Lead years is the expression used in reference to the period between the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the following decade in Brazil. During this period, Brazil was governed, most of the time, by the president Medici, considered a representative of the hard-line military.
During the leaden years, there was great repression against groups that opposed the dictatorship, with murders, illegal arrests and torture. It was also during this period that censorship expanded in the country.
Concomitantly with the leaden years, the economic miracle occurred, a moment of great development in the Brazilian economy. With his end, and the denunciations of crimes committed by the military, the years of lead ended. Indirectly elected in 1974, Geisel began the political opening of Brazil.
Read too: Institutional acts — decrees of constitutional force used in the Military Dictatorship
Summary about the years of lead
- The term years of lead began to be used in the 1980s to designate moments of great violence in society motivated by political issues.
- In Brazil, the lead years occurred between 1968 and 1974. The period was marked as the period of greatest violence and censorship during the entire Civil-Military Dictatorship.
- During the period, several guerrilla groups emerged in Brazil, all of which were defeated by the Armed Forces.
- AI-5 is considered by most historians to be the starting point of the lead years.
- The Leila Diniz Decree, from 1970, established prior censorship in Brazil.
- The leaden years ended with the rise to power of moderate generals in 1974. Geisel began the redemocratization process.
What were the years of lead?
The leaden years in Brazil were the years of greatest repression in Civil-Military Dictatorship. It occurred between 1968 and 1974. The period began with the promulgation of Institutional Act number 5, known as AI-5, in December 1968. With the act, the National Congress was closed, as well as the state Legislative Assemblies, the habeas corpus was suspended and censorship tightened. More than 420 people lost political rights after AI-5, including 93 federal deputies, who were revoked.
After AI-5, Several urban and rural guerrilla groups emerged in Brazil. These groups fought to overthrow the dictatorship through guerrillas and actions against censorship, such as the kidnapping of ambassadors. The period was characterized by great violence carried out by guerrillas, agents of the Brazilian State and paramilitary groups.
A Most of the lead years occurred during the Medici government, which lasted until March 1974. His successor, General Ernesto Geisel, initiated the so-called political opening, considered the final milestone of the leaden years.
Historical context of the lead years
On March 31, 1964, a military coup, with broad support from civil society, the Church, the media and the Brazilian economic elite, overthrew President João Goulart and began a period of Brazilian history known as the Civil-Military Dictatorship.
The first military president was Castelo Branco, considered a moderate military man. During your government, the first repression apparatuses were created, as well as the first institutional acts were decreed. Castelo Branco governed until March 1967, when he was succeeded by another soldier considered moderate, General Costa e Silva.
During the Costa e Silva government, several demonstrations against the dictatorship were helds, the most famous was the March of 100 Thousand, which took place in June 1968 and brought together several artists. The following month, the 1968 Strike broke out in Osasco, starting at the Cobrasma factory and spreading to other factories in the city, then to different regions of Brazil. In October of the same year, 920 leaders of the National Union of Students, UNE, were arrested, who were participating in a secret congress in the rural area of the municipality of Ibiúna.
The so-called hard line of the dictatorship, made up of the most radical military personnel, such as Emílio Garrastazu Médici, argued that Costa e Silva and the moderate wing of the Armed Forces had lost control of the situation. It was at that moment that the so-called hard line assumed leadership of the Armed Forces and decreed the AI-5, the starting point of the lead years. Costa e Silva fell ill in August 1969, governing a military junta in his place. Medici began to govern Brazil in October of the same year.
Video lesson about the Medici government
Origin of the term lead years
The expression years of lead began to be used in Europe from 1981, when the German film was released Die bleierne Zeit, literally “lead time”. In the film, two left-wing political militant sisters live in West Germany in the 1960s. After 1968, the two follow different paths, Marianne becomes a guerrilla and Juliane continues to defend non-violence.
Marianne is arrested by the police and, some time later, Juliane is informed that she committed suicide in jail. Doubting this version, the sister begins to investigate the mysterious death.
Years of lead in Brazil
Government in the Leading Years
AI-5 occurred during the Costa e Silva government, at a time when he and his wing were weakened; but it was during the Medici government that the years of lead reached their peak. According to the National Truth Commission, During the Medici government, 98 people were murdered for political reasons, more than half of the murders that the commission identified as having occurred during the two decades of dictatorship.
Just a month after taking power, Médici won a great victory, widely publicized by the military government's propaganda apparatus, the assassination in São Paulo, by Carlos Marighella, important guerrilla leader.
Shortly after AI-5, in January 1969, army captain Carlos Lamarca deserted the Quitaúna barracks, in Osasco, along with three other soldiers. When deserting, the four soldiers took with them more than 60 rifles, as well as machine guns and plenty of ammunition. Lamarca began training guerrillas in Vale do Ribeira, in São Paulo. They were discovered and surrounded by the Armed Forces, with troops made up of more than 2500 soldiers.
Lamarca managed to escape the siege and, months later, tried to start a guerrilla war in Bahia, where he ended up discovered and killed on September 17, 1971. The fact was considered another great victory for the Medici government and for the dictatorship's propaganda.
Economy in the lead years
During the leaden years, Brazil went through the so-called economic miracle, also called the Brazilian miracle. During this period, between 1968 and 1973, Brazilian GDP grew on average by more than 10% per year. In 1973, the economy grew 14%.
Major works were carried out during the economic miracle, such as the construction of the Rio-Niterói Bridge, still the largest in Brazil today; the Angra dos Reis Nuclear Power Plant; part of the Transamazônica Highway, which would cross Brazil from east to west; and the creation of the Manaus Free Trade Zone. The financing of these works came from international loans and investments from state-owned companies. During the dictatorship, 274 state-owned companies were created.
If, on the one hand, the economy grew during the period, the opposite occurred with the salaries of most Brazilian workers. During the miracle, workers' wages went through a severe squeeze. The Institute of Applied Economic Research, Ipea, states that, during the dictatorship, the minimum wage lost half of its purchasing power.
With the organization of unions prohibited, as well as strikes, workers did not organize large demonstrations against the tightening during the period. Another phenomenon that deepened during the economic miracle was social inequality, which worsened other social problems, such as rural exodus and hunger.
The economic miracle ended in 1973. That year, OPEC readjusted the price of a barrel of oil in retaliation against the United States, giving rise to the Oil Crisis. Without investment from the United States and with the increase in energy prices, the economic miracle was abruptly interrupted.
Culture in the Leading Years
The period of the leaden years was marked by censorship of various artistic manifestationsThe period began with AI-5, which allowed the censorship of artistic expressions. After the promulgation of the Leila Diniz Decree, in January 1970, prior censorship was imposed in Brazil. During the dictatorship, around 500 films, 200 books, 450 plays and 500 song lyrics were vetoed.
However, despite censorship, one of the characteristics of the culture of the period was the strong engagement of artists in defense of democracy. These artists used their creativity to circumvent censorship and criticize authoritarianism, torture and social problems in Brazil.
Read too: Tropicalism — the cultural movement that sought to denounce the Brazilian political scenario during the dictatorship
Leading years in the world
- Italy: in Italy, the lead years occurred between the end of the 1960s and the end of the 1980s. These 20 years were marked by several bomb attacks, kidnappings and murders committed by far-right and far-left groups. Italy's dark years began in 1968, with demonstrations attended by young people who criticized the society and culture of the period, a phenomenon that occurred almost everywhere in the world, including in Brazil. In 1969, a police officer was murdered by left-wing protesters.
In the same year, a right-wing terrorist group, on December 12, committed a bomb attack in Fontana Square, in Milan, killing 17 people. In the 1970s, the Red Brigades were created, an extreme left-wing group that murdered several Italian authorities during its existence.
One of the main far-right groups was the Núcleo Revolucionário Armado, which carried out the bomb attack at Bologna station, killing 85 people. This group believed in the “tension strategy”, whereby the attacks would cause chaos in Italian society, increasing the chances of the extreme right returning to power in the country.
- Morocco: Between the 1960s and 1990s, Morocco also went through its leaden years. During this period, King Hassan II controlled the country with an iron fist, persecuting and eliminating all those who fought for democracy. In 2004, Morocco created the Equity and Reconciliation Commission, an entity whose main objective is to investigate the crimes committed by Hassan II.
- Germany: In West Germany, the leaden years occurred in the 1970s, when the far-left group Red Army Faction carried out several attacks against the country's leaders. These attacks brought great militarization and repression to several left-wing movements against the West German government. At the end of the 1970s, the attacks decreased, but they continued until the 1990s, when the aforementioned group ended.
Consequence of the years of lead
You During the leaden years, the military managed to put an end to the groups that opposed the dictatorship through armed struggle, defeating their main ones and arresting or assassinating their main leaders.
Despite censorship, some of the crimes committed by the dictatorship were publicized in the national media and, mainly, in the international media. In 1973, the economic miracle ended and inflation rose again. O support for the dictatorship began to decline. The radical wing of the military lost its influence in the Armed Forces and the moderates returned to calling the shots.
In 1974, General Ernesto Geisel became president of Brazil and initiated the country's redemocratization process. According to Geisel himself, it would be a “slow, gradual and safe opening”.
Solved exercises on the years of lead
Question 1
(UFV) From 1964 to 1985, Brazil experienced a military dictatorship, in a period that became known as the “years of lead”. Heavy years for the Brazilian people. Regarding this period, it is INCORRECT to state that:
a) the greatest resistance to the dictatorship occurred through the press, against which there was no censorship.
b) the National Congress could not exercise its constitutional function of monitoring the actions of the Executive Branch. Presidential generals exercised their totalitarian power over the country's economy, politics and culture.
c) unions and student organizations were monitored by the political police, having no voice or voice.
d) there was always resistance to the military regime. Through student marches, urban and rural guerrillas and the mobilization of civil society, workers, intellectuals, lawyers, teachers, peasants, housewives, politicians and students said no to the dictatorship.
Template: A. The press was important in resisting the dictatorship, but suffered great censorship during the period. AI-5 and the Leila Diniz Decree imposed prior censorship in our country, any cultural production must be authorized by the government before being released to the public.
Question 2
(Unifor) “The AI-5 (...) froze hopes of civilized oppositionism. With the National Congress closed, hundreds of parliamentarians, mayors, councilors and judges impeached, thousands of people arrested and the press literally gagged, night descended on the country. With this Act, and others that followed, the nation's political life was completely militarized. (...) in the relentless persecution of opponents, reduced to the condition of 'terrorists', the (...) System transformed the basements of DOI-CODIs in halls of horrors, where torture and death were omnipresent.” (Francisco M.P. Teixeira. Concise history of Brazil. São Paulo: Global, 1993. P. 304-5)
The text identifies characteristics of a period in Brazilian political history known as:
a) Ten Lost Years
b) Years of Lead
c) Drought Years
d) Golden Years
e) Belle Époque
Template. B. With AI-5, the so-called years of lead began, a time of greater repression by the dictatorship against opponents. From 1968 to 1974, half of the deaths caused by political issues occurred during the entire dictatorship, which lasted two decades.
Sources
GASPARI, Elio. The shamed dictatorship. Editora Intrínseca, Rio de Janeiro, 2014.
GOMES, Angela de Castro. 1964: The coup that overthrew a president, put an end to the democratic regime and instituted the military dictatorship in Brazil. Editora Civilização Brasileira, Rio de Janeiro, 2014.
LIMA, Luís Octávio de. The Leading Years: Militancy, repression and culture of a time that defined the destiny of Brazil. Editora Planeta, São Paulo, 2020.
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/historiab/anos-de-chumbo.htm