Brazilian Integralism

Brazilian Integralism was a fascist-like movement led by Plínio Salgado in the 1930s.

Founded and led by Plínio Salgado, a literary figure who was relatively famous during the 1922 Modern Art Week, the movement had all the outlandish superficial trappings of European fascism. With the sole difference that Slgado did not preach racial hate (they even had a slogan: "union of all races and all people"). With a green-shirted paramilitary organization with uniformed ranks, highly regimented street demonstrations, and aggressive rhetoric directly financed in part by the Italian embassy, the Integralists borrowed their propaganda campaigns directly from Nazi materials;including the usual traditionalist excoriations of Marxism, liberalism and espousals of fanatical nationalism (out of context in the heterogeneous and tolerant nation) and "Christian virtues". Like the European fascists, they were essentially petit bourgeois. In particular, they drew support from military officers, especially in the navy.

The fight against Jews was always subject of polemical discussions within integralist leaders - Plinio Salgado was against anti-semitism, while Gustavo Barroso, the chief of Integralist Milita (a paramilitary group) hated the Jews strongly. This led to at least two serious ruptures in Brazilian Integralist movement: one in 1935 and the other, 1936, when Plinio almost renounced leadership of the movement.

In the beginning of the 30´s, Brazil went through a strong wave of political radicalism. The government led by president Getulio Vargas was then weakly supported on worker´s sympathy because of the new Vargas´ labour laws. But the Communist Party of Brazil (founded in 1922) was growing and taking leadership of the working-class associations.

In face of communists´ advances, brazilian President Getulio Vargas turned to Integralism, the only mobilized base of support on the right, which was elated his atrocious, fascist-style crackdown against the Brazilian left.

With center-left tenentes out of the Vargas' coalition and the left crushed, Vargas gradually started seeking to co-opt the popular movement to attain a popular support base.

Integralism, claiming a rapidly growing membership throughout Brazil by 1935, especially among the approximately one million Brazilians of German and Italian descent, began filling this ideological void.

In 1934, the Integralists targeted the Communist movement led by the legendary Luiz Carlos Prestes, mobilizing a conservative mass support base engaging in street brawls and urban. In 1934, following the disintegration of Vargas' delicate alliance with labor and his new alliance with the fascist Integralists, Brazil entered one of the most agitated periods in its political history. Brazil's major cities began to resemble the Nazi-Communist battles in Berlin of 1932-33. By mid-1935 Brazilian politics had been drastically destabilized.

When Vargas established full dictatorial powers under the Estado Novo in 1937, he crushed the movement. Though the Integralists favored Vargas' hard right turn, Plínio Salgado was overly ambitious, with overt presidential aspirations that threatened Vargas' grip on power. In 1938, the integralists went on the last atemp of achieving power, by attacking the Catete Palace (Rio de Janeiro) during the night. They could almost enter the palace and kill Vargas, but police and army troops arrived in the last minute.

Brazilian Integralist Action disintegrated after that failure in 1938, and some years later Plinio Salgado founded the Party of Popular Representation (PRP), which maintained the ideology of integralism, but without the clothes, salutes, himnals and signs.

In 1964, many of the old former members of Brazilian Integralist Actiontook part in the militay coup that overthrown João Goulart. Military president Emílio Garrastazu Medici was a former integralist.

Related topics

• Brazil
• History of Brazil
  • History of Brazil (1930-1964)
• Plínio Salgado
• fascism
• Luiz Carlos Prestes
• Getulio Vargas