The Military Regime since 1973

Although the events which led to the military coup of June 1973 have been outlined already in the conclusion to Chapter 1, it is impossible to embark on the main theme of this chapter—an analysis of the economic strategy implemented since 1973—without some assessment of the forces which produced the coup. The behaviour of the military in the year preceding their takeover was marked by a number of confused and contradictory aspects which are relevant to an understanding of their subsequent strategy. Indeed, the coup appears to have been somewhat hesitant in its timing and more especially in the ideological orientation of its authors. On the other hand the increasing scale of political intervention by the armed forces during that year made the coup itself predictable. Moreover, the emergence of similar authoritarian military regimes in Chile and Argentina in the 1970s—and in Brazil a decade earlier—indicates that the crisis requiring a reorganisation of the state may be characteristic of dependent capitalist societies at a certain level of development of their relations with the international economy. However, the following account does not seek to generalise beyond the case of Uruguay.