Armed Forces and Politics in Brazil, 1930–45

During the period 1930–45 important transformations took place inside the Brazilian armed forces and in their relationships with the Brazilian state and society. From a weak and poorly organized institution, and a rather marginal social and political actor, the armed forces, particularly the army, became a respected fighting force and more powerful both socially and politically. The changes affected the structure of the military institution, the conception of its political role, and the role itself; these changes can be said to be crucial for a better understanding of the nature of the military government that emerged in 1964.

The Divided Forces

One of the major consequences of the 1930 revolution that put an end to the First Republic was the catapulting of the armed forces into the center of national political life.¹ Divisions and conflicts among the various sectors of the old civilian elites made possible the establishment of the revolutionary government, which retained its power in large part by the support of that sector of the army that initially helped bring it to power.² The consolidation of the government and of the political influence of the armed forces was to be a tortuous and violent process involving repeated confrontations between rival factions inside and outside the military establishment.

Victory had found the military divided: there were conflicts between revolutionary and legalist officers, between junior and senior officers, between commissioned and noncommissioned officers; and the traditional rivalry between the army and the navy, and between the army and the police forces of the several states, remained. Table I shows the number of military incidents that occurred and grew out of the conflicts, including protests, conspiracies, mutinies, and open rebellions. The overwhelming majority of the incidents, around 80 percent, were the responsibility of army personnel, the navy and the police forces being involved in only a few.

The figures are eloquent and reveal a badly divided and undisciplined military establishment. They also show a drastic drop in the number of incidents between 1940 and 1945. This indicates, as we will see, that one faction within the army was able to establish its hegemony and restore discipline to the institution.³

The political involvement of generals was not a new phenomenon in Brazilian history; it had been significant at the beginning of the First Republic. General Hermes da Fonseca had been elected president of the republic in 1910 despite the well-organized civilista campaign of his opponent, Rui Barbosa. After 1930, political involvement of the armed forces assumed increased importance because of the general lack of discipline within the various branches and the overall instability that followed the victory of the rebellious elements. Given the circumstances, many ambitious generals sensed that the road to key military positions, or even to the presidency, had been cleared and they participated in several conspiracies among themselves and with civilian leaders. Almost all the leading generals of the era were said to be involved in such conspiracies for one reason or another. Some of them led the rebellion of 1932 in São Paulo that became a full-scale civil war. Conspiracies proliferated in 1934, when a new president was scheduled to be elected by Congress, and again in 1935 when Congress hesitated in voting a pay raise for the military. In each of these cases the political climate was not favorable, and the movements failed. In 1937 and 1945, however, one group of generals was able to muster enough support to intervene successfully, first in joining Vargas’s political maneuvers, and subsequently in opposing them.

Junior officers, captains and lieutenants, also had been politically active since 1922, not to mention earlier, in the overthrow of the empire. Most of those involved in the 1922 and 1924 rebellions, some of whom had not returned to duty, had joined the successful 1930 movement and, after victory, were major supporters of social and political reforms. In 1931 a Pacto de Honra (Pact of Honor) was agreed upon by revolutionary young officers, including hundreds who had been expelled during the 1920s and readmitted into the armed forces during and after the 1930 rebellion, with the purpose of strengthening the new government.⁴ Also in 1931 a self-appointed Revolutionary Committee, established in Rio, issued a Proclamação ao Exército (Proclamation to the Army) in an effort to rally junior officers behind a reform program.⁵

This type of political mobilization aroused higher ranking officers, who saw it as a threat to hierarchy and a distortion of the proper role of the army. It also antagonized those junior officers who had not joined the revolutionary movement and who felt their careers jeopardized by the readmission of those expelled during the 1920s.⁶ This combined reaction materialized in a movement called União da Classe Militar (Unity of the Military Class), organized in 1931 with the open support of a group of generals, whose major goal was to rally the officers behind their hierarchical commanders and to oppose the political involvement of the military.⁷ As a consequence of this reaction, the reformist officers were forced to take their political action outside the institutionalized forces into the broader political arena. The Clube 3 de Outubro (Third of October Club), organized in 1931, represented the major instrument of the new strategy. Among its military members, the overwhelming majority (85 percent) was made up of captains and lieutenants. The Clube had its drawbacks: it invited opposition from the civilian elites and was inefficient as an instrument of military mobilization.⁸

Less visible, but no less serious from the point of view of the armed forces, were the conflicts involving noncommissioned officers, particularly sergeants. Largely overlooked in the literature, the role of NCOs was nevertheless very important in all movements of junior officers, including the 1930 revolution.⁹ In addition, NCOs frequently took the initiative in revolutionary movements involving small army units. Such revolts occurred in 1931, when sergeants and enlisted men seized control of the 25th Infantry Battalion of Teresina and of the 21st Battalion of Recife, and in 1932 with the 18th IB of Campo Grande. In Teresina, the rebels went so far as to overthrow the interim governor and name a corporal to replace him.¹⁰ Plans for a major revolt led by sergeants developed in Sao Paulo between 1933 and 1934. Its leader called himself the Fulgencio Batista of Brazil, referring to the sergeant who had just come to power in Cuba in the wake of a revolt of petty officers.¹¹ The most radical formulation of the sergeants’ cause can be found in an undated manifesto (probably of 1933), which argued that the NCOs were drawn from the proletariat and that it was, therefore, their duty to rise in arms against the bourgeoisie.¹² The reaction of commissioned officers to such movements was invariably sharp, and punishment was harsh.¹³

The army was thus divided both horizontally and vertically. The horizontal division set apart officers from NCOs and enlisted men; the vertical separated interventionist and reformist elements from those who opposed military involvement in politics and who were also, in general, conservative. The first was a structural cleavage, derived from the model of military organization adopted in Brazil and it could not be eliminated without the complete reformulation of the model, although some of its negative effects could be minimized by palliative measures. The second was ideological in nature and had to do with different conceptions of the proper role of the military in the political system. Three basic conceptions were at play, although not always clearly formulated by their advocates. They may be summarized as follows.

The first view reflected the traditional professional orientation developed within European armies and introduced in Brazil by a small group of officers who had been sent to Germany during the first decade of the century and, particularly, by the French Military Mission in Brazil beginning in 1920. It was a creation of liberal democracies that had evolved out of strong absolutist states. The bourgeois hegemony that had matured in those societies made possible, and even invited, an army concerned mostly with external defense and isolated from internal politics: la grande muette, as the French called it. This was the position of a good part of the officer corps, certainly of those who had not joined the 1930 movement. The clearest expression of this view, which we will call professionalism, can be found in the manifesto made public by the União da Classe Militar. One of the inspirers of this movement was B. Klinger, a German-trained general. Even Góes Monteiro, the military commander of the 1930 revolution, had held this view at one time. Reflecting the influence of his French instructors, he had written in 1925: “Nas lutas políticas, o Exército não deve passar do grande mudo […]. Sua verdadeira e única política é a preparação para a guerra” (Góes’s emphasis).¹⁴

The second conception may be referred to as reformist interventionism. It had its historical roots in the positivist influence among army officers that dated back to the second half of the nineteenth century. The rebellious young officers (tenentes) of the 1920s had absorbed this tradition, and they were joined by some of the old-time positivist officers who remained active until the 1930s.¹⁵ Its basic ideas can be found in the Proclamation to the Army issued in 1931. The Proclamation called for an extensive program of political, social, and economic reforms, including, among others, an agrarian reform, minimum-wage and strike legislation, and the development of a national steel industry. It also called for an increase in the size of the army and proposed that the states’ police forces be merged with it. Nations like Brazil, concluded the Proclamation, needed the tutelage of the army, the best organized and least depraved elite in the country.¹⁶ The most forceful formulation of this view of the role of the armed forces was expressed by a cadet in 1931: “The army,” he said, “is the vanguard of the people.”¹⁷

The third view was shared by radical elements both in the officer corps and among the NCOs. In its more elaborate form, it reflected the influence of the Communist party, whose prestige among the military greatly increased after former army captain Luís Carlos Prestes joined the party in 1931. This group called for a popular army such as had developed during the fighting stages of the Russian and the Chinese revolutions. In 1931 Prestes himself would call upon soldiers and sailors to turn their weapons upon their officers who were, according to him, “the lackeys of the bourgeoisie.”¹⁸ After the defeat of the 1935 rebellions, the Communist party and its front organization, the Aliança Nacional Libertadora (ANL—National Liberation Alliance), gave particular attention to the formation of a popular revolutionary militia. This option called for a complete change in the military structure and hierarchy and for a radically different conception of the role of the armed forces based on the alliance of soldiers, workers, and peasants.¹⁹

Given the political circumstances of the time, the first and last conceptions were unrealistic. In a time of political turmoil, of realignment of social and political forces, the military could not possibly avoid involvement with politics, particularly after being in good part responsible for initiating the changes. Many of the so-called professionals found themselves leading protests and rebellions in contradiction of their proclaimed views. As we have seen, the military leader of the revolution, Góes Monteiro, had been, as late as 1925, a believer in professionalism. Another outspoken professional, B. Klinger, ended up as military commander of the 1932 Paulista civil war. Those advocating a popular army had their problems: such an army would be very difficult to organize. For one thing, the most aggressive sectors of the working class had a long tradition of antimilitarism attributable to anarchist influences going back to the beginning of the century. For another, the NCOs and enlisted men, not to mention the officers, were much too oriented toward their own organization, as a result of repeated reenlistments, to be able to mobilize workers and peasants effectively. The reformist interventionist group, meanwhile, was caught on the horns of a dilemma: to implement its reforms it had to gain control of the military organization; but by trying to do so, it could not fail to disrupt the hierarchy, which in turn could not fail to reduce the power of the organization and its capacity to intervene successfully in the political arena.

Out of this deadlock a fourth conception slowly took shape, and it came to full realization in 1937 with the Estado Novo. For the lack of a better expression, we will call it conservative interventionism. It came about by virtue of an alliance of the military reformists and those in the armed forces who considered themselves professionals. The latter accepted interventionism, provided it was done under the control of the hierarchy; the former accepted hierarchical control, provided the hierarchy agreed to intervention. The hybrid that resulted was certainly hierarchical and interventionist, but hardly reformist. We will see below some of the major changes implemented by the coalition that managed to win control over rival factions.²⁰

The Opening of Society to the Army

One point on which almost all the military could agree was the strengthening of the military organization itself in terms of size, improved weaponry, an increased share of the federal budget, control of the states’ police forces, and so forth. The basic aspect of military power, almost a sine qua non for the rest, one for which the army had been fighting for almost a century, however, was the implementation of an effective universal draft system. While in Europe the democratization of the absolutist state required the broadening of the recruitment base of the officer corps to include the bourgeoisie, in Brazil the consolidation of the power of the army required the opening of society to its penetration and this could only be achieved through an effective universal draft system.

The relationship between modern armies and society can be described as backward and forward linkages, to borrow the well-known concepts formulated by Albert O. Hirschman. The first indicates the inflow of people from society into the army, the second the outflow of people from the army into society. In the early 1930s both linkages were weak and the Brazilian army was very much isolated from important sectors of society. Despite the introduction of a universal draft system in 1916, the backward linkage produced an army whose enlisted men were drawn exclusively, mostly through coercion, from the more disadvantaged sectors of the population. The NCOs came from the ranks and officers were recruited from the lower middle sectors. Despite a long struggle, intensified after the return of the German-trained officers and after Olavo Bilac’s campaign during the First World War, the army was still basically unable to force into the enlisted ranks the sons of the middle and upper classes. The opposition, both disguised and open, of the civilian elites had always been effective in preventing the implementation of a universal draft, to the dismay of army chiefs, who envied the Argentine success on this matter, achieved as early as 1911.²¹

Forward linkage was almost unknown. Despite some small changes that had taken place since 1916, the army was still almost totally professionalized, from officers to enlisted men. The only way to leave the service, not only for officers, but also for NCOs and for most enlisted men, was either by expulsion or by completing twenty-five to thirty years of service. There was no training of reserve officers and very little of enlisted men. As a consequence, the mobilization capacity was close to nonexistent, making the armed forces in general, and the army in particular, an ineffective instrument of national defense. The isolation also crippled the social and political power of the military establishment to the extent that it prevented it from influencing important sectors of the population in ways favorable to the armed forces and national defense.

At the end of the Estado Novo, in 1945, this picture had changed substantially. Several punitive measures had been introduced in the period (they were consolidated in the 1939 draft law) seeking to prevent the time-honored national practice of draft dodging. A certificate of military service was required of all candidates applying for public office and of all prospective voters; penalties were introduced to punish draft dodgers and fees were imposed on those from whom service was not required. Góes Monteiro, when minister of war in 1934, went so far as to try to extend the draft to women.²² In addition, new mechanisms had been either revitalized or re-created to provide military training. Such were, for instance, the Tiros de Guerra, which were given new life, and the many Escolas de Instruçãn Militar, devised to provide initial military training to high school students. In 1939, close to 500 Tiros and Escolas were active in the country.²³ Improvements in the quality of life within the barracks and in the military school system had also made the career of NCOs more attractive to members of the petty bourgeoisie. Graduates of preparatory schools who were not able to enter the Military Academy were admitted into the army as sergeants, improving substantially the educational level of this particular group. The new visibility and increased political importance of the military positively affected the image of the military as a career among members of the middle and upper classes. These began to consider it a possible alternative to the traditional degrees in law, medicine, and engineering, as is shown by Alfred Stepan’s data on the social origin of cadets in the early 1940s. Coercion was also applied here, however, and a reserve officer training program was introduced and imposed on all male university students, thus forcing the sons of the upper classes into military service for the first time.²⁴

By 1945 the military organization was connected to society by several strong backward and forward linkages. The draft reached all sectors of the population, although admittedly still not on an equal basis. Thousands of citizens annually moved in and out of the army. The enlisted men had been completely deprofessionalized and efforts had also been made to enlist NCOs on a temporary basis.²⁵ It was a substantial departure from being an isolated institution at the beginning of the decade. A national army had emerged, based on a professional officer corps, capable of penetrating all strata of the population and of mobilizing an increasing number of trained reserves.

There was, to be sure, a clear military objective in this transformation. Under the intellectual influence of the German-trained officers and of the French Mission, and particularly because of the example provided by the First World War, military leaders had become convinced that modern wars were waged not between armies, but between nations: they were total wars, as it became fashionable to say. The capacity for mobilizing the whole nation was clearly seen as a requirement of modern warfare. The example of Argentina, Brazil’s most likely enemy according to the strategic doctrine of the time, was frequently mentioned to stress further the military importance of the changes that were being implemented.

The political connotations were no less relevant. In 1930 the army was placed at the center of national power and it presented itself as the incarnation of national interests, above regional and partisan factionalism. Given its isolation, however, it could not have any significant impact on the population, not only in terms of military preparedness, of the discipline of the bodies, as Foucault would put it, but also of the discipline of the minds. The latter was crucial because it was to some vices of the mind, as they were called, such as aversion to discipline, pacifism, and liberalism, that the military attributed the lack of concern for national defense among the elite and the dislike of military service among the population in general.²⁶ Hence the importance of the struggle for the minds, not only in terms of fighting communist programs, but also of infusing new values and beliefs seen as more compatible with the requirements of national defense, such as nationalism, the inevitability of war, the importance of military preparation, and the need for a strong government capable of promoting national security and progress. The new linkages that were created made possible the implementation of this effort, particularly through the teaching of morals and civics to thousands of Brazilians who were now every year brought into contact with the army. With some exaggeration, the new situation was aptly described by the title of an article published in 1941 in A Defesa Nacional, which read: “The Nation Today is an Immense Barrack.” It bears noticing that the author of the article was a noted Paulista poet, Menotti del Picchia.

The Closing of the Army to Society

One possible consequence of opening society to the army was, though, to open the army to society, to make it more susceptible to external influences. This consequence was acceptable to some reformist elements, but it was unacceptable to the professional group and to the officer corps in general, and considered detrimental to the integrity of the organization. In fact, the introduction into the armed forces of external cleavages, of political factionalism, was seen by many as a major obstacle to building a strong, disciplined, and efficient military apparatus.²⁷ The power of the army as a political actor was also threatened by internal divisions.

Therefore, a parallel effort was made by the victorious coalition to close the army to society, that is, to prevent it from being contaminated by external conflicts. And since the only real professional group was now the officer corps, attention was concentrated on its recruitment and training. One set of measures sought to underline the separation between officers and NCOs. A decree of 1934 forbade giving sergeants acting commissions as second lieutenants, a widespread practice during the rebellions of the 1920s, continued until the Paulista war of 1932; in addition, the promotion regulations of 1937 eliminated the possibility of permanent commissions for petty officers.²⁸

The most important initiatives were directed toward the recruitment process of the Military Academy. First, access to the Academy was limited to candidates coming from military schools, preparatory courses, or the ranks. Next, several restrictions were introduced regarding candidates for all military schools, particularly for the Academy. The instructions for the entrance examination to the latter for the year of 1942 included restrictions relating to race, religion, family background, and ideology. These restrictions were also in force for candidates applying to the military schools and preparatory courses.²⁹ In practice, this meant the exclusion from the officer corps of Jews, Blacks, sons of immigrants or of unmarried parents, and of candidates whose parents were suspected of having undesirable political views.³⁰ Part of this discrimination, particularly that against Jews and Blacks, can be attributed to the prevailing atmosphere of the time, strongly influenced by Nazi propaganda. It is significant, however, that the instructions for 1947, two years after the end of the war and of the Estado Novo, still retained most of the limitations listed above.³¹

Inside the military schools, the training itself began to give paramount importance to ideological indoctrination. A report written by an army captain in 1934, at the request of Minister of War Góes Monteiro, recommended strong emphasis on ideological preparation as the very essence of the social policy of a modern army. This preparation was necessary, according to the captain, to face the parallel effort of communism, and in its implementation there should be no hesitancy in following the communists’ own methods. In terms of practical measures, he suggested the teaching of morals and civics to enlisted men, of social economy to NCOs, and of sociology, of all things, to cadets. Several of his suggestions were implemented.³²

On the negative side, legislation meant to forbid military involvement in partisan politics was introduced. Participation had been intense during the first years after 1930, when the Clube 3 de Outubro and the military interventors (there were forty of them in seventeen states between 1930 and 1938) acted as a true pressure group, to the irritation of other officers and especially of the civilian political elite. Góes Monteiro first attempted to change this situation in 1933 when he was a member of a committee in charge of drafting the new constitution. He proposed, and the committee seconded, measures that amounted to an almost complete elimination of political participation by the military, including the right to vote. The Constituent Assembly, however, which had among its members twenty military men, defeated the proposals and went even further than the 1891 constitution by extending the right to vote to NCOs for the first time.³³

The communist-oriented uprisings of 1935, though, provided an excuse for the introduction of drastic measures. Some of them, such as making officers’ commissions revocable by decree, which was introduced in 1935 by Constitutional Amendment no. 2, were so strong that even Góes Monteiro opposed them as a potential factor of demoralization of the officer corps.³⁴ The Estado Novo constitution of 1937 eliminated this point, but included the 1933 suggestion to disenfranchise all the military. This was the culmination of the attempt to isolate the army from external influences in order to transform it not only into an efficient fighting machine, but also into a powerful political actor. The implementation of this policy was the result of a long struggle, which ended in the final victory of a military faction over its opponents. To this political struggle we now turn.

The Struggle for Hegemony

The process of moving from the situation of deep fragmentation described above to one of unified leadership in 1937 involved two basics— the displacement of the pre-1930 high command, and the purge of the more active, or vocal, elements of the opposition. Given the hierarchical nature of the military organization, the control of the top command positions at the level of general officer was a crucial step to control the organization as a whole. In this respect, the position of the revolutionaries was a very precarious one in 1930. The revolution was made under the military leadership of a lieutenant colonel and did not have the support of a single general on active duty. Góes Monteiro had to be awarded three promotions in a little over a year to make it possible for the group to have one of its members in the highest post by the end of 1932, and qualified to be appointed minister of war or army chief of staff.

If it was possible to promote new generals, it was much more difficult, following the normal procedures, to exclude from the army the generals promoted by the previous governments, many of whom were far from sympathetic to the new rulers. The opportunity to do so was provided by the 1932 revolt that took place in São Paulo with the support of many high-ranking officers. After a difficult victory, the government took advantage of the situation to remove disgruntled officers. In that same year 48 officers, including 7 generals, were sent into exile; in addition, 460 other officers were forced into retirement. The total number of expulsions amounted to 10 percent of the officer corps.³⁵ Many were granted an anmesty two years later, but few of the higher-ranking officers returned to active duty. With the help of the revolt, the government was able to change completely the army high command. By the end of 1933, thirty-six of the army’s forty generals had been named to their current ranks by the new government. From this group, especially from those promoted after the 1932 revolt for their loyalty, came the bulk of the military leadership until 1945.

This leadership consolidated around Góes Monteiro and Eurico Dutra, the former being the major formulator of the military policy of the time, the latter its major executor. The two monopolized the highest military posts after 1937—Góes Monteiro was army chief of staff from 1937 to 1943 and Eurico Dutra was minister of war from 1936 to 1945, when he resigned to run for the presidency and was replaced by Góes Monteiro.³⁶ The only major conflict among the members of this new leadership took place in 1937 when the Ação Integralista Brasileira (AIB), a para-fascist political organization, was closed down by the Estado Novo. There was protest from several generals, ten of whom were forced into retirement. The fact that this purge could be carried out without trauma indicates that the hegemony of the group was by then well established.

A further opportunity to eliminate dissident elements was provided by the communist-oriented rebellions of 1935 and by the attempted Integralista putsch of 1938. At least 107 officers and 1,136 noncommissioned officers and soldiers were expelled from the army between 1935 and 1936 (the 1938 purge was primarily directed toward the navy where the Integralistas enjoyed strong support).³⁷ And it must be added that exclusion from the army was only the tip of the iceberg. Many other less drastic forms of punishment were used that frequently resulted in irrevocable harm to an officer’s career, such as imprisonment, transfer, or reprimand. An indication of an increase in such punitive measures was the number of appeals to the Supreme Military Court, which rose from 239 in 1934 to 824 in 1935 and to 910 in 1938. The number of convictions by this court also grew from 139 to 369 and to 616 in the same years.³⁸ Testimony of officers who lived through this period reflects a general atmosphere of fear, mostly after 1935, when a stiff National Security Law was passed, complemented by the establishment of a National Security Court in 1936, and of special committees to investigate the political activities of radical groups.³⁹ Some of these groups, such as the National Liberation Alliance and the Ação Integralista Brasileira, had strong military participation and were the promoters of the 1935 and 1938 revolts. The ANL was closed down in 1935 and the AIB in 1938, and many of their military members were brought before the National Security Court.⁴⁰

Fierce political infighting and coercion, thus, accompanied the formation of the new hegemonic group within the armed forces, particularly within the army. Before going into the political project of this group and the relationships between its emergence and the overall political picture, it will be useful to identify other measures taken to strengthen the power of the military organization in its more specific goal of achieving a monopoly over the physical means of coercion.

The Growth of Military Power

The changes in recruitment patterns, training, and promotion systems were only part of the project to consolidate the military and political power of the armed forces. A necessary complement was the increase in personnel and the improvement of matériel, both dependent on a greater share of the national budget being allocated to national defense. Again, the struggle for these goals, on the part of both the army and the navy, had been going on for years. Since imperial times, the ministerial Relatórios refer to the complaints regarding what the military believed to be a lack of understanding on the part of the civilian political elites of the needs of national defense. After 1930, with the increased political leverage by the armed forces, the demands did not fall on deaf ears. The results in terms of size of the army are shown in Table II.

Despite the difficulties in finding reliable data (the Relatórios of the minister of war stopped giving them), Table II, it is believed, represents near reality. If we exclude the year 1944 because of its exceptional nature—Brazil had actively joined in the war effort—it is clear that the size of the army doubled between 1930 and 1940, with major expansions in 1932 and after the establishment of the Estado Novo. The extent of the change is made even more vivid if we take into account the large number of reserve officers and enlisted men being trained. It has been calculated, for example, that only 51 percent of the lieutenants sent to Italy with the Brazilian Expeditionary Force came from the ranks of the professional military; the remaining 49 percent were recruited from the reserve officer corps.⁴¹

Another indication of the significance of the change is that the size of the state police forces increased by only 28 percent between 1933 and 1942 (from 38,213 to 48,812). Most of this increase took place before 1937. After the Estado Novo was proclaimed, their size stabilized and other measures were taken to assure the supremacy of the federal army, such as placing the military police forces under the control of the ministry of war and forbidding them the use of heavy weapons. This was a turning point in the republican history of the country. Before 1930 in several important states, for example, São Paulo and Minas Gerais, the military police was a force of equal, if not greater, strength than the local garrisons of the federal army. This situation was utterly unacceptable to the latter, and its leaders had long been asking that it be changed. Now, for the first time, and irreversibly, the army had attained complete supremacy over the nation’s coercive apparatus.⁴²

The material means to make the change possible had to come for the most part from the federal budget. The evolution of the military expenditures during the period is shown in Table III.

The data in Table III indicate a 16 percent increase in the military expenditures, with peaks in 1932, due to the civil war; in 1937, when the navy was especially rewarded; and in 1942, with the creation of the air force. And it must be added that the real expenditures for the war years were much higher, since Table III does not include resources provided by the Lend-Lease Bill, which in 1942 were set at United States $200 million and were earmarked for the purchase of weapons and equipment at 35 percent of the real value.⁴³ The Força Expedicionária Brasileira (FEB) was also armed and equipped by the United States Fifth Army at an approximate cost of United States $20 million, fully borne by the United States. After the war, the sale of American weapons continued under the special provisions of the War Surplus Plan.⁴⁴

One revealing aspect of the military budget is that a sizeable share of the allocations, sometimes more than 50 percent, was made under special provisions that protected it from the scrutiny of Congress.⁴⁵ This secrecy indicates the continuing suspicion within the military about the willingness of civilian politicians to increase defense expenditures. That the suspicion was somewhat justified became clear in 1935 when the government sent to Congress a project drafted by the ministers of war and navy raising the salaries of military personnel. There was a heated debate that spilled over into the press and aroused popular opposition. The reaction of the military was also very strong. The minister of war threatened to resign and there was even talk of a possible military coup. Congress finally passed a compromise bill that also increased the salaries of the civil servants, but the president vetoed this addition.⁴⁶

The incident was important not only because it revealed the continuing reluctance of politicians to accept increases in military expenditures, but also because it showed a disagreement among the generals themselves regarding the radical position of Minister of War Góes Monteiro. Some accused Monteiro of having caudillistic tendencies; civilian leaders with presidential ambitions concurred, including Governor of Rio Grande do Sul Flores da Cunha. Presidential elections were scheduled for 1937, and it was in the interest of Flores to avoid a military coup, particularly one led by Góes, whose ideas on the need to strengthen the federal government and curtail the power of the states were well known. Flores finally managed to have Góes removed from the Ministry, prompting his angry remarks on the “devilish political plans” against the armed forces, and on the “machinations against the existence of the army.”⁴⁷ The conflict further convinced Góes Monteiro and his close associates of the great difficulty that lay in the way of preventing politics from dividing the army. Isolation of the organization was possible only up to a point. As long as regional, social, and political cleavages continued to divide society, the armed forces could not be safe from contamination. That is, politics would continue to be practiced inside the army, preventing the implementation of the politics of the army, according to Góes Monteiro’s own formula coined at the beginning of the decade.⁴⁸

The Estado Novo, by eliminating party politics in society, would allow the army chiefs to eliminate it also from the armed forces while simultaneously implementing the politics as well as policies of the army. In regard to the military organization itself, the goal was to strengthen its power by increasing its resources, reforming its structure, and enhancing its professional capability. The substantial increase in budgetary allocation both for the army and for the navy in 1937 and 1938 is a clear indication of the sort of bargaining that was behind the establishment of the new regime. The report of the minister of war in 1940 reveals how the resources were used: all the basic regulations of the army (recruitment, training, promotion, and so forth) had been reformulated; new schools and barracks had been built; new army corps had been created; new equipment and weapons had been procured, either by buying them abroad, or by inducing national industries to manufacture them.⁴⁹ The policy had the full support of the more professionally oriented officers, even when in disagreement with the general political orientations of the regime. A good illustration here is the case of General Leitão de Carvalho, a member of the German-trained group and a political liberal. As commander of the 3rd Military Region, he was able to fulfill his professional dream of dedicating a full year to the training of his troops, without any interruption caused by political disturbances, and to culminate it by the remarkable planning and execution of impressive maneuvers attended by President Vargas. In his address celebrating the conclusion of the maneuvers, Leitão de Carvalho credited the event to the “establishment of a regime of political peace and of real concern for the armed forces. ”⁵⁰

It was a perfect example of the coalition between professionals and interventionists. Political intervention by the institution as such, under the control of the hierarchy, was accepted by the professionals insofar as it could be beneficial to the specific interests of the military establishment. By enhancing these interests, the interventionists were also improving their control over society and polity, to which we now turn.

The Armed Forces and National Politics

If the transformations of the military establishment had behind them some sort of internal logic, it is no less true that they were also part of a larger picture encompassing the whole fabric of Brazilian society. It is important consequently to broaden our analytical perspective to include this larger picture and its relationship to the question of the political role of the armed forces.

Soon after the rebel victory of 1930, civilian leaders pondered the wisdom of their decision to accept the partnership of the military. The most influential among these leaders, Osvaldo Aranha, sensed immediately the danger of a military dictatorship and sought to organize civilian political groups called “legions” to counteract it. The prestigious leader of Rio Grande do Sul, Borges de Medeiros, also feared the “sinister specter of militarism” haunting the country.⁵¹ It was not only the prospect of a military government in itself that bothered Aranha. It was also, and primarily, the political orientation of the military group that was supporting the new government: “The militaristic tendency … took a new direction, much worse, letting itself become contaminated by leftism and even communism! Look at Luís Carlos Prestes. In this way the army, without unity and wounded by a lack of discipline instead, threatens to become a danger, not to the present order of things but to the fundamental institutions of the national organism” (Aranha’s emphasis).⁵²

As if answering Aranha’s charges, the Proclamação ao Exército launched a strong attack on the civilian politicians, especially those of Rio Grande do Sul and Minas Gerais, and called for social reforms, such as the division of latifundia, costly to the interests of the dominant agrarian groups. According to the Proclamação, the “legions” proposed by Aranha were nothing less than fascist devices against freedom and against the army.⁵³ At that same moment, Prestes called on the soldiers to stage a radical revolution.

Aranha’s view and that of the Revolutionary Committee under Juarez Távora’s leadership pointed to some basic contradictions that were at the center of the national political life. The armed forces as an institution had interests that conflicted with those of the civilian elites as a politically dominant class; these interests called for changes in the regime to allow for greater centralization of the political system, less power to the regional oligarchies, control of the military police forces by the army, greater state intervention in the economy, and so forth. The leftist sectors of the armed forces, on the other side, had a reform program that challenged the interests of the civilian elites as a socially dominant class and, potentially, that of the state itself. If the political elites disliked the former, they feared the latter. Out of these conflicts, the solution finally reached in 1937 began slowly to evolve.

The initial difficulty was that both sides, the armed forces and civilian elites, were divided to the point that neither could present a unified front. We have discussed the fragmentation of the former; the latter were in no better shape, since the revolution itself was in part a product of the antagonism among the strongest states of the federation, and the military defeat of the economically most powerful among them (São Paulo) only increased the animosity. The first and more serious attempt at a coalition against the winners of 1930 took place in 1932, when the Paulista leaders managed to sort out their internal differences and, with the support of dissident politicians from other states and of a sector of the armed forces, set in motion a military movement against the federal government. Their major demands were a return to a constitutional form of government, on the civilian side, and the restoration of discipline and hierarchy on the military side. It was an attack on the new regime and an attempt to go back to the power arrangement that had prevailed before the revolution. The revolt stood a good chance of success, and it probably would have achieved it were it not for last-minute defections of some important allies, especially among the civilian leaders in Rio Grande do Sul.⁵⁴

As it turned out, the results of this first round of the struggle were mixed. The federal focus had won a military victory, but felt that it was a close call and decided to speed up the process of returning the republic to a constitutional government, in accord with the demands of the rebels; at the same time it began to curtail the power of the more reformist-oriented military that had provided some of its major support. As far as the army was concerned, we have seen that the movement gave its leaders an opportunity to revamp the high command and to purge opposition elements, in addition to being an excuse to press the government for a greater share of the federal budget.⁵⁵ This further increased its political leverage in national life; the still divided political elites began to realize that there was no turning back to the decentralized regime of the Old Republic when bargaining among major states was the secret to political stability. The inability of the political elites of the states to reconstruct civilian hegemony at the national level also opened the way to a greater role for the central government and for the central state in general, of which the armed forces were now a major component.

The normalization of political life with the promulgation of the 1934 Constitution was accompanied by an upsurge of political mobilization unheard of in the history of the country. On the right, the AIB, inspired by European fascism, developed a strong program of mobilization and organization; to the left, the ANL did the same. Both movements, but more so the latter than the former, were unwelcome to the political elites, because the appeal to popular mobilization was seriously threatening to their traditional control of the population. The AIB also stressed political centralization and a strong role for the national state, which was not in the interest of the old elites either. The picture was further complicated by the fact that both movements had substantial backing within the armed forces, the AIB within the navy, the ANL within the army. The position of the military hierarchy regarding the AIB was sympathetic, since there was agreement with several of its demands, not to mention their common concern with waging war against communism. What the military chiefs did not like was the mobilizing aspect of the AIB, and the fact that it tended to create a problem of multiple loyalties among its military members; they totally rejected the ANL since it tended to destroy the hierarchical backbone of the military organization and threatened to lead the country into a major social conflict.

The expansion of the political arena and polarization of political forces were favored also by the international struggles that were going on and set the stage for a new round in the internal power game. This happened in 1935 when the government ordered the closing down of the ANL, thereby pushing its military members to a desperate attempt at military rebellion a few months later. The reaction was immediate and drastic. The army, as noted above, used the event to purge its ranks further and, in the process, promoted the growth of a civic cult around the victims of the rebellion. More important, under pressure from the military chiefs, the government was able to get Congress to pass the severe punitive legislation already mentioned and to approve the declaration of a state of siege.⁵⁶ The fear of social commotion had overcome the major disagreements among the various sectors of the elite, leading them to support for the first time, albeit grudgingly, the demands of the increasingly unified and powerful military. The question of the political regime and the form of government, which was dominant in 1932, began to give way to the more serious problem of the social basis of state power, that is, of class conflict. The civilian elite thus showed its willingness to compromise on the first to avoid possible threats to the social order.

The presidential campaign of 1937 provided the scenario for the last round. One of the candidates, José Américo de Almeida, initially supported by the government, gave to his campaign a popular flavor that was disturbing to government and elites alike: “By trying to please directly the popular classes,” one observer noted, “he created a situation of general alarm.” Another observer pointed out that the new presidential campaign was different from the one before 1930. “This time,” he wrote, “the social question is at the center. Social question means revolution. This is going to become a Spain.”⁵⁷ This alleged threat to social order was skillfully manipulated by Vargas and the armed forces: the latter gave publicity to a forged document that supposedly represented a communist plan to take over the government. In this tense political climate, and facing an uncertain outcome in the presidential elections, civilian leaders began to accept a breach in the constitutional life of the country. Those who resisted, like Governor of Rio Grande do Sul Flores da Cunha (who went so far as to mobilize paramilitary troops in the style of the First Republic), were forced to resign.⁵⁸ The purged and unified army was now seen as a bulwark of social order, having come a long way from the early 1930s when it was seen as a threat to society. Even the governor of São Paulo, the powerful state that had always been at odds with the 1930 revolutionaries and whose former governor was a candidate in the presidential elections, came to accept the change in the regime.⁵⁹

And so, with the additional help of the authoritarian winds blowing from abroad and internally reinforced by the Integralistas, as well as the perception of an impending major international conflict, the Estado Novo dictatorship was established in November 1937, under the guarantee and supervision of the armed forces. Congress was dissolved, political parties and political organizations banned (the AIB was closed in 1938), and a new constitution imposed on the country. From the point of view of the hegemonic faction in the armed forces, the effort to eliminate politics from within the organization was now completed with the suppression of one of its major sources—politics outside the organization. And, true enough, as Table I shows, there was a drastic reduction in military incidents during the Estado Novo, allowing the armed forces to engage in a vast plan of expansion and improvement.

The idea of the army as a politically neutral institution had completely disappeared, but so had its conception as an instrument of social reform, as the “vanguard of the people.” Instead, the ideology of conservative interventionism presented the army as an essential part of the state and an instrument of its policies. Azevedo Amaral, the major ideologue of the Estado Novo, formulated the new conception with his usual straightforwardness: “the essence of the regime involves the concept of the militarization of the state … and the army […] coexists with the very structure of the state, of which it constitutes the dynamic element of affirmation and defense.” Again: “State and nation constitute one unity completed by the perfect integration of the armed classes in the political organization as the executive force of the will of the state.”⁶⁰ That is, the army was now seen not as the vanguard of the people, but as the vanguard of the state.

As such, its policy went much beyond the promotion of its institutional interests. Góes Monteiro in 1934 had sent a document to Vargas in which he had drafted the major lines of a vast plan of national reconstruction. The document certainly called for the formulation of a policy of national defense and for the strengthening of the nation’s military capabilities. It also contained a strong criticism of the political situation, characterized by “moribund liberalism,” individualism, and regional cleavages; and of the economic situation that allowed for the existence of impoverished and ignorant masses together with exploitative elites and external domination. It complained that “there is not a truly national policy, devised to bring about a well-defined and clear national destiny.” In terms of specific policies, the document listed a long series of economic and political measures, including the promotion of national industry, particularly the steel industry; union organization; regulation of the press; development of civic and physical education; emphasis on national integration; regulation of economic life; and, finally, reform of the state apparatus. And it ended by observing that in countries like Brazil, “a well-organized army is the most powerful instrument the government has to educate the people, consolidate the national spirit, and neutralize the corrosive tendencies introduced by immigration” (emphases are Góes Monteiro’s).⁶¹

The Estado Novo’s official policy was consistent with these guidelines. Two days before the coup, Vargas wrote Aranha about the reform program the new regime would put forward. It included a strong emphasis on internal and external defense, the strengthening of the armed forces, economic development, basic industries, export promotion, and so forth.⁶² Making the necessary allowances for the rhetorical aspects of Vargas’s and Góes’s statements, it is true that behind the regime’s authoritarianism, and in part as a justification of authoritarianism, there was a concept of national development under the sponsorship of the state and with the support of the armed forces. Military participation in this expanded arena was made easier by officers having taken over civilian political and administrative jobs since 1930. Until the Estado Novo, their presence was felt particularly as interventors and congressional representatives. From 1930 until the beginning of 1938, according to one count, forty officers were appointed interventors, as compared with forty-seven civilians. Only three states had had no military interventors. The military presence was also already felt in technical committees such as the Comissão Nacional de Siderurgia, established in 1931 by the war ministry. After 1937, it became conspicuous in newly created policy-making bodies such as the Conselho Nacional do Petróleo and in the defense-related state industries, like the Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional and the Fábrica Nacional de Motores. It was also felt through the creation of special commissions at the influential Conselho Federal de Comércio Exterior, and there were still military interventors in some states. It can be said that a civilian-military technocracy began to emerge that would greatly expand in size and influence after 1964 when a new military-dominated authoritarian regime was inaugurated.⁶³

Conclusion

The national political crisis of 1930, which put an end to the coalition among major states of the federation as a basis for political and social stability, opened the way for a greater role of the armed forces as a political actor. Some military leaders sensed the opportunity and developed both an ideology of political intervention and a strategy to implement it. The ideology defined the armed forces, particularly the army, as an instrument of national defense in the broadest possible sense, including the control and mobilization of material and human resources and the elimination of political and ideological sources of national divisions. The strategy called initially for the unification and strengthening of the military establishment in order to transform it into an efficient instrument of political action under the control of its hierarchy. Later, political intervention was raised to the level of necessity not only in order to implement the broader project, but also to make possible the unification of the armed forces. The continuing division of the civilian elites, the emergence of new and threatening political forces, and the international environment contributed to the viability of the military project.

Although springing originally from the dynamics of the expansion of the power of the military organization, the development was related to the whole of Brazilian society: on the political side, by guaranteeing the social basis of power of the political elites; and, on the economic side, by coinciding in many aspects with the interests of an emerging industrial sector.⁶⁴ To put it in different terms, the emphasis on political control, national integration, and industrialization was compatible with the emergence of an industrial bourgeois order without favoring the development of a liberal democratic polity.

It is significant that the 1945 coup that put an end to the Estado Novo and made possible the restoration of some degree of political liberalism was masterminded by the same military faction that had supported the 1937 coup and that its motivations were in part identical in both cases: namely, to prevent the disruption of social order believed to be endangered by the vast mobilization of the masses encouraged now by President Vargas, who certainly had in mind the Peronist example.⁶⁵ Also, the armed forces were not purged after the coup of 1945, and they retained most of the influence they had acquired. The difficulty was that liberalization of the political system and the renewal of political life in society made possible once again the emergence and radicalization of factions within the military organization, thereby crippling a second time its capacity for political control. When political mobilization threatened directly the hierarchical foundations of the organization in late 1963 and early 1964, the stage was set for a new conservative coalition that restored military unity by purging the opposing groups, changing the nature of the regime, and guaranteeing the social order. It could be argued that in general terms the logic of 1937 was present in 1964. So was, and more cogently, the difficulty of creating a bourgeois hegemony within a framework of political liberalism.

Author notes