episode of this identification, giving rise to the fulfillment of the 1946 Federal Constitution, when the National Congress, on April 2, declared vacant the office of President of the Republic and held, on the 11th, the indirect election of President Castello Branco, who took office on the 15th.

Seeing Brazil at that time in historical perspective offers us the opportunity to verify the truth and, above all, to exercise the greatest human asset—the ability to learn.

Since the beginning of the formation of the nationality, still in the colonial period, going through the processes of independence, affirmation of sovereignty and territorial consolidation, until the adoption of the republican model, the country experienced, with a greater or lesser degree of conflict, a civilizational evolution that brought it to the dawn of the 20th century.

The beginning of the last century represented for Brazilian society an awakening to the phenomena of industrialization, urbanization, and modernization, which had produced power imbalances, notably in Europe.

As a result of the political, economic, and social impact, humanity saw itself involved in World War I and witnessed the advance of totalitarian ideologies, at both ends of the ideological spectrum. As two sides of the same coin, both Communism and Nazism came to constitute the main threats to freedom and democracy.

Against these radicalisms, the Brazilian people had to defend democracy with their uniformed citizens. In 1935, the mutineers of the Communist intentona were disrupted. In World War II, the Axis forces were defeated, with the participation of the Brazilian Navy, patrolling the South Atlantic and Caribbean; the Brazilian Army, with the Brazilian Expeditionary Force, on the battlefields of Italy; and the Brazilian Air Force, in the skies of Europe.

The generation that undertook this defense of the ideals of freedom, with the sacrifice of many Brazilians, would be tested again in the postwar period. The polarization caused by the Cold War, between democracies and the Communist bloc, affected all regions of the globe, provoking conflicts of a revolutionary nature in the Americas, beginning in the 1950s.

The 31st of March 1964 was situated within the context of the Cold War, which was reflected around the world and penetrated the country. Families in Brazil were alarmed and set themselves to action. Faced with a scenario of serious convulsions, the escalation toward totalitarianism was interrupted.

The Armed Forces, responding to the clamor of the vast majority of the Brazilian population and the Brazilian press, assumed the role of stabilizing that process.

In 1979, a pact of pacification was configured in the Amnesty Law and enabled the transition to a democracy that was established definitively and enriched with the lessons learned from those difficult times. The lessons learned from History were transformed into teachings for new generations. As with any historical process, the period that followed underwent advances.

The Armed Forces, as Brazilian institutions, have followed these changes. In strict observance of democratic rules, they have remained focused on their constitutional mission and subordinated to the constitutional power, with the purpose of maintaining peace and stability, so that people can build their lives.

Fifty-five years later, the Navy, the Army, and the Air Force recognize the role played by those who, when faced with the challenges of the time, acted in accordance with the desires of the Brazilian Nation. More than that, they reaffirm their commitment to freedom and democracy, for which they have fought throughout History.

***

FERNANDO AZEVEDO E SILVA Minister of State for Defense

ILQUES BARBOSA JUNIOR Admiral Commander of the Navy

Gen Ex EDSON LEAL PUJOL Commander of the Army

Ten Brig Ar ANTONIO C. M. BERMUDEZ Commander of the Air Force

STATEMENT 2

Ministry of Defense

Order of the Day Regarding the 31st of March 1964

Brasília, DF, March 31, 2020

The 1964 Movement is a landmark for Brazilian democracy. Brazil responded with determination to the threats that were forming at that time.

Understanding historical facts only makes sense when appreciated in the context in which they are found. The beginning of the 20th century was marked by two world wars as a result of power imbalances in Europe. At the same time, totalitarian ideologies on both ends of the ideological spectrum threatened freedoms and democracies. Nazism was defeated in World War II with Brazil’s participation on the battlefields of Europe and the Atlantic. But while humanity was dealing with the traumas of the postwar period, other threats sought to find spaces to again impose totalitarian regimes.

In that turbulent period, the Cold War environment penetrated Brazil. Utopic agents packaged dreams with promises of easy equality and magical freedoms, deceptions that attracted even the well-intentioned. Institutions moved to sustain democracy, in the face of pressures from groups fighting for power. Instability and conflict intensified and spread uncontrollably.

Brazilian society, members of the business community, and the press understood the threats of that moment, allied themselves, and reacted. The Armed Forces assumed the responsibility of containing that escalation, with all the foreseeable repercussions.

That was a period in which Brazil was ready to transform its potential for wealth into prosperity. Inspiration and a sense of the future were lacking. That path was indicated. Brazilians chose. They committed themselves to building their country and began to take advantage of the opportunities they themselves created. Brazil grew to become the eighth largest economy in the world.

The Amnesty Law of 1979 allowed for a pact of pacification. A political and social agreement that determined the paths that are still being followed, enriched by the lessons of those difficult times.

Brazil has evolved, become more complex, more diverse, and with other challenges. Institutions have been regenerated and strengthened, and thus established appropriate limits to the practice of democracy. Convergence was adopted as a method for building civilized collective coexistence.

Today, Brazilians live the full exercise of freedom and can continue to make their [own] choices.

The Armed Forces have followed these changes. The Navy, the Army, and the Air Force, as permanent and regular national institutions, continue to fulfill their constitutional mission and are subject to democratic rules with the purpose of maintaining peace and stability.

Those countries that have yielded to the promises of utopian dreams still struggle to recover the freedom, prosperity, inequities (as desigualdades), and civility that govern free nations.

The 1964 Movement is a landmark for Brazilian democracy. All the more so for what it avoided.

***

FERNANDO AZEVEDO E SILVA Minister of State for Defense

ILQUES BARBOSA JUNIOR Admiral Commander of the Navy

Gen Ex EDSON LEAL PUJOL Commander of the Army

Ten Brig Ar ANTONIO CARLOS MORETTI BERMUDEZ Commander of the Air Force

STATEMENT 3

Ministry of Defense

Order of the Day Regarding the 31st of March 1964

Brasília, DF, March 31, 2021

The events that occurred 57 years ago, like every historical event, can only be understood in the context of the time.

The 20th century was marked by two major world wars and the expansion of totalitarian ideologies, with important repercussions in all countries.

At the end of World War II, the world, with Brazil’s significant participation, had defeated Nazi fascism. The international geopolitical map was reconfigured, and new vectors of force competed for space and influence.

The Cold War enveloped Latin America, bringing to Brazil a scenario of insecurity with serious political, social, and economic instability. There was a real threat to peace and democracy.

Brazilians realized the emergency and took to the streets, with broad support from the press, political leaders, churches, the business sector, various sectors of organized society, and the Armed Forces, interrupting the escalation of the conflict, resulting in the so-called movement of March 31, 1964.

The Armed Forces ended up assuming the responsibility of pacifying the country, facing the strain of reorganizing it, and guaranteeing the democratic freedoms that we enjoy today.

In 1979, the Amnesty Law, approved by the National Congress, consolidated a broad pacification pact based on the convergences typical of democracy. It was a solid transition, enriched with the maturity of collective learning. The country multiplied its capabilities and changed its stature.

The current geopolitical scenario presents new challenges, such as environmental issues, cyber threats, food security, and pandemics. The Armed Forces are present, on the front line, protecting the population.

The Navy, Army, and Air Force follow the changes, aware of their constitutional mission to defend the Homeland and guarantee the constitutional Powers, and certain that harmony and balance between these Powers will preserve peace and stability in our Country.

The 1964 movement is part of Brazil’s historical trajectory. This is how the events of that March 31st should be understood and celebrated.

***

WALTER SOUZA BRAGA NETTO Minister of State for Defense

STATEMENT 4

Ministry of Defense

Order of the Day Regarding the 31st of March 1964

Brasília, March 30, 2022

The Movement of March 31, 1964, is a historical milestone in the evolution of Brazilian politics, as it reflected the aspirations of the population of the time.

To analyze and understand an event that occurred more than half a century ago, with impartiality and honesty of purpose, requires an in-depth understanding of what society was experiencing at that time. History cannot be rewritten, in a mere act of revisionism, without proper contextualization.

In this year, in which we celebrate the Bicentennial of Independence, with the motto “Sovereignty is freedom!” we are invited to recall important events and events in the process of the formation and political emancipation of Brazil that led to the affirmation of our sovereignty and the delineation of our borders, as well as the subsequent adoption of the republican model, which consolidated Brazilian nationality.

The 20th century was marked by the advance of totalitarian ideologies that became threats to democracy and freedom. The Brazilian population rejected the antidemocratic ideals of the communist intentona in 1935, and the Nazi-fascist forces were defeated in World War II in 1945, with the relevant participation and sacrifice of Brazilian sailors, soldiers, and aviators on the battlefields of the Atlantic and Europe.

At the end of the war, global bipolarization, which led to the Cold War, affected all regions of the world, which brought to Brazil a scenario of uncertainty with serious political, economic, and social instability, compromising national peace.

In March 1964, families, churches, members of the business community, politicians, the press, the Brazilian Bar Association (Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil, or OAB), the Armed Forces, and society in general allied, reacted, and mobilized in the streets, to restore order and to prevent a totalitarian regime from being implanted in Brazil by groups that propagated false promises, which later failed in various parts of the world. All of this can be proven by the records of the main media outlets of the period.

In the years following March 31, 1964, Brazilian society led a period of stabilization, security, economic growth, and political maturity, which resulted in the restoration of peace in the country, the strengthening of democracy, the rise of Brazil in the concert of nations, and the approval of the broad, general, and unrestricted amnesty by the National Congress.

Institutions also became stronger, and the Armed Forces followed this evolution, keeping themselves on par with the country’s geopolitical stature and strictly observing constitutional regulations, in the defense of the Nation and in the service of its true sovereign—the Brazilian people.

Fifty-eight years later, it is up to us to recognize the role played by civilians and military personnel, who left us a legacy of peace, freedom, and democracy, these unnegotiable values, whose preservation demands from all Brazilians the eternal commitment to the law, to institutional stability, and to the popular will.

***

WALTER SOUZA BRAGA NETTO Minister of State for Defense

---

[1] On questions of nomenclature to refer to the coup and the regime that followed, see Carlos Fico, “Versões e controvérsias sobre 1964 e a ditadura militar,” Revista Brasileira de História vol. 24, No. 47 (2004), p. 52. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-01882004000100003; Andre Pagliarini, “‘De onde? Para onde?’ The Continuity Question and the Debate over Brazil’s ‘Civil’-Military Dictatorship,” Latin American Research Review vol. 52, no. 5 (2017), 760-774. https://doi.org/10.25222/larr.216; Demian Bezerra de Melo, “Ditadura ‘civil-militar’?: controvérsias historiográficas sobre o processo político brasileiro no pós-1964 e os desafios do tempo presente,” Espaço Plural vol. 13, no. 27 (2012), 39-53.

[2] For more on Bolsonaro, see Andre Pagliarini, “Jair Bolsonaro: Beyond the Pale, Above the Fray,” in Dictators and Autocrats: Securing Power across Global Politics, ed. Klaus Larres (London: Routledge, 2021), 399-413.

[3] For a sampling of Bolsonaro’s most reactionary comments prior to his election in 2018, see Érika Kokay, “Bolsonaro em 25 frases polêmicas,” DW, October 29, 2018, https://www.dw.com/pt-br/bolsonaro-em-25-frases-polêmicas/a-46065201.

[4] Guilherme Mazui, “Bolsonaro determinou que Defesa faça as ‘comemorações devidas’ do golpe de 64, diz porta-voz,” G1, March 25, 2019, https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2019/03/25/bolsonaro-determinou-que-defesa-faca-as-comemoracoes-devidas-do-golpe-de-64-diz-porta-voz.ghtml.

[5] Mazui, “Bolsonaro determinou que Defesa faça as ‘comemorações devidas’ do golpe de 64, diz porta-voz,” G1.

[6] On the contemporary salience of various historical debates regarding the dictatorship, see Rodrigo Patto Sá Motta, Passados presentes: O golpe de 1964 e a ditadura militar (Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2021).

[7] Fabio Victor, Poder camuflado: Os militares e a política, do fim da ditadura à aliança com Bolsonaro (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2022), p. 12-13.

[8] Ana Ionova, “Jair Bolsonaro Ordered to Face Trial in Brazil for Attempting a Coup,” New York Times, March 26, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/26/world/americas/brazil-bolsonaro-trial-coup-2022-elections.html.

[9] Marina Dias, “Ministro da Defesa rechaça termo ‘comemoração’ para dia do golpe de 1964,” Folha de S. Paulo, March 26, 2019, https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2019/03/ministro-da-defesa-rechaca-termo-comemoracao-para-dia-do-golpe-de-1964.shtml.

[10] Guilherme Mazui and Luiz Felipe Barbiéri, “Bolsonaro diz que texto a ser lido nos quartéis não tem objetivo de ‘comemorar’ golpe de 1964,” G1, March 28, 2019, https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2019/03/28/bolsonaro-diz-que-ordem-do-dia-nos-quarteis-nao-tem-objetivo-de-comemorar-golpe-de-1964.ghtml.

[11] The orders of the day issued under Bolsonaro are not easily found online. For full text of the 2022 military order of the day marking the anniversary of the coup, see Douglas Porto, “Ministério da Defesa publica ordem do dia em alusão ao 31 de março,” CNN Brasil, March 30, 2022, https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/politica/ministerio-da-defesa-publica-ordem-do-dia-em-alusao-ao-31-de-marco/.

[12] James McPherson, “Revisionism Has Negative Connotations,” in Historical Revisionism, ed. Barbara Krasner (New York: Greenhaven, 2020), p. 41-44.

[13] Linguists Bethania Sampaio Corrêa Mariani, Milene Maciel Carlos Leite, and Ariana da Rosa Silva also studied the orders of the day analyzed here for their rhetoric concerning state violence during the dictatorship. I am interested in similar questions but more focused on the broader political implications of clashes over history. See Bethania Sampaio Corrêa Mariani, Milene Maciel Carlos Leite, and Ariana da Rosa Silva, “O golpe de 1964 na ordem do dia: Memória e silenciamento no processo discursive de legitimação da violência de estado,” Revista Entreletras vol. 12, no. 1 (Jan-Apr 2021), https://sistemas.uft.edu.br/periodicos/index.php/entreletras/article/download/12136/18712.

[14] Mariani et al., “O golpe de 1964 na ordem do dia: Memória e silenciamento no processo discursive de legitimação da violência de estado,” p. 28.

[15] See Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, Brazilian Authoritarianism: Past and Present (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2025).

[16] See Marina Lopes, “In Brazil, nostalgia grows for the dictatorship — not the brutality, but the law and order,” Washington Post, March 15, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/in-brazil-nostalgia-grows-for-the-dictatorship–not-the-brutality-but-the-law-and-order/2018/03/14/bc58ded2-1cdd-11e8-98f5-ceecfa8741b6_story.html.

[17] Cézar Feitoza and João Gabriel, “Exército ameaça punir oficial que comemorar aniversário do golpe military,” Folha de São Paulo, March 30, 2023, https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2023/03/exercito-ameaca-punir-militar-que-comemorar-aniversario-do-golpe.shtml.

[18] Margaret MacMillan, Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History (New York: Modern Library, 2008).

[19] Stern’s work on memory knots in his “Memory Box of Pinochet’s Chile” trilogy has been extremely influential in the field of memory studies. See Remembering Pinochet’s Chile on the Eve of London 1998 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004); Battling for Hearts and Minds Memory Struggles in Pinochet’s Chile, 1973–1988 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006); and Reckoning with Pinochet: The Memory Question in Democratic Chile, 1989–2006 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010).

[20] On the holistic ideological and professional training that members of the Brazilian military receive, see Celso Castro, O espírito militar: Um antropólogo na caserna, 3^rd ed (Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2021).

[21] On the “military’s vision” of the 1964 coup and the repression that followed, see Visões do golpe: A memória militar sobre 1964,  3^rd ed, ed. Maria Celina D’Araujo, Gláucio Ary Dillon Soares, and Celso Castro (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 2014) and Os anos de chumbo: A memória militar sobre a repressão, ed. Maria Celina D’Araujo, Gláucio Ary Dillon Soares, and Celso Castro (Rio de Janeiro: Relume-Dumará, 1994).

[22] For scholarly considerations of Columbus around the anniversary of his 1492 voyage, see John Noble Wilford, “Columbus and the Labyrinth of History,” The Wilson Quarterly vol. 15, no. 4 (1991): 66-86; Bryan Le Beau, “The Rewriting of America’s First Lesson in Heroism: Christopher Columbus on the Eve of the Quincentenary,” American Studies vol. 33, no. 1 (1992): 113-27. https://doi.org/10.1353/amsj.v33i1.2877; Winona LaDuke, “We Are Still Here: The 500 Years Celebration,” Race, Poverty & the Environment vol. 3, no. 3 (1992): 3-21. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41554073.

[23] See Thomas J. Brown, ed. Remixing the Civil War: Meditations on the Sesquicentennial (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011); Barbara Franco, “Planned Commemorations: Unexpected Consequences,” The Journal of the Civil War Era vol. 1, no. 3 (September 2011): 444-449. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26070158.

[24] See Richard Falk and David Krieger, “The Nuclear Age Persists after 75 Years,” Peace Review vol. 32, no. 3 (2020): 313-324. https://doi.org/10.1080/10402659.2020.1867348; Katherine E. McKinney, Scott D. Sagan and Allen S. Weiner, “Why the atomic bombing of Hiroshima would be illegal today,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists vol. 76, no. 4 (2020): 157-165. https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2020.1778344.

[25] Fico, “Versões e controvérsias sobre 1964 e a ditadura militar,” p. 30.

[26] For a wide-ranging examination of relevant scholarship at the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the coup, see Daniel Aarão Reis, Marcelo Ridenti, and Rodrigo Patto Sá Motta, A ditadura que mudou o Brasil: 50 anos do golpe de 1964 (Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2014).

[27] See Roberto Andrés, A razão dos centavos: Crise urbana, vida democrática e as revoltas de 2013 (Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2023), notably, a publication released on the tenth anniversary of the 2013 demonstrations. On the sixtieth anniversary of the coup in 2024, see Mariana Joffily, “Sessenta anos do golpe de 1964, que história é essa?” Novos Estudos CEBRAP vol. 43, no. 3 (Sept-Dec 2024): 565-591. https://doi.org/10.25091/S01013300202400030009.

[28] Jorge Ferreira and Angela de Castro Gomes, 1964: O golpe que derrubou um presidente, pôs fim ao regime democrático e instituiu a ditadura no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2014), p. 7. In the very title of that book, published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of 1964, Ferreira and Gomes make clear their assessment that the coup was a deeply damaging, unjustified attack on Brazilian democracy. Caio Navarro de Toledo makes a similar case in “1964: O golpe contra as reformas e a democracia,” Revista Brasileira de História vol. 24 (2004): 13-28. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-01882004000100002.

[29] See Visões do Golpe: A memória militar sobre 1964.

[30] On antipetismo, see, for example, Mario Fuks, Ednaldo Ribeiro, and Julian Borba, “From antipetismo to generalized antipartisanship: the impact of rejection of political parties on the 2018 vote for Bolsonaro,” Brazilian Political Science Review vol. 15, no. 1 (2021), 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1590/1981-3821202100010003; Martin Egon Maitino, “‘Direita, sem vergonha’: conformações no campo da direita no Brasil a partir do discurso de Jair Bolsonaro,” Plural vol. 25, no. 1 (2018), 111-134. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2176-8099.pcso.2018.149018.

[31] Juan Arias, “Militarização do Governo Bolsonaro, trincheira da democracia ou presságio de ditadura?” El País, February 13, 2020, https://brasil.elpais.com/opiniao/2020-02-14/militarizacao-do-governo-bolsonaro-trincheira-da-democracia-ou-pressagio-de-ditadura.html.

[32] Antonio Alves de Vasconcelos Filho, “Militares no governo Bolsonaro: tutela à democracia brasileira?” CAOS vol. 1, no. 26 (Jan-June 2021), p. 306.

[33] On such efforts since 2023, see, for example, Jussara Soares and Bruno Góes, “Lula demite comandante do Exército,” O Globo, January 21, 2023, https://oglobo.globo.com/politica/noticia/2023/01/lula-demite-comandante-do-exercito.ghtml and Fabio Victor, “Governo Lula prepara mudança em lei para limitar poder de militares em crises,” Folha de São Paulo, August 4, 2023, https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2023/08/governo-lula-prepara-mudanca-para-emprego-de-militares-em-crises.shtml.

[34] For full text of the second order of the day, see Filipe Matoso and Guilherme Mazui, “Defesa divulga ordem do dia de 31 de março e diz que 1964 é ‘marco para a democracia,’” G1, March 30, 2020, https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2020/03/30/defesa-divulga-ordem-do-dia-de-31-de-marco-e-diz-que-1964-e-marco-para-a-democracia.ghtml. For the third order of the day, see Vinícius Segalla, “Novo ministro da Defesa assina Ordem do Dia sobre golpe de 64: ‘Deve ser celebrado,’” Brasil de Fato, March 30, 2021, https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2021/03/30/novo-ministro-da-defesa-assina-ordem-do-dia-sobre-golpe-de-64-deve-ser-celebrado.

[35] As noted above, the full text of the fourth order of the day can be found in Porto, “Ministério da Defesa publica ordem do dia em alusão ao 31 de março,” CNN Brasil.

[36] See Carlos Fico, Utopia autoritária brasileira: Como os militares ameaçam a democracia brasileira desde o nascimento da República até hoje (São Paulo: Planeta do Brasil, 2025); Octavio Amorim Neto, “Regimes e intervenção política dos militares no Brasil,” Revista USP No. 134 (2022), 91-108. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2316-9036.i134p91-108.

[37] No serious scholar of the period believes there was a real possibility of a Communist seizure of power in Brazil in 1964. In March 2025, President Donald Trump declassified records pertaining to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Among them was a document that some pointed to as proof that prominent Brazilian politicians were working with transnational revolutionary leaders to implement a Communist regime in Brazil. Leading historians dismissed that possibility. See Giovana Frioli, “Telegrama de agente da CIA não prova ‘ameaça comunista’ no Brasil antes do golpe militar de 1964,” Estado de S. Paulo, March 21, 2025, https://www.estadao.com.br/estadao-verifica/agente-cia-kennedy-brizola-fidel-mao-ameaca-comunista-ditadura/?srsltid=AfmBOoqknROvZsxQIqpRqImVyJvwb8W_bdF2xPvtR7lklVrurNMfjAPe.  

[38] See Rodrigo Patto Sá Motta, “O golpe de 1964 e a ditadura nas pesquisas de opinião,” Tempo vol. 20 (2014), 1-21. https://www.doi.org/10.1590/TEM-1980-542X-2014203627.

[39] “Veja 10 frases polêmicas de Bolsonaro sobre o golpe de 1964 e a ditadura militar,” Folha de São Paulo, March 28, 2019, https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2019/03/veja-10-frases-polemicas-de-bolsonaro-sobre-o-golpe-de-1964-e-a-ditadura-militar.shtml.

[40] The fortieth anniversary of the Amnesty Law in 2019 produced a series of mostly critical reflections on that legislation’s legacies. See, for example, Ananda Simões Fernandes and Tatyana de Amaral Maia, eds., Anistia, um passado presente? (Porto Alegre: PUCRS, 2020); Carlos Artur Gallo, Anistia: quarenta anos, uma luta, múltiplo significados (Rio de Janeiro: Gramma, 2019).

[41] See Thomas C. Wright, Impunity, Human Rights, and Democracy Chile and Argentina, 1990-2005 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014).

[42] For a very brief overview of this history, see Bruno Lupion, “Lei da Anistia faz 40 anos sob contestação,” DW, August 28, 2019, https://www.dw.com/pt-br/lei-da-anistia-faz-40-anos-sob-contestação/a-50171028.

[43] João Pedro Soares, “‘Sem revisão da Lei da Anistia, o passado vai bater à porta,’” DW, April 8, 2021, https://www.dw.com/pt-br/sem-revis%C3%A3o-da-lei-da-anistia-o-passado-vai-bater-%C3%A0-porta/a-57129394.

[44] Comissão Nacional da Verdade. 2014. Relatório Final da Comissão Nacional da Verdade. Brasília: CNV, 965-966. Available online at: http://cnv.memoriasreveladas.gov.br/images/pdf/relatorio/volume_1_pagina_959_a_976.pdf.

[45] Alfred Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988): p. 144.

[46] Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon. 1995): p. 11.

[47] Renato Machado, “Lula diz que golpe de 64 é história e que não quer remoer passado,” Folha de S. Paulo, February 27, 2024, https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2024/02/lula-diz-que-golpe-de-64-e-historia-e-que-nao-quer-remoer-o-passado.shtml.

[48] Marianna Holanda and Mateus Vargas, “Governo planejou pedido de desculpas nos 60 anos do golpe antes de veto de Lula,” Folha de S. Paulo, March 20, 2024, https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2024/03/governo-planejou-pedido-de-desculpas-nos-60-anos-do-golpe-antes-de-veto-de-lula.shtml.

[49] Guilherme Balza, “Depois de cancelar atos sobre ditadura, Lula desiste também de Museu da Memória e dos Direitos Humanos,” G1, March 19, 2024, https://g1.globo.com/politica/blog/julia-duailibi/post/2024/03/19/depois-de-cancelar-atos-sobre-ditadura-lula-desiste-tambem-de-museu-da-memoria-e-dos-direitos-humanos.ghtml.

[50] See Bernardo Mello, “Governo tenta evitar reedição de atritos sobre aniversário do golpe militar, que gerou tensão com Lula no passado,” O Globo, January 26, 2023, https://oglobo.globo.com/politica/noticia/2023/01/governo-tenta-evitar-reedicao-de-atritos-sobre-aniversario-do-golpe-militar-que-gerou-tensao-com-lula-no-passado.ghtml and Caio Sartori, “Lula investe em boa relação com militares no aniversário do golpe militar de 1964,” O Globo, March 17, 2024, https://oglobo.globo.com/politica/noticia/2024/03/17/lula-investe-em-boa-relacao-com-militares-no-aniversario-do-golpe-militar-de-1964.ghtml.

[51] See Marcos Mortari, “Relação de Lula com militares melhora após silêncio sobre golpe de 64, veem analistas,” InfoMoney, April 19, 2024, https://www.infomoney.com.br/politica/relacao-de-lula-com-militares-melhora-apos-silencio-sobre-golpe-de-64-veem-analistas/.

[52] Rosana Pinheiro-Machado and Lucia Mury Scalco, “From hope to hate: The rise of conservative subjectivity in Brazil,” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory vol. 10, no. 1 (2020), p. 25. https://www.doi.org/10.1086/708627?mobileUi=0.

[53] “Why Young People Helped Elect A Far-Right Authoritarian In Brazil,” VICE News, October 29, 2018, https://video.vice.com/en_uk/video/why-young-peoplehelped-elect-a-far-right-authoritarian-in-brazil/5bd742ccbe4077210a1e7590?latest=1.

[54] Rebecca J. Atencio, Memory’s Turn: Reckoning with Dictatorship in Brazil (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2014), p. 7-8.

[55] Afonso Benites, “Governo quer fim da Comissão de Anistia em 2022 e nega 90% dos pedidos de reconhecimento de anistiados,” El País, April 10, 2021, https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2021-04-10/governo-quer-fim-da-comissao-de-anistia-em-2022-e-nega-90-dos-pedidos-de-reconhecimento-de-anistiados.html. On Bolsonaro’s celebration of a notorious torturer, see “Bolsonaro praises accused torturer and symbol of Brazil’s dictatorship as ‘national hero,’” France24, August 12, 2019, https://www.france24.com/en/20190812-brazil-bolsonaro-praises-torturer-carlos-alberto-brilhante-ustra-national-hero-dictatorship.