The populist Brazilian government's attitude towards the leagues varied over time from neutral to positive, while that of the military and police was uniformly negative. The armed forces in the Brazilian Northeast had many connections to wealthy landowners whose enterprises were threatened by the activities of the leagues, and they would go to extraordinary lengths to curtail league activity. The Catholic Church established organizations in the Northeast which functioned similarly but were conservative and anti-communist in their outlook; these groups were crushed alongside the peasant leagues following the 1964 coup.