Getúlio Dornelles Vargas (19 April 1882 – 24 August 1954) was a Brazilian lawyer, military sergeant and politician that served as the President of Brazil during World War II and the Early Fifties. He (or Juscelino Kubitschek, one of his proteges) is considered the father of Modern Brazil, not only for implementing labor reforms that greatly benefited and helped Brazil to recover from The Great Depression, but for having led the 30's Revolution in which he overthrew the Oligarchic Republic, thus ending, "the Coffee with Milk Policy". However, Vargas also did some questionable things during his rule; his ascend to power taking place after throwing a coup and installing a dictatorship in Brazil to continue his polices, established friendly relationships with the Axis Powers (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan) and repressed the Japanese Brazilian community in Brazil when the same declared war against Japan in August 1942 and so on. Today, Vargas has a mixed legacy, but one that is different from the Brazilian Military Regime that happened way after his death. For many, he's viewed as a great man who did a lot of good reforms for the government but was also criticized for being a dictator who imprisoned thousands. For his Argentine counterpart, check the Juan Domingo Perón page.
Born on April 19, 1882 (in his youth, he altered some documents to claim the year of birth as 1883. This fact was only discovered in the celebrations of the centenary of birth, when, verifying the records of baptisms of the Parish Francisco de Borja, it was discovered that Getúlio was born in 1882, appearing on his baptismal record), in the city of São Borja, located in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Vargas' family, made up of ranchers, was rich and influential and came to have political influence in both São Borja and Rio Grande do Sul. His father was called Manoel do Nascimento Vargas, and his mother was Cândida Dornelles Vargas. Getúlio was the third child and had four brothers: Viriato, Protásio, Spartacus and Benjamin.
He entered the military career at the age of 16 and served in a battalion in São Borja, but ended up being expelled from the corporation at the age of 18. Because of the possibility of a conflict with Bolivia, in 1903 Vargas rejoined the Army, but ended up resigning at the end of that year."
Vargas' political trajectory began to be born when he decided to join the Porto Alegre Law School in 1904. During his graduation, Vargas was part of the Castilhista Academic Block, which brought him closer to the Rio-Grandense Republican Party (PRR) The candidate supported by Vargas – Carlos Barbosa Gonçalves – ended up being elected president (governor) of Rio Grande do Sul. Vargas' rapprochement with the PRR and with the great name of that party in Rio Grande do Sul, Borges de Medeiros, was extremely important because it guaranteed Vargas' entry into Rio Grande do Sul politics. In 1908, he was elected state deputy for Rio Grande do Sul and abandoned his role as second public prosecutor in the Porto Alegre Court.
As a state deputy for the PRR, Vargas served his term and was elected for a second term in 1913. A disagreement with Borges de Medeiros caused Vargas to resign from his position as state deputy, only returning to the role in 1917, after being again elected. Vargas' return to political life took place through his rapprochement with Borges de Medeiros. After being elected in 1917, he was reelected in 1921. The new term as state deputy was interrupted because Vargas was elected to be federal deputy in 1922. In 1923, a civil war broke out in Rio Grande do Sul and Vargas was sent by Borges de Medeiros as a lieutenant colonel. Vargas ended up not getting involved in battle and returned to Rio de Janeiro, still in 1923, to fulfill his mandate as federal deputy. In 1926, Washington Luís became president of Brazil and, during that government, Vargas was appointed to the Ministry of Finance, a position he held between 1926 and 1927. Still in 1927, Getúlio Vargas was chosen by Borges de Medeiros as his successor in the dispute for the government of Rio Grande do Sul. Vargas ended up being elected and taking over as state president (governor) in 1928.
Following Emperor Pedro II's overthrow, a Republic was established by the Brazilian army which was a Banana Republic initially controlled by military members until it became an oligarchy after the election of its first civilian candidate Prudente de Morais. This period could be easily described as a People's Republic of Tyranny since democracy was all in name: the power was decentralized between "coroneis" (colonels), civilian oligarchs note who served as Feudal Overlords over rural areas that pressured the populace to vote in their candidates of preference to protect their interest - the most dominant states where this practice happened were São Paulo and Minas Gerais, establishing the "coffee with milk" policy (named after the two main products from these areas). It was in this period where disorder and anarchy were at an all-time high, army units were fighting mini civil wars between feuding oligarchs, and figures like the cangaceiro Lampião rose to prominence.
The oligarchy came crashing down after the Great Depression, which affected Brazil much harder than the United States due to its heavy dependence in exporting and market loans, and as such, political and economic reform were needed. Enter Getúlio Vargas, the populist governor of Rio Grande del Sul, who came from an oligarchical backgroun but was an economic nationalist who favored industrial development and 'liberal' (positivist) reforms. With the help of an enormous coalition of like-minded individuals, Vargas ran for President in 1930 as the opposition ticket, but as it was expected this was simply another frauded election where the establishment candidate won. After this his running mate in the election, João Pessoa, was assassinated for reasons unrelated to politics but that caused numerous anti-government revolts in the country anyways, which all then got Vargas's support. During these events a military junta decided to overthrow President Washigton Luís place themselves into power but Vargas refused to reconize them as the legitimate government and then they gave up to his forces. Immediately, Vargas assumed emergency powers, assembled a cabinet from the coalition, and began reforming the broken republican system, ruling by decree.
Unfortunately, this coalition lacked a cohesive vision besides a broad idea of centralizing "modernization" which made his idea of governing difficult. This pushed Vargas to alter his policies to whatever ideology was convenient for him at the time, which is what marked his long career. He alternated between being an economical libertarian, an authoritarian centralist partially modeled after Fascist Italy and Salazar's Portugal, a socialistic populist, and so forth. The closest thing to an actual ideologue for Vargas was his political mentor, Dr. Julio Castilhos. Castilhos advocated for authoritarian positivism, non-partisan politics, progressive policies, and strengthening the 'public good' through a strong state; which can be said to have been Vargas's primary ideology during the Estado Novo. Castilhos had ruled Rio Grande del Sul with Vargas as his student, and many of his policies were replicated by Vargas. Still, Castilhos was a federalist and would've viewed Vargas's hyper-centralizing approach to government as strange.
The most significant example of this was his relations with two separate political parties: the Integralists and Communists. The former were a fascist party founded by Plinio Salgado that housed most of the Brazilian far-right be they monarchists, fundamentalist Catholics, Mussolini fanboys, Nazis, or anti-Semites, but bizarrely denounced racism against Afro-Brazilians as it sought to "unite all races and people into one spirit", and the latter was headed by Luis Carlos Prestes, a communist militant that sought to implement a Soviet-style dictatorship in Brazil. Despite mutual hatred of each other, both parties were allied with Vargas during the 1930 Revolution, but they became disillusioned with him due to his inconsistent policies to secure their support. Eventually, Vargas would crush them both in turn.
Vargas's term was beset by significant political unrest and violence. In 1932, a brutal 87-day civil war broke out as the state of São Paulo rallied behind anti-Vargas Constitutionalists that wished to topple Vargas and restore the Old Republic on the grounds of fighting dictatorship. Vargas triumphed, but in 1935 saw a surprise revolt from the Brazilian Communist Party under Prestes. The communists were defeated after four days of very bloody fighting, mainly because Prestes had bungled by announcing his victory in the newspaper the day he launched his attack - including the time and location of the Communist forces. The military was thrown into panic, and many hardline generals would act like the 1935 coup had only occurred just yesterday, including during the years of the Brazilian military regime. Vargas was rattled too, and his government took a sharp anti-communist turn, making a detente with the Integralists out of convenience. For a time, it seemed like Vargas had decided his political direction and would establish a fascist state in Brazil in the style of Mussolini. An anti-communist purge led by the Police and saw many imprisoned and tortured, some to death, and Prestes himself was locked up.
When the time came for his term to end, Vargas seized emergency powers in 1937 to establish a dictatorship known as 'New State', and dissolved Congress. The basis of this coup was Vargas's fear that if his candidate won in 1938, the opposition governors in Rio Grande del Sul and São Paulo would revolt and start a new civil war. The Integralists would come up with the 'Cohen Plan', which was then stolen by the army and published in the media to build support for a dictatorship. Said document was a purported communist plot in the form of a document planning the government's bloody overthrow. It was really a blatant forgery by the Integralists, from the author's name meant to stir up antisemitic feelings,note to the lurid descriptions of church burning to the Jewish surname assigned to the 'author.'
The Integralists were elated, believing that the fascist state they dreamed of had finally arrived with Vargas as the Brazilian Mussolini, but then Vargas abolished all political parties (including both the Communists and Integralists) as "subversive" and effectively became a dictator for real, establishing a powerful autocracy where no opposition could grow. He had come to the conclusion that as the old republican system was so broken that the current presidential office couldn't possibly reform it, and that only by autocratic means could he truly change Brazil for the better. The 1937 Constitution was enacted, an authoritarian document modeled after the Constitution of the Portuguese New Statenote . Like any dictator, Vargas had to regularly accommodate several groups that could actually influence his position as President, namely the Army, bureaucrats, and nationalist intellectuals, who all had their own ideas and intrigues.
Outraged at the 'betrayal', the Integralists declared that it was their turn to try and overthrow Vargas, and they attacked the Presidential Palace in 1938. Vargas is reported to have personally defended himself with a revolver, and the Integralists were eventually wiped out by police and military reinforcements. They disintegrated as a political force thereafter. Like the communists, they were violently purged by Vargas's government, whose security ministers arrested, imprisoned, and tortured Integralists, some to death. Over the course of the New State, over 4099 people
◊ were imprisoned by the regime.
Through the now-outcast Integralists, Vargas had established friendly relationships with the Axis Powers. However, he turned down a formal invitation by Adolf Hitler to join them which placed them in an awkward situation. When World War II broke out, Brazil was initially neutral as it didn't want to back either side without provoking the other. By the time the USA entered the war, the Americans enacted their Good Neighbor policy to sway Brazil to their side - the alternative would have been "Plan Rubber", a secret plan poised to invade Brazil in case it sided with the Nazis, but this plan never came into fruition, as Vargas authorized the USA to build bases along their coast. This action angered the Germans who retaliated by sinking Brazilian merchant ships and declaring war on the Axis Powers (on a side note: many Brazilian conspiracy theorists believe the USA was actually responsible for this action, and many still say it albeit facetiously... Hopefully).
Brazil's entry in the war changed Vargas' policies dramatically, as he began to liberalize his autocracy in hopes of appeasing the Allies; Brazilians had begun to notice the hypocrisy of Vargas sending troops to fight for democracy overseas while running a dictatorship at home. He released the political prisoners from their cells and implemented minimum wage, maternity leave, paid vacations and many other, almost revolutionary reforms to massively improve the lives of the workers and the poor, though admittedly they were very slow to be enforced. Even his own foe Prestes lauded him for this, and successfully rallied his party into supporting Vargas. This didn't go down so well for some fellow Communists who abandoned the party as result. Come 1945, and Vargas announced his desire to run for President in Brazil's first democratic election after seven years of autocratic rule, an announcement that enraged the Army and made them remove him in a coup. The Vargas loyalist and former war minister, General Eurico Gaspar Dutra, would later win the 1945 elections. The Brazilian Constitution was rewritten the next year as a much more democratic document.
The New State left Brazil reinvigorated with the industry strong and growing, but Dutra made many unpopular acts such as igniting social issues, not readjusting the minimum wage and being too close with the United States. Attempting to fix the mess Dutra left, Vargas returned to politics once again, redefining himself as a populist social democrat, and this time was legitimately elected by the people as President almost unanimously. Vargas finally settling on a political direction came as a great surprise to many, as Vargas at the start of his political career held the positivist belief that the people should be kept out of politics, and instead be led by a small, highly educated vanguard of technocrats and professionals represented by himself. Now he had practically invented modern Brazilian populism, riding fully on his reputation as the 'Father of the Poor', his mass working class base, and his laborist reforms. His beliefs were now dubbed Varguism or Getulism, and they were now firmly aligned with the Brazilian left, ranging from socialists such as Leonel Brizola to liberals such as Juscelino Kubitschek, to social democrats like Vargas's heir, Joao Goulart.
But while Vargas was beloved by the people, he now made enemies with Brazilian conservatives, right-wing elites and the army, since they staunchly opposed Vargas's new socialistic direction, and they now disliked the nationalist reforms he enacted since they preferred dependence on outsiders, especially the United States note Ironically, some of Vargas's new enemies were former allies who had supported him during the New State, such as General Gois Monteiro and Dutranote .
After sections of the military took advantage from an assassination attempt against one of Vargas's political opponents (but unrelated to any of his doings) so they could try forcing the President's resignation and install a junta, Vargas committed suicide so the junta could be avoided. He knew full well what he was doing: by turning himself into a martyr, the Brazilian people rioted when news of his death became public and effectively destroyed whatever support the conservatives would have from taking power. The following presidents would try to continue working on making Brazil more self-sufficient right up until the 60s when a coup d'état took place, overthrowing Vargas's chosen successor Goulart, and the feared Brazilian Military Regime really was established. Effectively, Vargas's death bought Brazil a few more years of democracy, ironic for a man who had begun his career by taking it away.
Today his legacy is very mixed; as a political leader, his government during the 1930s and 40s defied all alignment, and he has critics and supporters on both the left and right, although Vargas as a figure and ideologue is generally associated with the left in Brazil. He was an autocrat who in the end, threw absolute power away to embrace democracy. He was an avowed nationalist and anti-communist, but implemented worker-friendly policies that made him very popular, built his own Cult of Personality while he was alive, influenced later leftist figures like Goulart and Brizola, mentored the famous Kubitschek, and the reforms he carried out during his dictatorship were nothing short of groundbreaking. Even former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, head of a decidedly anti-Varguist party, considers Vargas to be his personal hero due to all he did for the workers. Vargas had friendly ties with both Nazi Germany and the Roosevelt administration, but ultimately fought on World War II against them on the Allied side. He considered himself agnostic all his life but had no problem allowing the Catholic Church to implement religious education on schools if it helped advance his agenda. If you ask a Brazilian how they feel about him, it's possible that they will describe him as both the best and worst president Brazil ever had. In retrospect, many would regard him more positively compared to the military regime, since he envisioned it coming and managed to stall it by a few years with his suicide. Many would also call him a 'political chameleon', one that switches allegiances just as easy to any ideology, but one thing is certain: he always had Brazil's well-being in mind, even if he had to seize absolute power to do so, and he was willing to sacrifice himself for the people of Brazil.
Works that feature Getúlio Vargas
- Due to his prominence in 20th century Brazil, he is the starting leader of Brazil in Hearts of Iron, can play a much more in-depth historical role with the unique focus tree given to the country in IV's DLC Trial of Allegiance, and is a very common figure in any Hearts Of Iron 4 mods with Brazilian content.
- In Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg the Old Republic still falls but Vargas doesn't take charge and Brazil becomes a democracy, but Vargas can still become president by winning the 1936 elections where he can be stay democratic or establish the New State.
- The New Order Last Days Of Europe starts in 1962 and Vargas has been long ousted by a coup similar to that of our timeline but he never gets reelected, leading him to never commit suicide and continuing as a powerful figure in Brazilian politics.
- In Thousand-Week Reich, Vargas is in his second term and has to deal with a political crisis starting from a mob attacking the German Ambassador that can lead to a military coup, Vargas's suicide or him standing firm in his place, leading to elections.
- In Red Flood, the Revolution of 1930 never happens, but the Old Republic was toppled by the communist uprising of 1935, and the new "Brazilian Popular Republic" is extremely unstable that anti-communist oligarchs can launch a counter-revolution and topple the communist government. Vargas can come to power during the elections that follow, if Brazil doesn't fall to anarchy.
- Olga: He is the movie's Big Bad with Hitler as a Greater-Scope Villain. His portrayal was subject to a lot of controversy for portraying him as a card-carrying Nazi when Vargas eventually declared war on the Axis Powers and became a left-wing figure after the war.
- Jô Soares' O Homem Que Matou Getúlio Vargas, released in English as Twelve Fingers: Biography of an Anarchist, is the story of clumsy European assassin Dimitri, who stumbles across various historical facts before an ultimate showdown with distant relative Vargas - Dimitri's mother was an illegitimate daughter of Vargas's father - on the night of his suicide. Only as the original title "The Man Who Killed Getúlio Vargas" makes clear, Dimitri is the cause of the death, as in the struggle to prevent Vargas from shooting himself and become a martyr, he accidentally fires Vargas's revolver into the president's heart.
