Monday, November 18, 2019

Short Research and Writing Assignment

First Source: Pereira, A. W. (2018), The US Role in the 1964 Coup in Brazil: A Reassessment. Bull Lat Am Res, 37: 5-17.  https://doi.org/10.1111/blar.12518 

This article talks about the 1964 coup in Brazil against the elected President João Goulart. As the article stipulates, the role of the US in the coup is well known. There are important books about this, for example, by Parker (2011), and Dreifuss (2006). However, the difference between these books and the article I chose is that Pereira sees the US role in the coup as stemming from the interest of the US capitalist class in inhibiting autonomous, nationalist industrialization in Brazil. In this reading, the clash between the US and the Goulart government was inevitable and driven by the increasing lack of complementarity between the two national economies, once Brazil began to industrialize in the mid‐twentieth century. For Pereira, the Kennedy administration joined the opposition and showed a predisposition to depose, Goulart well before 1963. Thus, the economic interests of imperialistic US corporations made the US government's opposition to Goulart inevitable.

Specifically, Pereira mentions two main factors drove a wedge between these two nations. Firstly, the US was engaged in the process of preventive counter‐revolution on a world scale that made a clash with Goulart inevitable. This is because Goulart's ideologies were primarily influenced by communist ideas. For example, the US objected to his left-wing tendencies, and his willingness to seek closer relations with Communist countries. Secondly, Pereira states that Goulart's nationalist policies such as the agrarian reform and the nationalization of oil caused the US support for the coup as stemming inevitably from US capitalists' desire to stifle autonomous economic development in Brazil.

Second Source: Smith, R. (1980). Intervention, Revolution, and Politics in Cuba, 1913-1921. doi:10.2307/981068 

This book analyzes eight years of international relations between the US and Cuba. Smith proposes a study on the various economic, political, and diplomatic methods used by the United States government to exert hegemony over Cuba from 1913-1921. In this book, I was particularly moved by Smith's chapter eight, in which he talks about the economic conditions of US-Cuban relations during this time. Specifically, Smith states that the World War curtailed sugar production in Europe, resulting in a boom in sugar production in Cuba and a boom in Cuba's economy. Many Caribbean islands were put into sugar production, and numerous new sugar mills were built, some of them funded by US investors. Smith stipulates very clearly how Cuba's economic well-being and the conditions of these sugar mills were increasingly important for US businesses. So much so, that whenever Cuban politics curtailed the production of sugar, the US did not doubt to intervene in the Cuban political landscape to assure the production of this valuable resource. Thus came the "Sugar Intervention."

The Sugar Intervention refers to the events in Cuba between 1917 and 1922 when the United States Marine Corps was situated on the island. As Smith details, an increase in banditry and illegal sacking of the sugar mills prompted the US to intervene. In August 1917, the US Marines sent the first contingent, consisting of under 1000 American Marines. During the first year of arrival, the US Marines assumed responsibility for the objects of infrastructure related to sugar plantations. This presence of American troops caused anti-American protests, and so, in December 1917, another thousand Marines arrived. The primary focus of these troops was to perform patrols of the Cuban sugar mills to ensure their safety and make sure that these sugar production sites are safe to operate. As Smith argues, these measures imposed by the Marines worked since, in 1918, partially as a result of the actions undertaken, Cuba produced a record sugar harvest. Although disturbances continued in the cities throughout 1918, the US's answer to these protests was to simply send more marine troops to the island. By the end of the 1920s, there were around 8,000 naval troops in Cuba.

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