In a rally held on March 13, 1964, João Goulart made an appeal to the public, in which he stated his basic reforms and plan for their implementation. He describes the current socio-economic and political environment of Brazil in the 60s and alludes to the growing opposition and imminent threats he faced as he attempted to initiate the much needed reforms in Brazil.

Seventeen days later, he was overthrown in a military coup.

President João Goulart’s speech at a general assembly on March 13, 1964.

Click here to read the speech in Portuguese 

(English translation by Lanna Leite)

I shall thank all of the labor unions, the supporters of this great gathering, and I should thank the Brazilian people for this extraordinary gathering that we are touched to be witnessing here in Rio de Janeiro. I want to thank the unions from all of the states that mobilized their associates and I would like to direct greetings to all of the patricians across the nation that are hearing the Brazilian people on their radios or televisions. I say this to all Brazilians?and not just the ones that were able to acquire a formal education in school. I say this to the millions of our brothers that give more to Brazil than they receive, and pay in suffering; they pay in misery; they pay in deprivation, for the right to be Brazilian and to work from sunrise to sunrise for the greatness of this country. As President of 80 million Brazilians, I want my words to be well understood by all of our patricians. I will speak in a rude but sincere tone without any subterfuge. It is also the language of hope, of one who wishes to inspire trust for the future, but who has had the courage to face without weakness the harsh reality we live in.

Here are my working friends, thinking about the campaign of ideological terror and of sabotage, carefully organized to thwart the realization of this unforgettable gathering between the people and their President, in the presence of popular leaders that best represent this country, that are here with us, in this civilian party.

It has been said, Brazilian workers, that this concentration would be prejudicial to the democratic regime, as if in Brazil the response would be, in fact, the possessor of democracy, or the owner of the town squares and the streets*.

Democracy to them is not a regime of liberty in which the people may gather. What they want is a democracy of a moistened people, a people suffocated in their desires, a people drowned in their rightful claims. The democracy that they want to impose on us is the democracy of the anti-labor unions, in other words, the kind to best serve their own interests or the interests of the groups that they represent. The democracy that they intend on implementing is the democracy for the privileged, the democracy of intolerance and of hate. The democracy that they want would sell out Petrobras; it is the democracy of the monopolies, the national and the international, the democracy that could fight against the people, the democracy that led President Vargas to the ultimate sacrifice. Until yesterday I stated at the Arsenal de Marinha, taken by the fervor of the workers there, that democracy should never be threatened by the people, when the people freely come to the streets?the streets belong to the people. To the streets that belong to the people.

Democracy, my fellow workers, is what my government has been trying to accomplish, as is my duty. It is not only to represent popular wishes, but to conquer them on the path of understanding and of peace. There is no threat more serious to democracy than that of one who attempts to strangle the voice of the people, of the people’s legitimate popular leaders, hushing their righteous claims.

Fellow Brazilians, we would be threatening the regime if we showed ourselves deaf to the complaints of a nation, of this nation and the many complaints; from North to South, From West to East, there is great protest to reform its foundation and structure, above all for agrarian reform, which would be the equivalent of the abolition of bondage for tens of millions of Brazilians who vegetate in the interior with deplorable working conditions. To threaten democracy is not, after all, to fraternize with the people on the streets. To threaten democracy is to push around the Brazilian people, it is to take advantage of their Christian sentiment, in the mystification of an anti-communist industry, inciting rebellion amongst the people against the great and enlightened teachings of the great and holy priests that have made notable announcements, of the most expressive kind on the national episcopate. The unforgettable Pope John XXIII teaches us, the Brazilian people, that human dignity, as a basic principle for life, demands the right to proper use of the goods on this earth, which corresponds to the fundamental obligation [of the state] to concede property to all. It is in this authentic doctrine that the Brazilian government has come find its role in social policy, especially in regards to agrarian reform. Christianity was never a shield for the privileged condemned to the Saint Priest, and the rosaries should not be brought up against the valid claims of the people and their legitimate aspirations. The rosaries of faith shall not be brought up against the people, who have faith in a humane social justice and dignity in their hope. The rosaries should not be raised against those who claim to be discriminated by land ownership, which is in the hands of so few and in such small minority.

Those who call upon the president of the Republic to give a tranquil word to the Nation, those that in all of Brazil hear us in this opportunity, I can say that we shall only conquer social peace through social justice. It is a waste of time to believe that the government will take subversive action in the defense of political or personal interest as it is a waste of time to those who expect that this government will use law enforcement against the people, against their rights and claims. Workers, repressive action* is what this government is practicing and will continue to promote each time more and more without ceasing, here in Guanabara and in other states. Against those who speculate, against the hardship of the people, against those  who take advantage of the people, those who commit forgery in classifying food types* and who play with prices. Until yesterday, within the associations of private conservative group, *ibadianos, that yesterday raised their voice against the President for the crime of defending the people against those that take advantage of them on the streets and in their homes, through exploration and greed.

The protests do not take away the sleep of the greedy, who masquerade in political phrases but who in reality act upon their hopes, their vows, of re-establishing impunity for their anti-popular, anti-social activities. On the other hand, I do not regret being called subversive for the act of proclaiming?and I have proclaimed and will continue proclaiming in the corners of the Pátria?our necessity to revise the constitution. There is a need, Brazilian workers, to revise the constitution of our Republic, which does not meet the needs of people and the standards for the development of a Nation. The current constitution, workers, is an antiquated constitution; it is an old-fashioned one because it legalizes a socio-economic structure that has already been overcome, a structure that is unjust and inhumane. The people want democracy to be amplified; they want an end to the minorities having privilege, they want land ownership to be accessible to all; participation in political life, through suffrage, for all to be able to vote and be voted on; that financial power may no longer intervene in electoral bids and that representation of all political currents be guaranteed without any ideological and religious discrimination.

All Brazilians, I say all Brazilians, have the right to a free opinion, the right to put forth their thoughts without fear. It is a fundamental principle of the rights of men, contained in the letter to the United Nations, and we have the right to secure that right for all Brazilians.

This, workers, this, Brazilian people, is the profound meaning of the great and immeasurable group of people “servicing the president:” bringing in your problems in the form of a complaint, but also bringing your attitudes, your convictions in the struggle you’ve been facing, or having to bear, the struggle against powerful forces,; and trusting also in the unity of the people and the working class, a unity that will shorten the path to emancipation. It is unfortunate that those with social status, who have had access to higher education, continue to be insensitive, with their eyes closed to the realties of the nation. They are certainly, workers, the worst of the deaf and the worst of the blind because they could with all their deafness and blindness, be responsible, according to the historical record, for the blood of the Brazilians that will be shed when obstacles come in the way of the journey of the emancipation of Brazil and of the Brazilian people.

For my part, as the head of the Executive branch, I will continue to do everything so that the democratic process will follow the peaceful path, so that the barriers that thwart the accomplishment of new growth and progress be brought down. And you can be sure, workers, that together?the government and the people, workers, farmers, military, students, intellectuals and, Brazilians, bosses that put the interests of the country above their own?we shall proceed, and continue with head raised high the journey to the social emancipation of this country. Our motto, workers of Brazil, is progress with justice and development with equality. Most brazilians do not now conform to a social order that is imperfect, unfair, and inhumane. The millions that have nothing are inpatient with the delay, which is at this point unbearable, in receiving the dividends of a progress that has been so arduously worked for through the efforts of the workers and the sacrifices of the humble. Let’s continue to fight for the construction of new plants for the opening of roads, for the creation of factories, of new schools, of hospitals for the suffering; but we know, workers, that none of this will have any significance if the right to a job is not secured for all men, as well as the right to participate equally in national development.

No, workers; no Brazilians, we know that there is nothing mandating poverty in this country. It does no good to give it that pleasing aesthetic, with which some intend on deluding and deceiving the Brazilian people. My Patricians, this is the time for reform, Brazilians, to reform the structure, to reform the methods, to reform the style of work and to reform the goals for the Brazilian people. We know that it is no longer possible to produce without reform; that it is no longer possible to admit that this antiquated system can perform the miracle of national salvation, for millions and millions of Brazilians, of the prodigious industrial civilization, because in regards to that, they only know a costly life ; the delusions, the suffering and past illusions. The path to reform is the path to progress and social peace. Reform, workers, is to peacefully resolve the contradictions of an economical order and higher legal system that has completely overcome the reality of the status quo.

Workers, I have just signed the decree for Supra. I have signed it, my patricians, with the tragedy of the fellow Brazilian man who suffers in the countryside of our country in mind. It is still not the agrarian reform for which we fought. It is still not the reformulation of our poverty-stricken rural landscape. It is still not the letter of manumission for the abandoned farmer. But it is the first step: a door that has opened towards a definitive solution to the problem of Brazilian agrarian reform.

The decree, with vested social interest, intends to put in effect expropriation of the lands that flank the surrounding roads, the beds of railways, public federal dams, and lands that benefit from sanitation works of the Union; to make productive the unexplored or underutilized areas, that are still under intolerable speculative trading.

It is not fair that the benefits from a road or public dam serve the interests of the land profiteers, who take into possession the margins of roads and public dams. Rio Bahia, for example, which cost seventy billion dollars of the people’s money, should not benefit the landowners due to an increase in property value but it should benefit the people.

Meanwhile, we cannot do, workers, what is currently being done in all of the countries of the civilized world: pay for abandoned land that is seized by issuing public debt securities and over a series of long-term payments. Agrarian Reform is not an unproductive landowner’s advance payment in a lump sum and in cash?that is not Agrarian Reform. Agrarian Reform, as laid down in the constitution, with advance payments and in cash, is Agrarian business that only serves the wellbeing of the landowner, which is radically in contradiction with the interests of the Brazilian People. That is why the Supra Decree is not Agrarian Reform.

Without constitutional reform, workers, there is no authentic Agrarian Reform. Without amending the constitution, above which are only the people, we can have honest agrarian laws that are well intentioned, but none of them are capable of profound structural change.

Thanks to the technical and patriotic collaboration of the Armed Forces and agreements made with Supra, thanks to this collaboration, my patricians, I hope that within 60 days we will already start dividing the estates near the roads, the estates near the railways and the public dams built with the people’s money, and those near the sanitation works completed with the Nation’s sacrifice. And, once this is done, the field workers, will be able to see, even if in part, the most, their most meaningful and fair claim, that which gives them a piece of land to farm. And then, the workers and their families will work for themselves, because until now they have worked for the land owner, to whom they pay rent, which is half of what they produce. And do not say, workers, that there is a way to conduct the reform without deeply altering the constitution. In all the civilized countries of the world, there have been provisions made in the constitutional texts to the sections where it is mandatory that expropriation be done in the interest of social welfare, the advance payments and payments in cash.

In post-war Japan, for 20 years, still occupied by victorious allied forces, under the support of the triumphant command, two million and a half acres of land have been distributed in the country, with claims paid in bonuses with a twenty-four year term, interest at 3.65% a year. And who thought of calling General MacArthur subversive or an extremist?

In western and democratic Italy one million acres of land have been distributed, in round numbers, in the first phase of the Christian and peaceful agrarian reform started 15 years earlier. 150,000 families have benefited from this.

In Mexico, between the years of 1932 and 1945, there were 30 million acres of land distributed, with claims paid in public debt securities, with a twenty-year term, at a 5% annual interest rate, and the expropriation of estates based on their tax value.

In India, laws were enforced that determined the abolition of large, under-utilized land and property, transferring the land to the farmers. These laws cover about sixty-eight million hectares, or half the cultivated area of India.

However, there is no argument capable of proving that Brazil, a young nation, that projects itself into the future, cannot also engage in reforming the Constitution for an authentic and true Agrarian reform.

Agrarian Reform is not simply a whim of a government or of a politically partisan agenda. It is something of an urgent need for all people in the world. Here, in Brazil, exists the greatest living legend of the hope of our people, above all among those who labor in the field. Agrarian reform is also a progressive imposition of the internal market, which needs to increase in production to survive.

There is excess textile and footwear on our shelves, and our factories are producing below capacity. Meanwhile, our poor population is wearing tattered clothing and is bare foot, because they do not have the money to purchase said items.

In this way, agrarian reform is an imperative. Not only in order to increase the field worker’s standard of living, but also to create more demand for the industries with better compensation for the city worker.

It is because of this, that it [the reform] is in the interest of the industrialists and the merchants. Agrarian reform is necessary, after all, to our social and economic lives, so that the country might grow, in its industries, and in the well-being of its people.

How can the right of authentic ownership be guaranteed if, of the fifteen million Brazilians that work on the land, in Brazil, only two million and a half are the owners?

What we are attempting to do in Brazil is no different from what has been done in all of the developed countries of the world. It is a step towards progress that we must accomplish and accomplish it we shall!

This striking display in which we are partaking is a true witness to the fact that agrarian reform will be attained by the Brazilian people. The actual cost of production, workers, the actual cost of foodstuff is directly dependent on the relationship between man and the land. In a country where the rent paid for land goes up to more than 50% of the fruit of  that land, there cannot affordable food; there cannot be social stability. In my state, for example, the state of Senator Leonel Brizola, 65% of the production of rice is obtained from land that is leases and the lease amounts to more than 55% of production. What happens in Rio Grande is that a tenant of a rice plantation pays, in each year, the total value of the land that he worked for to the landowner. This inhumane and medieval rural proprietor[5] * is largely responsible for the insufficient and expensive production that has a direct correlation to the unbearable cost of living for the working classes in our country.

Agrarian Reform only hurts an insensitive minority, that desire to keep the people and the nation succumbed to a deplorable quality of life.

And of course, workers, agrarian reform can only occur in lands that are economically advantageous. And of course, workers, we cannot begin agrarian reform, to tend to the yearnings of the people, in the states of Amazonas or Pará. Agrarian reform must begin in the most valuable lands and by great centers of consumption, with easy access to transportation for its outflow.

No government, workers, nor any people, however great their effort, and even their sacrifice, can face the inflation monster that devours salaries, that leaves the working people restless, if basic and structural reforms do not go into effect, reforms that are demanded by the people and by the nation.

I have the authority to fight for the reform of the current Constitution, because this reform is imperative and because its only purpose is to clear the path that will lead to a peaceful solution that afflicts our people. I am not at all moved, and it is good that the Nation hears me, by resolutions of a personal interest. The great beneficiaries of the reform should be, over all, the Brazilian people and the governments that follow me. It is to them, workers, that I hand a greater and more emancipated Nation, that always has more pride in having solved, once and for all, without aggression, the grave problems that history had left us with.

In 48 hours I will hand in, for the consideration of the National Congress, a presidential message for this year. In it this government’s goals will be clearly communicated. I hope that you, sirs, congressmen, in your patriotism, can understand the social significance of governmental action, in which the aim is to further the progress of this country and guarantee Brazilians better living standards and employment, by the peaceful path of understanding, that is, by the reformer?s path, which is pacific and democratic.

I would be falling short of my job if I did not convey, also, in the name of the brazilian people, in the name of these 150,000 and 200,000 that are here, a fervent plea to the National Congress that popular demands may be met, so that in their patriotism, they may feel the yearning of the Nation, that wants to lead the way, pacifically and democratically, to better days. But, also, workers, I refer to another act that I have just signed into law, interpreting the national sentiments of this country. I have just approved, before directing myself to this great civic celebration, the expropriation of all private refineries.

From this day forward, working Brazilians, from this instant, refineries of Capuava, Ipiranga, Manquinhos, Amazonas, and the Rio Grade Distillery will now be one to the people, will now belong to our national heritage.

I attempted, workers, after careful study prepared by technically trained agencies, after profound research, I sought to be faithful to the spirit of the law that was inspired by patriotic and immortal ideals of the brazilian that is immortalized within our souls; within out spirit.

By announcing in front of the people in the public square the decree of expropriation of all private refineries, I pay respectful homage to he who always stayed in touch with the people’s needs, the great and immortal President Getúlio Vargas.

The great and immortal patriot fell, but the people continue to march, guided by his ideals. And I, especially, am deeply moved to be able to say that with this act, I have been able to convey the sentiments of the Brazilian People.

It also brings me joy to see the people gathered here to honor measures such as these, which are of great significance to the development of the country and allow Brazil to make better use of its mineral wealth, especially the wealth created by the oil monopoly. The people will also be present in the streets and the public squares, to honor a government that engages in such practices, as well as to show reactionary forces that they shall continue to be a part of the journey towards national emancipation.

In the message that I sent to the National Congress for consideration, there are two similarly consigned reforms that the Brazilian people claim, because of our development and our democracy, to be imperative. I am referring to electoral reform, the ample reform that allows all Brazilians 18 or older to have a hand in deciding their destinies, that allows all Brazilians who fight for the greatness of the country to bear influence in the glorious destiny of Brazil.

In this reform, we fight for democratic principles, such that every draftee may also be eligible.

The reform of post-secondary education, which Brazilian students have been fighting for, is also included in the message to Congress, because the university students come from those socioeconomic classes that stand courageously in the forefront of national and popular movements. Parallel to these measures and decrees, the government continues to examine other provisions of fundamental importance for the defense of the people, especially in the popular classes.

In a few hours, another decree will be presented to the nation. It will regulate the exorbitant price of unoccupied apartments and residences, prices that threaten the Brazilian people, in which such apartments are being offered at the price of the dollar. Apartments in Brazil can only and must only be rented in cruzeiros*, which is the money of the people and the currency of this country. Rest assured for in due time this decree shall become a reality.

And the reality will also be the rigorous and implacable regulatory measures taken so that such orders may be followed. The government, despite having suffered certain attacks, despite the insults, will not retreat half an inch in the implementation of regulation that has been working against the oppression of the people.

This will only be plausible with the rigorous and unyielding regulationso that the decrees be enforced. The government, despite being victim to attacks and insults, it will not retreat one centimeter in providing regulatory measures that are made in the interest of the people. I call on the people to help the government in regulating those that take advantage of the people, because they are taking advantage of Brazil as well. Those that disrespect the law, oppressing the people?regardless of net worth and of power, whether they be in Olaria or on the street of Acre?will have to respond to the law for the crime.

To the public servants of the nation, to the doctors and the engineers in public service, who have not faltered in their support and kindness in their solidarity, I can affirm that their just claims will be the focus of the final report; in due time they will be given full attention, because this government wishes to do its part for those who do their part for the country.

To conclude, workers, I would like to say that I feel reaffirmed and renewed to face the battle that will be ever greater against us; the closer we get to our duty  and the more the fight increases in pressure, I know the people will also increase their disposition against those that do not recognize popular rights, against those that explore the people and the nation.

I know of the reactions that await us, but I am calm, for above all I know the Brazilian people are mature, they are aware of their strength and their unity and they will not lack in support for  popular and nationalist measures.

I want to thank, once more, this extraordinary demonstration, in which our most significant popular leaders have had to engage in dialogue with the brazilian people, especially with the fervent carioca people, in regards to the problems that worry the nation and affect all of our patricians.

There is no power capable of obstructing that a government continually fights for the liberty  of the Brazilian people. And so we can declare, with pride, that we are counting on the understanding and patriotism of the brave and glorious Armed Forces of the Nation.

Today with the great testimony of the nation and with the solidarity of the people, gathered in this square, which belongs to the people, the government, which is also a part of the people and belongs to the people, reaffirms its unbreakable, formidable purpose to fight with all of its strength for the reform of Brazilian society. Moreover, not only for land reform but for judiciary form, for ample electoral reform, for the vote for the illiterate, for the eligibility of all Brazilians for the purity of democratic life, for economic emancipation that may enable the social justice and progress of Brazil.