In Rio Grande do Sul it took the rebels just over a week to gain military control. After neutralizing the government troops, General Góes Monteiro put his troops onto trains headed to São Paulo. The chances of success were high, and this time Getúlio Vargas openly joined the liberal alliance and, dressed in a khaki uniform, took the civilian command of the rebellion, joining the troops aboard the train. The most serious confrontation between the two sides was expected to occur in Itararé, on the border between Paraná and São Paulo. The city, in the interior of the state of São Paulo, had crucial railway lines leading to both Rio de Janeiro and the city of São Paulo. The location was of great strategic importance.
The country held its breath and all eyes were on Itararé as the newspapers announced ‘the greatest battle of Latin America’. The government boasted that its forces were unbeatable: it had six thousand troops from the São Paulo public force and the army was entrenched with orders to block the rebels’ progress at any cost. But the battle never happened. After establishing their lines of defence and exchanging a few shots, both sides decided to wait for an end to the torrential rains and a better definition of the political situation. It may have been a sensible decision, but with the prevailing climate in the country the public felt betrayed.
Washington Luís was slow to react. It was only on 10 October that he informed the country of the revolt.28 He was also slow to accept that the size and extent of the rebellion were larger than he had thought. He was facing three problems simultaneously: he needed to contain the speed with which the rebel forces were approaching Rio, dispel the hesitancy of the government troops, and deal with the economic crisis of 1929, which had brought inflation, unemployment and currency devaluation. It was a grim picture, and the measures Washington Luís adopted, although tough, proved to be inadequate. He had established a state of siege, censorship of the press, and an extended public holiday (until 21 October) – to avoid a run on the banks. He had also instigated a campaign to repress the rumours and had called up the military reserves. The number of troops at the government’s command was falling rapidly and both the army and the navy were reconsidering where their loyalties lay. Without decisive action from the military commanders, either the troops would be defeated by the rebels or the number of desertions to the liberal alliance would lead to a collapse in the hierarchy.
Washington Luís may have lost everything, but he would not give in. The president’s official residence, the Palácio Guanabara, was surrounded by barbed wire and in constant danger of being bombarded; the cannons of the forts of Copacabana, Leme and São João regularly fired warning shots demanding his resignation; his generals had given him their last ultimatum and the whole city was threatening to revolt – but he did not waver. ‘I won’t resign! I’ll only leave here in pieces!’ he yelled at his ministers.29 But no such sacrifice was required of him. He was deposed at seven in the morning on 24 October, less than thirty days before the end of his mandate. He was arrested and taken to the Copacabana fort, from where, a month later, he went into exile in Europe.
On 3 November the provisional junta, formed of two generals – Augusto Tasso Fragoso and João de Deus Mena Barreto – and a rear admiral – José Isaías de Noronha – handed the keys of government to Getúlio Vargas. The First Republic was over. The Revolution of 1930 is seen by historians as a pivotal event in the history of Brazil30 – less for the rebellion itself than for the results it produced: in the economy, in politics, in culture and in the society as a whole, it radically changed Brazil.
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
Getúlio Vargas put away his military uniform, put on a suit and, adjusting his tie, walked up the steps of the Palácio do Catete to take office as the head of the provisional government. But the transformation was far greater than a mere change of clothing: with Getúlio Vargas in office all power passed to the Executive, which could now radically intervene in the political system. The National Congress, the State Legislative Assemblies and the Municipal Chambers were dissolved, the politicians elected during the First Republic lost their posts, the presidents of the states were replaced by interventores (appointed governors), and the opposition newspapers were censored. For the first time since the 1824 Constitution, all government posts were held by unelected civilians or military officials.31 In a state of euphoria after the alliance’s victory in the northeast, Juarez Távora arrived in Rio de Janeiro and declared that, from then on, Brazil’s government would be neither democratic nor liberal: ‘I support a dictatorship, with all its implications.’ His enthusiasm knew no bounds: ‘Dictatorship without limits, until everyone can verify, by acts and not by deeds, the regeneration and rehabilitation of our political and administrative customs.’32
Getúlio Vargas had no intention of risking the loss of what he had conquered. He knew that if he called elections the regional elites, who had maintained their power in the states, would win. In order to institutionalize the new order the political system had to be transformed. That meant a far-reaching programme of social, economic and administrative reforms needed to be carried out. It was an ambitious project that could not be implemented overnight, but not even Juarez Távora could have imagined in 1930 that the dictatorship he embraced was to last for a full fifteen years, with a brief respite between 1934 and 1937. However that may be, in his inaugural speech Getúlio Vargas presented a radical programme, which included almost everything the liberal alliance supported. A stream of decrees brought the changes about: amnesty for the tenentes, restructuring of the army, the creation of the Ministries of Labour, of Industry and Trade, and of Education and Public Health. There were also changes made to the teaching profession and the public education system.
Getúlio Vargas’s greatest priority was the new labour policy.33 In this area he revealed the two sides of his political self. First, he created worker protection laws: an eight-hour working day; female and child labour protection; holidays; worker registration documents; sick leave; and retirement pensions. Then he repressed any attempt by workers to create organizations outside government control and was especially aggressive when it came to dealing with any communist activities. He dissolved all autonomous trade unions. Unions from then on had to be subordinate to the state. And last but not least, he excluded rural workers from the benefits of the new labour legislation.
Although the government was provisional, President Vargas steered well away from two issues: the summoning of a Constituent Assembly and the date for new presidential elections. Under the new regime, none of the representatives, neither in the Executive nor the Legislature, were elected. However, as a demonstration of the government’s good intentions, in 1932 a new, modern and democratic electoral law was introduced – but its implementation was continually put off. The new law created an Electoral Court to oversee elections and guarantee the secrecy of the vote. It thus put an end to the idea – popular with republicans of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries – that voters were required to make their choices public.34
With these two measures, electoral fraud practices frequently used during the First Republic were not only illegal, but were virtually impossible. The secret ballot protected voters from being coerced by regional elites during state elections; professional judges of the Electoral Court inspected the election process; they oversaw the counting of the votes and declared the winners. The law also represented a tremendous victory for women: they earned the right to vote and to stand for election. The 1930 revolution had been supported by female battalions who were active in the rearguard of the military offensive. One such example was the João Pessoa female battalion, founded by Elvira Komel, a twenty-three-year-old lawyer from Minas Gerais, in which there were approximately 8,000 women from fifty-two cities enrolled.35
Despite this legislation, there was very little faith in democracy in the Brazil envisioned by Getúlio Vargas. The liberal alliance had promised to refound the Republic and kept its promise by implementing a far-reaching programme of reforms. But the major p
olitical actors representing the alliance were not a product of democracy, nor was it their vocation. They believed the democratic system laid down by the 1891 Constitution had failed because of the ‘governors’ policy’, and they now opted for a strong, centralized government. The coalition that took power in 1930 was heterogeneous. The members disagreed on virtually everything – except for who their adversaries were. From the first days of the provisional government, they struggled with the dilemma of how to reform the Republic without destroying its foundations.
The proposal of the tenentes was to control the state police forces, re-equip the armed forces and prioritize industry, especially steel. They joined the middle classes and urban workers, who swelled the ranks of the liberal alliance, in favour of labour-market regulation and of social legislation. But they were against the idea of expanding democracy and openly favoured a state-controlled society. The young civilian leaders were mostly motivated by the chance to make a political career. Meanwhile the elites who had joined the alliance (from Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul and Paraíba) wanted to increase their power in the federal government, while maintaining their regional power bases – in other words, to maintain Brazil’s agrarian structure. All of the groups wanted to become the most powerful within the coalition and thus take control of the government.36
As for Getúlio Vargas, he did not show his cards. He planned to remain exactly where he was, in power, and to achieve this he conducted politics in the way he would have run a business. He followed his own rules, making unexpected political alliances when he thought they would serve his purpose. He resorted to distributing favours and compensations. And he would postpone final decisions until the time was ripe for him to arbitrate the disputes between the coalition forces that sustained his government.
FOR SÃO PAULO AND AGAINST BRAZIL: THE CIVIL WAR OF 1932
In 1932, however, Getúlio Vargas’s political astuteness seems to have deserted him. Increasingly suspicious, he planned to prolong the provisional government so long that it would become permanent; the liberal alliance, above all in Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul, joined forces with the opposition and insisted that elections be held immediately. The newly formed ‘leagues for a constituent assembly’ organized protests in all the main cities. The atmosphere in Brazil became increasingly tense. However, Getúlio Vargas’s main adversary was the state of São Paulo.37 The rebels’ 1930 victory had removed the Paulistas from power and turned the richest state in Brazil into a formidable enemy. Their anger increased as the list of what was seen as Getúlio Vargas’s provocations grew longer. They were frustrated over São Paulo’s loss of control of Brazil’s coffee policy – which had been taken away from the Coffee Institute of the State of São Paulo and given to the National Coffee Council, an institution created by the federal government to confront the international economic crisis. And they were furious the state had lost autonomy due to the appointment of the interventores. The interventores were appointed governors, from different regions of the country and seen as intruders and puppets controlled by the federal government. To make matters worse, the interventor in São Paulo was João Alberto Lins de Barros, who was from the northeast and had been handpicked from among the tenentes.
Between October 1930 and the first few months of 1932, Getúlio Vargas had been obliged to appoint a succession of four interventores for São Paulo; the Paulistas were determined to show him that they were ungovernable. But the situation was to go from bad to worse. In 1932 powerful state politicians agreed to adopt a new programme. In a clear move to antagonize the federal government, they waved the constitutionalist flag, demanding the immediate summoning of a Constituent Assembly. They wanted revenge. Resentment and feelings of regional loyalty ran high. ‘São Paulo is the locomotive that pulls the decaying old wagons of the federation!’38 boasted Oswald de Andrade. And the protesters in the streets went further: ‘For São Paulo with Brazil, if possible. For São Paulo against Brazil, if we must!’39
Not all Paulistas were in favour of secession, but they agreed that Getúlio Vargas’s strong, centralized government, which had taken away the state’s political and economic autonomy, must be confronted. The demand for a Constituent Assembly meant there would have to be new elections. If that were to transpire, São Paulo would recover political control of the Republic. This combination of wanting to summon a Constituent Assembly and to overthrow the government led to a movement that became known as the 1932 constitutionalist revolution. On 9 July 1932 around 20,000 soldiers – from the federal garrisons and the state public forces – took up arms against the Vargas government. The population of São Paulo, above all in the capital, joined the fight: thousands of civilians, including students from the law school (located in the Largo de São Francisco), enlisted in the volunteer battalions; factories adapted their production lines to make weapons; Italian and Syrian immigrants cared for the wounded and the Catholic clergy gave its blessings to the fighters. The ‘Paulista cause’ was defended with a fervour that had never been seen in the state before. Thousands of women, rich and poor, gave their jewellery to the campaign called Gold for the Good of São Paulo, which was set up to help fund the cost of the war. Between July and September approximately 90,000 wedding rings were handed over to the state for melting down.
Only the factory workers did not join the revolt.40 In the state where the largest number of industries in the country was concentrated, the workers did not ‘run to the rescue’. They did not believe this uprising would help their cause; and the regional elite was afraid that if the workers rose up the situation could get out of control. Throughout the conflict the industrialists kept a close watch on their factories to prevent a workers’ revolt, and kept as many of their leaders as possible locked up.
São Paulo only had one chance of victory: to mount a military attack of major proportions against Rio de Janeiro before Getúlio Vargas had time to organize his forces.41 But the Paulista troops moved slowly: they were waiting for backup from Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul, where discontent with the federal government had also reached boiling point. They were also convinced the military barracks and garrisons in Rio de Janeiro would rise up against Getúlio Vargas. The war started well for the Paulistas: the rebels controlled the whole of the state, cutting off access to the Paraíba valley; they attacked the federal forces in Minas Gerais and blocked the railway tunnel on the line that crossed the Mantiqueira mountains. In a scene that could have been taken from a film, agents of the São Paulo government secretly purchased ten combat planes in Chile. They then hired North American pilots who managed to land them without being observed in Mato Grosso, and, after a series of mishaps, delivered them to the rebels.
But their luck was not to last. While the leaders of Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul were furious with the centralizing policy of the provisional government, they were not prepared to run the risk of overthrowing a government that they themselves had put in power. They remained loyal to President Vargas and were later to send troops to invade São Paulo. Getúlio Vargas left the military strategy to General Góes Monteiro, who began the preparations for the attack. He planned the defence of Rio de Janeiro, where he suppressed an attempted coup d’état, and sent 80,000 men from the army and the navy, mostly brought in from the north and the northeast, against the 70,000 rebels. The state of São Paulo was surrounded by troops, the port of Santos was blocked and government planes fired on the rebel trenches. From north to south, the attention of the whole country was on the ‘Paulista war’.
São Paulo surrendered on 1 October 1932. Characteristically, Getúlio Vargas was quick to act. He arrested the rebels, expelled the army officers, revoked the civil rights of the leading protagonists, exiled the state political and military leaders and reorganized the public force, reducing its status from a military to a police organization. The Paulista elite had been defeated. Getúlio Vargas took the opportunity to consolidate his alliance with the military: in the mid-term he promised to re-equip the army, and in the
long term to create a national weapons industry. He then negotiated with the state of São Paulo: he nominated a Paulista civilian to be the interventor, instructed the Banco do Brasil to take over the war bonds that had been issued by the São Paulo banks, and confirmed the summoning of a Constituent Assembly for 3 May 1933.42
A SHORT-LIVED DEMOCRACY
Since there were no national political parties and the opposition – the regional elites – was no longer in a position to manipulate votes, the elections for the Constituent Assembly brought a series of novelties. It became easier for authorities to circulate; there were several new parties with far-reaching, regional membership; it seemed like there had been a rebirth in politics.43 The Constituent Assembly had a little bit of everything. The opening session was on 15 November 1933, in Palácio Tiradentes, the seat of the National Congress. There were a number of new deputies, elected mainly through the new system, which allowed for independent candidates (no party affiliation). There was also a large bloc of deputies who supported the government, mostly due to the work of the state interventores appointed by Getúlio Vargas. São Paulo politicians joined forces to elect a considerable number of deputies opposed to the government. The Catholic Church managed to elect a fair-sized group to represent its interests, and there was one, solitary female deputy – Doctor Carlota Pereira de Queirós. The Constituent Assembly worked for eight months, promulgating the new constitution on 16 July 1934. The next day they elected Getúlio Vargas as president of the Republic, by indirect vote.
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