page_title: Vargas Era
section_title: Towards dictatorship
hierarchical_section_title: Vargas Era / Second Brazilian Republic / Towards dictatorship
caption_attribution_description: Português: Fotografia do quinquagésimo aniversário da implantação do regime republicano no Brasil. No centro encontra-se o presidente Getúlio Vargas. Atrás, de bigode, Ademar de Barros.
context_page_description: The Vargas Era is the period in the history of Brazil between 1930 and 1945, when the country was under the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas. The period from 1930 to 1937 is known as the Second Brazilian Republic, and the other part of Vargas Era, from 1937 until 1946 is known as the Third Brazilian Republic.
  The Brazilian Revolution of 1930 marked the end of the First Brazilian Republic. President Washington Luís was deposed; the swearing-in of President-elect Julio Prestes was blocked, on the grounds that the election had been rigged by his supporters; the 1891 Constitution was abrogated, the National Congress was dissolved and the provisional military junta ceded power to Vargas. Federal intervention in state governments increased and the political landscape was altered by suppressing the traditional oligarchies of São Paulo and Minas Gerais states.
  The Vargas Era comprises three successive phases:
  the period of the Provisional Government, when Vargas governed by decree as Head of the Provisional Government instituted by the Revolution, pending the adoption of a new Constitution.
context_section_description: By 1934 Vargas developed what Thomas E. Skidmore and Peter H. Smith called "a legal hybrid" between the regimes of Mussolini's Italy and Salazar's Estado Novo in Portugal. Vargas copied fascist tactics, and shared their rejection of liberal capitalism. He abandoned the arrangements of the "provisional government" (1930–34) which were characterized by social reformism that appeared to favor the generally left wing of his revolutionary coalition, the tenentes.
  A conservative insurgency in 1932 was the key turning point to the right. After the July 1932 Constitutionalist Revolution — a thinly-veiled attempt by the paulista coffee oligarchs to retake the central government — Vargas tried to recover support of the landed elites, including the coffee growers, in order to establish a new alliance of power.
  The revolt was caused by Vargas' appointment of João Alberto, a center-left tenente as "interventor" (provisional governor) in place of the elected governor of São Paulo. The paulista elite loathed Alberto, resenting his centralization efforts and alarmed by his economic reforms, such as 5% wage increase and the minor distribution of some land to participants of the revolution. Amid threats of revolt, Vargas replaced João Alberto with a civilian from São Paulo, appointed a conservative paulista banker as his minister of finance, and announced a date for the holding of a constituent assembly. This only emboldened coffee oligarchs who launched a revolt in July 1932, which collapsed after three months of armed combat.
  Regardless of the attempted revolution, Vargas was determined to maintain his alliance with the original farmer wing of his coalition and to strengthen his ties with the São Paulo establishment. The result was further concessions, alienating the left wings of his coalition. The essential compromise was failing to honor the promises of land reform made during the campaign of 1930. Vargas also pardoned half the bank debts of the coffee planters, who still had a significant grip on the state's electoral machinery, alleviating the crisis stemming from the collapse of the valorization program. To pacify his old paulista adversaries after their failed revolt, he ordered the Bank of Brazil to assume the war bonds issued by the rebel government.
  Vargas was also increasingly threatened by pro-Communist elements in labor critical of the rural latifundios by 1934, who sought an alliance with the countries peasant majority by backing land reform. Despite the populist rhetoric of the "father of the poor", the gaucho Vargas was ushered into power by planter oligarchies of peripheral regions amid a revolution from above, and was thus in no position to meet Communist demands, had he desired to do so.
  In 1934, armed with a new constitution drafted with extensive influence from European fascist models, Vargas began reining in even moderate trade unions and turning against the tenentes. His further concessions to the latifundios pushed him toward an alliance with the Integralists, Brazil's mobilized fascist movement. Following the end of the provisional presidency, Vargas' regime between 1934 and 1945 was characterized by the co-optation of Brazilian unions through state-run, sham syndicates, and suppression of opposition, particularly leftist opposition.
caption: Vargas (center) during commemorations to mark the 50th anniversary of the Proclamation of the Republic, 15 November 1939.
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