The book “1924 – Rebel Lieutenants, bombing of, withdrawal and exile” It results from the mania that journalists have to scarace their memory in search of sleeping stories. In such a dip, I woke up to the fact that it was time to put the so -called “forgotten revolution” back to the center of the stage.
The tender riot always permeated my family’s conversations. I had two uncles linked to the summit of the uprising in the capital: Lieutenant João Batista Nitrini and his brother -in -law, Captain Indian of Brazil, members of the Public Force (present -day PM), who participated in the seizure of their own barracks installed in the Luz neighborhood, at dawn on July 5, 1924.
The choice of this date to put the revolt on the streets was not mere chance. A was the planned repique of the revolt in Rio de Janeiro, then federal capital, on the same July 5, in 1922, when lieutenants of the Army and the Navy tried to overthrow the government of President Artur Bernardes, an episode known as the Copacabana Fort, which resulted in the death of 18 officers and a civilian on the Rio de Janeiro.
Copacabana survivors were expelled from military forces and sentenced to long feathers. But Captain Joaquim Távora and his brother, Lieutenant Juarez, alongside Lieutenant Eduardo Gomes, fled and again conspired, now based on Sao Paulo, a state chosen for having the largest industrial and agrarian economy in the country, whose public force had more men and firepower than the regional army itself.
The lieutenants aimed to extinct the policy “coffee with milk”, which kept alternating power between Paulistas (coffee) and miners (milk); Reforms of the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary Powers to eliminate corruption; establish the secret vote; institute public education; and neutralize the influence of the church in the state.
To carry out this broad program, the lieutenants were planning to impose a “temporary dictatorship” with governments formed by two military and one civilian, in all instances (presidency of the Republic, state and municipal governments), which would remain in power until the thick of the population over 18 had been literate.
When the rebellion exploded, Sao Paulo had about 700,000 inhabitants, half of them European workers immigrants. The population was awakened at dawn by the corntors of the cannons without having the slightest idea of what was coming. Astonished, large portion fled to nearby cities.
The surprised legalistic military managed to rearticulate the following days: 12,000 men were moved to Sao Paulo. Food lacked. Hungry families invaded warehouses, looters were shot. Governor Carlos de Campos fled to the Penha region, under the protection of the army, after the rebels bombard the Palace of Campos Elisios, his official residence.
The fighting spread through the lines from the East Zone, where the legalist state concentrated powerful artillery. The rebels were surrounded in the central region under the so-called “German bombing”, a tactic widespread in World War I (1914-1918), with the troops of firing mainly against factories and workers (Brás, Mooca, Ipiranga etc.). In just three weeks of fighting, more than 1,000 civilians were killed, destroyed thousands of homes and tens of large industries.
On day 23, the lieutenants organized the withdrawal justifying that they did not want to prolong the massacre. Three thousand soldiers left the capital departing from the Luz station towards the city of Bauru, forming the Miguel Costa column, with the objective of gathering the rebel troops that would come from other regions.
However, the union with southern rebel forces commanded by the failed to expand the armed struggle. From then on, the revolutionary larger state adopts the motion war strategy, which resulted in the mythical in 1925, which ran 25,000 kilometers in Brazil in two years, preaching the general insurrection until, worn out and without popular support, put together weapons in Bolivian territory.
Always ask: Why is A much better known than 1924, if the movement of the lieutenants resulted in a massacre of more than 1,000 civilians in the capital in just 23 days, while the 1932 revolution, which lasted almost three months, resulted in about 1,200 civil and military dead? It is obvious that there is no revolutions for the number of deaths. But it is possible to delineate some reasons that led to the 1932 being more “famous”.
The 1924, although fierce, was one of several military revolts that contested their goals were clearly reformists, but without a clear project of power. The lieutenants did not articulate a unique leadership, and the movement dispersed after the defeated troops in Sao Paulo was removed.
The 24 revolt was an exclusively military reaction circumscribed to São Paulo, with no roots in civil society. Brazil was still a rural country with precarious communication system, restricted to newspapers of small local circulation. The tender conspiracy was made in headquarters’ personal contacts, long trips, pamphlet distribution and ciphered telegrams. It did not involve civil citizens.
The Constitutionalist Revolution has gained broad social support. Threatened with losing political power in the face of Vargas’ rise in 1930, the coffee and industrial elite involved the middle class, students, women and immigrants with speech of exaltation of the Paulistas in defense of democracy.
The “Gold for the Good of Sao Paulo” campaign mobilized resources for the cost of war. Rich and poor donated their jewelry. Thousands of housewives joined the volunteer work of nursing, uniforms, collecting and preparing food for troops.
Paulista newspapers, at the time with exponentially larger runs than in 1924, became vehicles of propaganda of the revolt. The radio stations had become popular and called their thousands of listeners to participate in the movement.
And the death of four citizens in a demonstration in Praça da República, on May 23, hit by fire fired by the allies of Vargas, moved the population, lit the trigger of the revolt on July 9.
It is estimated that, among the approximately 35,000 fighters of the São Paulo forces, 60% of the troops were from civil volunteers, and the others, military of the public force.
Without support from other states, militarily inferiorized, the Paulistas were defeated after three months of fighting. Two years later they reached a remarkable “political victory” when they claimed a new constitution attended by, which gave solid basis for the continuity of the cult to the São Paulo cause.
