B. I. KOVAL. Brazil yesterday and today. Moscow, Nauka Publishing House. 1975. 175 pp. Mintage 43,000. Price 60 kopecks.

The author of the book under review, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Deputy Director of the Institute of International Labor Movement of the USSR Academy of Sciences, B. I. Koval, has been studying the political history of Brazil for many years. His "History of the Brazilian Proletariat" (M. 1968) and other works are well known, and the object of his attention often turned out to be insufficiently studied or controversial problems. That is why the new book by B. I. Koval, addressed primarily to the mass reader, is also of interest to specialists.

Describing Brazil's nearly five-century political history in a relatively small paper is not an easy task. For example, the fundamental "History of Brazil" from 1500 to 1889 by J. F. Roche Pombo has 10 volumes .1 Another well - known Brazilian historian, P. Calmon, published almost simultaneously the four-volume History of Brazil and the three-volume Social History of Brazil .2 The collective work of Soviet scientists "Essays on the History of Brazil" published in 1962 and A. N. Glinkin's monograph "Modern History of Brazil (1939-1959)" published in 1961 are quite large in volume.

1 F. Rocha Pombo. Historia do Brasil. Vol. I-X. Rio de Janeiro. 1905 - 1923.

2 P. Calmon. Historia do Brasil. Vol. 1- 4. Sao Paulo. 1939 - 1947; ejusd. Historia Social do Brasil. Vol. 1 - 3. Sao Paulo. 1937 - 1940.

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B. I. Koval made a careful selection of the material, focusing on the most important and interesting issues and events, and at the same time achieved, taking into account the genre of the work, a combination of strict scientific content with the popularity of the presentation. In general, these tasks were successfully solved.

One of the main features of the book is that its author, when describing the main events and the general course of Brazilian history, clearly prefers a scientific explanation of political, social and socio-economic processes, while focusing on the moments and periods when the course of events accelerated and acquired a revolutionary character. The work is acutely polemical, first of all, in relation to those representatives of non-Marxist historiography who tend to portray Brazil's past mainly as an evolutionary process, peacefully directed by the "upper classes" with the help of skillful political compromises, and deny the role of the "popular element" in the country's history. The author opposes the false concepts that are firmly rooted in bourgeois historiography, which claims that in Brazil, unlike in the Spanish colonies, the independence movement never had a popular character and freedom was achieved peacefully, on the initiative of the royal court (p.12). The book uses numerous examples and facts to show that in reality the conquest of independence by Brazil was the result of a long and difficult struggle of its people, in which all layers of the emerging Brazilian nation took part. B. I. Koval quite rightly believes that " the Brazilian national liberation movement was similar in nature to the processes that took place in other colonies of the New However, in terms of its forms and results, it was quite unique" (p.20), that "Brazil achieved freedom not as a result of a concentrated blow, but in the course of a gradual confrontation with the power of the mother country. Individual conspiracies and revolts against the Portuguese oppressors alternated with protracted positional situations of equilibrium and even the fading of the struggle. Much was decided by the natural course of events, and, in particular, what was happening far across the ocean, in Europe, was very important for Brazil " (p. 18).

Of considerable interest is the author's interpretation of the political situation that developed in the country after the overthrow of the monarchy, during the period of the "old republic" (1890-1930). B. I. Koval does not agree with the prevailing opinion in Soviet literature that until 1930 the big landlords were in power in Brazil, and the bourgeoisie was aloof: "In fact, the social composition of the dominant oligarchies of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais was much broader, including the local commercial, usurious and banking bourgeoisie, the top of the church hierarchy, and part of the general staff" (p. 40). This opinion seems to us correct. Nevertheless, the author's statement that the bourgeoisie was gaining ground in power at that time does not seem to be entirely accurate. The Brazilian bourgeoisie came to power much later. This happened after the Second World War, or at least only after the political events of 1930, as a result of which the "old republic"ceased to exist. Before that, the Brazilian bourgeoisie only timidly crept to power behind the back of the struggling people, led by democratic elements and representatives of the revolutionary proletariat, and fully cooperated with the landlord oligarchy, avoiding open confrontation with it. This, however, is also clearly stated by the author, who notes that up to the 1930s the bourgeoisie did not enter the struggle for power as an independent force; it proved incapable of doing so, preferring the path of unprincipled compromises and compromises (p.39,40).

One reads with interest the material about the revolutionary movement of the "tenentists" in the 1920s and the armed uprising of the proletariat of Rio de Janeiro in November 1918. The publication of new archival materials allowed B. I. Koval to restore the main outline of the events and for the first time give a fairly complete coverage of them.

The author paid much attention to the rather complex dramatic events of 1930, the nature and essence of which is still being actively discussed. In particular, a number of scientists and politicians consider the acute political and armed conflict of 1930, in which all the main classes and social strata of Brazilian society took part in one way or another, as a result of which the agrarian oligarchy lost its monopoly on power, a revolution, and others - a coup d'etat.

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As for B. I. Koval, he does not resort to too categorical statements, but expresses the opinion that in 1930 there was a broad popular movement of a populist type in Brazil.

The events of 1930-1945 are generally considered in the book as a transition period to the bourgeois state proper, as a time of institutionalization of bourgeois power. At the same time, the author analyzes the Brazilian version of fascism-integralism, as well as the political essence of the "new state". In particular, the author disagrees with those who equate the bourgeois-nationalist regime of the "new state" with fascism. He's writing: The "new State" was a kind of embodiment of the economic and political power of the middle and large nationalist urban bourgeoisie, which had already outgrown the alliance with the petty bourgeoisie and opposed the orientation of the most reactionary groups of financial and commercial capital towards integralism, in defense of their own interests, suppressing the revolutionary movement of the masses, on the one hand, and fascist extremism, on the other"(p. 114).

Speaking about the very eventful and extremely contradictory period of Brazilian history - 1945-1963 (chapter "The Rise and crisis of bourgeois democracy"), B. I. Koval quite correctly identified that one of the central problems of this period of Brazilian history is the question of nationalism, of the nationalist movement, and paid special attention to it. Many pages of this chapter are read with great interest. At the same time, there are sometimes elements of patter in the coverage of events in this period, so some important issues are not fully explained. For example, when referring to the Brazilian Social Democratic Party, whose candidates were twice elected to the post of president of the country (e. Dutra and J. Kubitschek), it should have been clarified that it was, in fact, a conservative bourgeois party, which had practically nothing in common, even in its social composition, with the social democracy of Western Europe.

The final section is devoted to the modern period of Brazil's history, which began with the coup d'etat of April 1, 1964, when the constitutional government was overthrown and a military dictatorship was established. Although B. I. Koval correctly assesses the main political and economic trends inherent in the current stage of Brazil's development, some important issues of this topic could be covered more fully and comprehensively. This is especially true for the phenomenon conventionally called the "Brazilian economic miracle". We think, in particular, that the book published at the end of 1975 could have already shown that the unprecedented economic boom in Brazil, which gave rise in certain circles to talk about the "Brazilian economic miracle", is almost over.

A. P. Karavaev

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