The Estado Novo (), or Third Brazilian Republic, began on 10 November 1937, and consolidated Getúlio Vargas' power. Vargas had assumed leadership of Brazil following the 1930 revolution that ended the First Republic. The Estado Novo ended politically on 29 October 1945, and officially on 31 January 1946. It was characterized by Brazilian nationalism, centralized power, anti-communism and authoritarianism.
It was part of the period known as the Vargas era that began with the Second Brazilian Republic. Vargas first took power as provisional president in 1930 following the revolution that ended the First Republic and launched the Second Brazilian Republic. Several ensuing coup attempts failed to depose him, until he granted himself new powers under the Third Brazilian Republic or Estado Novo. In early 1932, the Constitutionalist Revolution led by the Democratic Party of São Paulo, had failed due to a lack of unity within the alliance. As head of the provisional government (1930–1934), Vargas governed by decree until the Constituent Assembly of 1933–1934 adopted a new Brazilian Constitution, alongside a democratically elected legislature.
The Estado Novo period (1937–1945) began when, in order to perpetuate his rule, Vargas imposed a new, dictatorial Constitution and shut down the Legislature to rule Brazil as a dictator.
Getúlio Vargas took power on 10 November 1937, and in a radio broadcast told the nation that his regime intended to "readjust the political organism to the economic needs of the country".
The 1937 Constitution consolidated his power and allowed him to censor the press and spread propaganda coordinated by the Department of Press and Propaganda (DIP). 9780822327196 The National Security Law made it possible to suppress Communism and prevent movements such as the Communist Uprising of 1935. Centralization of power and an import substitution policy helped to fund the industrialization of Brazil, and created institutions to carry it out such as the Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional and the Companhia Vale do Rio Doce.*
The Estado Novo is considered a precursor to the military dictatorship in Brazil that began with the 1964 coup, although the two regimes differed on several levels.
History
Background
José Américo de Almeida and Armando de Sales Oliveira, who supported the Revolution of 1930, were running for presidency in the 1937 Brazilian elections, as well as the fascist-aligned integralist Plínio Salgado. The Vargas government, on 30 September 1937, made public an alleged communist plan aiming to seize the central government, later dubbed the Cohen Plan. The National Congress declared martial law the next day, 1 October.
The integralists (right wing) denied participation, however, and blamed General Góis Monteiro, then head of the Army General Staff. Captain Olímpio Mourão Filho, an integralist, was accused but acquitted eighteen years later by the Brazilian Army's Council of Justification (requested on 26 December 1956). He later initiated the 1964 coup d'état.
On 19 October, Rio Grande do Sul governor José Flores da Cunha lost control of the state's Military Brigade, which Vargas had subordinated to the Brazilian Army. Surrounded by General Góis Monteiro's men, Flores da Cunha left office and went into exile in Uruguay. He had bought a large quantity of arms into Europe and been the last possible military resistance to the Vargas coup attempt. Armando de Sales might have opposed the coup, but he had already left his position in the São Paulo government to run for presidency in the 1937 election. His successor, José de Melo Neto, promised Vargas that "São Paulo would not have another revolution".
Just as in 1930, São Paulo was divided; the Constitutionalist Party of Armando Sales, heir to the Democratic Party, and the Republican Party of São Paulo (PRP), were unable to cooperate because the PRP had not agreed to support Armando Sales' candidacy.
1937 coup d'état
On 10 November 1937, Vargas took office through a coup, stating on the radio that the regime intended to "readjust the political organism to the economic needs of the country". Vargas also stated that "when political disputes threaten to degenerate into civil war, it is a sign that the constitutional regime has lost its practical value, existing only as an abstraction".
He promulgated a new constitution the same day that gave him absolute control of the country and the power to appoint federal intervenors () with autonomy to replace the states' governors. All governors had already been replaced after Vargas assumed power following the 1930 revolution, with the exception of Minas Gerais, whose governor, Olegário Maciel, was kept in office. Vargas had also appointed tenentist revolutionary leaders for the other states, such as Flores da Cunha in Rio Grande do Sul, Carlos de Lima Cavalcanti in Pernambuco, and João Alberto Lins de Barros in São Paulo.
Consolidation
The 1937 constitution, entirely drafted by Francisco Campos, became known as "Polaca" (Portuguese demonym for the Polish), because it was inspired by the April Constitution of Poland. It shut down the Congress, state and municipal legislatures, and abolished universal suffrage. The constitution also provided for a new legislature and a plebiscite, which did not take place. No elections were held in the Estado Novo period, although the judiciary did preserve its autonomy. The preamble of the constitution explained the establishment of the dictatorship by describing pre-civil war Brazil.
Decree-Law No. 37 of 2 December 1937 abolished political parties, including two that were critical of the then-political system, and preached "direct contact with the masses":Considering that the electoral system then in force...encouraged the proliferation of parties, with the sole and exclusive aim of giving candidacies and elective positions the appearance of legitimacy, and:...the new regime... must be in direct contact with the people, overriding partisan struggles of any kind, independent of the consultation of groupings, parties or organizations, ostensibly or disguisedly aimed at conquering public power.
Vargas opposed political parties and one-party models: We must have no illusions. Given our customs and the low level of our political culture, addicted to oligarchic and personalist practices, this single party will soon begin to subdivide into factions and needlessly agitate and disrupt the life of the country.What was urgent, he said, was "to speed up the process of our development and strengthen the creative energies of progress." The issue of a single-party system then "closed for good".
The Estado Novo also opposed regionalism. Flags of the federal states, which were forbidden to bear any symbols, were burned on 4 December in a civic ceremony on the Russel Esplanade in Rio de Janeiro."We no longer have regional problems," Getúlio had said in 1939, "they are all national, and of interest to the whole of Brazil".
The government censored the press through the Department of Press and Propaganda (DIP), created by Decree-Law No. 1,915 of 27 December 1939. Vargas said in a speech to the Federal Senate on 13 December 1946 regarding the creation of the DIP:...I shouldn't solve our problems according to the convenience of international propaganda, but on the basis of the convenience of Brazil and America... The excessive diligence of British propaganda repeatedly disrupted my actions. But to a certain extent it was useful, because it led to measures that guaranteed our impeccable neutrality (in the early years of the World War II).
Vargas' cabinet was relatively stable. His ministers of Finance, War, the Navy and Education remained in office throughout the period. The Integralist Uprising on 8 May 1938, which attacked the Guanabara Palace, attempting to depose Vargas, was the only response to the coup. It led him to appoint a personal guard, which the people called the "Black Guard".
Vargas said in a Revista do Globo interview that the 1938 Integralist coup attempt: "...was organized by the German embassy. The Brazilians served only as instruments in a plan to hand the country over to the German government. Naturally, if it hadn't been for the help of German agents, they would never have carried it out, because they didn't have the capacity or the courage to do so."
Political repression and torture The preamble to the 1937 Constitution stated that the Estado Novo was installed to meet "the legitimate aspirations of the Brazilian people for political and social peace, deeply disturbed by notorious factors of disorder... tending, by their natural development, to resolve themselves in terms of violence, placing the nation under the ominous imminence of civil war due to communist infiltration..."
The Estado Novo rigorously repressed communism, backed by the National Security Law, which prevented revolutionary movements such as the Communist uprising of 1935. However, Brazil had no federal police force, and state police forces remained under the command of the federal intervenors. The Brazilian Civil Code of 1916 remained in force, and a new, more liberal penal code was adopted.
Torture at the Rio de Janeiro Police headquarters in Filinto Müller's administration was reported. and some critics of the Estado Novo claim that torture occurred throughout Brazil.
On 3 October 1931, Vargas said that due to his changes to the Civil Police of the Federal District in his first year in office, the Civil Police of the Federal District "Under the revolutionary government, the Civil Police of the Federal District redeemed itself in the eyes of public opinion; it was, in fact, one of the departments that had fallen the lowest in the country's general opinion. This department had long since ceased to be an apparatus of order, but had been transformed into a terrorist organization, whose fame had already spread, with the prestige of sinister things, beyond our borders." These reforms followed the suggestions of the Civil Police Reform Commission of the Federal District under Police Chief João Batista Luzardo.
Decree-Law No. 5,504 of May 20, 1943 created the Federal District Police Inspectorate to supervise the Civil Police of the Federal District. The bad reputation of Civil Police of Rio de Janeiro dated back to the Old Republic, and was mocked in the first samba recorded in Brazil, Pelo Telefone, by Donga in 1917: "Over the phone, the Chief of Police tells me that in Carioca there's a roulette wheel to play".
Several autobiographies reported imprisonment and torture, without claiming Vargas' direct involvement, examples being Pagu, Carlos Marighella, and Joaquim Câmara Ferreira, who lost his fingernails in prison. Several artists did directly accuse Vargas of restricting individual rights, and he replied on 23 July 1938: "The Estado Novo does not recognize the rights of individuals against the community. Individuals don't have rights, they have duties! Rights belong to the community! The state, overriding the struggle of interests, guarantees the rights of the community and enforces its duties towards it."
"The Vargas regime's relentless persecution of its opponents (real and imagined), whose methods heavily involved the use of torture, violence, deportation and murder," said UOL, was just one of the facets, perhaps the best known, of this period."