Getúlio Vargas

Getulio Vargas is a redirect to this article. For further meanings of both spellings, see Getulio Vargas (disambiguation) .

Getúlio Dornelles Vargas

Getúlio Dornelles Vargas (born April 19, 1882 in São Borja ; † August 24, 1954 ) in Rio de Janeiro was President of Brazil from 1930 to 1945 and from 1950 to 1954. Vargas ruled the country - initially dictatorially, later as elected president - as a whole For 18 years, longer than any other ruler with the exception of Emperor Peter II. Far-reaching social changes occurred during his reign. Vargas promoted nationalism (for example by obliging ethnic minorities like the German-Brazilians to speak Portuguese), industrialization ,Centralization , populism (especially in contrast to the old aristocratic elite that ruled Brazil before 1930) and the building of a welfare state . He campaigned for workers' rights and was nicknamed O Pai dos Pobres ("The Father of the Poor"), but was always a staunch anti-communist . Under his government the rule of law was weak and corruption was rampant .

Ascent

Getúlio Vargas was born into a family of politicians, studied law and worked as a lawyer for several years.

He began his career as a politician in 1907 as a member of the Congress of the State of Rio Grande do Sul . From 1922 Vargas was a member of the Brazilian National Congress, four years later Minister of Finance and in 1928 Governor of Rio Grande do Sul.

Getúlio Dornelles Vargas during the 1930 revolution

In 1930, Vargas ran against the government candidate in the presidential election and lost. After the subsequent rebellion of the “grand coalition of the discontented”, the military transferred power to Vargas on October 24, 1930, making him President of Brazil with dictatorial powers. On November 3, 1930 he took over the office. Four years later he was elected and began implementing social reforms, which earned him the nickname “father of the poor”. He had an election for a constituent assembly held on May 3, 1933, which drafted a new constitution. This came into force on July 16, 1934.

Vargas introduced important innovations in Brazil in his first years in office and had great success. Brazil's share of the world cotton market rose from 2 percent to 8.7 percent, and the number of illiterates fell from 70 percent to 56 percent.

New government

Seven years after he came to power, presidential elections were scheduled for January 1938. However, Vargas did not trust the candidates and was looking for an excuse for another coup. In September 1937 an officer was arrested who typed a so-called "Cohen Plan" in the Ministry of Defense in preparation for a communist overthrow. The plan was apparently fiction, its supposed author unknown; however, the name "Cohen" is Jewish and can be interpreted as an allusion to the Hungarian communist Béla Kun . The plan was immediately released to the public. Congress declared a state of war and gave Vargas dictatorial powers for 90 days.

On the pretext that the plan was already being distributed in the barracks, the military had the parliament shut down by the police. There was no reaction from the population; many even considered the incidents to be good because of the fictitious threat.

Vargas declared a state of emergency, banned all political organizations, dissolved Congress and proclaimed the " Estado Novo " (1937–1945) on November 10, 1937 , which he himself directed as a dictator. Under the Vargas government, power shifted from the states to the central government and from the landlords to the urban middle and lower classes.

With the state concept of the Estado Novo, Vargas was able to fundamentally change the structure of the state; he created hundreds of new institutions, which he occupied with followers and, in the interests of clientelism and corruption, relied on weakening the rule of law. In this context, his saying "For my friends everything, for my enemies the law" became known.

The relatively close economic and diplomatic cooperation with the USA during World War II prompted Brazil to declare war on Germany on August 22, 1942. He also managed to negotiate a favorable deal for Brazil's national debt with the allies of World War II, who were supported by Brazil. He tried to stimulate the economy through dirigism and import substitution . Communist uprisings (1935) and fascist integralists (1938) were put down by Vargas.

Foreign policy

The 1930 revolution that brought Vargas to power was just one of many in Latin America. Between 1930 and 1932 eleven coups took place on the continent, most of them by the military. A left slide took place in many countries. Therefore, Brazil was the USA as a bridgehead in the fight against communism. In addition, the USA has traditionally been the most important trading partner and largest investor. It is therefore not surprising that relations with the US were very good, although Vargas had de facto established a dictatorship and did not hold back with his sympathies for Mussolini and Hitler .

Germany also played an increasingly important role as a trading partner and finally ousted the USA as the most important Brazil exporter in 1938 - a quarter of all Brazil’s imports came from Germany, arms imports played a major role here. 19 percent of Brazilian exports went to Germany, 34 percent to the USA. With the outbreak of war, however, relations declined, with Brazil initially acting neutral. After the American entry into the war in December 1941 and the sinking of several ships by the Navy , the country was forced to declare war on the Axis powers as well, and in 1944 sent 40,000 soldiers to the Italian front , 454 of whom were killed.

resignation

With the return of the soldiers, the political climate in Brazil changed. Parties were allowed again and the dictator promised elections for 1945, in which he no longer wanted to stand for election. However, two successor parties emerged from the state unity party, which, due to their size and access to state resources, were to be regarded as a continuation of his policy: The Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro (PTB, Brazilian Workers' Party) emerged from circles of the Ministry of Labor and the trade unions, the Partido Social Democrático (PSD, Social Democratic Party of Brazil) emerged from the close circle of confidants of Vargas, the “interventores” , state presidents and members of the government.

The support movement Queremos Getúlio (“We want Getúlio”), which set up for the president's whereabouts, meant the rapid end of his rule: society and especially the military asked themselves how seriously the president's assurances that he would no longer stand should be taken be. The rise of Juan Perón in Argentina, who followed the example of Vargas, reinforced the fears of his opponents that the president would suspend the elections. When Vargas finally replaced the police chief in Rios with his brother, the defense minister put the troops on alert and forced Vargas to abdicate.

The subsequent elections were won by his former defense minister, Eurico Gaspar Dutra, with 55 percent of the vote. Parties other than the "governing parties" PSD and PTB had no chance of winning.

Re-election

In 1950 he was regularly re-elected as a presidential candidate for "his" parties, PTB and PSD, due to his great popularity.

Since May 20, 1953, Vargas was the first holder of the "Special Stage of the Grand Cross" of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany .

suicide

Delivery of the body of Getúlio Vargas from Rio de Janeiro for burial in São Borja, 1954 (source: National Archives ).

In 1954, Vargas ordered his long-time companion Gregório Fortunato , head of the guard at the presidential palace, to "get rid of " opposition politician Carlos Lacerda . Fortunato ambushed Lacerda, but only killed his companion, a major in the Air Force , and only slightly injured Lacerda. This was the political end for the dictator: In addition to the general turmoil caused by the attack, he had strengthened his opponent and put the air force in open rebellion. Vargas rejected demands for resignation. On August 23, he was again asked to resign in an open letter from 27 army generals , including some military friends. Without the backing of the military, Vargas lost all hope and, on the morning of August 24, committed suicide with a pistol shot in the heart.

Vargas left a letter in which he accused international and national opponents of the events and presented himself as a victim. This final populist gesture brought hundreds of thousands of his supporters to the streets, devastating opposition newspapers and the American embassy. Vice President João Café Filho took over the office and promised to hold elections on the regular date.

See also: Time table Brazil

literature

• John WF Dulles: Vargas of Brazil: A Political Biography. University of Texas Press, Austin 2012, ISBN 978-0-292-74078-5 .
• Jens R. Hentschke: Getulio Vargas. In: Nikolaus Werz (ed.): Populists, statesmen, revolutionaries. Politicians in Latin America. Vervuert, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-86527-513-4 , pp. 216-236 ( Bibliotheca Ibero-Americana 129).
• Jens Hentschke (Ed.): Vargas and Brazil: New Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan, Gordonsville 2007, ISBN 978-0-292-74078-5 .
• Daryle Williams: Culture Wars in Brazil: The First Vargas Regime, 1930-1945. Duke University Press, Durham 2001, ISBN 978-0-8223-2708-0 .
• RS Rose: One of the Forgotten Things: Getulio Vargas and Brazilian Social Control, 1930-1954. Praeger, Westport 2000, ISBN 978-0-313-31358-5 .
• Robert M. Levine: Father of the Poor? Vargas and his Era. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1998, ISBN 978-0-521-58528-6 .

Web links

Commons : Getúlio Vargas  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Getúlio Vargas in the catalog of the German National Library
• Newspaper article about Getúlio Vargas in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Ursula Prutsch: Vargas second reign 1951–54. In: Brazil 1889 - 1985 - From the First Republic to the end of the military dictatorship. Institute for History of the University of Vienna, archived from the original on July 19, 2016 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ursula Prutsch: The Revolution of 1930. In: Brazil 1889 - 1985 - From the First Republic to the end of the military dictatorship. Institute for History of the University of Vienna, archived from the original on July 19, 2016 ; accessed on May 26, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Ursula Prutsch: The Estado Novo 1937-1945. In: Brazil 1889 - 1985 - From the First Republic to the end of the military dictatorship. Institute for History of the University of Vienna, archived from the original on May 24, 2014 ; accessed on May 26, 2020 . 
3. ↑ Thomas Kestler / Silvana Krause: Brazil . in: Hans-Joachim Lauth (ed.): Political systems in comparison. Formal and informal institutions in the political process. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2014 ISBN 978-3-486-77906-6 pp. 53-88, here p. 80

predecessor	Office	successor
Júlio Prestes	President of Brazil 1930–1945	José Linhares
Eurico Gaspar Dutra	President of Brazil 1951–1954	João Café Filho