Although the constitution granted Getúlio Vargas a new presidential term and approved everything that had been done by the provisional government, President Vargas was furious at some of its clauses, which he told his most intimate circle were ‘monstrous’.44 They were not; but they eliminated his power to act unilaterally. The new text submitted the Executive to Legislative oversight, revoked the right of the provisional government leader to bypass Congress, and granted complete independence to the Federal Court of Auditors. And, to enrage President Vargas even further, the deputies limited the presidential term of office to four years, with no possibility of re-election.
The majority of the newly elected deputies were in favour of a more modern, democratic system of government. To this end, the new constitution provided for the rationalization of authority, federalism, strong political institutions, and the inclusion of new social sectors in the electoral process. But it also exposed the limitations of this new republic that had remained in place after 1930: it altered nothing in the country’s agrarian structure and maintained the exclusion of rural workers from labour benefits. The illiterate remained disenfranchised and immigrants’ rights were restricted. The government could expel any foreigners considered a danger to public order or to the national interest. The text also implicitly granted the state unlimited powers by legalizing the right to declare a state of siege, as the government deemed necessary. Furthermore, the government could exercise censorship for all types of publication at will. Nevertheless, the 1934 Constitution broke new ground by increasing opportunities for civic participation. And yet, it was only to last for less than two years. In Brazil, like in other countries all around the world, the further the decade of the 1930s advanced, the more sombre the atmosphere became. A radical change was under way that was shifting priorities. Democracy was no longer at the top of the list of preferred political systems.
The aftermath of the 1929 New York stock exchange crash, which seemingly proved capitalism could only work with state intervention, was a period of crisis. There were other circumstances, though, that led to the proliferation of dictatorships. A far more threatening storm was on the horizon. On 30 January 1933, President Hindenburg of Germany appointed Adolf Hitler as chancellor, and barbarity came to power under the guise of modernity.45 The Nazi Party was intolerant of opposition, militaristic, authoritarian, and had a penchant for genocide. On 27 February the German parliament (the Reichstag) went up in flames, and along with it, the hopes for Germany’s democratic future. In addition to the Nazis, terrifying new forms of totalitarian government emerged in Europe – Stalinism in the Soviet Union and fascism in Italy. There was a collapse of the old, autocratic empires, which were plagued by civil war and economic crises.
In Brazil the fascist movement was called Integralismo, and the Brazilian Fascist Party, the Ação Integralista Brasileira (AIB, Brazilian Integralist Action), was founded in 1932.46 It was the first party in Brazil whose aim was to stir up support among the masses. The AIB achieved this through inclusive national politics, belief in the party, in cooperation among special interest groups, and in state dominance. The party vigorously espoused anti-Semitism, which was already common among Brazilians. Support for the integralistas came from the urban middle classes, above all from civil servants, the clergy, liberal professionals, merchants, industrialists and even poets, and from regions colonized by German and Italian settlers. The Italian Embassy offered guidance and financial aid. And there was a group of intellectuals willing and able to produce a Brazilianized form of fascist ideology – Plínio Salgado,47 Miguel Reale48 and Gustavo Barroso among them. When all was said and done, the integralista party had militancy on their side.
In October 1934, in the city of São Paulo, a single march commanded by the AIB brought together around 40,000 integralistas, who marched in military formation, stomping their boots. The astonished Paulistas gathered to watch them go by. The procession was impeccable, minutely choreographed, with the men in closed ranks and arms extended, dressed in green shirts with armbands bearing the party insignia – the Greek letter sigma showing that integralismo represented the ‘sum total’ of all the Brazilian people – and with their banners unfurled in the sunlight. At the height of its popularity in 1937, the AIB had between 100,000 and 200,000 followers nationwide, out of a total population of 40 million. It was the public face of fascism. Less visible, however, were the closer ties with fascism among members of the government and the armed forces.49 General Góes Monteiro, for example, the most prestigious military leader at that time, was convinced the Italian fascist model was the best alternative for Brazil.
On this point President Vargas was in complete agreement with the general. Getúlio Vargas considered integralismo a natural form of government, with its exaltation of nationalist values, emphasis on class collaboration, and belief in the socio-political organization of society by major interest groups – all of which appealed to his authoritarian convictions. But that was as far as his support for the integralistas went. While General Góes Monteiro believed the army should have full monopoly of weaponry and rejected any form of paramilitary outfits, President Vargas had no interest in supporting a party whose intention was to govern Brazil in his place – and the sooner the better. The integralistas confirmed his suspicions by organizing a hierarchical structure parallel to his government, which included the creation of paramilitary militias, the use of modern technology for propaganda – photography, radio and cinema – as well as populist welfare programmes in certain states and municipalities. By this time President Vargas realized the integralista party could not be ignored. Characteristically, he planned to use the fascist machine to his own advantage, to transform the integralista movement into a tactical ally against the new opposition groups – in particular the Aliança Nacional Libertadora or ANL (National Alliance for Freedom) and the communists.
The National Alliance for Freedom was created by a minority faction among the tenentes who either had not joined Getúlio Vargas or who were disenchanted with his government, or both.50 The group, which included Miguel Costa,51 Herculino Cascardo, Roberto Sisson, João Cabanas, Carlos Leite, André Trifino and Agildo Barata, was small, but all of its members had participated in the 1920s uprisings, continued to be politically active, and were in favour of social reform. They wanted to change the direction the Republic had taken after the 1930 victory of the liberal alliance.
The tenentes followed these political developments attentively, and realized the fight against fascism was the only realistic option. They saw the emergence of the integralistas as an extension of European fascism and were concerned about the government’s sympathy for the movement. They wanted to build a broad coalition that would unite the opposition in a reformist and anti-fascist movement. The idea was to reinforce and make additions to the liberal alliance platform: suspension of payment on the public debt; nationalization of public services; agrarian reform; wage increases; guarantee of individual rights – including religious freedom – and eradication of racism.
In early 1935 the leaders of the National Alliance for Freedom planned a special inauguration event. It took place in downtown Rio de Janeiro at the João Caetano Theatre, which had been built for Dom João VI and was the oldest and largest theatre in the city. The tenentes chose it for being such a symbolic forum – Brazil’s first constitution had been signed there in in 1824. In spite of the importance of the venue and the carefully laid plans, the leading figures of the party were still taken aback at the astounding turnout. They had positioned themselves on the stage and, when the heavy red velvet curtains were opened, they were momentarily aghast. Around 10,000 people had come to hear the proposals of the National Alliance for Freedom: there were people standing between the rows of seats, crowded into the boxes, sitting on the steps and hanging from the balustrades. At the end of the ceremony Carlos Lacerda jumped onto the stage and brazenly put forward the name of Luís Carlos Prestes to be the honorary president of the National Alliance for Freedom. T
he crowd went wild and started to cheer and applaud. Carlo Lacerda, son of the populist leader Maurício Lacerda, was at the time a student, a member of the communist youth and already a gifted orator.
The communists had planned the whole thing, knowing full well the position did not even exist. They were equally confident the proposal would be impossible to turn down. Luís Carlos Prestes was the most prestigious political leader in the country, a popular hero, and a man with enormous charisma. He was charming, affable, and was highly convincing in any debate; furthermore, his shining eyes seemed to prove his sincerity. He was also authoritarian, vain and intolerant – but these characteristics were only known to a few. At that time he was seemingly invincible. The communists were following the lead from Moscow: the communist parties around the world were supposed to support all popular fronts against fascism, the Nazi threat and the danger of war. The strategy was a success, with popular front governments being elected in Chile, France and Spain. Through the nomination of Luís Carlos Prestes, the Communist Party had managed to join the National Alliance for Freedom.
The National Alliance for Freedom was a coalition for the masses. It acted constitutionally, with four hundred offices spread around the country. The movement had the infrastructure to support major campaigns in favour of citizens’ rights and rallies that attracted thousands of people. The Communist Party, on the other hand, was a tiny, clandestine organization, with very little public support, but which planned to turn the popular fronts into a vehicle for revolt.52 At the time the climate in the country favoured political protests. Workers in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo frequently went on strike, there was dissatisfaction within the armed forces, insurrections in the states, and fierce confrontations in the streets between the National Alliance for Freedom and the integralistas. Meanwhile President Vargas was worried about the political unrest and astonished by the rapid growth of the National Alliance for Freedom – so he bided his time and waited for the right moment to intervene.
In 1935, on 5 July, the anniversary of the 1922 and 1924 tenente uprisings, the National Alliance for Freedom met for the last time at its headquarters in Largo da Carioca, in Rio de Janeiro. Political rallies had just been banned. The government’s excuse for the ban was an inflammatory manifesto read at the National Alliance for Freedom’s most recent rally. The manifesto, written by Luís Carlos Prestes, had been read aloud by none other than Carlos Lacerda: ‘Brazilians! You, who have nothing to lose, but the immense wealth of Brazil to gain! Tear Brazil from the grip of imperialism and its lackeys! Everyone – join the fight for Brazil’s liberation! Down with fascism! Down with Vargas’s odious government! Long live the revolutionary government of the people! All power to the National Alliance for Freedom!’53 This summons from Luís Carlos Prestes for the people to take up arms against the government was all that President Vargas needed to hear. The following day the National Alliance for Freedom was declared illegal and shut down by presidential decree.
Miguel Costa was furious, and he replied to Luís Carlos Prestes’s manifesto with a very critical letter: ‘You […] perhaps because you were misinformed […] launched your manifesto with the slogan “All power to the National Alliance for Freedom” […] You should never have made this statement when the government still had the power to react.’54 He was right. The text manifesto promised easy victory, oblivious to the actual political situation. It was contemptuous regarding President Vargas’s ability to react, compromised the National Alliance of Freedom, and sorely overestimated the military capacity for the planned uprising. But the manifesto was not the result of Luís Carlos Prestes’s ineptitude in assessing the conditions of the time; it was a directive from the Communist International in Moscow, the Soviet agency that instructed communist parties around the world on how to prepare for revolution. The directors of the Communist International knew very little about South America and even less about Brazil, whose situation they saw as being identical to that of China – an immense semi-colonial country with a central government ill-equipped to control the whole of its territory and thus susceptible to regional uprisings.55 The Soviets were confident in Luís Carlos Prestes, who had lived in Moscow since 1931, because of his military experience and popular prestige. They had probably begun developing their plans for Latin America in 1933, with Luís Carlos Prestes at the centre. He was meant to lead the insurrection in Brazil. Between the end of 1934 and the first months of 1935 the Communist International sent personnel to Brazil, including specialists in explosives, sabotage and street protests. They also sent technicians to teach the Brazilians how to code and decode messages and radio transmissions, as well as an agent responsible for financing the Brazilian operation.
In March 1935 the organization transferred its Latin American office from Buenos Aires to Rio de Janeiro under the direction of Arthur Ewert. Mr Ewert had been a deputy in the German parliament in the 1920s and had worked for the international communist movement for years. In April 1935, Luís Carlos Prestes clandestinely returned to Brazil accompanied by Olga Benário, who was later to become his common-law wife. Ms Benário had been recruited by the IV Department of the Red Army Joint Chiefs of Staff – the Soviet military secret service – and was sent with Luís Carlos Prestes to guarantee his safety. In November 1935 armed uprisings broke out at three different locations in Brazil. It was the first time in the history of the country that the communists had taken up arms to fight for their revolution.
The first uprising began on 23 November in the twenty-first gunners’ battalion barracks in Natal, the capital city of Rio Grande do Norte state. The rebellion spread with surprising speed. With popular support and very little resistance, the communists managed to occupy the city for four days. In Pernambuco the twenty-ninth gunners’ battalion, stationed in the town of Jaboatão dos Guararapes, revolted in the early hours of 24 November and marched on Recife under the command of two officers and an extraordinary communist leader: the then sergeant Gregório Bezerra. Throughout three days of fighting, Sergeant Bezerra coordinated the rebels and went from garrison to garrison in search of weapons and support, until he was forced to withdraw from combat after being shot while trying to capture, near singlehandedly, the headquarters of the seventh military zone. But in both Recife, where the threat of air bombardment terrified everyone, and Natal, the rebels acted alone. There were not enough of them to confront the government army troops deployed from Bahia, Ceará and Paraíba. By 27 November the rebels were on the run and the uprising in the northeast was over.56
The third and last uprising took place in Rio de Janeiro, in the early hours of 27 November, in two units of the military elite – the military aviation school, located at Campo dos Afonsos, and the third infantry regiment.57 The rebels’ plan was to steal and take off in aviation school planes, but they did not have the resources to protect the airport and were overcome by government troops. The strategy at the third infantry regiment was even more daring: the plan was to take over the barracks and then proceed to Guanabara Palace and arrest the president. But the plan failed. The third infantry regiment was located at the foot of the Sugar Loaf, occupying a narrow stretch of land between the sea and the hills, with only one point of entry. It was like walking into an ambush. The rebels took longer than planned to occupy the barracks, and in the early hours of the morning they found themselves surrounded by government troops. Besieged and under heavy artillery fire, after eighteen hours of resistance they realized that all was lost.
During the uprisings in Natal and Recife in November, President Vargas had managed to convince Congress to approve a state of siege. In December he increased the pressure: the government created the Committee for the Repression of Communism, General Góes Monteiro proposed the suspension of individual rights, and the deputies agreed to decree a state of war for ninety days – a measure that was renewed repeatedly until July 1937. The government could now act unfettered and implemented its brutal, large-scale programme of searches and arrests, which led to the imprisonment of thousa
nds of people – members of the National Alliance for Freedom, communists, their sympathizers and anyone who the police considered suspect, including the popular mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Pedro Ernesto.58
The prisons were overcrowded and Brazilian navy warships were transformed into floating jails. Trials were brief, there were virtually no defence lawyers, and those found guilty were sent to the government penitentiaries on Ilha Grande and Fernando de Noronha. The writer Graciliano Ramos,59 one of the numerous sympathizers of the Communist Party, was arrested in Maceió in March 1936 and taken to Rio de Janeiro, confined to the ship’s hold. From there he was sent to the correctional colony on Ilha Grande, where he was detained without being charged until January 1937. After his release, he wrote Memórias do Cárcere,60 which denounced the immensurable violence of the Vargas regime. The book, published posthumously in 1953, rescues his fellow prisoners from anonymity, relates the difficulties of an intellectual adapting to life in a Brazilian jail, and denounces the degradation of the prison system. The head warden of the Ilha Grande penitentiary used to yell at the prisoners: ‘Here there are no rights. Listen carefully. No rights. […] You’re not here to be rehabilitated. No one will be rehabilitated: you have all come here to die.’61
President Vargas knew about the torture and the police violence; he was well acquainted with the ferocity of his government’s repression. He was also regularly informed in advance of the communists’ plans to spark revolts in distant parts of the country. One of the men sent by Moscow, Johnny (or Johann) de Graaf, who was in charge of teaching the rebels fighting techniques, was a double agent. He passed on information to Alfred Hutt, a director of the electricity company Light, in Rio de Janeiro, who was an agent of MI6, the British secret service. Alfred Hutt passed the information to the British ambassador; it was then examined in London and sent to President Vargas’s Foreign Minister, Oswaldo Aranha, who in turn informed the president.62 Between December 1935 and March 1936 the police, using the information supplied by Johnny de Graaf, managed to penetrate the Communist International, and finally discovered Luís Carlos Prestes’s hiding place. Everyone found there was arrested. The body of Victor Baron, the soviet agent in charge of clandestine radio transmissions, was thrown out of a police headquarters window in Rio de Janeiro to simulate a suicide. He had been tortured to death. After long sessions of interrogations and torture, Arthur Ewert went insane – he died in a hospital in East Berlin in 1959. Luís Carlos Prestes was imprisoned for nine years, much of it in solitary confinement. Olga Benário, who was Jewish and communist, was deported to Nazi Germany. Although she was pregnant, she was turned over to the Gestapo and died in a gas chamber at the Bernburg concentration camp.
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