Leonel de Moura Brizola (; 22 January 1922 – 21 June 2004) was a Brazilian politician. Launched into politics by Brazilian president Getúlio Vargas in the 1930–1950s, Brizola was the only politician to serve as elected governor of two Brazilian states. An engineer by training, Brizola organized the youth wing of the Brazilian Labour Party and served as state representative for Rio Grande do Sul and mayor of its capital, Porto Alegre.
In 1958 he was elected governor of Rio Grande do Sul and subsequently played a major role in thwarting a first coup attempt by sectors of the armed forces, who wished to prevent João Goulart from assuming the presidency following the resignation of Jânio Quadros in August 1961, under allegations of communist ties. Three years later, facing the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état that went on to install the Brazilian military dictatorship, Brizola called on the democratic forces to resist, but Goulart did not want to risk a civil war, and Brizola was exiled in Uruguay.
One of the few Brazilian major political figures able to overcome the dictatorship's twenty-years ban on his political activity, Brizola returned to Brazil in 1979, but failed in his bid to take control of the reemerging Brazilian Labour Party as the military government instead conceded it to Ivete Vargas. Brizola founded the Democratic Labour Party on a democratic socialist, nationalist and populist platform descended from Getúlio Vargas' own labour legacy, promoted as an ideology he called socialismo moreno ("tanned socialism"), a non-Marxist, Christian and markedly Brazilian left-wing political agenda for a post-Cold War setting.
In 1982 and 1990 Brizola was elected governor of Rio de Janeiro, after a failed 1989 bid for the presidency, in which he narrowly finished third, after Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In the 1990s, Brizola competed for preeminence in the Brazilian left with future president Lula's Workers' Party, later briefly integrating Lula's government in the early 2000s. He was also vice-president of the Socialist International and served as Honorary President of that organization from October 2003 until his death in June 2004. Known for his sharp, energetic rhetoric and frank, direct style, Brizola is considered one of the most important historic figures of the Brazilian left.
Early life and rise to prominence (1922–1964)
Brizola's father José Brizola was a small-scale farmer who was killed when fighting as a volunteer in 1923 in a local civil war for the rebel leader Assis Brasil against Rio Grande do Sul's governor Borges de Medeiros.F.C. Leite Filho, El caudillo Leonel Brizola: um perfil biográfico. São Paulo: Aquariana, 2008, , pages 233/234; others, however, contend that Brizola's father was simply a common thief murdered for running away with someone else's livestock: Cf. R. S. Rose, The Unpast: Elite Violence And Social Control In Brazil, 1954–2000. Ohio University Press, 2005, pages 54/55 Brizola was named Itagiba, but early in life he adopted the alias Leonel, which he took from the rebel warlord Leonel Rocha who had commanded the cavalry column in which José Brizola served.Leite Filho, El Caudillo Leonel Brizola, 32 Brizola left his mother's house at the age of eleven; he worked in Passo Fundo and Carazinho as a newspaper deliverer, shoeshiner and at other occasional jobs. Aided by the family of a Methodist minister, he received a scholarship that allowed him to complete high school in Porto Alegre and enter college.Jorge Ferreira, João Goulart: Uma biografia. Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio, 2015,
He graduated with a degree in engineering but never worked in that trade. Still as an undergraduate, he entered professional politics in his early twenties, joining the youth organization of the Brazilian Labor Party (Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro (PTB)) in 1945. In 1946 an undergraduate, he was elected to the Rio Grande State Legislature. The Labor Party had been created in order to offer political support for former president Getúlio Vargas among the working classes, and Brizola, who was busy with creating party organizations across Rio Grande do Sul, at the time developed ties to the Vargas family through his personal friendship with Vargas's son Maneco as well as with Vargas's brother Espartaco,Lira Neto, Getúlio 1945-1954. São Paulo: Cia. das Letras, 2014, , page 151 such friendships opening his way to make friends with Vargas himself, who was in internal exile after having been toppled from power in late 1945.Leite Filho, El Caudillo Leonel Brizola,41 As a member of the State Legislature, Brizola made a speech from the tribune in which he launched nationwide the candidacy of Vargas to the incoming 1950 presidential elections.Lira Neto, 151
In 1950, Brizola married Neusa Goulart—João Goulart's sister—and had Vargas as his best man. Through this marriage, Brizola became a wealthy landowner and a regional leader of the PTB. After Vargas's 1954 suicide during his second presidential term, Brizola inherited the undisputed regional leadership of his party while his brother-in-law ruled the PTB national caucus.Cf. Carlos E. Cortés, Gaúcho politics in Brazil: the politics of Rio Grande do Sul, 1930–1964. Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, 1974, page 162 Both perpetuated Vargas' populist tradition; in Brizola's case, the practice of a direct personal link between charismatic leader and the general public. In quick succession, Brizola filled various positions, being a member of the Rio Grande State Legislature for two terms (and as such leader for the PTB), State Secretary for Public Works, (interim) Federal Congressman for Rio Grande in 1955 and Mayor of Porto Alegre from 1956 to 1958. In 1958 he would resign from his mayoralty in order to present himself as a contender at the elections for State Governor.Leite Filho, El Caudillo Leonel Brizola,43 From a regional leadership, Brizola would then ascend, during the presidency of Goulart (1961–1964) to the role of an important national supporter of his brother-in-law; first as governor and later as a deputy in the National Congress of Brazil.
As governor of Rio Grande do Sul (1959–63), Brizola rose to prominence for his social policies that included the quick building of public schools in poor neighborhoods across the state (brizoletas).Cf. Arthur José Poerner, Brizola quem é? Rio de Janeiro, 1989: Editora Terceiro Mundo, page16 He supported policies directed towards improving the conditions of small-scale, autonomous farmers and landless rural workers, and the sponsorship of the creation of the corporation MASTER (Rio Grande Landless Rural Workers Movement).Biorn Maybury-Lewis, The Politics of the Possible: The Brazilian Rural Workers' Trade Union Movement, 1964–1985. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994, , page 126
Brizola gained nationwide attention by acting in defense of democracy and Goulart's rights as president. When Jânio Quadros resigned from the presidency in August 1961, the Brazilian military ministers in the Cabinet tried to prevent Vice-President Goulart from becoming president on the grounds of his alleged ties with the Communist movement.Cf. John W. F. Dulles, Castello Branco: the making of a Brazilian president. College Station, Texas A&M University Press, 1978, page 250. What created the crisis around Goulart was that the Brazilian 1946 Constitution allowed for the (direct) election of a President and Vice-President from different tickets; therefore the leftist Goulart was Vice-President to the maverick rightist Quadros. After winning support from local army commander general Machado Lopes, Brizola forged the cadeia da legalidade (legality broadcast) from a pool of radio stations in Rio Grande do Sul, which issued a nationwide call from the Piratini Palace denouncing the intentions behind the Cabinet ministers' actions and encouraging common citizens to protest in the streets. Brizola surrendered the State Police Force to the regional army command and began organizing paramilitary Committees of Democratic Resistance, and considered handing out firearms to civilians.Cf. Angelina Cheibub Figueiredo, Democracia ou Reformas?. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1993, page 43 After twelve days of impending civil war, the attempted coup failed and Goulart was inaugurated as president.cf. Betariz T. Daudt Fischer, "Arquivos Pessoais: Incógnitas e Possibilidades na Construção de uma Biografia", IN Elizeu Clementino de Souza, ed. Tempos, Narrativas E Ficções: a Invenção de Si. Porto Alegre, EDIPUCRS, 2006, , page 277, footnote. Available at
Nationalizations of industrial utilities in Rio Grande and Cold War politics
Brizola gained international attention for his nationalist policies; as governor he developed his plan for quick industrialization of the state, a program for the constitution of state-owned industrial utilities,Samir Perrone de Miranda, "Projeto de Desenvolvimento e Encampações no discurso do governo Leonel Brizola: Rio Grande do Sul, 1959-1963". UFRGS, Master dissertation in Political Science, 2006, available at . Retrieved 26 June 2014 that led him to nationalize American public utilities trusts' assets in Rio Grande, such as ITT and Electric Bond & Share (local branch of American & Foreign Power Company (Amforp for short), itself owned by the holding Electric Bond and Share Company ).Ruth Leacock, Requiem for revolution: the United States and Brazil, 1961–1969. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1990, page 85. . Available at . Page 89
At the time as well as later, many scholars believed such nationalizations to express socialist policy.G. Reginald Daniel, Race and Multiraciality in Brazil and the United States: Converging Paths?. Pennsylvania University Press: 2006, , page 181 However, the reason offered by Brizola for the nationalization - in fact almost an expropriation, as the compensation given was of only one monetary unit, pending settlement by a Brazilian courtLeacock, Requiem for Revolution, 86- was simply that both American enterprises, although profiting from previously existing infrastructures, nevertheless supplied limited quantities of utilities at the highest possible rates to final consumers and reinvested a tiny fraction of their profits, the remaining "excess" profits being "repatriated".Therefore, these foreign contractors were considered by Brizola as unreliable for playing a role as tools in a longterm blueprint for industrialization.Leite Filho, El Caudillo Leonel Brizola,63-65 Earlier, Brizola had offered ITT to participate in a new mixed, state-private ownership telephone company, which would be financed through the selling of new shares to the State of Rio Grande as well as to the general public - in this new company, ITT would remain with a 25% share. As Leacock writes, this proposal probably failed because ITT CEOs didn't want to participate in a joint venture they would not control.Leacock, Requiem for revolution, 86 That Brizola's avowedly reasons corresponded to his actual goals is supported by a later American scholar, who considers that Brizola's administration, albeit "marred" by these "controversial" nationalizations, was nevertheless "vigorous and constructive".Michael L. Conniff, ed., Populism in Latin America: Second Edition. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2012, , page 59 Other American scholar remembers that the same rightist military government that would later exile Brizola found it necessary to nationalize the entire Brazilian telecommunications system in other to develop necessary infrastructures.Sybil Rhodes, Social Movements and Free-Market Capitalism in Latin America: Telecommunications Privatization and the Rise of Consumer Protest. SUNY Press, 2012, , page 108