The Brazilian period 1946-1964 was traditionally called by Brazilian literature as a populist period, with versions that discredit the country s first democratic experience and that were strongly internalized in society. In this research, the objective was to analyze the hypothesis formulated in the sense that the critique of the idea of populism is a condition for thinking about the first Brazilian democratic experience, presenting a critical reflection of the literature on what was called populism in Brazil. The methodology adopted was bibliographic research, through literature review. A mapping of the social and academic trajectory of the concept of populism was carried out, presenting the formulations of some historians who participated in the problematization of the use of this concept in this historical period of the country. The result found was that the paradigm of populism is committed to a negative literature of the period, because, abandoning the negative key of populism, characterizing elements of a democratic process were found, as an example, social subjects who were able to take their own initiatives; there was the creation of parties with broad social consistency, in addition to the unprecedented incorporation of the population into the political process. It was concluded that in the analyzed period there was a democratic process with its limits and contradictions. Democracy was being built, but it was prematurely interrupted by the military coup.