TUDO QUE VOCÊ PRECISA SABER SOBRE A ERA VARGAS: tá longo, mas vale a pena! (Débora Aladim)

The Vargas Era (1930–1945)

Débora Aladim presents the Vargas Era as a 15-year period that reshaped Brazilian politics, industry, labor relations, education, and public health. Getúlio Vargas was a strategic, power-conscious leader whose governments combined significant reforms with authoritarian rule. The era ended in 1945, but Vargas remained politically active and later returned to the presidency.

Background and the 1930 Revolution

In the 1920s, dissatisfaction with the First Republic and the dominance of the São Paulo and Minas Gerais political elites—the “coffee with milk” arrangement—continued to grow. Labor movements, Tenentist revolts, the Prestes Column, Modernism, and the founding of the Brazilian Communist Party reflected demands for change.

Internationally, the aftermath of World War I, the 1929 economic crisis, and the rise of communist and fascist movements weakened confidence in liberal democracy.

President Washington Luís broke with the expected São Paulo–Minas Gerais political rotation by supporting another São Paulo candidate, Júlio Prestes. Opposition groups backed Getúlio Vargas, who promised political and labor reforms. Júlio Prestes won an election marked by fraud on both sides. The assassination of Vargas’s running mate, João Pessoa, was presented by the opposition as a political crime, helping justify a coup.

In 1930, military action removed Washington Luís and brought Vargas to power. This was not a popular revolution that transferred power to ordinary people or transformed Brazil’s social structure: established elites retained considerable influence.

Provisional Government (1930–1934)

Vargas sought to weaken state oligarchies and centralize authority in the federal government.

• Electoral changes: The government introduced secret voting, women’s suffrage, and electoral justice to oversee elections. Illiterate people remained excluded from voting.
• Centralization: Vargas reduced state autonomy and appointed trusted interventors—often military officers—to govern the states. Later, public-service examinations were used to reduce patronage and nepotism.
• Coffee policy: In response to the collapse in coffee prices after the 1929 crisis, the government bought and destroyed large quantities of coffee in an effort to reduce supply and support prices.
• Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932: São Paulo rebelled, demanding a constitution and a return to constitutional government. The revolt was defeated after several months, but it helped pressure Vargas to convene a constituent assembly. The four students Martins, Miragaia, Dráusio, and Camargo, remembered by the initials MMDC, became symbols of the movement.
• Constitution of 1934: The constitution established a four-year presidential term, secret voting, women’s suffrage, electoral justice, compulsory primary education, and some labor protections. Vargas was elected president indirectly by the Constituent Assembly for the first term under the new constitution.

Constitutional Government (1934–1937)

Political polarization intensified as competing ideological movements organized.

• Brazilian Integralist Action (AIB): A far-right movement inspired by European fascism. It promoted a strong, centralized state and national unity under a single leader. It was anti-communist and antisemitic, and its motto was “God, Fatherland, and Family.”
• National Liberation Alliance (ANL): An antifascist coalition that supported agrarian reform, workers’ rights, greater popular participation, and the nationalization of foreign companies.

Vargas outlawed the ANL after it gained support from communists, including Luís Carlos Prestes. In 1935, communist uprisings in several cities were harshly suppressed. Prestes was arrested, and his wife, Olga Benário, was deported to Nazi Germany while pregnant; she later died in a concentration camp.

Vargas used the uprising to declare a state of siege, expanding state power and repressing political opposition. In 1937, he relied on the fabricated Cohen Plan, which falsely claimed that communists were preparing to seize power. He used the supposed threat to justify a coup and cancel the approaching transfer of power.

Estado Novo (1937–1945)

The Estado Novo was Vargas’s dictatorship. A new constitution, commonly called the “Polish Constitution,” helped formalize the regime’s authoritarian powers.

The government could appoint state interventors, close legislatures, arrest people, censor the press, and dissolve political parties. Elections were suspended, political opposition was repressed, and unions were brought under government control. The regime promoted the name “New State” to distinguish itself from the “Old Republic,” presenting the dictatorship as a new political beginning.

The Integralist movement, despite having supported Vargas earlier, was also banned when the regime dissolved all political parties. Integralists attempted an uprising against the government, after which Vargas intensified the persecution of opponents. The Department of Press and Propaganda (DIP) censored the media and promoted Vargas’s public image.

Economic Policy and Industrialization

The video describes the Estado Novo as an alliance among the civil bureaucracy, military, and industrialists. They supported industrial development but did not seek a major restructuring of Brazilian society.

Brazil pursued import-substitution industrialization: shortages of imported goods caused by the world wars and economic crises encouraged domestic production. Vargas’s national-developmentalist approach involved state investment, loans, tariffs to protect Brazilian products, and reduced tariffs on industrial equipment.

Industrialization was intended to reduce dependence on coffee and foreign economies, strengthen national security, and expand domestic industry. The government developed major sectors such as steel and mining, including the creation of the Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN) and Companhia Vale do Rio Doce. The presenter notes that many Brazilian industries were founded during Vargas’s governments.

Labor Policy and “Laborism”

Vargas’s labor policies provided important protections for workers while limiting independent labor organization. The video emphasizes that benefits and political control operated together.

The government established labor rights later consolidated in the Consolidation of Labor Laws (CLT), including provisions concerning working hours, vacations, child labor, women’s work, and employment conditions. The minimum wage and Labor Courts were also among the government’s labor-related measures.

Vargas publicly staged announcements of workers’ rights and presented himself as the “father of the poor” and protector of workers. At the same time, the regime sought to prevent workers from organizing independently:

• Unions were placed under government supervision and linked to the Ministry of Labor.
• Only one officially recognized union was permitted for each occupational category.
• Strikes were prohibited.
• The government could supervise union meetings, elections, and finances.

This system is described as “pelego” unionism: unions appeared to represent workers but were also structured to serve state control. The video argues that labor protections helped workers materially while also helping Vargas gain popular support and restrain independent labor movements.

Education, Health, and Social Welfare

Vargas created separate ministries for Education and Health. Government programs addressed illiteracy and expanded free, secular, universal, and compulsory primary schooling. The federal university system and vocational institutions, including SENAI and SENAC, began to develop.

Public health initiatives focused on pregnant women and children, as well as on combating diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, typhoid, and leprosy. Social insurance expanded to include protections related to illness, disability, maternity, death, and workplace accidents.

World War II and the End of the Estado Novo

Vargas initially tried to maintain neutrality, despite Brazil’s commercial links with Axis countries and its cooperation with the United States. Brazil ultimately joined the Allies and sent troops to fight in Italy.

The contradiction of a Brazilian dictatorship fighting for democracy abroad strengthened domestic demands for democratization. Facing protests and pressure, Vargas began reopening political life: political parties were allowed again, political prisoners were pardoned, censorship ended, and elections were scheduled for 1945.

Queremismo was a movement supporting Vargas’s continued rule. Many workers feared they would lose labor protections if he left office. Some supporters also called for a constituent assembly, arguing that workers’ rights should be guaranteed in the constitution.

Concern that Vargas might use another coup to remain in power led to his removal shortly before the 1945 election. Eurico Gaspar Dutra won the presidency. Vargas remained active in politics, was elected senator, and returned to the presidency in 1951. His later presidency and death in 1954 fall outside the Vargas Era covered here.

Speakers and Sources Featured

• Débora Aladim — Presenter and narrator.
• Boris Fausto — Historian whose interpretation of the Estado Novo’s political and economic alliances and labor policy is cited by the presenter.
• Getúlio Vargas — Heard through or referenced in an excerpt from his 1937 radio address announcing the Estado Novo coup.