Constitutionalist Revolt (São Paulo)

In 1932 the Brazilian state of São Paulo rebelled against the central government. The seeds of this uprising were sown right after the Revolution of 1930, when the Democratic Party (PD) expected to run the state by replacing the São Paulo Republican Party (PRP). President Getúlio Vargas, however, put tenentes (army lieutenants) in control of the state and agreed with their objections to a speedy reconstitutionalization of Brazil. Leaders of São Paulo, a state accustomed to a dominant national role, became so alienated by Vargas that the PD and PRP formed the anti-Vargas, pro-constitution Frente Única Paulista (FUP), which plotted with the Rio Grande do Sul Frente Única Riograndense (FUR) to overthrow Vargas. In May 1932 Vargas promised a constitutional assembly election in 1933, and São Paulo achieved its cherished FUP state government. But in July, General Bertoldo Klinger, chosen by the plotters in April to lead the revolt, was dismissed by Vargas from his troop command in Mato Grosso, a development that, according to a FUP-FUR agreement, called for revolt. Paulistas, incited by pro-constitution, anti-Vargas oratory, were determined to overthrow Vargas and thus regain their state's dominant nationale role. So they sent troops to battle and were disappointed when the other states, especially Rio Grande do Sul and Minas Gerais, did not join the rebellion. In September, after the Paulistas retreated before superior federal forces, their state troops surrendered, to the surprise of their politicians. Vargas exiled São Paulo's leaders to Portugal, but he treated the people of São Paulo generously and implemented his plans for a constitution.

See alsoBrazil, Revolutions: Revolution of 1930xml .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Euclydes Figueiredo, Contribuição para a história da Revolução Constitucionalista de 1932 (1954).

Paulo Nogueira Filho, A guerra cívica, 1932, 4 vols. (1965–1967, 1981).

John W. F. Dulles, Vargas of Brazil (1967).

Additional Bibliography

Aggio, Alberto, Agnaldo de Sousa Barbosa, and Hercídia Mara Facuri Coelho Lambert. Política e sociedade no Brasil, 1930–1964. São Paulo, SP, Brasil: Annablume, 2002.

Levine, Robert M. Father of the Poor? Vargas and His Era. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Williams, Daryle. Culture Wars in Brazil: The First Vargas Regime, 1930–1945. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001.

                                      John W. F. Dulles